They just become obsolete.
After reading Al Rivera saying there will be no more KDF Science ships (
Quote here), I went from playing a couple of hours per day to logging in every day to DOFF to logging in every couple of days to logging in when I have nothing better to do than Star Trek Online.
My KDF Science Officer was my passion in STO. She has a bio to match why a Trill ended up a medical officer in the KDF and why she is now the Captain of a ship under the banner of the KDF. With no future for her, there's no future for me playing her. If not for the Breen carrier, I would be flying a T-5U Fleet Voranus Fleet Support Vessel. With the third specialization ship type out, and a fleet version of the Intel ships, her science ship is now a full tier behind. It is like trying to be competitive in your free level 40 ship in elite STF pre-DR - it's not happening. I was holding hope that Summer Event would have a T6 science as we already had an escort and a cruiser then they announced the retirement of those ships and no science ship.
So, as I now log in 2 or 3 times a week to check how my friends are progressing on their starbase, I look around and think it was nice while it lasted.
PS: No, you can't have my stuff. You wouldn't want it anyway. It's T5-U. Besides, Rivera might pull his head out of the sand some day and release something for KDF so I can come back not a full tier behind
One last note for you uppers at Cryptic, as if any of you will even read this or care, your jobs would be much simpler if you just removed the KDF from the game and made it a single faction Federation. You can leave Romulans as they are a cross-faction playable race with their own story and cash shop. They can all be Feds too. You would be rid of the unwanted faction that never buys anything and we would be rid of keeping on patronizing a business who doesn't want us and be able to waste our money elsewhere. That's what it is from this point out of Rivera speaks the truth - a waste of time and money to play KDF, let alone a KDF Sceince Officer.
Wow. There is a new KDF Science ship. I'll be!
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Apparently it's easier to engineer a product meant to fail than it is to make a foundation for a revenue stream...
But yeah, making anything that may kdf has always been a low priority for Geko as has Science. In fact if he had his way he'd never put any dev time into it. You can almost see him being forced to allow taco to do the kdf revamp
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Yeah...it is...so you make one lousy ship that no one wants and it saves you time developing other ships. The KDF had the Bortasqu and the RR had the Ar'Kif.
After all this time I can't see it as anything else than clearly tanking, making horrible ships for the excuse not to have to make more.
I mean the Bortasqu' is so Anti-Battle Cruiser it isn't even funny...The Varanus even now is still only comparable to the DSSV...which is free...the console it comes with isn't good at much but causing lag...and thr Ar'kif was so horrible and generic (Another Tac ship in a lineup overflowing with them) they needed to add a Hangar to make it stand out in any way.
You can't tell me it was simple ignorance...I mean they obviously know how to make powerful ships...even OP...a.k.a. the Scimitar...then again they probably just wanted to make a final cash grab on the faction before they shut it down...why the Scim wasn't released at launch...
If they cant put it on the cstore, then put it on the lobi store, well, that's my idea anyway
Well either way they'd have to make the ship...which wont happen.
And why does a kdf science officer need to fly a kdf science ship? Why not a lobo/lockbox one ?
Maybe want something with cloak or in my case battle cloak with singularity powers? Or they like keeping true to the faction?
I would kill for a Romulan version of the Vesta or Scryer :P
My only KDF is sci. I find plenty for her to do. I've considered fleeting her Varanus, but ultimately can't be bothered with it.
--Red Annorax
I support the kdf not needing science vessels since, if they need science work done, they just take it from some other ship that has already done it.
The Klingons have been spacefaring for millenniums longer than humans and they are at similar tech levels. That is culture and genes.
The only way the Klingons will learn something new is by necessity; if one of their neighbors have it, they will get it.
They need a comparison.
Supposition of course
Your character is not married to a specific ship class.
Or are you calling Bird of Prey and Carriers useless, because there isn't actually a Carrier Captain or Bird of Prey Captain class?
Where are you taking that from? Even if we use non-canon information, Klingons were at their earliest space faring in the 9th century - hardly "millenia" before humans. The only on-screen mention of early Klingon spaceflight is that they got warp-drive in the 20th century (it might not be taken literally due to the context of the mention, but still).
Klingons are pretty much en par with human development. Social and techhnological advances may be hampered by the feudal system but there is no indication that they are severly lacking in any of these categories. In fact, Klingons seem to be able to develop highly sophisiticated temporal technology, more advanced than that of the UFP.
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The fundamental thing in my opinion is: You don't need Science Vessels to do science.
Despite having "Science Vessels", the Federation/Starfleet is also using Cruisers for research and exploration. We've seen this in every show with an Enterprise!
You as you don't need Escorts or Battle Cruisers to be able to fight a war or win a battle. The various Enterprises were never considered battle cruisers or escorts and still fought and won battles.
