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Early Decisions - Ultimate Newbie's new player's guide
ultimatenewbie
Member Posts: 269 Arc User
Although written in December 2014, information in this new player guide is current as at January 2020.
The purpose of this new player's guide is to outline and explain some of the early choices that Federation players must make in the game, concluding with a couple of tips for when you reach Level 40-50. They are my opinion, though I will attempt to be fair and balanced.
Tl;dr - the dot points are a summary.
Selecting a Character
When first starting STO, you will be confronted by a lot of options when it comes to building your character. Dont Panic. There are no right or wrong choices, and most things can be changed in-game at a later date. Just pick whatever takes your fancy at the moment. Later, if you really want to get into the dog-eat-dog of the PVP world, you can start a new character that is fully optimised for all that jazz; personally I dont bother. My first character was a Human Engineer with just all the default stuff, and she worked out perfectly fine.
Since then, I grinded for the Zen and have made characters that were Joined Trills, Klingons and Catians, among others. Whilst they are nice, there is not really much difference between the races unless you are trying to be very particular in your builds; what matters more is what profession you have selected.
When it comes to profession, again they are all playable. Tactical officers are meant to deal the most direct damage, and their aggressive stance is supported by hit-and-run powers (in space), and grenades/melee damage (on ground). Engineering officers are built for survivability with hull (and shield) healing in space, and they build turrets and drones in ground warfare. Science officers can be a tad harder to play initially, but their ability to buff/heal yourself and your team, and/or debuff your enemies in both space and ground make Science officers valuable support to teams.
I personally like Engineers, though I think my Science officers are the hardest to kill on ground maps; I find Tactical a little bit dull. Still, STO is strongly favours Tactical officers as damage per second (DPS) is becoming increasingly important; you mix it up based on what kind of ship you fly rather than what class of character you are. Also, just because you have a Tactical officer doesnt mean you should only fly escorts, Engineers in cruisers etc - I like mixing them up. Again, there are no wrong choices, experiment as you see fit, and find what you enjoy the most.
Starting out - tutorial
Captain Skill Points
As your character levels up - indeed, kills enemy ship and ground units - you gain expertise points (XP). These can be allocated to various skills (default press U and then select the 'Skills' tab). You will be confronted with a lot of choices - and the skills you choose have a material impact on the effectiveness of your character in both ground and space combat. See the detailed guide for more information.
Acquiring Energy Credits
Energy Credits, or EC, is the most basic in-game currency. You don't accumulate it directly, but rather you earn it through selling bits and pieces that you collect from destroyed enemy ships and enemy players that you bump off. Many of the actions I suggest below require some EC (though, not too much); this means you probably wont be able to do them all immediately, however it wont take long at all to accumulate.
You don't need to return to Earth to sell the stuff in your Inventory; you receive almost the full sell price for right clicking on it and selecting 'discard'. Edit: The space and ground equipment vendors at Earth Spacedock (ESD), (and First City and New Romulus Command) are among a few places where you can receive 50 per cent of the price when selling items, rather than the 40 per cent from your Inventory; however soon you might find that just selling it from the inventory is easier than lugging equipment around the universe... -credit to @westmetals.
Bridge Officers ('boffs')
All factions begin with default bridge officers. These will be essentially fine for most/all of the main story arc (to level 50 or so). Bridge officers come with four 'Skills' and four racial traits. You cannot change the racial traits, but you can change the Skills at the Skills Trainer NPC (under the Admiral's Office on Earth Spacedock) - see further below for some Skills suggestions.
Almost all races will have four ground-warfare traits only. However some, like Humans, Joined Trills, Liberated Borg, (and for non-Federation players, certain Romulans, Letheans and Nausicaans et al) will also have space traits. During the main storyline, there will be a mix of ground and space combat; however by late-game you will be generally focussed on space warfare.
If you have a Romulan character and you're reading this, do not ditch Satra; even though she is 'green' quality, she has two space traits (which the game doesnt recognise as high quality, hence a low colour).
Although it is far from essential, when I start a new character, I will usually hop onto the Exchange and purchase some bridge officers with space traits (for Federation players, this means Humans for the most part, however some Saurians have the "Efficient" trait which is handy at low levels). Generally aim for the "blue" quality officers - whilst the price fluctuates, you can generally find them for around 100 Energy Credits each; sometimes I've bought them for as little as 15EC. If you can find some cheap "purple" quality Human officers that you can afford, totally buy them.
