[Lhivera]

Depends what you enjoy. I have about ten characters. Lhivera is my main, but there are about a half-dozen others that I play for change of pace or because I enjoy a particular concept she’s not suited for: a Ferengi in a D’Kora, a member of the Andorian Imperial Guard, a crusty old scientist coming out of retirement after the war and talking Admiral Quinn to give him a decommissioned Constellation-class ship for exploration, stuff like that. I don’t really care about role (it doesn’t matter a whole lot in this game), but I do care about character identity; I keep a given character in a single ship (though on occasion he or she will move from an old ship to a new one — but I don’t regularly swap between a set of ships), and I don’t respec characters unless I’m in the process of figuring them out (which happens less now that I know the system better). I don’t spec to min/max, I spec to reflect the character concept.

All these characters do come in handy for dilithium farming; on a dilithium weekend I stand to bring in some 300k-400k dilithium just by burning some mining claims, and there’s a steady trickle the rest of the time from admiralty and reputation climbing. But there are several I lay rarely (just tired of the concept), and others I maybe only log in briefly for a day but will play consistently for a weekend or a week if I’m in the mood to work on them.

Note that this all comes from the perspective of someone who doesn’t care about min/maxing. I enjoy knowing how the systems work, but I’m just not interested in using that knowledge to maximize numbers, except perhaps as a third or fourth priority behind other things I find more enjoyable and interesting. If your goal is to build a single character to be as strong as you possibly can, alts can serve to help feed that character resources, but you may not get as much enjoyment out of playing alts as many of us do. To each their own!

[Lhivera]

@Marcase wrote:

Goodbye Part Gens, Goodbye Flow Caps… Goodbye true Sci builds… it was fun while it lasted. 😳

I don’t think Part Gens is gone. It didn’t appear to be listed as rolled into either the drain or control buckets. So I’m guessing that it still exists as a separate stat.

[Lhivera]

Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s not terribly dissimilar to the old WoW talent trees (which, as it happens, WoW no longer has).

I like that they’re trying to rebalance beams and cannons, but what I would really like is for mixed beam/cannon/turret build to become more comparable. It’s a pretty big advantage to be able to hit one ability that affects all your weapons, vs using two slots that each affect half your weapons. Surgical Strikes doesn’t really balance the scales.

[Lhivera]

Aye. And now it seems a bunch of people who have never logged in with a Windows machine or emulator are also being excluded, because…reasons? In fact, between Twitter, Reddit, and the official forum thread, I have yet to see a single user who HAS received a reimbursement.

[Lhivera]

It looks like they’re largely reneging on the Zen reimbursement. If you ever logged into your account, even once, from a Windows machine or using an emulator, they are saying you aren’t a Mac user and aren’t eligible for the reimbursement. Bear in mind here that when New Dawn launched, the Mac client broke completely. Many people (including myself) used a home-rolled wineskin client so we could at least log in. Performance wasn’t high enough to engage in real gameplay, but I could use the auction house and chat. Everyone who did so is disqualified.

A discussion of the whole thing that I’ve linked on Twitter:
https://www.icloud.com/pages/0004RCGQFkKxXVRPt-m3DgTxA#PWE_Mac_Reimbursements

[Lhivera]

Check the Dyson Sphere missions. One of them rewards the Ancient Omni-directional Beam Array, which is antiproton and can be fitted with a crafted omni AP beam. Another (or possibly the same) mission also rewards the obelisk warp core, which makes a two-part set with the ancient omni beam that gives a 10% increase to AP damage. (Though an Amp core is going to be better, probably, as it will also increase your exotic damage.)

Other than that, I don’t recall any off the top of my head.

[Lhivera]

I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to switch costume parts around between any of the three variants and the old Odyssey.

[Lhivera]

If the Commander seating in each variant were appropriate to the profession, I think I could have fun with one of these on my science captain, but alas, it is not. That said, I have an engineering captain in a Odyssey, and I will happily upgrade him to a Sojourner, though I may fiddle with the costume a bit. Stats aside, I really like what they did with the modeling.

[Lhivera]

I wound up ordering one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883283459

2.7GHz i5 6400, 12GB RAM, 2TB disk, Intel HD Graphics 530. Lots of places are selling these refurbished for less than $500. I figure I can add a discrete GPU later. Power supply is not strong (only 300W), but this discussion here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2856975/graphics-card-envy-750-114.html

…suggests that a GTX 950 shouldn’t be problematic, given the low power draw of the CPU.

[Lhivera]

Having poked around both Staples and Best Buy, it appears that they barely carry desktop models in-store anymore. So I’ll probably just put a list of parts together and order from Newegg and build my own. Maybe I can get a copy of Windows 7 cheap and take advantage of the free upgrade to 10. I may draw from these lists here:

http://elitegamingcomputers.com/good-cheap-gaming-computers/

If I need to skimp on something, maybe I’ll get a cheap-but-adequate GPU and then upgrade it later.

