I invited two people to the fleet today, which was quite a milestone. Surprised they caught me online actually, as that toon is my one and only alt. ;)

Starbases are one of the most interesting additions to STO in over a year. Season 6 might bring some Lobsters back, or it may be something that you're interested in for deciding if you want to (re)try the game or join a fleet at all. Based on the frequency that I see other player activity in the logs, I find it doubtful that SNL will have a fully functioning starbase in any measurable amount of time. But the devs have stated repeatedly that Fleet sizes between 1-10 should be able to achieve up to Tier 2-3.

I've been putting together a Primer for my main fleet (>400 active players FED, >100 KDF) as we test it out on the Season 6 server. Right now it's just a Google Doc, but once it's polished enough I'll add it here, and update as needed. You can start with the recently updated STOwiki page of course, but I took a different tack on it, from a fleet leadership and resource planning perspective.

My first point of advice is to buy more bank slots. ;)

Edit: Stealth Insertion!

Tribble Patch notes: Be sure to check the Known Issues, as they keep adding new features that half-work. :)

• June 22http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=280401
• June 29http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=289471

STOWiki updates:

• http://www.stowiki.org/Upcoming#Revamp_of_fleet_gameplay
• http://www.stowiki.org/Fleet_Advancement_System

Joining Tribble:

http://sto.perfectworld.com/community/tribble-test

1. Activate your account to have the test server access.
2. Copy your character(s) over to Public Test Tribble. The process is almost instant.
3. In the STO launcher you’ll have a choice of shard. Choose Tribble and let the game patch up. It doubles the hard drive space required, but the Launcher will not re-download what you already have.

PROTIP: It is totally fine to throw all your inventory and credits into the fleet bank, add/mail all your DOFFs to the projects, delete and recopy your character to Tribble, and then deposit everything again. :) Just takes some coordination to make sure you get reinvited to the fleet! You will of course lose any fleet marks or leaderboard standing you have. But for purposes of testing, such dedication is appreciated.

Using Your Starbases:

Look in Eta Eridani Sector Space for the “Fleet System”. FED is near K7 on Aldebaren Sector, KDF is north of Ganalda in Archanis Sector.

• Tier 0: Very little that’s usable. Most of the infrastructure exists with NPCs. Take the turbolift for other floors, just like your ship. Also don’t trust the minimap too much. Lots of blank spots!

Cross-faction invitations work.

Fleet Management

The following new permissions are available for fleet leaders:

• Manage fleet Holdings (setting up projects), grants the UI ability to see and change what project is queued next. Otherwise the queue is hidden.
• Invite non-members to Fleet owned maps (cross-faction/fleet dance parties!)

Starbase Projects (Upgrades):

Projects cannot be cancelled! Decide carefully! The UI has been greatly improved in the latest patch. Hover over the resource icons to see exact requirements and XP rewards.

One project per slot is active at a time. The NEXT project in a slot can be queued and changed until it actually starts. Once a project is ready to start, it takes X amount of time to complete. Some 20 hours, some two weeks...

Fleet Credits (what you get)

Contributing to projects earns you fleet credits to spend in the starbase vendors. You also earn a “lifetime” fleet credit value which goes into the fleet leaderboards. Note that only direct contributions earn you Fleet Credits/leaderboard in the system. However, Cryptic has discussed ways for fleet leaders to reward members in other ways through the system, i.e. if you donate a stack of something but don’t deposit it yourself. This is all hypothetical at the moment... Anecdotally evidenced on Tribble, Leaderboard positions remain after a player leaves the fleet. However, upon rejoining, a new leaderboard entry with the same name is created. Leaderboard points are currently skewed dramatically by the value of Bridge Officer points.

Sample Provisioning assignment: (Priority One Podcast #86 supp.)

1. Fleet contributes ingredients to begin Provisioning Assignment
2. Weapons Provisioning Assignment rewards 50 weapon tokens from NPC / “weapons locker”. I say token because it can be 50 of one weapon, or a variety of different weapons. No restriction besides the Tier’s quality and max quantity.
3. Once tokens are gone, Provisioning assignment must be run again.So in fact, only a portion of the fleet roster can benefit per assignment.

Requirements and Materials (recipe ingredients)

Sample requirements for a Tier 0 standard project:

• 180 Fleet Marks, 15 white DOFFs of a specialty, 1,000 Shield Generator commodities. 2,000 Dilithium, 12,050 BOFF skill points.
• 180 Fleet Marks, 12 white and 2 green DOFFs of various specialties, 25 Stem Bolt commodities. 40 Satellite Turrets of an energy type, 10,000 BOFF skill points.
• 600 Fleet Marks are required per Special project.

Other large ingredient quantities seen at Tier 0 include:

• 100 Colonist Duty Officers (each character can hold 20 in their roster at any time)
• 150 Data samples of any type
• 1000 commodities of any type
• 50 Contraband

Common and Uncommon DOFFs are required in most recipes and many recipes at Tier 0 are proving to require the exact same specialties repeatedly like:

• Damage Control Engineer (common)
• Hazard System (common)
• Flight Deck Officer (common)
• Conn (common)

The following items MUST be earned and added personally, they cannot be bought, traded, banked, or mailed:

• Fleet Marks
• Bridge Officer Skill points (currently skewed value on Tribble, being changed to “Expertise”)
• Refined Dilithium (used mainly for Tier Upgrade projects)

The following items may be bought, mailed and/or traded to Officers, but they cannot be banked:

• Duty officers
• Bridge officer candidates

Starbase Shipyards (Priority One Podcast #86 supp.)

