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In the universe of Star Trek Online, it’s the 24th century and humans no longer make use of money. Here in the 21st century, however, you’ve still got a bit more time until you can play Star Trek Online without the use of said money. Or do you? Starting tomorrow, January 5th, the doors will open for players to start enjoying the game for free before the full free-to-play launch on January 17th.

So what do you need to do to get this early access? Well, if you’re asking now, you’re a bit too late; the privilege is being extended to lapsed former subscribers, who can come back and play the game for free as Silver members. That means certain features will be restricted, but if you had played in the past and haven’t had a chance to catch up with the newer features of the game, tomorrow will be your chance to log in and start trekking across the universe for free.

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Since launch, Star Trek Online has always used the Borg as a major threat. This is evidenced by the Borg’s position in several of the game’s Strategic Task Forces, top-end challenges for the best of the best in the Federation and the KDF. The conversion to free-to-play will include improvements and updates for these STFs, starting with a change explained in the latest installment of the Path to F2P blog series.

The first change is the shift to two separate difficulty modes, Normal and Elite. STFs are also being added to the PvE queue feature so that players can more easily assemble a group. Last but not least, the missions will feature special rewards that can be traded for a variety of anti-Borg equipment, allowing successful players the chance to better tune their ships for future runs. These updates won’t reduce the threat level of the Borg, but they should help more players face off against one of the game’s marquee opponents.

This week, I’ve had a change of heart. I was in the middle of writing about grouping, loneliness and the new squad system in STO when the universe — as the universe is wont to do — mucked that up. As I ran around trying to take a few screenshots for the grouping column, poor Captain Gil found himself caught in a seemingly endless string of ground-combat missions. And so, if for no other reason than because I snapped a bunch of guys-shooting-each-other-with-phasers pictures, this week’s Captain’s Log introduces some of the basics of ground combat in STO.

Caveat phasor

If you read this column on anything approaching a regular basis, you might be aware that ground combat and I don’t get along. At all. I often view away missions as exercises in soul-sucking tedium, so I try to avoid them as much as possible. As such, I’m no grand master of ground combat, but I’ve had more than enough experience to know some handy tips. And I promise to try to stay positive.

The following suggestions by no means constitute an exhaustive list of everything you should know when you have a phaser in hand. But they should be enough to help the newer players in the crowd, at the very least. And some of you more grizzled players can chime in with your suggestions in the comments.

1. Prepare your skills

This might seem like a no-brainer, but it took me a few levels past the tutorial to find the skills window. So it’s worth mentioning. Pressing “P” opens up your Abilities menu, which lists your available space- or ground-based skills, depending on your location.

When you’re on a ground map — your bridge, another ship, a planet — open up that Abilities menu and get to know your powers. You likely have a few skills that you didn’t even know about, in part because the STO UI defaults your skill tray to a single row of hotkeys. For example, when my Science Officer was young, I didn’t realize I had useful abilities such as Sonic Pulse and Triage until I decided to mess with the UI a bit.

In the default skill tray, the first six hotkeys are for skills, while the last four are reserved for on-use items, including hypos and shield cells. But you should expand the tray very early on.

To do that, click on the icon at the right end of the skill tray that looks like a stack of three tiny file folders. That brings up the numbers 1, 2 and 3, which correspond to the rows of hotkeys available. Lower-level players can make do with two rows of hotkeys, whereas advanced players likely need all three.

Once you’ve got another row of hotkeys available, drag and drop your extra combat abilities into the new slots. And of course, while you’re at it, read up on each ability and what it does.

2. Know your basic terms

Ground and space abilities include some basic MMO terminology, as well as a few STO-specific concepts. I won’t cover them all — I hope you know, for instance, that a buff strengthens and a debuff weakens — but this list should be useful.

Expose Attack: An ability that has a chance to open up an enemy to a powerful hit from an Exploit Attack.
Exploit Attack: An ability that can cause massive damage to an Exposed enemy (more on that in a moment).
AoE vs. PBAoE: Area of Effect abilities cause damage or some other effect to enemies within a certain area, usually around your target. Point Blank Area of Effect abilities, on the other hand, cause that effect in a certain area around the user.
Hold: One of many effects caused by abilities. The STO equivalent of rooting an enemy in place.
Placate: Another effect. Prevents enemies from using harmful abilities.
Knockback, Slow, and so on: Numerous other effects that do just what they sound like.

