The Tzenkethi, hard-shelled, reptilian denizens of the alpha quadrant, have a mighty military history that led them to build a vast, star-spanning empire. Their technology represents the strides they took to build that empire and it is reflected in their fleets and epitomized in the Tzenkethi Tzen’tar-class dreadnought carrier.
This daunting vessel is a vanguard of the fleet and a harbinger of certain doom. It operates as the backbone of any fleet by becoming a massive, heavily armored support and firepower platform capable of fielding frigates and launching withering artillery barrages.
In this review, you will find out how to get this ship, its vital stats and other information, advice on how to outfit it with the equipment available in STO and get some idea of how it stacks up against other starships available to captains across the quadrants.
Acquisition
The Tzenkethi Tzen’tar-class dreadnought carrier first appeared during an Infinity Duty Officer Pack promotion from Cryptic Studios that ran from Dec. 7, 2017 until Jan. 4, 2018. During this promotion, purchasing a duty officer pack from the game’s cash shop, called the C-Store, would provide 10 lobi crystals or a Special Requisition Choice Pack. The chance of this dropping is extremely low, somewhere around one percent.
These packs cost 275 Zen each to obtain or around $2.75.
At the time of publication, the Tzen’tar is not available on the Exchange, Star Trek Online’s auction house system. However, it can be bought from trading channels and sought after on the forums where other players may sell it.
For purposes of review, our reviewer bought the Tzen’tar during the promotion for 1.3 billion Energy Credits. If a player bought Zen (without any discounts) and then liquidated Master Keys (4.3 million EC on market) it would cost approximately $377 to raise enough to purchase the dreadnought carrier at that price.
There are ways to bring this price down through Zen discounts, Master Key sales and selling in the market at the right times. Also, it is possible to earn this much EC in the game through just playing and building up accounts of millions of EC at a time until a player has enough to purchase the ship from another player who is available to sell it.
Aesthetics
As a massive ship-of-the-line and a carrier, the Tzenkethi Tzen’tar-class dreadnought carrier is an imposing sight that dwarfs most other ships on the battlefield. Much of the bulk is situated around a large forward section shaped a lot like a hammerhead shark, which then extends backwards with a sleek, shell-like fuselage ending in impulse fins.
From the front, the Tzen’tar seems reminiscent of an angry fish with a huge brow extending from the engineering section over the forward section. Red glowing windows provide a foreboding watching-eyes effect combined with the yellow-line of the deflector, making the ship almost appear to purse its lips with intense concentration.
The hull of the ship is covered in grey-bluegreen gunmetal plates that extend for meters with a turtle-shell appearance. From all angles, the ship looks heavily armored with no immediately visible beam array strips or gunports for cannons — but they are certainly present when the gargantuan carrier opens fire.
Amid the dull, grey-bluegreen casing, glimmering yellow lines can be seen from shadow following the sleek lines of the hammerhead and the turtle-back of the ship has giant vents. The vents appear to look into some sort of immense yellow-orange turbines that spin slowly while the ship is in operation.
In profile, the Tzen’tar has a teardrop shape, and from the front the hammerhead provides a large, armored target — but that also means that almost every gun on the ship is facing the viewer. The vessel is not much to look at, perhaps ugly by most humanoid standards, but through its bulk and dominant lines, it conveys a sense of battlefield dominance and intimidation.
The bridge of the Tzen’tar keeps a similar grey-blue plating around curved walls that direct attention towards a large viewscreen filled with stars. The captain’s area is a raised sort of dais flanked by two descending staircases that lead to a recessed area with consoles for bridge crew.
The bridge crew stand at attention a little bit distant from their over tall stations (the Tzenkethi themselves are huge) but also in front of what seems to be a deep pit with no guard rail. No doubt a safety organization would have a field day with this after staring into the darkness that some sort of yellow-gold conduits rise out of to form the captain’s station.
The captain’s station itself is quite interesting. If someone walks directly up to its consoles and panels (no chairs on this ship) a misty, slowly-rotating hologram of the galaxy is projected possibly for purposes of navigation.
The back of the bridge has a door that opens into an adjoining hallway. To the right of the T-intersection, there is a Tzenkethi response to turbolifts — an active matter-transporter (inactive) — and to the left is a hallway that opens into a conference room with a big table that has a vast hole in the center.
Handling
The Tzenkethi Tzen’tar-class dreadnought carrier is a gargantuan ship that outsizes most other craft in the game. It is also built extremely forward-heavy with its 5-fore and 2-aft weapon layout. These two characteristics combined means that it can be reasonably difficult to keep it on target when focusing on a single opponent, but it can still bring a lot of guns to bear for multiple-target fire — and, as a carrier, it can rely on its pets for extra firepower and coverage.