• All Season 6 ships designed for endgame. 45 additional ship variants going into the game.
• Classes: Retrofit (9 consoles), Fleet Retrofit (10 consoles), Fleet Refit.
• No new ship models, but Fleet ships have new hull material.
• Fleet ship X + C-Store ship X = Ultimate variant.
• Fleet Ships don’t come with C-Store console or C-Store costume. Instead they have more Hull, Shields, and 10th console slot.
• No Fleet version of C-Store ships with built-in (no console) abilities, no Garumba, no Dreadnought, no Excelsior.
• No Atrox (yet). No T5 Connie (duh). No talk of shuttles. No T1 ships. But we will likely get a Miranda (lawl).
• Two new “Fleet-Quality” gear colours: Ultraviolet (4 procs, or 3 procs + special), Gold (Unique, crafted)
• “Fleet-Quality” armor could automatically give Nanite Health Monitor.
• Some ships will be purchasable with Fleet Credits, some ships also require purchasing a schematic from the C-Store. C-Store price will be lower than purchasing a ship outright, because you’re already investing materials and time. Also it’s a per-character unlock.

Fleet Marks (how to earn them):

• Fleet Actions
• Events
• Daily Missions
• DOFF missions - only if your Commendation XP is already full

Fleet Actions:

The Starbase Fleet Defense FA is a 20-man mission, with a minimum of 15 players, cross-faction and other fleets are allowed. Defending is entirely optional, no penalty for neglect; rewards if you win. Rewards are 10-25 Fleet Merits (per player) that can then be spent on Projects.

Salami: “When you join the public queue, the queue randomly selects one person to be the "map owner". The fleet level of this person will dictate the starbase and facility level.”

Currently on Tribble, if KDF joins a Fed Starbase match, they cannot attack, and are in fact targeted by the Starbase itself. They can only buff other players as a healer. They will gain a share of loot from kills accumulated by their team.

Enemy types (all level 52) for Starbase Defense and Starbase Blockade may include any of:

• Borg
• Tholians
• Mirror Universe
• Nausicaan Pirates

Massively:

• http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/04/captains-log-an-exclusive-look-at-stos-season-six-starbases/
• http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/04/captains-log-supplemental-an-exclusive-interview-with-stos-da/

Article Quotes:

• “Rumor has it that the Tholians will be making their first appearance in Fleet Starbase Challenges.”
• “Any fleet of any size can participate. All fleets can begin construction of their starbases immediately after Season Six releases.”
• “This is another reason we chose not to have negative consequences for Starbase Challenges. In some cases, an alert may pop up asking you to defend your starbase, but if you choose to ignore it (or aren't online), then nothing bad will really happen. You will simply lose out on the ability to earn more Fleet Marks.”
• “Fleet Officers will have the ability to assign specific fleet projects they want the fleet to focus on.”
• “Fleet members will be able to contribute a variety of resources, including rewarded tokens, commodities, duty officers, dilithium, data samples, bridge officer skill points, and other resources to complete various fleet projects”
• “Contributing to a fleet project will reward a fleet member with a number of Fleet Merits commensurate to her individual contribution. All fleet stores will accept Fleet Merits for unique new ships, weapons, duty officers and other specialized equipment.”

Developer comments:

• http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=4244156&postcount=92
• The system was specifically designed to not require upkeep costs. I consider upkeep for this kind of system generally counterproductive.
• Fleet projects are staged; a fleet officer sets a particular set of fleet projects to be available. Players then - at their leisure and individually - contribute inputs. As players contribute to a fleet project, they receive Fleet Credit (what is spent at Fleet Stores) immediately. When the fleet project meets its input requirements, it automatically kicks off, starting a countdown before it is complete.
• The ability to assign a project to being active will be a permission assignable as normal fleet permissions.
• The absolute fastest time - due to upgrade speeds - that any fleet could max out everything would be about 6-7 months, but practically speaking I expect this to generally be much longer.

Priority One Ep #85:

• Commodity items for projects “anything and everything” include: White DOffs, phaser banks (weaponry), dilithium (not specific on unreplicatables)...
• Fleet merits are repurposing the old merit system. ;) Basically Skill Points for fleets, which is why they belong to your character, your “experience” in fleet activities.
• “Fleet Level” for fleet progression.
• New Klingon costumes coming with starbases

That was probably my wife and I. :) We've been thinking of signing up with the GB fleet for a while - but, neither one of us are really MMO people, so, we were unsure of the mechanics and the netiquette. (We tend to lurk most places, including here.) But the coming Season 6 plus all the people randomly walking by going "Hey, join my fleet!" finally got things going for us.

Thanks,

JGH

@ghoti221: Hey you're welcome! We'll see if we can get some starbase progress underway soon here, or at least give folks the option.

as soon as this thing finishes patching Imma send you my name. So excited lol damn my interwebs and its slow speed