Around the Spring of 2014, we began development of the first ever Captain Specialization that would appear in Star Trek Online, alongside the release of our second expansion, “Delta Rising,” which arrived later that same year. At that time, our vision of what a Captain Specialization would and could be in the game was a bit different from how players ended up engaging with them, and what expectations would come to exist regarding their performance, availability, and overall gameplay impact.

As we have continued developing additional Captain Specializations over the years between then and now, we have gained a better understanding of these expectations, and the gameplay impact that is expected to come from these features. And now, with that knowledge in-hand, we have decided it’s far overdue to revisit the first of these Captain Specializations, and give it just a bit of the polish that its peers have benefited from over the years.

The Pitch

At this time, we’ve chosen to focus on simple revisions, with a focus on just a few design goals:

• Increased ease of use
• Increased feeling of usefulness
• Increased impact on gameplay

These guiding principles mean that the vast majority of the changes we’re performing in this upcoming patch will focus on changing numbers, streamlining tooltips and functionality, and updating descriptions.  They will not include major changes to functionality.

We have shied away from major re-works that would alter the core functionality of any of these existing abilities, both to ensure that our focus at this time centers on the above goals, and to ensure that players that might not be aware of these impending changes won’t feel as though the mechanics they are already familiar with are suddenly foreign to them. With a game as venerable as Star Trek Online, we feel it is an important consideration to try not to “rock the boat” too heavily when revisiting abilities or features that have been in the game for many years, and generally choose to do so with care and caution.

The Timing

The changes that will be detailed herein are scheduled to arrive on PC with a patch on March 17^th, 2022.

Console platforms are scheduled to receive these changes as well, likely within the following month or two. Exact dates are not available at this time.

The Details

Without further ado, the following includes a list of all of our planned changes that will be included in the upcoming update.

Intel Ship Mechanic

"Gather Intel" / “Active Sensor Arrays”

• Now takes 6 stacks of Penetrating Scan to cause Vulnerability on any rank of ship, instead of varying by rank
• Duration of Vulnerability increased from 15 sec to 30 sec
• Stacks of Penetrating Scan will not be applied while a target has Vulnerability, or if any Expose ability is presently active.
• All "Expose" abilities now immediately expire any existing Vulnerability (in addition to other effects).
• NPCs no longer benefit from a lockout period after Vulnerability expires, and may instead immediately start rebuilding stacks of Penetrating Scan. Players now benefit from a 30 sec lockout (increased from 15 sec).

JR: While the most common player feedback included suggestions of moving the stacks of “Penetrating Scan” to being self-targeted, we chose not to pursue this for now, as it both removes the multiplayer aspect of being able to build stacks more quickly with multiple players scanning, and also makes it similar enough to the Command Spec’s “Inspiration” mechanic to invade on that identity. This also treads into “major rework” territory which we chose to avoid where possible with this particular set of updates.

Instead, we’re speeding up this ability’s application, and improving its re-usability, as well as cleaning up some “messy” stacking behavior that previously existed.

 

Intel Bridge Officer Abilities

(Note: If an ability is not called out here, no changes have been made to its functionality.)

"Evade Target Lock"

• Base Duration of Disable/Untargetable increased from 1/2/3 to 2/3/4, and now scales with Control Expertise.
• The duration of the Disable is now subject to Control Resistances of the affected foe.
• Replaced Accuracy penalty with a Damage penalty. Affected Foes now suffer reduced damage against the user of this ability, instead of just missing them more frequently. (Their damage output against other targets is unaffected.)
• Durations of all ranks are now normalized at 20 seconds.

JR: Accuracy debuffs are a difficult mechanic to feel, or even to verify their effectiveness using Combat Log Parsing. Replacing this with a damage penalty maintains the feel of the design, while gaining a more verifiable impact. Adding in skill interactions also seemed like an obvious choice.

 

"Intelligence Team"

• Threat Reduction values at all ranks have been doubled.
• If "Threatening Stance" is not active on the recipient of this ability, this effect is doubled again.
• Targeting Stealth values are now consistent across all ranks (equal to previous Rank III values).
• Defense buff increased from 10/15/20 to 30/40/50.
• Added a Perception Buff to recipient which scales with rank.

JR: With these changes, we think the power now has a unique niche to fill as a Threat Modifier ability. Improving the Targeting Stealth values associated with Rank I and II may also allow those abilities to fill a role they were previously too weak to effectively fill. This ability also remains the sole means of removing the debuffs from “Gather Intel” in PvP scenarios.

