Welcome to October. The leaves will start changing, the weather will start to get a little cooler (for those of you in the Northern hemisphere,) and clocks will soon be turned back.
And with that, it’s time for another Star Trek Fleet Command Arc. And it’s another one full of content. As usual, there are three new officers, but one of them is Garak, so already we’re ahead. We’ve also got a brand new faction, the Bajorans. We’ve got Solo Armadas and Favors. Who doesn’t like a good Favor?
There are new prime research nodes and Deep Space Nine-themed events.
And the Espionage event continues.
But first…
The 47 Project
It just wouldn’t be right to get to Arc 47 without paying homage to The 47 Project, which is a list on Memory Alpha that’s attempting to find all the references to the number 47 in Star Trek. Here’s a video of the 47s just in TNG.
New Faction – The Bajorans
We’ve got another new faction, the Bajorans. And the mechanics of this faction work in a similar way to the last new faction we got, the Rogue faction.
There are hostiles, in this case, Jem’Hadar hostiles that you’ll need to defeat.
Defeating those hostiles will get you anti-matter units, that you’ll then exchange for Bajoran faction rep, and credits.
Those credits will be used to buy solo armada directives, and a new thing called Favors. More on each of those things below.
Solo Armadas
So, with those solo armada directives, you’ll run, fittingly enough, solo armadas. These will be armadas of three of your ships, no one else in your alliance. So no waiting. No arguing. No “he bumped me” or “can I get a lock?”
Just line up three of your best ships, and have at it. Defeating these armadas will get you Bajoran Diplomacy Tokens, which can be redeemed for Favors. Again, see below.
Each day you’ll be able to claim enough armada directives in the faction store for one solo armada. The loot you get from that armada will, after three days, allow you to run a rare. And, after two rares, you’ll be able to run an epic. But make sure all of your ships are there before you launch, as the timer is just 1:30.
And one other nice touch, the respawn rate is seven seconds.
By the way, you might want to save your solo armada loot until day three, there’s an event.
Favors
Think of these favors as permanent buffs. They’re a bit like a thing you might be familiar with, called, “research,” but there’s no timer involved with getting them. You spend the favor, you get the buff right away.
You’ll find these in the Bajoran faction store, and there’s quite a list of them. And, just about all of these Favors have multiple levels, like research.
- Increased Parsteel, Tritanium and Dilithium cost efficiency for buildings
- Increased Crystal, Gas, and Ore cost efficiency for buildings
- Increased officer stats
- Increased critical hit chance against players
- Decreased critical hit chance against you
- Increased critical hit damage against players
- Decreased critical hit damage against you
- Increased base weapon damage
- Increased base piercing stats
- Increased base hull health
- Increased base shield health
- Increased Bajoran faction rep gains
- Increase base refinery for G4 and G4 ore
- Increase base refinery for G4 and G4 crystal
- Increase base refinery for G4 and G4 gas
- Add a new daily rewards chest for Syndicate XP and Bajoran badges
- Increased tetryon max capacity
- Adds Ultra Recruit tokens to 24-hour chest, and other increased rewards
- Increased loot rewards from Dominion hostiles
- Increased loot rewards from Solo Armada targets
- Increased Cost efficiency of Uranium for Stella Ship components.
New Cardassian Officers
This month, we’ve got a counter for Strike Team crew. That’s the crew that’s made anyone with a good size battleship unstoppable over the past couple of months. I mean, really, if you get the chance to get this crew for PvP, do it.
However, we always knew that it would be too good to last for too long, unopposed, and here’s the counter-crew. The Cardassians, Gul Dukat, Gul Damar, and Garak. Plain, simple Garak.
That they’re set up as one crew is a bit odd, given how much all of them genuinely disliked each other as the series went on. The bizarre triangle of Ziyal shows this really well.
Ziyal, Dukat’s abandoned and reunited half-Bajoran daughter fell in love with Garak. Dukat hates Garak, Garak hates Dukat from Garak’s Obsidian order days. So this brings a great deal of tension.