The consoles that come with the Tzenkethi ships, see equipment section, also push captains towards a much more forward-facing focus with the ability to increase damage output in the front 90-degree cone and reinforce flank and rear shields.
The bridge officer layout for the Tzen’tar seems a bit interesting for a carrier with a heavy lean towards tactical with a Commander and Lt. slots — however, the Lt. Commander also doubles as the Miracle Worker slot. A Universal-Command spot also opens up more opportunities. Five Tactical consoles can leave a great deal of room for extra firepower consoles, but four Science consoles also open up possibilities for support.
The Tzen’tar is sufficiently armored and shielded to absorb a lot of fire with 33,000 hull and 1.45 shield modifier — this makes the vessel extremely resilient and helps make up for the lack of Engineering in boff slots and consoles available.
Captains of this carrier could run cannons or beams — noting the 5/2 weapon layout and affording for the extremely low turn rate at 7.5 degrees per second. Consoles inherent to the ship do start to add a lot of extra turn rate and it is capable of equipping dual-heavy cannons.
With +10 weapon power, +10 shield power, +5 engine power and +5 auxiliary power, it feels like the Tzen’tar is designed to support builds for a myriad of combat roles.
The Tzen’tar comes with a new type of console slot specifically for universal consoles and that is pre-equipped with a Protomatter Barrage Launcher, see the equipment section for a description.
Since the Tzen’tar is a Miracle Worker ship, it comes with the Innovation mechanic. This means that captains will receive strange capabilities in combat that trigger once a series of different bridge officer abilities are used. Sometimes these abilities are situationally useful, sometimes they’re not — but there’s something for everyone and what innovation will be available is random. For a full run-down see the Cryptic Studios blog post on the matter.
Finally, the Tzen’tar T6 trait is “Automated Aggression,” with this trait slotted any time a Tactical or Miracle Worker boff ability is activated it will trigger a protomatter volly at a nearby enemy. Each projectile impact deals kinetic and radiation damage to the target struck and has a 25% chance of leaving behind a lingering radiation field.
Hull Strength: 1.25 (33,000 at level 40, 37,950 at level 50 and 44,000 at level 60)
Shield Modifier: 1.45
Fore Weapons: 5
Aft Weapons: 2
Device Slots: 3
Bridge Officer Stations: 1 Lieutenant Tactical, 1 Commander Tactical/Miracle Worker, 1 Ensign Engineering, 1 Lieutenant Commander Science, 1 Lieutenant Commander Universal/Command
Console Modifications: 5 Tactical, 2 Engineering, 4 Science, 1 Universal
Base Turn Rate: 7.5 degrees/second
Impulse Modifier: 0.15
Inertia: 50
+10 to Weapon Power, +10 to Shield Power, +5 Engine Power, +5 Auxiliary Power
Console – Universal – Protomatter Barrage Launcher
Innovation Ship Mechanic
Can Equip Dual Cannons
2 Hangar Bays loaded with Shuk-din Frigates
Starship Mastery Package: Carrier
Starship Trait: Automated Agression
The Tzen’tar seems like a very odd fish among STO starships. With its heavy lean towards Tactical and a solid lineup of available Science consoles and boff slots, it can be turned towards both severe and withering firepower or exotic and control effects — it’s also possible that it could be used as a powerful support platform using its auxiliary power to heal and buff allies.
One that really puts it in an odd position is the Tactical/Miracle Worker hybrid Lt. Cmdr. slot. Miracle Worker boff abilities cover a huge range of different capabilities that can dramatically change the role of the Tzen’tar in a fight.
For example, Nanite Repair Payload sacrifices torpedo damage for a self-heal and a massive outgoing heal, Align Shield Frequencies delivers a strong PBAoE shield heal to nearby allies and Reroute Shields to Hull Containment can provide massive resistance and extra hit points while sacrificing shields.
Miracle Worker abilities can turn enemy vessels into bombs using Destabilize Warp Core. They can also dish out massive firepower with Exceed Rated Limits, Mixed Armaments Mixed Armaments Synergy
(if using torps, cannons and/or beams together) or Narrow Sensor Bands to increase weapon power output.
This can also be used to help with crowd control with Null Pointer Flood that causes an AoE placate and confuse to nearby enemies or drain and blow out enemy subsystems with Overwhelm Regulators.
What makes this ship even more strange is the Lt. Cmdr. Universal/Command boff slot. This opens up a giant number of opportunities to put any manner of abilities here, especially with Command abilities available. This would give enterprising captains options including more AoE heals (with Rally Point Marker), shield regeneration on attack (with Overwhelm Emitters) or strong damage suppression (with Suppression Barrage).
