One of the downsides of a classical hero system is, that you do always just have the choice between a hand full of heroes. Wouldn't it be cool to make your own heroes? We thought the same! We are proud to introduce Veteran units with the next patch coming soon. The Fleet Operations "hero system". Veteran vessels can be of any ship class that can gain experience, so basically all combat vessels.

So how do Veteran units work? You wont find them as build options or something similar as you might have expected. A Veteran unit is a vessel like the Enterprise, which survived many battles, gained much experience and performs far better then comparable vessels. It works the same in Fleet Operations. Once one of your vessels gained the maximum officer rank (two gold bars) a new button will appear that allows you to promote this vessel into Veteran state.

A Veteran vessel gaines a high attribute boost and a powerful Veteran ability, similar to the officer abilities you are already familiar with. Promoting a vessel into Veteran rank costs no resources, but there is a special veteran pool, limiting the total number of Veteran vessels you may command. You have up to 20 veteran slots and different veteran vessels consume different amounts of slots. A B'rel consumes 3 slots for example, while a Sovereign consumes 8. Veterans can easily be identified by a new rank icon: Two black bars on golden ground.

Veteran vessels will add an exciting new game element. If you watch for your vessels and dont fear to fight those vermin opposing you, you will get unique and powerful heroes of your favourit class, that will acompany you on your ongoing mission to find new life, new civilizations and new battles!

Now you might think that the Borg get a bit lost, as they do not gain experience and don't get Veteran units. Well, we are working on a new exciting feature for them, too. We will present and discuss it in the next newspost!

And finally some screenshots of veteran vessels for you, just to round this newspost up. You can also have a sneakpeak at some veteran abilities and stats. Have fun!