U.S.S. Wolfe
Legendary Kelvin Timeline Intel Battlecruiser
Legendary Kelvin Timeline Intel Battlecruiser
Updated: 2025 - 12
Well...Twinkling Lights are here and the meme builds are....back? Wow it's been a hot minute (like...15 years?) since we've seen builds like this.
For those who don't know, Twinkling lights is a Winter event personal trait released during the 2025-2026 event. Each of the 6 main energy types apply a -20 DRR debuff to target, with some caveats. Read the initial blurb here. Basically rainbow and skittles are FOTM!
Maximum colour types! We're here to pick up all 6 of the flavours:
Pink/Red Overcharged Delphic Antiproton Beam Bank Antiproton
Orange Terran Task Force Disruptor Beam Array Disruptor
Blue Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank Phaser
Green Advanced Piezo-Polaron Beam Array Polaron
Cyan Omni-Directional Tetryon Beam Array Tetryon
Green Omni-Directional Altamid Modified Plasma Plasma
This fills out the trait allowing for -120 DRR to target and is more than sufficient to yeetusdeletus whatever you decide to look at.
Ionic Turbulence act as Unconventional Systems trigger. Intelligence Team is also a useful power for many builds by providing a threat generation reduction and a stealth bonus. Override Subsystem Safeties, which didn't make the list for more uncon shenanigans, increases the total maximum and current power levels for all subsystems. This is less needed now that we have isomags to pair with surgical and can buff our weapon power up at all times now.
With all specializations we've gotten a form of weapon enhancement. Command and Temporal defy that title but with one trait (Vanguard Specialist) we can increase the duration of all of these specialized firing modes to their full 15s. What sets Surgical out from these is the raw stat buffs the power grants:
Rank 1 (Lt.C): 2.3x Modifier, +30 accuracy, +30% Critical Chance and +40% Critical Severity
Rank 2 (Cmdr): 2.8x Modifier, +30 accuracy, +30% Critical Chance and +60% Critical Severity
Rank 3 (Cmdr): 3.3x Modifier, +30 accuracy, +30% Critical Chance and +80% Critical Severity
These are huge buffs to weapons, and unlike the tactical innate single modes like Cannon Rapid Fire and Beam Overload, Surgical (and its partners like Exceed Rated limits) are able able to utilize both cannons and beams, allow one to take advantage of the best weapons of each class with a single firing mode and extension trait.
In order to take advantage of Surgical Strikes at rank 3, you need to have a ship with a commander Intelligence seat. Since it is the oldest specialization there are no shortage of ships with this; however if we allow ourselves to a little more particular, the best ships for the role would be ones with 5 forward weapons. To even further limit ourselves I prefer to have a ship that carries both a Lt.C Intel capable seat for Override Subsystem Safeties 3 while also having a Lt.C Engineering and Tactical, to gain access to Emergency Power to Weapons and three tactical powers I like to have for all single target energy weapon builds: Attack Pattern Beta, Kemocite Laced Weaponry, and Torpedo Spread.
When I decided to build this ship it was on the short list of builds to use for surgical strikes, however over the last several years we have seen more and more incredibly capable platforms, including (my personal favorite) the Hydra.
Ultimately there is nothing special here, a great way to improve this would be to move to a 5/2/1 ship and use the experimental slot to get the last energy type (here's looking at you Plasma Incendiary Bombard). This puts you into the short list of 8 ships at time of writing. Again...the Hydra takes up a space, as does the Cyclone and the Adamant, with the Jovian Intel Heavy Raider being a very solid flexible choice here as well!
This is a premium build, with the highest available budgets and resources utilized in its creation. See the build costs page for more detail.
