The Next Generation Arc 2 is here, and we’ll start quickly by telling you what it doesn’t have. There are no new ship skins, no new tech trees, and no officers other than Federation ones. But, while it’s a relatively simple update, but it’s one with some really good stuff in it.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard
First and foremost, Captain Picard is here, and he’s essentially an improved version of Pike. So if you’ve been looking for another hostile fighting crew to complement your Pike Crew, here it is. While this month doesn’t have a lot of flash to it, especially for lower-level players, this one officer will make a big difference.
I go over him, and Patrick Stewart in greater depth here.
So not only do we have Picard, but we’re going to get a whole week of Picard-centered events, based on the idea that June 16th is “Captain Picard Day” from the TNG episode, The Pegasus. Picard Week in the game will start on June 14th. There will be events that will let you earn Picard shards (hey, that rhymes), other officer shards, ship cosmetics, faction credits, and more. There will also be related Picard side missions.
You’ll pick up Picard shards from events, from the free and elite Battle Pass, and from solo leaderboard events (plural.)
And Wesley
Yep. Wesley Crusher is here. He’s a rare officer who you can use against hostiles, and for synergy. More on him coming in an article to be released later today.
You’ll be able to get a full unlock of Wesley Crusher from the store, and get shards the Battle Pass, and from a solo leaderboard event.
G4 Armadas!
Regular armadas have been stagnant for a while. You could get your armada control center up to level 39, and that was that. And armada packs could give you G3 epic ships, and that was it. The armadas themselves maxed out at level 39. While these were a bit of a challenge when they came out over a year ago, they’ve since lost a bit of their drama, especially for those with G3 Epic ships, or an ISS Jellyfish.
The new armadas themselves cost the same to launch as the old ones, they’re just a big stronger and located in dark space. They cost the same amount of directives to launch as the G3 armadas do. And they’ll give you much greater credit rewards, this 44 Romulan Garrison will pay out 74k rare armada credits.
The epic packs will get you G4 ship blueprints, and full unlocks are possible. The available ships will depend on your ops level. The rare packs will get you officer shards, Lorca, Five of Ten, and Ten of Ten. The G4 uncommon packs will provide epic and rare G4 materials, and epic and rare G4 ship parts (sadly, no commons.)
And the other armada update, which will affect everyone (for the better) is that G3 armadas will now respawn much faster.
New Projectiles
This month we’ve got three new projectiles, the epic Refractive Beam, the rare Positron Phaser, and the uncommon Plasma Beam.
The Refractive Beam will increase your ship’s penetration stats by 20% and require 75 epic projectile shards AND 75 Refractive Beam shards. These will be sourced through a solo leaderboard.
The Positron Phaser will increase your ship’s overall damage by 10% and require 50 rare projectile shards and 50 Positron Beam shards. It will be sourced through the store.
The Plasma Beam will look pretty, and you’ll get it through the elite Battle Pass.
New Events
We’ve also got some interesting new events coming up, that’ll I’ll be putting out a bigger article about later today.
New Alliance Emblems
I’m not sure just how excited anyone will be about this, but there are 11 new Alliance Emblems coming into the game. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think most players could pick their current alliance emblem out of a lineup.
Other Highlights
Probably the biggest one is that the Fog of War has been removed from territories that your alliance controls. Players have been asking for this one for months.
Pike’s officer description has been updated to the way he works in the game (like Picard’s, just on combat abilities.)
And one really minor one, the station floating in Galaxy view, looking bigger than star systems has been fixed.
Make sure you update your app in the app store for these to take effect.
And last, I’ll be holding another Win a Battle Pass trivia contest that will launch later today. Stay tuned for that.
Have a great month everyone!