Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!)

[intrinsical]

Feds, Klingon and Romulan each have different flavors of ships. While cruisers, science vessels and escorts are the main ship types, there are also carriers, raptors (kdf), battlecruisers (kdf) and bird-of-preys (rom).. all of them play a little differently.

You get to upgrade to a new ship for free at levels 10, 20, 30 and 40 (and 50 if you are a paid subscriber/lts player). So I suggest playing different types of ships at 10, 20 and 30. See what kind of ship you're more comfortable with playing so you can make an informed decision when you pick your final free ship at 40 (or 50) since you are likely to be stuck with that ship for a while.

Once you get to level 50, that is the time you may want to buy better ships. but we'll leave the advice till you're close to level 50.

 

[borgboy]

I have a fairly good basic grasp of the game (Federation side!) at this stage, borgboy. I'm spring@robatorai. You can add me from the menu accessed from the bottom-right of the chat box. If you want, I can show you around Earth Spacedock and Starfleet Academy (and how to get some free dilithium and also three free duty officers, DOffs, every two days).

Thanks for the kind offer Dixie! When I get playing I'll make sure to contact you, I'm sure I'll need all the help I can get. Free dilithium and duty officers sound nice!
And thanks intrinsical for the advice on ships. I really have no idea which kind of ship I'll want yet, so trying out different kinds sounds like a good idea.

 

[Infern0]

my advice would be to stick to cruisers as imo they are a good in-between type of ship

feel free to add me Alex@Infern0121 and i'll answer any questions i can, though i'm quite new myself

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

And if you like, join für TrekBBS Armada, our Board fleet.

 

[Rocketeer]

BorgBoy,

A few suggestion for starting out:

The easiest character/ship for starting is the engineer/cruiser as they have medium offense and high defense.

If you can pick up the Amazon Collector's edition for cheap, it's a good starting investment. Comes with the Red Matter Capacitor, Borg Engineer, some uniforms and other things. The Steam Deluxe Digital Download is also a good deal if you can find it cheap.

My formula for ground crew is 1 Tac / 1 Sci / 1 Engr + 1 extra Bridge Officer of the same career as the main character. The Tac always carries a Sniper rifle. The Sci always has at least one healing power. The Engr can always build at least one turret. If you team with someone, try to take your healer with you. I actually get very detailed on my BOFF ground team build, but just listed the basics here.

Hope this helps.

 

[Scout101]

My two cents: make your toon a TAC officer. By the time you get to the end, that's what you'll want, and you'll have more time/energy tied up in the first one. It's a DPS game at endgame, don't need to heal others, and even tanking is iffy. You can tweak your TAC build to still do some healing and tanking, and you'll be
better off with the damage boost.

May as well pick a Romulan TAC, while you're at it. Different story progression, but this is the way to go. You get to pick your alignment (Fed or KDF) about halfway in, so you can still go whichever side you like. You get the benefit of getting to use Romulan ships PLUS still all the Fed ship (or KDF) for the most part. Extra range of powers, and have yet to figure out what the downside/tradeoff was supposed to be.

And yeah, for leveling, just pick the cruiser/warbird option. You don't need max damage at lower levels, so just taking a beating gets the missions done faster if you solo them. Just don't buy ships or expensive gear while leveling, you'll never use it again. Best off just taking the free ship, and load up with white gear from the exchange. When you level up, can resell the gear and aren't stuck with it.

Rocketeer, your away team build seems a little heavy towards your toon's profession? 1 of each, extra of your profession, plus you? Do you really need 3 TAC or ENG? Idea is there as far as loadout, I just swap that one extra slot. 1 each of TAC/SCI/ENG, Me (obviously), and then the last slot goes to ENG if I'm a TAC, TAC if I'm an ENG. That way, you end up 2 TAC, 2 ENG, 1 SCI. Usually a good loadout. And try to balance the ENG so that one's more offensive one more defensive, and same with TAC when you can.

 

[borgboy]

Thanks, this is all very helpful!
Thru researching all this, I read somewhere there's a Deluxe digital download of the game that gives you all the collector's stuff including the Borg, and a joined Trill. That would be pretty cool. Does anybody know anything about this.
Also, are you guys sure that the Borg is still available? I'm worried it might have expired.