ISE:
{ OSCR } Infected Space (Elite) - DPS / DMG [01:30]: `@alcaatraz` 1,302,217 / 116.3 M
HSE:
{ OSCR } Hive Space (Elite) - DPS / DMG [02:10]: `@alcaatraz` 886,605 / 103.9 M
Elite Captain/T6X upgrade, all fleet unlocks
T6 C-store ships
Legendary Battlecruiser Bundle:
Legendary Avenger battlecruiser Needed for Ship of the Line and Emergency Weapon Cycle
Legendary Bortasqu' Command Battlecruiser for Flagship Tactical Computer and Adaptiv Emergency Systems
Lockbox Items
Event consoles and Traits
Twinkling lights - Winter Event Trait
Reputation + Fleet Gear; All Mk XV Epic, All T6 Reputations
Discovery Reputation Items
Competitive Reputation Items
Terran Reputation Items
Iconian Reputation Items
Fleet Spire Items
Dranuur Colony Items
Lobi Items
2022 - 09
Added Build
2022 - 12
Updated to new Platform template
Added notes on keybinds and attack rotation
Revised Bridge Officer layout
2023 - 02
Changed Skill tree to account for wider build selection on character
Updated Console Selection
Updated Weapons
Updated BOff Layout
2023 - 04
Added Bozeman to list of C-store ships
2025 - 12
Updated for new multi-damage build, moved platform to Ayjei, entirely new build
As the goal of the build is to explore Surgical Strikes, the build is fully invested into energy damage. This leaves a very unsurprising distribution. I've invested into agility (as I do most builds) since getting places quicker is all the better for utilizing the single target nature of this ship, and as an extension the single target build classes.
Notes
Ayjei's tree is aimed towards DEWSci and the builds that come along with it, support included. He takes only a few points into engineering for power management and then the rest into damage. Of all my currently posted characters his is the most offensively tuned for the greatest flexibility, at the cost of personal durability which usually needs to be solved through consoles or bridge officer powers or even traits.
DrainX
Long ago I set out to craft a drain build...then some history happened and drains on targets in PvE broke and hasn't yet returned. I could very well respec but this is a part of the character's storied past I want to keep (also it is a very fun build to fly, even if it's not super useful).
27 vs 26 Point Tactical ultimate
Since this is a support build it is once again reasonable to assume that 27 is the way to go. If I was to build this character as a totally dedicated support build and have them only do that, I would concede that 27 points into the tactical ultimate is useful. However that point has been allocated elsewhere, and I still believe that outside of super planned runs a person's cooldown reduction scheme is still important to focus on and should not be dependent on others to provide it for them.
Notes
For those with some event unlocks and wanting to save some lobi is the Pahvan Omni, this would best replace the Altamid as they share the set restriction.
If you use the crafted Omni, swap the Tetryon Omni to the Antichroniton Infused Tetryon Beam Array so you can pick up a crafted Plasma Omni.
If you plan on using this on a non-Surgical build, then the best setup would actually to use the Polaron Omni from the Morphogenic Set and then change the Lukari beam to the plasma version from the T6 reputation unlock.
If you want to avoid the lobi unlocks, the Dark Matter Torpedo or Morphogenic Torpedo (For the set bonus, can take the slot of the Delphic Distortion and allow you to free up another console slot (maybe for the other console on the Morphogenic Set), and then you can swap in the Hyper-Dual Antiproton DBB. Something to note about another reputation antiproton weapon is the Advanced Radient BA; this weapon gives self haste but unfortunately is not affected by haste from other sources, so use this one sparingly.
Notes:
The two event consoles, Custom Power Matrix and Subspace Tunneling Field, are not hard requirements.
There are some options available, all of them need to be universal damage increases like additional critical chance/severity, weapon power, or debuffs to target
Assimilated Module - Passive Weapon Power and Critical Chance
Hull Image Refractors - +20% all damage
Additional Isomags (more is good)
Notes:
Best Served Cold here is a nothing power that does nothing. The DoT damage is slow low it might not even be there. What this does provide however is a quick 15s cycling exotic based power to trigger Temporal Tunneling on cooldown. As this is our only exotic (technically Gravity Well triggers it as well) and we have no exotics we can keep this buff up at its highest uptime.
Something worth noting is that this doesn't carry a torpedo enhancement which felt weird to fly with so if you don't have temporal tunning then Best Served Cold is really easy to change to Torpedo spread
Meta-Focused Tweaks:
I think I've seen some people give up Aux2Sif in favor of another unconventional systems trigger in the form of Emit Unstable Warp bubble; I'm not that bold. For those looking for a budget approach that doesn't use Unconventional systems I would suggest:
Commander Engineering (Intel): Intel Team 1 / Auxiliary Power to Structural 1 / Emergency Power to Weapons 3 / Surgical Strikes 3
Lt.C Tactical: Kemocite Laced Weaponry 1 / Attack Pattern Beta 1 / Distributed Targeting 3
Ens Universal (Engineering): Emergency Power to Engines 1
Lt.C Universal Intel: Best Served Cold 1 / Torpedo Spread 2 / Override Subsystem Safeties 3
Lt. Science: Hazard Emitters 1 / Photonic Officer 1
Meta-Focused Tweaks:
There isn't much to change here in terms of utility. If playing on a tactical captain always try to slot A Good Day to Die (not confusing at all there's a starship trait, mission, and personal trait with the same name). Were I so irked to drop some EC then Breen Shield Tunneling is an automatic pickup; it's not yet in the infinity box.
