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Good stuff coming in the next two months!

RELEASING IN APRIL
Difficulty Slider
Death Penalty
Solution Space
Autofire Enhancement
Memory Alpha Enhancement
STF: Khitomer Accord - new mission!
STF: Undine Terradome - new mission!

RELEASING IN MAY
Accolade System
Exchange Improvements
Escort System
Episode Replayability - Yay we can replay mission episodes!
STF: Children of Khan - new mission!

Greetings!

We hope you've been enjoying Season One of Star Trek Online. We're already a month into the first season and are set to release another feature packed update. If you've been following along by reading the Engineering Reports, you already know this update fulfills some of the requests you've been asking for since the launch of the game (and even Beta!). A big huge thanks to you for taking the time to provide feedback via the forums and for logging in to Tribble to see the changes before they go live. You've had a big hand in this update and we can't wait for you to experience it! Enjoy!

Season 1.1 Update - New Features FAQ

Difficulty Settings
By popular demand, we have added the ability to scale difficulty in instanced missions so that you can customize the combat challenges to your liking. The difficult you have been playing on is the default which is considered “Normal”. If you would like more of a challenge, you can adjust this via the Options screen or the Episodes tab on your mission journal.

The available settings are:
•Normal – The default combat settings prior to this update with no injuries as a result of defeat.
•Advanced – Increases combat difficulty and introduces injuries as a result of defeat.
•Elite – Significantly increases combat difficulty with an increased chance of injury as a result of defeat.

As an added incentive to the additional risks, there is greater frequency and quality of rewards from defeating enemies on higher difficulty setting. Mission rewards are not impacted by difficulty settings.

Things to note about difficulty settings:
•When teamed, the Team Leader’s difficulty setting prior to entering the system determines the difficulty of the mission.
•Difficulty settings do not apply to Fleet Actions, PVP, Social Maps, or Deepspace Encounters (or any other non-instance map)
•We have disabled difficulty settings for Special Task Forces temporarily while we adjust the system to work with the increased difficulty of these special missions.
•You cannot modify difficulty once you have entered a mission map. All settings must be set or modified prior to entering the mission. If you want to change the difficult of a mission you are currently on, all players must exit the mission and wait 15 minutes for the mission to cooldown before your new difficulty settings can be applied.

Injury System
In conjunction with the new Difficulty Settings, we are introducing an injury system that adds added risks to playing on higher difficulties. Depending on the type and severity of the injury sustained, you will notice a decrease in related performance until treated. Federation players will receive a mission that sends you a contact on Earth Space Dock which will explain more about injuries.

Here’s How It Works
•If your captain, your bridge officers, or your ship is defeated, there is a chance they will receive one injury. This occurs at the time you are defeated, regardless of whether or not you respawn or are resuscitated. Injuries cause various de-buffs depending on the type and severity.
•If you receive an injury, the severity of that injury is determined by chance, modified by the existence of any untreated injuries already on that character/ship. For example, the chance of receiving a Major or Critical injury is increased if the character/ship has an untreated injury already.
•Injuries do not occur below level 5 on any difficulty setting and there is a maximum of 50 total injuries each character/ship can sustain at any given time.

Type of Injuries
•Minor – The negative effect of minor injuries is small enough that it would take several minor injuries before most players would notice any difference in performance.
•Major – These injuries feel significant, but the character/ship can continue to function with only slight performance decreases. Sustaining more than one major injury of the same type (which modifies the same stat) will begin to cause noticeable performance impacts.
•Critical – These injuries will cause noticeable performance impacts. A character/ship may still continue on in a mission (and succeed) with more than one critical injury, but each additional critical injury will prove costly to treat and will put the character/ship below the expected potency curve.

How to Treat an Injury
•Visit a medic/engineer in your faction’s major social hub and pay them energy credits to remove the injuries. Use an injury pack to remove the item yourself.
•Regenerators treat personnel injuries – Components treat ship “injuries” (damage)
•Each pack comes in 3 versions that correspond to the severity of the injury.
•Injury packs are not available in replicators, but some packs are available stores.
•There’s a chance of finding some types of injury packs as a reward drop.
•Your medical/engineering staff will automatically treat each Minor Injury 30 minutes after each injury was sustained.

Important Power Updates
Several key powers are being updated with this release in order to address concerns and bring their functionality in line with expected design goals.

Feedback Pulse
Goal: This ability can be used to augment DPS by reflecting your opponents directed energy attacks, as well as a deterrent in PvP if currently the main target of a group.

Changes:
•Now reflects all directed energy types (beams, cannons, turrets)
•Feedback Pulse is now an energy type, buffed and resisted similar to other damage types
•Damage reflected by Feedback Pulse hits shields first, but does have 50% shield penetration
•Overall reflected damage has been reduced for each version. Version 1 damage is about 60%, version 2 about 80%, and version 3 nearly 100%.

