Greetings Fleet !

First weekend of December has arrived, and with it your monthly fleet review.

Cold month, but a warm welcome to our newest fleet members that joined last November – sent out some friend invites !

@mystul (Marc) from Florida
@kasainami (Patrik) from Vienna, Austria
@gingerfloof#7660 (Melanie) from Utah
@kitheda (Jeramy) from Spokane, WA
@jagsangelus (Zu) from Hong Kong, China
@DarthAtom (Adam) from California
@Flyingcow (Will) from the UK
@cquinnell (Chase) from the central US
@Pavlov8 (Matias) from Finland
@Gluv#6751 (Tom) from California

 

Most of those listed should be Lieutenent rank already or will be soon, and transferred to our main 44th Fleet. Btw, since many of us switch between alt toons, the constant “x logged on/off” can drive you bananas and clog your chat. Thankfully, you can switch that message off without unfriending your new “besties”; right-click the channel tab and deselect Friend.

Sometimes when you’re in Delta fleet the fleet roster may look empty, so check the Armada Fleet roster to see who’s online in either 44th Fleet or 44th Delta Fleet. And shout out in 44th-diplo so Main, Delta and our KDF fleet (and even Neverwinter!) know that you’re around for mischief and mayhem.

December of course is also the Holiday Season for many of us, so besides popping in for STO’s annual Winter Event I hope everyone gets to spend some quality time with friends and family. And no worries about not being in-game much, we don’t kick anybody from the fleet unless you’re afk for 1 year.

Or unless your admiral has a happy trigger-finger 😉 More on that later.

= Winter Event =

STO’s annual 6-week Winter Event is just around the corner, starting next Thursday Dec 7th until Jan 18th. To find it, contact Q on ESD, Qonos or the Romulan headquarters, and he will send you off to his wintery playground (it’s not an actual spot on any map).

During this event “Q grants access to a Winter Wonderland of snow and ice, with a game to play every day and with such wonderful presents…!” So put on your woolly party hat and get ready to celebrate! In the Winter Wonderland, you can also earn Winter Prize Vouchers to be submitted to the Event reputation on order to gain special rewards.

It’s a nice break from the usual grinding and overall well liked. Some zany mini-missions (snowball fights, ice fishing, fighting Borg snowmen !) allow you to win some trinkets (sweaters, hats, jackets), but there are certainly some items like unique kit-modules and frosted boots (must have) to be earned that are very nice and useful in game – including a new and unique Tier 6 ship ! (Edit: T6 Breen Plesh Trall)

To earn the ship all you have to do is run the quick and simple daily solo race “Fastest Game On Ice” 25x along a slippery ice track, which takes less than 5 minutes to complete.

To avoid sliding off the track (and losing the race) or being overtaken by the NPC chasing you, the trick is to Jump (spacebar) or doubletap forward to roll just before turning a corner – this will stop you without sliding through. It is simple and you will get the hang of it after a few runs. I prefer to rapidly spin 180 degrees while sprinting to slow down, then spin back to speed up again. There are various tactics you can try.

You have to collect quite a few Winter vouchers to earn the ship; 1,000 = run the race 25 times (40 vouchers per successful run), but it`s over a period from Dec 7th/Jan 18th, so it’s quite doable. Also, you only have to earn it on ONE toon to unlock it for ALL your (future) alts. Besides being good ships to play with, these Event ships are usually also excellent Admiralty cards (again unlocked for all your toons), so worth running for.

We’ll get back with an in-depth look and a basic build when we know more. So far however it looks like a re-dress/minor T6 upgrade of the previous T5 Plesh Brek raider.

The Winter Event is also a good way to earn a lot of various Reputation Marks; for example in the past I have completed the Nukara and Romulan reputations on my alts without ever setting foot on Nukara Prime or New Romulus. If you haven’t already, we suggest to use this event to complete the hard to fill Competitive Rep.

As a side note, the Omega Reputation is the first you should complete, it’s many anti-Borg passive powers are too good to pass up, especially Omega Graviton Pulse Module which slows down Borg adapting to you in ground combat.

Down-side of the Winter Event: the snowmen pets will come alive again (que Akula) waggling and wobbling all over the place *shudder* 😉

= Fleet (Colony) Holding News =

We’re doing quite well, unlocking Tier 3 on our main fleet colony in a week or two as expected (the delay is due to build-in project cooldowns), but also Tier 2 on our Delta and KDF colonies – thanks all for contributing !

Ramping up to Tier 4 and finally 5 we’ll start seeing the Dranuur Fleet Colony requirements balloon rapidly – Cryptic builds that as a “speedbump” to prevent fleet holdings to complete too fast for larger fleets like ours.
We will see once again a higher demand for Duty Officers, dilithium and colony provisions, so running Colony Invasion Simulations regularly is still recommended as it still gives the most for the least effort (2,100-3,000).

