Hello, Joe and STOers! Earlier this week, the people behind Star Trek: Resurgence and Cryptic announced the USS Resolute, from the game Star Trek: Resurgence, would be available in STO for free until November 30th. Yay, free stuff!

…

But it’s not a ship. It’s a ship costume/visual.

“Wait…What?”

Yes, for the first time in at least post-Free-to-Play STO (early 2012), a ship costume is being offered separately of a ship purchase.

Keep in mind, we only get ship costumes 1 of 2 ways normally:

The Resolute will be a new costume for the Miranda class, as it’s based on the Centaur-class look, which is a variant of the Miranda-class (even stated so on Memory Alpha). Once you claim the skin/costume/visual/whatever you’d like to call it, you can use it on most, if not all, Miranda-class ships (including T6 Malachowski- and Clarke-class designs, as for STO’s purposes it’s also a Miranda-class variant [note, the Tier 1 Malachowski for Discovery-era players is not kitbashable, per STOWiki’s notes on the Malachwoski-class in particular).

How to Claim

I did a short video on how to claim the skin, and I did some tests with various Miranda-style variant classes.

NOTE 1: The Tier 1 Malachowski, while being in the Miranda family, is not covered by this as it’s a 2360s ship. Discovery-era ships are generally limited to their timeframe.

NOTE 2: I did not test the Fleet versions of the Miranda family of ships. I’ll assume those work without issue unless someone says otherwise.

“So How Am I Supposed to Use This Wonderful New Skin If I Don’t Have a Ship to Go With It?”

Well…one nice thing about the Miranda-class family of ships is, there’s all sorts of ways to get one! They range from free to practically free to normal Z-Store to, “Oh, goodness, that’s an entire video game’s worth of cost!”

Note that, since this is a list of Federation ships, you need to either be a Federation-aligned character (either directly through character creation [2409/Present-Day Starfleet; Discovery-era Starfleet after the jump to 2409; TOS-era Starfleet likely after their jump to 2409] or aligned with the Federation through a story prompt [Romulan; Jem’Hadar]).

I’ll break it down for you here, with plenty of links to STOWiki.net if you want more information on the ships themselves (trait details, console details, an easier way to see stats like Hull Strength or Bridge Officer seating, etc.).

TIER 1
Light Cruiser

METHODS: Free for 2409 Starfleet characters (starter ship); 1,000 Dilithium at any Shipyard vendor (provided you’re Federation or have Cross-Faction Flying unlocked).

NOTES: At Tier 1, it won’t do you a lot of good at the end-game…or even in the Normal difficulty of anything much past Level 20. But with the right consoles and a few great weapons, gear, and traits, you could get through Normal content if you’re on a budget for your ship. (I said you could get through it, I didn’t say “quickly” or “easily.” 😉 ). As well, this is a per-character purchase.

TIER 6:

Family 1: Free-ish
Fleet Advanced Light Cruiser
Fleet Malachowski Multi-Mission Command Cruiser
Fleet Soyuz Intel Heavy Frigate

METHOD: Fleet Purchases, requiring all of the following on a per-ship basis:
* 5 Fleet Ship Modules (“FSMs”); can reduce down to 1 FSM each if you own their Z-Store counterparts (will be listed below).
* 20,000 Fleet Credits
* 1 Fleet store provision for the Shipyard [requires being in a Fleet with high-enough Shipyard level to have access to the ship and for you to have a high-enough Fleet Rank to purchase from Fleet holdings [ask your Fleet leader for details if you’re unsure]).

NOTES:

  • I call this the “Free-ish” group because of the FSM cost. You have 13 Reputations, all of which can go to Tier 6 level. At Tier 6, each Rep allows you a one-time trade-in of 100 of its Marks for 1 FSM. Considering those are $5/500 Zen for 1 or $20/2,000 Zen for 4, that’s quite a bargain! But this means you can only get 2 Tier 6-level Fleet Ships (with 3 bound-to-character FSMs left over) if you don’t own that ship’s related Z-Store vessel. Using 5 of your FSMs for one of these means you’re choosing of your two available T6 ships to get a Miranda-class variant. That’s not bad in its own right, just be sure this is what you want.
  • It’s also “Free-ish” since unbound FSMs are purchasable on the Exchange or in private chats. Currently, 1 FSM runs ~24 million EC. If you’re patient enough with Endeavor rewards, vendoring loot, Tour the Galaxy, and doing anything else that’s lucrative toward gaining EC, you could get whatever Fleet Ships a character would want for practically nothing (on your part).
  • Being Fleet-level ships, these are per-character purchases. They are not account-wide unlocked; however, any T6-X upgrades you give them would carry over to other characters buying that ship(s).

