So, you've completed the ongoing event for a free T6 Zen Store ship coupon, and you are a free to play player or you're on a very limited budget. And you are staring at the store and are overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices you have available. What do you do? Well, while I am not the very best at STO, I've been playing for a long time, have tried to keep somewhat abreast of what is generally good in the game, and I've been actually running a second account that is entirely F2P. So, I do have some suggestions. :) Here are some ships to consider (in no particular order) acquiring with a Free T6 Coupon for F2P/Budget Fed Players. (If you play KDF primarily, there are KDF equivilents of all of these ships) For many of the ships I list a Romulan equivalent in parentheses. This is always a viable option instead of the Fed ship. So go with what you prefer. :)
1) Gargarin Miracle Worker Battlecruiser
2) Arbiter Class Battlecruiser (or the Morrigu Heavy Warbird)
3) Narrenda Support Cruiser
These are, easily, the first three ships you probably want to be looking at from the Zen store. All three (four, kinda) are very solid ships in their own rights. All three have *very* good ship traits which will be useful, pretty much no matter what ship you eventually end up flying. I'll go into more detail later.
If you specifically need a Science ship, it is *very* hard to beat out the Temporal Multi-Mission Science Vessel (the Eternal Class). It's cross-faction, and is just a beast. (and temporal tricks supplement Science builds *very* well) Also, it's trait is kinda amazing for Exotic damage builds. Runners up are probably one of the other Multi-Mission explorers or the Nautilus. (I'd suggest the Somerville, which I lucked into getting via a giveaway on my F2P account, but that's not an option for the coupon currently)
I've also heard good things about the Cardassian Intel Science Dreadnought (which I've not used enough to form an opinion on, and haven't reseached it to the level I have the Eternal)
The Jem'Hadar Vanguard Carrier is another option, but it's not a true science ship. But, if you have a Jem'Hadar character, it *is* a fun carrier.
Other good ships woth picking up eventually (again in no particular order). All of these are good on their own and have good ship traits as well. There are plenty of other good ships which I've not listed
1) Andorian Chimesh Pilot Escort (or the Dewan Ikkabar Pilot Escort)
2) Andorian Thozyn Pilot Escort (or the Dewan Vandros Pilot Escort)
3) Phantom Intel Escort
4) Presidio Tactical Command Battlecruiser (Vastam Tactical Command Battlecruiser)
5) Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird (Eneavour Tactical Star Cruiser)
6) Flambard Science Dreadnought Warbird (Yorktown Science Star Cruiser)
7) Icarus Science Pilot Escort (Jaeih Science Pilot Warbird)
8) Tebok Tactical Miracle Worker Warbird (Tucker Tactical Mirror Worker Cruiser)
Now, as to why I suggested the first three ships as being the primary ones to look at? It's their Starship Traits that you unlock on each of them. These are traits that can be used no matter what ship you are flying (you can have up to 4 ship traits active once you hit level 50, with the ability to purchase a 5th trait slot through the fleet).
The Gargarin's trait, Enhance Tactical Matrices, makes running both beam weapons and a torpedo launcher much more effective. It means that once you activate either Beam: Fire at Will or Cannon: Scatter Volley, you will get Torpedo Spread 1 activated on your torpedo launcher for free. Similarly, activating any level of Torpedo Spread will activate Fire at Will 1 and/or Cannnon: Scatter Volley 1 for free. This makes it *much* easier to keep your AoE bridge officer abilities up consistently, which is *very* handy.
Additionally, the Gargarin is *very* good ship on its own. Because of the Lt. Commander Universal bridge officer seat, you have a TON of flexibility in how you build the ship. It's got a truckload of hull, good maneuverability (for a Fed cruiser) and an excellent console layout. Also, you get the Miracle Worker Innovation Effects. While you can't count on which one you'll have available at any given time, they're all pretty darn good. Lastly, it has the Cyclical Quantum Slipstream Drive, which is *amazing* for F2P players. This will make running the Tour The Galaxy daily mission much more profitable.
The Arbiter Battlecruiser (and the Morrigu Heavy Warbird for the Romulans) has probably the best trait for any ship that is seriously going to use Energy weponds, Emergency Weapon Cycle. Whenever you activate Emergency Power to Weapons (and you want this skill on basically any ship with energy weapons), it halves the energy cost and increases the firing speed by 20% of all of your energy weapons for 30 seconds.
The Arbiter is a nimble cruiser, that is pretty tough with surprisingly flexible bridge officer seating. Its console layout is good, and it's just a good all-around agressive cruiser. Not as tough as the Gargarin, but its more maneuverable. It also has access to Intel abilities, which can be *very* nice to have. The Morrigu (which is the Romulan equivilent) trades some of the durability of the Battlecruiser for more manuverability and more offensive punch. (and a Battle Cloaking Device) It's a nasty ship, but takes a bit of getting used to when flying it, as its pivot point isn't exactly where you think it would be, so it sometimes feels less maneuverable than it actually is. I would *slightly* recommend the Arbiter over the Morrigu as a general purpose choice, but if you prefer escorts, the Morrigu will serve you *very* well.
Last, but definatively not least, we have the Narrenda Support Cruiser. This is my favorite ship of the three from a purely visual standpoint. (I'm a big fan of how the Ambassador class looks) It's ship trait, History Will Remember, is probably the most generically useful trait of the three ships. For each foe that damages you, your ship gains 1 stack of History Will Remember. (capping at 30 stacks) These stacks last until you leave the map. They give you the following bonuses per stack: +1% All Damage, +1% Hull Regen, +1% Max Hull, +10% Threat Generation while in Threatening Stance. So, as you get shot, your ship gets tougher, repairs itself quicker and deals more damage. (and if you're tanking, you generate even more aggro) There may be traits that are more powerful for one specific thing, but there is not a ship that does not benefit from this trait in some way.
As a ship... the Narrenda is solid. With its less agressive weapon layout and lower maneuverability characteristics make it less flexible as to loadouts than it's extremely flexible bridge officer seating would indicate. You *could* go with Dual Beam Banks or Dual Cannons in the front with as many omnis as you can cram into the back as you can find (or turrets if you're using Cannons)... but it doesn't do it nearly as well as the Gargarin or the Arbiter. The Narrenda really is at its best using beam arrays and fighting primarily as a broadsiding ship. Still, it's a rock solid cruiser, as long as you play to its strengths.
I won't go into detail on the other ships here right now, but I hope people find this useful. Thanks for reading! :)
