Another month is here, and we travel further into the Delta Quadrant.
Not quite this far, but still pretty far.
We’ve got a new ship, and a new hostile/armada crew. More research, more events, more missions, and another loot loop.
USS Voyager
It’s an epic 4*explorer, and you’ll need a level 34 shipyard to build her. The developers claim she’s the quickest warp speed in the game, with a very fast impulse speed. Out of the box, for me, she’s got an impulse speed of 155, and a warp speed of 44.0.
Its passive ability does increased damage against Delta Quadrant hostiles, and it’s got advanced sensors, which will reveal cloaked species 8472 hostiles in the Delta Quadrant.
Probably the most exciting thing it does, is that it’s got an Astrometrics Scan, which will reveal a player’s station coordinates. It’s the sort of thing that players really wanted back in the days of yore in say, 2019. It’s a ship that will, let’s say, lead to more civilized play.
Lastly, it does come with a ready-made free-to-play angle, as the USS Voyager Refinery, before you’ve got the ship, will have a chest that you’ll be able to open daily that will let you unlock the ship with Hirogen relics. It’ll just take you the 100 days or so.
The Voyager Loot Loop
You’ll start by destroying Hirogen hostiles to gain Hirogen Relics. You’ll exchange those relics for Deuterium canisters (which powers Voyager’s Active Ability.)
You’ll then use that active ability to scan for cloaked 8472 hostiles. Then you’ll destroy those hostiles for Exotic Biotoxins (which sounds like the an awful skincare product.)
Those biotoxins are then exchanged for Voyager Travel tokens and Commerce Insignia. Then you’ll travel to Voyager Space and collect Anomaly samples.
Then you’ll exchange those samples for Artifact Shards, Ship parts and research dust. Rinse and repeat.
Voyager Research
You’ll find this in the Starships section, towards the end.
There are six nodes that are Voyager-specific. It’ll increase the anomaly-mining rate, Voyager’s Warp Range,
Other research will unlock Below-Decks officer presets, increase the warp speed of all your ships, increase protected cargo, increase hostile damage with faction ships, etc. It’ll also unlock some Superhighways for the Delta Quadrant.
Isolytic Damage
This is a permanent new damage type for ships, officers and artifacts. This is damage that your ships will do in parallel to the normal damage. So current mitigation won’t apply (only Isolytic Mitigation will reduce it.) Your shields, armor and dodge won’t help. But they won’t help your opponents either.
Initial Isolytic Artifacts
| Borg Queen’s Remains | Epic | Increases Isolytic Damage for all ships |
| Dual Generators | Epic | Increases Isolytic Defense for all ships |
| Malkothian Spirits | Epic | Increases Isolytic Damage against armadas |
| King M’Benga’s Crown | Rare | Increases Isolytic Damage against explorers |
| Kataan Telescope | Rare | Increases Isolytic Damage against interceptors |
| Riker’s Trombone | Rare | Increases Isolytic Damage against battleships |
| Majalan Oath Coin | Rare | Increases Isolytic Defense for battleships |
| Sisko’s Baseball | Rare | Increases Isolytic Defense for explorers |
| Taurean Spear | Rare | Increases Isolytic Defense for interceptors |
| Narada Tendril Fragment | Rare | Increases Isolytic Damage against players |
| Picard’s Ressikin Flute | Rare | Increases Isolytic Damage for the first three rounds against hostiles |
New Officers – Janeway, Paris and Kim
With the arrival of the USS Voyager, we have her captain, Kathryn Janeway and her bridge crew. The three of them together, or combined with the B’Elanna or the Doctor from last month, will give you an excellent hostile grinding crew, and one that you can also use against armadas. This could be the first great crew (apart from maybe the Borg Jaylah crew) to be great at both grinding hostiles and armadas. There will be a lot less of you telling the people in your alliance that you’ll get to the armada as soon as you re-crew.
Captain Janeway is an epic command officer (obviously,) and she’s got a great offense/defense set of skills against hostiles and armadas
Her captain’s maneuver increases your shield mitigation every time you take hull damage from a hostiles or armadas. She starts at 6% per turn, and like Picard, she gets synergy from all types of officers, 7% per officer, to top out at 20%. By comparison, SNW Pike has the same ability, but it only tops out at 14%.
Her officer ability is the first to affect the new damage type, as she’ll give you an increase in Isolytic damage against hostiles and armadas. It’ll start out at 10% and top out at 50%, and that’s pure damage.
Nicholas Locarno… or sorry, Tom Paris is a rare engineering officer.
His officer ability will increase your critical hit damage by 5% each round you take damage from hostiles or armadas. So it’s the ol’ Khan ability, and like Khan it’s cumulative, so by round 20, it’ll be all criticals. Combined with Janeway’s isolytic damage, you’re going to be punishing hostiles.
And if you’re grinding out hostiles with your Augur, Paris’s below deck ability is right up your alley, as he’ll give you a chance to generate burning in your opponent.
Harry Kim is a rare science officer.
His officer ability will give you a boost to positive rep gained by grinding Federation,Klingon and Romulan hostiles and armadas. Probably the weakest of the three this month. but worth for his below deck ability.
His below deck ability will give you chance to generate morale whilst battling hostiles. Great for grinding hostiles with your Enterprise (or Enterprise-A.)
Missions
The game narrative this month has Progenitor descendents (the Arcaleans) claiming the role of Galactic Caertakers, working with the Borg and the Hirogen to hunt down Species 8472, destroy fluidic space.
Yes, the baddies in this month are the Arc Aliens.
We’ve also got the Think Tank, the Devore, and the really, really creepy Vaadwaur. In case you’d forgotten, the Vaadwaur were the dormant Delta Quadrant species that Voyager woke up, only to find they were really, really aggressive.
- 10 Core missions for players 34+
- 10 Planetary Side missions for players 30+
- Two Isolytic Damage Side Missions
Event Highlights
There’s a “compete storyline event” this month. You’ll need to complete 20 events during the month to finish this event. It will award “Lobi Crystals” that you’ll exchange in a special event store at the end of the month.
The Recruit Janeway Solo Leaderboard will run every weekend this month on Saturdays.
A solo leaderboard event for spending Rare, Epic and Formation Directives will also award Isolytic Artifact Tokens. There will also be a solo milestone event “Battle Drills” that will rely on completing Formation Armadas.
There’s an event called “Directive 010 Override” event as well. Directive 010 from the Voyager episode, In the Flesh, states, “”Before engaging alien species in battle, any and all attempts to make first contact and achieve nonmilitary resolution must be made.”
It’s a new style PvP. In one day, there will be four events, you’ll be able to finish one of them. You’ll pick your window, and try to see how many players you can take out in 90 minutes. It will run three times, on the 9th, 15th and 21st of the month. That it’s not running on a weekend seems like a miss.
Battlepass Contest
Look for the Battlepass Contest to launch tomorrow, and run until Friday evening.