= 44th State of the Fleet, June 2018 =

[Marcase]

Greetings 44th,

First weekend of the month of June, here is your monthly state of the 44th fleet (data includes all four fleets):

• Active characters = 570 of 1,295 (44.02%)
• New characters = 85 of 1,295 (6.56%)
• Active accounts = 169 of 401 (42.14%)
• New accounts = 18 of 401 (4.49%)

 

As always first a welcome to our newest members who joined last May 2018 :

@lupy178 (Matthew) from Slovenia
@Braklul (Michael) from Nevada
@generic#8801 (Jonathan) from New York
@Wineward (Michael) from Columbus, OH
@mike58#3865 (Mike) from California
@uglyfugger (Andrew) from Wisconsin
@victorybeast86 (Josh) from Saginaw, MI
@destonttanner#8684 (Deston) from Pittsburgh
@clickertheawsome (Andy) from Calgary, Alberta, Canada
@sp0ck2002 (James) from Box Elder, South Dakota
@endingearth (Mike) from Devon, UK
@Spartacus#0692 (Bobby) from North Carolina
@lordchimp1 (Don) from Liberty Hill, Texas
@sdy01 (Seth) from West Virginia
@mcstu2001 (Stuart) from Arizona

And a welcome back to our 44th veterans Viper9991 (joined 2012), Barlowthebrain84 (joined 2013), Bonkerzjim (joined 2016), and arcurest (2017).

State of the Fleet, June 2018

In the last month we created, voted for its official name, and included our newest 44th Gamma Fleet into our own armada, and it already reached level 4. We *do not* plan to actively complete this Gamma fleet though, and its current Level 4 status is merely because it still has easy to fill lower tier projects. Very soon its projects will become more (dilithium) expensive to complete and it will probably just settle at a mid-way level.
Gamma will act as an overflow or reserve pool for alts, while still being part of and having access to various Armada projects. We will continue to focus on completing the final tier on our 44th (Main) Fleet Colony, and both the final tier Starbase/Colony on 44th Delta fleet. 44th Assault Squadron’s progress is slow but steady as always. Btw there might be some changes in our 44th Klingon Armada, as two allied KDF fleets may be removed due to inactivity.

 

Fleet activity

Last month player activity was high (42% of all player accounts), but fleet activity dipped a bit, and this was due to three reasons.
First was of course the Delta Recruit Event, with many of us (including me) working feverously to level our newest Delta alt(s) quickly before the next expansion. Some of us teamed up and raced through required Delta Recruit missions and queues together to unlock those juicy rewards and account-wide bonuses, which was fun, but this did mean that our usual fleet-wide runs were on the back-burner.

If you ever get the chance, a new Delta Recruit is definately worth it. You only have to complete its tutorial mini-arc to activate it (takes less than an hour) and then just complete it to the Breen episodes to collect most of the rewards, which takes less than a week or a single Red Bull weekend. After that you can choose to either simply discard it, or complete its career at a later time.

The second reason was that the Mirror Invasion Event ate up a lot of play time, as although you only had to complete it on a single toon as the torpedo-award was an account-wide unlock, many (again, including me) did all 14 MIA runs on extra alts as well to unlock the extra dilithium and marks on them. I think most of us now get an allergic rash whenever “lfg mia afk” pops-up. 🙂

And as I mentioned in my previous blog, a number of our fellow 44th-fleeties are in their final exam weeks, and we wish them clear heads and hope their assimilation of knowledge rivals that of the Borg. Good luck !

And lastly, the weather is improving for us in the northern hemisphere and that means family and friends will drag us, no doubt kicking and screaming, away from our PCs. 😉

This last trend will continue in the coming months as is the usual seasonal/summer cycle, but regardless there will still be plenty to do in STO in general, and with your fleet in particular. The most anticipated is of course STO’s newest expansion.

Btw fleet, there is still our 44th-only contest with the chance to win one of those juicy Tier 6 Lockbox Ships ! This contest lasts till the end of June so there is still some time. Get be creative, bend the rules, adapt, improvise and overcome and submit your art and a fleet-wide vote will determine the three winners.

2018 PvP winner !

It’s been a long road, getting from there to the end of this year’s official 44th Fleet PvP Tournament, and even when I announced in advance this year’s tournament would be especially challenging, it proved to be an epic event in more ways than one.