It already has limited connection but Science Captains are way too attached to Science ships, much moreso than, say, Tac or Eng Captains who can hot types (including into Science ships) better without any great loss of synergy. Cryptic wants you to consider the broadest range of ships for sale for your faction for your Captain. They don't want Sci Officers to have a preference for Sci ships, I think.
I think it's far more likely that we'll see that direction further pursued with changes to the Sci profession.
They also did arrive somewhat at the idea that Sci ships are the Warbirds or Raiders of the Federation, ie. something with a heavy faction skew.
But any link you want to have between Captain profession and ship type is a bug, not a feature, at this point. I think you'll see profession respecs before you see catering to Sci/Sci as some kind of profession birthright.
This is true. But I think this is about gameplay mechanics, not ship designation. A Klingon ship with CMDR Sci and 4 sci consoles would be a nice addition. No real reason to not including them in the game. Instead of calling them "science vessels" they could call them "Scout", "Recon" or "Survey" vessels (as in surveying territory for conquest/colonization). After all, STO "Science" is just a more colourful way of killing things.
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There's actually nothing that indicates Klingons are ahead of the Federation on temporal tech. The average Federation starship was capable of running time travel missions in the 23rd century and likely before. The difference is that the Federation has typically covered up this capability. (Heck, going by the episode "Relics", they're extremely conservative when they admit what their real specs are to a point where Geordi was misinformed about the real limits.) The Federation covers up (and outlaws) the limits of its technology.
The difference is not that the Klingons are ahead. The difference is that the Klingons don't conceal or ban technology for the most part. They use the full limits of their technology, they don't lie or withhold specs ("for the greater good"), and they pretty much only outlaw something after a disaster or perhaps grudgingly in a treaty.
I've often thought before that based on what we've seen in Trek that the Federation has probably spent a couple hundred years anxious about what happens when the Klingons get into temporal tech because the Temporal Prime Directive will have to go out the window when other empires start meddling with time. The TCW and 29th century Feds show us that, in fact. It's one of those looming inevitabilities in Trek as it's presented that the Federation can sit on Temporal tech and suppress it until other people start using it... And at a certain point, it's all going to become about temporal treaties and who has rights to which quantum reality as territory.
I think the first place you're likely to see this aside from the Orb Weaver and Palisade (and maybe a seasonal event) is a Lockbox "Blue Box" prize.
I've been saying for awhile that if they do a Temporal 2.0 lockbox with Krenim ships (seems VERY likely at this point), maybe a Vulcan Temporal Science Vessel as a Bluebox prize makes sense. (Since there was a display of a Vulcan Temporal ship that's basically a 3 ring D'Kyr.)
Is the issue that not having a fancy T6 ship to get(Rather than T5-F-Uing an existing one), feels like your main source of progression has effectively halted? I'm curious as to why this seems to destroy otherwise much cared for characters in the minds of their players.
Is a Fleet T5U equivalnt to Fleet T6? All the ones that I have compared have the T6 will noticably more hull and shields (not to mention an extra LCDR BOff ability).
You are right, I forgot about the one BOFF ability. The Hull advantage is negliglable I think, at least in the state of the game. 3-6k hull are more or less a second of survivability, against NPCs that when they kill you do so with 100k damage crits it's basically nothing
Still, I think T5U is not far off, except being unable to grind out a trait, but this depends heavily on playstyle. My FT5U Nebula is still my hardest hitting ship in the fleet and probably the one I enjoy most
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Trouble is to be most effective Sci are best in Sci ships...Both of their special space traits are Sci based, Photonic Capacitor isn't going to get much mileage if the only Sci you have is healing...Conservation of Energy is already a pain since you have to be hit...but if you don't have multiple exotic damage abilities it's useless.
Just seems to me that they want to keep Sensor Analysis and Subsystem Targeting a Fed distinctive, just like the Romulan Battlecloak and Singularity Core is distinctive for Romulans.
Unfortunately, they haven't come up with a meaningful distinctive for KDF ships to differentiate them. With the arguable exception of the BoP, and I am somewhat impatiently waiting for a T6 version.
KDF specializes in battlecruisers, too, of course. I'm just not sold that they have a truly significant difference from Fed cruisers aside from better turn rates and the ability to mount DHC's, and of course the Fed have their battlecruisers, too.
No matter what, I'm keeping that character. We've been through a lot together.
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I don't disagree but I think you'd sooner see Sci revamped so that isn't true and/or profession respecs than see a full range of sci-ships across factions.
Well, they should not have given Sensor Analysis to the Command Bortas'que. I also think the Gorn exotic murder-ships have Sensor Analysis. I graciously allow the Federation to keep the Subsystem Targeting abilities. No, really. I insist.
just saying