Star Trek Online starship Elachi Qulash frigate [T6] review

Legend says that during World War II aircraft fighters would dive out of the sun to ambush unaware squadrons – this is not so for the Elachi Qulash-class frigate [T6] and our review today.

This dire frigate descends out of darkness and nightmare, barely visible against the backdrop of deep space moments before it unleashes baleful viridescent hellfire.

…and then you die.

This vessel is a predator.

Not many vessels in Star Trek Online have the sort of terrifying aesthetic that the Elachi give to their vessels. The dour grey mixed with sicky green that possesses a sort of subtle brain-clawing fear…

Somewhat appropriate with the approach of this year’s Halloween holiday.

With that out of the way and attention spent on the ship itself, we can assess how it stacks up for the captains of STO.

Acquisition

The Elachi Qulash-class frigate arrived as a limited-time reward during the Mycelial Crisis event during October 2019 and players could earn it by collecting 1,200 during the event.

After the event concluded (on Oct. 10) the ship remained available but now costs 6,000 Zen – or approximately $60. The price is discounted by how many points were earned by players during the event, but it will remain at this cost for the foreseeable future.

This puts the Qulash-class in an interesting place as it must compete with other $60 ships also sold in the Zen store for reasons to buy it.

The way this ship was acquired also raises another question: are Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment teasing the method that future ships and equipment might become available to players via events?

It is also important to note that this ship is that once unlocked it is account-wide and it is also a T6 vessel that scales with the captain. That means that the moment a captain exits the tutorial it can be retrieved from the store and made ready.

For the captain making lots of alts, this sort of vessel could come in extremely handy as it would be a great deal of (scaling) firepower right out of the gate. As a result, it would make leveling alts a much handier thing.

Aesthetics

The fungal-based Elachi have become well known for their creepy ship aesthetic forming a sort of eye-turning hull combined with sickly-green highlights. The Qulash-class frigate follows these design principles fairly closely.

It turns with slow, meaningful purpose as it brings its single, green deflector cyclops “eye” on target. When its guns come to bear, the nacelle “arms” outstretched from the sides look like grasping spidery claws, reaching for prey.

The hull plating has a slightly greenish tinge, scaled with vaguely hexagonal shapes as if layered in clapped-on plates. The exposed warp nacelles, conduits and the deflector glow a lurid, green pallor that add to its surreal, terrible mystique.

From above, the Qulash-class looks like a giant crab, its spindly nacelle arms extending from it with four legs – which become actual legs during landing. Adding to the terror-factor of the Elachi, players of STO have seen vessels on the ground, legs extended, walking across the terrain.

Possibly the biggest takeaway from Elachi ships is their crescent cannot weaponry – blazing virescent arcs of brilliant energy blasted at enemies. The Qulash-class comes equipped with crescent cannons in order to round out its style and it is ­highly encouraged that any player running with this vessel do the same.

With the 5/3 weapon layout, the Qulash-class already well designed to front-load a lot of cannons.

Handling

The Elachi Qulash-class frigate creates an interesting combination of cruiser capabilities but built for a smaller, faster and more fragile frame. The result is that it’s built to provide Cruiser Commands – Strategic Maneuvering and Weapon System Efficiency – and adds in the benefit of Raider Flanking. This means that although it’s not quite as fragile or fast as an escort, it comes with a bump in durability, maneuverability and extra firepower than a cruiser.

What really makes the Qulash-class stand out is a large number of universal officer seats – including an Intel/Universal – which means that it can be rapidly tasked to almost any combat role the captain wants. As a result, build advice for this vessel will rely heavily on player style more than a locked-in role. It also has a lot of added overall resilience from its Commander Engineering bridge officer slot.

With five Engineering console slots, it’s possible to make the Qulash-class extremely difficult to kill in a firefight, which can come in very handy because it’s just fast enough to get itself into real trouble – especially with four Tactical consoles giving it enough firepower to attract a great deal of attention. The frigate is weakest in Science consoles with only two bays available.

With the Lt. Commander Intel/Universal officer slot available, the Qulash-class can take advantage of a lot of Intel abilities. This gives it access to a large number of debuff support abilities that can really make a difference during attack runs. The vessels 5/3 weapon layout and extra power to engines does make this vessel ideal for high-speed full-frontal assaults – but the weak Science bay does mean that shields could be a problem, so captains would will to rely on maneuverability, armor and Intel guile to stay alive.

The Qulash-class comes equipped with an escape mechanism, the Elachi Rift Jump console, see the lower handling section for more details.

As for the T6 trait, this frigate will provide captains “Invasive Maneuvers.” Any time Evasive Maneuvers is activated nearby vessels will get struck by an invasive scan that will disable bridge officer abilities for a short time and the ship will phase out for a short time.