Budget Tweaks:
For budget players who want to save some EC, there's a few standard traits that could be used:
EPS Manifold Efficiency - Engineering Captain innate trait - this provides +10 all subsystem power for 30s when using EPtX or batteries.
Point Blank Shot - Episode Reward from House Pegh - scaling damage based on distance to target from 2km to 6km.
Operative - Innate Trait - +1% CrtH +2% CrtD, this isn't spectacular but if you lack any offensive traits you can use it.
Bulkhead Technician - Innate trait - this provides +10% Maximum Hull capacity and can be used as a stand in for durability consoles
Living Hull - Episode Reward from "Surface Tension" - +15% hull regen in combat
Redacted Armor Plating - Episode Reward from “The Renegade's Regret” - +30 all DRR when hit from behind or sides
Regenerative Control Synergy - Episode Reward from “Of Signs and Portents” - Grants +45% hull regen when using a control power for 10 seconds
The Tethered Non-Barionic trait sees good use in the ability to move foes around the map, doesn't move static objects like structures but can be good in a pinch.
Meta-Focused Tweaks:
As always I am obligated to mention Liberated Borg duty officers exist, here you'd want the ever so expensive 27 of 47 for the buffs to Critical Chance and Critical Severity, but 22 of 47 or 32 of 47 would also work, but these go for the same as a lockbox or lobi ship.
As well, I am theoretically capped on critical chance, though in practice a few weapons don't. I am still running the critical chance energy weapon officer to combat this, but in an ideally world I would take another critical severity just to smooth out the stacks more.
Budget Tweaks:
Agent Nerul unfortunately has no equivalents. As such and durability driven duty officer would be best to put here. Dal R'el is a close equivalent, but this is a chance at an effect rather than guaranteed like Nerul.Alternatively a 3rd energy weapon officer for CrtH or CrtD of your choice, or a warp core engineer for more power.
As an player who's been doing this for some time, I have very few keybinds as I use most of my powers manually. As such I have only 1 "spam" button, which consists of the offensive rotation.
Emergency Power to Weapons - Initial power buff and triggers Emergency Weapons Cycle
Attack Pattern Beta - prebuff before firing
Surgical Strikes - upgrades weapons, prebuff before firing
Torpedo Spread - upgrades torpedo, prebuff before firing
Override Subsystem Safeties - Since this starts ticking down as soon as possible you as much maximum power increase for as long as possible.
Kemocite Laced Weapons - prebuff before firing
Photonic Officer - begins CDR rotation. Since this is not an exotic build using Improved photonic officer, this is fine at the end
Emergency power to Engines - This is here so that every other rotation it can be activated
For the Subspace Fracture Ability, I have this bound to Alt F12 (which as it happens with my Logitech G502 is bound to G-switch left mouse button) is an untarget macro so this just blips me out for a moment.
By breaking the target and then using the power it prevents the console from jumping you around the map...most of the time.