3. Expose and Exploit

You should get used to using Expose and Exploit attacks all the time, and in that order. A yellow label in the upper-right corner of the tooltip clearly indicates whether an ability is an Expose, an Exploit or neither. Again, Exposes open an enemy to massive damage from Exploits.

Here’s how it works. Expose attacks, in addition to various effects have a 10-percent chance to successfully Expose an enemy. So my Tricorder Scan ability, for instance, always debuffs the target’s damage resistance and stealth and has a chance to Expose him. (And yes, you may giggle.)

When an enemy is Exposed, a bright orange icon will flash on his torso. (There really is no way to explain these things without sounding a little pervy.) If you have that enemy targeted, the icon for your Expose attack — defaulted to the number 2 on your skill tray — will flash with a target-like border. Use it, because Exposes typically last only a few seconds.

Successfully blasting an Exposed enemy with an Exploit attack acts like a huge, guaranteed critical hit. Early in the game, you can wipe out most Exposed enemies with a single shot. As you progress in STO, the enemies will survive more often, naturally, but Exploits are no less important. They still cost your enemies significant chunks of health or shields. A few well-timed Exploits can mean the difference between a 30-second massacre and a 5-minute firefight.

And as an added bonus, enemies killed by an Exploit attack disintegrate in a blaze of orange light, much like Captain Terrell in The Wrath of Khan.

4. Expose wisely

Stop laughing, I’m serious! Don’t just run willy-nilly into a fight and Expose and Exploit at random. I suggest popping all Exposes at the beginning of every fight. Between your abilities and those of your Bridge Officers, you have a decent chance to lead off with at least one Exposed enemy ripe for the blasting. Plus, some Exposes can affect multiple enemies, so hitting them when grouped gives you the greatest chance of success.

As the fight progresses, pay attention to cooldowns. Blasting an enemy with your Exploit attack — which is powerful in its own right — and then using Expose abilities a second or two later can prove wasteful. Too often I’ve successfully Exposed an enemy only to realize my Exploit is unavailable for a few more seconds. Nothing aggravates me more than missing an Exploit chance by a second or two, so timing is everything, especially if you use a weapon with a long Exploit cooldown. My current Disruptor Sniper Rifle’s Exploit attack, for example, has an eight-second cooldown, I believe, so I miss out on plenty of Exposes if I’m not careful.

5. Use other abilities, too!

Sure, the two Exes are important, but don’t neglect your other abilities. Much of your DPS will come from your basic, non-Exploit, non-Expose weapon attack, so remember to use it whenever you’re not doing something more important. Various other abilities, including buffing and healing, don’t Exploit or Expose, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore them.

Well hey, I have a bunch more tips for you, but I’ll have to save them for next time. Getting to know your abilities and mastering the two Exes is more than enough to get you started with STO’s ground combat. Feel free to make some suggestions of your own in the comments, and I’ll see you back here in one week with more ideas for making away missions more fun — or less excruciating, anyway.

The trouble with making Star Trek Online is that there are a lot of parts that work great in a dramatic television series that don’t necessarily work as well in a game. As much fun as it might be to have your bridge officers get together for a poker game, there’s a dearth of useful ways to integrate it into gameplay in a meaningful sense. That having been said, the team at Cryptic is clearly interested in trying to add as many iconic elements from the series as possible, as spotlighted in the most recent set of Ask Cryptic answers on the official site.

A prime example are individual bridge officer stories — they want to add them, but there are so many variables that the effort winds up feeling more generic instead of more personal. However, there are ideas and hopeful plans for adding more personalities to bridge officers, as well as the potential to respec your officers (although that also runs into minor problems). There’s also some information about the upcoming Diplomatic missions to help spice up exploring the nebulae around the galaxy. Star Trek Online players are encouraged to take a look at the full list of answers, which covers quite a bit of space in both design and lore.

Star Trek Online players are in for a treat today as Cryptic’s next content patch hits the servers. Titled in such a way that we think they’re going to count to 10 eventually, Season One: Update Two (Mark Three, Variant Four, Version Five) comes bundled with a number of new features and quality of life improvements for all to enjoy.

