The Idea of either a Federation Maneuver, or a Klingon Strategy, is a Combo of Powers used in the right order, or in the right sequence of events to cause a special "Power" effect that gives it's own bonuses and penalties for it's use.. For example:

Picard Maneuver
Required powers and order of activation:
1: Full Impulse
2: Evasive Maneuvers 2 or higher
3: Engine Battery
Other Requirements: An enemy Target. Must use Engine Battery 10km or less from the target.
Effect Range: 15km Maximum
Effect: A Hologram cast in your location (With your ship name etc..), Your opponent has a Jam Target sensors placed upon them for 2 sec, your ship is transported with in 2km from your target as you rush the target from high warp by engaging your warp drive for an instant.
Counter power: Tractor Repulsors

Riker Maneuver
Required Powers and order of activation:
1: Eject Warp Plasma 2 or higher (Must finish ejecting Warp Plasma, or be forced stopped, such as from a Photonic Shockwave)
2: Fire at Will 1 or higher
3: Brace for Impact 2 or higher
Other Requirements: None
Effect Range: 10km from ANY released Warp Plasma including your own.
Effect: Your Fire at will suddenly strikes the unstable Plasma you ejected, causing it to detonate. Any ship or object caught in the burning Plasma will take Kinetic damage equal to the remaining duration on the effected Warp Plasma, but it instantly clears any Warp Plasma in the area. (Basically deals all of the DoT Damage at once to the Targets in the Plasma, but instead of doing it directly to the hull, shields help to resist the explosion as if the explosion were a torpedo)
Counter: Beam: Target Subsystems (Weapons)

As you can see, by being in Full Impulse, activating Evasive Maneuvers, then using Engine Battery you activate the Picard Maneuver power which would do the effect and then not be useable again until you could go to full impulse, activate evasive maneuvers, and had an engine battery available. And each maneuver or strategy would have some power that would defend against it, and if your target gets beyond the designated maximum distance, the effect would "Fizzle" out and be wasted. Making them situational, as they would be expected to be. There could also be more specialized Maneuvers or Strategies dealing with Class Abilities such as Photonic Fleet, Rotate Shield Frequency, etc...

That actually sounds like it could be a lot of fun. Sounds a bit like a balance nightmare but this kind of combo system would be pretty interesting.

The biggest part of the balance issue could simply be that at least 1 power in the combo always has some long duration recharge time. At least 1 minute or longer. That was my thoughts on how to make things more balanced. Meaning that the recharge time on the entire maneuver/stratigy is the longest recharge of one of the powers in the combination.

So even though you might have 2 powers that are only a 30 second or less recharge, you'd still have at least 1 power that makes the entire thing something you can only do infrequently. Allowing for slightly more powerful type of effects then normal single Bridge officer or Captian abilities allow.

At least that was my thoughts on that.. It would, at that point, depend on how the Development of the system, if it were to actually be implimented, came about as well as the Maneuvers/Stratigies they designed in the process.

Another thought for this would be that each faction (Klingon, Federation, Cardassian, Romulan, Borg, Etc..etc..) would have their own version of these combination of abilities for both Player or NPC to be able to pull off..

Because if anything I find it so boring to fight enemies that, despite interesting scripts that I'm sure are eventually going to get some form of an upgrade on powers or ability uses, it would be nice if they had something else they could do as well.

I mean could you imagine creating a custom mission where your a klingon and you have to beat some one else who's perfected the Picard Maneuver and he trys to use it against you?

Or a Federation mission where the Klingons are practicing Strategies of their own and your their test subject?

And of course each combination of powers could have 4 Classifications as well:

Universal ~ These would be avaliable to all factions and Classes. Anyone could pull these off.
Tactical ~ These would be avaliable to any Tactical Class character.
Scientific ~ These would be avaliable to any Science Class character.
Engineer ~ These would be avaliable to any Engineer class character.
Faction ~ These would only be avaliable to the specified Faction.

It could truelly make the game feel even more unique when in space. And who knows, maybe even some of them could even either be implimented for ground some how. (your bridge officers, if placed in the right spot, and the right abilities used, could create a combo effect for example.)

Also, the Faction specific abilities would be more steared towards how that faction typically acts. Like the Federation would be more towards Defense, Protection, and Peace. Trying to defuse a situation with out resorting to blowing something up. An example might be something where you do a combination of Target Weapons, Target Engines and then a Tractor Beam to cause some one's ship to become disabled, but not damageable until the effect wears off. Say it lasts as long as the Tractor Beam, being the last power used in the combo?

Where as a Klingon might have a combination relying on Cloak in order to leave DoT damage effects on a ship to help weaken them for the next round of attacks.

Just some more thoughts on the Idea. Perhaps to help give it more life then it had in the original suggestion.

As far as Combos go, I'd be tempted to say "Bring 'em on!" It's a great idea, with one hitch. One thing STO isn't very good at is in-game documentation.

What we'd end up with are a handful of players who figured out the combos and how to use them well, a bunch who read about them here, and a majority who have no clue that combos even exist let alone how to execute them.

Now if that documentation problem was addressed, it would be a really great idea.

Hmm... this is true....

It could be given it's own area where, based on the powers you have avaliable, the combos and how to trigger them was listed..

Good suggestion Kilawpilath, it has been made before and backed by a few vocals. The response unfortunately was it would principally be macroing and wouldn't be introduced. Cryptic's definition it seems was and likely still is 'Using a script to activate more than one power faster than you could individually'

And yet my suggestion is based around the powers being activated individually, but in the right sequence equaling a special effect to be triggered. At least that is the Base of the suggestion.. But hey, if it's been suggested before and shot down.. Cool..

Doesn't mean it shouldn't be suggested again. And who knows, if there's enough support eventually for something like this to be able to be implimented, then that's cool too.

Now that I am thinking more on it, and after some conversations with a friend, I recalled that the game already has a Combo system in place currently for Melee Weapons..

And the basics of what I'm suggesting is along those lines. Power A + Power B + Power C = Special Power D

Yeah, Combo moves are distinctly different from Macros. As with the console world, it's a way of triggering a special extra action based on a sequence of moves/keypresses/whatever. It's not a way of bundling a sequence of actions.

Unlike a console game, STO doesn't have arcade-style play. So, like the combo powers that were introduced into CoH/CoV awhile back, it would be fairly trivial to trigger a combo in STO. Just activate the right powers in the right order... just like with the melee combos we already have.