Countered by: Subnucleonic Beam removes buff; Projectile Weapon or Indirect Damage ignores it.

Subnucleonic Beam
Goal: This ability removes buffs and slows performance of targeted enemy. Counters abilities such as Feedback Pulse, Reverse Shield Polarity, Attack Pattern Alpha, by removing the applied buff.

Changes:
•This does not put abilities into recharge, but instead slows the recharge time for bridge officer abilities and weapons systems over its duration.
•Removes currently applied buffs from target at activation time. Buffs can be later applied while subnucleonic beam is active.

Countered By: Science Team applied while SNB active removes the debuff; Photonic Officer helps to offset slow recharge

Viral Matrix
Goal: Cripples target, but target has the chance to remove debuff or continue to fight at a disadvantage.

Changes:
•This is no longer a hold, but instead takes three of a ship's subsystems offline.
•Shields subsystems are unaffected, but weapons, engines, and auxiliary will go offline in a random order (each time it is used) over the course of the duration. As the systems go offline in a staggered method, the target has some time to react and does not have all three systems disabled for the entire duration.
•The best case duration for a subsystem being offline is approx 7.2, 9.6, and 12 seconds for ver 1, 2, and 3 respectively.

Countered By: Engineering Team now restores all subsystems; Emergency Power to (system) will restore that particular subsystem.

Commodity Missions
Based on feedback with Federation “Aid the Planet” missions, we’ve made changes so these exploration missions are more viable.
•Federation players will now receive some basic information about what commodities might be useful in the nearby Star Cluster as well as a few commodities to get you started.
•Unknown Systems within Star Cluster previously were in need of up to 5 different types of commodities, which meant that if you wanted to be prepared, you had to haul around a cargo hold’s worth of goods. We’ve reduced this to 3 types that could possibly be needed.
•If you didn’t have the commodities needed on board, you had to exit the system and find a trader who would sell them to you. This is where most players would drop the mission. Now, you have the option to replicate the necessary commodities on the spot. Be warned that the cost of doing this is at a premium.
•If you are looking for better prices on commodities other than your replicator or via trade ships, you can hover over a commodities tooltip to learn which system sells the commodity at the lowest price.
•As a reward for taking the time to deliver these commodities, the planet you are aiding will now offer you a gift as an additional reward. These gifts could be anything, so open them up and see what you get!

Exchange Improvements
If you’ve ever used the exchange to look for an item, you’d noticed it was a bit messy. This update introduces changes to help clean the exchange up and makes some general improvements.
•When searching for an item, results are now returned in a sorted list by either price or item name
•Items you place on the exchange will now expire after 1 week if no buyer is found. The item will be returned to you via an attachment using in-game mail.
•Once this update goes live – many (if not all) items on the exchange will be returned as they are long overdue to expire.
•To aid in comparison price purchasing, you can now drag and drop an item on the search field to look for similar items

Man they know how to keep their customers happy!

We know you have a lot of options when it comes to how you spend your time. That's why it means so much to us that you choose to spend it with Star Trek Online. To show our appreciation, we've put together these great Veteran Rewards for anyone who's been a Star Trek Online subscriber for 100, 200, 300 and 400 days. Here's what's in store for our dedicated fans.

100 Days
Stalwart Title.
FREE Full Respec.
FREE Costume Piece – A special uniform Veteran badge.
A 2% Captain and Officer Skill Point Boost up to Lieutenant Commander 6.
200 Days
Redoubtable Title.
FREE Extra Ship Slot.
FREE Costume Piece – Special Veteran Uniform Option.
A 3% Captain and Officer Skill Point Boost up to Lieutenant Commander 6.
300 Days
Dauntless Title.
FREE Character Slot.
FREE Ship "Firework" emote.
A 4% Captain and Officer Skill Point Boost up to Lieutenant Commander 6.
400 Days
Valiant Title.
FREE Full Respec.
FREE Access to The Captain’s Table.
FREE Vanity Ship – Captain’s Yacht.
A 5% Captain and Officer Skill Point Boost up to Lieutenant Commander 6.

Very very psyched!

Coming up around the six month anniversary Cryptic is releasing the second major update for Star Trek Online, Season 2. There are a ton of features coming up this time but for me the exciting one is more places to go in my ship. I now has access to my Ready Room, Quarters, Engineering, Engineering Lab, Transporter Room, Medical Bay and even a Lounge (think 10 Forward).

Don't forget about Klingons getting more missions!

So may new things its going to be great!

Season 2, Season 2, Saucer Seperation! Starship areas, doors that work! Woot!

2.3 Gig DL.. big

Not to mention Dabo! I played it a little this weekend on the test shard and had quite a bit of fun with it. Patch is only about a 10meg download for me, seems that it copied over the 2G that I pulled down on Friday for the play test weekend.

I've almost got the new desktop built to replace the old one...and then I'll be back gaming! I can't wait!