STO PAX Demo. If I was wearing pants when I played it, they'd have gotten tighter!

[HittingSmoke]

Gonna start this thread off with what wasn't in the STO demo just to get it all out there and avoid a mass of questions when I don't touch on a certain topic.

The demo was strictly a short combat mission that started in space and ended on the ground. It was more or less just enough to get a feel for the way the game played, movement and ship system controls and to get a look at the graphics in action first hand and play with some of the ground weapons.

The demo was Fed only, so no Klingon play. No deep space. The space combat was conducted in what seemed to be a nebula near a planet and there was no in-station play.

Didn't get to test melee weapons. I did get to use melee attacks with hand phasers, rifles and.... a gatling phaser. Yes you heard that right... a f***ing gatling phaser! More on that later

There was no display of the ship or character customization screens or any other screens other than in game play and dialogue.

Ok, I think that about covers what wasn't there. I will commence with the awesomesace now...

---------- Underlined chunks of text are links, not just for emphasis. Just going to link parts of my review to make it easier to read.

Combat felt amazing in space! When I was in line to play I was rather disturbed about how simplistic and dumbed down it looked. I couldn't have been more wrong.

I walked up to the keyboard and started out in a Miranda class ship. I had a dev who looked a lot like Adam Savage walking me through my first demo play narrating the features I was using and giving me hints about keyboard shortcuts and UI controls.

As soon as I got the movement and throttle control down the ship handled like a dream. W, S, A and D are nose down, up, left and right respectively. (http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm295/hittingsmoke/STO%20-%20PAX/IMAG0163.jpg) The throttle control is just a slider on the bottom left of the screen, but the R key toggles between full throttle and all stop so you've got the basic "go" and "don't go" key right next to your movement control. There's also a "Full Impulse" option witch is faster than full throttle that is used to get around open space or close distance on enemies quickly to get them in weapons range.

Shields are divided into front, rear, left and right sides (http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm295/hittingsmoke/STO%20-%20PAX/DSC_0152.jpg), as you can see in the lower left corner of the screen. You can boost power to one side quickly in a pinch and return them to balanced just as easily using the small round button you see in the upper right corner of the shield control UI. I am amazed how strategic yet still streamlined Cryptic has managed to make shield control. Impressed? Yes I am.

The demo didn't really have any situations to warrant playing with power control but I toyed with it just a bit while a station was empty. The power control UI is just to the right of shield control (reference previous pic). There are four presets, Attack, Defense, Speed and Balanced. You can also adjust each system individually to tailor to your needs directing power to and from weapons, shields, engines and auxiliary. I only switched between speed and attack but didn't notice much of a difference because there is no speed indicator on the UI. The only reference you have for your speed are engine trails and how fast targeted object close distance on the range meter. I can see how these could be vital in different group combat situations, which me and Tamgros had an interesting chat about, but in solo play it just seems best to stick to attack or defense depending on which is your priority.

Weapons work far better than I expected. You have a choice. You can micro manage all your individual weapon system, or you can just strategically spam the space bar, which works pretty damn good if my complete pwnage has anything to say about it (in my second run though the dev who was manning the station said, "Woa, you got them all already?"). Continuing along the GUI moving to the right of power systems, we have the weapon controls (http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm295/hittingsmoke/STO%20-%20PAX/DSC_0140.jpg). The left two boxes were my fore and aft torpedoes, and the right two boxes were my fore and aft phaser arrays. These can be clicked individually to fire or you can use the space bar to fire all phasers with an available arc or use ctrl+space to fire all torpedo tubes that are facing your target. It feels very "in control" (i.e. not just button mashing while waiting for cooldowns) while still being streamlined enough to be able to handle movement, power and shield management without feeling overwhelmed. It would have been nice to try out some tactical situations with some bigger more capable ships, but Cryptic was keeping them pretty well locked down. I only got a glimpse of a couple other ships out of the kindness of the dev's hearts, no play time with them though.

All that's left for ship combat is BO (bridge officer) abilities and the overview! I only used two of my bridge officers abilities, but the usefulness of them became immediately apparent. My tactical officer had an ability to fire multiple torpedoes in a volley on a very reasonable cooldown timer (short enough to want to keep an eye on but not so short that it became your primary fire mode). My science officer had a boost shield ability which may or may not have saved me on my first run though. There wasn't much in the way of the special abilities to screw around with, but the one's that were available felt like they fit very well into the game.

