Monday Megathread - your weekly "dumb question" thread

[u/Sputnik1_1957]

Post all the questions you may have about anything STO-related. PC? Console? Everyone's welcome to post their questions here.

Last thread can be found here.

Stay safe out there and happy flying!

[u/rainghost]

Hello! I'm pretty new to the game and I have a question.

Do all player ships have an endgame-capable variant? I'm still not quite good with the terminology of refits/retrofits and stuff, but mainly I'd just like to know if there are any unique ships I should check out while still leveling up that don't have a level-cap version.

[u/The_Lucky_7 → u/rainghost]

So, ships have families (called a Class) and those families can use the same cosmetics from other ships in the families. A ship family allows some variation in the individual ship designs, but will more-or-less be about the same in terms of base package and performance as other ships in the same tier of that family.

Let's say, for example, you're using the Tier 2 Saber Escort. On the wiki you'll find all the cosmetic variants of the ship after it's main stats, and on the right of that you'll usually find all the different tier variants in the same family that can also use those cosmetics. The T6 of the Saber is the Da Vinci, and it also has a fleet version.

Not all tier 6 ships are listed as having a fleet version but those that are not usually are the equivalent of a fleet version.

mainly I'd just like to know if there are any unique ships I should check out while still leveling up that don't have a level-cap version.

I can't think of any, but the Tier 1-4 ships are the free leveling ships. There are also T5 ships but those aren't free, even if there might be some unique options in this category.

[u/tampered_mouse → u/The_Lucky_7]

At level 40 you get a token for a T5 ship, and at 61 (and 50 with lifetime sub) you get a token for a T5 ship that can be upgraded to T5-U. See the list of ships made available during leveling.

[u/The_Lucky_7 → u/tampered_mouse]

a token for a T5 ship

Which is an otherwise paid currency item. You also get a fleet module for each reputation you max out but nobody's pretending T6 fleet ships are free because of it.

[u/westmetals → u/The_Lucky_7]

Which is an otherwise paid currency item.

Actually no. The level 40 reward ships, although labeled as T5, are NOT otherwise available for zen. And the level 61 ship, you do get a free choice of ships that are otherwise sold for zen, and while yes they're upgradable with a paid token, that is not 100% required.

[u/tampered_mouse → u/The_Lucky_7]

Just leveling up (which will happen if you do "content" in STO no matter what) is as close as it gets for "free", because you get a V token at 40, and a different V token at 61, and if you follow the link the amount of ships accessible via these tokens is clearly limited. Other T5 ships can be obtained either via (refined) dil, fleet modules + fleet credits (similar to the T6 fleet ships you mentioned), via lockboxes / Exchange, or via the Zen store directly. Thing is, there are also T1-T4 ships around that require for example (refined) dil or become only accessible via the Zen store, so that is not exactly unique to just T5 and T6 ships.

However, there are only so many non-T6 ships which actually scale along the levels up their tier cap, and only T5-U (upgraded T5) and T6 scale beyond the tier cap all the way to 65.