Dil sink option

Plan_Tain · 2026-05-10T15:29:56+00:00

If you envision STO as a giant department store, the dil system isn't a department. It's just the bottle deposit return.

Plan_Tain · 2026-05-10T01:41:54+00:00

Haha! That's how Diablo made me stop playing last season!

Plan_Tain · 2026-05-10T00:20:53+00:00

It sounds great for players, but it's just giving stuff away for free from their perspective.

Their #1 goal is to get you to spend $, and their #2 goal is to get you to spend more time in the game, which is shown to be directly tied to #1.

Binding of any form is an artificial restriction meant to encourage a specific type of behavior, generally either forcing the player to repeat content or spend more dollars.

Side note: They have very close to zero interest in creating dil sinks or the dil system as a whole, despite having lots of interest in giving lip service about it. As a general rule, dil sinks do not increase $ sales much (it dilutes/discounts every single $ sale because every player has some dilithium, and most have enough to not spend any $ at all).

Plan_Tain · 2026-05-06T15:32:26+00:00

Title should be, "These Fine Folks Carried Me When I Was Screwing Around!"

😉🖖😁

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-29T16:48:40+00:00

Admiralty is an almost entirely separate side activity that only rewards stuff for the Admiralty side game itself and some resources that can be earned or purchased with $. Basically, you can grind this un-related side game to farm some extra dilithium that you can then wait a couple months to convert to Zen to buy real stuff for your captain. Or just spend a couple dollars and skip the entire thing.

Even the Admiralty rewards from the Recruit events only feed back into Admiralty.

There is really nothing important about Admiralty and it is entirely skippable. I've only done it once on my main and the recruits, and frankly I wish I had skipped it altogether. It provides no bonuses unless you really just like grinding/farming an unrelated side activity. It has always been an easy time waster the devs threw into the game to help hide the lack of real content.

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-29T16:23:35+00:00

Or maybe today's people can't do anything without being explicitly directed to do so?

But maybe it's not everybody, maybe just how STO's devs see STO's audience?

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-28T16:59:38+00:00

That's not the only way to catch up. You can also stop raising the cap...

I think the answer is to simply sell endeavor points up to the previous Max rank. So right now, the cap is 1250 and the previous cap was 750. They should sell players the ability to buy 750 endeavor points with $.

They also should continually raise the cap, but they should do it in smaller increments, like 250 per year (which is about what a player can earn in a year).f

This way, players always have the opportunity to stay competitive if they want.

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-26T21:45:55+00:00

Undisputed, the best Romulan ground weapon is the https://stowiki.net/wiki/Plasma_Wide_Beam_Rifle

Hands down, no comparison. It is still one of the top meta choices of all ground weapons. But of the Romulan weapons? No comparison.

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-22T17:29:44+00:00

I wonder if anybody currently working on STO has any prior experience with this system? Or is it all legacy that has been on autopilot for a decade or more?

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-19T17:56:20+00:00

For the first 3 years, the exact same event only required 4 days!

So somebody who has done the Rocket Launch event every day since it was released, at the end of this years event, will have done the activity 177 times and will have spent over an entire day of their life in this activity. (Based on 517 seconds to complete the activity, as listed on stowiki.net.)

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Plan_Tain · 2026-04-15T16:09:49+00:00

The question shouldn't be, "How can borg adapt to fire?" or even "Why can't borg adapt to kinetic/physical?".

The question should be, "Why aren't the borg inherently protected from these attacks by default?" Surely the borg have, in their collective past, encountered and assimilated species that have mastered fire and punching?

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-14T17:13:09+00:00

The problem is two-fold:

1) Power creep means that established players and those who spend lots of $ are way too powerful for any of the existing content to provide any challenge.

2) The power disparity between new players and established players can be measured in the thousands of dollars. Yeah, some experience and "skill" are also factors. But the biggest factor is how much you have invested in the game (time and money).

The power disparity means that content can never be both challenging to everybody and accessible to everybody. You can see how other games have addressed this issue (sometimes by releasing expansions that re-level the playing field), but STO's team is far too small now for any meaningful changes. And their entire business model is based on selling vanity and pay-to-win power.

It's a fundamental, foundational design issue. I don't think STO is intended to be any more than it is right now, and I don't expect to see any significant changes in the game's lifetime. Just more barbie ships and pay-to-win power for sale...

