There are fancier versions available in the cash shop - science, tactical, and engineering variants at $25 each or $50 for the set of three, with a bonus set of consoles for those who want the bundle. While I suppose that special perks, like the ability to separate the saucer section or launch fighter minipets are amusing, nothing seems that deficient about the baseline model. It's a cruiser, which is the ship class I wanted to fly anyway, it has a highly flexible officer layout with a Universal Lieutenant Commander slot, and it even has an special ability doubling the time players can spend in "slipstream drive", a sprint feature used to travel more quickly across the non-combat sector map.
I've been naming my ships PVD-1 through PVD-5, but I decided on a whim - since perhaps this ship will be with me for a while - to give this one a more proper name. So was christened the USS Faydwer, NCC-190312 (i.e. 19 March 2012). Time will tell what tales lie ahead for the ship and her crew.
