Here at the Federation News Service, we realize that you - the player - are a busy person. You may have kids, a job, a cat (or seven) or a busy school schedule. Every so often, there is a piece of STO news or a forum post that you may not catch that we feel is important. We at FNS would like to help you with that. Here are some pieces of news from the last few weeks we have found particularly interesting. These articles and posts could contain anything; gameplay mechanics, cosmetics changes, and everything in between.
Every few weeks we try to select a few items that we feel every player should know. There may be more or less depending on the information available. These items could come from the Star Trek Online official forums, a developer interview from another news outlet, or a player. In addition to a link to the source, we will provide our opinions on the topic as to why we think it matters to you.
Tufflis, adventure zones, new ships, oh my! Format your dataport, because there’s a lot of information coming at you!
ARC NEWS: “Tier 6 Intel Starships”
The first round of Tier 6 ships - five of them from the Intelligence subclass - were revealed last week. The Intel ships’ abilities have now been fleshed out beyond unique consoles. The Intel ships are all based on current ship classes like Science Vessels and Warbirds, with a consistent tradeoff of higher speed and agility for lower hull HP. All Intel ships come with a cloaking device; a standard Cloak for Starfleet players, a Battle Cloak for Klingon players, and an Enhanced Romulan Battle Cloak for Romulan players. Intel ships can equip Dual Cannons, have at least two Intel Bridge Officer stations (one of them a guaranteed Commander-level,) and include the Gather Intelligence ability unique to Intel ships. The Gather Intelligence ability allows Intel ships to launch a sensor drone to scan an enemy ship, continuing to scan it until the enemy ship is disabled or destroyed. The drone continuously stacks the enemy ship with the “Penetrating Scan” debuff; once there are enough debuffs, a ship is marked “Vulnerable.” Intel ships can then find critical weaknesses in the enemy ship’s defense, weapons, or critical systems.
ARC NEWS: “Intelligence Officers”
A new Bridge Officer mechanic has been introduced: Specializations. Separate from a Boff’s profession (Engineering, Science, Tactical), specializations are meant to supplement the Boff’s abilities, allowing them to use everything from both the profession’s ability pool and specialization’s pool together, creating a hybrid Specialism-Profession Boff. Currently, the only specialization is Intelligence, but future specializations are planned. A limited group of Tier 6 starships will feature Specialist Boff seats at the launch of Delta Rising, and specialization abilities can only be used in those Specialist seats; Specialist Boffs placed into profession-based or Universal seats can not make use of their specialized abilities. However, specialization abilities can always be used on the ground. When Delta Rising is released, standard Boff vendors will be selling Common-quality Specialist Boffs alongside regular non-specialized Boffs. For a full list of Intelligence abilities, as well as a FAQ on specialized officers, see the dev blog linked above.
ARC NEWS: “Delta Alliance Reputation”
A new reputation system will be introduced with Delta Rising: the Delta Alliance. Earned based on their performance in PvE queues, players will be able to use Delta Marks and Ancient Power Cells to unlock the Warp Core, Shields, Engines and Deflector of the Delta Alliance Assault space set, the specialized Bio-Neural Gel Pack console, Thoron Infused Polaron weapons and Neutronic Torpedo of the Delta Alliance Ordnance space set, and the Combat Armor, Personal Shield and Phaser Rifle of the Delta Alliance Elite ground set. The Delta Alliance reputation system also includes three unique kit modules, one per profession. Tactical captains can receive a Neutronic Grenade, Engineering captains can receive a Neutronic Mortar, and Science captains can receive a ranged Neutronic Radiation cloud. The Tier 5 active trait for the Delta Alliance reputation system is the Concussive Tachyon Emission, a powerful ground trait that deals damage and disables the affected enemy’s shields for a short time.
ARC NEWS: “Intelligence Operative Gear”
One of the most unique parts of the Delta Rising trailer was a quick shot of two characters ziplining their way across a chasm. This has now been confirmed to be a gameplay mechanic in Delta Rising with the official reveal of the grapple gun. Within the story, the grapple gun is part of an entire suite of equipment that Starfleet Intelligence has prepared for Starfleet operatives of the Alpha Quadrant Alliance to use in the Delta Quadrant. The grapple gun allows players to not only zipline, but also rappel and use a special “traverse” mode allowing the user to cross horizontal planes. The gun will likely be of some importance in the expansion’s missions, meant to emphasize stealth. It is currently unclear if Klingon and Romulan players will be given access to the grapple gun; while the wording of the briefing seems to hint at it being Federation-only, there is a screenshot of a Klingon operative rappelling with one.
ARC NEWS: “The Kobali Adventure Zone”
Delta Rising will be introducing a new adventure zone of the likes of New Romulus and the Defera Borg Invasion: the Kobali adventure zone. The Kobali adventure zone, available to players at level 54, involves a Kobali planet falling under attack from a currently unidentified enemy, with the Alpha Quadrant Alliance coming to the rescue. Regions of the zone include a Kobali city serving as the forward base, a sparsely populated countryside, trenches where the enemy has dug in, and a mountain region suspected to be home to an enemy base. Players will be able to explore the world and complete missions alone or with a team, with missions featuring a special “escalation” phase that can seemingly only be triggered when certain difficult prerequisites have been met, giving the players extra rewards once completed.
ARC NEWS: “Return of the Reinforcements Pack!”
The Reinforcements Duty Officer Pack, replaced with the Fleet Support Duty Officer Pack on November 21, 2012, has made a comeback after the latest patch. The pack will be replacing the Romulan Survivor Duty Officer Pack, and reintroduces the chance to win a Tier 1 Tuffli Class Freighter. Included in the pack is a guaranteed 4 Common or up Doffs, 2 Uncommon or up Doffs, 1 Rare or up Doff, and a Bonus Item. The bonus items include the Tuffli, a random Mk XII Very Rare console, Powered and Unpowered Alien Artifacts, and stacks of Gamma Quadrant commodities and devices. A full list of possible Doffs and their abilities is available in the announcement post above, as well as stats and special abilities of the Tuffli.
WE HOPE YOU LIKED THIS ROUNDUP, WHAT PART OF DELTA RISING ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD FOR?
LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!
WRITTEN BY FLICKY
EDITED BY TORINTH - STEPHEN.HALL@UFPLANETS.COM
BANNER IMAGE COURTESY OF PERFECT WORLD ENTERTAINMENT
