As Cryptic has turned on pre-patching, it would appear that Season 6 will be coming to fruition in the coming days. Here are a few tips for some of the new players.

• Pre-patch! This will save you loads of time. (Log all the way in then close Star Trek Online. This will start the pre-patch.)
  
• Keep Tribble up to Date. This reduces the size of the patch you need to download as the launcher will always patch with files that are already on your computer. This could mean the difference between a two-hour patch and immediate gameplay. I was on Tribble Saturday and I already have a 322MB patch needing to be applied.
  
• Force Verify Your Files. Once you are done downloading, do a Force Verify. This will, um, verify your files. It's always a good idea when doing a patch this big. Most of the time there are no issues. But it is still good practice with major updates.
  
• Be Patient. You are one of thousands trying to download the patch. It will take a while. A >10Mbps connection at your house will not equal a >10Mbps connection from the server. Everyone patching at the same time will create a virtual DoS attack on their server. If you haven't pre-patched or used Tribble recently, grab a book.
  
• Temper Your Expectations of Playtime. The server will need to be restarted... a lot. Just accept it. It'll become less frequent as the bugs are squashed. Hopefully this last weekend's Tribble crush will help locate the major issues.
  
• Read the Patch Notes. This will not only tell you what is launching, but what are known issues. There is no sense in creating a thread over an issue the devs already know about. Some fixes will be ready to deploy before you even know there is a problem. Other issues take a while to localize. Last time it took them weeks to localize a problem.
  
• Clear the Exchanges and Account Bank Whether it be the regular exchange or the dilithium exchange, pull off everything. You don't want to lose them or risk the value changing. The account bank is supposed to be getting a fix too so we can buy more slots. I would recommend moving its contents to your regular bank.
  
• Double Check Your Foundry Missions All Foundry authors need to prepare for the possibility of your mission getting messed up. They are adding a bunch of new features and there are some known problems that could arise as missions are republished automatically.

Others will no doubt add to this list.

If you can swing it, patch the game when you have no real desire or need to play the game. Let the time consuming part happen while you are doing something else.

I actually keep the on-demand patching disabled. Too many cruddy networks I;m on. I get it all from a decent network.

Suggest pulling any listings you have off the Dillithium exchange untill after season 6 is live.

They have in the past had screw ups and people's dill/CP have been stuck in the exchange for some time.

with the CP to Zen conversion happening I could see something similar happening to anything listed on the exchange (getting stuck etc)

You forgot the emergency patches and parts of the game being broken from days to maybe a months time.

I'm going to add this to the OP. This is a great suggestion.

Actually, I did include that when I talked about known issues.

Very good advice and this thread should be stickied. I always keep Tribble up to date. Saves a lot of time

Lol mix of me having a long day today and not completely understand that portion.

That's fine. I'm expanding them as I think of more to say.

Thanks for this, CB! /stuck

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=