Put all of this together and you have a very beautifully flowing space combat system. I immediately started picking up tactics like flying at a group of enemies head on until my front shield started to wear down, making a "sharp" left turn and circling around them placing them into the overlapping arcs of my fore and aft phaser arrays while boosting power to starboard shields. When the target was almost destroyed I would make another sharp turn away and finish them with a volley of torpedoes from my aft tubes using my tactical officer's special ability then circle back around to the left exposing remaining enemies to my as yet untouched port shields. I have to tell ya, space combat just felt... "right". I've played a lot of space based combat games and I've never been more comfortable or less encumbered feeling with any other control scheme.

Group play I can image being just fantastic with a good team. Even with a small group of Mirandas like we were playing with you could tailor each one's power to specific needs to produce some deadly tactics. One moves in with full power to shields to tank while one with full power to speed makes strafing runs back and fourth using fore then aft weapons. One more sits at full weapons range with full power to weapons providing heavy hitting damage. And since power distribution can be switched in combat with a short delay (power drains from powered down system while boosted system fill) you can switch roles on the fly as the battle evolves. This is probably one of my most anticipated aspects of STO from what I saw. I think team based play is going to be no less than epic once you factor in everything I've described here, different ship roles, ship customization and BO special abilities, all of which can be tailored to fulfill a special role that falls far outside the realm of the simple "tank/DPS/healer/buffer" model of team play.

Pfew! That's it for space flight and combat! That took one and a half beers to type. Let's hope I finish before the typing skillz start to go downhill.

Ok, my original review was too long to post so I'm splitting it into space and ground combat. Ground combat review will be posted below.

[HittingSmoke]

----------I'm not going to bother with pics of ground combat. There was nothing to photograph that isn't already in the STO gallery in higher quality.

Ground combat, while not as stunningly impressive as space combat, was a real treat to get my hands on. As soon as I destroyed the Klingon ships I was alerted that some had already beamed down to the planet and given the choice to stay in space and fight more ships or beam down to finish the ground troops. I know this is trivial, but beaming looks amazing to me for some reason. It took every once of manliness in my body to keep from squealing and giggling like an idiot when I saw my team materialize.

I was beamed down into a structure with a tunnel-like corridor. Controls at first seemed very unrefined for ground based movement but as soon as I discovered holding the right mouse button for mouse-look so I didn't have to use clunky feeling turn keys I was hooked. After this it was just a matter of using WSAD for forward, back and strafe while holding the right mouse to produce smooth turns.

As soon as I approached the first bend I was greeted by a small squad of Klingons. I went to work with my hand phaser and made short work of them with the help of my BO's. Hand phasers are good for crowd control and would make great support in a team if someone would just use their special fire to keep approaching enemies stunned. With your NPC BO's however, id stick to the big guns. After this squad was destroyed I decided to switch weapons to my phaser rifle. That was fun, felt more effective than the hand phaser and was more satisfying to melee with.

Your BO's will, for the most part, stay back and attack. If you have a medically equipped science officer she will dispense heals as needed. If you end up in close combat your 3 key is melee attack with your current phaser. This will usually knock an enemy to the ground so you can reestablish a distance to fire from. Tactical captains will also have a "leg sweep" maneuver which is an AOE move that knocks down all close enemies. It's not the most realistic looking combat I've seen, but it's better than nearly every target-based combat MMOG I've played and it's not even finished yet.

Now for the part I know you've all been waiting for since my intro, the gatling phaser rifle!!!

I wish I could have got a video clip of me shooting this bad boy... You hold the thing from the hip in a fashion that's reminiscent of the movie Predator. As soon as I pulled it out I swore under my breath in amazement. Whichever dev was manning my station was talking to onlookers as I played and said, "Oh see, now he's bringing out the big guns", to which I replied with wide eyed assertiveness, "Is that a gatling phaser?" which invoked the stuttered response, "I uhh... umm, yea, yea it is". I guess they never thought of it that way?

This beauty was a blast to fire and just invoked a bad ass feeling. Phasers have always seemed so non-threatening feeling and anti climatic to me. Not this puppy. It's a large pulse phaser that shoots in short bursts, but the normal attack isn't the attractive part about this weapon. Hit your special attack and you've got a cone of fire mode that strikes all enemies in a cone in front of you. This looks fantastic because it doesn't just play an animation of phaser blasts flying randomly out of the weapon. You can actually see every phaser pulse move from the emitter to the enemy that it damaged. This sounds like just eye candy (which it is) but is also extremely useful for keeping track of what enemies you've damaged and to what extent.

The only part of ground combat (or really the whole demo) that let me down was when I looted a photon grenade. This was another giddy moment of excitement as I ran off over the hill to find a fresh group of Klingons to use it on and see how big of a mess I could make...

