I’m new to the game, should I attempt to participate in the summer event, or will it be too hard or competitive for me?
Yes! You absolutely should! I understand that other MMO’s have events that’re mostly for endgame players, but STO’s events aren’t like that. They’re accessible for everyone, and don’t rely on your skill level/experience/level of investment in the game at large.
You can earn daily progress (where “daily” means “resets 20h after it’s last completed”) towards unlocking this year’s event ship in 6 ways.
1. Flying High
2. Dance Party
3. Making Waves
4. Horga’hn Hunt
5. Risa Biathlon
6. Sun, Sand, and Scavenging
I’ll take a look at those individually below. Also, there are two essential tools to enjoy your time on Risa. Floaters and Powerboards. I’ll cover those below first.
Floaters
Floaters are essentially anti-gravity jetpacks that (for some reason) can only be used on Risa (though I wish they were usable everywhere). They come in 5 different quality levels, and are useful for most of the Summer Event events, and are absolutely required for others (Risa Biathlon, Flying High)
First, rentals. You can rent one for a limited time (I believe it’s 15-20 minutes) for 1000 EC, and when it’s time limit is reached, it just…goes away. Doesn’t matter where you are or what altitude you’re flying at. Rentals are low quality and have low speed (35) and low maneuverability (Sub-Standard Flight Maneuverability). You should get a better grade ASAP.
The second grade is Standard. Standard Floaters cost 50 Lohlunat Favors, are permanent, and are available in the color of your choosing (as long as you choose Black, Blue, Red, or White). They have low speed (30…even lower than rentals), but have Standard Flight Maneuverability, so will be easier to control than rentals.
Next up is Enhanced. Enhanced Floaters cost 500 Lohlunat Favors, are permanent, and are available in the color of your choosing (same colors as standard, plus Green, Orange, Pink, Yellow, Cyan, Gray, and Purple). They’re the fastest grade yet (40 flight speed), and have Enhanced Flight Maneuverability, so will be even easier yet to control.
Now come the Superior Floaters. They cost 1000 Lohlunat Favors, are permanent, and have 50 flight speed and Superior Flight Maneuverability, and so are even better than Enhanced Floaters. They come in a wide variety of colors, and even color combinations. They sound good, but my advice is DON’T BUY ONE OF THESE. I’ll tell you why in a moment.
The highest grade of floaters are Impulsive Floaters. They also cost 1000 Lohlunat Favors. However, they have 70 flight speed and still have the Superior Flight Maneuverability. So they’re significantly faster than Superiors, and have the same maneuverability. They’re available in a few different color combinations: Purple/Orange, Blue/Green, Black/Gold, Green/Pink, and Yellow/Red, and they also have one each based on the color schemes of the Star Trek baseball teams the Deep Space Niners, the Vulcan Logicians, and the London Kings. This is the grade of floater you should be aiming to get. They’re the best available at the moment.
Powerboards
Powerboards are hover surfboards with propulsion units. They can be used both on Risa and also at the Dranuur colony. There are a couple Risa events that absolutely require a Powerboard, but the rest of the time they’re just for fun. Those events are the Risa Biathlon and the Making Waves Powerboard Race. Makes sense, right? They come in 6 different quality levels, which are similar to Floater quality levels, are named identically (with one addition), but are slightly different.
Rentals: as before, 1000 EC gets you 15-20m of time on a low quality powerboard. 63 Speed Rating, 60 Turn Rating. Get a better grade ASAP.
Standard: permanent, costs 50 Lohlunat Favors. 63 Speed Rating, 75 Turn Rating. So, unlike with floaters, a standard is a clear upgrade over a rental. Even if it’s a small upgrade.
Enhanced: permanent, costs 500 Lohlunat Favors. 68 Speed Rating, 90 Turn Rating.
Superior: permanent, costs 1000 Lohlunat Favors. 73 Speed Rating, 120 Turn Rating.
Elite: permanent, costs 1500 Lohlunat Favors. 78 Speed Rating, 150 Turn Rating.
Impulsive: permanent, costs 1500 Lohlunat Favors. 88 Speed Rating, 80 Turn Rating.
So you can see that while, as with floaters, Impulsives are the fastest available, they’re also significantly harder to control than an Elite or Superior board.
