Star Trek Online STF New Loot System Guide

Star Trek Online STF New Loot System Guide by Six-of-Nine

I’m sure many of you agree with me that the new remastered STF’s a great, all the fun of before, but without the aspects that would so often make them a headache. There is one new feature of them right now that is making more people scratch their heads than ever. That would be the new STF loot system and store.

It used to be that at the end of an STF run, the whole team would need or greed on a single purple mark X anti borg weapon. There was no guarantee you’d get anything, and you had no choice over what the reward loot would be. That pretty much sums up everything special about the STF loot before Season 5.

Now the STF’s are no longer given out at missions, but instead accessed via the new PVE queue. They are segmented into Normal and Elite modes, and into ground and space segments. During the stf, any dropped loot has some rare chances to get the new stf currency, along with optional objectives to unlock a guaranteed purple or stf currency drop to need and greed on, and a guaranteed stf currency drop for EACH team member.

Now that we’ve covered how you get the stf currency, lets go over what the different types are, what you can get with them, and how redemption is handled.

The main new currency drops are Encrypted Data Chips, or EDC’s At the end of every STF you are awarded with one EDC guaranteed (or more during special events or on elite mode), plus you may get more dropped during the STF.

EDC’s have many uses. The main use for them is to get Requisition items (I’ll explain those in a bit, please bear with me). 5 EDCs are worth a single Mark X Requisition (which can be redeemed for a single purple mark X ground or space weapon with a [BORG] proc, or shields/armor/engines/deflector/kit/etc), and 10 EDC is worth a Mark XI Requisition.

The items you can redeem these Requisitions for are considered “Standard Issue Requisitions” and is how you will find them on the store menu. In addition, there are “Special Reserve Requisitions”, and “General Merchandise”.

Special Reserve refers to the new ground and space sets. One of these set pairs, the Omega Force set, is available to players of either faction, Starfleet or Klingon Empire. Additionally, Starfleet players can opt for the MACO set, while Klingons can get the Klingon Honor Guard (KHG) set. There are three tiers of Special Reserve gear, Recruit, Veteran, and Elite. These corrospond to Mk X, Mk XI, and Mk XII, respectively. You have to get the specific Special Reverse requisition for the tier and device class you want, for example, “Recruit Engine Requisition”, or “Elite Weapon Requisition” You can get a single Recruit Requisition for 20 EDC, or a Veteran Requisition for 40 EDC. Elite Requisitions cannot be obtained with EDCs.

The last group of items you can purchase for EDC is the General Merchanise, which allows you to exchange any of the stf currency for different amounts of dilithium, you can get the Retro Borg Set that used to be awarded for STF completion for 5 EDC a piece, or you can purchase Borg Duty Officers. A blue drone doff is 20 EDC, and a purple is 40.

After all this talk of EDC, we didn’t even get to the two other types of STF currency, which are Borg Tech, and Borg Salvage. Borg tech is a drop you will not see very often, but a single Borg Tech is good for a Special Reserve Requisition. Common tech is good for Recruit gear, rare tech good for Veteran gear, and prototype tech is good for Elite gear. Like the requisition, the tech is specific to the device class, ie Shield, Weapon, Engines, etc. These usually appear within the same drop as your guaranteed final EDC after the boss, but may appear in any drop within the STF.

Borg Salvage is something you’ll see a bit more often than the Borg Tech. It works basically the same, except the salvage is good for Standard Issue, not Special reserve. A mark X req costs one Rare Borg Salvage (RBS), mark XI costs two RBS, and mark XII costs a single Prototype Borg Salvage (PBS) Like the tech and EDC, salvage usually appears within your guaranteed loot bag, but can drop any time during the stf.

Please note that Prototype Borg Tech and Salvage is only obtainable by playing Elite stf’s, and you won’t see it every time you play.

The STF store where you can do all this is located on the Promenade at DS9, just look for the crowds. While there, you’ll redeem your EDC RBS and PBS with Commander Roxy at the desk, then take your requisitions to the MACO/KHG officers standing along the walls.

While we’re on the topic of these officers you might notice their sweet uniforms with helmets. The two darker ones outside the door are Omega Force. When you unlock the Special Reserve ground set it will unlock titles and costume bits for these uniforms. Please note that to get the full uniform with helmet, you must unlock the gear on Elite level. Also note that the mk X Omega set unlocks costume parts, but MACO/KGH only unlock at mk XI and XII. Each better mark of the set gives you more bling for your uniform. If you unlock one level of the costume, any lower level will also be unlocked.

I know this is a lot of info, but it should answer any/all questions about how to obtain and use the new STF currency.