Some of the best gear in Star Trek Online is sold only through fleets: Vulnerability Locator tactical consoles, Particle Focuser science consoles, elite fleet deflectors, and the fleet warp cores. What nobody tells new players is that a fleet's stores are only as good as the fleet's upkeep. Here are the five things worth checking before you join one.
A fleet is a group of up to 500 characters with a rank system, a shared bank, chat, and events. Its most important feature is the Fleet Advancement System, in which the fleet builds and upgrades holdings that unlock stores and features for every member. Each holding has its own tiers, and completing tiers unlocks store items. These matter for gear:
| Holding | Tiers | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Starbase | 5 | Ship weapons, deflectors, engines, and shields, elite hangar pets, and fleet ships through Fleet Ship Modules |
| Dilithium Mine | 3 | Fleet warp and singularity cores, and engineering armor consoles |
| Spire | 3 | Advanced tactical Vulnerability consoles, Spire hangar pets, and Voth duty officers |
| Research Lab | 3 | Strategic secondary deflectors, Particle Focuser science consoles, and extra trait slots |
| Colony World | 5 | Protomatter Matrix Infuser tactical consoles, protomatter cores, deflectors, and engines |
| K-13 | 3 | 23rd century weapons and consoles, and trait enhancements |
| Embassy | 3 | Romulan officers and kits, and duty officer assignment slots |
Each tier a holding or one of its departments completes raises the fleet's level by one, and fully upgrading the Starbase, Embassy, Dilithium Mine, Spire, Research Lab, and Colony World takes a fleet to level 85. Fleets of the same faction can also join into an armada of up to 13 fleets, which shares resources and gives passive bonuses to dilithium costs and skill points, up to a maximum of 20%.
Provisions are the part that surprises new members. There are two kinds.
Vendor provisions gate the fleet stores. They are a shared pool, and every purchase from a fleet vendor uses up one. Each pool belongs to a department: Military provisions cover fleet ships, buffs, and operational assets, Engineering provisions cover fleet engines and weapons, and Science provisions cover fleet shields, deflectors, and hangar pets. A pool is refilled by completing projects in the matching department, so one that runs low must be topped up before the fleet can keep selling from that store. Access can also depend on your rank in the fleet.
Project provisions are items used inside projects. They bind to your character on pickup, so they cannot be traded or sold on the Exchange, and each holding has its own, such as Spire Provisions or Research Lab Provisions.
A fleet with exactly the right holdings can still be useless to you if nobody keeps its provisions stocked, so ask before you join.
You earn the right to buy things by contributing to fleet projects. Fleet marks are the main currency for that, and every mark you contribute to a normal project is worth 50 fleet credits before any bonuses. Fleet marks come from fleet task force operations, from the daily fleet actions, and from the Borg invasion of Defera. The community guide notes that some other resources also convert into credits, though it cautions new players against spending expertise and refined dilithium on projects without a reason.
The six daily fleet actions each give 50 fleet marks and can be repeated every 20 hours. That is 300 marks a day, or 15,000 fleet credits a day at 50 credits per mark. Contributing marks to a normal project is worth twice as much as the Unload Surplus Fleet Marks project, which pays only 25 credits per mark, so 2,000 marks are worth 100,000 credits in a normal project but only 50,000 if unloaded. Put spare marks into projects your fleet actually needs. Credits are only part of the price, too: the community guide is blunt that almost every purchase also needs refined dilithium, and a lot of it.
Probably not. Creating a fleet takes a team of five characters, each with at least 20 hours of total playtime or a Zen purchase, meeting at your faction's hub and visiting the Fleet Ambassador. The community guide points out that the costs of the fleet system do not scale with the number of members, so joining an established fleet is far cheaper than building one.
The community's checklist is short and sensible. Look for reasonable activity, holdings you actually need, leadership you can talk to, and a rank requirement you can meet. Avoid fleets that spam strangers with invites, that demand thousands of refined dilithium before you can shop, that make earning credits difficult, or whose leadership seems controlling. Do not store irreplaceable items in a fleet bank.
An energy or torpedo build wants the Spire's Vulnerability consoles, matched to its damage type, as covered in The Anatomy of a Meta Energy Build and Torpedo Boat Fundamentals. An exotic build wants the Research Lab's Particle Focuser consoles and secondary deflectors, described in Exotic Damage (Science) Builds Explained. Reputation gear and fleet gear are separate tracks, and Navigating the Reputation System and Selecting the Right Deflector, Engine, Core, and Shield cover the other half. Map out what you need in the Build Planner and you will know which holdings to ask about.