STO....

STO seems to have had some good(?) press in regard to the greater Star trek universe.

This weekends 20% ship sale has come at the right time for my characters. Yesterday my captains reached the 4800 Zen mark, just enough with the discount to buy a ship pack.
Getting this far has been done with Admiralty missions/campaign Dilithium rewards, that in turn has been used to buy Zen on the in game exchange. It's been a long time in the making, I may have started buying Zen that way about two years ago. I had no clear goal other than to buy some helping additions, like extra inventory spaces and removing the EC limit. Of late my intention was to buy a cross faction, cross class bundle. Either a 3x3 pack (faction and class) or the 3 ship cross faction tactical based escorts. In the end this sale has seen a lot of option deliberation and weighing of details.  What I've realised is that there are better cross faction allied ships, rather than specific KDF or Romulan ships, which made me hone in on the Temporal pack. It ticks all the box's for all captains on all factions in all class's. I'd like to have my KDF character in a Klingon ship but that's not going to happen.

With my casual unknowing eye, I checked the stats, officer stations, abilities etc. To a head melting degree. What I did realise is that the free season event ships are a lot more worthy than I first feared them to be. They are basic in some terms like additional ship traits/abilities but in other ways they are better imho, not just because you can get them for free.
The free ships are a lot more "omni" jack of all trades with a hint of shop bought specialisation. Jack of all trades without the down side, they hold the middle ground well.

The shop ships are powerful but you need to be invested in your characters/account and the game overall to actually made the most of them. In the end I may have the kickass ships from the store but I've in no way got the fit to make them shine.
A lot of upgraded, high reputation modules etc can be seen in a lot of  youtubers video's, my fits are so shoddy in comparison. Brent Justice has a new playthrough video worth a watch, Beyond the Nexus (Elite Difficulty) and touches on player difficulty/fits.

I still feel like it's worth doing (Zen buildup) and getting the ships. I can take time and work towards making the fit better. For my original Tactical, Sci and Eng characters I'll keep them with their current event ships. I've put too much time and effort into their ship fits to restart now. However my Tactical Klingon and Romulan characters will use the new ships. A lot more theory crafting needs to be done. A game in itself to be sure.

I did buy a faction specific mirror T5 ship for my Fed-Rom and KDF characters to remove the faction specific ship idea that's still in my head. better than nothing.

But in reality my KDF level 60 tactical is going to be using the new ship bundle with the mirror ship mainly as an admiratly ship. My Federation aligned Romulan on the other hand will at least get to use her mirror warbird once she hits level 50, a long time away.


As well as those I got both a T5 Tholian Meshweaver which had the option of getting a free Upgrade to T5-U. Which is a nice ship, especially for only 1.5 Million energy credits.

Thankfully I've no buyers remorse, just a highlight on how mush work would be needed with the charecters to make full use of the new ships.

I doubt I'll ever buy a pack like this again, never say never but I know I'll be spending built up Zen for the smaller helpful unlocks for sure.