= 44th Fleet Review, September =

Greetings 44th ! September state of the fleet, starting as usual with a welcome to our newest members;

@Thrawn0702 (Jon) at UTC+3
@metalzombie (John) from Washington, DC
@goldragon001 (Marcus) Mountain Time
@watever2 (Jim) from the UK
@miciociccio (Luca) from Italy
@frurin (Gabe) from Romania
@jam1nb3n#8087 (Ben) from London, UK

Attention on deck ! I am tightening the reins 44th.

The coming months we can look forward to the launch of not one, but two new Featured Episodes starting with September 12th “Beyond the Nexus” and “Melting Pot” in October (precise date unknown as of yet). Both will star LeVar Burton reprising his role as TNGs favorite engineer Geordie LaForge. He will be tasked with a special mission which will serve as an introduction of the new Fleet Holding which goes live in October. It will have a whopping full 5x Tier requirement, which means we as a fleet need to start preparing for it NOW.

So I’m issuing two General Fleet Orders for the month September:

= General Order 1: Start collecting free Duty Officers ! =

For yourself, and for your fleet, please start picking up the free white Doffs from the Personel Officer (link) on the Fed/KDF Academy, New Romulus Command (console) or on our fleet starbases (in Ops and the Sci/Tac/Eng decks) – that’s a total of 14 various White Doffs on average every 3 days. They are free and it will only take you a few minutes to pick them up (ignore the listed 1,000 dilithium General recruitment pack, way overpriced!).

We will need A LOT of white Doffs to complete the coming new S14 fleet holding and any will help, plus they earn you a lot of fleet credits when donated, and even a bunch of ec when sold on the exchange. You can bet that Doffs will spike in price, from the current 20K ec to ~75K, on the exchange around October/November when every fleet is scrambling for them (hint). 😉

It will be profitable to buy and store a bunch in your mailbox via a mail terminal for later use. Plus you can always use the Armada system to donate from Delta fleet to 44th Main and back. Also remember that you can still cross-donate – Fed Doffs can be donated to KDF fleet projects and vice-versa – an unintentional glitch which Cryptic doesn’t mind it seems, which we will again take full advantage of.

And yes, you can buy random white doffs at our fleet starbases for 500 fleet credits, but why pay hard-earned FCs when you can get them for free !

As mentioned in my previous blogs, we will focus on the main 44th Fleet’s new fleet holding first, followed closely by Delta and KDF. This so we can identify and only pick the really necessary projects for Delta and KDF, skipping the ‘speed bump’ cosmetic ones, and unlocking/provisioning the “must have” ones first.

We will also continue to only slot necessary provisioning fleet projects in the 44th Fleet and 44th KDF, and focus on completing the final starbase tier V on 44th Delta Fleet. You can ask a Commodore or Admiral for a specific project to be opened for you if you like, only requirement is that you fill about 50% of it yourself. And this is available for everyone, doesn’t matter if you’re of fleet Lieutenant or fleet Captain rank.

On a side note, there is an annoying intentional mechanic that we cannot undo a slotted fleet project, which is why some dilithium projects slotted by mistake have to be filled to clear it. *insert Khaaaan! emote*

Related, we will pick a new Gamma Fleet for our 44th Fed Armada in the coming weeks and we hope to get a large one so the Armada bonus you receive will be worthy – the more members in an Armada, the higher the passive bonuses for you *link*.

= General Order 2: Start saving Dilithium ! =

We will need a serious amount of dilithium for the new fleet holding, easily several million total. Start putting some dilithium aside for yourself and your fleet.

There will be lots of new and expensive equipment, ships(s) and other goodies coming with the launch of S14 so make sure you have some dilithium and/or zen saved for when it goes live in October. You can count on it that the dili/zen market will spike, crash and wobble from the fairly stable 300 it has been, so if you have the Ferengi Lobes for it you might even make a nice dilithium profit (hint #2).
New Season starter packs usually begin at 6,000 zen and full ones go up to 12-16,000 zen – this is why we encourage you to start saving so early because even having just 1,000 zen saved will be nice on your wallet.

/end #General Orders.

And again, all fleet project donations are voluntary, we don’t keep score. We encourage you to donate what you can and help build up the new fleet holding(s) but if you can’t you will not be punished in any way – though extra zero-G toilet cleaning or starbase window washing duties may appear in your duty roster. 😉

Speaking of Free, we can also look forward to some extra free give-aways, including some uniforms – the skant (!) has been confirmed – low-tier ships (a new Type-7 shuttle *link*  has been confirmed) and some minor quality of life items/services prior to S14 launch. These will often only be valid for a specific day so keep an eye on the official STO website or this 44th forum which lists all the new announcements below.