0x37 "target_clear $$ +TrayExecByTray 2 9 $$ target_clear" ""
ISE Record Damage Breakdown
260.9k DPS - Borg Cube - Agony Redistributor
146.5k DPS - Terran Task Force Disruptor Beam Array - Surgical Strikes III
100.7k DPS - Kinetic Cutting Beam - This gets absurd with enough haste it seems, but it's still a meme and I made Grim watch as I used an Ultimate Tech upgrade on this thing, mwuhahahahaha....ok back to the build
97.7k DPS - Advanced Piezo-Polaron Beam Array - Surgical Strikes III
97k DPS - Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank - Surgical Strikes III
78.7k DPS - Delphic Overcharged Antiproton Dual Beam Bank - Surgical Strikes III
73.3k DPS - Tetryon Beam Array - Surgical Strikes III
68.6k DPS - Altamid Plasma Beam Array - Surgical Strikes III
42.7k DPS - Terran Task Force Disruptor Array
36.7k DPS - Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank
33.1k DPS - Delphic Distortion Torpedo - Salvo I
32.1k DPS - Symbiotic Ice
32.1k DPS - Overcharged Delphic Antiproton Dual Beam Bank
26.9k DPS - Tetryon Array
26.5k DPS - Advanced Piezo-Polaron Beam Array
24.5k DPS - Altamid Plasma Array
19.5k DPS - Overcharged Delphic Antiproton Dual Beam Bank - Delphic Capacitor Overload - Free BO1 for the 10th shot
18.1k DPS - Delphic Distortion Torpedo
16.7k DPS - Technical Overload
11.3k DPS - Kemocite-Laced Weaponry I
10.4k DPS - Digital Compilation Field
8.7k DPS - Nanite Transformer
8.7k DPS - Gravity Well I
5.9k DPS - Gateway
3.9k DPS - Anti-Time Entanglement Singularity (Rank 2)
3.5k DPS - Elite Type 7 Shuttlecraft
2k DPS - Distributed Targeting III - Polaron
1.5k DPS - Distributed Targeting III - Antiproton
1.4k DPS - Distributed Targeting III - Disruptor
1.2k DPS - Distributed Targeting I - Polaron
1.2k DPS - Distributed Targeting I - Antiproton
1.1k DPS - Distributed Targeting I - Disruptor
1k DPS - Distributed Targeting III - Phaser
1k DPS - Distributed Targeting III - Plasma
As mentioned, there's many ships that can fill this build role very well. Two big ones that have already been discussed:
Legendary Scimitar Intel Dreadnought Warbird - This ship is just so flexible. EPH has not only a surgical build but a projectile and a support build on it as well.
Kelvin Timeline Vengeance Intel Dreadnought Cruiser - This is probably people's go-to SS build platform. As I said, I'm not personally a fan but I'm willing to give it another go. I like very much more how the Legendary Kelvin Intel BC flys comparatively.
Legendary D7 Intel Battlecruiser - This was released and flew under my radar, this is probably the best surgical platform we have because of its access to miracle worker seating. It does mean you have to take two of Narrow Sensor Bands 3, Emergency power to Weapons 3, and Override Subsystem Safeties 3 but that might be a bit too ambitious (NSB2 + EPtW3 is often what I use anyway, with most meta people taking EPtW2 + NSB3)
The Bozeman Intel Heavy Frigate and fleet - These can do this build as well, but suffers on tactical console space, however makes up for it in BOff Utility.
Opening up my strict requirements a bit more we get several more ships:
Terran Adamant Heavy Raider - lacking 2 weapons but gaining universal seating, more maneuverability, and an experimental weapon this is probably the more accessible platform most people will have access too.
Bozeman Intel Heavy Frigate - I've been rather surprised with this little ship. It's got a great console (see over here on my support) and since its a frigate it has mostly universal seating.
Cardassian Ghemor Intel Flight Deck Carrier - 2 hanger bays can be a really good DPS jump. The seating is a little restrictive if you're after unconventional systems triggers but if not go wild!
Emerald Chain Intel Juggernaut - This is an interesting ship...you too can have an SS build on it and fit many unconventional systems triggers. It is only 4 fore 4 aft so it will drag behind some other choices.
Eclipse Intel Cruiser - ignoring some...minor changes (like temporal seating) this is basically an older 4/4 weapon layout Vengeance, yes it has a forced Lt.C engineering but that's how I'd probably end up running the Vengeance anyway to get OSS3 and EPtW3. This was also once upon a time the SS build platform of choice. I believe it deserves a spot on this list, even if it is a bit engineering heavy. Its counterpart the Qib is very similar in capability.
Phantom Intel Escort - unique console for phaser buffs and a phaser lance this can make a really mean SS build. Lots of intel space for uncon and just the right amount of engineering seating.
Jovian Intel Heavy Raider - Miracle Worker, Intel, universal seating and plenty of tactical consoles, super great platform if you have it.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the the Legendary Ambassador Intel Support Cruiser for having its Lt.C Temporal seat for Recursive shearing which excels under single target builds and would get double duty from Vanguard Specialist. Unfortunately for the Ambassador it cannot slot dual heavy cannons, but that's not enough for me to keep it from this section. Some funny SS things can also be done with science ships and SS but that starts to evolve more into a weird niche space than most people would care to do for a raw energy weapon SS build.