Season 9: A New Accord is not introducing a new race or beginning a new story like season 8 did. What it is doing is bringing back an old enemy with a new attitude, the Undine. Admiral Tuvok returns to continue the Dyson Sphere story that was started in Season 8. A new reputation, lockbox, a new home for Starfleet and much needed gameplay updates help round out the latest major update from Cryptic.
Season 8.5's featured episode titled "A Step Between the Stars" found that an old enemy has returned, the Undine. We left Admiral Tuvok calling for a joint meeting of the 3 major powers of the Alpha and Beta quadrants (Klingon and Romulan) to discuss the Undine threat and the newly found Jenolan Sphere. You will be tasked with as siting Tuvok in bringing the Federation, Klingons and Romulans together to unite against the new Undine threat.
Completing the mission will reward new Undine specific space and ground traits, profession specific Counter-Command kits and a new Counter-Command Tactical Console.
Viscous Cycle is a new repeatable mission against he Undine in fluidic space. The mission is a raid on Undine shipyards growing planet killers. One of the unique aspics of fluidic space is that your ship will rock and be pulled with currents within the map. Similar to the Dyson sphere though you can improve your ability to navigate the map by increasing your reputation tier.
The Undine Assault mission takes place at Gornar, Andor, Cardassia or Ferenganiar; the Undine are attempting to destroy the planet. Players with the help of respective ships of the planet being defended need to fight through Undine forces closing rifts. Once those tasks are completed it will be time to take out the planet killer. This mission is very teamwork oriented. There are 3 "tracks" of rifts and Undine ships that need to be managed in addition to a local command ship that needs protected in order for it to make it to the final rift and planet killer.
With the success of the ground battlezone against the Voth it made sense to create a space battlezone. This time though it is against Species 8472, the Undine. The premise of the zone is similar to the ground, there are points on the map that the players must take control of . The purpose of taking control of the points is to shut down the Undine rifts. Once all the points are captured you will have a chance to kill the Undine planet killers before they escape back to fluidic space, you have to kill at least 1 of the 3 to win.
Cryptic applied updated textures to the character models themselves making them more detailed with more color variation. The new higher resolution Undine look great and should provide a more threatening feel with going against the Undine in battle.
Even though Undine armor was not seen in any Star Trek Voyager episodes, Cryptic did a great job of designing armor that fits with the scheme establish with ships and ship internals we saw in the Voyager TV show. As with all Undine technology they rely on biotech, growing their equipment as opposed to building it and this new armor is no different. It has the perfect menacing look you would expect from an emery that rivals the Borg.
Undine ground combat has been updated as well. Species 8472 will use wrist blades, wrist guns and psionic attacks. They no longer have the self-healing ability but they now have a Regeneration Effect. Undine have no shields but they are going to be one of the most resilient enemies to date.
Undine space compact has also been reworked. The bioship seen in Voyager has been reclassified as a Frigate and a new Planet Killer ship has been created that will randomly spawn during Undine battles. Cruisers can now perform a Subspace Dive, essentially disappearing in to fluidic space for a few seconds and reappearing somewhere else while the battleship can open rifts that will pull a ship close and debuff accuracy and speed while doing a damage over time. All Undine ships have been granted a forward Heavy Beam attack, increased speed, damage resistance, faster hull regeneration, heavy damage weapons and a new bio-plasmic warhead torpedo. All Undine beam attacks can knock your ship.
At the start of season 8 we were introduced to "Commendations". Commendations were a way to take some of the grind out of reputation advancement. You were awarded 1 commendation for the first Dyson mission performed that day. Essentially Commendations were used for reputation advancement while marks were used for equipment. Well say goodbye to the short lived idea of Commendations, with Season 9 it is being replaced with Daily Bonus Marks. The first reputation task a player does for that day will earn the normal mark reward plus bonus marks equal to 1 daily XP project and 1 hourly XP project.
All reputations are adopting some of the features implemented with the Dyson Reputation in Season 8.
Both hourly and daily XP Projects will require Marks, Expertise and Energy Credits and will grant a reputation reward pack and reputation XP when completed. As with the Dyson reputation, daily projects can be completed every 20 hours while hourly take 1 hour.
Reward Packs are boxes filled with items that are found in the reputations dilithium store. These will be awarded at the completion of an XP project. These were a hit with the Dyson Reputation and will be applied to all Reputations with Season 9.
Dilithium store unlock projects are a thing of the past. Starting with Season 9 dilithium stores will be unlocked as reputation tiers are completed.
Mark X and XI equipment was not available for Dyson Reputation, only Mark XII. All other reputations will follow this model starting with Season 9. In doing so Cryptic made sure that none of the equipment had their tier requirements increased, they either stayed the same or had it reduced. The only equipment that had a cost reduction was the Nukura Space Set which went from 900 to 750.
