Pilot Bridge Officers

pwlaughingtrendy

Even the largest modern Cruiser or Dreadnought can be made to dance through the stars when you have the right pilot who truly knows the ship and her capabilities!

We're happy to announce the newest Pilot Bridge Officer Specialization!

~LaughingTrendy

hyperionx09

I'm only mildly disappointed at the lack of space combat maneuvers, such as loop-de-loop or Pugachev's Cobra, as a means of suddenly getting around a would-be pursuer, or an Immelmann turn for a faster return to combat (mainly in an Escort/Destroyer equivalent).

Otherwise, most of these sound fun.

Do wish you had another Torpedo boosting skill though; one that allowed for bonus penetration if launched while using one of the high speed abilities (if not at Full Impulse upon entering combat, or while using Evasive Maneuvers or the Fly Her Apart).

shurato2099

It would be nice if we didn't have to by a whole new class of ships to use these skills ... I guess Commando ships are, somehow, next?

quintaris

The pics suggest a T6 Sovereign. I keep throwing my Zen at the screen, but nothing is happening.

awlaforge

I can see the flame war getting ugly if you are going to require yet another specific class of Tier 6 ships to use the pilot bridge officer...

lucho80

Guess which one will be the favorite?

Reroute Reserves to Weapons

It's always the DPS ones.

saedeith

Yeah. This has a buy or gamble a new ship for the seat feel to it.

Nevemind, missed the last sentence.

khan5000

A T6 sovereign...OMG

captainmal3

I'll assume that those images are placeholders and that those ships won't actually be getting pilot seats. :P


Anyway, this is all good to see, I'm absolutely looking forward to playing around with these. Not sure how useful some of them will really be, but lock trajectory especially looks very fun.

Question, if you're allowed to answer: Reinforcements squadron, is it like a hangar bay where they'll stick around until destroyed, or do they just warp in, fight for a little while and then warp out again (or maybe they work via another method I haven't thought of)? I honestly figure the former might be asking for too much since it'd turn every pilot ship in to a pseudo-carrier, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

helenespicard

Who wants to try the Kolvoord Starburst?

canis36

awlaforge wrote: »

I can see the flame war getting ugly if you are going to require yet another specific class of Tier 6 ships to use the pilot bridge officer...

So can I.

I'd hope, however, that they'd look at going back and adding some of these specialists BOFF slots to T5-U ships and maybe some of the Fleet and older lockbox ships at some point rather than just piling on the new T6 ships everytime they release a new Specialization tree.

warpangel

helenespicard wrote: »

Who wants to try the Kolvoord Starburst?

I do! But Coolant Ignition is LtCom so there's little chance we'll get it on a shuttle.

vsilverwings1

Why do I get a really bad feeling about this?

Yet another boff type...

skyecolyo

Naturally none of the already present ships that would benefit from these new pilot seats will get retrofits.

Don't get hyped for the T6 Sovereign. It was likely only there to test the skills.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

suaveks

The line-up of starships that will have hybrid Pilot Officer seats has not yet been announced, but keep your eyes on our website for those announcements!

Let me guess... One new FED Escort, one Lockbox/Lobi ship with Cmdr. hybrid pilot seating, one Lockbox/Lobi ship with Lt. hybrid pilot, and no ships for KDF and ROM as usual?

nadiezja

Eh. I was hoping for there not to be Pilot slots. I'm a little worried about specialization proliferation - it should be a good thing, but if each specialization needs specific ships to use it in space, that'll lead to a natural lack of ongoing support for older ones.

hyperionx09

shurato2099 wrote: »

I guess Commando ships are, somehow, next?

A successful Boarding Party now allows temporary use of the enemy ship as a combat Ally, until its either destroyed or you warp out of the map/zone.

At Commando T2, you gain EC for each ship captured, rewarded upon zone/map change (as if you ordered the captured ship to warp to a starbase for study, R&D, or decomissoning).

At T3, you can launch two Boarding Parties (each separately Doff'd) before CD triggers.

At T4, you can now claim a weapon or equipment from that captured ship if you don't want to keep it as an ally, as stealing the weapon or equipment requires self-destructing/disassembling the ship. It will bring up a reward menu with a randomized list of possible equips on that ship.

What is unique to this is that it allows for possible capturing of otherwise impossible-to-obtain or difficult-to-obtain weapons. Such as a captured Jem'Hadar ship guaranteeing a choice of any Dominion Polaron weapons, with random rarity and mods, or a captured Tholian ship guaranteeing Refracting Tetryons with random mods and rarity.

To prevent "abuse", captured weapons are not tradeable on the Exchange, but are account bound. Additionally, weapon Mark depends on the enemy's level, with Mk XII being the highest, and Ultra-Rare being the highest possible rarity.

All Commando ships are Carriers, Cruisers, or Destroyers, with boosted chances of capturing an enemy ship, and abilities that improve Boarding Party or weaken enemy ships to make Boarding Party or its Commando variant more successful.

cerealplayer

Huh. A new type of ship? I guess our current ships don't use pilots eh? I mean, I can totally understand that not every ship is an 'intelligence' ships. But, really? Pilots are restricted to special ships? Really?

