Hello Cryptic
I hope someone of you finds the time to glance through my post. If something was mentioned before im sorry, im not the biggest forum reader.
My suggestion is to bring out the new upcoming playable Factions after the Klingons as Add-On`s, each for arround 30 $ (ca. 25) or more.
1. Add-On
The Romulan faction (as u already mentioned/announced) could have the 4 playable races like Romulans who are still loyal to Sela, the Romulans who rebell against Sela led by a counter pretor, a TalShiar Faction and finally the Remans who still fight for independece led by Obasek as Leader.
All these 4 Races should have their own storyline, build like complete "tv" series, with seperate episodes and missions. The key is to make it in a personal way like to interact more with your bridge officers, enemies and allies so that you get a feeling for the whole story. Perhaps even seperate choices and non-linear mission gameplay like you already made in featured episodes like Frozen.
The outcome in the end of all races could be the same (best would be peacetreaty or at least ceasefire between Romulan Empire and the Federation, because if every Faction would be at war with each other it would have no more Star Trek feeling).
So in fact the first Add-On would not contain only one faction but four which is a good content for players and the futured Foundry missions. (Results in endless mission`s and addictive gameplay which is good for income).

In addition with 4 Races more C-Store products can be developed and sold, additionally to the Add-On income.
2. Add-On
The Second Add-On could include The Dominion, Cardassian Union, True Way and the Breen Confideracy as playable races. Perhaps they are seperate in two or more Factions.
Like The Dominion which finally invites after 40 years a technology to open the sealed Bajoran Wormhole, invade the Alpha and Beta Quadrant and Conquer parts of the Cardassian Union (so also Cardassians as the True Way could be played in the Dominion again like in the TV-Serie DS9). Even the Breen could ally again with them. On the other part u could have the reamining Cardassian Union/Seperatists and an Obsidian Order Career which fights for survival with the Federation and Romulans against The Dominion?!
How i already said before, the key is to make as a whole series like the 3rd Season of "Enterprise" in which they tried to prevent the destruction of Earth against the Xindi or like you already featured the last Episodes in STO with epic missions and content.
At the end i just want to say THANK YOU guys for all the great work over the last year(s). Hope soon for much more content!
Live Lo............... ,u already know
Comments
There is much to be said for STO it offers an MMO experience unlike many out there with the possibilty to fill an niche gap in the market in that it combines MMO with solo and group play. You have a lot of control over your captain, ship and crew while at the same time blending multiple people on the same mission very effectively.
Sadly though its almost too limited in what it offers and this has often been brought up with articles on the game. Its a lot of fun but quickly becomes repeative and one thing that would help the game is more factions and more options between the factions. The PvP is too limited and even the interaction between the two is almost like seperate games. The use of spys and diplomates and assassinations into the enemy space could really add to the game.
Now I could go on but whether the expansion is paid for (and given the C-Store very likely) Cryptic need to wrestle more staff and start adding more in every aspect of the game so that it keep people playing for more than a grind of emblems.
cryptic needs more personal and that would be neccesary in a prdouction of an addon.
and we need open territorial pvp content with more then only 5 team members, with that STO would boom like never before!
a seperate sector block with 4 sectors or more in which every faction has one own base system which is not qonquerable. the rest of the systems/planets in the sector block are free conquerable and u can also like in standart sector intercept enemy ships, with the only difference that the enemies are real people.
also a death countdown for 24 hours per charackter would be intresting. this would make it like a daily and much more tactical, to coordinate with ur fleet against others...
and if ure were destroyd u could use ur other charackters... so much is possible!