Tribble (server)

Tribble is the name of Star Trek Online's public testing shard (server). The Tribble server is where players can assist QA (Cryptic's Quality Assurance team) with testing out new content and upcoming changes to STO before they are pushed to the live Holodeck (server). Some (not all) features and mission content often evolve here. Some changes may never reach Holodeck. The STO Dev team has been known to reserve testing of some features and content. They sometimes like to surprise their player base.

Not to be confused with the Redshirt server.

Some things to know before testing

 * Tribble may be wiped by the Q/A team as the need presents itself. They usually offer notice prior to a wipe. Players who test features and content may need to re-copy characters or start new ones.
 * Copying a character to a Public Test Server will not affect your character on the Live Server (Holodeck) in any way.
 * Certain account features (such as buying and spending Zen, promo items, special unlocks, etc) may not be available on a Public Test Server.
 * Requesting a character copy will create another copy if he/she/it already exists on the target Public Test Server. (It will be ____ 1 ____ 2 ____ 3 and so on)
 * Requesting a character copy to a Public Test Server is the only way to get your characters to the server!
 * You will be unable to transfer your character to a Public Test Server from Holodeck if you are logged in on that character on Holodeck at the time the transfer is requested.
 * You can create new characters on a Public Test Server if you’d like to start fresh.
 * Your fleet status will not copy with your character, this is true also if you are the Fleet/House leader.

Gaining access

 * Accessing the server


 * Be aware that your hard-drive needs to have enough space to accommodate another copy of STO.
 * Open the launcher and select the "Tribble" shard located along the bottom of the launcher screen.
 * Allow their client to patch up to the test server game version.
 * Log in and play by clicking Engage
 * Create a new character from scratch. Or follow the instructions below to copy a character from Holodeck.


 * Copying a character
 * Head over to the Tribble Character Transfer page and copy a character over. This will not remove the character from the live servers, it will only make a duplicate of it. Different characters can be copied over to the test shard by repeating this process.
 * This page tells the player that it may take up to two-hours for the copy to appear on the test server. It doesn't always take that long.

Tribble Test Weekends
Cryptic runs a couple of tribble test weekends throughout the year, these usually coincide with upcoming major expansions such as the release of a season. The events allow players to preview upcoming content and directly interact with developers through missions, PVP, and social events.

Test weekends are usually announced on the forums, in the RSS feed, and emails from cryptic. They typically require at least one hour of play on the server to earn the reward.

As of May 2013, there have been 8 test weekends, one for the release of each season expansion. This trend was broken however with Season Eight, which did not have a test weekend.

Season One: Common Ground
March 19-23, 2010

Players who participated in the event received:
 * Crash Test Tribble player title
 * Tribble of Borg which grants a +1.5 bonus to all damage resistance and a +3% damage bonus vs Borg for 3,600 sec.

Season Two: Ancient Enemies
July 23–26, 2010

Players who participated in the event received:
 * Fluidic Space Tribble which grants a +1.5 bonus to all damage resistance, a +5 bonus to Psionic damage resistance, and a +5 bonus to Toxic damage resistance (Undine infections only), for 3,600 sec.

Season Three: Genesis
November 24-29, 2010

Players who participated in the event received:
 * Pet Federation Runabout
 * Pet Klingon Empire Toron Shuttle

Season Four: Crossfire
July 1-5, 2011

Players who participated in the event received:
 * Crossfire Tribble which grants a +3.3% bonus to all damage resistance in RPG Mode for 3,600 sec, and +3.3% bonus to all damage in Shooter mode for 3,600 sec.

Season Five: Call to Arms
December 1-5, 2011

Players who participated in the event received:
 * Radan Tribble, also known as a"Dilithium Tribble", which grants a 2.5% bonus to all damage types and a 2.5% shield capacity buff for 3600 sec, plus 5 (five) unrefined dilithium every 60 minutes.
 * 8 Hour Skill Bonus (one time unlock and could be used on only one character per account) for leveling a character on the Tribble shard for at least 11 levels.
 * 80,000 (one-time claim for any character) for leveling a character on the Tribble shard for at least 31 levels
 * An exclusive title "Dimensional_Warrior" [sic] (KDF) or "Dimensional Hero" (FED) (account-wide unlock) and starship slot for leveling a non-transferred character on the Tribble shard for at least 51 levels
 * Varel, unique blue quality duty officer (bound, account-wide unlock) for getting a character to Tier 1 commendation (2,500 CXP in same category)
 * Tactical Exocomp (Fed) / Goshi the Augmented (KDF), unique purple quality duty officers (bound, account-wide unlock) for getting a character to Tier 2 commendation (15,000 CXP in same category)
 * Automated Personnel Unit (Fed) or Automated Personnel Unit (KDF), unique purple quality duty officer with a unique ability not available elsewhere in-game (bound, account-wide unlock) for getting a character to Tier 3 commendation (50,000 CXP in same category)

Season Six: Under Siege
July 6-9, 2012

Players who participated in the event received:
 * Fleet Tribble which provides a 5% resistance to Holds, Stuns, and Slow debuffs for 3600 sec, and grants 1 (one) Fleet Mark every 60 minutes.
 * Ang the Vicious, a unique purple quality duty officer (bound, account-wide unlock), for completing at least 1 mission on the Nukara Prime Incursion Zone

Season Seven: New Romulus
November 2-5, 2012

Players who participated in the event received:
 * Mol'Rihan Tribble which provides +5 Plasma and Disruptor Resistance, a 2% buff to Plasma Damage and grants 1 (one) Romulan Mark every 60 minutes.

Legacy of Romulus
May 10-13, 2013

Both players who participated in the event and those who didn't received:
 * Nukara Tribble which provides +10 Environmental Damage Resist (resist to Cold / Fire / Toxic / Radiation) and grants 1 (one) Nukara Mark every 60 minutes.