I haven't had the time to log into Tribble and try everything out for myself. I've read all the F2P posts to see what changes are in the works, but I'd love to hear a recap from players who have seen things first-hand on what changes are going to affect the best ship builds and tactics (I personally generally fly the Defiant-R).

Probably the biggest change is that you will have a much bigger selection of weapons to choose from, since you no longer need to spec for a specific type of weapon (usually phasers/quantum torpedoes at the moment). With the new skills system, you don't do that. Instead you improve your weapon skills which applies regardless of weapon type.

Yeah, I'm curious to see what that'll look like.

In other thread, someone posted to say that Escorts will be nerfed considerably (link). Is this true?

I wish they would change it more to be honest, i am tired of all the 'if you want the best dps, go escort with cannons' such a bore, the issue with that is that in escorts, the shields are like you don't have any, they suck that much, so escorts suck in my opinion.

Science Vessels are far more fun, though i wish they would remove that cursed Aux power thing on science abilities, thats just stupid.