STO Update: State of the Game + ‘Special Task Force Missions’ Details, Video & Screenshots

Star Trek Online has been out just a few weeks, but the game continues to evolve and expand. Cryptic have now announced a new State of the game, which gives you a update as to what is next, including new ‘raid’ missions. We have full details on these ‘Special Task Force Missions’ including video and screenshots.

 

State of the Game

Cryptic have put up a new ‘state of the game’ announcing the latest and what is coming next including adjustments to the game, like "death penalties" and "Improving Memory Alpha". Read the full state of the game at startrekonline

One of the things announced was new five-man "Special Task Force Missions’. TrekMovie has been provided with more details, as well as a video and screenshots of these ‘raid’ missions

Special Task Force Missions
If you’re looking for a challenge, look no further than our upcoming “Special Task Force” Missions – Raid Episodes, which combine bold storytelling with our toughest five-man missions yet. These are just a few of the Raid Episodes we’ll be rolling out over the coming weeks, beginning a week after launch. Raid Episodes are available to both Federation and Klingon players.

STF: Infected
Starfleet has lost contact with one of its star bases. More than 400 officers could be lost, including a key member of Starfleet’s Borg Task Force. Infiltrate the base and take the fight to the Borg!

  • Retake the Sibiran system and shut down a transwarp conduit being used by the Borg to establish a foothold in the Gamma Orionis Sector Block.
  • Investigate the strange new nanovirus the Borg are using to assimilate entire worlds at alarming speeds.
  • Retake Starbase 89 before it is fully taken overrun by the Borg, and save what is left of the Starfleet personnel that are still there.
  • Locate Captain Ogen’s Strike Team and Rebecca Simmons, the lead Borg Task Force researcher working on a cure for the nanovirus. Both went deep into the Borg infected starbase and haven’t reported back in quite some time.
  • Infected is an extremely challenging a five-man mission, designed for a full party of players level 43 and higher.
  • Lockstep teamwork and strategy will be required to defeat one of the toughest challenges yet in Star Trek Online.
  • Releasing February 2010.

STF: The Cure
The Klingon Defense Force has been conducting its own investigation into the Borg advance, and they believe that the Collective’s next target is the Vorn system. Enemies may have to unite when confronted by a greater foe. 

  • Assist the I.K.S. Kang in a desperate battle with the Borg.
  • Explore a planet that has been completely assimilated. Can you rescue the warriors before they are taken over by the Borg?
  • Fight at the side of Ja’rod, son of Lursa.
  • Free Klingon ships from Borg control, and gain their assistance in a final battle with a Borg fleet.

STF: Khitomer Accord
Finally, the mysteries of the Borg attack on Vega Colony are revealed! Why did the Borg attack there, and how was an unprepared Starfleet able to defeat them?

  • Confront the Borg before they can use temporal anomalies to change the past of the Federation.
  • Warp back into your own past, in the hours before the attack on Vega Colony.
  • Discover a base where thousands of Borg drones are being held in stasis. What are the Borg’s plans for this hidden army?
  • Starfleet’s not ready for the Borg. A defeat here could mean that the entire Alpha Quadrant falls. Balance the scales and fight the Borg for the preservation of the quadrant.
  • Learn the fate of a missing Romulan empress.

STF: Into the Hive
The fate of the Alpha Quadrant hangs in the balance. Enter a unicomplex and confront the Borg Queen herself.

  • Rescue civilians trapped on an assimilated world.
  • Follow the trail to a unicomplex, and penetrate deep into the Borg stronghold.
  • Confront the Borg Queen, and fight for the fate of the galaxy.

STF: Children of Khan
Amar Singh escapes from Federation custody, and he and an underground group of Augments steal the U.S.S. Asgard and race toward the remains of the Mutara Nebula. Can you stop them before they start a new Eugenics War?

  • Fight a fleet assembled by Princep Khan and his followers.
  • Beam onto the Asgard, and battle through its corridors to save civilians and crew.
  • Confront the Princep. Can you deal with his transporter tricks?
  • Save the divided Asgard and give the saucer section a chance to escape!

"Infected" mission video

"Infected" mission screenshots

 

 

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Looks good. As an avid player, I have to say that this game is getting better and better.

resistance is futile…I must buy this game!!

Flying Jolly Rancher in the second pic he he he he

@ #3 The ‘Jolly Rancher’ is probably a Borg Transwarp Hub…

I wish Cryptic would give us some idea of what level we need our characters to be to do these missions. I have a feeling they are all high end stuff.

I went to buy this the other day and then it hit me…”I OWN A MAC” which is not supported! Thanks cryptic!

Yes. Lack of Mac support is frustrating.

Also, the name “Asgard” is surely hexed at this stage…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asgard_II

She was considered a bit of a national treasure before this happened. Her namesake was used to run german weapons to Ireland in 1916.

Just install windows 7 on your mac as i did. Works fine on a macbook pro =)

#5 – But the commercials say I don’t need a PC anymore!

This game is trash. Cryptic is a garbage developer now. Look at how they screwed over the CO and STO players. They dropped the price of STO 3 weeks after launch and are giving new players 90 days of free time. Cryptic hasn’t made a good game since CoX and those games got a lot better once they pawned them off to NCsoft. I will never be burned by Cryptic again and waste my hard earned money on their rushed garbage.

Don’t buy this game, don’t buy into the hype. Look at all the bad reviews for the game and the once Cryptic fanboys & apologists are finally admitting the game has no end game, was rushed, full of bugs, boring & repetitive!

at 9 @ 10

I agree, this game is repetitive trash and it bears little resemblance to Gene Roddenberrys vision of Star Trek.
I canceled my account the other day and THANKED GOD that didn’t I pony out my cash for the Lifetime account.
You can criticize me for my opinions, but for the die-hard fans of STO to think that this game has a Future, is like reading the tale of the Emperors new cloths.

