Bridge officers and their abilities are an important part of Star Trek Online, and we have wanted to improve that player experience for quite some time. Finally that day is here, and we are excited to give players a glimpse of the upcoming revamp. From a high level standpoint, the updated Bridge Officer Training system is focused on allowing players to invest in their bridge officers by training them in any of their Class and Specialization abilities, which can then be easily swapped in and out on the fly.

To train a bridge officer with the new system, you simply need to obtain the Training Manual for the desired ability and have the needed Expertise Points required for training. Training a bridge officer in the new ability will consume the Training Manual in the process. Once trained, the bridge officer will now permanently have the new ability.

In addition, bridge officers now will be able to train in any Specialization. This means that any Tactical, Engineering or Science bridge officer can be trained in Specializations such as Intelligence or any future releases! Not only that, but we have also exposed new ranks of some abilities that were previously unavailable.

Training Manuals

Players will no longer need to consume another bridge officer to give their bridge officers a new ability. Instead each ability will have a Training Manual item for each available rank of the ability. Using the overhauled bridge officer skill screen, players will be able to see all of the known abilities and untrained abilities a bridge officer has.

As a bridge officer is trained in additional abilities the Expertise Points required to learn a new ability will increase. With the new system in place a bridge officer will be able to learn all available abilities for his Class (Tactical, Engineering or Science) and also any abilities for his Specialization. Bridge officers must still be promoted to learn additional higher ranking abilities.

The primary method for obtaining Training Manuals is to purchase them from any of the current bridge officer training officers, who now will sell the manuals. Any ability that was previously trainable will have a Training Manual available for purchase. The other method in which players can obtain Training Manuals for the higher ranked abilities is to craft them in the new Officer Training crafting school.

Once a Training Manual is purchased or crafted it may be traded with other players and posted on the Exchange. This will be very helpful for players who wish to obtain manuals which they are unable to craft due to Class restrictions.

Crafting School – Officer Training

Many of the higher ranking Training Manuals will not be for sale at the bridge officer trainer. Players will need to craft those manuals in the new Officer Training school. Unlike the other crafting schools, the Officer Training school does not need to be leveled in order to unlock the recipes. In fact this school has no experience associated with it at all; players either have the recipes unlocked or they don’t.

Class specific (Tactical, Engineering, Science) recipes for manuals are unlocked by spending the necessary Skill Points within the player Skill Tree. This works identically to how the system currently functions, but players now will unlock the crafting recipe instead of the ability to directly train a bridge officer. Once the recipe is unlocked, players may begin crafting those Training Manuals. Also the STO Team has also been considering updating the Skill System in the future, and if this happens the method for unlocking Training Manual recipes will likely change.

It is important to note that players only unlock class specific recipes for the class of their character. So if your character is a tactical officer and you wish to obtain high-ranking engineering or science manuals, you must trade or purchase them from other players.

All crafted manuals will require a PADD (Personal Access Display Device) which is a new crafting component. The cost of creating this component is several uncommon crafting materials and a small amount of Diltihium and Energy Credits. Once a PADD component is created players can use it to create their own manuals or they can be traded and sold to other players for assistance in creating manuals you might not have access to.

Specializations

One of the most exciting updates to Bridge Officer Training is the ability to train bridge officers in Specializations.
Training in a specialization is similar to the normal process in that it requires a type of manual called a Specialization Qualification. A Specialization Qualification is unique in that they not only unlock that Specialization for the bridge officer but also trains him in four space and four ground abilities (one for every available slot) from the get go.
Once the Specialization is unlocked that bridge officer can continue to learn any additional abilities from it.

While currently bridge officers can only learn the Intelligence Specialization we will be releasing more in the future!
Each additional Specialization that a bridge officer learns will cost an increased amount of Expertise Points.

The Training Manuals for any Specialization can still be purchased from the bridge officer trainers, with the exception of higher ranking abilities and the Specialization Manual itself. All Specialization Manuals must be crafted. To unlock the recipe for crafting a Specialization Manual players must have spent 10 skill points within the desired specialization. To unlock the additional higher ranking ability recipes, players must spend around 20 skill points within the desired specialization.

Bridge officers may learn all available Specializations but may only have one active at a time.
Once a Specialization is learned though players can quickly and easily swap which Specialization a bridge officer has active at any time (outside of combat and in a social map like Sector Space or Earth Space Doc).

Stations & Ability Selection

Not only has the Skills screen had a major overhaul to the interface for bridge officers but also the Stations screen has received a lot of attention. Besides numerous interface improvements to the screen players will now be able to swap out individual bridge officer abilities directly on the Stations screen. This will allow players to quickly and easily customize their bridge officer abilities to the ship stations.

Subject to Change!

As a reminder the Bridge Officer Training system is still under development and is subject to change. We are still testing the system and will be looking for additional feedback from the STO community once released on the Tribble Test Server.

Mike McTyre
Systems Designer
Star Trek Online