You can also get an Elite powerboard from the Phoenix store with a Very Rare token (Future Flyer) if you don’t want to spend Lohlunat Favors on one but have spare phoenix tokens.
Flying High
Flying High was originally the only way to earn daily progress in the summer event, and it’s still one of the fastest and easiest ways to do so. From the summer resort’s beam-in location, you want to go forward, and then right along the boardwalk getting further from the shore.
You’ll come to a Hut at the end of that boardwalk. Inside that hut is a NPC named “Floater Vendor”. If you don’t yet own your own floater (jetpack), you can rent a low quality one from him for 1000 EC for a limited time. I’m guessing they exist for 15-20 minutes before evaporating.
Once you’ve got a floater, and have equipped it in one of your device slots, turn to the left a bit, and you’ll see another NPC named Event Coordinator. She’ll have a floaty “Q” over her head.
Talk to her, and she’ll start you off on Flying High. Basically, once you accept the mission, 4 floater courses appear in the skies above the summer resort map. There are a whole bunch of them, and the same 4 will not appear each time. Of the 4 that are offered to you, you have to complete 3 of them within (I believe) 10 minutes. Do so, then get back to the Event Coordinator to turn it in, and you’ll get your daily progress, as well as a load of 50 Lohlunat Favors.
Flying High can also be completed every 13 minutes or so per character for an additional 50 Lohlunat Favors.
Completing the courses is fairly easy. Just start where the big green arrows are, and fly along the green path to it’s end to complete.
If you fail for some reason (Lag out? Internet dies? Get distracted by your cat and the mission times out?), just go back to the Event Coordinator and talk to her and you can restart the mission immediately with no penalty.
Dance Party
The Dance Party/Dance Off! is another great way to get your daily credit. If it happens to be happening close to when you want to do your daily progress. I believe it only comes up every 90 minutes or so. Basically, everyone gets on the dance floor (the big square flat surface in the pool at the front of the Resort). When the event begins, click the “I Want to Dance!” button (or you won’t be enrolled in the event for credit or rewards), and the NPC Dance Instructor then calls for everyone to perform a specific dance once every 15s. All dances called will be default dances that everyone has.
My advice to make this event easy: pin open your emotes menu. Hit the cogwheel in the bottom right corner of your chat box.
Then, mouseover “Emotes”, and at the top right of that menu, you’ll see a pin icon.
Click this, and it’ll keep the emotes menu open on your screen. You can drag it around and resize it to fit where you want it. Then, you can just click the dance you need to do when you want to do it.
If you want to hear verbal dance callouts, make sure your “voice” volume isn’t turned way down.
One idiosyncrasy I’ve noticed is that when she calls to “Just Dance!” , it seems to want Dance (Mix) as opposed to Dance (Basic) or something else *shrug*
Anyway, when you first start, you’ll have a mission to complete 3 dance moves. When done you get 10 Lohlunat Favors and a mission to complete 5 more dance moves. Complete that and you get 15 Lohlunat Favors and a mission to complete 10 more dance moves. Complete that and get 25 Lohlunat Favors and a mission to complete 20 more dance moves. Do that and you get 50 Lohlunat Favors and you’re done for this round. You can keep dancing till the time runs out, but you won’t get any more rewards. But you already got 100 Lohlunat Favors, for maybe 15m of clicking the correct dance emote every 15s 😀
Making Waves
Making Waves is a Powerboard Race. When it’s about to start, click the “Beam to Race Start” button and it’ll transport you from wherever you are on the island to the Powerboard Race Start Line. Then, hit the “Join the Race” button. At the end of the race, just beyond the finish line, you’ll see a platform with a flag on it. The race is decided not by who passes the finish line in what order as you might expect, but instead by who grabs the flags in what order. So you could finish behind someone else, but if they’re slow to click the flag, you can still get first place. Or vice versa. So be careful and be quick on clicking that flag!
