= State of the Fleet, April 2016 =

Greetings 44th !

April is here, so as usual we start with welcoming our newest members from last month;

Jado@saenid (A.J) from the US East Coast,
@JSMitch0981 (Josh) from Long Island,
@Jordan.Premo (Jordan) from Halifax, Canada,
@Stabby6 (Noah) from the Eastern US.

Send them a wave and a friend invite.

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Season 11.5 is finally coming!
Skill system revamp,
Strategist Secondary Specialization,
Romulan Republic Campaign,
Na’Kuhl Red Alerts, Na’Kuhl lockbox ships,
Ship Visual Overrides for Engines, Shields and Deflectors (yay for space barbie!).
Feature Episode ‘Temporal Front’, with ground set reward.

Season 11.5 goes live April 12th, but keep in mind that launch weeks are usually laggy and suffering from disconnects and emergency patches, so expect some unexpected down-time.
The recent launches were actually relatively drama free, so let’s hope that continues.

Also, First Contact Day celebrations are in effect when this is posted, running the first week of April. Keep an eye out for some nice giveaways; we’ll post in-game fleet messages to remind you.

After reading reddit, listening to various podcasts and talking with Blackout, it looks like the new skill revamp system will be a good thing overall, as long as you use a balanced skill tree.
Over-specializing in say, tactical skills in the hope of creating an NPC murdering vaporizer, will not happen. The ultimate abilities, which will unlock when the max amount of points have been invested in either eng/sci/tac tree, are basically meh. You have to give up so much that you will actually be weaker than having a balanced/hybrid build.

So when Season 11.5 goes live, your fleet will provide a solid hybrid skill tree which you can use and test after The Great Skill Wipe has occurred. You can then use the free respec token we will receive to adjust this skill tree to your own preferences. We hope this way you won’t miss-spend skill points and waste respec tokens.

Fleet activities are low; the PVP event is dead in space currently, basically because interest is just not there right now due to the recent grinding(s) (particle and Breach).
Search for Soolin is still running, with one more fleetie having a chance to win and close the current one so a new one can be posted. Go take a look; it’s really not that hard. 😉

The Mighty 44th is, and always has been, a drama-free fleet, and Sargon and I work hard to keep it that way. We pride ourselves that we make no distinction (and plainly don’t care) if you are a male, female, LGBT or are an android dreaming of electric sheep. As long as you are having fun with the game and generally behave, our brave band of online warriors are a fun lot.

And though we are an 18+ fleet, sometimes you can walk into a conversation and encounter something that’s either rude or plain offensive to you. This is a very, very rare occurrence in the 44th but it does happen. If it does, a quick and simple /tell can solve it, or you can turn to your Command Staff and we will sort it out. Don’t hesitate to contact us, because we prefer to pinch these things in the lower-back area and resolve a misunderstanding or rude comment quickly before it breeds like tribbles and takes over the ship.

Also, as a member of the Mighty 44th, every player has our banner hovering above their avatars and ships for all to see. That means everyone represents our little community and our values. So try not to act as a hoofed, Earth pack-animal when PUGs screw up an STF by commenting in chat that their mothers are, well, in the ‘entertainment industry’. PUGs (random pick-up groups) quite often fail because of beginners, lamers or afk-ers.
Targ droppings happen.
We’ve all been beginners once, so pls just warp out, even if it’s totally justified to strangle the $#@%&!!! pugs for fracking up.

Make wormhole not war.

A final word on the Krenim Bridge Officers, which can be bought at our main fleet and KDF Research Lab for a whopping 160,000 Fleet Credits and 40,000 dilithium.
There was a buzz going on that they may be (or become) the EPTx/Drake build killers, eg only needing 1x copy of EPTW3 instead of the usual two.

The confusion came from the fact that they do not offer a 10% cooldown reduction on Eng/Sci/Tac Boff abilities, but their unique trait offers a +10% Recharge Speed.
In effect they have diminishing returns, which is important to note if you want to stack 2-3, considering how expensive they are.

With three Krenim Boffs, you do *not* get a 3x 10% = 30% cooldown reduction, but more like ~23%. Reddit link.

To throw a wrench in all this though, is that the new Skill tree may alter this math, altering the end reduction either positively or negatively (is build related). We will keep you posted.

And since you’re wondering right this moment (yes, I can tell), basically the best (DPS) Boffs are still Blue Romulan Tacs with the Superior Operative trait found at our Fleet Embassy, and Boffs with the Pirate trait, found in the Hierarchy Boff (level 56 episode “Alliances”), and ugly mutt Nausicaans for KDF which btw come in Eng/Sci/Tac versions.

One week ’till S11.5 drops, so start saving your dilithium as zen will balloon soon (307 time of writing).

See you out there 😎

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