The premiere features of this patch are the new Accolade and Squad Support systems. Accolades are your basic MMO achievements with a Star Trek veneer, although if you collect enough of them, you can earn real benefits for your character (such as passive resistances) in addition to titles. All we can say is that if there isn’t an accolade for the number of “Picard Maneuvers” you’ve done, then Cryptic needs to get on that and make it so.

Squad Support is a new version of Cryptic’s famous Sidekick system from City of Heroes. It paves the way for friends of varying levels to group together for missions and fleet actions by temporarily raising or lowering the rank of the group to match the squad leader’s.

Season One: Update Two contains several other additions, so head over to STO’s site and check them out!

Greetings, fellow officers! Welcome to another edition of Captain’s Log, your weekly dispatch from the far reaches of Star Trek Online. I hope everyone had fun tooling around the cosmos with the developers on Monday. Sadly, technical difficulties prevented me from accessing the Tribble test server. So I’m making all my engineers wear red shirts on away missions for the rest of the week — that’ll learn ‘em.

This week, I thought we’d cover one of my favorite aspects of STO: starships! More specifically, I’ll offer some tips and information to help you choose your first ship when you reach that magic Lieutenant 11. Remember, you pretty much have to live with your decision for 10 levels, so let’s make sure you choose wisely.

The Quest for Lieutenant 11

Okay, so technically this will be your second ship. You receive your first ship during the Federation tutorial, and you can customize it just after completing that tutorial. But you’re still just one snowflake in a blizzard of Miranda-class starships, so that doesn’t count. Lieutenant 11 (or simply level 11, for ease of reference) marks your first real opportunity to branch out and choose your starship.

So the first step, obviously, is to hit level 11. This confuses some new players who think they should shoot for level 10, since players advance in rank every 10 levels. But you must reach that 11th level, which converts to the first level of the new rank after completing a promotion quest.

At any rate, Captain’s Log has covered the beginner tutorial thoroughly and has offered some helpful hints for progressing through the lieutenant levels. So check those out and you should hit level 11 in no time. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

All set? Super good. Now, just as you did after completing the tutorial, head to Earth Spacedock when you reach level 11. Admiral Quinn will make you jump through a hoop or two before promoting you to Lieutenant Commander 1. That promotion comes complete with one free ship requisition, so run, don’t walk, to the Shipyard next door (counterclockwise from the Admiral’s office).

Starship Requisitions

You’ve been to the Shipyard before, as a wee lieutenant fresh out of the tutorial. But this time, instead of hanging around on the first floor with all the newbs, head up the ramp to the second-floor turbolift. The lift takes you to — you guessed it — Ship Requisitions, which is where you buy starships and starship equipment. Lt. Laurel, perpetually standing behind the desk on the southwest edge of the room, sells the ships and provides handy information about the three ship categories: Escorts, Science Vessels and Cruisers.

Escorts: Packed with firepower but fairly fragile, escorts are the closest the Federation has to glass cannons. Think the U.S.S. Defiant from Deep Space Nine.
Science Vessels: These ships focus on buffing allies and debuffing enemies. The U.S.S. Voyager is one variation of science vessels.
Cruisers: The big daddies of the Federation. Cruisers include the U.S.S. Enterprise in all its forms.
Ready to choose yet? I didn’t think so. Knowing the basic idea behind each ship type is all well and good, and maybe you’ve got your heart set on which one you want already. But short of shelling out big space bucks to requisition a second starship, you have to live with your decision for 10 levels before you get to grab another free ship. While any ship type can hack it just fine in STO solo or group play — particularly at such early levels — choosing poorly can suck. Believe me, I know.

So let’s look more closely at each Tier 1 starship available at level 11. On the next page, I’ll provide useful information on each ship and, of course, I’ll throw in my two cents whenever possible.

Tier 1 Escort

Ship Classes: Rapier, Saber, Ushaan

Bridge Officer Stations:

2 Tactical
1 Engineering
1 Science

Consoles:

2 Tactical
1 Engineering
1 Science

Weapon Slots:

3 Forward
1 Aft
Stats

Hull: 11,250
Crew: 50
Impulse Speed: 20
Turn Rate: 16

Pros: The escort is the fastest and most maneuverable ship available. It also has sole access to heavy cannons, which pack a good punch. Its extra tactical console and officer augment that firepower even further.