Blue quality officers will have one trait to a high quality, two at normal quality and one at low quality; by opting for Humans, its worth spending a little extra cash to make the ground traits a tad better as you'll only have three per bridge officer. Purple quality boffs have two traits to a high quality, two at normal quality.
Also remember to swing by the "Requisitions" office and buy the cheapest "Full Auto Rifle" Mk I for each member of your away team (you plus up to four boffs). Even though they are only common (white) quality, they're a huge improvement on the weapons you'll normally find as Auto Rifles are relatively high damage, at long range, and their secondary fire makes them effective against groups of enemies. An away team armed with these will make short work of even boss-level enemies that you encounter early on. When you hit Lt Cmdr (Level 10), swing by again and buy the Mark III versions of the same weapon.
You will start out with four Bridge Officers (boffs): Elisa Flores (Tac Human); T'Vrell (Sci Vulcan); Zarva (Eng Bolian); and Kolez (Tac Saurian). Of these, only Flores is purple quality, the others are green.
Once you've bought the bridge officers you want, go to the Skills Trainer NPC under the Admiral's Office on Earth Spacedock. There are many skills to choose from, but I find the skills outlined above quite helpful. Other low-end skills that are useful include Reverse Shield Polarity (Engineering) which turns incoming damage into increasing your shields - very handy for those "oh TRIBBLE" moments where you're about to die, and also Hazard Emitters and Transfer Shield Strength (Science).
I have suggested this arrangement because Tactical Team boosts the effectiveness of your beam and torpedo weapons, plus redirects existing shield power towards the facing taking the most damage - very handy when you're broadsiding someone. Emergency Power to Weapons increases energy weapon damage (ie, dropping their shields faster and killing the enemy) and the Science Team heals your shields (ie, keeps you alive). Attack Pattern Beta I debuffs your targeted enemy, increasing the amount of damage it takes from you and your allies, Engineering Team heals your hull and Tachyon Beam is an offensive power that weakens/drains the targeted enemy's shields.
Early on you only have a limit of four boffs, and by default you are given two tactical officers (Flores and Kolez); as you reach higher levels you are awarded additional bridge officer slots (and you can buy more from the C Store). This constraint is important as the mix of bridge officer professions that you want depends on which new ship you acquire. . .
Starships - Tier 2
Once you hit Lt Cmdr, Level 10, you will return to Earth Spacedock and Admiral Quinn will give you leave to acquire your first new ship. I recommend transwarping back to Earth as it saves a lot of time (Transwarp is the circle button to the left of your map in space. You should never find yourself flying back to Earth.)
The default three ships are: Escort, Cruiser and Science Vessel. Of the three, the best ship is the Science Vessel; unlike higher-tier science vessels, it has the same number of weapon slots as the cruiser, plus the innate advantages of stronger shields and 'sensor analysis' (essentially a damage bonus against a single target when active) - remember to set this to active when shooting a target, but you'll stay in 'Red Alert' until you deactivate it for certain story missions where you just disable rather than destroy the target ship.
Remember to rebalance ship's power to weapons every time you acquire a new ship or you wont be hitting enemy ships very hard. Equip three Phaser Beam Arrays (and one Photon Torpedo launcher), broadside the enemy until their shield fails then quickly swing around and fling a torpedo through the open shield facing. Use your Bridge Officer abilities to pump up your weapons (Tactical Team), weaken their shields (Tachyon Beam) or harden yourself up (Science Team for shield heal, Engineering team for hull heal).
The cruiser is a solid choice, which will play in a similar way, but trades agility for hull resilience - its 'cruiser commands' are handy too. I think the escort is the weakest; it is fragile and there is an early mission where you have to survive for quite some time against a particularly hard enemy.
The playstyle of ships becomes more distinct once you reach Tier 3 Starships from the rank of Commander, mainly that the Akira escort is elegant, turns and shoots hard but is fragile - first time I tried it I would get myself killed, but flying it since then has been great fun! The Olympic Science Ship feels less agile, a bit underpowered in weapons but with strong shields. I still like the Heavy Cruiser, despite it being ugly, however, the reward from mission Temporal Ambassador is an Ambassador class cruiser which, whilst engineering heavy, allows you to play a cruiser if you wanted, and therefore picking an Escort or Science ship at Tier 3 offers more variety (Credit to @westmetals ... see his detailed Starship Acquisition guide here).
