- Next item of interest is Specialisation Points. You'll find this tab in the character window, between skills and traits. Currently there's four specialisation trees: Command, Intelligence, Pilot and Commando. You can have one tree set as your primary, and one as your secondary. Every point spent in an active tree grants a skill of some sort. There's a lot of different skills. Some are the usual sort of thing you'd expect; improved cooldown on powers, increased run speed, less damage from flanking attacks, that sort of thing. There's also some odd abilities, such as leaving explosives behind you when you perform an action roll, or having your ship do a barrel roll (That works on any ship too. Scimitars doing a barrel roll is hilariously awesome). In addition, once you reach eight points in Command or Intelligence, you can start using those kits in your ground build, although you'll need more points to use higher quality versions of the powers. You can also unlock some traits as you fill out the tree.
You get a specialisation point with every level you get from 51 onwards. Once you reach 60, you'll keep earning xp, and another specialisation point will be granted with every 'level'. You can also get one per week per account as a reward for completing the current featured episode, although trying to do those might be a bit confusing/frustrating for you right now, given you're essentially an entire expansion behind, and even though they sort of scale, they're still really designed for level 60 characters.
- Moving on from specialisation points, Bridge Officers have been changed somewhat. Basically, they now remember all the skills you've taught them. While they can only have four active at any time, when not in combat, you can open their skill window, or the stations window for your spaceship, and select different powers. This means, for example, that you don't need multiple science officers for those times you need polarize hull instead of hazard emitters, and it definitely shows in how few BOFFs my newer characters have compared to my older ones. It is still slightly bugged for some people, in that sometimes a BOFF might swap back to their default powers, so if an engineer pulls out a cover shield you'd swear you took off them, that's why.
Instead of the old 'trade them to another player, or have an unrecruited BOFF teach them' routine, you now use training manuals. You can buy basic manuals from vendors in the social zones, on the exchange, convert unassigned BOFFs into manuals, or craft the higher quality ones for your class in the R&D tab of the Duty Officer window, under 'Officer Training'.
- This one I'm pretty sure you've noticed by now, but the old Sector Space has been completely replaced. Now there's three zones, covering the Alpha, Beta and Delta Quadrants. The galaxy feels a lot bigger in general, and a lot of the star systems having been moved around a little. Autopilot and the system list are your friend, although autopilot will drop you just outside the target system, you'll need to throttle up slightly and head for the systems target planet, not the star.
You get a specialisation point with every level you get from 51 onwards. Once you reach 60, you'll keep earning xp, and another specialisation point will be granted with every 'level'. You can also get one per week per account as a reward for completing the current featured episode, although trying to do those might be a bit confusing/frustrating for you right now, given you're essentially an entire expansion behind, and even though they sort of scale, they're still really designed for level 60 characters.
- Moving on from specialisation points, Bridge Officers have been changed somewhat. Basically, they now remember all the skills you've taught them. While they can only have four active at any time, when not in combat, you can open their skill window, or the stations window for your spaceship, and select different powers. This means, for example, that you don't need multiple science officers for those times you need polarize hull instead of hazard emitters, and it definitely shows in how few BOFFs my newer characters have compared to my older ones. It is still slightly bugged for some people, in that sometimes a BOFF might swap back to their default powers, so if an engineer pulls out a cover shield you'd swear you took off them, that's why.
Instead of the old 'trade them to another player, or have an unrecruited BOFF teach them' routine, you now use training manuals. You can buy basic manuals from vendors in the social zones, on the exchange, convert unassigned BOFFs into manuals, or craft the higher quality ones for your class in the R&D tab of the Duty Officer window, under 'Officer Training'.
- This one I'm pretty sure you've noticed by now, but the old Sector Space has been completely replaced. Now there's three zones, covering the Alpha, Beta and Delta Quadrants. The galaxy feels a lot bigger in general, and a lot of the star systems having been moved around a little. Autopilot and the system list are your friend, although autopilot will drop you just outside the target system, you'll need to throttle up slightly and head for the systems target planet, not the star.