And then (spoiler alert)…
Because of this, everyone hates Damar.
And then Garak has to work with Damar when the latter leads the Cardassian rebellion against the Dominion. But he still hates him.
Again, if you haven’t seen the last season of Deep Space Nine, go do it now. Right now.
I’ll wait.
Epic Gul Dukat
As Captain’s Maneuvers go, Dukat’s is rather specialized. At the beginning of combat, he gives you a 20% chance for a hull breach when on interceptors fighting players. If you remember Kang, he gives you an 80% chance for a hull breach, and with synergy, it pops up to 100%. But it’s only for three rounds. Dukat’s full synergy gets you a 100% chance of hull breach… for the entirety of the battle.
His officer ability increases the number of shots per weapon by 25%, 29%, 35%, 42%, and 50% based on his tier for five rounds. But if you’ve got him at full synergy, that’s going to be for the whole battle. And if you’re going up against the Battleship Strike Team crew, you’re going to need these shots to stay in the fight.
So you’d assume that his crewmates would have abilities that rely on hull breaches, and you’d be correct in that assumption.
Rare Gul Damar
Like Dukat, Damar’s abilities are dependent on him being on an interceptor.
His captain’s maneuver increases critical hit damage by 2% whenever the opponent has a hull breach. Synergy will pop this up 3% each, but the rub is that none of the Cardassian strike team members have an officer ability that causes a hull breach, so unless you can run into someone running the Pan crew, you’ll never be able to take advantage of full synergy here.
Damar’s officer ability reduces your opponent’s critical hit damage by 25%, 29%, 35%, 42%, and 50% based on his tier for three rounds each time you score a critical hit, and if the opponent has a hull breach. Which, if you’re running full synergy with Dukat as captain, your opponent will have a hull breach.
Rare Garak, Plain and Simple
As with Damar, Garak’s captain’s maneuver is an afterthought. A 5% reduction in opponent kinetic weapon damage, when the opponent’s hull is breached. Trivial, and in most cases, it’s not applicable.
But his officer ability is worth the price of admission. Again, on interceptors, against players, and when your opponent’s hull is breached, Garak increases your critical hit chance by 30%, 35%. 42%, 50%, 60%, according to tier.
So it’s a bit like Honorguard Worf-lite, but rather than for the first eight rounds only, it lasts for the entire battle. It would have been nice to have seen Damar’s ability increase the critical hit damage you do to other players increase, rather than the defensive ability it is.
That would have paired nicely with Garak, and made it all neat. With Dukat giving you lots of shots, Garak making more of them critical, and Damar making each critical hit more damaging, but that’s not what we got.
We’ll have to see how effective it is in practice.
Getting these officers…
So, I’m sure some of you are starting to suffer from solo leaderboard spending event fatigue. It feels like we’ve had months of them, and I would dare to say that there are players in the game who don’t remember when new epic officers were earned in any other way.
So there will be a new recruiting token for this month that you’ll be able to earn through events to pick up the new officers. Gul Dukat Shards, Damar, Garak, and other officers that appear on DS9, including TNG officers will be available in the recruiting chests. You’ll get these chests through events.
This is in addition to officer shards you’ll get in the battlepass, or through in-app purchases.
Prime Research Nodes
So this month, we’ve got a multi-level prime faction rep research. Each level will provide a 20% boost to your faction rep, and getting all five will double the amount of faction rep you gain from activities. There’s one each for Federation, Romulan, and Klingon. The first level becomes available at level 30, and another at five level intervals, up to 50.
There are also Starbase Alliance Reputation and Cardassian Loot Prime nodes.
Wrapping Up
- Halloween events are in the works for later this month.
- Espionage, there will be clues this month, so you won’t be shooting in the dark like last month.
- My Battlepass contest will run until Wednesday, so go enter now, and don’t miss out.
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