Duty Officers ('doffs')
You will receive access to the 'Duty Officer' system from Level 11, and receive your first complement of doffs at the same time. You can acquire additional doffs from Starfleet Academy (the 'Personnel Officer' NPC) - also remember to visit the Historian near the Personnel Officer and do the Midterm exam for a quick way to earn 480 Dilithium (once per day); Google "STO Lore" for the answers!
In STO, the Duty Officer system provides experience, bonuses to space and ground combat, income (including dilithium) and some unique equipment. Duty Officers can also be made "active"; five for space and for ground warfare. See the detailed thread for further information on how to use doffs effectively.
R&D Materials and Lock Boxes
Throughout STO, you will be able to collect various materials (eg, 'Duranium Ore') through wave-matching mini-games or through rewards from various fleet actions. For new players, you don't need to spend time searching every map to collect these (quick tip: press v and follow the Light); they are generally only useful if you want to spend time crafting equipment. This is more useful late game when you know what you want to build, and most players don't bother crafting stuff - however, for those who do it can be pretty lucrative; I just sold a Tier 2 Antiproton Beam Array with [CrtD]x3 for 5 million Energy Credits on the exchange... If you want to dabble, craft low-level gear that the market wants. You might also want to collect blue quality (or higher) resources, as they can be worth a little bit on the exchange, but otherwise just skip it. Successfully completing the mini-game will grant you an extra resource (eg, 5 Duranium Ores instead of 4).
Similarly, when you kill enemies they will drop, from time to time, various "lock boxes"; the current flavour of the month are 'Year of Hell' Lockboxes. This is Cryptic's way of getting players to spend real money on the game through buying 'master keys' with Zen to then unlock these boxes for a tiny chance of some really high-end ships. If you want to play STO as a free-to-play, don't bother collecting these. I generally have a few in my inventory just because it is easier to pick the boxes up than skip them and try and only pick up the other items, but from time to time dump them on the exchange for cheap.
Playing the game
There is a lot to do in STO, from following the main storyline, to patrolling random star systems, to player-vs-player combat, to pursuing the duty officer aspect of the game and enjoying the player-generated content (known as the Foundry). But I would suggest when first starting out to just simply follow the storyline - your character will level up to 60 before the story ends, so don't worry about that. Once you've played for a bit and have the hang of the game, then go back and do the other side missions. Once you do the 'patrol' missions or etc, do yourself a favour and see if you can select some sort of sector patrol mission from the "Available" list from the "Starfleet" button next to the minimap; generally you will get extra XP or other bonuses from doing the exact same work.
Fun missions
If you're not sure that you're enjoying STO, I'd suggest sticking around until level 15 or so (about four hours' play) for the mission "Everything old is new again" and the follow-on "Night of the Comet" - they are very retro. Around level 18-20 there are missions for those trekkies who enjoy the Klingon narrative (including a dirge sung in Klingon) and missions involving the Guardian from the Original Series "City on the Edge of Forever" episode, featuring The Voice of Spock. They are also fun.
Later Content - or 'Help I'm an Admiral and things just got serious!!'
As a Rear Admiral (Level 40) you will receive leave from Admiral Quinn for your last set of free ships (unless you're a Lifetime Subscriber, which I wont go into here). These Tier 5s are the Prometheus (Advanced Escort), Sovereign (Assault Cruiser) and Trident (Deep Space Science) ships. For most free players, this is the pinnacle of your choice of ships that arent from special events. However, you can grind Dilithium Ore, refine it into Dilithium and eventually trade it for Zen to purchase higher level ships from the Zen store - dont fret, it sounds daunting at first, but you'll get there surprisingly quickly if you focus. Do not purchase cheaper ships (which will be Tiers 1-4) as you've grown past them already - focus on Tier 6 (or at least upgrade-able) Tier 5 ships.
As a Vice Admiral (Level 50), with enough Zen, you will gain access to top of the line ships such as Tier 5 - Upgraded and Tier 6 ships, the Reputation system which in turn provides access to high-end gear, traits and so on. From Level 50, STO changes significantly from a sole focus on following the story, to the (as at Season 9: Delta Rising) the seemingly never-ending 'grind' for top end gear, Player-vs-Environment (PVE) "Fleet Actions" where you can earn Reputation Marks and Dilithium, and other content.