Well I set myself up for serious disappointment. The grenade exploded (if you could even call that an explosion) and did some visible damage to the enemy I threw it directly at, but there was no indication of splash damage other than some dipping shield bars from his surrounding allies. This is literally the only time during my demo that I thought "aww, really?"

Cryptic, work on those photon grenades please! I know you're going to be reading these threads for feedback!

Ground combat, while not as impressive as space combat, was very pleasing but felt just the slightest bit unpolished. There's plenty of time to work out kinks and smooth things out. If Cryptic is capable of designing such a good flight system then I have no doubt that they're fully capable of tweaking the ground combat to be as smooth and silky as the space pew pew.

I'll be going back tomorrow and Sunday and plan to get in a few more demo rounds so there may be some updates to this if I can find anything I missed.

Don't forget to check out Tamgros's interview over at Hailing Frequency!

[Dominick-Kane]

Awesome read! Now I really cant wait for the game - thanks a lot! (sarcastically - but not)

[Debolisher]

good read thanks for your thoughts on it, the gatling phaser rifle sounds pretty sick

[The_Padre]

Space combat sounds awesome :D

[fractaleye]

you... lucky.... bastage.... :D

Very excellent report. I wish you more ST:O fun tomorrow and Sunday.






And, gatling phaser :D

[AlienOverlord]

Really great detail of the demo, thanks for posting! Can't wait to try the gatling phaser myself!

(And that's an awesome forum avatar too! :) )

[basekid]

Thanks for all the info!

[cjgriffith]

*drool*

I can't wait. Nuff said.

[HittingSmoke]

Glad everyone is enjoying it! (sarcastically and not or both)

It's been edited for spelling errors. Couldn't preview before posting because it had to be in two parts so had to post then edit.

I hope to elaborate a little more on ground based BO special moves tomorrow. I was so enamored with the space combat system that it completely slipped my mind.

[KODudna]

Had a question! Did you notice if your photon torpedoes were in a limited supply, or unlimited? I'm not sure if it particularly matters much, but just curious. Otherwise awesome read :D

[HittingSmoke]

Had a question! Did you notice if your photon torpedoes were in a limited supply, or unlimited? I'm not sure if it particularly matters much, but just curious. Otherwise awesome read :D

haha, you know, you'd think that would be something that would be an immediate thought but it never even crossed my mind because I was just so engrossed in the finesse of the mechanics. I've reviewed my in-game pics and I can't find any indication of torpedo counts so I believe it's unlimited.

However! We didn't see any kind of advanced ships in action so we don't know how different tiers of weapons (i.e. quantum torpedoes) will work. Basic torpedoes could be unlimited with different restrictions on the fancy stuff.

I'll write this down and make a point to ask tomorrow.

Thanks for the great question! :D

[Swordopolis]

Sounds freaking awesome :D
Even more stoked for beta now

[tacticalzen]

It seemed like there were unlimited torpedoes, with just a counter showing how many seconds till you can fire the next salvo. Thank goodness you can keep an enemy in view with the 'X' key, so I didn't lose them as they flew over me.

[Tamgros]

I pretty much agree with everything HittingSmoke said.

Our conversation about grouping is insanely exciting. When you start having power dynamics, it creates amazing group dynamics. Most MMO PvP tactics are simple "target who the leader is targeting". In STO it could be very different in a very strategic way.

When you think about it, if you only attack one ship, the other ships can just drop all power to weapons. Oh yeah, that would NOT be good for your group's well being. So you're probably going to want to keep people 'honest' by switching fire back and forth.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to really exploring this further. A LOT of potential. More potential than any game I saw by far (*grumbles about Sup Com 2 being dumbed down into a generic RTS*)

[HittingSmoke]

It seemed like there were unlimited torpedoes, with just a counter showing how many seconds till you can fire the next salvo. Thank goodness you can keep an enemy in view with the 'X' key, so I didn't lose them as they flew over me.

Thanks for mentioning the X targeting! It was something I meant to touch on but it slipped my mind with the clusterf*** of information that was pouring out of me. Fantastic camera system as well.

I pretty much agree with everything HittingSmoke said.

Our conversation about grouping is insanely exciting. When you start having power dynamics, it creates amazing group dynamics. Most MMO PvP tactics are simple "target who the leader is targeting". In STO it could be very different in a very strategic way.

When you think about it, if you only attack one ship, the other ships can just drop all power to weapons. Oh yeah, that would NOT be good for your group's well being. So you're probably going to want to keep people 'honest' by switching fire back and forth.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to really exploring this further. A LOT of potential. More potential than any game I saw by far (*grumbles about Sup Com 2 being dumbed down into a generic RTS*)

Woa woa woa, Supreme Commander 2? How the hell did I miss that? And it's dumbed down?

