As a fresh 50, where should I focus my attention?

veilwolf

I joined STO at launch, but took a long hiatus shortly before F2P. I decided to come back and give the game a shot, and so far i like what I see. I've levelled twice more to 50, and now I'm settling in to try and get some better gear for my ships...as they are woefully underpowered I've noticed.

I've been playing with the DOFFS and Rep system a little bit, running some Queued PVE content, and I've been getting a lot of ground weapons, but very few ship equipment drops. I realise there's really no shortcuts to getting 'the good stuff', but I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction as to where I should focus my efforts to see the best return before Delta Rising arrives.

ovinspace

The best source for the good stuff are the rep and fleet systems: the borg rep has 3 sets of good ground gear, a very good console and 360 degree beam weapon, doffs and 3 sets of space gear, its the oldest and a good place to start as the marks are obtained from STfs; once a rep system is completed the other characters can receive a token that halves effort required to complete it, but this I think needs the account bank unlocked; for a fleet join an advanced fleet with a liberal attitude to provisions, small fleet take forever/never unlocked all the good stuff, TAC consoles and warp core/singularity are the best toys.

Figure out how what you like and how you want to play, try different areas remembering that for some content good teammates will make a big difference.

bendalek

<spoken with deep booming voice> Welcome to the GRIND! <insert dun, dun Dahhhh>

Seriously ... This thread has a lot of awesome information about free gear, and some tips on acquiring it ...

If you want to spend your time, going for item sets, and their respective set bonuses, you have the Rep Gear ... If you are in a Fleet, then there is a great deal of very nice gear available, though it will cost you a lot of Dilithium, and Fleet Credits to get it ...

Finally if you have a carp tonne of EC spare, there is now the new Crafted Items in Ultra Rare, that are comparable to many Fleet level items ...

The main things you MUST do is decide:

What career am I playing?
What ship am i flying?
What type of weapons an I going to use?
What weapon damage type am I going to use?

These four things, you will need to decide before investing time and/or resources into any gear, as most, if not all, the items will suit one "build" better than another ...

DO NOT believe anyone that tells you that "XXXX" is better than "YYYY" and you must have "ZZZZ" ...

And ... Have fun! Experiment a bit with cheaper exchange gear, and see what you prefer and what the anwsers are to the 4 questions above, then "upgrade" to Rep/Fleet versions ...

sjokruhlica

When I bring a toon to 50, and after deciding what ship/weapon type/ect I use, I generally go with the Borg and Rommy rep first. then go from there.

tardes13

First thing should be to create a cheap configuration for your ship, something that stops it from falling down from the sky ... too often.

By cheap, I mean few hundred thousand credits worth of gear, and that should be doable within few days from reading this. Don't know the size of your current financial resources or if you already have some good gear.

It may be a good idea to buy for yourself a "Mirror" ship to help you start, that should also be just few hundred thousands on exchange.

Together with a "better" configuration that you work towards. Choose a ship you would like to purchase, find out what gear works with that, your playstyle and career. This should include at least 1 good torpedo (probably from reputation), 1-2 reputation consoles, few pieces of fleet gear, and a nice ground / space set - start with a free one here.

Research what resources you can get for free (colonial chain DOFFs for your ship, space sets like the jem'hadar or solanae) and also the free bridge officers (from Dominion episodes and Dyson rep).

The link above with free gear is very good, but it will take some effort narrowing it down to what you really want for yourself (probably a handfull of items).

Romulan and Dyson reputation is very easy to work on a daily basis - just few minutes daily and they give you decent free gear in boxes (especially ship weapons and some consoles).

Omega Rep needs a little more work, and less "free" bonuses, but you will be able to get good gear and traits later on.


Make a first mental choice of energy and start building in that direction. For example, plasma and antiproton are popular choices, there's also polaron that you get free from Dyson rep.

The current lockbox gear is usually cheap, so it may be worth buying for yourself 1-2 sets of space weapons. If you watch the exchange long enough you should find good Mk XI biomatter phaser weapons under 100k credits. This is dirty cheap, once you start having a stable income.

For ground weapons, there are many lockbox very rare weapons that you can sometimes find on exchange very cheap.

Not a top priority, but you'll also need a decent ground kit, you can start by buying a xindi kit from exchange, then add 1 grenade or something to it, and continue to build it up from there.

At the same time you should find a stable source of income, once you know what you're confortable doing on a daily basis (mining / PVE queues / trading / DOFFing, etc). You should have a list of income providing "dailies", that take you few minutes or 1-2 hours every day, depending on your available time.

Talking about money, if you don't have a klingon toon (or romulan klingon) yet, start working on one, at least up to level 11 (for the DOFF missions). Or you can wait until the XP weekend when you can level up to 11 in 1-2 hours.

Unknown

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ovinspace

The undine rep can be done running Undine Infiltration ground mission, this includes a research materials box in the payout, box goes for 500k+ on the exchange, a couple of those could fund your early equipment and get you a trait or two.

Doing crystaline elite for the nukara gives a box worth about 100k and the space borg ones 80k, ground borg is the other one with a high value.

dirlettia

For a Fresh 50 now I would likely just get yourself a nice free set like the Solanae set and or the Jem'Hadar set with matching polarons and just build up Expertise like crazy ready for the expansion. With new Boffs there will likely be new powers so prepare for those and their unknown level of expense.

sammiefighter

Hmm let's see, I'd go

1) Build up any glaring flaws in your ship with the free items someone linked above
2) Start trying out the STF queues, figure out what you like / don't (but ignore the Rep system)
3) Build a small base of money/xp/rep tokens to feed the system. Do 1 of each type every day you can for 50 easy credits. (Still ignore the system)

4) Filling in T1 of some of the systems will allow you warp to the ground zones easier
5) Filling in T2 of the reps will get you space skills and hardern your ship
6) keep up supplies while you do T1 / T2

And you are kinda set. I'd do all of the options to T2, just for flexibility. I think it's 6 days per of "stuff and waiting". Fill in the rest if there are T3/T4 skills you like, or if you want the dil reward, or the item stuff. Slowly build up your ship/ground as you see fit. It's a marathon not a sprint.

Don't forget to check out the fleet stuff too.