So I’ve been thinking of how to sum up this month, and well, the thing that comes to mind is a Greatest Hits album.
It’s an album where every song is a hit, and that’s what this month is. After the Discovery and TOS arcs, we’re taking a break from the TV content and going back to a few old favorites. We’ve got the return of Swarm, Eclipse, and the Borg. And while there is some new stuff, this month is going to feel very familiar.
What we’ll get are mini-arcs, each a few days long.
A New Ship
The USS Franklin-A has arrived. I won’t even try to guess at the storyline for this one, as the Franklin was at least a 110-year-old ship during the events of Star Trek Beyond, and surely Starfleet could have come up with a better design than this, given that the only anti-swarm tech on the Franklin itself was a Beastie Boys song, and I guess that Sabotage could lead to Breakdown. But anyway, back to the context of the game, we’ve got a new USS Franklin. It’s a G4 ship, that like its earlier namesake will specialize in hunting swarm.
New Dailies and More Resources
So these two new Swarm dailies can also be accomplished by defeating 1 Swarm Armada.
Completing these dailies will give you “biotics” which will be refined for much more resources than you got for refining the old Biominerals.
New Officers
So we’ve got two new officers, and while she’s not an American Girl, the long-awaited Jaylah is finally, finally, finally here. Not surprisingly, she’s going to give you bonuses on your Franklins.
And “Two of Ten” is here, he’s the increased Cargo officer that I’ve been asking for his here, even if it’s not the character I would have liked. But he’ll also give you a pretty great mining boost. By the way, he’s another liberated Borg officer, which I suppose could make him a Refugee.
Second Researcher
I’d like to give you a really interesting explanation of the second researcher, but as with the second builder, it’s just another slot to do research. But that’s still a great thing, as faster research will mean you’ll have to do less of The Waiting.
New Refits and a New Weapon
After refits were introduced last month, we’ve got more this month. Three of them to be precise. This time is for your specialty ships – the Vi’Dar, Stella, and Franklin-A. Like last month, maddeningly, these are only going to be available from solo leaderboard events.
That’s the downside. The plus-side is that they won’t all be merely who can spend the most materials auctions. The other plus side is that the brackets for these events have been made smaller.
As to the skins themselves, the Infinitus skin for your Vi’Dar will give you a bonus to the amount of nanoprobes you get from killing Borg ships.
The Opus Grande (which really sounds like a name for a cigar) will give you a big boost to the loot you get from defeating Eclipse enemies with your Stella.
And lastly, the USS Terror skin for your Franklin-A will give you an enormous boost to the damage you do against swarm ships.
Unfortunately, there’s no way this month to get the skins from last month. And those currencies for last month’s refits won’t help you this month. It would be nice to see them available in an upcoming event store. I’m mean it Scopely, I Won’t Back Down until this happens.
Plus, there’s this new “plasma blast” that unlike the projectiles last month, actually makes an impact on your gameplay, giving you a 5% increase to your critical damage. And you may already have enough shards to unlock it.
Bug Fixes
There are also some bug fixes. The biggest for me is this one. The Hud Bug, where everything just stays on your screen. This one drove me up a tree. But finally, it’s fixed. Hopefully. I guess Even the Losers get lucky sometimes.