But we have a winner of the coveted Red Squad ribbon – congratulations to Paradoxical !

His name is now officially added to the ranks of our 44th Red Squad of PvP champions.
His tanking strategy paid off in space, and his drone ground build was vicious enough to vanquish all foes on ground. Well done !

Honor and glory to all other warriors who answered the challenge and took the time and scheduling (pains) to get their battles done. We’ve seen some hard-hitting, hard-tanking and wicked-wizard duels both in space and ground. All will receive the PvP ribbon – .

A special honorable mention goes to Veratisu who out of the blue, dove head-first into the PvP shark-pool without any PvP or deep STO mechanics knowledge but still showed up everytime, no doubt gathering tactical information each time his Odyssee lost pieces of a nacelle, the saucer or big chunks from its hull. Respect for carrying through !

Victory is Life, goes live !

The Dominion has finally arrived, and many of us are eager to start a new Jem’Hadar and/or Cardassian alt. Here is a quick overview of what to expect (thanks Damix):

Cryptic also released an episode list of Deep Space 9 episodes worth watching if you want to know more of the (canon) Trek background. “In the pale moonlight” is by far one of my favorite Star Trek episodes, period.

Keep in mind that just after launch there WILL be bugs/glitches/”features”, emergency patches and perhaps even server downtime, as is usual with new releases.

New vs Old JH models (thx Damix)

Cryptic will launch a Jem’Hadar Recruitement Event June 6th-July 18th, and with our new Gamma Fleet we now have the needed extra room on our Main/Delta fleet rosters for your new Level 60-65 Jem’Hadar/Cardie’s.
Thanks to all who already voluntarily moved their unused alts to Gamma fleet.

Just as a reminder, all your alts are considered equal in the 44th and all will share the same fleet-rank and fleet store access, so any new JH/Cardie alt will not require any probation period or other barriers.
If you are of Ensign and Lieutenant Rank, your new Federation-aligned alts will be stationed in Delta Fleet, while Commander and higher fleet-ranks can opt to be stationed in 44th (main) fleet. Obviously 44th Gamma fleet is also an option.

KDF aligned JH/Cardies will find plenty of room and fleet (ship) provisions in our 44th Assault Squadron.

All our fleet stores are well provisioned, so we should have sufficient fleet items available for all your new Dominion alts. However it is possible we might temporarily limit the number of withdrawals from fleet holdings if they drop below a certain level.

Speaking of, after the Jem’Hadars have entered and settled in the game, players will start Leveling them from 60 to 65, which includes upgrading equipment from Mk XIV to Mk XV. This will be a period that there will be a mad run on (superior) tech upgrades and especially dilithium – I wouldn’t be surprised if the zen/dili rate will go bananas and take off like a First Contact Day toy rocket. #FerengiLobes, #PhoenixUpgradesRock

The new Gamma Vanguard pack, is it worth it ?

This is a question I get often, and the answer is both yes and no. Yes, as the Gamma Vanguard pack gives you all the newest ships and extras at a discount compared to buying them seperately. No, because the large pack is quite expensive in real $/pounds/euros.

Personally speaking, I am probably only going to buy the smaller starter pack, and buy certain ships seperately (at higher cost) over time. But I am in for the long haul and have the time/patience/luxury to grind for certain specific ships. Plus it gives me a goal. I also don’t have that much interest in any extra/unique titles/outfits and already have the T5 JH Dreadnought for example, so my interest in the large Vanguard pack’s content is relatively limited. I realize that going this route means ultimately spending more zen on those ships, but as I can collect dilithium/zen by just playing the game, I can “earn” that discount back. This strategy is obviously not for everyone, but it has worked well for me.

Star Trek Online is a very, very generous game considering it is free2play, as it allows you to enjoy everything it has to offer without any real barriers by just investing time instead of real world money. And don’t worry Cryptic, I will be spending plenty of real $/euros upgrading all my legacy kit to “mark bloody fifteen !”

2018 Summer event – Lohlunat Festival on Risa

There has been no word on the official launch date of STO’s annual summer event just yet, and in fact it usually goes live during the first week of June, which right now coincides with the launch of VIL. So I would not be surprised it will be pushed a week or two into June and extend into August.
The Summer event is actually a lot of fun, and the daily missions are simple and varied and are a welcome relief from the usual repeating daily pew-pew missions, which include the Summer Event daily and a treasure hunt both using a floater or jet-pack. We all wish that this mechanic would be standard in STO, but unfortunately 90% of all mission maps are just ‘card-board fronts’ as there’s litterally nothing behind some buildings or terrain features.

