what u wish you knew

tygram

what are some things you wish you knew about when you started STO. im fairly new and want to set my self up for max lvl

questerius

First few to come to mind:
* Press ctrl and you don't have to confirm when discarding items
* Sell at vendors (not ferengi) for 50 % value instead of 40% from replicator
* In space, right click on weapon activates autofire.
* Key binds are your friend

rainmotorsports

Questerius hits the nail on the head. I would add to the Ctrl bit. When you need to split a stack of items, lets say withdrawing from a limited fleet bank or mailing an item to someone hold ctrl and dont let up until you dropped. This will let you set the amount.

lan451

I tell this one point to every new player I come across:

Do NOT leave tribbles alone in your inventory with food items. They will eat them and then multiply. You will open up your inventory to see a colony of tribbles infesting your stuff.

No, I'm not joking. I'm being totally serious here.

anazonda

Cryptic generally rely on the Ferengi #1 rule of aqusition: Once you have their money, never give it back.

Before buying anything from the C-Store, be sure to read and ask if you are unsure, before pressing the "buy" button.

johnnyjohnny1969

questerius wrote: »

First few to come to mind:
* Press ctrl and you don't have to confirm when discarding items
* Sell at vendors (not ferengi) for 50 % value instead of 40% from replicator
* In space, right click on weapon activates autofire.
* Key binds are your friend

In addition to what has already been said....

Plan ahead! Try to decide early on which ship you want to mainly fly when you hit lvl 50 & train your BoFFs with the skills you want them to be able to use. Pay attention to the Bridge Stations so that you don't train them in skills you won't be able to use.

Also, don't spend a lot of money keeping your ship equipped with gear at the lower levels. You should be able to get by with the pre-loaded weapons, shields, etc & with what you get from loot drops and mission rewards. In short, save your money until you hit lvl 50 to start buying purple gear.

:cool:

questerius

One more:
Focus on a specific damage type and purchase consoles to support that type. Rainbow builds are highly ineffective.

majorstorm

Something I didn't figure out until I was 40+

On ground missions you can enable auto-fire and right click an ability to have autofire on it instead of spamming one button or using FPS mode. You will mow down enemies by the truckloads with this setting. You need to enable ingame options first before you can right click ability to autofire in ground missions.

Also changing targeting setting to toggle never ends/stops will make your weapons in ground and space keep firing when changing targets. this will save you having to press fire when changing targets. Even when you kill/destroy your target your weapons will instantly acquire a new target and keep firing. Even faster ground mission mowing!!

borgressistance

also, be aware at youre skill spend.

a respec,if not bugged, costs 500 zen.

for the most skills 6 points is suffiecent,i know this isnt the easy part of the game,because you can make or break a build with it.

overal the folowing skills can consume 9 points:

starship energy weapons training
starship hull repair
starship shield emitters

starship energy weapons
structural integrety
starship shield systems

for most other skills 6 points are enough.

for more help hit the forums, more as enough people willing to help.

http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/

this site can help you making a build.

good luck and have fun!

grouchyotaku

You should always have a dedicated healer BO as a part of your away team. This will save you a lot of grief in the long run...

seekeroftech

Ground:
"G" targets the nearest exposed target
"Y" will get your away team to focus fire on current target

Space:
You can turn off shield ring graphics in the Options menu
You can disable "stop on dialog box" in the Options menu

ficr

Once you have more then 1 alt, the account bank becomes very useful.

I use to run my alts back to Earth just to buy commodities for Rep. Then I realized all I needed was to park one there. Anytime a alt needs a commodity that is not local, I just pop on the Earth alt, buy and put the commodity in the account bank, then log back onto that alt. It makes Rep on my alts much easier.

steamwright

questerius wrote: »

First few to come to mind:
* Sell at vendors (not ferengi) for 50 % value instead of 40% from replicator

I'd note that not all non-ferengi vendors are equal. Some buy from you at the same EC rate as the replicator disposal. In the Romulan Flotilla, for example, there are two Romulan vendors literally paces from each other, and they sell at the two different rates. I just glance at my replicator prices before taking a look at the prices of a vendor new to me.

ficr wrote: »

Once you have more then 1 alt, the account bank becomes very useful.