[Lhivera]

Boy, I have no knowledge of PC hardware at all. Last time I used one outside of work was 15 years ago, when I built a little headless FreeBSD server.

So, the hardware I’ve been using since 2011 (my Mini is older than I remembered!) is as follows:

2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6630M
256 MB VRAM

Running in the Cider wrapper, the official client gets pretty mediocre FPS at near-minimum settings. There are some i3 and i5 PCs with integrated graphics in my current price range available, but I have no idea how those compare to a five-year-old i7 with a Radeon card. (I was originally going to try saving some money by building my own, but then I realized I don’t own Windows, and buying a copy would pretty much eat up the savings.)

Any recommendation on minimum hardware required to run STO at medium-to-full settings?

[Lhivera]

Oh, charming, check it out:

[*] We will be canceling and refunding any active recurring subscriptions purchased between October 1, 2015 and today, including Lifetime Subscriptions. If a payment was made other than a credit card or Paypal, the value of the subscription will be reimbursed to your Arc Account Balance.
[*] We will be reimbursing any Zen that was purchased through Arc or Steam between October 1, 2015 and today to your Arc Account Balance.
[*] We will be reimbursing the value of any Packs purchased through Arc or Steam between October 1, 2015 and today to your Arc Account Balance.

So, presumably this means I get back the $100 worth of Zen I purchased a month ago.

I guess so we Mac users can use this refunded Zen in their other games.

…which are all Windows-only.

Yeah, twist the knife…just like that.

[Lhivera]

@Jim44281 wrote:

@Lhivera wrote:

It’d be awesome to be able to run STO at max graphics settings, but cost is the primary concern, since I won’t be using it for anything but gaming, if I actually do this.

I’m just curious what you’d consider your budget to be if you were to look for a pc to use for gaming?

Very small. I don’t really do a lot of gaming. Having an MMO to play is valuable to me because a good chunk of my life is providing care for a chronically ill family member, and it lets me kind of turn my brain off and relax when I’m not actively caregiving but need to be available, but I generally have just one game that I play, and that’s about it. For nine years it was WoW, for the past two, STO.

So it’s a machine that is basically for playing one game, while a $500 four-year-old Mac handles all my other computing needs. Since people have been telling me for 20 years that they can build a PC for half the cost of a Mac that will blow it away in performance, I’m hoping that wasn’t crazy exaggeration and that I can get away with something in the $300-$400 range (considerably more than half, but it is four years old, after all). The Saab is still in the shop, and its gearbox is in St. Louis awaiting a part from Europe, so I’ve got a couple big bills coming in to get it back on the road — can’t justify much for a gaming-only machine.

I found some suggested setups here. Any thoughts?
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Felitegamingcomputers.com%2Fgood-cheap-gaming-computers%2F&h=wAQFB9v0t

[Lhivera]

@Damix wrote:

Big fail from their side. Why did they started it if they aren’t capable of supporting it.

Are there any other emulators so you can launch it from Mac?

I used a WINE wrapper during the problems with the Mac client back during New Dawn launch. It works, but it’s too sluggish for regular use.

It’s also possible to use Boot Camp to dual-boot a Mac between OS X and Windows, but frankly that’s just too much of a pain in my butt. I really need to be able to toggle between the game and other stuff I do without having to reboot.

I think another factor in this may be outside their control: as I understand it, Transgaming, the company that made the compatibility wrapper they used (which is WINE-based, but better optimized), has sold their emulation assets to Nvidia. It may well be that Cryptic no longer has anyone to support and update the Mac wrapper.

[Lhivera]

In truth, this is largely a consequence of Apple’s relentless pursuit of thinner, lighter, more energy efficient, in all things. They make beautiful, slender hardware, but essentially every device they make except the Mac Pro is now using mobile graphics hardware, because there’s no room for anything else. And not many people who aren’t doing heavy graphics, scientific, or video work are using Mac Pros. They’ve prioritized their form factor design goals over game performance. Which is understandable, because it works for them, but it’s also understandable for game developers to balk at trying to work around the resulting limitations.

A few months ago I started to toy with the idea of picking up an inexpensive gaming PC. After it was announced that Overwatch wouldn’t be coming for Mac — remember that Blizzard has had simultaneous Windows and Mac releases for every game in the past twenty years or so — 85 seemed like the writing was on the wall. So if anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to put them out there. Ideally I’d like something with a small form factor that runs very quiet (I’m used to my Mac Mini being nearly silent). I don’t need a monitor, but I’ll need to find a switch so I can toggle my monitor between the Mac and the Windows box. It’d be awesome to be able to run STO at max graphics settings, but cost is the primary concern, since I won’t be using it for anything but gaming, if I actually do this.

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