This month, we’ve got the introduction of Strange New Worlds. It’s a nascent Trek series that has only had five episodes aired thus far. And I don’t hate it. I like the character interaction and the way they’ve been introduced. I like the episodic nature of it. I like Anson Mount as Pike and Ethan Pike as Spock (even if I wish he’d been somehow able to pull off Nimoy’s unique smoker’s accent.) I like the M’Benga character a whole lot more than I thought I would. It’s got moral quandaries aplenty. It’s even got some allusions to the old TOS Amok Time fight music. I can even forgive the crow-barring of Khan‘s decedent into the crew. So yes, I like the show…
And I know why we’re getting it this month, and yes, it’s all about synergy. I get it.
But I just don’t like it now. At this point, I feel a bit like Charlie Brown running across a field, again, only to have Lucy pull the football of Deep Space Nine away from me.
That being said, in-game, this month has some interesting things in it. The game needs a new hostile fighting crew, especially for players fighting higher-level hostiles. And we get it. We also get a big expansion for the Galaxy research tree, which has some of the best Trek references that we’ve seen in the game in a long, long while.
Four New Officers
So we’ve got three new Strange New Worlds Officers. A new Epic Pike, another Rare Spock, and a Rare La’An.
The new crew is designed to be another hostile grinding crew. It’s supposed to be better than PMC right out of the box. We’ll have to see about that. I know that a bunch of the other content creators have been furiously doing the math to try to figure out if they really are better.
The new Pike will give you a bonus to shield mitigation as a captain’s maneuver, and his officer ability will decrease hostile shield mitigation. The new Spock will give you a mitigation bonus against Interceptors. La’An will give you a bonus to your ship’s warp speed. In the long run, you’ll want to use an officer to be released later in this slot, but for now, she’ll help you out with synergy.
The main reason to be excited about La’An instead of a captain’s maneuver that you’ll never use, you get a below decks ability from her – an increase to max cargo size.
And aside from the new SNW officers, we’ve got a blast from the past. It’s Howling Mad Murdock himself, Reg Barclay.
I’m pretty sure that every kid who saw Barclay show up on the Enterprise-D immediately thought, “Hey, it’s Murdock from the A-Team.” 100%. I’m also pretty sure that everyone probably wondered why you’d have that guy in engineering. I mean, the A-Team did build some pretty cool gadgets (during musical montages, it was the 80s,) but they never hit anything. You’d have to think that Picard would have known that before he brought him on board. Every time they missed with a phaser shot, you’d think they’d be blaming Murdock.
Anyway…
So in STFC, Reg Barclay is your Holodeck officer. Sort of like the way Ghrush is your Syndicate officer. His officer ability is a boost to your crew’s defense stats. But his main use is his Below Decks ability, which is a nice bonus to your protected cargo.
Seems like now would be as good a time as any to introduce the holodeck that Barclay is an officer of…
The Holodeck
It kinda seems fitting that the most bug-prone feature of the Enterprise-D finally makes an appearance in STFC. Here it’s a building on your station, not a room on your ship.
This building will be a source for missions. Sometimes they’ll be new ones, but for the most part, it will be a way to get access to previously released ones. So anticipating the grumbling, it’s a source of reruns. But since the old missions often gave out materials, officer shards, and other things you like, this is all to the good.
And apart from the story aspect, the Holodeck will be your source for Barclay officer shards.
Now, here’s the shocker. Make sure you’re sitting down.
The Holodeck will be a free building for players ops level 15 and above.
Additional Officers for Transporter Patterns
We haven’t had any new ones in a while, but this month we get transporter patterns for Three of 11 (Borg T’Pring), Sela, Riker, and TOS Kirk.
The Faction Allegiance Loop
In my first run through the article, this was the lead. But a G4 and above thing, I put it down a bit lower. You’ll be getting new Faction Allegiance Daily goals that will give you a new material called Rodinium.
And this Rodinium will be used for…
New Galaxy Tree Research
The Galaxy Tree gets a lot bigger this month. It’ll all use the “Rodinium” we just talked about. And it’s a nice mix of extremely useful things. There’s also the nice touch that a lot of them are named for Trek characters. There’s one called Jarok’s Strategem, named for the defecting Romulan Admiral in the excellent TNG episode, The Defector. It increases the defense stats of your officers, but apparently doesn’t get you caught in political traps. Thankfully.
Pike’s Prestige, for example, will increase your Federation Rep from killing hostiles and armadas. Rekar’s Renown will do the same for Romulans.
And yes, there’s a research called Riker’s Fist. It increases the attack stats of all your officers, but I’m sure you’ll be able to make your own joke there.
There’s research to increase your ship’s impulse and warp speeds. Also increasing ship damage, and improving the efficiency of materials and parts needed to upgrade ships. It’s meat and potatoes stuff that’s really going to be useful.
We’ve also got new prime research this month. They’re prime research, that you can eventually earn for free. (You can obviously purchase them before that if you lack patience.) They’re 6* materials.
So for players level 40 plus, there’s mining rate for all materials, and ship XP from hostiles. Level 43 players can get +1 refines for G4 Ore, Crystal, and Gas.
Players level 51 and above can get reduced scrapping times, and level 53 can get an additional refine for G5 materials.
And Finally…
Hey everybody, it’s June. Finally. The end of the school year. To many of you, this is probably just another month, but for me, it means that my son’s Little League season (that I coached) is coming to an end. The Cub Scout Pack that I’m the Committee Chair of is winding up weekly meetings (campout this weekend.) Swim lessons are done. My daughter’s two weekly dance lessons are wrapping up, with a recital later this month. So I’m hoping to be able to catch up on a bunch of updates and articles going forward.
I thank you for your patience.