Basic KDF

[Meat_Machine]

Welcome to the KDF.

First of all, some things you need to know before you begin.

Q) How to become a KDF?
A) You can either 1: Get level 6. 2: complete fed mission "stop the signal." After you have gotten the accolate "Blood of the Warrior" you must zone or relog to get the notification that you have unlocked Klingon play.

Q) Once I unlock KDF how do I create one?
A) Once unlocked, when you log in to the character screen there will be a new button that says "Create a new Klingon"

Q) How do I level?
A) First, do all the pve missions you can to get them out of the way and off your questlist and then pvp. PVE content is coming, but it's not here yet.

Q) Where do I get gear?
A) KDF has more white gear available for energy credits than feds, and can buy low quality greens and blues with both exploration badges (from quests) and Medals (from pvp)

Q) How do I win in PVP ground?
A) Expose and exploit. Have some of your team firing cone expose, and some of your team ready with split-fire phasers or sniper rifles. Whenever you see someone with the 'target symbol' on them, use your 'exploit' skills. Always try to shoot an enemy from behind or the side for bonus flank damage. If your shield is down, take cover for a moment to recuperate and if you are an engineer, drop heallng and turrets first. If there's a healing turret, use it.

Q) How do I win in PVP space?
A)In every tier, you need to communicate and coordinate. Don't stay hidden while your team dies. You're better off losing fast than winning and taking twice as long. Have fun, be aggressive. It'll come to you.
At the VERY minimum, crank up your weapon power to max and get close before uncloaking with your buddies. Pick someone and blow them to smoke.

Q) How do I get promoted to Lt. Commander?
A)You get promoted when you get past Lt. 11 (which is Lt. Commander 1), and spend enough points to qualify. When you are ready to be promoted, you will be contacted for your promotion mission. It is recommended that you spend your skill points one at a time and check to see if you get the mission.

Q) Where is the high council?
A)Up the ramp where you first beamed into the Great Hall

Q) Do I get a free ship on the kdf side? How do I obtain it?
A)Yes, when you promote to Lt. Com, you will receive your first free ship. You will be contacted by high council and get a mission to see the <npc name> who will award you a 'ship token (name)'. This is currency that will let you buy 1 ship for 'free' from the ship vendor.

Q) What is the difference between the KDF and feds?
A) Content wise, the Federation side presently has more pve content than the kdf side. The KDF side has lighter ships that have cloaking ability and greater maneuverability. From a roleplaying sense, the KDF side is some of the less savory, more violent and in some cases evil species of the galaxy.
While the KDF has no dedicated science or engineering ships below tier 5, they have the bird of prey which can have any crewmember type in any station.

Q) If I delete my federation character that unlocked them will I be unable to access Klingons anymore?
A) The unlock is per acount, so you can delete your character and you will be able to continue to create KDF characters.

Q) Do KDF players start in the same zone as federation?
A) No. KDF Players start in klingon space.

Q) Is KDF PVE the same as UFP PVE?
A) Not at this time. Presently, KDF players have practically no PVE content. An announcement has been made that this will change, but it has not changed yet.

Q) Where do I spend pvp merits?
A) In Ganalda, in the Archanis sector in Eta Eridani.

Q) Where do I spend pve merits?
A) In Qo'nos.

Q) What is a CD or 'Cooldown'?
A) It's the time after using an ability that you can reuse that same ability. different abilities have different cooldowns.

Q) What is a SCD or 'Shared Cooldown'?
A) It's the cooldown associated with components that are shared between powers. Groups of powers that share a component (such as tractor beam and tachyon) share a cooldown. Along with their power cooldown, you will be prevented from using any powers on the shared cooldown for a period of time.

Q) What is a GCD or 'Global Cooldown'?
A) It's the minimum cycle time after using any power that triggers it that prevents you from using any other power. Some powers do not trigger the GCD.

Q) How do I get enough honor to train my officers?
A) This is a big problem right now due to content issues. It's highly recommended that you not waste your initial honor, and train your officers carefully. If you want to experiment, you might make a second kdf to train powers you are not certain about - or test them on a fed character. The exchange is a good way to get cheap powers on the fed side, but you can't use those officers with your kdf. Another workaround is that you can roll a kdf character as an honor mule, since they start with 800 honor, and use that for buying powers. The officers can be traded.

Q) How do I access pvp (as any faction?)
A) To access pvp, you must be at least level 6. Once you are, you will see a triangle pointing down to the right of your minimap. This is a dropdown menu, and the first option on it opens the PVP queues list which allow you to queue for match-based pvp.

Q) Can Klingons wear sashes or baldrics?
A) Yes, but they are rank limited. Check the costume change npc after you are in game

Q) Do any Klingon captain skills work in place of Escort Captain and Heavy Escort Captain in regards to scaling up Attack Pattern Alpha, Attack Pattern Beta, Attack Pattern Omega, and other powers that scale off these escort captain skills?
A) No, not at this time.

We'll expand this as people need it expanded.

[Mockeryangel]

Right click info on targets to find which is "weakest", set up a kill order easiest targets first, toughest last.

Ganalda station in eta eridani is where you get pvp gear(unless it changed).

Full Impulse drops your energy in everything but engines to 0, don't fight right out of full impulse.

[Meat_Machine]

Basic weapon types:

Turrets:
All turrets are cannons, and benefit from cannon skills and have cannon distance modifiers.
They are unique in that they are able to fire in the entire 360^2 sphere of influence around your ship, but have the lowest DPS of all cannons.

Cannons:
Cannon weapons are "energy weapons" tend to be energy conserving, and higher maintained DPS but in a more narrow arc of fire. Their special power 'rapid fire' is only available at the second rank of bridge officer skills, and permits a burst fire mode. In beta, cannons could not be fired simultaneously without rapid fire in effect.
Cannons have a high damage roloff after 5k distance.

