The first fleet training exercises of the Federation News Service went well, once we got things figured out. The original plan was to get as many captains together and attempt a Fleet Action. Unfortunately we found that Fleet Actions are currently rank restricted, meaning that Commanders go to a different instance than Captains who are in a different instance than Admirals. This was problematic since we had three Rear Admirals, one Captain (me), and one Commander. Originally this wasn’t the case, but I know there were issues with scaling when an Admiral would spawn the initial instance, so I can understand why the instances are restricted. Plus having a rank include 10 levels means that the Fleet Actions are still fairly open. Still it meant no Fleet Action in Tostig for the FNS. Instead we headed to the Beta Ursae sector block to find a few Deep Space Encounters, these weren’t quite challenging enough, so we headed into Cardassian space to the Kora sector in Zeta Andromedae.
We also had some problems getting everyone into the same instance. Apparently the DSE’s are capped at five players, so when we entered an existing one our team was split across multiple instances. Switching instances isn’t hard, but it is a pain when you have to wait for spaces to open up in the instance where the rest of your team is. What the game should have done was spawn a new instance for us if there weren’t any that could accommodate a full team, I guess I need to go to the suggestion forum and make a post.
Once we were all in an instance together, we did have quite a bit of fun. This was the first real team experience I’ve had in STO, and it was interesting to get the hang of coordinating with other players. I have teamed up in the past, but not in situations where I needed to worry about tactics or keeping an eye on my teammate’s shield indicators.
All in all it was a good learning experience and a lot of fun, I’m looking forward to our next Fleet engagement and hopefully I’ll be a Rear Admiral, grade 1, by then.
I did take quite a few screenshots, or at least I though I was, but I’ve been having an issue where Fraps sometimes doesn’t recognize my game. I did take a few using the built-in screenshot function, which I’ve embedded below or you can look at them here.
Tipa did get a good shot of the fleet and a good write up (as always). Longasc has quite a few good shots as well (the link is the starting point for the fleet exercise).