Cons: With the weakest hull and shields, the escort is fragile. The maneuverability helps you keep shields alive, but that hull cannot take a beating. Also, Tier 1 escorts don’t at all resemble the distinctive saucer-and-nacelles look of most Federation ships, which can be a downer from an aesthetic standpoint.

Analysis: I chose the Tier 1 escort as my starship at level 11. I’ve had a soft spot for the Defiant since its introduction, so naturally I wanted to try my hand at the fast, fiery escort. The actual Defiant class isn’t available until Tier 3, but it’s still a great ship type to play.

The three forward weapon slots favor my preferred style of PvE combat, which is to remain mostly stationary and pick off opponents from range. But the shields drop awfully fast that way, so movement is pretty essential after a point.

Tier 1 Science Vessel

Ship Classes: Aurora, Nova, Quasar

Bridge Officer Stations:

1 Tactical
1 Engineering
2 Science

Consoles:

1 Tactical
1 Engineering
2 Science

Weapon Slots:

2 Forward
2 Aft
Stats
Hull: 13,500
Crew: 100
Impulse Speed: 15
Turn Rate: 11

Pros: Reliance on buffs and debuffs sometimes lends itself to gameplay more active than just zapping enemies with phasers and torpedoes. The emphasis on science officers and consoles strengthens hull- and shield-healing abilities, which is nice when you’re getting your sea legs.

Cons: Weaker than an escort for pure firepower and more fragile than a cruiser.

Analysis: I didn’t try out a science vessel until Tier 2, but I totally dug it. I hesitated mainly because I couldn’t see where the science vessel fit. At such an early level, I didn’t see much need for the finesse of debuffing and healing, especially at the expense of firepower.

But science vessels are just as capable solo as escorts or cruisers, and popping various buffs and debuffs can add a little more engagement to space combat — especially now that we can set all weapons to auto-fire. And while they’re slightly slower than escorts, science vessels still handle nicely.

Tier 1 Cruiser

Ship Classes: Constitution, Excalibur, Vesper

Bridge Officer Stations:

1 Tactical
2 Engineering
1 Science

Consoles:

1 Tactical
2 Engineering
1 Science

Weapon Slots:

2 Forward
2 Aft
Stats

Hull: 16,250
Crew: 400
Impulse Speed: 15
Turn Rate: 8

Pros: These things are tanks — they take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. The extra engineering console gives you room to pump its turn rate a bit with a couple RCS Accelerators. They also get the classic Enterprise look.

Cons: These things are tanks — they are slow, slow, slow. With a turn rate half that of the escort, all the engineering consoles in the world can’t make these babies turn on a $100 bill, let alone on a dime.

Analysis: I’m conflicted about cruisers. I didn’t try one until Tier 3, and I do not care for it at all. For someone who prefers the zippy movement of escorts and science vessels, the cruiser’s maneuverability is torturous.

But with various iconic Enterprise incarnations available to the cruiser line, I want to like them. I really do. And don’t get me wrong, plenty of people love their cruisers. So if you like the idea of being a powerful but sluggish warhorse, have at it!

One Last Thing

While I hope my input has been helpful, remember that the point of all this is to have fun. If you’re set on flying around in an Enterprise lookalike as soon as possible, then get that cruiser! If flying circles around your enemies sounds like your thing, even if it means you might get blown up more often, then snag an escort!

Each ship type is perfectly capable of soloing 10 levels until your next free ship, so your choice in the long run boils down to personal preference. And whichever starship you choose, make sure you customize the heck out of it! With each free ship comes a free ship customization on the first floor of the Shipyard, so get cracking. Enjoy boldly going in a ship no one has seen before.

The team for Star Trek Online has been working on cleaning up bugs, deploying new features, and generally getting the game prepped for the upcoming Season 1.2 patch, which promises a variety of additions and improvements to the game. In order to help facilitate the testing of new features — and to enjoy getting into the mix with the players — the development team is going to be hosting one of Cryptic’s frequent play nights with the general populace.

Unlike normal, this night isn’t taking place on the live servers, but on the Tribble test server. From 4-6 PM PST (7-9 PM EST) on May 24th, the developers will be on the server, taking part in PvE content as well as on the PvP maps. Whether you want the developers to hear about your great idea for new task forces, want to tell them how much you want the game to have new content, or are just still recovering from the series finale of Lost, any player with an active Star Trek Online account is encouraged to mix it up with the development team.

