= Season 14 "Emergence" overview =

[Marcase]

Greetings 44th !

As promised a more in-depth overview of the new stuff and changes with Season 14.
If you haven’t already please see the October State of the Fleet first. Also, I will update this post with visuals and links when they become available.

Last week I warned for extra down-time and patches, and I wasn’t wrong. Although the bugs weren’t excessive, the number of patches were… “generous”. And I even expect one or two more in the coming week as this weekend most of the STO population will get online and really push the new content to the max.
A major bug was the ‘misplacing’ of Colony resources when using the Coffer system. Should be fixed by now but to be safe just contribute directly to the colony fleet projects.

Dranuur Colony Fleet Holding

The official STO forum and Reddit are ablaze with players being mad about the huge resource cost, which is basically a time cost, since you cant’t just buy materials anymore like we did in the previous fleet holdings. Also removing the need for white doffs for basic projects annoyed many fleets. Basically to advance the Dranuur Colony you have to actually be on-site instead of just grinding your favorite STFs and/or buying materials with ec/dilithium.

Thanks to those of you who did save up white Doffs, and the 44th will open up projects again so you can get your fleet credits and make room in your mailbox. 😉 Keep a look out for 44th Delta Fleet Tier V Starbase projects.
White doffs are still needed for certain Colony leveling projects but we can prepare for those in advance.

Collecting the unique materials on Dranuur is a reuse of the usual “match the squiggly” lines minigames which honestly should have been reskinned. Collecting the 250 Batteries, 250 Luxury and 250 Ore on Dranuur however is simple enough and should not take you long.
Make sure to equip a hoverboard so you can move around quicker – you can buy a basic one on Risa for 500 ec.
Besides farming them on Dranuur, you can earn those doing the new Dranuur Gauntlet or Dranuur Beach Assault queues, which I will get to in a moment.

We still need to do the colony special ground event which can only be triggered if we have an x amount of resources, so can’t comment on that one yet.
Over the long run, Colony project cooldowns will be reduced so we can slot projects faster, speeding completion times.

There will be an entire new line of kit available for both ground and space to look forward to: various space/ground weapons, shields, engines, (secondary) deflectors, tactical consoles, unique Boffs and Doffs, unique uniform… the list goes on and on.
Unsure yet if they are superior to what we have access to already, but the number crunchers are at it and I’ll report back when the final verdict is out.

Of special interest is that we can unlock boats and fishing ! There’s also a Lukari Ship listed as an unlock under Tier V…

These are what we are grinding for fleet. It will be a long-term project but I’m optimistic with the speed current projects are being filled. Thanks all !

Featured Episodes

“Nexus” was a nice, short mission mostly about showing the new Galaxy interior. And truth be told the interior is flawless with all the little details showing (the duck and porsche on the Engineering MSD!) but also some loose ends – who is this Khaj’Buur ? And since this mission is now moved to the (Fed) “Klingon War” episode arc, which is odd, this feels like a loose end.
Nexus weapon set is nice for Phaser builds, especially the Omni, turret and 2pc set bonus. The console isn’t bad, but there are better options like the Lukari or Krenim (?) one.

“Melting Pot”, like Nexus, is mainly an introduction to the Dranuur Colony, with a certain twist thrown in. Personally not a fan of the “can’t we get along” trope – let bad guys be bad guys – but then again that’s core to Star Trek. Heck maybe we will get a Tzenkethi Boff in the future like we have Borg and a Breen now. I wouldn’t mind that !

Both Featured Episodes are a bit meh in my opinion, which brought the overall S14 score down. The maps are nice, but we’ve done these kind of missions enough already, and they held little real surprise or plot-points. And especially sticking nexus in an old story arc is just weird. Mission rewards are nice, but not “must have”. I don’t see myself replaying these episodes anytime soon after collecting all rewards.

And because you’re wondering right now (yes, you are) I still consider “A Step Between Stars” the best STO episode due to story, map design (a star walk !), replay (choice) mechanic and very usefull mission rewards – you will always need some type of EV suit and the Solenae EV ones are tough enough as base armor for yourself and especially for your away team Boffs. An episode worth revisiting.

Red Alert: Tzenkethi

I like this one. Compared to the Borg, Tholian and Na’kuhl RAs, this new Tzenkethi one needs some actual coordination and, dare I say, tactics. Defending satellites and intercepting torpedoes means there is something to do for every class.
A DPS heavy escort/battlecruiser with AOE weapons like Fire at Will/Cannon Scatter Volley/Torpedo spread can steamroll both incoming torps and Tzenkethi ships. But a tank and/or sci healer who can heal and defend the satellites with a properly boosted Grav Well will do wonders against the spawning mobs, as will using Tractor Beam Emitter to ‘push’ away those nasty warp-core explosions, as the Tzenkethi raiders tend to hug the satellites like a Ferengi on a bar of shiny latinum.