The equipment sets that come with the Tzenkethi ships, and the Shell Shock set (see equipment) for example, really seem to push captains toward tetryon-based cannon builds. A lot of the consoles and their capabilities enhance forward firepower, strengthen flank shields and apply the ability to stay on target (with Lock Trajectory like abilities).
The Protomatter Barrage console also provides a massive AoE capability at range, which makes the Tzen’tar a formidable opponent when facing multiple weak-hulled enemies who have the misfortune of being close together or are moving slowly.
Equipment
The Tzenkethi Tzen’tar-class dreadnought carrier possesses a few interesting pieces of equipment that are inherent to the vessel — such as hangar bays with Shuk-din frigates and the Protomatter Barrage Launcher console — it also benefits from a set of consoles that come from other Tzenkethi ships released at the same time.
The Protomatter Barrage Launcher console comes pre-equipped in the Tzen’tar’s universal console slot. It belongs to a set of consoles that come from other Tzenkethi ships which are part of the Shell Shock Set.
Equipping the launcher console adds passive bonuses of +17.8% turn rate, +10% critical severity and +10% heal severity. It also adds the “Protomatter Barrage” clickable ability, which when triggered targets up to five nearby enemies, lights them up with targeting reticles and then moments later hits them with massive kinetic and radiation damage. Each barrage target has a chance to leave behind a dangerous radiation hazard that lasts a short period of time. The console has a cooldown of two minutes.
The Peripheral Refraction Array from the Tzenkethi Shuk-din escort [T6] (which is acquired via rare drop from the Tzenkethi lockbox) adds +20 shield regeneration and +10% shield resistance with an ability that increases shield regen for non-front-facing shields by 50% and all forward damage with a 90-degree firing arc increased by 50% for 15 seconds.
The Momentum Manipulator console from the Tzenkethi Tzenkethi Rhas’bej battlecruiser (which is acquired from the lobi store) adds +15 resistance rating to kinetic, energy and radiation damage and +20 starship shield restoration with an ability that mimics Lock Trajectory.
The set bonuses also increase the toughness of this ship. With two consoles equipped, the ship receives +15% max shield capacity and +11.7 tetryon damage. With all three consoles equipped, all console cooldowns are reduced to one minute and it opens up an ability called “Shared Processing.” This ability initiates a point blank area of effect over 4 kilometers that heals hull and increases damage resistance — the effects drop off greatly over distance.
The Tzen’tar’s two hangars come pre-equipped with Shuk-din frigates. These little turtle-like frigates come outfit with diffusive tetryon weapons: a dual cannon, a dual-heavy cannon and a turret as well as a tetryon torpedo. At their elite level, the Shuk-din frigate pets gain access to Lock Trajectory (brief), Cannon: Rapid Fire II and Tactical Team III.
Build Advice
The Tzenkethi Tzen’tar-class dreadnought carrier is such an odd beast, as mentioned above, that it is difficult to know where to start when talking about potential builds. The array of Miracle Worker ships lend themselves extremely well to vessels that deploy buffs and stand grim in the face of withering fire – basically tanks – and that Command bridge officer slot provides a lot of buff potential.
Foremost, the fact that this is a 5/2 layout ship means that most captains will want to build in some sort of extra turn and that means either fleet armor with [Turn] or, for the somewhat rich, a [Conductive RCS Accelerator] to tune things up a bit.
There are also a lot of different sets out there in the STO universe that increase turn rate, as does the Tzenkethi Protomatter Barrage Launcher console, so these could augment (or replace) the need for more turn rate to keep this ship from being too slow to bear.
The deep five console Tactical bay means there’s a great deal of room to place weapon consoles and tend the ship towards either sheer damage output or criticals depending on captain preference.
The almost-as deep four Science bay means that the Tzen’tar can also be outfit for providing either exotic damage output or even more massive outgoing heals and other support. The Lt. Cmdr. Science withers some of the hope of a more-science in a build, however, but it could be combined with the Lt. Cmdr. Universal to produce some interesting effects.
Where this ship starts to get interesting (or weird) is when the hybrid officer seats are taken into account.
As mentioned above, the Cmdr. Tactical/Miracle Worker seat opens up some strange opportunities – at the cost of Tactical abilities. This would be a good place to use DPS-oriented abilities such as Exceed Rated Limits or Mixed Armaments Synergy alongside the standard Tactical layout such as Tactical Team and a beam or cannon upgrade skill. For DPS output, this would mean leaning the Universal slot towards more Tactical skills and couple it with Emergency Power to Weapons in that odd Ensign Engineering seat.