[decoy26517]

looks like you played an Excelsior class. Correct?

[reznorism]

Thanks for the nice read, was a treat =)

[HittingSmoke]

looks like you played an Excelsior class. Correct?

Actually, I only played the Miranda, I watched people play Excelsior for quite some time though and it seemed no different.

Thinking back, I'm pretty sure that the ship stats were fixed and they were just changing skins. The Excelsior seemed to handle the same as the Miranda and weapon configs were the same even when the Galaxy class was spawned.

I don't believe we saw anything even resembling the way different ships will handle in different ways.

[Harmony-Jade]

Great post, thanks for all the info. This game sounds better and better every time I hear about it.

I'm not at all jealous that you got to play it though (honest :D)

[Vorador]

Thanks for the info! :D

[Eclipse1987]

amazing, damn i want to play this game! cant wait for launch

[Admiral-Darren-Wright]

Pfew! That's it for space flight and combat! That took one and a half beers to type. Let's hope I finish before the typing skillz start to go downhill.

Ok, my original review was too long to post so I'm splitting it into space and ground combat. Ground combat review will be posted below.

love how one of your main bridge officers was named wright lol , :) i knew they were thinking of me even tho i couldnt come lol

[fractaleye]

I'm just checking out some of the pics, and I'm going to go back and check but maybe someone could answer for me: The 3 BOs are color-coded. blue is science, I'm guessing yellow engineer and red tactical? tia

[Admiral-Darren-Wright]

Nice info buddy

[Tamgros]

Woa woa woa, Supreme Commander 2? How the hell did I miss that? And it's dumbed down?
Yeah, it's actually really close to the STO booth. It may even be attached to the alienware booth. Basically, it's a way for alienware to show off their stuff and Sup Com 2 to show off a demo.

They basically dumbed down the economy like crazy. In Sup Com you had the potential for boom or bust depending on the way you ran things, and there was a fine line. It's one of the things I loved about the game. They made Sup Com 2 more 'user friendly' and thus made it more like any other RTS.

I'm just checking out some of the pics, and I'm going to go back and check but maybe someone could answer for me: The 3 BOs are color-coded. blue is science, I'm guessing yellow engineer and red tactical? tia
Yep, and you can kind of customize this as you want. Zinc describes more about the options in the interview.

I believe everything is uploaded, so www.hailingfrequency.com will be editing and then posting it tomorrow.

[fractaleye]

Thanks, Tamgros! I'm watching some Voyagers atm, and I just got in the mindset of yellow being both engineering and tactical, and guess red would be tactical. And looking forward to the interview :)

[Jackthegroove]

That's just sick!

[WarpVis]

So PAX is a "pants optional" event?:)

[CoffinDNC]

Thanks for the very nice read. Now I'm even more excited. :)

[Admiral-Darren-Wright]

So PAX is a "pants optional" event?:)

He was wearing a Kilt, so he was being as they say - a true scotsman .. lol ill let u figure that out ..

:D

and try it before you judge it, lol u might just like it lol

[Parxy]

The game sounds like it's shaping up really well, but Jesus H. Christ!, the graphics are INSANE for an MMO! Can't wait to get my hands on this now.:) Thanks for taking the time out to write this report :)

[Duckdee]

Can you elaborate some more on the X targetting, please? Was it a follow command, or did it swing the camera about?

[trebort5050]

Gatling Phaser? = Unimpressed :(

[Bigwig]

You can spam space-bar? :confused:

[trebort5050]

You can spam space-bar? :confused:

I did not notice a chat box thingy, how do we communicate?

[redleader]

Thanks for the demo review. Fantastic info!

Will keep an eye for tamgros' review too of course.

:D

[.Spartan]

Good stuff.

[Vicelance]

Nice info, wish they would give us more on the non-combat aspects of the game but I'm really excited to try some space combat.

Though I'd like to know more about the camera controls. Did you feel you had to keep adjusting the camera with every turn or did it move with you well enough? Camera controls in Champions at first were very annoying until I managed to get the settings right for what I prefer and I am just hoping STO is better in that area.

[Tiki832]

Great read-up.

Looking at those screenshots... the graphical design in space for STO looks very similar to another game I'm heavily following at the moment. ;)

[Davelock]

Thanks for all the info.

[phifur]

Awesome Great!!! review thank you so much :)

I have a question did you see any battle damage in space combat? like seeing a warp nacelles shooting smoke out or some of the hull reaping off the ship?

[whatinblueblazes]

Thanks for all the time and energy you invested in writing that review. Very, very encouraging.