44th Staff News

This is a good moment to once again thank Palcioz for keeping the 44th Fleet website up and running 🙂

And a special shout-out to our fleet’s Vice-Admiral Damix: for some time Damix has been updating, improving and especially correcting a lot of pages on the STO-Wiki – a must for any STO-player. As you can imagine it’s a lot of fact-checking and tedious browsing but something we as a STO-community all benefit from. In fact STO-wiki was impressed enough there’s now a vote in progress to have him on staff, vote should be out in two weeks but I’m fairly confident it will go through. So congratulations and thanks Damix !

= 44th Fleet captains, roll call ! =

There’s been a dip in fleet activities in general and in STO as a whole; both due to the usual season/holiday dip and basically burn-out – it is very easy to get overwhelmed by the many things to do in Star trek Online, and it is fair to say some did by the previous events and upgrade weekend shenanigans.
As always, we keep saying that this is a game and you need to play it the way YOU like it and don’t feel forced that you “must” do max DPS or “must” upgrade everything to Epic. If you just want to play episodes on Normal and fly around in your favorite Tier 4 ship with green Mk X gear that is perfectly fine in the 44th Fleet.
(And no Cross, this does not mean you can show up in a Tier 1 Connie during an elite STF – again) 😛

However, this is an MMO and the number of fleet runs have been declining. That’s why I’m calling all Fleet Captains to step up organizing joint fleet runs when you’re online. Fleet Captain rank means you are an active and valued member of the 44th so ask in 44th-diplo chat if anyone wants to run or replay an episode or STF, or join one if someone organizes one. Just once will do, as just by knowing there are active folks online will usually restart warpcores and charge phasers and make people Boldly Go Bash Borgs and new Civilizations ! Well, sort of. 😉

It’s always more fun and easier to play with fleet-mates especially if you’re grinding for a specific reward or item.

Nice To Have

Two new consoles I like to highlight that are nice to have if you have ec to burn.

Console – Universal – Defensive Drone Guardians: 5 million ec
Passive:
+15% Flight Turn Rate
+7.5% Cooldown reduction on all Bridge Officer abilities
Clicky: Launches 4 level Guardian Drones that FAW for 60 secs

Console – Universal – Sensor Burnout : 800,000 ec
Passive:
+1.5% Critical Chance
+15 Starship Drain Expertise
Clicky: 6,600 Electrical Damage and Confuse target for 3 secs

On gear, some of the nicer gear can only be crafted by level 15 R&D or bought on the exchange for a shuttle worth of ec. Remember that your fleet can craft stuff for you if you arent’t able (yet). Prime example is the crafted TR-116 rifle which is very usefull against Borg (they can’t remodulate so you don’t have to) and is considered a must-have for many Borg/Elachi ground maps. Another example is if you can’t afford or don’t yet need the dynamite tactical Locator consoles or need a good lower Mk but very rare shield or weapon for leveling, we can also craft appropriate purple quality gear for that – level your alts OP style !
Ask around in 44th-diplo chat or post on this forum if you want anything crafted – it is 44th Fleet policy that you only have to provide the materials and the fleet will craft it for you free of charge.

I had some questions from our returning fleet-members as S13 had some radical changes, and although the dust has settled and many have adjusted to the New Normal, a quick review of the major changes is *here*.

Remember that you can still earn some forum ribbons ! The 44th Fleet ship registry is still open *here*, and you can also still earn the Accolade ribbon *here*.

This Month we will also have our 44th Fleet Anniversay Celebration, which has some nice give-aways and prizes, so stay tuned. See Paradoxical’s post here !

Questions ? Comments ? Shout out here or in diplo chat !

That’s it for this month, see you out there captains !
Marcase

Calendar:
Sept 7 – Arena of Sompek ends
Sept 4 – Elachi Weekend Event ends
Sept 12 – New Featured Episode “Beyond the Nexus”
Sept 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th – 44th Fleet Anniversary (Cancelled)
Sept 14-18 – Bonus Marks Weekend

Sept 24 – Debut of Episode 1, Star Trek Discovery
Sept – TNG 30th Anniversary Event & Giveaway

Oct – Launch of Season 14: Emergence – video
Oct – Featured Episode “Melting Pot”

Summer 2018 – Expansion Four “Victory is Life”

Website of the Month – Star Trek Continues
Video of the Month – work in progress 🙂

Previous State of the Fleet – August 2017