Or, perhaps it would be interesting to build a support tank using the Command seat to operate the Subspace Interception ability – automatically jump to an ally under 50% health within 10km. This could be coupled nicely with the Miracle Worker ability Null Pointer Flood (PBAoE placate and confuse). It would also potentially put the Tzen’tar right into the middle of a skirmish where a Protomatter Barrage would do significant damage – or an all-beams loadout with Fire at Will ready would find a target rich environment.
The former works extremely well with a focus-on-healing build that uses its pets as its primary damage source while hanging out on the periphery of combat to reinforce the shields of allies and heal them. The Command hybrid seat also opens up a lot of opportunities for markers such as Rally Point, Phalanx Formation and Ambush Point Marker. (Assuming a captain can get other ships to follow their lead.)
The Tzen’tar is already well suited for AoE and targeted healing with the Shared Processing from the set equipment and the +10% heal criticals.
There are also numerous ways for the Tzen’tar to become a buff-delivering platform including the four-piece ability from the Iconian Resistance Starship Technologies set which provides a team-wide damage buff. Add in Beam Fire at Will coupled with Attack Pattern Beta and entire groups of enemies can be debuffed – or, alternatively, a Torpedo Spread with the Diffusive Torpedo Launcher or Quantum Phase Torpedo could prime an enemy group for allies to turn into so much scattered wreckage.
Cynicman says,
“The Tzen’tar’s 5/2 weapon layout lets it run a wide array of weapon layouts. Much of that will be determined by what one does with the bridge officer seating.
“There is a Cmdr. Tactical/Miracle Worker and a Lt. Tac which will be largely dependent on the weapons you want to run, and if you want to take advantage of Miracle Worker. One route is going Mixed Armaments Synergy and utilizing various weapon set pieces. The Counter-Command set could work well paired with the Quantum Phase set. Another possibility is to take advantage of the heavy forward firepower and go with dual beams (maybe a torpedo) up front and omni-beams in the back (in which case you run Fire at Will or maybe mess around with Energy Weapons Exceed Limits). Finally, you can forgo some weapon firepower and try to take advantage of Miracle Worker with Overwhelm Power Regulators (pairing it with a particle generators or drain build).
“The Lt. Cmdr. Science slot will be informed by the choices you’ve made with weapons. Science Team and Hazard Emitters are obvious mainstays. Gravity Well, Destabilizing Resonance Beam and Subspace Vortex go well with a part. gens. build. Tachyon Beam, Tyken’s Rift, and Energy Siphon go with a drain build. If you are going something tankier Feedback Pulse lets you take advantage of getting shot at.
“The Lt. Cmdr. Universal/Command is probably going to be an Engineering officer, otherwise you’ll be down to just an Ensign. Those are probably going to be an Engineering Team, Emergency Power to Weapons, and Emergency Power to X (probably Auxiliary or Engines). That leaves the last slot for either a Structural Integrity Collapse (if going for a part. gens. build), a Command ability, Reverse Shield Polarity, or Auxiliary to Inertial Dampeners or Structural Integrity. If willing to sacrifice the Engineering Team it could be used for EptW, EptX, Auxiliary to Battery 2x; doing so greatly reduces the effectiveness of your Science and would probably be more in line for a tank.
“Consoles will be reliant on the above either as set pieces or boosts to the chosen build type. The Protomatter Barrage Launcher might work in a part. gen. build or an antiproton build. For the hangars run whatever you like the most, though the frigates it comes with are underwhelming because of their diffusive tetryon weapons.”
Conclusion
The Tzenkethi Tzen’tar-class dreadnought carrier presents itself as a brawny, able ship of the line that can field extremely powerful pets, wields a potent artillery console and can support a surprising amount of firepower. It may be a little bit on the alien side, with its stern fearsome turtle and hammerhead shark aesthetic, but these imposing features speak to the ship’s role in the Tzenkethi empire.
What will become a turn off to most captains in Star Trek Online will, of course, be the extreme rarity and therefore price tag that will come with attempting to acquire a Tzen’tar. This does not mean it is merely a novelty ship — as it is clear it can do the job it’s been fashioned into — but it does mean that it will usually be a collector’s item.
Captains who are looking for a gargantuan two-hangar carrier that can survive in the role of tank, DPS-support and heal-support might want to try this ship out. However, noting the extreme price and other ships that can do the same role for much cheaper, it should probably be sought out as a prize rather than a must-have.
In conclusion, the Tzen’tar is a highly capable ship with a lot of interesting opportunities afforded by the Miracle Worker and Command officer seats provide a surprising range of playstyles for a carrier.
To the captains interested in the Tzen’tar we say, “Scramble the frigates and buckle up, because this space juggernaut can get you — and your friends — where you’re going.”
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