Any insights into some of the Bridge Officer abilities? I heard a tachyon beam mentioned for space... what about other space and ground abilities that you saw?

[tacticalzen]

Can you elaborate some more on the X targetting, please? Was it a follow command, or did it swing the camera about?

Swings the camera. I'm sure there's a follow command as well since it's the Cryptic Engine. You can get some nice cinematic screenies as say, the Bird of Prey goes over your ship pounding your shields.

[quette4000]

Thanks for the info!

[HittingSmoke]

He was wearing a Kilt, so he was being as they say - a true scotsman .. lol ill let u figure that out ..

:D

and try it before you judge it, lol u might just like it lol

Irish actually. It's a common misconception that only the Scottish wore kilts. Scots wore them mostly ceremonially while the Irish were more well known for casual kilts.

It really is the best things to wear walking around on a hot day. Not quite as easy to find a spot to sit if there's no chairs available though so I'm wearing pants today lol (plus it's raining)

Can you elaborate some more on the X targetting, please? Was it a follow command, or did it swing the camera about?
Nice info, wish they would give us more on the non-combat aspects of the game but I'm really excited to try some space combat.

Though I'd like to know more about the camera controls. Did you feel you had to keep adjusting the camera with every turn or did it move with you well enough? Camera controls in Champions at first were very annoying until I managed to get the settings right for what I prefer and I am just hoping STO is better in that area.

The camera controls themselves are pretty standard for an MMOG. Holding right click lets you move the camera and moves your ship/character with it, middle click lets you move the camera freely while still manually moving your character with the direction keys and holding down the right and left mouse buttons together automatically move your character in whichever direction you point the camera.

The X target camera is really what makes this all unique as it automates the camera to keep your target in view.

An example would be if I was approaching my target head on and pressed X, as I flew passed the target in any direction my camera would track it keeping me and the target in camera view. Eventually as I passed the target my camera would be facing directly backwards. It really makes positioning your ship for optimum shield facings a treat because it's one less thing you have to micro manage during the battle, and lets face it, having to tweak your camera every few seconds doesn't exactly suck you into the game.

I saw no evidence of a follow command, but I really can't believe that they won't have one at launch.

Today I'll try to play around with the keyboard more and see if I can discover any other hotkeys to report on.

You can spam space-bar? :confused:

You *could* spam the space bar, but you'd get much better results watching your weapon and special attack cooldowns and using good timing and proper phaser arc placement.

Awesome Great!!! review thank you so much :)

I have a question did you see any battle damage in space combat? like seeing a warp nacelles shooting smoke out or some of the hull reaping off the ship?

Yes! I did notice once when I got a little banged up that there was a small trail of fire and smoke coming out of a small hole on the top of my saucer. I'll let myself get a little beat up today and see what the extent is.

Thanks for all the time and energy you invested in writing that review. Very, very encouraging.

Any insights into some of the Bridge Officer abilities? I heard a tachyon beam mentioned for space... what about other space and ground abilities that you saw?

I plan on exploring that more today. Other than what I posted originally I more or less overlooked the details of special abilities. Stay tuned for a better breakdown. I'll either post it in this thread of append it to the end of my OP.

I did not notice a chat box thingy, how do we communicate?

It's either not completed yet or they didn't have that part of the UI loaded or visible for the demo. We were all in our own mission instances so it wasn't like we were all flying around together.

*EDIT* And just to clarify, cause there seems to be a bit of confusion. Spamming a button means just hitting it over and over to repeat a move every time it's cooldown finishes. Since space bar fires all phasers you could just keep hitting it over and over, but you'd surely get pwned by anyone thinking more tactically and timing their attacks right.

[Archangelwoghd]

Well done!

[Duckdee]

Swings the camera. I'm sure there's a follow command as well since it's the Cryptic Engine. You can get some nice cinematic screenies as say, the Bird of Prey goes over your ship pounding your shields.

An example would be if I was approaching my target head on and pressed X, as I flew passed the target in any direction my camera would track it keeping me and the target in camera view. Eventually as I passed the target my camera would be facing directly backwards. It really makes positioning your ship for optimum shield facings a treat because it's one less thing you have to micro manage during the battle, and lets face it, having to tweak your camera every few seconds doesn't exactly suck you into the game.
Thanks, both. My anxiety about ship combat being too precise for me, is starting to ease. Will have to rebind that ctrl+space, though. ;)

[Lictalon]

Big thanks for the details!

**now where's my mop? I need to clean up the drool**

[Swea]

Great update, thanks a bunch for your impressions. Look foward to more :)

[Yogan]

A very informative write up, thank you.

