The answer would be no. Each ship comes with a fixed number of bridge officer slots and cannot be changed. The only way to add more slots is to upgrade to a better ship. And since you get to upgrade to a new ship tier for free every 10 levels (till level 40), you will naturally get more bridge officer slots on your ship every 10 levels.

1. Sto Free Players Getting More Bridge Officer Slots Free

NOTE: This giveaway has run out of keys. I’m keeping the post up for letting newer players see that giveaways exist outside of STO and one potential source for those giveaways.

Hello, all, and welcome back to Joe and STO!

Today’s post is short, but it pertains to giveaways newer players need to be on the lookout for.

First posted on Reddit, there’s a SteelSeries giveaway to celebrate the launch of Star Trek Online: Legacy. It’s a Federation Elite Starter Pack, containing the following (copied from the SteelSeries website and linked below):

• T6 Reliant Class – Advanced Light Cruiser (Scales as you level!)
• 12 Inventory Slots
• 12 Bank Slots
• 2 Bridge Officer Slots
• 1 Borg Bridge Officer
• 14 Mark II Very Rare Space Gear
• 7 Mark II Very Rare Ground Gear
• Starfleet Academy Uniform

Follow the link above, sign in with a SteelSeries Gaming account (or create one there), then scroll down until you see a button to “Get Your Key.”

Thanks to Saebril7 on Reddit for finding this before it went live. Original post link: https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/ew01z2/possible_giveaway_upcoming_via_steeleries_games/

Sto Free Players Getting More Bridge Officer Slots Free

EDIT: Once you get your code and follow the instructions to redeem it (or go to your Arc launcher, set STO as your home game, and select “Redeem Code” just under the game logo), go to your Federation character’s “Promotions” tab in the Z-Store and claim the bundle, as shown below:

“Lieutenant Commander Judon Ruz. For exemplary performance of your duties as acting captain of a Federation starship, for service above and beyond the call of duty on countless occasions, and for earning the respect and admiration of those gathered here as witnesses, I hereby promote you to the rank of Commander, with all the rights and privileges thereto.”

I have to admit that I was surprised by the promotion. Given recent events on my track record, I expected it would take months, maybe even a few years, before I would be a Commander. I wasn’t given much time to be surprised by the news. I didn’t even get enough time to try out the Pikes Peak Marathon holo program Captain Pierce of the Ulysses sent me after he heard the news. I suppose I should count myself lucky that the Admirals decided they didn’t want to waste time by tossing me over the side of a wooden sailing ship as part of the very brief ceremony.

The reason everything was so rushed was because of the number of briefings and training courses my officers and I needed to go through. Starfleet has spent so much time lately putting out fires all over Federation space, that opportunities for proper supplemental training for previously low ranking officers have been limited. Speaking with my senior staff, it appeared that we were all scheduled to attend several meetings, on topics ranging from new discoveries in starship shield enhancement to starship battle strategy to methods of creating false sensor readings. And on top of those, there were a number of “Captain’s eyes only” briefings that I needed to attend on subjects such as Q and… other topics I’m not even sure I’m cleared to discuss in my log entries. I’m not a regular coffee drinker. I’m of the opinion that if you need to drink it every day, that it doesn’t do you any good when you really need it. But after a few days packed full of briefings and symposiums, I found myself starting each morning with a Raktajino.

The USS Tirpitz B

As part of the promotion, I’m being given the command of a new ship. It’s a heavy escort class, and I’m told it has a number of similarities with the Oslo class. Where it’s different is in some of the ships new systems. Most of the ships in Starfleet are equiped with phaser banks and torpedo launchers. Escorts are known for being armed with forward facing phaser cannons. The Tirpitz B will be using experimental plasma cannons in place of the standard phaser cannons. My understanding is that there’s no real difference as far as maintenance of the system is concerned. I’m looking forward to going over the reports on the differences between the two systems when I get some free time.

With a new ship, we’re also getting some new crew. From the personnel files I’ve had a chance to go over, it looks like we’re getting a number of exceptional graduates from the academy. But there’s an addition to the crew that I wasn’t expecting. It seems a detachment of MACO troops is being assigned to the Tirpitz. I discussed the situation with T’Lol and Mr. Scharf when we had a chance to tour the new ship. Mr. Scharf wondered if they weren’t being given orders to keep tabs on us and make sure we didn’t “go rogue” again. I hinted to him that I had requested them so that there would be someone on the ship to tell my first officer to stay on the ship where it’s safe, like he had told me so many times in the past. In all likely hood, Starfleet just wanted to increase the number of ships carrying MACO squads because of the ongoing war. I was more concerned about being able to integrate them into the crew. T’Lol assured me that she would do her best to work with the detachment’s commanding officer, Major Iseli, in having them assist with the ship’s security when their special skills weren’t needed.

Out of Character

This isn’t exactly how I intended to do the next rank promotion. There was a small part of me that wanted to try to do a little bit of Worf’s promotion ceremony, as seen in Star Trek: Generations. Unfortunately –

Man overboard

– this was the best I could manage. It appears that swimming is not a skill known by Starfleet captains, even when they visit Risa. Or more likely, it isn’t needed for any mission, so it wasn’t programmed into the game. Heaven help us if we end up being sent back in time to rescue an extinct sea animal.

I spent a bit of time in space dock this time trying to decide on how to train up my bridge officers. It’s one of those things where I don’t have much experience with the game, so I’m not sure what’s a good power to pick up now for the long run. For example, I ended up training Scharf with Attack Pattern Omega I at Lt Commander rank because it can break holds, and Romulan warbirds like to hit players with tractor beams. But I don’t know if it will still be useful down the road when I’m going up against Cardassians or Borg. I know I can retrain the skill if needed later on. I just don’t like the idea of wasting bridge officer skill points.

Gaining a rank also gave me two more bridge officer slots, bringing me to three slots I hadn’t used. And since I’ve already been using Franklin specifically for medical support on ground missions, I figured I’d create a full set of officers for ground combat. I’ll be rolling out bios for them as I get time to write them up, which may take a while. It looks like at the highest rank, a player has room to keep up to ten individual bridge officers. I think you could maybe get through the game with as few as five officers, six if you want to have crew for both types of admiral rank ships. I just wonder if this is just planning ahead on the part of the developers. What rank would we have to be to need ten separate officers for ten separate ship slots?