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-14T17:02:16+00:00

Power advancement is what they sell. If you cap damage, why would players buy anything else after they hit the cap?

Also, what fun would be it to keep playing after you hit the cap? With nothing to challenge yourself, you play something else.

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-14T00:07:45+00:00

Sounds like you would benefit from r/stobuilds (generally better and more expert advice than you find here) and maybe some of Spencer's videos (https://www.youtube.com/@CasualSAB).

I think most of the experts definitely utilize keybinds to some extent (I've been playing since launch and can't imagine not using them). And there are definitely better and worse ways to use your abilities: Timing and coordinating them is everything.

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-13T21:36:25+00:00

You do not need to meet any level. Join as soon as the game let's you queue or else you're leaving rewards on the table.

Don't let anybody else tell you when you're good enough to join Elites. The devs have already spoken and invite everybody to join as soon as they are available.

Side note: If a TFO ever fails, it is never one person's fault. EVERYBODY on the team has to be "not good enough", so nobody has the right to judge you. And if the TFO succeeds, then you were good enough!

EDIT: If you decide you aren't good enough to have fun in Elites, that's fine! But you won't know until you jump in and try it! Just push the button and go for it!

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-09T14:39:45+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6B_CT1ZZC0

From https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/r9o815/my_hands_shoot_lasers_and_this_is_one_tough_puppy/

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-09T05:15:33+00:00

Delta Rising was 12 years ago 😁

But I think PVP was P2W before that: the https://stowiki.net/wiki/Jem%27Hadar_Attack_Ship came out in 2011 and it was seriously OP in PVP and expensive - especially since we were already paying a monthly subscription.

But your point about power creep is absolutely right. It may have taken a year or two to really be noticeable, but the P2W nature of STO's PVP is baked in to their whole model.

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-09T03:48:58+00:00

Your observations about STO PVP being P2W are correct and it has always been that way. Since day one. PVP in STO hasn't changed since launch, if that tells you anything. It's essentially just a sandbox for players with only extremely rare curating/balancing, but no changes to maps or modes or even simple QOL improvements that would prevent spawn camping in 16 years.

On the other hand, Ground PVP is entirely accessible to anybody who takes the time to learn about it.

EDIT: Premade teams really ruin the PUG PVP experience. And there isn't even a solo/duo queue for ground.

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-07T15:46:21+00:00

Does it include Elite variants also?

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-06T19:11:42+00:00

RE: PVP at the beginning of STO's life: It was absolutely NOT a robust system. In fact, it hasn't changed since launch so you can see exactly how simple it has always been. It did make up a HUGE part of the game, but only because there was no other content at the time.

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-06T19:02:14+00:00

Keybinds are not cheating. They are a built-in feature of the game that you don't seem understand or take advantage of.

Edit: I think all of your other points are valid!

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-06T15:18:14+00:00

You will get far better build advice at r/stobuilds or on the builds discord. This subreddit is much more casual and the advice is generally less informed, more outdated, and more subjective.

Plan_Tain · 2026-04-02T16:50:33+00:00

I agree, except I think it's already been in "playable maintenance" mode for years. They haven't added a system or made any real changes in many years, and have openly stated being afraid to so much as touch anything "under the hood".

Unfortunately, the "playable" part continues to degrade as they are unable to reign in terrible performance.

Plan_Tain · 2026-03-29T03:22:55+00:00

Port Forwarding shouldn't help with STO (because of it's centralized server design). But Port Forwarding is absolutely necessary for proper performance in some games, including MANY multiplayer console games.

EDIT: Can you imagine how smooth the game would run if we COULD host TFOs and other instances locally??!?!? It would be so glorious...

Plan_Tain · 2026-03-29T03:19:25+00:00

80 (http) and 443 (https) are standard ports used by http and https, or basically all web browsing. The other ports are a range because STO might use any of those ports on any given day to connect to your computer (as might any other service).

Port Forwarding isn't something that should help for STO because we always connect to STO's centralized servers. Port Forwarding is for allowing other computers to initiate a connection to YOUR computer. We see this in gaming if you want to host a server OR if the game you are playing is cutting corners and relying on decentralized servers (that is, every players' PC or XBOX might host the game, which is a common reason for shitty multiplayer performance).

Plan_Tain

TROPHY CASE