[Commodore_Rook]

Wow! Sounds fantastic!!!! Can't wait for this even more now!!!!

Did you ask about the naming convections for ships? i.e. are you able to name your ship, or is it pre-named (obviously, the demo was pre-named), and does it show up on the hull (along with the Registry number)? Is it wide open to choose name, or is there a drop down list to choose a ship name?

[Jsnuk]

Space combat got me alll exicted but, all the big weapons on the Away Missions dont seem Trek to me. I shall have to wait and see...

Thanks for the info dood!

[Commodore_Rook]

Space combat got me alll exicted but, all the big weapons on the Away Missions dont seem Trek to me. I shall have to wait and see...

Thanks for the info dood!

I agree, it sounds like Duke Nukem in space..... I hope not.

[Cataclysmic.Alluvium]

Sounds good. And I'd rather have an assortment of weaponry rather than the usual SF phaser, phaser rifle and Klingon disruptor.

[Draconianknight]

Thanks for the write up! Hopefully Cryptic will tune in and tweak the ground combat!. As far as the space part goes, I am really chomping at the bit now....come on release date!!!:cool:

[ebeyer]

Brian and Chris of the Linux Action show are at PAX and intend to make a podcast available of their impressions. Their stuff can be found at jupterbroadcasting.com, youtube, twitter and facebook.

[Trekkie]

This sounds great! Thanks for reporting . . . I totally wish I was able to play it too. Space combat definitely sounds like it is going to be great, which is a good sign since that was one of my main concerns about the game early on. I appreciate you taking the time to write up this report and post it very much!

[HittingSmoke]

Wanted more? Here it effin IS!

Posting life from PAX on my phone cause it's having a moment of clarity for some reason. In line for the RoosterTeeth panel.

Just talked to the most informative STO dev so far, who showed me some ships and menues I couldnt take pics of. Nebula? Yes. Got pics of some other ships. £ont post what i was asked not to, but expext epic(ish) pics tonight when Im home

Infinite torpedoes: All conventional weapons will be infinite ammo except for rare instances when special wep will be limited.

Add ons: Cryptic gave me a definite maybe on UI add ons. He confirmed that they are in no way against UI add ons and like what WoW has done. I was told that they made a robust and customizable UI system that could one day support mods if they aw fit to implement it.

More info to come but im posting from my phone and waiting for the Red vs Blue presentation to start.

Stay thristy!

[Cataclysmic.Alluvium]

Great to know that a customizable UI isn't totally out of the question and infinite ammo sounds good, personally I hate having to restock the stuff. Along with phasers that need cooldown etc it should provide balance.

I'm sure I remember one ST game in which you needed to use phasers solely until you got a ship's shields down, only then did torpedos have any real effect. Didn't like that.

[leonide]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

OH MY JESUS YES. on the link showing the shield/weapons of the ships, you can clearly see that the ship under the blue explosion is an Excelsior class ship.


THERE IS A GOD. THANK YOU CRYPTIC. I LOVE YOU.

[Cataclysmic.Alluvium]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

OH MY JESUS YES. on the link showing the shield/weapons of the ships, you can clearly see that the ship under the blue explosion is an Excelsior class ship.


THERE IS A GOD. THANK YOU CRYPTIC. I LOVE YOU.

Um... congratulations?

Isn't that model slightly outdated? And are you wanting to blow it up? :p

[Night_Hawke]

YES! awesome stuff.

Everytime something comes out about this game it gets better and better. I can't wait for launch!

[leonide]

Um... congratulations?

Isn't that model slightly outdated? And are you wanting to blow it up? :p

naw. i want to use it. i got a "most likely not" from the STO devs on a chat a while back, so i was extatic to see it in there. that's me having an awesomegasm. i am pretty surprised that they put in the Nebula too, very awesome. now the science and exploration guys have a decent and respectable ship to use!

this thread made me really excited for the release. i am also very happy for the WASD controls. but i wonder...


what about the roll controls? is Q and E the roll left/right respectively? doing a roll maneuver is important!

[Cataclysmic.Alluvium]

Might not necessarily be able to use it :(

[Jarek301]

It seems to be shaping up almost exactly as I had expected - an improved Star Trek Legacy in space, and a Star Wars Galaxies meets Champions Online on the ground. Can't really complain, as it'll be unique and at least space and ground will both share a healthy amount of content, as opposed to the arbritary PvP and reverse engineering game we have in space on SWG. All in all, despite space not being twitchflight, I can see a lot of people coming over from SWG to STO. The hardcore pilots such as myself will likely forego SWG's space expansion for Jumpgate Evolution when it releases, thus confirming my fears that STO and JGE will likely become the death of SWG. If not, The Old Republic will land the killing blow.