A lot of Pew Pew and Boom Boom. STO is not what I have in mind when thinking of Star Trek. I think the universe of Lucas is better equiped for that. Star Wars The Old Republic seems more rewarding. Not only in style of storytelling, but also in artwork. It smells and tastes like Star Wars.

With STO I just don’t get the real Trekfeeling. Where’s the exploring?

To #5 and #6… check out this link from the STO forums…

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=76799&highlight=macintosh

Some genius figured out to configure Wine into a self-containing Wineskin wrapper that will run STO without the need for Parallels, Boot Camp or VM Fusion. It runs great and takes full advantage of native RAM and Video cards. I’m running STO thru Wineskin on a MacBook Pro, 4GB RAM, Dual Video cards and have had no problems. Check out the link, read thru the forum posting and see if it’ll work for you.

Re: #11… I have to agree, the game does seem a bit repetitive but I think we need to give the dev team more time. I don’t think Cryptic spent the same amount of lead dev time on STO as Blizzard did on WoW, so a lot of issues will be solved post-launch. I’m on the monthly payment plan and will hang around as long as I see improvement.

Lt. Shras V’ral
U.S.S. Challenger
NCC-94238

There is some unofficial Mac support on the forums. Lots of people have gotten the game working on Mac’s with only a 5-10 fps loss compared to Windows.

they(cryptic) bring all these borg and species 8472 stuff but they still dont make tihs game exploration and diplomacy based mmo. as matter of fact, star trek needs a mass effect kind of game. or sto needed to be more like mass effect series. too late for that anyway.

Cryptic is working on more exploration and more ship interiors as we speak. I’ve been a Trek fan as long as I can remember, and saw Star Trek The Next Generation from the beginning in 1987 and watched every last new Trek until I finally gave up on Enterprise after year 3 (Thanks Berman and Braga).

I’m loving this game and only wish I could spend more time on it. I’ve only been able to play the game for an hour and a half in the last two & a half weeks!

The money I didn’t spend on STO (because I was lucky enough to play the beta and realise how brain dead it is) I spent on Modern Warfare 2 which is a pretty brain dead game.

The money I saved not paying a subscription fee for STO bought me Supreme Commander 2.

Sorry STO, until you reach the $10 or less bin and no sub fee not getting my money!

I was very reluctant to buy this game based on the reviews but i do NOT regret my decision: the game is awesome. The space gameplay/combat harkens back to the ol’ Starfleet Command glory days. You have shield fronts, you can do very “Trek-like” things like re-route power to the forward shields, fire a tachyon beam to weaken the enemies shield, fire a spread of torpedoes at an opportune time, take evasive action…etc. I loved the Starfleet Command series on PC but this game is WAY more Trek-like. And while the ground combat/gameplay is quite basic, it’s a nice break in pace from the space stuff and is gratifying in it’s own way.

Yes, this game has a heavy emphasis on combat but no one complained as much during Starfleet Command, Bridge Commander, or Elite Force (all well-received games). However, there are some very Trek-like missions. E.g. go rescue a freighter under attack by pirates, beam over and rescue the freighter crew, stop the warp core breach in progress, beam out. I mean, it doesn’t get anymore “Star Trek” than that. Yes more diplomacy/exploration would be nice, but that does not really translate that well into a videogame.

There are TONS of in-references for Trek fans that just shows how much love Cryptic but into this thing. There are lots of locales from the show (Space station K-7, DS9, Wolf-359, etc), and the open mission structure allows for unparalled freedom than seen before in a Trek game. I admit I’ve never played an MMO, but this is by far the best and most comprehensive Star Trek game I’ve ever played.

I had high hopes for this game. I was frustrated with the BETA but kept telling myself this is the nature of BETA. I played it after it went live and was grateful that most of the bugs had been worked out. The server did crash more than I would of liked but I remember that being a issue with World of Warcraft, esp the first year. In the end what killed this game for me was it’s lame ground missions and repetitive space missions. After level twelve I just gave up. It was too much of the same. I will say the first ten levels were fairly enjoyable. I have 30″ 2500×1600 res monitor and the space battles looked amazing. The ground missions visuals were terrible considering todays technology. It looks five years out of date or worse. Mass Effect 2 has a similar style and is way better visually and story wise. I wish Cryptic had hooked up with Bioware instead of Lucas Arts :( I prefer Star Trek to Star Wars in most circumstances but Star Wars The Old Republic is most likely going to blow away STO in every way. I really, really wanted to like this game. Thanks Cryptic for trying but … it reminds me of Star Trek V – The Final Frontier. Good effort but Cryptic like Shatner doesn’t know how to direct…lol

How on earth can any Trek fan be so turned off to this game???
DONT belive the haters… I was very reluctant as well. Doubted the news about it for 2 years. I thought there was no way they would make this work.
I was wrong.
It is Star Trek. ( when was Star Trek NOT repetitive? )
Outstanding game. I cannot stop playing. I’m an old school Trek fan and for those who say it does not live up to Roddenberry’s vision of the future, I remind you that the same was said for DS9, VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE.
Ignore the haters.
GET THIS GAME.

Purchased a year subscription and the frosted side brings out the kid in me!

Captain Charlie Goodnight
USS Rowling
Starfleet Tactical Division

I love the game, I wish I had more time to play.

Do I find faults with it? Sure. But no game is perfect, especially at launch and Cryptic has been pretty good about addressing bugs and player ideas.

And most of the good Star Trek games out there have been about combat, Starfleet Command series, Voyager: Elite Force, Klingon Academy.

Don’t believe the hype or the diss, get ahold of a trial and decide for yourself.

the game has come a long way since it was released last year and it’s only getting better.