Around Level 50, players suddenly find themselves struggling to compete in comparison to other players, and the enemies start to get tougher rather suddenly (particularly in the Delta Quadrant). I recommend excellent advice like @tbonecrackerjack's advice on how to max out the performance of your ships without spending Zen or tens of millions of EC.
Free to play, or pay to win?
As a new player, it can be hard to determine whether its worth spending real money on a free-to-play game, and whether it is necessary. In short, STO is completely playable without ever paying a cent; the story arc is long and involved, and there are alternative means to earning Zen by refining dilithium. However, purchasing Zen and other things such as a subscription (or Lifetime Subscription) is particularly helpful if you are going to run more than one character (particularly more than one of the same faction, ie Federation). A Subscription indirectly helps your other characters progress; through the account bank to share items and resources, through Zen purchased ships that can be used by characters of the same faction, and other handy things such as a dilithium-refining duty officer mission. For LTS players you also get certain free Tier 6 ships for each faction and an income stream of 500 Zen per month. It also helps support the game, of course. There are also a bunch of other cosmetic things, such as uniforms, titles and so on which are not essential to playing the game. I looked at the value of LTS halfway through this thread.
Have fun!
The purpose of this new player's guide is to outline and explain some of the early choices that Federation players must make in the game, concluding with a couple of tips for when you reach Level 40-50. They are my opinion, though I will attempt to be fair and balanced.
Tl;dr - the dot points are a summary.
Selecting a Character
- Selecting a character: no bad choices, every race and profession is playable. Also, there are no apparent differences between genders.
- If you have the option of starting a 'Delta Recruit' or a 'Temporal Agent', absolutely select this option - you will receive various bonuses (and additional storyline) as your character progresses that are highly beneficial. Delta is done, but Temporal is up for a limited time!
When first starting STO, you will be confronted by a lot of options when it comes to building your character. Dont Panic. There are no right or wrong choices, and most things can be changed in-game at a later date. Just pick whatever takes your fancy at the moment. Later, if you really want to get into the dog-eat-dog of the PVP world, you can start a new character that is fully optimised for all that jazz; personally I dont bother. My first character was a Human Engineer with just all the default stuff, and she worked out perfectly fine.
Since then, I grinded for the Zen and have made characters that were Joined Trills, Klingons and Catians, among others. Whilst they are nice, there is not really much difference between the races unless you are trying to be very particular in your builds; what matters more is what profession you have selected.
When it comes to profession, again they are all playable. Tactical officers are meant to deal the most direct damage, and their aggressive stance is supported by hit-and-run powers (in space), and grenades/melee damage (on ground). Engineering officers are built for survivability with hull (and shield) healing in space, and they build turrets and drones in ground warfare. Science officers can be a tad harder to play initially, but their ability to buff/heal yourself and your team, and/or debuff your enemies in both space and ground make Science officers valuable support to teams.
I personally like Engineers, though I think my Science officers are the hardest to kill on ground maps; I find Tactical a little bit dull. Still, STO is strongly favours Tactical officers as damage per second (DPS) is becoming increasingly important; you mix it up based on what kind of ship you fly rather than what class of character you are. Also, just because you have a Tactical officer doesnt mean you should only fly escorts, Engineers in cruisers etc - I like mixing them up. Again, there are no wrong choices, experiment as you see fit, and find what you enjoy the most.
Starting out - tutorial
- Do the tutorial - it is actually a good story (if a little incredulous) and you learn key skills (such as broadsides and power management).
Captain Skill Points
- Choose where you spend your limited skill points wisely - if you decide later to change you can grab a Respec Token from the Zen store.
- See the main article: [Guide] Captain Skill Points and Specialisation System for New Players.
As your character levels up - indeed, kills enemy ship and ground units - you gain expertise points (XP). These can be allocated to various skills (default press U and then select the 'Skills' tab). You will be confronted with a lot of choices - and the skills you choose have a material impact on the effectiveness of your character in both ground and space combat. See the detailed guide for more information.
Acquiring Energy Credits
- Sell the items that you come across to clear your Inventory; use the Energy Credits to buy useful things (as per the below).
Energy Credits, or EC, is the most basic in-game currency. You don't accumulate it directly, but rather you earn it through selling bits and pieces that you collect from destroyed enemy ships and enemy players that you bump off. Many of the actions I suggest below require some EC (though, not too much); this means you probably wont be able to do them all immediately, however it wont take long at all to accumulate.