[ETSstarfleetromulan]

With all the journeys to take me through space why bother going to the ground, unless Starfleet orders me to I will just be journeying around! :D

Great review, really got me excited about this game.

[Maniac]

Thanks for the report. Sounds great. I can't wait for the game.

[ETSstarfleetromulan]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

OH MY JESUS YES. on the link showing the shield/weapons of the ships, you can clearly see that the ship under the blue explosion is an Excelsior class ship.


THERE IS A GOD. THANK YOU CRYPTIC. I LOVE YOU.

Your faith only bolsters my excitement.

[Tamgros]

You can spam space-bar? :confused:
What HittingSmoke said... The main thing is you don't have to micro each phaser/torp, but you don't auto fire either...
I did not notice a chat box thingy, how do we communicate?
Chat box hasn't been added yet. Mostly due to no way of chatting, each demo is on its own server.

"work in progress"
Wanted more? Here it effin IS!

Posting life from PAX on my phone cause it's having a moment of clarity for some reason. In line for the RoosterTeeth panel.

Just talked to the most informative STO dev so far, who showed me some ships and menues I couldnt take pics of. Nebula? Yes. Got pics of some other ships. £ont post what i was asked not to, but expext epic(ish) pics tonight when Im home

Infinite torpedoes: All conventional weapons will be infinite ammo except for rare instances when special wep will be limited.

Add ons: Cryptic gave me a definite maybe on UI add ons. He confirmed that they are in no way against UI add ons and like what WoW has done. I was told that they made a robust and customizable UI system that could one day support mods if they aw fit to implement it.

More info to come but im posting from my phone and waiting for the Red vs Blue presentation to start.

Stay thristy!

I found this hilarious, toward the end of the day, the booth was moderately busy but there was Zinc just chilling playing STO!

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b164/tamgros/P1030230.jpg

HittingSmoke and I got to go up and he was nice enough to show some of our/your favorite ships :).
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b164/tamgros/P1030236.jpg
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b164/tamgros/P1030232.jpg

He also showed us some tactical and regular borg cubes. Mighty impressive! Huge! on the subject of scale, i swear there is a miranda type ship in this picture....

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b164/tamgros/P1030218.jpg

[Banar]

Thanks Tam, it's good to know we'll have the Luna class in game! :) I just started reading the first Titan book, seems like a good ship. And Novas (while rather small) are very pretty ships.

[Draighwulf]

Thanks for this, so far it looks like a lot of my concerns about the game arn't a concern anymore. Game looks and sounds great, and while there's still a few areas I'd like to see more of i'm confident they'll be just as good as what i've seen.

[HittingSmoke]

What HittingSmoke said... The main thing is you don't have to micro each phaser/torp, but you don't auto fire either...

Chat box hasn't been added yet. Mostly due to no way of chatting, each demo is on its own server.

"work in progress"


I found this hilarious, toward the end of the day, the booth was moderately busy but there was Zinc just chilling playing STO!

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b164/tamgros/P1030230.jpg

HittingSmoke and I got to go up and he was nice enough to show some of our/your favorite ships :).
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b164/tamgros/P1030236.jpg
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b164/tamgros/P1030232.jpg

He also showed us some tactical and regular borg cubes. Mighty impressive! Huge! on the subject of scale, i swear there is a miranda type ship in this picture....

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b164/tamgros/P1030218.jpg

The borg cube was awesome!

Ok, sorry I didn't get pics up last night folks. Through a strange turn of evens mostly caused by a dead phone, not having a watch and trying like hell to find this super secret after party I ended up missing my boat and was stranded in Seattle. Because of PAX, Bumbershoot and the first Seahawks game of the season EVERY single hotel in Seattle was booked solid. Luckily I just caught a cab at 2:30 AM and crashed on my friends couch. Posting from his laptop right now.

I have a few good pics to post from me and Tam's talk with Zinc. Can't post them all unfortunately but I'll post what I was told was OK.

The Gameworks party was insane! Place was packed shoulder to shoulder and after some digging I managed to get an address for this epic rumored CCP after party. Unfortunately no one could tel me where the actual street was and my phone was dead so no GPS :(

So yea, I'm hungover as all hell and about to catch a bus back to PAX. I'll try to get all my pics uploaded and posted tonight after I head home. Supposed to BBQ with some friends so can't give a definite time.

[HittingSmoke]

I just got the most epic picture taken from PAX by far!

Who needs Picard facepaml when youve got Wil Wheaton facepalm!

