I noticed on the STO ship chart that Science and Cruisers have retrofits available at the Rear Admiral levels. Will there be a retrofit for Escort at that level?

If I'm not mistaken, the Tactical Escort Retrofit (Defiant-R) already fills this role.

That's Vice Admiral
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Hey, just think; the other two RA retrofits are higher tier versions of the Commander C-Store ships. Do you know what this means? The ship that would slot in there would be a Thunderchild/Akira Retrofit.

No, not quite. While there are Rear Admiral retrofits for the Cruiser and Science Vessel classes, there are no retrofit ships for the Escort class of the same rank. Technically, the Tactical Escort Retrofit is a Vice Admiral-level ship, not Rear Admiral.

I agree. I speculate that Heavy Escort Refit of the Commander tier might become that Rear Admiral Escort Retrofit...but it's anyone's guess.

I don't really see the need for any more Rear Admiral ships. To go from Rear Admiral to Vice Admiral usually takes about a day, two max. It seems a waste to buy a ship to use for only a couple of days.

Which is why I was thinking of the VA ships... whoops!

That said, it seems even more pointless with T6 ships projected for later this year...

The VA ships don't seem to be better than the RA ships, just different.
The consoles bring something to the fight, but in My eyes, it's more important to pick the best BOff layout, and that sometimes means picking the RA Ship.

I completely agree. While I love my Defiant Retrofit, it's a VA ship. It should be slightly more powerful than the RA escorts (esp. the Fleet Escort). I think it should be slightly upped in terms of power, since it's essentially a T6 ship (since it requires level 50 to fly).

I wouldn't mind if it had built-in Ablative Armour (that doesn't take up a console slot), since the original Defiant was equipped as such. Or at least make the cloaking device usable in combat. The AI ships in PvE can cloak at will, even during combat, why can't I? I could see how this might cause problems in PvP, but not in PvE. Enable it in PvE, keep it the way it is now for PvP.