Earning extra ships,

[mdredheadguy1979]

Hello again ST Fans! I was reading the transcript of a past Dev-chat and saw that if you want to unlock extra ships in the size class that you need to earn extra merit with Star Fleet.

First how do you earn extra merit?

Second what is the number of ships avalible in any given size class?

Thanks again,
Terry W.

[Acyl]

Hello again ST Fans! I was reading the transcript of a past Dev-chat and saw that if you want to unlock extra ships in the size class that you need to earn extra merit with Star Fleet.

First how do you earn extra merit?

We don't know. Most of us are assuming that merit with Starfleet will be some kind of in-game 'currency' or point system. But that's just a guess. The devs haven't confirmed this.

What they HAVE confirmed, in the recent Ask Cryptic column and related dev chat on player progression...is that every time a player increases in rank (ie. being promoted from Lieutenant Commander to Commander, etc)...you will receive a new starship.

Before you ask, you qualify for higher ranks by earning skill points and spending them. Once you've earned a certain number of points, you qualify for the next rank. But you can choose to turn down promotions and keep earning skill points if you want.

Second what is the number of ships avalible in any given size class?

We don't know. The number '16' keeps coming up on the forums, as in...each faction will have 16 starship configurations TOTAL at launch. How that's spread out, I dunno. I don't know where the '16 starship configs per faction' number comes from; apparently a dev said it somewhere.

Rekhan said in a recent post that each config will have several sub-classes in it, and that number ain't uniform. In his example, the Defiant config has Defiant class, Gallant class, Valiant class, etc.

[DerManiac]

Well they did say something about how resolving conflicts the starfleet-way (peaceful, diplomatic, showing mercy) gives you some bonus. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the way to earn "merit".

[Musterion]

I wonder if we can earn multiple of the same ship, with different configurations. For example, three sovereigns, one "pimped out" for maximum tactical capability, another for science, engineering etc.

[MadAlaskan]

Well they did say something about how resolving conflicts the starfleet-way (peaceful, diplomatic, showing mercy) gives you some bonus. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the way to earn "merit".

I am hoping that we do the opposite for the KDF. Have your target subit or die and get goodies. And I think this would be an interesting mechanic. Being able to resolve things in different ways would be a nice change from 'go here, do this, come back'.

I wonder if we can earn multiple of the same ship, with different configurations. For example, three sovereigns, one "pimped out" for maximum tactical capability, another for science, engineering etc.

As far as I understand it, you can configure your ship with what skill points you pick and the bridge officers you have, and since you can xfer them to any ship, it may be be completely reliant on the ship.