There will however be some automated farming and discounts coming, so it’s not a question of *how* we complete projects but more of *when*. I suspect that, even with a laser-focus on Main Fleet – it will still take 5-6 months before we unlock the final tier. There are some cooldowns that take several days before we can even start slotting upgrade projects.

As before, you are allowed to buy Colony fleet gear, but due to low provisions please only take one or two items (and to be honest most of the more interesting kit unlocks in Tier 5).

And we will continue to skip certain unlocks, like the ‘special’ lamps, cost an insane amount of dilithium for a totally useless cosmetic – it’s never night on the colony ! The previous in-game day/night cycle has been removed since the Lighting 2.0 update, so Risa and Bajor are permanent daylight maps. Risa night accolades can no longer be completed.

Just as a general reminder, your Fleet Research Lab has that juicy 10 sec (!) 1,200 dilithium daily mission, plus an R&D boost doff mission which are just too good to pass up. You can fing them in the right-hand bay when you beam in. Highly recommended to pick these up. They are unlocked and available on 44th Fleet, 44th Delta and KDF 44th Assault. The Fleet Research Lab also sells extra personal/ship/ground and space trait slots.

 

Also very useful is the +1 Space Active Roster Slot for your ship Space Doffs sold at our Fleet Spire (all fleets). These are the things that give a lot of extra wizz-bang boosts to your space and ground combat.

We are also winding down projects on 44th Delta Fleet; for an ‘alt’ fleet and new member temporary (probation) base it has progressed far enough, that further progress is basically a waste of resources. Fleet projects will only be slotted on Main fleet and KDF 44th Assault for now.

= Gear / bugs =

Since we haven’t unlocked most of the Colony Elite gear just yet (don’t bother with Advanced, waste of colony – and your! – resoures), we haven’t been able to test them thoroughly. From what we know from STO’s tribble testserver most the Dranuur store items are centered around shield healing/tanking, and most items available there isn’t of the “game-breaking OP / Must Have” type. We’ve said it before but Fleet Spire Tactical Vulnerability consoles still beat any other Tac console type in STO.

The space weapons have a healing buff, which may help squishier builds to stay in the fight a bit longer, but as a rule dealing damage still out-performs tanking. There are also alternative ways to tank so in general weapons should do what weapons do best – deal DPS !

I mentioned a few times in 44th-diplo chat that the Kelvin Timeline Phasers are bugged. That is wrong, it’s the *Pulse Phasers* that are borked – its proc is reversed as right now it buffs the target and debuffs *you* !

Cryptic is aware, and a fix is on the way, but since they have been working on the Winter Event I do not expect this fix to drop soon though, so be aware if you want to invest in Pulse phasers.

The same bug is present on the Nausicaan Disruptor weapon.
The Nausicaan set still offers a kick-a$$ torpedo and is considered best in game as it is buffed by Disruptor Tactical consoles which syncs well with the various disruptor-type weapons available.

And finally, not really a bug, but the Foundry seems to be down and stay down for the rest of the month. Bums.

= Marcase goofed =

When I recently created a private queue I accidentally kicked one of Cross alts out of the 44th Delta Fleet. Unlike popular belief this was not some subconscious decision, this was an utter miss-click and a goof on my part. The alt in question has been reinvited and settled back in its regular routine.

But since Cross is already on my case and has been pelting tribbles at me at every opportunity, it’s safest for me to apologize and emphasize that Cross is a veteran who joined the fleet back during the Stone Age-… err, 2010 (!), and she’s not some rookie who just hopped in. Just to make that clear.

And no, I’m not afraid of her, I’m a grown man – I’m absofriggin’lutely terrified !

= Fleet activities =

I’m happy to report that fleet activity continues to be high, with many online during the popular EU/US timezones and during the overlapping ‘sweet spot’. “Search for Soolin” will continue but at a slower pace, and probably be replaced by some winter event activity.

We’ll see if we can organize a weekend fleet get-together and get some 2017 44th Winter pictures. There will probably also be a Fleet Winter Costume contest this month, with a poll where you can decide the winner.

In other 44th Fleet news, = Star Citizen = 3.0, a major update to the Alpha version of the game, is in full gear with a playable beta somewhere next year, so that’s an exciting time for those of us that have been waiting a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away for it to finally go live. Check in with Stompar on our very own 44th Discord and sign up with our Star Citizen’s “44th Security and Trading Company“.

The 44th’s is still present on Neverwinter, but is in a bit of a dip. However you can still find a seat at our table at our “44th’s Magistrate Council”, contact Balthazar on our Discord.

 

In closing, as usual a big thanks to Sargon, Palcioz and Damix who help run the Mighty 44th in front and behind the curtain. Thanks guys !

Zen rate: 286

Calendar

Winter Event 2017 – Nov 7th / January 18th

Links

Podcast – Priority One
Youtube – SOBs Casual Corner

Previous State of the Fleet – November.

As this is my last State of the Fleet for 2017, I wish you all good fortune and good health for 2018 for you and yours. May the Force Live Long and prosper with you all 😉

Marcase