[Federation News Service]

The Captain Specialization system that came with Delta Rising has offered players a new purpose for their continued efforts, even after reaching the new level cap of 60. Specializations offer additional advancement opportunities, exciting new abilities, and a whole new set of options for building out your captain’s capabilities.

With the upcoming launch of our 5th Anniversary Update, we will be offering our first expansion of the system in the form of a new Primary Specialization: Command Officer

Overview

The life of a Command Officer isn't easy. You need to make the difficult choices, shoulder the responsibility for those decisions and coordinate the actions of your peers and subordinates. But, if you're up to the challenge, the rewards and recognition may be worth the burden of leadership.

The Command Officer builds upon the concept of coordination and communication, as it pertains to combat in the Star Trek Online universe, both in Space and on the Ground. You, as a Command Officer, will gain access to abilities that allow your entire team to exceed previous limitations and perform more effectively as a unit.

Many of the abilities unlocked through the Command Officer Specialization also stack, if there are multiple Command Officers on a single team. But even solo, these team-wide benefits will affect your entire away team of Bridge Officers.

Since Command Officer is a Primary Specialization, it cannot be active at the same time as your existing Intelligence Officer Specialization. However, all captains will have the opportunity to invest additional Specialization Points into the Command Officer specialization, even if it is not active.

With the introduction of a new Primary Specialization, we are also increasing the cap on Specialization Points from the existing 60, up to a new max of 90.

Scaling Passive

As long as you have the Command Officer Specialization as your primary, you will gain:

+5%-15% Maximum Health and Hull Capacity

This bonus starts at 5% once you have a single ability purchased and the Specialization is active as your Primary. It scales up with each additional ability purchased, up to a total of 15% once the Specialization is complete.

Starship Trait

As with previous Specializations, purchasing abilities in the Command Officer specialization will unlock new Starship Traits.

After 15 abilities are purchased, you will unlock:










Command Frequency
Your advanced Command training has granted you access to special communications frequencies that can be used to more readily call for assistance in battle.
- The “Low Health” requirement is removed from Fleet Support
- Cooldown of Fleet Support reduced by 5 minutes









After 30 abilities are purchased, you gain access to Improved Command Frequency, which functions the same as above, but reduces the cooldown of Fleet Support by an additional 5 minutes.

Once unlocked, this Trait can be made active on any starship you own by adding it to an active Starship Trait Slot in the Trait selection window.

Abilities

The below list is only a small sampling of the abilities that can be unlocked through advancing in the Command Officer Specialization.










Forward March
(Ground)
+10% Sprint Speed for Team (stacks with multiple Command Officers, up to +50%)





Victory Cry
(Ground)
Any time a foe is successfully vaporized within 20m of you; trigger a large team-wide Heal.





Resilient Expose
(Ground)
Using an Exploit attack on an Exposed target has a 20% chance to refresh the Expose effect, rather than consume it.





Expose Weakness
(Space)
Energy Weapons gain a 1% chance to Expose enemies to Torpedo Exploits.
Torpedo Exploits ignore 20 Kinetic Damage Resistance Rating.





Violent Detonation
(Space – Requires Expose Weakness)
Torpedo Exploits now ignore 50 Kinetic Damage Resistance Rating.





Achilles’ Heel
(Space)
Next outgoing Critical Hit will apply -25 All Damage Resistance Rating for up to 10 seconds.





Debilitating Weakness
(Space – Requires Achilles’ Heel)
Achilles’ Heel effect also reduces foe’s outgoing damage by up to 60% while active.





Superfluous Emitters
(Ground + Space)
For each teammate (and self) at Full Health/Hull, you gain +2% Bonus Damage





Extrovert
(Ground + Space)
For each Player on your team (not Bridge Officers) gain 2.5% additional Specialization XP and Starship Mastery XP.









Many additional abilities can be unlocked in this Specialization, to improve your Ground and Space combat capabilities, as well as the overall effectiveness and survivability of your teammates.

Bridge Officer Specialization

Alongside the exciting changes appearing with the Bridge Officer Training Revamp (Blog Link Here), the Command Officer Specialization will grant Captains the ability to add the Command Specialization to any existing Bridge Officers! This will grant them access to additional Bridge Officer Abilities on both Space and Ground, further increasing their versatility and value as a member of your crew.

We will be sharing additional details regarding the Bridge Officer version of the Command Specialization in a future Dev Blog, so keep an eye on our website for that information!

** All of the above details, especially those listed for Abilities, are subject to change prior to launch.


Jeremy “BorticusCryptic” Randall
Systems Designer
Star Trek Online






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[James Rean]

Not really impressed. Hopefully the Bridge Officers will be more useful.

[Sysil]

I am not excited at all about this.

I'm barely touching the specialization we already have. Once I reach level 60 I won't be grinding XP anymore, so my progression will be extremely slow and I won't get many specialization points. Adding more abilities that I know I will never use is pointless.

As for the Command BO abilities, I won't be using them. There's already too many abilities in the game. Also I'm tired of paying $30 per character to be able to use the new shinnies.

[Dark]

Once I reach level 60 I won't be grinding XP anymore, so my progression will be extremely slow and I won't get many specialization points. Adding more abilities that I know I will never use is pointless.

I didn't grind even to get to level 60. Just from doing one or two things and DOffing, I got a level/spec point roughly every 2-3 days.

[Sysil]

I didn't grind even to get to level 60. Just from doing one or two things and DOffing, I got a level/spec point roughly every 2-3 days.

I'm grinding Argala, doffing and generally not enjoying my STO play time and I'm getting XP at the same rate as you.

Eventually I will reach 60, stop grinding and start doing the things I like in STO. My XP gains will then be negligable. That is why more specialization points does not excite me at all.

[Bryan]

Command Frequency Starship Trait which allows you to call Fleet Support any time should give a nice boost to DPS. Hope they don't nerf the Fleet Support dmg output at the same time.
Overall I am happy to see that they develop further the concept of spec trees.

[Cehus]

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/sh...1#post21671791

Even if you're married to your intel tree, this new tree may not be completely worthless for you.

[ForTheGamer]

I kind of like this tree. I'll need to see it in action first. I'm hoping that they do eventually make the Primary Specialization into Secondaries (only first 2 trees work), because then they'll likely increase/change Pilot and Commando into full fledged specializations.

If I had to judge what type of ships and/or skills we'd get from officers or ships, I'd actually assume the more heavier ships would be the ones we'll be getting. The Flagships (Odyssey, Bortasqu, Lleiset), Dreadnaughts (Jupiter, Typhoon) and Carriers (Atrox). I would assume they would have carrier commands and/or have cruiser/core commands. I'd guess that Command ships wouldn't have an actual trait, but rather a buffing to the types of commands you can accomplish.

As for space skills, I'd assume we'd finally get those special hero commands, I've always been wanting. You know the one's that Worf and Tuvok had when you teamed up with them in the Obelisk and Solanae respectively.

As for ground skills, I'd probably guess Command skills being a buffing specialization, so probably like "take cover" which would boost your dodge, etc.

At least that's my assumption.