Release notes/20100304

Greetings!
The team is very excited to bring to you the first of our new Special Task Force missions (formerly referred to as "Raidisodes"). In the coming weeks you will see a wealth of updates coming to the game and we look forward to your comments and feedback as we continue to work on fixing bugs, addressing your concerns, and adding the features that you are looking for in the game. Here are the release notes for this week's update. Enjoy!

New Features
Our first Special Task Force mission is now ready for you and your friends to enjoy.

In "Infected," you'll travel to the Sibiran system to investigate Starbase 82, a Federation space station that has ceased communicating with Starfleet. As you arrive, you're in for a true nightmare scenario: The Borg have taken Starbase 82, and are in the process of assimilating the people aboard!

As you investigate the station, an acquaintance from your past is looking forward to greeting you in an epic encounter that will require skill, teamwork and maybe a little bit of luck to survive.

The "Infected" is designed and scaled for a 5 Captain away team and requires a coordinated effort to survive the challenges of the episode. No Bridge Officers are allowed on the ground portions of this mission.

Quick "Infected" Facts
 * Klingon and Federation players both have access to this Special Task Force once they reach level 45.
 * It is a daily repeatable mission from the time the mission is taken.
 * Special Mark X gear that can be used by either faction drops in the mission
 * Mission success against bosses provides Marks of Valor, which will be valuable for a special gear store coming in the 45-day update.
 * The Federation and Klingon Empire are now tentatively working together to fight the Borg and can be on the same Deepspace encounter maps against the Borg.

Level 43 Klingon faction players now have access to the Borg Sector Klingon Faction players can talk to their remote contact to get the hand-off mission and use the new Transwarp gate near Qonos to access the Borg Staging Fleet area where the Federation had already setup shop. The Klingon Empire and Federation have a tentative cease fire agreement in place in order to deal with this new Borg threat – so players of both factions will be able to access this map.

Klingon players may also undertake repeatable Deepspace missions against the Borg. While the cease-fire doesn’t allow teaming between Federation and Klingon faction players, all players can compete on the same Deepspace maps for glory against the Borg. Note that Klingon faction players do not have access to the Star Cluster at this time.

Repeatable Mission Changes We have reintroduced a change to help clean up your remote contact list by limiting what repeatable missions are offered to you as you level up. Repeatable missions are anything from Star Cluster exploration, to Sector Defense where you must secure sectors from wandering enemies.

Here's how the change works. Repeatable missions will only be offered to you via Remote Contact if you are within the appropriate level range for the mission OR if you are nearby in the sector where the mission takes place. This means if you are above the suggested level range for the mission, it will not show up in Remote Contacts and will not be offered to you unless you travel back to the location where there mission takes place. The net result being that the higher in level you go, the less cluttered your Remote Contact list is. All the missions are still available, you will just need to go to the appropriate location to take them now if you are over level.

Now on to the rest of the update!

General Updates

 * Fixed a bug where some players were stuck in the promotion mission with no way to remove the completed mission. Players in this state should log in and after a map move should have their mission state cleared up.
 * Players can no longer swap weapons from their inventory into their weapons slots during combat. Weapon switching (between inactive and active weapon) works the same as it did before.
 * Fixed error where ship ID numbers and name would get messed up in the ship tailor when customizing Federation Escort 1.
 * Players are now alerted if they attempted to rename their ship to the same name as one of their other ships (all active ships owned by a player must have unique names)
 * Bridge officers can now be trained up in space maps instead of only on ground maps.
 * Hitting Random while customizing your ship will now properly work with the Undo button.
 * You can now have up to 500 members in a fleet. The fleet roster is now broken until pages, instead of using a scrollbar. This allows it to render much more efficiently.
 * Dropping missions now properly updates the mission journal to select the next mission so that you don't have to reselect each mission to drop it
 * Addressed an issue where Fleet access controls were not working properly
 * Devices now autostack in your device tray if you have one of the devices already equipped instead of going to your inventory
 * When a Fleet Leader leaves the fleet, a new Fleet Leader is selected from the next highest ranking officer, and if a tie, the officer that has been in the Fleet the longest.
 * Made some updates to improve cursor accuracy
 * Buffs are now cleared when transferring between ground and space. Prior to this change users could inappropriately use kit powers to buff their ship by quickly transferring from their bridge back to space. This will also prevent Tribble buffs from being applying to your ship.
 * Special unlocked promo costume pieces will now display properly in the character selection screen when you are logging in.
 * Improved the logic for when teams map transfer so that they end up in the same map more reliably.
 * Added an error message for Logitech LCD drivers that were causing some game clients to hang.
 * Fixed several bugs that were crashing some players when they map transferred.
 * Made several AI improvements for Bridge Officers on Away Teams so they stay in formation while moving through terrain.
 * Fixed a bug where loot pickup would not work properly when teamed.
 * Away Team Picker Improvements: When the away team picker was open and a team member had a contact window open, we now reduce the timeout from 120 seconds to 60 seconds. When the map transfer opt-in window is open and no one is talking to a contact, we reduced the timeout time from 30 seconds to 15 seconds. We no longer reset the timeout timer when a teammate selects a different bridge officer to use on the away team.
 * Need or Greed now works properly with unique items.
 * Rewards that were intended for each team member to receive no longer get lumped into a common reward pool which would allow some rewards intended for you to end up in the possession of other team mates.
 * Players you have set to ignored may no longer send you Fleet invites.
 * You are now notified if you attempt to take an item from a Fleet bank that is not allowed.