I have to say: this event is dominated by those who own an elite or impulsive powerboard, and who know the course. Unless you happen to be doing it at a very not-peak time, it’s very unlikely someone else will win. Don’t let me discourage you, feel free to give it a go if you want to. Even if you don’t place, if you finish the race without being disqualified, you’ll earn 15 Lohlunat Favors. Winner gets 75 and 12 tropical tags (for doff missions to acquire risian feather monkey pets). 2nd place gets 50 favors and 6 tags. 3rd place gets 25 favors and 3 tags. anyone who finishes after that gets 15 favors and 2 tags. Powerboarding is pretty fun, once you get the hang of it. And you can eventually become one of the people who dominate the race because they have impulsive powerboards and know the track! Even just with the events I’ve described thus far, earning 1000 Lohlunat Favors really isn’t a huge chore.
Horga’hn Hunt
The Horga’hn Hunt is like a scavenger hunt for small Horga’hn statues, scattered around the resort. They only appear when the event is on, and they always appear at more or less the same spots. They’ll be marked on your minimap when you’re on the mission.
What you’re looking for:
You have 15 minutes to find 10 Horga’hn.
Once you find and collect 10 of them, you’re done. The locations disappear from your minimap, and the statues themselves go away. Each time you find a statue, you get between 2 and 5 Lohlunat Favors. When you turn the mission in, you get an additional 75 Lohlunat Favors. If you have 5-6 characters that all have at least Superior floaters, you should be able to get them all through this event in the time limit. It’s one of the fastest ways to rack up favors, though the initial setup cost for those characters is fairly high.
Risa Biathlon
The Biathlon is another race-style game. Basically, you start out on a powerboard, race a course on the powerboard, then transition to a floater for a race through floating rings to the finish line. It’s another event that’ll be dominated by people who know the tracks and have elite or impulsive powerboards and impulsive floaters. Rewards are identical to the powerboard race’s: 75 favors and 12 tropical tags to the winner, 50 favors and 6 tags to 2nd place, 25 favors and 3 tags for 3rd place, and anyone who finishes after that gets 15 favors and 2 tags. Again, at the end of the race, just beyond the finish line, you’ll see a platform with a flag on it. The race is decided not by who passes the finish line in what order as you might expect, but instead by who grabs the flags in what order. So you could finish behind someone else, but if they’re slow to click the flag, you can still get first place. Or vice versa. So be careful and be quick on clicking that flag!
Sun, Sand, and Scavenging
Or the Artifact Scavenger Hunt, as it’s otherwise known. When the event’s about to start, you’ll get an “I Want to Hunt for Artifacts!” button. Click it and it’ll start you on the event.
After that, it’s basically a hot and cold game. You have 15 minutes to find an artifact. I usually fly over to the beach near to Sovak’s Camp to start. After you scan for the artifact the first time, move, scan again, and it’ll tell you if you’re closer or further away from the artifact. And there’ll be a scanning graphic around your character that’ll tell you generally in which direction you need to go to get closer still.
Eventually, you’ll get close enough that your scan will make a Dig Site appear.
To make it easier, here’s a map of the possible spawn locations for artifacts, credit to u/corelogik on reddit
Unearth the artifact from the mound and talk to Sovak again to turn it in. You don’t have to go all the way back to his camp to turn it in, you can just communicate with him to end the mission and get your reward. Which is 50 Lohlunat Favors.
Uniquely, you can do this mission outside of the scheduled events. Completing it outside of it’s time slot will only get you 20 Lohlunat Favors.
Here’s a link to a slightly more in-depth guide with slightly different maps.
MK’s Artifact Scavenger Hunt Guide
Doff Missions
The Winter event has doff missions that award extra ornaments. The Summer event does not. The Summer event instead gets many variations on two basic types of pet. Risian Feather Monkeys and Risian Tropical Birds.
Remember those Tropical Tags you get from completing the Making Waves board race and the Risa Biathlon? Well, you can turn in 6 of them via doff mission, and 20h later your doff will come back to you with a random baby Feather Monkey. It can be Blue, Green, or Red, and can come with or without a tiki mask. After this, you can send it back and wait another 20h for it to gain a maturity level. So babies can be turned into Juveniles, which can be turned into Adults, which can be turned into Seniors. A critical success on any of these monkey-raising doff missions will also see them gain the tiki mask. You can use individuals in any stage as non-combat pets. Or you can turn them in for choice of mark boxes if you don’t want to hang onto the cute little guys for some reason (you monster), or if you get extras in a color you already have.