Starting with season 9 all tier upgrade projects will follow the same model as Dyson Reputation and cost 5 marks with a completion time of 5 seconds.
Costume unlocks will be automatically awarded when a ground set is completed.
The changes to the reputation powers and the kit revamp are the two biggest changes to gameplay in Season 9. These changes are going to make players reevaluate their entire strategy with builds both ground and space. There are some great things with the reputation power change and some not so great. The most important thing to understand is that you no longer need tokens to make changes to the rep powers. In fact, in between missions you can change the setup to give you the best arrangement for a specific mission. The trade off is that you can only have 4 space, 4 ground and 4 active applied at one time. Essentially reducing the amount of overall active powers you can have at one time. Changes to the Powers themselves is listed below:
DYSON JOINT COMMAND
Tier 1
Integrated Nanofibers: Damage resistance doubled
Deadly Aim: Critical Severity bonus doubled
Deadly Aim: Critical Severity bonus doubled
Tier 2
Advanced Hull Reinforcement: Damage Resistance doubled
Advanced Targeting Systems: Critical Severity bonus doubled
Advanced Targeting Systems: Critical Severity bonus doubled
Tier 3
Active Armor Hardening: Fixed
Vanquish: Damage resistance rebuff increased
Vanquish: Damage resistance rebuff increased
Tier 4
Active Hull Hardening: Fixed
Tactical Advantage: Damage resistance rebuff increased
Tactical Advantage: Damage resistance rebuff increased
NUKARA STRIKE FORCE
Tier 1
Indomitable: Hit point bonus increased
Identify Vulnerability: Shield penetration increased
Identify Vulnerability: Shield penetration increased
Tier 2
Fortified Hull: Hit point bonus increased
Enhanced Shield Penetration: Shield penetration increased
Enhanced Shield Penetration: Shield penetration increased
Tier 3
Emergency Fix: Heal over time increased.
Cryo Immobilizer Module: Damage over time and root increased
Cryo Immobilizer Module: Damage over time and root increased
Tier 4
Auxiliary Power Configuration - Defense: This power no longer provides boosts to skills based on Auxiliary power level. Instead, it directly gives +Max Hull HP, +Max Shield HP, Kinetic Damage Resistance and Energy Damage Resistance based on Auxiliary power level. Additionally, it has been improved to provide a greater bonus per point of Auxiliary power.
Auxilliary Power Configuration - Offense: This power no longer provides boosts to skills based on Auxiliary power level. Instead, it directly grants a bonus to all damage based on Auxiliary power level. In addition, this damage bonus will provide a larger bonus to damage than the previous one did and it will also provide a small Accuracy buff that scales with Aux power.
Auxilliary Power Configuration - Offense: This power no longer provides boosts to skills based on Auxiliary power level. Instead, it directly grants a bonus to all damage based on Auxiliary power level. In addition, this damage bonus will provide a larger bonus to damage than the previous one did and it will also provide a small Accuracy buff that scales with Aux power.
NEW ROMULUS
Tier 1
Lethality: Critical hit chance bonus increased
Enhanced Personal Shields: Changed to a Shield HP boost
Enhanced Personal Shields: Changed to a Shield HP boost
Tier 2
Precision: Critical hit chance bonus increased
Enhanced Shield Systems: Changed to a Shield HP boost
Enhanced Shield Systems: Changed to a Shield HP boost
Romulan Tier 3 and 4 Abilities:
Removed all "Chance on Crit" and replaced this functionality with an "On Next Crit" temporary effect. These effects are all consumed by applying their associated effects to self or foe, and will automatically refresh 20 seconds later.
This change was a purposeful move away from the idea of "chance-on-chance" and an attempt to normalize the opportunity that a player has of benefiting from this Reputation ability, should they choose to use it.
The "Placate" effect of the Romulan Tier 4 Space ability has been replaced with "Weapons Offline"
Base duration of this effect has been increased from 2 seconds to 4 seconds
This debuff is now cleansed by Engineering Team instead of Science Team
This change was a purposeful move away from the idea of "chance-on-chance" and an attempt to normalize the opportunity that a player has of benefiting from this Reputation ability, should they choose to use it.
The "Placate" effect of the Romulan Tier 4 Space ability has been replaced with "Weapons Offline"
Base duration of this effect has been increased from 2 seconds to 4 seconds
This debuff is now cleansed by Engineering Team instead of Science Team
TASK FORCE OMEGA
Tier 1
Medical Nanites: Self-regeneration doubled
Omega Weapon Proficiency: Changed to a bonus to damage
Omega Weapon Proficiency: Changed to a bonus to damage
Tier 2
Hull-Repairing Nanites: Hull regeneration doubled
Omega Weapon Training: Changed to Omega Kinetic Shearing. All mine and torpedo damage deal a 40% damage over time (6 seconds).