 

"Subspace Beacon"

• All ranks now have the same distance limit of 20km.
• Added brief period of "Untargetable" after Teleport.
• Teleport will now reset all Threat, when "Threatening Stance" is not active.
• Added a Bridge Officer Cooldown reduction to the Teleport, which scales with rank.
• Added clarifying descriptive text: "The beacon will automatically self-destruct if you are too far from its location. However, there is no cooldown triggered on the ability if this occurs."
• Fixed long-standing errors with how multiple ranks of this power would interact with one another. Each Rank now utilizes an entirely separate set of checks, in order to allow a player to use multiple Beacons if they so choose. This change also resulted in the shared cooldown between ranks dropping from 60sec to 15sec.

JR: In addition to adding utility in the form of a Threat Dump and scaling Boff CD reductions, this review offered us the opportunity to fix text omissions and functionality errors that had been present for a long while. Win-win!

 

"Electromagnetic Pulse Probe"

• Flight Speed increased by 50% at all ranks
• Added Electrical Damage to probe's pulses while in-transit to destination. Foes within 2km of probe will take some damage now.
• Damage now scales with Particle Generators skill.
• Disable durations now scale with Control Expertise skill.
• Base duration of pulsing Disable (not final detonate) has been reduced, and benefits less from Control Expertise.
• Probe will no longer detonate until at least 10 seconds have passed, even if launched at very close range.
• This power is now labeled as a Control Bridge Officer Ability, and can interact with applicable effects and triggers such as Secondary Deflectors.

JR: By traveling faster, living longer, and utilizing the skills of its owner, our hope is that this friendly little nuisance gains footing as a valid alternative to other Bridge Officer abilities.

 

"Ionic Turbulence"

• Projectile now travels to its destination approximately 3x as quickly.
• Damage Resistance Debuff increased slightly at all ranks, and now scales higher with Auxiliary Power.
• Speed Debuff now scales with Control Expertise skill.
• This power is now labeled as a Control Bridge Officer Ability, and can interact with applicable effects and triggers such as Secondary Deflectors.
• Fixed a series of errors with Rank II and III of this ability, that could cause the cloud to be centered on the user instead of their intended target.

JR: Primary player feedback focused on travel speed and debuff severity, as compared to alternative Boff ability choices. Our internal reviews supported this feedback, and became the focus of the updates applied to this ability.

 

"Kinetic Magnet"

• Increased Kinetic Resistance debuff at all ranks, from 20/25/30 to 30/40/50
• Durations of all ranks are now normalized at 15 seconds.
• Number of Mines/Torpedoes that can be drawn to an affected target has been increased from 3 to 6.
• The range at which Mines/Torpedoes can be drawn to an affected target has been increased from 5km to 10km.
• Reminder: This ability no longer has a fragile damage cap (removed in a previous update).

JR: Such a clever ability that sees so little use. Many players that offered feedback did not seem to know that the fragility limits were removed long ago. Hopefully these numeric improvements may allow it to find a place among players that enjoy using Kinetic damage to defeat their foes, and at least make players curious enough of its potential to take another look at it.

 

"Surgical Strikes"

• Increased damage multipliers at all ranks. Rank I went up by approximately 30%, Rank II by about 40%, and Rank III by about 50%.
• Standardized the amount of Critical Chance and Accuracy at all ranks, to 30% of both.
• Added a scaling amount of Critical Severity to all ranks. Rank I = +40, Rank II = +60, Rank III = +80

JR: Updating this power was a tricky course. Since the improvements made to “Beam Overload” a few years back, its identity has been mired. Coupled with poor numeric performance, the ability languished un-used. This was especially true for high-end players who already itemized for high Critical Hit Chance, as there comes a point where more +CritH isn’t a meaningful choice for your build.

While the boost to the damage multiplier was a bit of a no-brainer, this would not address the underlying use case for those high-end players, and so an additional Critical Severity boost has also been rolled into the ability. With this added, our hope is that this ability will now be a viable choice to some degree, for players at all progression levels.

"Transport Warhead"

• Removed firing arc requirements
• Recharge time reduced from 30sec to 15sec

JR: By giving players an ability that removes the firing arc restrictions on one of their weapon types, our hope is that this ability now has a useful niche it can fill. Especially for ships on the lower-end of maneuverability that wish to use Torpedoes. Alongside the drastic reduction to the ability’s cooldown, it is now more readily usable with more frequency.

Truthfully, this ability could benefit from further review and tuning, but the complexity of its underlying structure prevented much additional improvements without a drastic rebuild at this time.

 

Jeremy “BorticusCryptic” Randall
Senior Systems Designer
Star Trek Online