STOFA: Lotus Fleet's previous STO Armada

[Jeff T]

As of October 4, 2015 Lotus Fleet has joined forces with a collection of 12 other fleets in an Armada:
STOFA = Star Trek Online Fleet Armada

This union exists separately on the Federation side (FED) and the Klingon side (KDF).
This also represents players from around the world and on a variety of time zones.

Here is a list of fleets within our new Armada:

Liberty Task Force (Est. April 28th, 2013)/Liberty Honor Guard (Est. August 2nd, 2013):
One of the newer fleets, but boasting a very active roster and website community. Liberty Task Force completed all its holdings before it's own one year anniversary. Someone is always on as our members span all time zones.

Vulcan Kolinahr Fleet (Est. Janurary 29, 2010)/HIvDuj tlhej batlh "Attack with Honor" (Est. April 4th, 2012):
One of the oldest and active running fleets in the entire game, boasting an establishment year of 2010!. Vulcan Kolinahr Fleet has been around for over 5 years and going strong! With an active website and TeamSpeak still running.

The Massive (Est. March 3rd, 2012)/The Massive KDF Style (Est. March 29th, 2012):The Massive was the second fleet in the entire game to complete both Fed and KDF Starbases (Wiki listed). With a very active KDF fleet boasting resources and knowledge of the game to rival most other fleets.

Pride of the Federation (Est. February 12th, 2012)/Pride of the Empire (Est. July 4th, 2012):
Pride of the Federation was the first fleet in the entire game to complete both Fed and KDF Starbases (Wiki listed). A large and very active roster on both Fed and KDF side, someone is always in the game playing.

Task Force Midnight (Est. January 29th, 2010)/may' ghom ramjep "Battle Band Midnight" (Est. Janurary 31st, 2010):
Again one of the oldest running fleets in the game, and still around. Boasting an establishment year of 2010 for both their Fed and KDF fleets.

Starfleet Alpha Command (Est. February 28th, 2013)/CKS (Est. March 1st, 2013):
A small but dedicated core group of players around since 2013; with both website and forums.

Explorers of the Final Frontier (Est. May 30th, 2014)/Warriors of the Final Frontier (Est. July 19th, 2014):
One of the original STOFA member fleets before the armada system ever began. In an alliance with Liberty Task Force and Vulcan Kolinahr Fleet for over a year now.

Explorers Fury (Est. February 14th, 2012)/Explorer's Fury (Est. February 15th, 2013)

Expeditionary Tactical Fleet (Est. February 8th, 2012)/Expeditionary Tactical Force (Est. February 27th, 2012)

The Britannian Empire (Est. May 25th, 2012)

House Omega Rangers (Est. October 3rd, 2011)

Echelon Division (Est. June 7th, 2012)

Echelon Legacy (Est. July 4th, 2012):

[Jeff T]

Basic Armada information:

Website: http://www.libertytaskforce.com/stofa
Note: You can use your Enjin account from our previous fleet site to register on their site. If you don't have this you will need to create a new account.

But please register as a STOFA member under Lotus Fleet


TS3: http://massivechat.homeserver.com
Password: (request in PM to any T-5 or T-6 officer)

[Kheren]

Registered... even if I can't play, at least I can show our interest for the community

[Jeff T]

Since January 2010, STO is and has been a game for us to enjoy at our leisure as often as we are able to... long before Armadas were introduced.  Recently a petition was started by leadership within the armada to vote on removing 3 fleets, including Lotus fleet. They wanted us to offer our position/defense of why we deserved to remain. However,  based on this second experience since last year of voting to kick out underperforming fleets, we in Lotus Fleet recognized a perspective emerge in STOFA of in-game acquisition and expansion being more in-line with Ferengi business ethics than those of Federation inclusion, respect and such. Our paths had diverged significantly.

Therefore contrary to what was and still is transpiring within that Armada, Lotus fleet Leadership sent notice yesterday that we have no interest whatsoever in participating in continuing negative discussions, events and actions pitting fleets and members against one another in pursuits of furthering personal/fleet in-game acquisitions and/or seeking "better" fleets as replacements.

