Also, while on the topic of STO; this Friday is the 13th, so the limited-time Friday the 13th/Halloween mission "Hearts and Minds" will be available again to grab a rare duty officer. ( '-')b
So at first, I wasn't all that interested in the announcement for STO season 12. Was hoping the 7th anniversary promo ship would be something like a T6 version of something from the show like how we got a T5 Ambassador-class for the 3rd anniversary, but it's just a (rather boring) original design.
I stopped playing because I felt that most of the endgame ships were behind a money wall. Last ship that I had worth using was the 2 year anniversary Odyssey.
Yeah, most of them are like that. Though stuff like the Christmas event that just ended have some free endgame ships, you're ***out of luck if you don't like the designs because they only tend to give out one at a time.
Also occasionally there are episodes that'll give out free ships, like the upcoming featured episode for season 12 giving out an endgame tier science vessel.
Can always grind EC/Dilithium and buy cash stuff that way. I'll be saving up EC for the NX Refit, since that'll likely be tucked away in a lockbox or R&D Pack promo, so I'll be better off just grinding out the *** for it rather than gambling money on keys/boxes.
Coming up to the anniversary they might give away some cash shop ships too; snagged a couple of tier 4s that way previously.