I use to run my alts back to Earth just to buy commodities for Rep. Then I realized all I needed was to park one there. Anytime a alt needs a commodity that is not local, I just pop on the Earth alt, buy and put the commodity in the account bank, then log back onto that alt. It makes Rep on my alts much easier.

I used to store all my crafting & DOFF mission items in the account bank, so that all alts could access them, but then discovered by accident that if an item is in the regular bank, it can be accessed for any crafting project or duty officer mission, even if you're far from any bank access. This does not seem to work with the account bank.

fmgtorres1979

Never to turn your back on a Breen! Seriously, that freaking cluster torpedo...


Things I wish I had known sooner:

-Away team:
3 Engineers with drones and turrets
1 Sci with nanites

-You can have multiple (equal) BOff skills that wll have a shorter cooldown than the one activated. They can not be immediately duplicated but allow a more sustainable use over time.

-Power levels make the difference between pew pew and PEW PEW.

-Same energy type weapons is a must.

-You can NOT go solo against a borg fleet fresh out of reaching the minimum level just because you handled them fine during the tutorial. Well, you can but it will be scary (obviously I don't mean people who know what they are doing and have experience).

-If you keep getting poor results with a ship (level adequate), it is never the ship's fault. You are doing something wrong in terms of build, BOff layout or tactical/strategical action. Search around.

-Don't dismiss BOff skills. Read and talk to people about them. You will be in awe to what some skills will allow you to do.

I'm sure there are many more. If I remember them, I'll edit this.

queeg9000

I wish I was aware that the first skill respec isn't free and worse costs real money to do.

If your looking to practice the "free to play" label of the game your pretty much screwed from level one if you don't know this.

When I hit level cap I have to grind 20k dill (a ludicrous price) for a respec at a max of 8k dill a day before I can do anything

I found this out at lvl40.......far to late.

somebob

It's well worth subscribing for a single month (or however long it takes you to get to max level). Why?

1) You get a free respec every 10 levels if you're subscribed (and it stays when you drop your subscription).
2) You get more free inventory space if you're subscribed (and it stays when you drop your sub).
3) You get more free personal bank space if you're subscribed (and it stays).
4) You get a higher Energy Credit max (and it stays).
5) You get more ship and BOFF slots (and it stays).
6) You'll get 500Z per month (thus dropping your sub price down 'technically' by $5).

STO is a very weird hybrid F2P game where you want to subscribe for a month to go from level 1 to 50 and then never pay a subscription fee ever again. In CO you want to stay subscribed if you want to keep your features (like a Freeform character, free costumes, power colorization) - in STO you keep everything you've gained once you turn off the sub.

sparrowhawk4

I wish I'd understood what all the different skills affected. I ended up as a level 50 science officer, in a science vessel, with 9 points in Starship Attack Patterns. Thankfully I've now respeced.

xenogears7

I wished there was a good basic PVP guide when I first started out.
Got my tail handed to me plenty before I found something that gave me a good outline.

http://hilbertguide.com//

I know PVP ain't for everyone but it's always nice to get out of pure PVE once in a while.

ficr

somebob wrote: »

It's well worth subscribing for a single month (or however long it takes you to get to max level). Why?

1) You get a free respec every 10 levels if you're subscribed (and it stays when you drop your subscription).
2) You get more free inventory space if you're subscribed (and it stays when you drop your sub).
3) You get more free personal bank space if you're subscribed (and it stays).
4) You get a higher Energy Credit max (and it stays).
5) You get more ship and BOFF slots (and it stays).
6) You'll get 500Z per month (thus dropping your sub price down 'technically' by $5).

STO is a very weird hybrid F2P game where you want to subscribe for a month to go from level 1 to 50 and then never pay a subscription fee ever again. In CO you want to stay subscribed if you want to keep your features (like a Freeform character, free costumes, power colorization) - in STO you keep everything you've gained once you turn off the sub.

1) There are 2 approaches to get the free respec. Start at level 1 go gold. Or start at level 1 silver don't accept your promotion, play to 50 then go gold and accept your promotions. If you're already a silver 50 (that took your promotions) then you missed out on the free respecs.

4) The higher Energy Credit max is temporary. Once you go back to silver you don't loose what you have but you can't add EC until you get below the silver max.

The best way to subscribe is to find the old boxes. I got the collectors edition, this came with a 30 day subscription plus a bunch of other goodies. Oh, the boxes usually cost less then a standard 30 day subscription!