In our instance we saw no need to bring this aspect involving Lotus fleet to a vote. As a result of our consensus, we willingly absolved our affiliation with STOFA effective yesterday. I followed up our notification by leaving the armada in-game to complete this process. At some point next year the possibility may exist to join forces with another armada, but we will be quite selective of the mindset that operates any potential candidates before we agree to commit ourselves again.

Sincerely,

Admiral Jeff T
Fleet Commanding Officer
Lotus Fleet 

[Sorripto]

I can respect that. I work at a defense contractor and have averaged weeks pushing 80 hours (84 last week), so I have had no time to play at all. Even so, I would love to be able to come back to a game that keeps our fleet values, and it appears this armada is no longer the case. I doubt we will have much trouble finding another armada to work with us in the future.

[Jureth]

I've been paying attention to their activity levels the last couple of days when I've been on doing winter event stuff and they don't have anything to say to us in that regard. Most of the other fleets don't have more than four or five people on at any given time.  They can go pound sand...the whole point of the Armada system from what I understand was so that fleets could pool resources and smaller fleets could gain some assistance with their holdings and such. These guys clearly didn't see it that way. 

[Spawnner]

Unbelieveable.....again.

I must ask, is is due to our slow progress? lack of socialization? I have heard that they wish more of us would have even hung around on their teamspeak like i do. They were wanting more social interaction on our part, which i must admit i would enjoy myself. I know this next part my seem like throwing stones in a glass house, but our online presence and active members in STO on even a semi-regular basis is frankly PITIFUL... We used to be so active, and had great fun together.

Now i know that many are going to say "but we all have such different schedules", granted. However, from my P.O.V. the only active players i ever see in-game on a semi-regular basis are:

BattleLion
InfernalPotato
Redding
Athos
Kheren
Jureth
Myself (Spawnner)


Please feel free to correct the above list if i have missed someone.

My point is, i almost don't blame STOFA for wanting us out; I hang out in their teamspeak regularly, and all they have wanted from us is interaction. By that i do not even necessarily mean inter-fleet missions, etc. They wanted to get to know us and have us socialize like their other fleets do. This could even have meant chatting more in the STOFA channel on STO. From their perspective, we were the weird kid eating glue in the corner at the party. I suppose a more accurate TREK analogy would be that we were the Xindi....the little xenophobic race in the corner of the galaxy.

It still boggles me why we do not use teamspeak (whether it be our OWN, or any armada teamspeak we may belong to). We used to socialize even within our own fleet via voice much more than we do now.

I feel that we are losing collective touch as a fleet, and i find it troubling and deeply disturbing.

I am sure i will get several PM's over this....

Not trying to be derogatory, merely inquisitive and insight-seeking.

Thoughts?

[Kheren]

I can not dispute any of your points concerning us. Fact is, just looking at RP now dead in the water for two months except for some sporadic effort by Jureth and BLZBUB and me finally stopping to fan-fic with it, it is a fact that our fleet is at an all time low level in activity.

That being said, I can agree that we may not have made much more effort with socially interacting with them... but did they?

When did they drop even a single hello to any one of us? When did they come visit us here or initiate any chat in-game? When did they quiery further into our RP which they allegedly where interested in (answer to this one: never). When did they make any announcement of any activity and invite us to join in? Yes, we may certainly have tried to do more... but did they did anything in that regard? 

When did they ever state prior to joining or during our joined time that this was what mattered most to them or that it was even all that important to them?

And if that was indeed the case as you say, would had it been so hard to just tell us that we were so lacking in this level of involvement so important to our value in their armada, before considering that we might be no longer worthy of membership?

That is the main point I would however dispute regarding your estimate of the situation. In their announcement to have us expelled, I don't recall that such social interaction was the sole reason, or even a major reason for them wanting us out. And according to the discussions our Fleet Admiral was aware of us, they did not call us "shy" or "weird". They called us "dead weight" and "leeches."

If nobody even talks to the small shy kid in the corner and what he overhears is that he is considered a dead weigth and a leech, no surpise he would just want to leave this so-called party.