 

[borgboy]

Just read the offical blog about the new tutorial. Wow glad I waited. Sounds awesome can't wait to get started. Will probably make my character tonight.
Is there any real in game effect of what race I choose? If I choose a Betazoid will I be able to really use telepathy in game for example?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

The race just determines a number of passive traits for the most part. Betazoids for example are less easy debugged and have excellent stealth detection if I remember correctly.
There are some exceptions, though. Vulcans, for example, can use the nerve pinch instead, which is a close range stun and situational at best.
You are best served to go with passive always on traits that complement your build (damage, tank, healer and so on...)

 

[Rocketeer]

Rocketeer, your away team build seems a little heavy towards your toon's profession? 1 of each, extra of your profession, plus you? Do you really need 3 TAC or ENG? Idea is there as far as loadout, I just swap that one extra slot. 1 each of TAC/SCI/ENG, Me (obviously), and then the last slot goes to ENG if I'm a TAC, TAC if I'm an ENG. That way, you end up 2 TAC, 2 ENG, 1 SCI. Usually a good loadout. And try to balance the ENG so that one's more offensive one more defensive, and same with TAC when you can.

Scout, I used to do it your way but switched to give it a more fun/roleplaying feel. So yes, each team will lean heavy towards the main character's profession. And you know what - I didn't detect any 'weakness' by building the away teams that way. Here's the away teams for my two main characters, Jho'dig and Doc Lee.

http://i1151.photobucket.com/albums/o630/Kochu93/STO characters/Jhodig-BOFF-layout_zps8daa3fab.jpg

http://i1151.photobucket.com/albums/o630/Kochu93/STO characters/DocLee-BOFF-Odyssey_zps7da5ffd6.jpg

I'm trying to move away from min/maxing and playing just to win. I'm just doing it to have fun now. I'm probably not the player you want to help you with end game content, but if you just want to run around the jeffrey tubes in my old constitution cruiser give me a shout.

 

[Scout101]

Thought was just that if you're an ENG and can already build turrets, you don't need two more guys doing that, you'd be better served if one of them was an extra TAC drawing fire or debuffing the enemies. Same with if you're the TAC already doing that, having 2 guys building turrets/mortars/med gens is helpful. A little more balance.

Can't argue the roleplaying part, as I don't really get into that.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Yeah, i lean a little more toward the roleplaying part as well. That's why my crew is almost 100% Andorian (as opposed to entirely human with a token alien like in the shows) instead of generic alien captain with a Jem'hadar, Breen, 3 Borg and other special officers.
My only special ground officer is an Android and he looks Andorian.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Anyone still wanting a lifetime sub? They started a sale today.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Okay are they supposed to be giving away the First Contact environmental suits free or is this some kind of glitch?

Edit

Apparently its both the Klingon and Federation environmental suits.

You get them from the fireworks giving consoles.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

From now on the EV suits are Part of the 500 day veteran rewards. If you are eligible you can pick up as many as you like. Even for Boffs.

 

[Venator]

Personally I find every faction kind of the same. In the long run as you get to the higher levels, it doesn't really matter what faction you chose in my opinion. However, I did enjoy the Rom introduction since I started it after a break from STO, came back when I got the mail about the new faction, missions and such.

I hope they keep updating the game as they have done so far.

Also, what was the name of the trekbbs fleet? Would be interested to join.

 

[TheRoyalFamily]

Has anyone been able to get on today? I'm not going to bother if there's a queue - the game will still be there next week.

 

[Venator]

Has anyone been able to get on today? I'm not going to bother if there's a queue - the game will still be there next week.

I was able to get in just a moment ago without any issues so it should be fine.

 

[Briquettes]

Has anyone played the new Fed tutorial and could tell me how much content is in it? I'm out of character slots and wondering if it would be worth re-rolling a level 11 toon.

 

[intrinsical]

Also, what was the name of the trekbbs fleet? Would be interested to join.

Or you can provide us with your character@account details and we can send you a fleet invitation.

Has anyone played the new Fed tutorial and could tell me how much content is in it? I'm out of character slots and wondering if it would be worth re-rolling a level 11 toon.

Its just 3 missions that bring you to level 3 at the end of it. I find that it is quite similar to the old fed tutorial (fighting the same foe), just with better artwork and better story.