Guide: Basics

From Star Trek Online Wiki

Welcome to the beginners' Basics Guide, the first of many guides for players of Star Trek Online. This guide shall serve as a launching pad for all players who are new to the game or just want to know more about the basics of Star Trek online.

Career Paths

In Star Trek Online, there are three career paths players can take, which corresponds to three of the areas of expertise in Starfleet: Engineering, Science and Tactical. Career paths in Star Trek Online are very much like classes in most other MMORPGs, except that they aren't as restrictive and rigidly defined in Star Trek Online. A player of any class can fly any type of starship, even though each class has a starship with which they will be best fitted.

Comparison

Each class has a certain focus and role, as well as a starship that best matches that particular class.

Engineers are best suited in a Tank role. Tankers take the brunt of damage in battle and try to attract all enemies to themselves, while the DPS or Damage players do the majority of the actual firing and damage. Engineers wear the color gold for their uniforms. Their focus is primarily on survivability and resilience in space combat, while supporting their Away Team in both space and ground combat with fixed-position automated weaponry, shield and medical generators, technological buffs, and other repairs and improvements. The ideal match for an Engineer is a Cruiser, which is also best suited for tanking.

Science officers are most useful in a Heal role, where they provide healing and buffs for allies (and themselves), as well as powers that weaken and disable enemy vessels and NPCs. Science officers also provide medical treatment, such that they can revive other players or Away Team member quickly. Science officers wear the color blue and are ideally matched with (of course) Science Vessels.

Tactical officers are ideally the DPS or Damage roles; they do their best work while dealing damage to enemies in ground and space combat. Tactical officers wear red (although they have worn gold up until the time in which the game takes place) and are best matched with an Escort vessel, which is also the best starship in terms of inflicting damage to enemies.

Skills

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Kits are equipment that grant up to four additional ground abilities for the player, which include everything from mines and fixed-position turrets to shield generators and medical healing fields. Read more about kits here.

Each class will gain one unique space and ground ability for each new Rank achieved. Also, each path comes with a unique set of skills that affect the player's performance on ground missions, as well as a unique set of kits designed specifically for their class.

In order to advance to the next Rank, players must spend a set number of skillpoints (SP) before being promoted. Furthermore, new Tiers of starships are opened up to each new Rank. However, in order to advance through the Grades (1–10) within any Rank, players must simply earn SP.

Next Rank	Minimum SP Spent	Ship Tier
Lieutenant	1,500	1
Lt. Commander	6,700	2
Commander	18,700	3
Captain	34,700	4
Admiral	52,700	5

To summarize, players gain Grades by earning SP, and advance to each new Rank by spending a set amount of SP.

Groups & Tiers

All players, regardless of class, will have access to the following skill groups:

Starfleet Training
Starship Energy Weapons
Starship Projectile Weapons
Starship Engineering
Starship Operations

And each class of players has their own unique skill group available to them:

Engineering Officer
Science Officer
Tactical Officer

Here is an example of a skill group:

There are five Tiers of skills, from Lieutenant on the left, to Admiral on the right. In order to have access to a particular Tier of skills, you must hold that Rank. In the above example, you must be a Commander in order to access the Starship Disruptor Weapons skill. Each skill has 9 levels of expertise (from 1–9) and each Tier costs a certain amount of skillpoints per level increase — from 100 per Lieutenant skill level increment, to 500 for Admiral skills.

Skill Levels

Each level in a skill grants a particular amount of bonus to a specific aspect of the player's character. For example, the Starship Projectile Weapon Training skill would increase the damage done by all your starship's projectile weapons (photon torpedoes, quantum torpedoes, etc.). The higher a level you have in a skill, the higher a bonus it gives.

Below is a list of each skill group and their various effects.

Starfleet Training skills provide two different types of bonuses. Command and Captain skills give a boost to the speed, turn rate and hull strength of your starship, while Team Leader skills increase how effective your Bridge Officers' ground and space abilities are.
Starship Energy Weapons skills increase the damage done by your starship's energy weapons, such as phasers and disruptors.
Starship Projectile Weapons skills (such as Starship Projectile Weapon Training above) increase the damage done by your starship's projectile weapons, such as photon and quantum torpedoes.
Starship Engineering skills provide a bonus to the effectiveness of starship Engeering abilities, though some also have a secondary effect on your starship's power generation and repair rate.
Starship Operations skills increase the effectiveness of starship Science abilities.
Engineering/Science/Tactical Officer skills boost the effectiveness of your own ground abilities.

There is a skill for every ability, both in space and on the ground, for each class, and for both yourself and your Bridge Officers.

All weapons and abilities are affected by 3 different skills, each from a different Tier. Usually the first two skills are Tier 1 and Tier 2 skills, and the third is a skill from one of the upper 3 Tiers. For example, the damage caused by a phaser beam array is boosted by the Starship Energy Weapons Training skill (Tier 1), Starship Beam Weapons (Tier 2), and Starship Phaser Weapons (Tier 3). The higher Tier a skill is, the more narrow its focus is on what it affects. Starship Energy Weapons Training affects all energy-based weapons, while Starship Beam Weapons affects only the beam energy weapons.

To see which skills will affect a certain ability, open up the Available Abilities window by pressing P and select any Ability from the list. (Whether you are in space or on the ground affects which Abilities you will be able to see.)

Players earn three abilities as they progress through each Rank: a generic, class-independent space ability; a class-specific ground ability, then a class-specific space ability. Science Vessels have the built-in ability to target one of an enemy's four subsystems during combat (weapons, shields, engines, and auxiliary), which are granted to the player upon taking command of such a ship. Bridge Officers also have abilities that you can call upon whenever the player desires.

Cooldowns

In addition to their normal recharge time, Abilities that are linked to the same subsystem (e.g. if they have "System: Batteries" in their descriptions) share an additional cooldown time during which no other Abilities of the same subsystem may be used. For example, the Emergency Power to Weapons I ability triggers a 20-second cooldown on your ship's Batteries subsystem, during which time no other "System: Batteries" Ability (such as Emergency Power to Shields) may be used.

Other Guide

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(More coming soon! Stay tuned!)