I took it with my Nikon so cant post it from my phone. It's the first thing im gonna do when I get home!

Stay tuned for for the awesomeness!

[Tamgros]

I just got the most epic picture taken from PAX by far!

Who needs Picard facepaml when youve got Wil Wheaton facepalm!

I took it with my Nikon so cant post it from my phone. It's the first thing im gonna do when I get home!

Stay tuned for for the awesomeness!

LOL. Everyone, seriously, this pic is EPIC!!! Staaaay tuned.

[HittingSmoke]

I thought this pic would warrant it's own thread, but judging by the response in IRC tonight no one cares...

Kind of discouraged, but will post it anyways.

Having a night with the gf, so hopefully tomorrow you will all see my full PAX image dump gallery. I've got a LOT that I haven't posted so far an I know it's stuff you guy want to see.

[fractaleye]

I've got a LOT that I haven't posted so far an I know it's stuff you guy want to see.

Yes, I'd like to order 1 copy of the Wil Wheaton facepalm and any Intrepid photos you have, kind sir. Look forward to seeing them when they get up. (And all you PAX goers are awesome for keeping us lowly, non-convention going sad sacks in the loop. :D Great effort on everyone's part.)

[fractaleye]

Okay, forgive the double post, but:

thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou HittingSmoke for the Wil Wheaton facepalm! :D

+10,000,000 internets, sir!

[Zebon627]

The fact that your pants would have gotten tighter is a bit weird man.

[HittingSmoke]

Yes, I'd like to order 1 copy of the Wil Wheaton facepalm and any Intrepid photos you have, kind sir. Look forward to seeing them when they get up. (And all you PAX goers are awesome for keeping us lowly, non-convention going sad sacks in the loop. :D Great effort on everyone's part.)

You're very welcome! I tried to recreate my experience for everyone as accurately as possible. Gonna post two more PAX related threads before it's time to give it a rest. I want to post one just about PAX in general that's going to be a long discussion I'm hoping.

The second is what you're really waiting for, my pic roundup thread. I've got a rough hundred or so STO related pics, about a third of which are really good (I'm a shutter spammer, I just take tons of pics at every chance and pick out the good ones on the computer).

The fact that your pants would have gotten tighter is a bit weird man.

Hey, just trying to make sure everyone knows how freakin sweet I though this game is.

[fractaleye]

Are you going to upload the non-ST:O picks as well? I'm sure you have some good ones people wouldn't mind checking out.

[HittingSmoke]

Are you going to upload the non-ST:O picks as well? I'm sure you have some good ones people wouldn't mind checking out.

I really didn't get pics of any other games. Pretty much all other game related content that I *could* have gotten pics of was stuff you can easily find online so I didn't really bother.

Almost all of my other pics are of cosplayers. I'll be uploading everything that I save. I'll try to separate the STO stuff into it's own Flickr album to keep things clean.

[fractaleye]

Ah, cool cool. I know I've probably said it too many times already, but thanks again for the Wil facepalm. :D (And the 'after' pic you took is good too hehe)

[Varrangian]

HittingSmoke you join Tam in one of the few people I will post thanks to around here. Thanks for helping to bring more info to the masses. I think between your posts and Tam's we can honestly say that there is a great deal about STO that we now know and understand. We need to disabuse ourselves of the myths that there is "too little info" about STO and debate the game on the foundation of what we do know.

Thanks

[HittingSmoke]

Ah, cool cool. I know I've probably said it too many times already, but thanks again for the Wil facepalm. :D (And the 'after' pic you took is good too hehe)

HittingSmoke you join Tam in one of the few people I will post thanks to around here. Thanks for helping to bring more info to the masses. I think between your posts and Tam's we can honestly say that there is a great deal about STO that we now know and understand. We need to disabuse ourselves of the myths that there is "too little info" about STO and debate the game on the foundation of what we do know.

Thanks

Thanks for the support! I wish I could thank everyone who had kind words in this thread individually but there's just so many.

So big thanks to everyone who's followed along. I'm just stoked that I was able to contribute in such an awesome way!

[Suraknar]

Nice review, thank you :)

It certainly gives a nice description of Combat overall, not to demean your ground review, yet the space part is what was most of interest, the pictures you attached were great as well.

I am curious to see this in Action in PVP, Tactics and plans opposing sides will be devising should be awesome!

Cheers!

[Manta2015]

LUNA class, baby ~ I like =)


-Manta-

[HittingSmoke]

*Fixed broken links from my Flickr account taking a dive after bandwidth was exceeded.

[haplo8]

I am so freakin happy to see the Luna class...:D