Hull Strength: 1 (34,500 at level 50 and 45,000 at level 65)

Shield Modifier: 1.45

Fore Weapons: 5

Aft Weapons: 3

Device Slots: 3

Bridge Officer Stations: Commander Engineering, Lieutenant Commander Universal/Intel, Lieutenant Commander Universal, Lieutenant Universal, Ensign Universal

Consoles: 4 Tactical, 5 Engineering, 2 Science

Base Turn Rate: 15 degrees/second

Impulse Modifier: 0.17

Inertia: 70

+10 to Weapon Power, +10 Engine Power

Console – Universal – Elachi Rift Jump

Raider Flanking

Can Equip Dual Cannons

Starship Mastery Package: Frigate (+Energy Res, +Crit Severity, +Hull Regen, +Accuracy).

Starship Trait: Invasive Maneuvers

Due to its mixture of escort and cruiser capabilities – with a heavy Tactical focus with a secondary in Engineering – the frigate class ships in STO appear to be built to give captains a wide variety latitude in how they want to build their vessel.

Keeping that in mind, it should be possible to build a Qulash-class with overwhelming firepower by using enough Engineering to keep Emergency Power to Weapons up almost all the time while also coupling it with Cannon Rapid Fire and Cannon Scatter Volley. This may increase the fragility of the ship somewhat, with its weaker Science bay, but that could be dealt with by building in inherent defenses or making sure to slot an Engineering Team or mid-level Hazard Emitters.

As mentioned, escape might be a useful capability for the Qulash-class given its Tactical focus and potential ability to get more attention than it can handle. To deal with that, the ship comes equipped with a universal Elachi Rift Jump console. When activating this, the ship briefly phases into Mycelial space – while out of phase, the ship will move faster and maneuver better giving it the chance to outflank enemies – upon returning to normal space, the ship receives an ambush bonus of 40 percent damage.

The vessel can also equip consoles from the Improved Crescent Wave Cannon set. Adding all of these consoles will allow the Qulash-class frigate to summon Elachi support vessels, a Sheshar Assault craft and even fire the full-blown Crescent Cannon.

Build Advice

As a frigate, even with it’s leaning towards cruiser capabilities, the Elachi Qulash-class frigate can still fly a lot like an escort and it can support both an all-cannon build or a beam-heavy build depending on the captain’s preference.

One useful trait of the heavy Engineering bay is increased durability in a sustained firefight, additionally even a little bit of Science goes a long way to supporting shields when making attack runs. So, it’s hard to go wrong even with a lot of focus put into Tactical in order to give this ship as much withering firepower as possible.

One thing that some captains might notice right away is that this ship has a slightly slower time-on-target than vessels of similar configuration. This means that it feels a little bit sluggish at max impulse and that could make it harder to pilot for attack runs. To compensate for this, it may be necessary to get extra turn from either fleet armor with [Turn] or the ever sought-after [Conductive RCS Acellerator].

One question many captains may have is how to properly use the Intel hybrid officer to build the vessel in a way that they want. Coupled with Raider Flanking, it seems like the Qulash-class might work well with abilities that placate or confuse enemies so that they can be outflanked.

Offensively, Energy Weapons: Surgical Strikes can be used to increase the impact of cannon (or beam) fire when making an attack run as an alternative to constantly running CRF and Override Subsystem Safeties can be used to increase outgoing firepower – but at the risk of losing an important subsystem.

Defensively, Evade Target Lock during an attack run can make the frigate nearly invulnerable as every shot from the victim misses and in the case of being targeted by multiple foes, without support, having Intelligence Team slotted could provide a means for avoiding too much attention.

Conclusion

The Elachi Qulash-class frigate could be considered a “free event ship” because anyone who was able to actually run the event should have it now. However, anyone who missed it would now be stuck with paying around $60 for the pleasure so it’s worth addressing the price point.

This vessel is not quite worth that much money compared to other vessels that could be bought from the store. The addition of its console, which can be equipped on other Elachi vessels, is nice, but it’s not nice enough unless someone is a collector.

The loadout as a frigate appears to be quite useful, with multiple roles and high customizability, but there’s a lot of ships on the market with a huge number of universal bridge officer slots. Many of which also have a heavy Tactical focus – especially for Klingon captains. And the T6 trait on this ship does not really add that much to the game (except maybe a way to surprise enemy captains in PvP).

On aesthetics alone, this ship is quite nice and would make a nice addition.

Also, keeping in mind this is a T6 scaling ship that is account-wide could help mitigate the sting of that cost somewhat. Captains can probably also expect this means that the vessel will never appear in the Phoenix Prize Packs, it will most likely always be in the store for the full 6,000 ZEN except during sales.

Weighing the price tag against the overall makeup of this ship leaves it a bit of a wash.

In conclusion, the Elachi Qulash-class frigate represents a very good looking (and very aesthetic) ship that could take on a great deal of heavy-hitting roles with many routes due to its loadout. It is a ship that would be very useful for any new captain.

As for its capabilities, this ship can fill out a lot of roles extremely well, the heavy Tactical leaning means that it has more than enough firepower to make anyone happy, as long as they also like the Elachi look and feel. Any captain popping this ship out of the box will not be disappointed.