sto.necrobones.comNecroBones Star Trek Online Beginner's Guide

CHARACTER CREATION Welcome to STO, Cryptic Studio's Star Trek Online! Since many of the game's rules and details aren't immediately obvious, I decided to write a beginner's quick-start guide with information that I've learned while getting started. When starting in the game, the first thing you will need to do is create your character. This is the captain of your ship, the character you will control directly in ground combat. You can choose one of many races, or invent your own with the "alien" choice. At first you will be limited to the Federation races, but after getting half-way through Lieutenant (around level 21 I think?), you'll unlock the option to create characters in the Klingon faction, and get a third character slot. Depending on what you choose, you'll have a limited range of appearance choices, and the race will start with one or two predetermined traits. You can pick a few others, for a total of four such traits. Which traits are available depends on the race you've chosen as well. If you go with the "alien" race, you'll have the largest range of selections available. All of these traits are only mildly useful, so don't worry too much about what you choose. Just select something that sounds fun and interesting. You can't change them down the line, but they aren't highly game impacting. I highly recommend getting Warp Theorist however, since it gives you a boost to your power levels on the ship that you would not otherwise have access to. Another excellent one, if you can get it, is Efficient , since it boosts several power systems as well. (There's an excellent guide to character traits you can read too) You don't need to spend hours perfecting your appearance, since this can be customized at any time later. The first makeover is free, and subsequent ones start costing energy credits, but it is not expensive. (A Tailor is in the cargo area of the Earth spacedock, and there you can customize your captain and boff appearances, and nearby you can also buy personal equipment for your team.) However, the first choice you're presented with is which career path you want: Tactical, Science, or Engineering. You can not change this choice later, so choose wisely! This is somewhat deceptive, however, in that it only affects various side skills that you will use in ground combat, and a few space+ground skills you receive at various level milestones. The most sensible way to make your selection is based on what ground combat abilities you want. All ground combat is more heavily gear-based, but the career you choose will determine which ground combat skills you can cultivate in your captain, and train to your boffs (bridge officers) later, as well as which "kits" you can use, which grant some combat skills that you might not otherwise have. For space skills, you will receive a few career-specific level-milstone skills along the way. But your space skill trees are the same no matter which career you choose. Your bridge officers will determine most of your space combat abilities, and your captain skills will enhance them and the ship's overall effectiveness with the gear you acquire. So your space capabilities will be determined mostly by the ship and bridge officers you choose, and only mildly by your captain's career. NOTE: The above about career choices is assuming you're going to primarily play PvE (player vs environment) and do so casually. If you are concerned about optimizing your capabilities at the "end game" and particularly if you intend to spend a lot of time in PvP (player vs player), then you may wish to match your captain's career and ship classes and optimize toward that class's strengths. See this forum post about this. This is just one point of view, as there are ways to mitigate these issues and you may choose a more rounded loadout. SECOND NOTE: One of the first things you should do in your first mission is to right-click on your weapons' icons in both ground and space, turning their borders green. This will enable the auto-repeat firing of those weapons, so you only have to mash the fire button once for each target! THIRD NOTE: List of skill boxes can be seen HERE . *** (OUT OF DATE!) GENERAL INFO There are some things to keep in mind as you play, that aren't always immediately obvious when you start out the game. Consoles are items that enhance your ship's bridge and have nothing to do with what crew members are stationed there. They provide passive enhancements primarily. Devices are consumable items that are similar to potions in fantasy games. The ship slots are like a quick-bar for these. These are typically batteries that give a short-duration boost to a ship's system, such as the shields or weapons. Items and equipment have ranks, denoted as a "mark" number. These are restricted by your captain's rank: Ensign / Lieutenant = MK I and MK II Lieutenant Commander = MK III and MK IV Commander = MK V and MK VI Captain = MK VII and MK VIII Admiral = MK IX and MK X Energy weapons (phasers, disruptors) start dropping your weapon energy level if you fire 2 or more of them together. You can actually end up doing less damage if you overwork your ship. This can be mitigated to some degree with skills, devices, and power distribution. Projectile weapons (torpedoes, mines) do not use ship's energy and can be fired at full strength even with low power allocation. However, they have global cooldowns that prevent simultaneous fire. They can however be alternated. (useful info: here ) You can choose when to spend "bridge officer skill points" to increase the level of the skills on your BOffs (bridge officers) as well as to promote the BOff's rank. No boff under your command can be at the same or higher rank as yourself. All of them draw from the same pool of points you earn for them. Each ship has a selection of bridge stations that can be manned by your boffs. These stations are limited to a specific career and rank. If you put a higher ranked officer in that station, you will only be able to use their skills up to that rank. The rank determines how many skills that boff can have for each of space and ground. Note that their ground skills are not limited by bridge stations, but rather their true rank. Ensign = 1 Skill Lieutenant = 2 Skills Lieutenant Commander = 3 Skills Commander = 4 skills Training a boff in a new skill will REPLACE an existing skill, even if it's one they can't use yet because they're not high enough in rank. The skill version (such as Jam Sensors II and Jam Sensors III) mostly separates the skill into specific rank tiers so that it's available to your boff at different ranks, and there's a difference in the level of ability in that skill. There's no point in getting it twice at two different grades, but you may find certain skills to be more important to you, and may want to replace skills and move them around later so that you can have the higher grade versions of the ones you use the most. Each skill upgrade (50 boff points for a boff skill, 150+ captain skill points for a captain skill) increases the skill's level, up to a maximum of 9. Skills are all designed to give high bonuses early, and diminishing returns at the higher levels. You may find it worthwhile to invest points evenly at first, and grab skills broadly, especially in the first few ranks of the game. These skills start broad anyway, and will enhance everything your ship and crew do. Later the skills get more specialized. Upgrading a skill to level 9 will in some cases grant an additional ability, usually to train specific skills into your own boffs. (skill system redesigned into a skill tree, instead of a points system) There is a level cap and skill point cap for your captain, but you will always be able to earn more boff skill points and keep customizing and improving your bridge crew. Here's a great thread about skills. The ship's power system consists of 200 points than can be distributed over four systems. By default, 50 is put into each, and each h...