A new arc is here, and there’s a lot of new stuff to pore over. A new game mechanic, another researcher, more researcher, and one of my all-time favorite characters.
A Whole New Game Mechanic – The Syndicate
The Orion Syndicate first entered Trek lore in the second season TOS episode, Journey to Babel. It’s an episode that’s probably more well-known for being the debut of Spock‘s father, Sarek. An Orion spy, surgically altered to look like an Andorian murdered diplomats to try to start a war.
In Star Trek Fleet Command, the Orion Syndicate feature will reward you with buffs, daily goal improvements, an exclusive officer (see Ghrush below), and after years of requesting it, Officer Presets.
The way it works is that you’ll have a Syndicate level, and you’ll advance that level through a free daily claim on the Syndicate screen, through the free track of this month’s Battle Pass, and for those who have no patience, through in-app purchases.
The higher your level, the greater the reward buffs you’ll get. Those buffs will give you bonuses to resource production and protection, mining speed and cargo space, warp speed, repair speed, scrapping speed, combat buffs, and Faction rep gain.
This is also the way you’ll unlock the officer preset slots, with a maximum of 10 slots available. Each preset will let you save a three-member bridge crew. Nothing below decks, sorry. You’ll be able to rename your crews, which is a nice feature.
To access the presets, in your crew screen, you’ll click on this little blue button on your ship’s crew screen.
Clicking that will take you to this screen, where your presets, once you unlock them, will go.
Increasing your Syndicate level will also improve the resource, Frequency modulator, and Faction rep, and Faction token rewards that you’ll get for completing your daily goals.
The new officer, Ghrush will also be earned through Syndicate progression. You’ll get enough shards to unlock him at level 5, and enough to max him out at level 25.
To access your Syndicate screen, you’ll click on this icon on the top left of your screen.
And from there, you’ll see this screen, which will give you your Syndicate status.
Three New Officers
This I’m more excited about than maybe I should be. We’ve got two rare Klingon officers, and an epic Orion Syndicate one.
At long last, one of my favorite Star Trek characters ever, General Martok is in the game. He’s the first character who debuted on Deep Space Nine to appear.
Martok will increase the kinetic weapon damage of your ship, and increase the crew’s dodge. So this makes him a fit for your interceptors.
We’ve also got Gowron. He’ll give you a boost to your ship’s energy damage, and increase your ship’s total Crew Health.
Gowron and Martok are in the Khitomer’s Revenge crew and will give you synergy with Honorguard Worf.
And an Orion Syndicate officer named Ghrush. Sounds to me like thrush, which I guess is a good basis for an Orion name.
He’s an officer original to STFC, which again, seems like a waste of the license, but he’s an epic officer who you’re going to want. He’s going to give you a protected cargo boost, which is nice, but I think I’m more interested in his officer ability, which gives you a percentage boost to your Warp Range, starting at 6%, and working up from there.
Third Researcher
There will be a third research slot. You’ll unlock it through purchase. And this could be handy because now there’s…
More TC Research
Already one of the most useful research trees, the Territory Capture Tree will be getting 21 new nodes this month.
Five of them will be available starting at levels 25 to 35, while the other 16 will open up starting at levels 40+.
The good news is that there’s no new currency here, all of them will cost Iso-emulsion and/or existing TC Research particles.
They’re broken up primarily into Combat and Utility functions. So in combat, you’ll be able to get increased damage vs. factions, increased damage against stations, ship stat improvements, and reduced critical hit chances for enemies.
On the utility side, warp speed increases, impulse speed increases, faster research, construction and repair, increased ship XP gains, and another one having to do with data while cloaked.
To give you a few examples, “Warp Coil Enhancement,” unlocks with a level 25 R&D Department, and gives a 3% speed bonus, maxing out at level 10, with a 40% bonus.
“Breach Assault”, available with R&D level 40 will give you a 20% increase at level 1 when attacking stations. Level 49 players will be able to max this out to 150%.
“Full Impulse,” which unlocks with a level 35 R&D Department gives you a +2 impulse speed bonus and maxes out at +20 at R&D 44.
And two more Cloaks
This month, we’ll have cloaking devices available for purchase for the ISS Jellyfish and the Sarcophagus.
The cloaked Jellyfish will give you a boost to your ship’s damage. It’s a nice feature, but given that the Jellyfish is primarily a hostile hunting and armada ship, I’m not sure how much use it’ll be. It’s not like you need to sneak up on hostiles.
The one that will make a bigger difference in practice will be the Sarcophagus cloak.
The Sarco is a sitting duck as it lumbers towards a capture node, and this will make them much, much more effective in Territory Capture battles. No longer will they take a vulnerable minute to cross the screen, but instead be able to sneak undetected to a node, and then get an additional bonus while attacking it.
It would be a neat feature for a USS Discovery to see through its cloak, but this isn’t in the game.
Plus a new Projectile…
Nothing quite shares the spirit of the holiday season more than a new weapon with which to smite your enemies. You can really hear the soul of Andy Williams live on here.
The new projectile is quite literally snowflakes that give you a 20% damage boost. It’s officially called the “Cryonic Blast Projectile.”