I recall being a member of guilds in other games. Those that were highly social or to which socialization was that important, they at least greeted you unfailingly the moment you connected in game, especially if you were the new kid or the small one. They might not all shower you with gifts and invites, but they would at least say hello.

That's what we do ourselves, when one of us is in-game and see somebody else playing, we the small less active fleet.

Moreover, I have not been in game often for quite some time now but in those sporadic instances, I never saw or heard any one member of those so-called big mighty fleets online to begin with. It's hard to socialize only by in-game mails... but if it is that important, you could even do it this way at least. We did not get even that. To me, there was virtually no difference before or after joining this great armada, especially in that regard. 

Just IMHO.

I myself I am pretty much a loner in-game. I never send an invite. I never accept blind invites. I hate being in a group most of the time because most of the time groups rush to the game objective while I want to sit back and savor the experience, the adventure, the play, the graphics and the company. But I always answer a call or an invite and often accept it anyway when initiated by someone I know. So, if the lack of socializing is our fault, it is certainly mine; but I greatly doubt it is the fault of our other fleet members. And I would be quite surprised (and distraught) if our devaluation within the Armada was because of me alone.

And the point of all my ramblings is this: it works both ways.

[Redding]

My play style mimic's Kheren, never ask, but never refuse an invite to do ANYTHING.
I tried a dozen or so times just to pop in and say HI, but never received a response that wasn't from one of us.
Frankly I still have no idea what this was even all about, I never saw it effect anything in game.

One of STO's flaws is that it's fairly pointless to have any kind of lasting team, the penalties for losing are slim and the rewards for team work (Like building a base) are equally slim.
You get access to things that are, at best, marginally better then you can earn in game, and not as good as the stuff you can just outright buy.

I mean, I don't mind donating to projects, as my score will clearly show. But really what for? Do we ever use it? have we ever held a meeting there or anything? If we had a kiosk set up to buy all the stuff we unlocked at DS9 would we ever go back base?
And that's not our fault, it's cool sure, but not even remotely useful.

I've been to LF station perhaps 20-30 times.. never seen anyone there.. once maybe.

Anyway.. Armada booted us.. my only real thought is.. Were we still part of that? If you hadn't told me how would I have ever known? They just wanted warm bodies, they didn't have any interest in us, and now the fads over.
Why would we even care?

[Spawnner]

Why wouldn't they want warm (active) bodies? Not meaning that in a "cannon fodder" kind of way, but in a way where there is an active playerbase (even a small one), that converses and shares experiences. Granted, we do that, just not the way they do. We use forums and only chat in-fleet, they prefer real-time in-game armada chat or teamspeak (quite the emphasis on TS)


How many of us are subscribed to the "STOFA" channel? How many of those chat in it?
Do you know where their teamspeak is? do they know where ours is?

Teamspeak is a bit of a sore spot of me, since we used to use it so much, even when we weren't in-game. It has reached the point for me that i don't even log-in to our TS to see who's there anymore, i always go straight for the STOFA teamspeak (where the is usually at least 1 other person on...but ususallu MANY more than that).

I hope we find an armada that will accept us for who and what we are, as well as the way we play and interact in the game.

Most will be looking for that interaction, not the "closed-off" attitude that we seem to have (ex. Quoted from Kheren " I never send an invite. I never accept blind invites. I hate being in a group most of the time").

From what i can tell (and not being a Tier5 or better anymore, not privvy to all the information), they wanted to know us more. Have us participate in ARMADA chat at least , and ideally spend some time on their teamspeak too.

Now, again not having ALL THE INFO, my take on this may be a little slanted. But from what i am seeing and hearing from both sides, it seems both the armada AND Lotus Fleet were partially to blame for this falling apart. It should be noted that this is the SECOND TIME we have left an armada. To put this in RL dating terms, after a string of "bad relationships"... at what point do you actually think....Maybe it's me?

I really hope that there is not that fundamental a flaw in LF, and my 8 years with this fleet tells me that there should not be such a flaw....but it does make one contemplative.