When
a game releases, there's no reason to think there aren't certain things
that will need to be added as time goes by and the game progresses.
There are some features though, that should have been planned while the
game in question was little more than a scribbled doodle on a napkin at
your local coffeehouse. It's this type of feature that has gotten *so*
much attention from the community recently that the development team
has stood up and taken notice.



Star
Trek Online actually shipped
without an easy way to participate in a fleet action as a fleet. How
this slipped under the cracks of development completely baffles me.
Someone, somewhere, apparently decided that being part of a fleet
wasn't supposed to mean more than hanging out in a chat room. Whoever
thought *not* including the functionality to enter a fleet action as a
fleet was acceptable, despite the fact that the name of said action
contains the word "fleet" in it, was obviously having an off day.

style="text-align: center;"> style="width: 640px; height: 400px;" alt="Space Fleet Action"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/81475">

To be fair, STO actually does contain a lot of cool tools for fleets
and their members as evidenced by our recent href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/guides/fleets">Guide
to Fleets, but you can't call
something a fleet action if a fleet of players (not random players
thrown into a group action) cannot complete it together. In other
words, I want to have the ability to actually play together as a fleet.
If I didn't, I wouldn't have joined a fleet in the first place. I don't
know about anyone else, but I spent a long time looking for a
guild/fleet that would be conducive with not only with my schedule, but
also my play style and general attitude. I didn't join just so I can
have a cool tag over my head or so I don't feel lonely in the cold
reaches of space.



We've all been in a guild we know we shouldn't have joined on our first
day in a new game, but we did anyway. You know the one. Ten minutes
after you join, Imatot Aldouche (your guild leader) is spamming the
chat channels with a rant about how awesome he is, how big his family
jewels are because he beat the level 6 mob boss before anyone else, and
how your mother blows. Yeah… there's a reason I don't join
guilds without a decent application process. All that time and effort I
spent looking for a solid fleet that’s a good fit is
essentially wasted if we can’t do any massive fleet actions
together though.



"Well that's great, Dalmarus. I’ve listened to your rant, but
what do you want me to do about it besides jump on the bandwagon and
commiserate with you?"



Believe it or not, there actually is something you can do and a special
thanks goes out to our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=37">Ten
Ton Hammer forums member,
Stefman123, for bringing it to my attention yesterday. There's a thread
on the official forums seeking to address this horrific oversight. The
thread was started by a member of the community, but Cryptic has taken
notice. This week, Falkoren (a Star Trek Online developer) came through
with a workaround plus more. The "fix" is rather convoluted, but at the
moment, it's the best they can do. Per his instructions though, you can
help make the ability to start a fleet action with your fleet a new
feature.

To show your support (and read the workaround), href="http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=2192767#post2192767">click
here, hit reply, and paste the
following statement in your post: "I fully support this and would like
to see it become a feature +1." Just to reiterate, this isn't some
crackhead with a harebrain idea who thinks signing an online petition
is going to solve anything. This is a direct request from the
development team. It only takes a few seconds to do and could help to
make a big difference for all fleets in the game.



Personally, I'm still having a hard time believing something like this
wasn't implemented while the game was still just a twinkle in Cryptic's
eye (after they acquired the rights from Perpetual Entertainment). On a
positive note though, I am glad to see it finally get some attention.
If you want to see this oversight fixed, do your part and follow the
instructions I listed above. Spreading the word some more won't hurt
either, so get out there and start making some noise!