Beams:
Beam weapons are "energy weapons" that tend to be higher energy consuming, higher burst damage and have the added adjunct abilities of targetting specific enemy systems or overloading enemy shields. They also tend to fire in a wider arc. The default federation weapons are beams, which makes their default loadouts more able to focus fire rapidly.

Torpedos:
There are many types of torpedos, photon being the most common. Torpedos are slow moving projectiles that explode on impact causing kinetic damage. Shields block most of their damage, so you want to hit an enemy who has no shields to use torpedos most effectively. Torpedos have an ancillary skill called "High Yield" which will launch multiple photon torpedos or high-power plasma, on plasma torpedos.

Mines:
Mines are similar to torpedos in damage dealing, but are launched and deploy live after a brief delay. Mines are often deployed when one side is defending space, but can also be used as a secondary offensive weapon in place of a rear turret.

Basic ship types:

Bird of Prey (BOP)
Fast, low hull, extra aux (note: verify, get hard numbers)
Has universal bridge officer stations, so they are tactically flexible.
All ranks past 1 can cloak while in combat.
Note: Cloaking in combat does not drop targetting until you get out of range (clarify) and drops shields.

Raptor
Fast, Good handling
Basically the equivalent of the federation escort.
Has cloaking ability out of combat.
(edit: fill in details)

Tips for ground PVP

- You do more damage when hitting the side and rear of an opponent
- You do more damage when crouching
- Go for split-beam rifles or other high-damage multitarget special attacks
- When in melee, rifle butt them to the ground
- If you are an engineer, drop mines in doorways and intersections to interfere with enemies
- place turrets and generators where they can't be sniped easily
- cloak is great for getting behind the enemy
- try to split up the enemy, but remain together
- if your shields are low, get out of combat for a sec or recharge them

[Monthar]

Originally Posted by Meat_Machine

Q) How do I level?
A) First, do all the pve missions you can to get them out of the way and off your questlist and then pvp. PVE content is coming, but it's not here yet.

Ya left out the #1 & #2 newbie questions related to this.

#1 Question "I'm Lt 11, how do I get promoted."
Spend your skill points and you will be contacted by the KDF offering you the promotion mission. You can always mouse-over your rank/exp bar to get the tooltip that tells you what you need for the next rank.

#2 Question "Where's the High Council?"
Up the ramp where you first beamed into the Great Hall

[Monthar]

Originally Posted by Mockeryangel

Full Impulse drops your energy in everything but engines to 0, don't fight right out of full impulse.

Nope they changed this a while back. Now it only drops the other systems' power levels to 5. This was to prevent shields and cloaks dropping from engaging Full Impulse.

[RipShredder]

Basic Space PvP tactics (Bird of Prey):

1. Group up !
2. Talk and plan on who to attack
3. Stay cloaked untill you are all in position
4. Strike and kill
5. Once the other ship has been destroyed, remember to focus fire on one ship at a time
6. If the enemy is too strong, use Battle Cloak and get away, remember to have Everyone do the same
7. Repeat

[Slamz]

Originally Posted by Meat_Machine

Q) How to become a KDF?
A) We don't know yet. It used to be 1: Get level 6. 2: complete fed mission "stop the signal." We will update as available.

It used to be:
a) Get level 6
-or-
b) Complete the mission "stop the signal"

At the end of CB I unlocked Klingon by getting level 6 without ever completing Stop the Signal.
In OB I unlocked Klingon by completing Stop the Signal at level 5 and never made level 6.


Also I'm pretty sure the devs have said that turrets are hybrid weapons and count as both beams and cannons. So Cannon: Rapid Fire works on turrets and so does Beam: Overload.

The downside of turrets is that they seem to drain energy like crazy and their damage sucks in every way.

[Deoin]

Originally Posted by Slamz

It used to be:
a) Get level 6
-or-
b) Complete the mission "stop the signal"

At the end of CB I unlocked Klingon by getting level 6 without ever completing Stop the Signal.
In OB I unlocked Klingon by completing Stop the Signal at level 5 and never made level 6.


Also I'm pretty sure the devs have said that turrets are hybrid weapons and count as both beams and cannons. So Cannon: Rapid Fire works on turrets and so does Beam: Overload.

The downside of turrets is that they seem to drain energy like a **** and their damage sucks in every way.

There used to be a forum that listed the steps for getting to that mission. Is there anything special or will it be in the normal progression of missions?

[Slamz]

This was from the old forum:

Originally Posted by SlingBlade

I just unlocked my klingon and i'm only a level 4 federation character. You unlock Klingons by completing Stop the signal or by getting Level 6.

This may not be the fastest or most efficient way to do it, it's just what I did this time.I did the following quests in order along with approximately how many minutes each took me. Keep in mind i had done these all 3-4 times before in closed beta so i literally ran through some of them including the tutorial. Don't run through the tutorial unless you have done it 1-2 times. It really does teach you things you need to know.

Tutorial - 15 minutes
Azura - 15 minutes
Diplomatic Mission- 20 minutes
Hide and Seek- 30 minutes
SB 24 Fleet Action - 10 minutes
SB 24 mission - 25 minutes
Stop the Signal - 20 minutes (This quest unlocks Klingons when you finish it)

That equals approximately 2 hours 15 minutes. With flying around and misc things you can tack on another 20-30 minutes. The average STO player can probably expect to spend 4-6 hours to complete all of this.

As far as I know it's still valid (hmm, I wonder if it's too early to sneak out of here and go home...)

[Deoin]

Originally Posted by Slamz

This was from the old forum:




As far as I know it's still valid (hmm, I wonder if it's too early to sneak out of here and go home...)

Thank you, I appreciate that