Family 2: Z-Store, Starter Bundle (2,000 Zen Federation Elite Starter Pack, down to 1,300 Zen on a 35% discount)
Advanced Light Cruiser

METHOD: Uh…just read above? o.O

NOTES:

  • I’m listing this separately because…well, why pay 3,000 Zen for a ship when 2,000 Zen gets you the ship, a Bridge Officer, a Uniform, and some much-needed Inventory/Bank space? You save money and get more!
  • This is the unlock needed to get the Fleet Advanced Light Cruiser’s FSM cost from 5 down to 1.
  • This ship features neither an innate starship ability (the Pilot seat is 1 rank too low, so it doesn’t get Pilot Maneuvers) nor a secondary Specialization seat (see the Fleet Soyouz for one that does, though in that particular case it’s 2 of the same Specialization). As such, unless you’re getting this for free through some method, I’d recommend not getting this specific version.
  • Speaking of free…this could also be “Free-ish” depending on if you’re looking to pre-order Star Trek: Resurgence on disc for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, or XBox Series X|S. Part of their pre-order bonuses is a Federation Elite Starter Pack. So Console players, if you’re pre-ordering Star Trek: Resurgence, you effectively get this version of the Miranda for free, so you might as well put that USS Resolute skin on it! 🙂

Family 3, Z-Store, Traditional (3,000 Zen single-ship purchase available)
Clarke Multi-Mission Command Cruiser
Bozeman Intel Heavy Frigate.

METHODS:

  1. Separate purchases in the Z-Store for 3,000 Zen each (at the usual 20% off, as low as 2,400 Zen each).
  2. Two separate Bundles, which unlock their respective Miranda variant and other ships.
    * Clarke Multi-Mission Command Cruiser: New Genesis Bundle, costing 7,500 Zen normally or 4,875 when there’s a 35% Bundles Sale discount. (Bundle has 2 ships total + Star Trek II/III themed items + 2 T6-X Upgrade Tokens + 2 FSMs).
    * Bozeman Intel Heavy Frigate: Federation Responder Bundle, costing 12,000 Zen normally or 7,800 Zen when there’s a 35% Bundles Sale discount. (Bundle has 3 ships total + 1 T6 Z-Store Coupon + 6 T6-X Upgrade Tokens + 3 FSMs).

NOTES:

  • The Clarke and Bozeman have fun/often-used consoles: the Genesis Seed (fun) for the Clarke, and the Tachyon Net Drones (often used) off the Bozeman.
  • The Clarke is needed to get the Fleet Malachowski Multi-Mission Command Cruiser’s FSM cost down from 5 to 1.
  • The Bozeman is needed to get the Fleet Soyouz Intel Heavy Frigate’s FSM cost down from 5 to 1.
  • I tend to recommend Bundles where possible, especially on sale. For the New Genesis Bundle, it’s really because it brings the per-ship cost down to just under 2,500 Zen each and gives you some nice fun account-unlocked bonuses. For the Federation Responder Bundle, it’d be for the Terran visuals and that it’s effectively 4 ships for 7,800 Zen (3 ships + 1 coupon if you don’t sell it for EC in private trades), bringing your per-ship cost down to 1,950 Zen per ship.

Family 4, Legendary (12,000 Zen full price; 7,800 Zen on 35% Bundles or Legendaries sale): Legendary Miranda Multi-Mission Cruiser

METHOD: The Legendary TOS Starfleet Captain Bundle (prices mentioned above)

NOTES:

  • As a Legendary, it comes with any skins, consoles, traits, etc., that existed for it prior to its release (that date being September 8th, 2021). This means the Bozeman’s skins, trait, and console are not part of this ship’s lineup. This also means the USS Resolute skin will not be part of this ship’s Miranda-family skin unlocks (theoretically; we’ve not had a skin be available in the Z-Store separate of a ship purchase, so maybe it’s a retroactive add some time in the future?).
  • As a “Legendary [type] Captain Bundle,” you get a Level 65 character boost for a single character, in this case a single TOS-era Starfleet Captain. My advice would be to wait for a Temporal Recruit so that Recruit can jump straight to Level 65 and start doing Reputations the day you get your character made and have its Tesseract Communicator (or whatever the Temporal Recruit’s special device is).

Feeling Resolute About Your Purpose…to Kick Borg Butt? (Or Klingon…or Voth…or whatever, you campaign how you want to.)

I hope this has been helpful to all those trying to find out what in the world is up with this giveaway. Feel free to spread this article around! (Not that I’m an exclusive source, but if someone prefers written content over videos [save for the “how-to” bit at the start], perhaps I can be of help there.)

Until later, take care, and continue enjoying Star Trek Online (and perhaps some Star Trek: Resurgence, too?).

Leave a comment

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started