Mantis

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The newest ship in Star Trek Fleet Command is the Mantis. It’s a rare battleship that you can construct starting at ops level 33.

In effect, it’s the anti-Cerritos that you can use to debuff an enemy player’s ship. If your alliance is dealing with some rogue whale who’s trying to stop your alliance, this is the ship for you.

Once you’ve targeted the enemy ship, it’ll see a reduction in critical chance %, and critical damage, have one fewer shot per round, and be unable to warp out of the system. There will be a material cost for using the ability, and there’s a cooldown time. You’ll get enough Condensed venom for two uses per day free, and be able to earn more.

And, the Mantis gives you an opportunity to grind out Syndicate XP.

Mantis Ship Ability

Like the Discovery and the Amalgam, it’s got two abilities. It’s got the debuffing ability, and it’s got a PvE loop. So it’s not a one-trick pony.

It’s a two-trick pony. And, in the long run, the second trick is probably more useful than the first.

I talked about the debuffing ability above, but there’s another one. The PvE loop includes two new daily goals.

While the ship itself isn’t very powerful (just a 470k base strength,) it starts with a 62,000% damage bonus against Actian hostiles. That bonus goes up as you level the ship.

From destroying the Actian hostiles, you’ll get Actian venom. The Actian venom can be refined for Condensed venom (that you’ll use to power your debuff ability), Resource dust, Mantis parts, Gacha tokens (for SNW Pike, Hemmer, Ortegas, SNW Uhura, and SNW Spock), and Syndicate XP.

There’s also a chance that the Actian hostiles will drop impulse speed buffs that will help you grind faster.

Owning and Operating Costs of your Mantis

It’s level locked by a part called the “Majalan Power Core.” You’ll get these from the refinery at one per level starting at level 34.

It’s a battleship, so you’ll be spending ore and crystal to upgrade it. It starts off at Grade 3 materials and switches over to G4 at tier 7.

Missed Opportunity

First, I’m going to start with the fact that the Mantis bugs me. Not the idea of the ship, or its ability, but the fact that it’s original to the game. The point of a Star Trek game is playing with ships from the franchise, and now that Scopely has a license to use just about every ship, it doesn’t make sense to keep making up ships. It makes it less fun using them.

Now, I know that Strange New Worlds hasn’t finished airing all over the world, but hundreds of in-universe ships still could have been used. If you’ve got to nominate one, which would fit in universe, and clearly existed at about the time of SNW, why not have some Tranya, and roll out the Fesarius from the Original Series?

The big sphere made up of little yellow balls would have worked. The featured in the Corbomite Maneuver had similar abilities to those of the Mantis. It could disable other ships. It feels like another missed opportunity to add something fun to the game, up there with Goon and Tiza. And don’t get me started on the Actian hostiles.

But all that being said, it’s still a ship you’ll probably want.

And Finally…

The second I heard about a ship called the Mantis, my mind immediately went to the 90s Fox show, M.A.N.T.I.S.

I never watched an episode, but the promos were everywhere in 1994 during the Simpsons and X-Files.

The series starred actor Carl Lumbly, who I’ve never heard of, probably because he’s been a consistently working actor for an impressive 43 years, none of his roles have been major parts in things I’ve watched. And I kinda regret this, as any actor who can say they appeared on both B.J. and the Bear, and This is Us is someone who deserves attention.

It also starred the late Roger Rees, who you’ll probably know as Robin Colcord on Cheers. The first Trek connection from the show is Rees, whose best work on Cheers was opposite the original Saavik – Kirstie Alley. I’m going with the “I thought he was buffing!” scene with Rebecca as my favorite Rees moment.

But there are three more direct Trek connections. The first is Gary Graham. He was Ambassador Soval on Star Trek: Enterprise. And I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t bring to your attention the fact that the Vulcan Ambassador fronts a Trek-themed rock band: the Sons of Kirk. Really.

Then there’s the late Galyn Görg, who played Jake Sisko’s Bajoran wife in the great DS9 episode, The Visitor.

But probably the best Trek connection is the fact that the villain Solomon Box was played by the great Andrew J. Robinson, Garak from Deep Space Nine, who I’ll cover a great deal more, if and when we ever actually get to DS9.