I think Cryptic is gravely overestimating the number of ships the average player is willing to invest in. But, then, what do I know? I don't have access to the metrics.

evilmark444

So only special ships have someone actually flying them ... I'm sorry but this is absolutely absurd. I know you want to sell new ships, but if these boff seats are going to be exclusive then they should be called something else.

It makes no logical sense that only a handful of ships would have a pilot.

lessley00

quintaris wrote: »

The pics suggest a T6 Sovereign. I keep throwing my Zen at the screen, but nothing is happening.

T6 SOVEREIGN!!!! YESSSSSS!!!!! PLEASE CRYPTIC!!!! I WANT IT!!!!!

P.S: I love your avatar and sig quintaris, I may need to race you to a Commander Shepard toon

lucho80

Seems hell will freeze over before there is a science reputation or specialization.

lessley00 wrote: »

T6 SOVEREIGN!!!! YESSSSSS!!!!! PLEASE CRYPTIC!!!! I WANT IT!!!!!

P.S: I love your avatar and sig quintaris, I may need to race you to a Commander Shepard toon

I'm always surprised when someone ins't up to date with the rumors. Old news, lol.

tamujiin

Alpha, beta, Gamma, delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, "LAMBDA"?

Okay, this is not revenge of the nerds.

Attack Pattern Gamma, or Epsilon, would sound better then APL- APE, APG, APZ even.....

I dont remember if i even ever heard Lambda referenced outside of the greek alphabet, and Revenge Of The Nerds!!!

WE ARE NOT NERDS! WE ARE TREKKIES! GET IT RIGHT!

Good job though, seriously, was hoping pilot boffs would be coming too

duncanidaho11

awlaforge wrote: »

I can see the flame war getting ugly if you are going to require yet another specific class of Tier 6 ships to use the pilot bridge officer...

When did Cryptic ever even hint pre-T6 that specializations wouldn't be specialized? You guys do have to take some responsibility for the irrational flaming.

khan5000

lucho80 wrote: »

Seems hell will freeze over before there is a science reputation or specialization.



I'm always surprised when someone ins't up to date with the rumors. Old news, lol.

this is old news?

duncanidaho11

evilmark444 wrote: »

So only special ships have someone actually flying them ... I'm sorry but this is absolutely absurd. I know you want to sell new ships, but if these boff seats are going to be exclusive then they should be called something else.

It makes no logical sense that only a handful of ships would have a pilot.

Think "Delta Flyer" to the standard FED shuttle. They're specialized for pilots, much like a BMW M3 might be specialized as a "drivers car." It doesn't mean that your Hyundai Sonata is running autonomously. :P

edwardianed

My money's firmly on a T6 Galaxy Class because of... reasons... redacted type reasons. Oh, and because we're due another T6 hero ship, and because of the reference to large dreadnoughts and cruisers being made more maneuverable.

sheldonlcooper

The blog states it's only for new "pilot seat" ships.


" In order to utilize the Pilot Officer space abilities, you must be flying a starship that has a Hybrid Pilot Officer Bridge Officer seat. They are not usable in “Universal” Profession seats, or existing Intelligence Specialist or Command Specialist Bridge Officer seats. The line-up of starships that will have hybrid Pilot Officer seats has not yet been announced, but keep your eyes on our website for those announcements!"


All of the new specializations are swell. However the seats all cost $30. Meaning the only one I have tried is command with the Kobali ship because it's the only free ltcdr seat.

artemisa0k

this sounds really cool and everything but unless there are plans to let us transform bridge officer slots into pilot or command or whatever other insane hybrid type slot you guys come up with its going to get a bit annoying.

it would be so much nicer if either a additional pilot officer station was added to most of the ships or they were made into a universal boff.

by universal boff I mean that they would be slottable in any station however outside of their career or pilot hybrid station they would only be able to use pilot ability's and loose access to their regular ones.

the current "only in hybrid seat" seems like its going to continue along the path of oh here's some new ability's some cool and interesting stuff but in order to use it buy you need to buy these new ships.....

I'm fine with the new ships and such the problem is I'm insanely picky about how my ships look, I'm one of those people that can spend well over an hour in the customization window. The Fed command ships look amazing although a "No-NecK" option would have been even better letting you jam the upper and lower hulls together.

The model of hybrid only station slot also brings up another problem there are a lot of cool looking ships in the game, the problem is it can become kind of bland due to lack of variety of ships being used, by allowing either creation of these hybrid stations or slotting on older ships you allow people to have more choice in what to fly. Yes the old ships are still "competitive" however most people like shiny new things/ability's and letting them really build something unique and fun is the best way to get them to stick around.

duncanidaho11

edwardianed wrote: »

My money's firmly on a T6 Galaxy Class because of... reasons... redacted type reasons. Oh, and because we're due another T6 hero ship, and because of the reference to large dreadnoughts and cruisers being made more maneuverable.

I'm betting Sovereign, its easier to envision "flying with enthusiasm."

noctusxxx

Quite frankly, this is pushing me closer to calling it quits on this game.

Universal Boff seats need to be UNIVERSAL to all of these power sets. Stop invalidating our existing ships.

It won't kill your new ship sales, and in fact will only encourage players to work on investing the grind time to earn these new powers.

Unless that changes and I won't be opening my wallet for the 9 pack of Escorts for 12k zen that will be released to coincide with this, or the t6 Sov.