The newest ship in Star Trek Fleet Command is the Sarcophagus, or the Klingon “Ship of the Dead.”
Of course, when I think of “Ship of the Dead,” this is what first comes to my mind:
But fortunately (or unfortunately according to your point of view) the Klingon Ship of the Dead isn’t an old VW bus. It’s a ship designed to defeat any other ship (and I mean ANY other ship) on Territory Capture Nodes.
Compared to some of the other single-use ships in the game, this one might be the “single-usiest.” (Shoe-horned Christmas reference here.)
You’re not going to use it to mine, or grind out hostiles. You’re going to use it to defend and attack nodes. There’s no Touch of Grey with this one. But, on the plus side, it’s going to be really, really good at doing just that.
Getting Your Sarcophagus
This one’s going to raise hackles all over the place, as the only way to get it in month one is to purchase it. And no, it’s not going to be cheap. That’s the downside. And it is a pretty big downside. I’m told that it will be available for free-to-play players in the coming months. It’s not a faction ship, and it’s not considered an event ship. So not having one isn’t going to prevent you from competing in any events at the moment.
You’re also going to need to have a shipyard of at least level 30 to construct this ship.
Ship Ability
So as you can see, this ship has a tremendous bonus when fighting on a Territory Capture node. For point of reference, the Vi’Dar’s bonus against Borg probes at level 1 is “only” 24,000%. This is three-and-a-half times that. Against every ship. And it maxes out at 250,000%. But it only applies when you’re either attacking a ship on a TC node, or defending while on a TC node, and only during a takeover.
The problem is that this ship is slow. Painfully slow. Like the slowest ship in the game. Like 55. And you’re going to be vulnerable all the way to the node, so you’re going to need your alliance to protect you on the way in. But you’re going to need to keep on Truckin’ all the way to the node.
Once you’ve gotten there, well I guess you’ve got a warrant, and you’re going to come in. If you can get one of these to the node, you’re probably going to be immovable. It’s unlikely that most G4 ships will be able to dislodge it, or be able to defend a node against it.
One way to get around the Sarcophagus’s painfully slow impulse speed is with the Discovery‘s summoning ability. Get your Disco next to the node, and summon it.
The big thing for most players will be in defending against the thing. So you’re going to need to watch the area around the TC nodes for Discovery’s and lumbering Sarcophaguses. (Also Snuffleupaguses, but it seems much less likely that one of those will show up.)
Cost to Own
Apart from the blueprints, the Sarcophagus is going to be expensive to upgrade and maintain. In terms of traditional materials, it takes 3* ore and crystal, just like other G3 battleships.
The unusual thing about this ship, and the big limiter at high levels, is that at tier 10, it starts taking 4* uncommon battleship parts. And rather a lot of them, so you’re really going to want to invest in the tech that reduces those costs.
Just to give you a peek, at tier 12, it’ll cost you 865,000 4* uncommon battleship parts.
Of course, you won’t need to get the ship anywhere near there in order to have it be very useful.
The other rub is that it’ll take new materials to upgrade and repair.
New Materials
In order to upgrade and repair your Sarcophagus, you’re going to need some new materials, that you’ll get from refining Isogen.
And as you can see above, you’re going to need your alliance to unlock Sarcophagus Material Forges as Territory Capture service.
In order to repair your Sarcophagus, you’re going to need a new material called “Baakonite.” The good news is that it doesn’t require any traditional resources to repair. The bad news is that Baakonite is going to be limited in much the way that Mycelium is limited. You’ll only be able to refine a limited amount of it every day. So you don’t want to get stuck without enough Baakonite in order to repair your ship, or you’ll be stuck with a tied up dock until the next day.
In case you’re curious, Baakonite (pronounced “BAH-ko-nite”) is the material they make Bat’leths from, according to the Deep Space Nine episode, Blood Oath. In case you’ve forgotten, that’s the one where Kor, Kang, and Koloth come to DS9 and get Jadzia Dax to help them get revenge on “The Albino.”
It has nothing at all to do with bacon.
Duranium and the “Black Fleet Memorials” will be used to upgrade your ship.
The good news, is that you won’t need any of these materials, save for one Black Fleet Memorial, to get your ship to tier 3.
Sarcophagus Background
The Sarcophagus broke a whole lot of new ground when it comes to what the Klingons do with the remains of the fallen warriors. In Star Trek IV, Spock’s computer testing had him identifying “Klingon Mummification Glyphs.”
By Star Trek, The Next Generation, the bodies of Klingon warriors were just “empty shells.”
But by Deep Space Nine, there was a ritual by which Klingons would stand watch by the body, to keep predators away. I suppose that there was little danger of predators stopping by Beverly Crusher’s sickbay on the Enterprise-D.
And now on Discovery, the bodies of dead Klingons are sacred, and are an accessory to the ship. Now, according to the writers, this is a different house of Klingons, so I suppose they could have different traditions. And while I was initially put off by this, the more I reflect on it, the more I think it’s nice to have a bit of a change to the Klingon monoculture.
So the Sarcophagus is T’Kuvma’s 200-year-old ship that we first see in “The Vulcan Hello,” where Michael Burnham commits a bit of a mutiny, and the Klingon War starts. It’s also where Captain Georgiou is killed.
The End of the Sarcophagus
The Klingon Ship of the Dead met its end at the Battle of Pahvo, where the Discovery used it’s Spore Drive to defeat the Klingon cloaking device, before dealing a fatal blow, in the episode, “Into the Forest I Go.”
Bring the Sarcophagus Home
Like the look of the Sarcophagus? You can get yours today from Eaglemoss. And if you get yours in the next week, you’ll save up to 20% on it, or anything of the other model Star Trek starships.
