Guide: Basics

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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.

1 Factions
2 Career Paths
3 Skills & Abilities
4 Bridge Officers

[edit] Factions

Intially, the only faction you are able to play as is the Federation. Once you reach Captain level 25, the Klingon Empire is unlocked as a playable faction.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Comparison

Each class has a certain focus and can perform one or more group roles, as well as a starship that best matches that particular class.

Engineers are best suited in the Healer and Tank roles. Tanks 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. As healers, Engineers are adept at healing hull damage, although they also have strong shield healing. 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. Engineers wear the color gold for their uniforms and are ideally matched with a Cruiser, which is also best suited for tanking.

Science officers are most useful in the Healer and "Buffer/Debuffer" roles, 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 most useful in the DPS or Damage roles; they do their best work while dealing damage to enemies in ground and space combat. Tactical officers wear red and are best matched with an Escort vessel, which is also the best starship in terms of inflicting damage to enemies.

[edit] Races

Each faction has its own collection of playable races. The important thing to remember is, that there are no "Uber"-races. Go with what you feel comfortable with.

[edit] Traits

Once you've picked your race (or you've chosen to create your own custom race), you're ready to pick out your traits. All preset races come with one or more required traits, with the remaining traits available for picking, for a total of four traits.

New players might find it very hard to select suitable traits, as picking these requires some knowledge about game mechanics. We prepared a separate guide on this topic for you.

For a list of available traits per race, see our trait chart.

[edit] Ranks

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	Notes
Ensign	0	1	When you first start off the game, you are a lowly Ensign, the lowest commissioned rank in Starfleet. There is only one level in this rank, so one can think of this as level 0. It only takes a mission or two before you are promoted to the next rank.
Lieutenant	1,500	1	Despite being divided into two grades (Junior Grade and regular Lieutenant) in the Star Trek canon, there is only one Lieutenant rank in this game. All throughout the Lieutenant (and Ensign) grades, you play in a versatile Tier 1 ship.
Lt. Commander	6,700	2	The next rank after Lieutenant sees the player gaining access to the three types of starships, which are now Tier 2: Escorts, Cruisers and Science Vessels.
Commander	18,700	3	The next rank after Lt. Commander, and the rank prior to Captain, sees the player gain access to several more classes of starships, which are Tier 3.
Captain	34,700	4	The next rank after Commander, and the rank prior to Rear Admiral (Grades 1–5), while Captains have access to another collection of starship types, which are Tier 4.
Rear Admiral, Lower Half	52,700	5	The next rank after Captain, and the rank prior to Rear Admiral (Grades 6–10), while Rear Admirals (Grades 1–5) gain access to a collection of Tier 5 ships.
Rear Admiral, Upper Half	62,700	5	The penultimate rank in the game for Federation players thus far, and the rank prior to Vice Admiral (Grades 1–5), while Rear Admirals (Grades 6–10) gain access to a different collection of Tier 5 ships.
Vice Admiral	72,750	5 (Retrofit)	The highest rank any Federation player can achieve in the game thus far, while Vice Admirals (Grades 1–5) gain access to retrofitted Tier 5 ships.

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

Klingon characters have a very similar ranking scheme:

Next Rank	Minimum SP Spent	Ship Tier	Notes
Lt. Commander	6,700	2	A Klingon player's starting rank, but they can quickly upgrade to the next rank, due to the equal skillpoints from playing the Federation side (which is needed to unlock the Klingons as playable)
Commander	18,700	3	The next rank after Lt. Commander, and the rank prior to Captain, sees the player have access to several more warships, which are Tier 3.
Captain	34,700	4	The next rank after Commander, and the rank prior to Brigadier General (Grades 1–5), while Captains have access to another collection of warships, which are Tier 4.
Brigadier General	52,700	5	The next rank after Captain, and the rank prior to Major General (Grades 6–10), while Brigadier Generals (Grades 1–5) gain access to a collection of Tier 5 warships.
Major General	62,700	5	The penultimate rank in the game for Klingon players thus far, and the rank prior to Lt. General (Grades 1–5). While having a different collection of Tier 5 warships, Major Generals (Grades 6–10) also gain access to a new type of warship, from which there are two available: Carriers.
Lt. General	72,750	5 (Retrofit)	The highest rank any Klingon player can achieve in the game thus far, while Lt. Generals (Grades 1–5) gain access to retrofitted Tier 5 ships.

Additionally and independently from your military rank you can pursue a diplomatic career with a Federation character.

[edit] Skills & Abilities

Abilities give you new powers. Skills increase the effectiveness of existing powers, as well as Bridge officer abilities. More specialized skills and abilities are available only once you have reached a particular rank. For example, you must reach the rank of Lieutenant Commander before you can acquire the Starship Auxiliary Systems Maintenance skill.

Appropriate skills can combine their bonuses. For example, a captain trained as an Engineer would be able to combine the bonuses from the Modification Training, Fabrication Engineer and Drones skills while using Support Drones to protect his or her Away Team.

[edit] Skills

[edit] Groups & Tiers

All players, regardless of profession, will have access to all space skills. Ground-based skills are profession-restricted; for the Lieutenant tier, Tactical players will have Grenades, Operations players will have Demolitions, and Science players will have Medic.

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 for Lieutenant skills to 500 for Admiral skills.

[edit] 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 mines, etc.). The higher a level you have in a skill, the higher a bonus it gives; however, most skills provide diminishing returns for additional levels (e.g., the first level may add a bonus of 10 while the ninth level may add a bonus of 0.5).

[edit] Abilities

Abilities are the actions that you and your bridge officers can take in combat. There are both space and ground abilities. You gain access to abilities in various ways:

Players will learn a few new abilities as they rank up. The majority of the skills available to players, however, will be based on the kit you have equipped.
Your starship's abilities are determined by your bridge officers - their space abilities and the rank of the station you assigned to them. A Commander-rank bridge officer at an Ensign station will only be able to use his/her Ensign ability, regardless of the officer's actual rank.
Your away team's abilities are altered via the Bridge Officer Trainer. Your Away Team may not equip kits, so your bridge officers' skills are far more flexible than your own.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Bridge Officers

Bridge Officers must advance in rank before more abilities are available to them. Since you are their captain, you must promote them to a higher rank. Bridge Officers must be a lower rank than you, so you will not be able to promote any of them until you reach the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

A Bridge Officer that has sufficiently advanced his or her abilities will be eligible for a promotion, which can be handled through the Skills window.

You can spend Bridge Officer skillpoints on ability improvements or training in new abilities. These abilities increase in effectiveness as they move from version I to III. You may have Bridge Officers join your crew with version I or II abilities, but they must be trained in version III abilities to learn them.

Training some of your skills to the highest level will unlock new training nodes. Then, you will be able to train a Bridge Officer of the appropriate Rank in a version III ability.

You will only be able to train Bridge Officers in the same career path as you. Therefore, a captain who is in the Science track cannot train a Tactical officer in any ability.

You can also train your officers by doing research at major facilities such as Memory Alpha.