You don't need to return to Earth to sell the stuff in your Inventory; you receive almost the full sell price for right clicking on it and selecting 'discard'. Edit: The space and ground equipment vendors at Earth Spacedock (ESD), (and First City and New Romulus Command) are among a few places where you can receive 50 per cent of the price when selling items, rather than the 40 per cent from your Inventory; however soon you might find that just selling it from the inventory is easier than lugging equipment around the universe... -credit to @westmetals.
Bridge Officers ('boffs')
- To optimise your character's space warfighting capability, ditch all the Bridge Officers that you start with except Flores. You don't need to do this immediately, as it takes a little bit of time to build up Energy Credits. If you are Romulan, do not ditch Satra.
All factions begin with default bridge officers. These will be essentially fine for most/all of the main story arc (to level 50 or so). Bridge officers come with four 'Skills' and four racial traits. You cannot change the racial traits, but you can change the Skills at the Skills Trainer NPC (under the Admiral's Office on Earth Spacedock) - see further below for some Skills suggestions.
Almost all races will have four ground-warfare traits only. However some, like Humans, Joined Trills, Liberated Borg, (and for non-Federation players, certain Romulans, Letheans and Nausicaans et al) will also have space traits. During the main storyline, there will be a mix of ground and space combat; however by late-game you will be generally focussed on space warfare.
If you have a Romulan character and you're reading this, do not ditch Satra; even though she is 'green' quality, she has two space traits (which the game doesnt recognise as high quality, hence a low colour).
- Dismiss your Green boffs and go to the Exchange and buy blue (or purple) quality Human boffs. You can usually grab blue boffs from the exchange at less than 100 Energy Credits each. Purple boffs cost quite a bit more (about 10,000).
- The mix of Tactical, Engineering or Science boffs will depend on which Tier 2 Starship you elect to purchase (see further below).
- Equip them all with a Full Auto Rifle Mk I from the Requisitions Officer at Earth Spacedock.
Although it is far from essential, when I start a new character, I will usually hop onto the Exchange and purchase some bridge officers with space traits (for Federation players, this means Humans for the most part, however some Saurians have the "Efficient" trait which is handy at low levels). Generally aim for the "blue" quality officers - whilst the price fluctuates, you can generally find them for around 100 Energy Credits each; sometimes I've bought them for as little as 15EC. If you can find some cheap "purple" quality Human officers that you can afford, totally buy them.
Blue quality officers will have one trait to a high quality, two at normal quality and one at low quality; by opting for Humans, its worth spending a little extra cash to make the ground traits a tad better as you'll only have three per bridge officer. Purple quality boffs have two traits to a high quality, two at normal quality.
Also remember to swing by the "Requisitions" office and buy the cheapest "Full Auto Rifle" Mk I for each member of your away team (you plus up to four boffs). Even though they are only common (white) quality, they're a huge improvement on the weapons you'll normally find as Auto Rifles are relatively high damage, at long range, and their secondary fire makes them effective against groups of enemies. An away team armed with these will make short work of even boss-level enemies that you encounter early on. When you hit Lt Cmdr (Level 10), swing by again and buy the Mark III versions of the same weapon.
- Retrain your new boffs at the NPC below the Admiral's Office so they have useful skills. I suggest:
- Tactical (Flores): Tactical Team I, Attack Pattern Beta I
- Engineering: Emergency Power to Weapons I, Engineering Team II
- Science: Science Team I, Tachyon Beam II
You will start out with four Bridge Officers (boffs): Elisa Flores (Tac Human); T'Vrell (Sci Vulcan); Zarva (Eng Bolian); and Kolez (Tac Saurian). Of these, only Flores is purple quality, the others are green.
Once you've bought the bridge officers you want, go to the Skills Trainer NPC under the Admiral's Office on Earth Spacedock. There are many skills to choose from, but I find the skills outlined above quite helpful. Other low-end skills that are useful include Reverse Shield Polarity (Engineering) which turns incoming damage into increasing your shields - very handy for those "oh TRIBBLE" moments where you're about to die, and also Hazard Emitters and Transfer Shield Strength (Science).
