Mark

The Mark, or Mk, level of an item corresponds directly to the minimum rank a player must hold in order to be able to equip the item. The odd-numbered Marks (e.g. I, III, V, VII, IX) correspond to slightly lower-quality versions of the next Mark up. In other words, a Mk III item is a lower-quality version of a Mk IV item, both of which can be used by their corresponding rank (Lt. Commander). The higher the mark number, the greater the items' abilities.

Mark Tiers

Each mark has a minimum rank that a player must achieve before items of that mark can be equipped. Marks can also be divided into tiers, based on the tier of starship they are appropriate to. Note though that a player can equip any mark of item in any tier of ship, so long as that player has achieved the correct rank.

Tier	Mark	Minimum Rank
		Federation	Klingon	Romulan
Tier 1	Standard Issue	Ensign	Warrior	Citizen
	Mark I–II	Lieutenant	Lieutenant	Lieutenant
Tier 2	Mark III–IV	Lieutenant Commander	Lieutenant Commander	Centurion
Tier 3	Mark V–VI	Commander	Commander	Subcommander
Tier 4	Mark VII–VIII	Captain	Captain	Commander
Tier 5	Mark IX–X	Rear Admiral, Lower Half	Brigadier General	Subadmiral 1
	Mark XI–XII	Rear Admiral, Upper Half	Major General	Subadmiral 2
	Mark XIII–XIV	Vice Admiral	Lieutenant General	Vice Admiral
Tier ∞	Mark ∞	Any Rank - These items level up as the player does
	Standard Issue-S	Any Rank - These items level up as the player does, limited to use on fighters and shuttles.

Standard Issue

When the player gets their first command, either a Light Cruiser or B'rel Bird-of-Prey, it is equipped with Standard Issue equipment by default. Similarly newly recruited bridge officers are equipped with Standard Issue personal shields and weapons. Federation standard issue is effectively Mark 0, and represents the base for the statistics of each type of item.

Klingon Standard Issue

By contrast, Klingon Standard Issue equipment is equivalent to Mk II. This is probably due to the lack of a tutorial and low level content for Klingon players. Some Klingon starships also come with uncommon standard issue items. These are:

• [Shield Array Klingon Standard Issue]
  
  - Has a +55% bonus to shield capacity
• [Disruptor Dual Heavy Cannons Klingon Standard Issue]
  
  - Has bonus +10 accuracy

Standard Issue-S

Shuttles and other auxiliary craft come equipped with special equipment that scales with the player. Rather than gaining discreet bonuses as with mark numbered items, the bonuses attributed the these items increases linearly with the player's level. For instance, a basic shield array gains 5% capacity for every mark number, but a shuttle shield array gains 1% for each level of the player. This means that a Shield Array Mark X on a shuttle would have an extra capacity of 50% (1,875 in a basic shuttle), but a Shield Array Standard Issue-S owned by a Vice Admiral level player (level 51) would gain a bonus capacity of 51% (1,888 in a basic shuttle).

Note: there are also Mk I-S and Mk XI-S special items that do not scale with the player.

Tier Infinity

These rare items level up as the player does. Looking at the table of Marks and Ranks above, generally the quality of these items will be better than the lower mark level, for your rank, but not as good as the higher mark level of your rank. Many find it cheaper to simply hang on to these rather than purchase new items every rank up.

See also

Rarity --A measure of an item's modifiers to an ability.