There’s a lot in this update. Four new officers. An event store. A four-month mystery will be solved. Lots of new researches, and prime updates. Another builder slot, and another repair slot.
Assaults
So back in Arc One, we got Alliance Starbases. Now we get the opportunity to attack alliance stations.
Assaulting starbases will require a new type of directive. The only thing you’ll be able to gain (or lose) from these assaults themselves will be plasma. However, there will assault events will reward you with Deep Space Nine officers, and ship blueprints (including G4 and G5.) The chests will only be available during those events.
You don’t have to fully defeat alliance starbase to earn plasma. The amount of plasma you take is reliant on how much damage you do, and how much is in their overprotected cargo.
It will look and function like a four-ship armada against the station. There will be a countdown. You can defend against this by attacking the offending ships, or… by taking your starbase off a node, and stopping plasma collection. Or you can move it to another collection node. But once the directives have been spent and the timer is started, you can’t move your starbase.
So for now, it really only makes sense to run assaults during assault events.
New Officers
In this arc, we’ve got several more Deep Space Nine officers, who like the first group, are here to help you against armadas, and in particular, solo armadas. Essentially, you’re getting a second solo armada crew.
Jadzia Dax
The Trill officer Jadzia Dax is an epic officer. She’ll be earned this month through material spend leaderboards and solo milestones. There will be one mat spend each weekend.
Jadzia’s Captain’s Maneuver will increase piercing stats and accuracy by 700% against solo armadas. Her officer ability increases weapon damage by 300% against solo armadas. These are big boosts, and this should make her worth the mat spend.
Julian Bashir
Deep Space Nine’s doctor is a rare officer in Star Trek Fleet Command.
Bashir’s captain’s maneuver increases critical damage against solo armadas by 50%. His officer ability increases critical chances against solo armadas by 20% for starters.
So he’s all about critical hits. We’ll have to see how this plays out, if these will apply to all the ships in your solo armada, or just to the one he’s on. All the indications are that it’s just his ship right now.
Odo
The station’s chief constable, Odo, doesn’t have a captain’s maneuver. But his below-deck ability is very interesting. He increases critical damage by 20% to start. That’s a huge with your critical-focused crews. And the best part is that this one isn’t limited to armadas, but works in every scenario: PvP, PvE, and armadas.
His officer ability increases base armor, shield deflection, and dodge against solo armadas starting at 40%.
Kira
Deep Space Nine’s Bajoran Liason is here… again. She’s a rare officer.
Her below-deck ability starts out reducing opponent player critical hit chance by 10%. Again, it’s a nice PvP feature, especially on ships that have their stat bonuses maxed out.
Her officer ability decreases shield mitigation in an assault by 4% in an assault. She’s the first officer with an specific assault ability, and to this point, the only one.
It does seem a bit odd, story-wise, to have the second-in-command of the station not having a captain’s maneuver. At this point in the game’s development, however, below decks abilities are extremely valuable.
New Refits
We’ve got three new Refits this month, and they’re amazingly both arc-appropriate and useful to players. They’re for the level 42 Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ships, and focus on reputation grinding. The only rub is that the refits aren’t particularly tied to what they do.
The USS Kelvin gets a Jem’Hadar Fighter look, giving players a 50% increase to Federation faction reputation gained (or lost) from hostiles and armadas.
The K’Tinga gets a Breen Warship overhaul, giving players a corresponding 50% increase to Klingon faction rep gained (or lost) from hostiles and armadas. Again, this Breen design would have been much more Trek-appropriate for the ship that became the Mantis.
The Valdore gets a rhyming refit, and becomes a Cardassian Galor, giving you a 50% increase to Romulan faction rep gained (or lost) from hostiles and armadas.
It is nice to see them in the game. It would have been nicer to see them do more related to what they do in the story. I’m not exactly sure what that would be, but a reputation bonus doesn’t seem to be it. Why would using a Jem’Hadar fighter to blow up Klingon ships make the Federation like you more?
But then again, it’s just a show, I should really just relax.
Premium Drydock
Players ops level 35 and above can unlock another drydock. There’s no additional defense platform with it.
It will take a unique unlock material that, you guessed it, will be available for purchase in the store.
Level ups are going to depend on Drydock D.
Two New Queues
Okay, so no, not either of those Qs. We couldn’t be so lucky.
No, these are the British-style Queues, and in this case, it’s repair and building. You can only get them if you’ve previously acquired all the previously available ones.
And yes… there’s yet another unique unlock material, that you’ll have to purchase.
The other change you’ll notice is that the collapse mode will now be the default mode, and when you expand it, you’ll see three columns.
But again, really, we’ve now finished TNG, and Deep Space Nine, and still no Q?
Prime Research
Five new prime researches this month. Three in the Starbase tree: Prime ablative armor (350% to hull health for all your ships), Prime Enhanced Shield Buffers (350% increase to shield health), and Prime Alliance Fist, which will increase your base damage by 150% during an Assault. All of these are available to players ops level 25 and above.
Prime Defiant force gives the Defiant buff an additional 25% critical hit chance. It’s located in the Starships tree. Lastly, in the Galaxy Tree, you’ll find Prime Bajoran Diplomacy, which will increase the Diplomacy Tokens received in the Bajoran faction store. These last two are available to players ops 35 and above.
New Defiant Research
We’ve got five new Defiant researches this month. They’ll increase the penetration, damage reduction, damage, shield health, and mitigation bonuses that your Defiant buff will give to other ships in armadas.
Assaults Research
In the Starbase Reaserch tree, you’ll see 12 new researches, centered primarily on assaults. Some of these are specific to Starbase Assaults, but there are also bonuses for Ship XP, ship parts costs, officer attack and defense, and defense platforms.
Notes
- Two Jellyfish Brawl and Para Bellum events will be running twice this month.
- Look for ticketed events from Thursday to Saturday this week, and Friday-Sunday for the rest of the arc.
- There will be a few solo leaderboard events for starbase research this month, so make sure to plan accordingly.
- There’s a “Deep Space Niners” event coming, which will reward you for basic baseball knowledge. Seriously, one of the answers needs to be “Buck Bokai” (pictured at left.)
- The G3 refit blueprints that you got in the Espionage events during the past few months will be available this month, but there will be no limits this month. So you hopefully should be able to finish them up at least one of them this month.
- There will be an event store this month, and the currency for that will be Ketrocel. You couldn’t go with Latinum, or Dabo tokens, so I think that was the only DS9-related currency left.
- It would have been nice to have some sort of Tongo event in the DS9 arc. But there’s so much story here, that you can’t get everything in.
- That said, there’s enough story and characters here to do another full DS9 arc. We really could use Nog, Zek, Moogie, Ezri Dax, Leeta, Vic Fontaine, Jake Sisko, Cassidy Yates, the Female Changeling, Kor, and many, many others. There’s a lot still to be mined here.
- The key to this update will be if they can get Actian space fixed. The level 38 system on Server 11 has had just one ship in it for weeks. Level 36 and 37 haven’t had an Apex ship since before Halloween. This needs to be fixed.