Missions

 * The Borg Staging Fleet area has been updated to include Klingon contacts since they now can gain access to Player versus environment missions in the sector once they are level 43 and have completed the appropriate hand-off mission.
 * Updated the text when exiting the Ganalda Station for clarity
 * Edited some text bugs in the Battle Group Omega stores
 * Faction rules were not working as expected on some maps, and we’ve made a scrub to ensure factions engagement rules are working properly.
 * The Mylasa System now displays correctly on the Area Map instead of saying Mylasa Sector.
 * Federation scientists reports that a planet in the Romulan Ponor system has unexpectedly shifted axis.
 * We removed the old "Warp to System" buttons from these systems: Ganalda, K7, DS9, Starbase 39, and Qonos.
 * Fixed a typo in PVP assault maps to reference "security teams" and "security layers" based on location.
 * The PVP area control report scoreboard now shows the correct final score values.

FX

 * Added additional FX for ships getting too close to planet atmospheres
 * Added FX for flying through some planetary rings
 * Lens flare should be working on some space maps now
 * Added new FX for special Borg enemy powers

Powers and Skills

 * Fixed a typo in the Klingon Engineering Officer tree so that is correctly labeled as an Admiral ability instead of Captain.
 * Borg Cubes are now immune to confuse powers
 * Beware the Borg. The “Infected” episode features several new Borg powers.

UI

 * Bridge Officer Log: Fixed some errors that were displaying when using the log.
 * Character Creation: Minor layout tweaks to class selection screen during character creation
 * Character Creation: Camera Zoom and Rotate arrows are now available in Character Creation when making your first character on the account
 * Chat: Guild chat and System Messages are no longer the same default color
 * HUD: Fixed a bug where off screen icons would draw as white blocks
 * HUD: More adjustments to the Klingon UI to use more appropriate colors
 * Inventory: Corrected some spacing errors in the ship inventory display
 * Login Screen: Login errors now display login errors on the main screen, so they don't go away after 5 seconds.
 * Login Screen: Added "My Account" and "Support" buttons to the login screen. They launch the appropriate web pages in an external browserwindow.
 * Login Screen: Improved the login error message for when the Holodeck is up but locked for internal testing (usually during the release of an update)
 * Login Screen: Now displays the short name for selected characters if there is no formal name as well as other layout fixes
 * Minimap: The change instance button on the minimap is now working properly
 * Options: Tooltips are no longer instantly displayed when changing options and adjusted the font effect to make it clearer which options you are changing.
 * PVP Queue: Fixed a bug that caused the offered queue pane to overlap the join list and details pane
 * PVP Queue: Added Leave and Snooze buttons to the bottom right of the window instead on each row element
 * PVP Queue: The Snooze button becomes a Resume button if you are delaying an offer
 * PVP Queue: Shows join and snooze timeouts for each applicable queue in the join list
 * PVP Queue: The QueueAlert window now hides if the PvP Queue window is up
 * Ship Selection: Ship selector no longer shows "InvalidEntityName" in the selection panel after discharging a ship
 * Skills Window: Each skill block is slightly wider now.
 * Status Window: Badges now have their own tab so that players can find their Badge counts easier.
 * Status Window: Options to display your own name and health on your player/ship model now function properly
 * Status Window: Fixed a typo in the discharge tooltip when viewing a ship you wish to discharge.
 * Status Window: Improved the ship stats that are displayed on the status window
 * Team Status: Updated colors of selected team members status windows to match reticle art
 * Team Status: Buffs/Debuffs are smaller so that they don't overlap in team windows