Whenever you pick up a Horga’hn during the Horga’hn Hunt event, you have a chance to also pick up a Risian Tropical Bird Egg. Or you can purchase them from the Risian Vendor NPC for 150 Lohlunat Favors. Anyway, you can turn one in via a doff mission, and 20h later your doff will return with a random Risian Tropical Bird Chick. It can be a Seaspray, a Grotto Glider, a Passion Wing, a Dusk Diver, a Sunset Streamer, or a Firespray, and can either be tufted or not. After this, you can send it back out on another doff mission and wait another 20h for it to gain a maturity level. So Chicks can be turned into Fledglings, which can be turned into Adults, which can be turned into Seniors. Again, a critical success on any of the bird raising doff missions will see them become tufted. Again, you can use any individual in any stage as a non-combat pet. And again, you can turn them in for choice of marks boxes if you don’t want them or have extras.
Both of these can be started on the Promenade, the building over the water on the east side of the resort island, just inside the top floor of the building on the west end of the structure.
To the north, there’s an Ornithologist NPC who deals with the Tropical Birds.
And to the south, there’s a Monkey Trainer NPC who deals with the Feather Monkeys.
THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR FAVORS
Lohlunat Favors are not bound to you, and so can be bought and sold on the Exchange. At the time of writing, the lowest price per Favor is 10,500 EC. And so you can see my first point for this section well-illustrated without a screenshot :D.
Earning and selling Favors can be a good way to make EC for players that don’t have a ton of ec, but have time to put into the event.
Conversely, if you’re a player with more EC than time to put into the event, you can buy your Favors on the exchange, get what you want out of the event store, and also only complete whatever event you want for daily progress daily.
Of course, the very first things you should be looking to buy are Floaters and Powerboards, to earn more Favors faster, and to get around Risa more ably. Perhaps also some swimwear or surfwear, so you actually look like you’re having a relaxing time on the resort planet.
Now I’ll list the Baseball Vanity Shields, because space Barbie is STO’s endgame:
Andorian Blue Bores
Bozeman Titans
Caitian Claws
Deep Space “Niners”
Denebian Slime Devils
Ferenginar Liquidators
Stem Bolts
Vulcan Logicians
Workbees
The Risian Kit (not the Risian Vulcanology Kit Frame) can be terrifyingly effective when upgraded and Re-engineered…just take a look at this! A note: In order to get [kperf]x3 you have to buy it, put it in the upgrade window to make it Mk XII rather than scaling, reengineer it to [kperf]x2, then upgrade it. It gets [kperf] as an ultra rare mod so once it hits ultra rare you’ll have your [kperf]x3 kit. Do not upgrade it to ultra rare before reengineering as you will then run into the limit of 2 mods of the same type that normally applies to kits. Just an oddity of the item.
(screenshot credit to Yuri)
Especially if you can find 5 Summer Event kit modules you like :).
Speaking of kit modules, there are a fair number available now. There are only a couple of real stand-outs. Graviton Spike, if you’re tactical and use the Boolean Cannon lobi weapon. Ball Lightning can also be quite good. None of the others are just terrible as far as I know.
Likewise, the Boff ground abilities are competent but not amazing or must-have.
Rainbow Tribbles can be very good for your away team.
Speaking of Tribbles, there are a few special varieties you can breed with food items only available from vendors during the festival. The food items are unbound and sellable on the Exchange, so you could also find them there.
Grand Slam Tribbles: Effect – Removes all previous Tribble Buffs
+2.5% Run Speed for 3,600 sec
+5% Bonus All Damage with Melee Attacks for 3,600 sec
Bred by getting any tribble to eat:
Nachos, Hotdog, Peanuts, Caramel-Coated Popcorn, Blueberries, Egg White Burrito, Green Juice (Extra Green), Spumoni Ice Cream, Stadium Soft drink, or Jipper. All available for 5-8 Lohlunat Favors from a Risian Bartender.
Lohlunat Tribbles: Effect – Removes all previous Tribble Buffs
+2.5 Psionic Damage Resistance Rating for 3,600 sec
+0.03 Health Regeneration for 3,600 sec
During Summer Event: +5 Flight Speed for 1.5 sec
+0.05 Inertia Rating for 1.5 sec
Bred by getting any tribble to eat:
Rokassa Juice, Risian Mai-Tai, Risian Wine, Chocolate Passion Punch, Baked Risian Beans, Icoberry Torte, Palamarian Sea Urchins, or Oysters Rockefeller. All available for 5 Lohlunat Favors from a Risian Bartender.