All three Red Alerts have been renamed Red Alert: Borg/Tholian/Tzenkethi so they are nicely grouped and easier to find in the PVE list. There is still a matching issue for some so it’s best to queue via the PVE list instead of clicking the sector Red Alert pop-ups as the trigger-time can take too long.
Small tip: after finishing you have the option to “Return to sector space” – which always respawns you to Sol Sector, or “Leave Map” which will return you to your original position, eg DS9 or Qonos. Saves you the trip back.

Dranuur Gauntlet (Space)

Good map. Like the Tzenkethi RA here too your team needs to defend 3 space stations, which in turn are defended by smaller satellites which you need to repair. There’s actually a choice that if a Tac captain repairs them you get a weapons satellite, an engineer creates a hull buff and a science captain will create a healing buff. (edit: need to check)
The enemies are random, so it’s a bit tougher to actually (pre-)build for it, and that makes this map actually more interesting – always keep an anti-Borg build/set within reach ! Plenty of mobs with strong Capital class ships so even on Advanced it’s a good challenge.

Dranuur Beach Assault (Ground)

This is a fun ground one. The first part is hectic and requires you to run all over the colony building in an attempt to defend three consoles. The fun part comes when you need to split in seperate groups and defend against the Tzenkethi ground troops overwhelming several consoles along the shore.
What’s a new STO mechanic is that on this map you are under attack by shuttles, which you must shoot down as well. Not only do they fire at you but also drop Tzenkethi reinforcements.

Some strategy is important as you don’t want to aggro the Tzenkethi mobs too early – so although you need them here, be wary where you place things like mortars, turrets or security teams.
Handy kit to have are the Universal Solar Gateway ground kit, (Tac) Graviton Spike, (Sci) Cold Fusion Flash or (Eng) Sabotage (temporary disables mobs), and basically most AOE/mob control powers are useful here.

Only down-side is that it is a 5,5 map, meaning you need 10 players total. You can pug it, but that means you’re limited to a (fleet) team of 5 same-faction players teaming up.

New Lobi & Tzenkethi Lockbox

The new Tzenkethi Lobi sets are interesting. Although tetryon based, they add a protomatter mod which bypasses 80% of your targets shields. More interesting is the Tzenkethi Torpedo which is another Energy damage variant, meaning it gets boosted by tetryon tactical consoles and does tetryon-energy damage in addition to the extra radiation and protomatter damage.
The basic Tetryon shield-drain proc is still last on the damage list, but with these extra mods they get a bit more interesting for specialists.
The Lobi console is the best of the set, as it grants +8% ALL damage to targets in your forward arc, up to +10% when upgraded to Epic.
The new Lobi Tzenkethi 3pc ground set is nice, but the Herald Armor, the Herald staff/projector and Na’Kuhl shield are still superior.
My opinion is that only the console and torpedo are worth it.

Tzenkethi Lockbox gives 3 new space and 3 new ground traits, none I find much appealing. Lots of shield tanking traits and radiation buffs, which may be of use with certain ground Science builds (Hyperionic radiation).

Lockbox weapons are tetryon based with a new shield buff mod for yourself. So you can leech shields and strengthen your own. Not sure if that shield buff still works if your target’s shields are down already, so need to test that some more.

Lockbox console Shared Processing Integration console is one for healers, perhaps for carriers. This console might combine nicely with the one from the recent Kobayashi Maru event, so you can radiate boosted heals to yourself and your teammates. Given the choice however I prefer any damage dealing console.

Of the new ground traits the one that stands out is Gravitational Juncture, which is basically a universal ground gravity well with a nice damage debuff. This can be really usefull when facing (Tzenkethi) mobs.

Short version:
Lobi store – check out the Console – Universal – Biased Configuration Modulator
Tzenkethi Lockbox – Universal – ground kit – Gravitational Juncture

Attention

Don’t forget: dilithium weekend and Item Upgrade weekend coming ! Ready those lucrative dilithium Doff projects so you can finish them with a bonus. Your admiralty will slot the fleet wide +10% (base) Dilithium bonus project as well.
During the Item Upgrade weekend you can earn some serious ec selling crafting materials and Superior/Experimental Tech Upgrades, so start crafting. 🙂

As always, all of the above is subject to Cryptic change and are just my opinion. Did I miss something or do you disagree, let me know in this thread.

Thanks for your attention captains, now boldly go back to work (and no, breeding tribbles does not count).

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

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