Risa will not just offer the option to run around and flaunt your beach-wear – which may/may not be a good thing #PinkPantsGorn – but also provide an easy/cheap way to get a very good Tier 6 ship – no word on what it will be this year but it might be a cruiser/dreadnought type, as we had the excellent Ryn’Kodan carrier and the Xyfius escort in the previous years. Pure speculationthough.
To unlock the coming Summer Event ship you just need to collect 1,000 Summer Event tokens, which you earn by flying along a path in the sky through hoops and collect 40 tokens every 20hrs. Meaning it will take 25 times (days) to complete with usually about 42 days/6 weeks for the entire event, so you’re allowed to go outside and catch some real sun 🙂

Both Summer and Winter Event Tier 6 ships are certainly worth to unlock as they are account-wide so you only have to unlock it once on a single character and it will be freely available for your other (future) ones as well. Worth it !
Besides the ship there are unique ground and space traits and abilities which are often quite nice, for both your captain and Boffs.

A good tip if you join the Summer Event for the first time – use the rental floater (which has a limited lifetime but is quite cheap) – and save for the 1,000-favor Elite floater. Don’t bother with the improved/advanced ones as they are a waste – the Elite ones are so fast that you can easily run the Lohlunat hunt on 4-5 elite floater equipped alts within the timeframe. As I mentioned there are no official floater/jet-pack maps in STO right now, but there are quite a few Foundry maps which allow you to hover around. Suffice it to say getting a good floater is a good STO investment in the long run.

The collected Lohlunat favors/pearls are btw not bound, so you can collect and move them between your alts. They also sell reasonably well on the exchange early on. #FerengiLobes

See *this STO-wiki link* for an accolade map and event times. Thanks Chanfron for double-checking times ;).

Some other tips and tricks:
Arrival :
Once the Summer Event is active, you will have a free Transwarp directly to Risa on your event calendar.
This saves you the time flying there if you’re elsewhere and this Transwarp has no cooldown.

Things to make us go – the Lohlunat Tribble :
Patting this special tribble will increase your flight speed no matter which floater you’re using.
This tribble can be obtained by feeding a tribble any of the eight uncommon beverage/food items sold on Risa during the Lohlunat Festival.

Powerboard Race :
As the powerboard race approaches (1-2 minutes in advance), change instance to the *second* lowest populated instance you can find (as everyone will swap to the lowest which will fill fast).
This will cut down on the number of people at the start of the race and increase your chances at coming in first. There is a button to change instances above your mini-map.

That’s it for now. Once VIL is up and running we will post further details and any tips and tricks we may come up with.

Smooth sailings Captains !
Marcase

Zen rate: ~250 at time of writing, will bounce back to +350 after the Phoenix Pack event ends.

Calendar

June 5th – Launch of Victory Is Life expansion (beware of launch bugs/server downtime)
June 5th – End of Phoenix Price pack (check dili/zen exchange)
June 6th – July 16th – Jem’Hadar Recruitment Event
June – August – Lohlunat Festival / Annual Summer Event

Pocast: Priority One (@ 32mins, Interview with Mike Fatum (aka Ambassador Kael), STO Community Manager)

Previous State of the Fleet – May

STO in the cockpit. Yes, this is real 🙂 (PS plane was parked at the time)

"Boldly bashing Borg to bits since 2012..."

[Veratisu]

I see you to subscribe to Dabo Player lel.

[Marcase]

Patch notes and links to VIL blogs – https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10918643-pc-patch-notes-for-6%2F5%2F18

"Boldly bashing Borg to bits since 2012..."

[Damix]

A lot of useful info, thanks Marcase! Also, congrats to Paradoxical for his victory in the pvp tournament.

See you all on ds9 tomorrow, can’t wait to rush there and inspect every inch of the map.

I suggest everyone to check this article on current sto space dps meta:

Quick Recap of the Current Space DPS Meta
byu/Startrekker insto

[KirksFavoriteSon]

Thanks for the updates, Marcase! They are much appreciated, as ever.

Best to you and yours,

Shaw

 

 

aka @CobaltBlueHero

[Author]

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