Solo Wave Defense reintroduces the old alliance-scale Wave Defense mode as something one player can run alone. It's tuned to your level: G4 players (45+) face waves one through three, while 50s and 60+ players face the full five waves, bringing up to three ships into three-to-five rounds of combat. It's built around a new hostile type, Apex Raider, so crews that cleared old Wave Defense fine may need retuning. A harder Elite variant exists too, using the same Section 31 Private Cipher Keys for entry, giving you a 10-minute prep window once your first ship arrives before waves start, and explicitly warning that speed-focused crews struggle here -- it wants durability, not just fast clears. Progress and rewards from Solo Wave Defense don't automatically count toward older Wave Defense events or missions, so don't assume the two are interchangeable.
This Ops 51+ building is the prerequisite for everything Outpost-related below -- you claim its initial construction schematics from your Ops 51 Gifts, then upgrade it with Outpost Control Cores (common ones drop from PvE chests or the store, rare ones from the Outpost Battle Pass or store). Upgrading it pays off directly: more loot from holding Outposts, more weapon damage against Outpost enemies specifically, more Hull Health for Federation, Romulan, and Klingon ships, access to the Material Fragment economy, and a bigger Outpost fleet -- two ship slots on construction, a third at building level 40.
Solo Outposts are a distinct PvE format from both hostiles and Armadas -- once your Outpost Control Center is built, you spend an Outpost Strike Directive (free every two days via an in-game gift) to attack one. Win, and you don't just get loot: you take temporary control of the Outpost itself, at which point the opposing faction starts sending Retaliation Attackers roughly every five minutes to try to take it back. These are their own enemy type, not reused Hostile or Armada stats, so crews built for either won't automatically transfer. The longer you hold the Outpost against the waves, the better your rewards climb -- it's designed as a multi-hour, semi-idle endurance test rather than a quick clear.
For Ops 51+ players, Daily Challenge Goals hand you three targets a day -- an Easy Challenge, a Hard Challenge, and (once you've built the USS Excelsior) a fixed U.S.S. Excelsior Challenge -- all against M86/M87 V'Ger hostiles, scaling in difficulty from level 51 to 80. The Easy and Hard slots rotate daily with new targets or requirements; the Excelsior slot stays the same every day. These V'Ger hostiles aren't just reskinned old enemies: they carry blacklisted-officer rules and ignore Cutting Beam and Chain Shot outright, so crews leaning on either will need a genuine rework rather than a stat tweak. Complete a challenge on the Daily Goal screen, then check the separate V'Ger Challenge Track screen to collect any milestone progress on top of the direct reward.