Star Trek Online....

This year I've been enjoying more of the winter events content than I'd usually do, probably due to using alts. Defeating the Kramp'Ihri is the main focus of my 'fun'. The Ginger Bread town defense is interesting as well. I've no sympathy for the Gingerbread people building their town on Snowman land; I'm fully behind the snowmen but the 'Winter Invasion' is fun on top of Cones of conduct in the same area. Political derivatives aside I've read some interesting 'roleplay' taking sides in that conflict.

Other than that I've been persisting with the daily via the Fastest Game On Ice race as usual on both PC and Xbox.

Warm breath on my neck.....

Yet on Xbox on an alt I did get to see Batman.... A Batman.... Kudos.

My newest and lowest level alt on PC is processing through the episode arcs with my wife's KDF(Orion) Delta recruit, seeing what's new, changed and unusual in the early KDF episodes. Some new graphics are cool, updated missions are nice and as usual some glitches and mysterious graphical/invisible wall anomaly's show up.... Not halting game-play but a bit surreal.... "oh, Star Trek Online you"!

Beyond that I've 'persuaded' her to jump about on some episodes to clear the shorter ones and get some nice items. I'm still persisting that the alt not claim any of the ship/item rewards I've unlocked till he hits 65.... Another 'just because' with a side of looking to see all the unlocks claimed at once. So I'm behind on this character with what she has unlocked, a nice switch up. Not quiet an arm tied behind my back but the things that I do to 'create' more interest in content(mix things up).

It's been a bit of a weird time with the latest event ship. Usually once the event is all but done the space-lanes are jammed with players in the new ship; Ranging from being in it for love of a new ship(they have noting else better), or just for the sake of it. This year and this ship..... Not so much. I've not seen many players running about in them at all. That said I've only flown it on my Discovery character due to wanting him to be thematic.

Speaking of which, that thematic build, on that Discovery character, with that ship is 'ongoing'. Progress isn't so slow as to not mention but enough is happening with the build to at least say it's .... ongoing.

With one thing and another I am where I am with this build. 3 more items need to be acquired and slotted. An Elite Fleet deflector(Intervention Proto) dish and 2 rep items(competitive impulse engines and an Undine(species8472) console). 

The deflector dish needs to be bought with Dil which is a sticking point at the moment as I have none. All dil is now going into those 2 rep items. However the lifetime sub monthly Zen stipend is due and this should allow a lot of leeway once it's converted to Dil(as much as is needed).

Once those three are added I can start working on reengineering all the items to mirror the stat choices as shown in the original build video(which also takes Dil on top of salvage but the Dil is the choke-point).

As with the copying of any build there are differences in practical implementation. Ship/reputation traits that they've unlocked may not be the same as me. The same goes for duty officers, bridge officers and their abilities. The more I've gone into the build the more I've had to compromise and compound those choices and results. The synergy of stats that the original had are now well askew in ways that are not easily compensated for. Whats been changed has been changed so am fully owning it. Can't back out now. I'm in too deep and I've to see it through in this current interpretation. Finish off the last three items, reengineer and start testing 'properly'.

As for the rest of the 'choices'.....

The biggest changes... 6 of the consoles!!!

Devices: 

Active space doff's:

A slot down from the original build (my alt has not bought that luxury item) but I went with these:

Ship traits: 

And after a lot of faffing about these bridge officers and abilities:

Like an OP Frankenstein's monster.... Not so much a copy as an 'interpretation'... That's being generous.

I'm not built for meta builds. Learning is ongoing and may click in parts if not fully; But I'm much more an STO player by 'feel'. I know the serious meta heads will guffaw at that but I'd rather 'feel' comfortable in a ship for fun that to hunt for a percentage of OP'ness. That's not fun for me, if it is for you or it's 'easy' to do for you... Or 'in the know' then best of luck to you. Each to their own. 

This Discovery characters T5-X has survivability and DPS in an ad-hoc build of my own making. I've taken it into Elite patrols and done well. Taking this unfinished ship into a the same Elite patrols was a task and a half; Survivalility was not easy and neither was DPS. A lot of clicking and a lot of consideration needed. Still doable. The DPS done was showing numbers in space that were 'looking' great; Yet enemy ships weren't being destroyed as fast as I'd like. I really need to finish and tweak the build to have a final say; It's all a bit up in the air at the moment.