Memory Alpha

Okay, so now that you understand crafting materials, it’s time to discuss using them. At level 4, you should receive a mission to deliver anomalous data from Earth Starbase to Memory Alpha, which is where all crafting takes place. Head to the Teneebia Sector of Alpha Centauri Sector Space and scoot on over to Memory Alpha.

After you beam into the station, head to the large central room. Complete your intro mission by dumping off your data at the console in front of Commander Jenna Romaine. She then will explain the idea behind crafting. Now you’re ready to get to it!

Interacting with one of the Research and Development consoles in the center of the big room will open up the R&D window, where you now do your crafting. The crafting window is available at any time by selecting the new “View R&D Progress” option from the mini-map dropdown menu, but you can only make things at a console in Memory Alpha.

Four Categories

Crafting now breaks down into four distinct categories, each with its own set of craftable items. You must attain 500 points in General Research to unlock the other three fields.

General Research: Hypos, Shield Charges, Kits, starship weapons up to Mk II
Energy Fields: Body armor, Ship engines, Engineering kits, certain personal shields
Physical Sciences: Deflector arrays, ship shields, Science kits, stun pistols, certain personal shields
Technology R&D: Starship weapons, Ground weapons, Tactical kits

Each craftable item, in turn, offers a series of information.

A number: The item’s research value/cost.
Item icon & name
Material costs: Each item requires a combination of different materials. The stun pistol above, for example, requires 7 encoded data, 7 tetryon particles and 7 plasma samples.
Item reagent: This is the last piece of any recipe. To make an item, you need a basic version of that item. So the “blue” Plasma Stun Pistol Mk IV above requires a common “white” Plasma Stun Pistol Mk IV to make.

R&D progression is fairly simple. As you create items, their point values add up, unlocking more craftable items. So, if you make three of the Plasma Stun Pistols above, you earn 120 points. Once you hit 500 points in General Research, you unlock the other three categories. Once you hit 500 points in Energy Fields, Physical Sciences or Technology R&D, you can unlock Advanced R&D in that tree.

Memory Alpha contains a room devoted to each of those three fields. In each field’s room, you’ll find two officers who discuss their research and one Ferengi vendor. The vendor, a new addition with the crafting overhaul, sells the white items, such as stun pistols and warp engines, required to craft the blue-rarity items. So if you aren’t lucky enough to find the items you need for crafting by looting enemies, you can now buy those items without having to rely on the player exchange.

And those are the basics of crafting in STO. It’s not a particularly deep system, but it can be a source of useful equipment. And no matter your opinion on the content of crafting, the recent overhaul is a huge improvement over the old days (or older, anyway) of guessing your way through progression.

Attention, Starfleet! It’s time again for Captain’s Log, your favorite Thursday Star Trek Online column. After last week’s roundup of incoming changes and improvements, let’s discuss the latest much-needed upgrade to STO: the Memory Alpha overhaul!

I am so excited about this change. Crafting in STO definitely got short shrift at launch. The system itself was not engaging, and progression was a confounding mess. While Cryptic Studios haven’t fundamentally altered the former, last week’s update to the Season 1.3 patch made such changes to the latter — it implemented a dedicated crafting window and actual progression — that I almost don’t care. After bidding a brief farewell to the previous system, allow me to explain the basics of crafting: materials, missions and Memory Alpha.

The Bad Old Days

In STO, crafting takes place at the Memory Alpha research station. At launch, Memory Alpha was something of a disaster. Crafting consisted of bringing a bunch of materials to vendors at the station and hoping you had the proper combination to buy something, if only to clear your inventory of some of those materials. Progression, which would unlock vendors with higher-level items, was based on the value of items you bought. But players only knew that by explaining it to each other ad nauseam in the local chat channel. And knowing how much value one had accumulated with vendors was a matter of guesswork.

But on May 13th, Cryptic overhauled Memory Alpha. They streamlined the required materials for some items, they added component vendors and they implemented a dedicated crafting UI window. While players still collect combinations of materials in the same way, we are now the ones doing the crafting, which is known as Research and Development, or R&D. And even better, we can now track our progress through the system!

So good riddance to the old Memory Alpha! Say hello to your guide to STO crafting. We’ll start with gathering materials, move on to Exploration Missions and then explain crafting at Memory Alpha.