Omega Weapon Training: Changed to Omega Kinetic Shearing. All mine and torpedo damage deal a 40% damage over time (6 seconds).
Tier 3
Replaced the "Rotating Weapon Frequency" power with "Omega Graviton Pulse Module". This new power causes all of your ground weapon attacks to have a 5% chance to deal additional kinetic damage with 100% shield penetration. This damage is doubled against Borg.
Regenerative Shield Augmentation: Significantly improved this power's regeneration rate.
Regenerative Shield Augmentation: Significantly improved this power's regeneration rate.
Tier 4
Omega Graviton Amplifier: Updated this proc's description to explain that it has a chance to be triggered with each weapon attack instead of once per cycle like other procs. This is merely a text change, this power has always worked like this. In addition, this proc's damage is doubled against the Borg.
Superior Shield Repair: Significantly increased the amount of shield regeneration per 6 seconds.
Superior Shield Repair: Significantly increased the amount of shield regeneration per 6 seconds.
One area of the game that has been disappointing, at least to me, was the similar look that the player characters had. For as many uniform and alien combinations players had to choose from everyone still had kind of the same look due to the limited shapes and skin colors of the heads.
Cryptic set out to fix that issue with Season 9 although most of us noticed some those changes in the season 8.5 featured episode with Admiral Tuvok and Dr. Cooper. Three new head shapes representing district ethnic origins combined with several new complexions give players a variety of new options when creating characters in Star Trek Online.
Since the reputations were implemented in Season 7 they have really been one of the most popular aspects of the game. The "grind" factor has been reduced in Season 8 for the Dyson Reputation and for the other reputations this season (see Reputation System Changes), especially for alternate player characters. This is important to note because what is a new season without a new reputation; season 9 introduces the 8472 Counter-Command Reputation.
Advancement is earned by completing and repeating the new Season 9 content involving the Undine:
Viscous Cycle
Undine Assault
Undine Infiltration
Undine Battlezone
All of these award marks and other rewards needed for the reputation XP projects. As with all reputations rewards are offered as you progress through the tiers and new ground and space sets will be available:
Fluidic Counter Assault Space Set (4 Pieces)
Counter-Command Deflector Array Mk XII
Counter-Command Hyper Impulse Engines Mk XII
Counter-Command Covarient Shield Array Mk XII
Counter-Command Warp Core Mk XII
Counter-Command Hyper Impulse Engines Mk XII
Counter-Command Covarient Shield Array Mk XII
Counter-Command Warp Core Mk XII
Counter-Command Ordnance Space Set (3 Pieces)
Hydrodynamics Compensator Universial Console
Heavy Bio-Molecular Phaser/Disruptor Turret Mk XII
Enhanced Bio-Molecular Photon Torpedo Launcher Mk XII
Heavy Bio-Molecular Phaser/Disruptor Turret Mk XII
Enhanced Bio-Molecular Photon Torpedo Launcher Mk XII
8472 Counter-Command Elite Ground Set (3 Pieces)
Counter-Command Exo-Armor Mk XII
Counter-Command Personal Shield Mk XII
Bio-Molecular Phaser Projector/Disruptor Beam Rifle Mk XII
Counter-Command Personal Shield Mk XII
Bio-Molecular Phaser Projector/Disruptor Beam Rifle Mk XII
In addition to the new space and ground sets the kit revamp allows for rewards that past reputations could not offer:
Bio-Molecular Photon Grenade kit module (Tactical)
Nanite Medical Generator kit module (Engineer)
Nanite Sonic Pulse kit module (Science)
Like all reputations as you progress through the tiers you will be awarded traits:
Tier 1 (Ground)
Mental Conditioning - Control/Psionic Resistance
Mental Acuity - Damage increase while aiming
Mental Acuity - Damage increase while aiming
Tier 2 (Space)
Crucial Component Redistribution - Control/Antiproton Resistance
Tactical Precision - Accuracy increase when using a Tactical bridge officer
Tactical Precision - Accuracy increase when using a Tactical bridge officer
Tier 3 (Ground)
Empathic Adaptation - Chance to increase shield damage resistance
Empathic Reverberation - Change to reflect energy damage when hit
Empathic Reverberation - Change to reflect energy damage when hit
Tier 4 (Space)
Nanoprobe Field Generator - Change to increase shield damage resistance
Nanoprobe Feedback - Change to reflect energy damage when hit
Nanoprobe Feedback - Change to reflect energy damage when hit
Tier 5 (Active Ground)
Bio-Molecular Shield Generator - Create a shield dome providing large shield damage increase and regen.
The idea of a kit revamp has been discussed by players and developers for over a year and it is finally going live with Season 9.
Essentially instead of a single kit with set powers you are going to equip a Kit Frame and then choose different modules to put into the frame. Each frame will contain varying amounts of module slots and types depending on the Mark level.
This revamp should allow for more customizable ground builds tailored to each players individual play style.