Risian Tribbles: Effect – Removes all previous Tribble Buffs
+0.05 Health Regeneration for 3,600 sec
+1% Maximum Hit Points for 3,600 sec
During Summer Event: 5 Flight Speed to Self and Friends within 4.5m for 3600 sec
0.05 Inertia to Self and Friends within 4.5m for 3600 sec
Bred by getting any tribble to eat:
Bajoran Mojito, Caracal Bowl, Risian Sunrise, or Suraya Bay Iced Tea. All available for 8 Lohlunat Favors from a Risian Bartender.
You may notice that the Risian Tribble is good for doing stuff during the festival, since it increases your flight speed and maneuverability slightly…every little bit helps when you’re trying to take that first flag!
On the Promenade, there’s a vendor that sells blue (Rare) and purple (Very Rare) Duty Officers in three Specializations (Conn Officers, Entertainers, and Geologists) for Lohlunat Favors. Blues for 200 Favors, Purples for 1000 Favors. The blues, I believe, are available to anyone. The purples, however, you need to get the Master Relaxer Accolade to unlock. I’ll talk about that more shortly.
Accolades
There are a number of Accolades only earnable during the Lohlunat Festival on Risa. The most important of these is Master Relaxer, as it’s required to unlock the purple duty officers I talked about above. To get Master Relaxer, you have to get a number of lesser Accolades on Risa.
Try to practice Mok’Bara with a Klingon.
Klingons spawn around the island hourly on the xx:30. If you’re Fed (or Fed-allied), they’ll refuse to teach you Mok’Bara and give you an accolade. If you’re KDF (or KDF-allied), they’ll teach you and allow you to perform it with them, and give you an accolade. My understanding is that they either go away after someone talks to them, or are only spawned for a minute or so, so be waiting to do so. The map I posted above for the Horga’hn Hunt also has the Klingon spawn locations on it (purple circles).
Take a walk on Risa’s boardwalk.
You probably completed this when you first came to Risa and walked over to the Event Coordinator to turn in the “Welcome to Risa” introductory mission. Or when you went to the floater vendor to get your rental floater. I just took a brand new character to Risa and had this completed even before I got to the floater vendor hut, let alone talked to the EC.
Balance yourself on the swinging bridge.
The rope bridge on the volcano behind the Resort. Land on it or walk across it.
Fly to the tip of the inactive volcano.
Pretty simple, just fly up to and land on the tallest point on the island behind the Resort.
Walk on the roof of Risa’s hotel.
Again, just fly up to and land on (or brush against) the roof of the Resort building.
Fly beneath one of Risa’s archways.
There are 3 of them. You could site-to-site transport to either the Promenade and head north, or site-to-site to Sovak’s Camp and follow the river east.
Observe an argument between a Klingon and a Trill.
This one will require some explanation. In the before-times (in this case, before lighting 2.0), Risa used to have a Day/Night cycle. When nightfall occurred, there’d be a fireworks display, and also a Klingon and Trill would spawn by the floater vendor hut out on the boardwalk and start arguing. Both of those things still happen, but without the whole nightfall thing. I have no idea how to tell when nightfall is about to happen though, so just…hang out at the vendor hut for…an hour or two maybe? IDK. If anyone has a better idea, please let me know and I’ll edit the guide to reflect that heh.
Land on both of Risa’s Lighthouses.
One lighthouse is on the southeast point of the island, right between the Resort and the Promenade. The other is in the northeast, just northeast of Sovak’s Camp.
Become a Seeker Commander by participating in Pavyl’s game.
Pavyl is a NPC on the beach to the southeast of the Resort. If you speak with him, he’ll give you the opportunity to play a game with him to become more familiar with the odd nooks and crannies of the resort island. It’s basically hide and seek across the whole place. He’ll give you a riddle/clue to how to find him before he disappears. Go and find him, then meet him back on the beach to do it again. He has 4 hiding spots, but I got Master Relaxer done after two, so I guess the last two are just extra credit :D. If you don’t want to be spoiled on where to find him, don’t follow this link. Pavyl.