Anomalies

These appear in space or on ground. Whenever you enter a space or ground map, hit “V” to scan the area. A colored ring will appear around your ship or your captain. Red means the area is devoid of anomalies. Blue means anomalies are available. In that case, you will also see a message telling you how many anomalies are in the area.

A beam of light, sort of like a blue flashlight, also appears when you hit “V.” It will usually point you to the nearest anomaly, but on away missions, it also points you to the nearest quest objective or lootable container. So it’s handy to scan with “V” early and often.

Also, a helpful hint. The blue light indicates how far away your objective is, too. If the beam is wide and scattered, that means the item or anomaly is close. The thinner the beam, the farther the item.

I’m not sure whether this still happens — it hasn’t happened to me in a while — but when STO was young (or younger, anyway), it wasn’t unusual to run into bugged anomalies. They could be half-embedded in rock but still trigger your tricorder scan, or your ship scanner would register a far-away anomaly that never appeared, even if you flew to the edge of the map.

Anomaly Types

When you find an anomaly, you’ll see a shiny red indicator and the option to scan an object, reading, whatever. Anomalies are divided into three categories, and each category contains six item types. The first item type is available at level 1 (though they don’t appear in the Federation tutorial) and a new item type in each category becomes available every 5 levels.

Technological Readings

Alien Artifact (Level 1)
Unknown Alloy (5)
Encoded Data (10)
Genetic Sequencer (15)
Photonic Technology (20)
Technical Schematic (25)
Physical Readings

Mineral Sample (1)
Biological Sample (5)
Plasma Sample (10)
DNA Sequence (15)
Exobiological Data (20)
Unidentified Substance (25)
Energy Readings

Radiation Sample (1)
Antimatter Sample (5)
Tetryon Particle (10)
Methogenic Particle (15)
Tachyon Wave Signature (20)
Chronometric Wave Signature (25)

Exploration Missions

Anomalies appear in just about every mission type, excluding space enemy encounters and a few others. But when I want to find a pile of materials, I go ‘sploring! Exploration missions are a win-win for anomaly farming.

Exploration missions, which are offered every few levels, send players into nebulae, which you can find marked at the edges of sector space. A nebula is essentially a sector containing randomly generated planets, asteroid belts and the like, and each exploration mission tasks players with exploring three such areas. Unlike sector space, in which you can auto-pilot to systems by selecting them in the map, nebulae require players to fly around and interact with anomalies. If you receive a “Scan Anomalous Readings” message, scan the anomaly to collect some free crafting mats.

If you get “Explore Unknown System,” enter the system and complete a quest. The possible missions vary from destroying enemy ships to investigating planetside flora. Sometimes you get super lucky with an “Investigate Anomalous Readings” mission, in which you just fly around and collect a handful of anomalous readings.

When you first enter the system, get your mission and then hit “V” to scan for anomalies. If it’s a space mission, collect your anomalies as you go. If the mission requires you to investigate the planet, make sure you collect any space-bound anomalies first, because you won’t be able to get them later. Once you beam to the planet, your tricorder will point you to the nearest quest objective or anomaly, so it’s easiest to collect mats as you complete your mission.

The beauty of exploration missions is that you can get in and out of systems quickly, and each one comes packed with anomalous readings. Plus, Starfleet’s exploration missions give you credit for every three systems, so you can pack in the crafting mats and experience at the same time.

There have been a lot of ship designs in Star Trek over the years, so it’s understandable that not every design was in Star Trek Online at launch. The game’s division of ship tiers into customizable batches is no doubt part of the reason, as well. But that doesn’t mean that the developers aren’t well aware of the gaps in ship classes, and that’s the reasoning behind the latest poll on the official site, asking players which ship design they’d like to see enter the game next, quite possibly as a lower-tier ship.

Of the classes available, four are past or future designs for the ubiquitous Enterprise lineage, including the often-seen Excelsior class and the rarely-seen Ambassador class. There’s also the far-future Enterprise-J design and the far-past NX design, both seen in Star Trek: Enterprise. The other two classes are somewhat less flashy but somewhat more notable omissions — the Nebula class, a frequently-seen workhorse design that resembles a pared-down Galaxy class, and the Oberth class, a general-purpose medical and scientific vessel from the same area. The Excelsior class is currently in the lead, so Star Trek Online fans are encouraged to vote for their favorites.