Star Trek Online Season 37: Choosing Federation or Klingon

In Star Trek Online Season 37, titled Rediscovered, your starting faction choice determines your ship handling, primary damage types, and ground combat style. Choose the Federation if you prefer durable starships, utility abilities, and ranged squad tactics. Pick the Klingon Empire if you prefer cloaked ambushes, high burst damage, and aggressive melee charges.

Both factions experience the primary narrative arc: returning to the fractured 2409 timeline to track down Ambassador B'vat with assistance from Ambassador Spock, accessing over 160 episodes of content.

Faction Playstyle and Ship Differences

Your faction sets your initial bridge crew, available uniforms, starship hulls, and standard energy weapon profiles.

Feature	Federation (Starfleet)	Klingon Empire (KDF)
Space Combat Focus	Shield durability, energy management, utility	Cloaked positioning, flanking, heavy burst damage
Standard Starships	Cruisers, science vessels, escorts	Birds-of-Prey, raptors, battlecruisers
Standard Armament	Phaser arrays, photon torpedoes	Disruptor cannons, heavy torpedoes
Ground Combat Style	Mid-to-long-range cover, medical support, stasis	Aggressive close-quarters melee, bat'leths

While Star Trek Online also includes the Romulan Republic and Dominion factions, the central focus of Season 37 highlights the operational contrasts between Starfleet and the Klingon Defense Force.

Starship Combat and Asteroid Skirmishes

Space engagements in Season 37 frequently feature hazards such as dense asteroid fields, requiring distinct handling depending on your vessel class:

Federation Cruisers: Excel at broadside beam attacks and rotating shield facings. When maneuvering around drifting asteroids, maintain steady throttle control to avoid collisions while keeping high-threat targets within your firing arcs.
Klingon Birds-of-Prey and Battlecruisers: Rely on battle cloaks to stalk targets. Use asteroid clusters to break enemy line of sight, drop target locks, and prepare high-damage flanking torpedo runs.

Console and Weapon Optimization

To maximize ship performance regardless of faction:

Match Tactical Consoles to Energy Types: Equip consoles that enhance your chosen energy weapon type rather than mixing damage profiles. Boost phasers on Starfleet vessels or disruptors on Klingon ships.
Use Cover to Reset: Duck behind asteroid masses when shields fail to regenerate facings and cycle auxiliary systems before re-entering combat.

Ground Away Mission Preparedness

Away missions in Season 37 transition from tight indoor spaces like social lounges to open environments across alien ruins. Ground survivability requires coordinating your captain's abilities with your away team:

Federation Away Teams: Focus on tactical cover and crowd control. Deploy stasis fields, security reinforcements, and medical regenerators to control engagement zones from range.
Klingon Away Teams: Excel at breaking enemy firing lines. Equip bat'leths and personal shield modules to close distance quickly and eliminate entrenched snipers in melee combat.
Gear Checks: Equip every away team officer with matched body armor and personal shields suitable for your current level before starting ground episodes.

Bridge Officer Seating

Bridge Officers (BOffs) provide your active starship powers in space and accompany your captain on ground missions. Audit your officer skills as you progress through story episodes to match your ship's console layout:

Tactical Seats: Equip abilities such as Beam: Fire at Will or Torpedo: High Yield to handle multiple targets during fleet skirmishes.
Engineering Seats: Use Emergency Power to Shields or Auxiliary to Structural Integrity to resist heavy kinetic torpedo strikes.
Science Seats: Slot Hazard Emitters to clear damage-over-time debuffs or Gravity Well to group enemy ships into concentrated firing vectors.