CAPTAIN'S BLOG

I know what you mean about feeling a bit unenthused about the launch of the new STO faormat on holodeck. In my case, it's partly my own fault. I run so many characters that it took me much of ther week end just to get the new skill trees filled out. To make matters worse, my Internet service decided to break down for four days last week, which put me way behind in the game, as well as in everything else I do on the Internet. I was also a bit peeved by the fact that ESD Spacedock has no Ship Selection officer any more. I now have to go to Starbase 39 or K7 to swwitch ships or to install newly acquired equipment on my alternate ships. With my slow Internet, this can add up to ten or fifteen minutes to the process of upgrading the shields or torpedoes on each of my alternate ships. Then I have to return to ESD to do the various events that center around ESD and the Academy. With seven Fed characters, that means I can end up spending up to an hour a day just commuting between star bases.

On the Klingon side, I frequently have characters get stuck in limbo when beaaming into the Kilngon Academy or when travelling certain parts of First City. This problem first surfaced about a month ago on Tribble, but it has now come to Holodeck as well. My Klingon characters sometimes land on the roof of the Academy or inside a wall which they can't get out of. In First City, there is a console next to the Foundry that is used in some of the daily Foundry missions. The problem is that when you try to get to the console, you fall through the floor and can't get out except by beaming back to your ship. The result is that I have sorely neglected my Klingon characters.

One observation about Season 5 is that the economy is going haywire. The Dilithium Exchange prices for C-Points are almost double what they are on Tribble, and the prices for Duty Officers on the Exchange are astronomical. I'm sure this is mainly because we start with so few Duty Officers that it is hard to find the right mix for many DOff missions. Once people start earning more DOffs or buying them in the C-Store, I expect the prices will stabilize.

I look forward to having all my adjustments made to the new system so that I can start doing regular missions again.

Forget what I said about no Ship Selection or Customization Officers. I took advantage of today's STO maintenance time to look at a couple of your Facebook videos. The one on F2P, as you know, includes the new locations for the Ship Selection and Ship Customization Officers. Putting them in the Ship Requisition area makes sense, but it would have been nice for STO to have given some kind of notice to the players that they had moved.

I never experienced those problems in the Klingon faction. I am wondering if it is your internet connection since you mentioned that it is slow.

Prices for the rare data samples were astronomical as well when they first came out. Eventually they stabilized. So I agree that the same will happen with the DOffs and Dilithium Exchange.