I have suggested this arrangement because Tactical Team boosts the effectiveness of your beam and torpedo weapons, plus redirects existing shield power towards the facing taking the most damage - very handy when you're broadsiding someone. Emergency Power to Weapons increases energy weapon damage (ie, dropping their shields faster and killing the enemy) and the Science Team heals your shields (ie, keeps you alive). Attack Pattern Beta I debuffs your targeted enemy, increasing the amount of damage it takes from you and your allies, Engineering Team heals your hull and Tachyon Beam is an offensive power that weakens/drains the targeted enemy's shields.
Early on you only have a limit of four boffs, and by default you are given two tactical officers (Flores and Kolez); as you reach higher levels you are awarded additional bridge officer slots (and you can buy more from the C Store). This constraint is important as the mix of bridge officer professions that you want depends on which new ship you acquire. . .
Starships - Tier 2
- Escort: Fast, maneuverable, weak shields low hull HP. Designed for strong hitting power in your front arc only, then running before you die. Clearly the weakest ship at this level. You will need an additional Tactical boff for this ship (ie, Flores plus one more).
- Cruiser: Slow, but resilient with OK shields and high hull HP: designed for turning side on to an enemy and giving them a broadside with their phaser beam arrays. A solid choice, but I suggest removing one of the default two torpedo launchers for a third beam array - it brings down enemy shields faster. You will need an additional Engineering boff for this ship.
- Science Vessel: Small, almost as agile as an escort, strong shields but OK hull HP: plays like a cruiser but she can turn - easily my favourite ship at this level regardless of which profession (Tactical/Engineer/Science) my character is. You will need an additional Science boff for this ship.
- See the main article: [Guide] Starship Equipment, Weapons and Consoles for New Players to understand more about how starship equipment works.
Once you hit Lt Cmdr, Level 10, you will return to Earth Spacedock and Admiral Quinn will give you leave to acquire your first new ship. I recommend transwarping back to Earth as it saves a lot of time (Transwarp is the circle button to the left of your map in space. You should never find yourself flying back to Earth.)
The default three ships are: Escort, Cruiser and Science Vessel. Of the three, the best ship is the Science Vessel; unlike higher-tier science vessels, it has the same number of weapon slots as the cruiser, plus the innate advantages of stronger shields and 'sensor analysis' (essentially a damage bonus against a single target when active) - remember to set this to active when shooting a target, but you'll stay in 'Red Alert' until you deactivate it for certain story missions where you just disable rather than destroy the target ship.
Remember to rebalance ship's power to weapons every time you acquire a new ship or you wont be hitting enemy ships very hard. Equip three Phaser Beam Arrays (and one Photon Torpedo launcher), broadside the enemy until their shield fails then quickly swing around and fling a torpedo through the open shield facing. Use your Bridge Officer abilities to pump up your weapons (Tactical Team), weaken their shields (Tachyon Beam) or harden yourself up (Science Team for shield heal, Engineering team for hull heal).
The cruiser is a solid choice, which will play in a similar way, but trades agility for hull resilience - its 'cruiser commands' are handy too. I think the escort is the weakest; it is fragile and there is an early mission where you have to survive for quite some time against a particularly hard enemy.
The playstyle of ships becomes more distinct once you reach Tier 3 Starships from the rank of Commander, mainly that the Akira escort is elegant, turns and shoots hard but is fragile - first time I tried it I would get myself killed, but flying it since then has been great fun! The Olympic Science Ship feels less agile, a bit underpowered in weapons but with strong shields. I still like the Heavy Cruiser, despite it being ugly, however, the reward from mission Temporal Ambassador is an Ambassador class cruiser which, whilst engineering heavy, allows you to play a cruiser if you wanted, and therefore picking an Escort or Science ship at Tier 3 offers more variety (Credit to @westmetals ... see his detailed Starship Acquisition guide here).
Duty Officers ('doffs')
- Start your Duty Officer missions as soon as they become available.
- Remember to regularly visit Starfleet Academy to acquire additional duty officers
- "Active" doffs can provide materially useful support in both space and ground combat.
- See the main article: [Guide] Admiralty and Duty Officers for New Players.
You will receive access to the 'Duty Officer' system from Level 11, and receive your first complement of doffs at the same time. You can acquire additional doffs from Starfleet Academy (the 'Personnel Officer' NPC) - also remember to visit the Historian near the Personnel Officer and do the Midterm exam for a quick way to earn 480 Dilithium (once per day); Google "STO Lore" for the answers!
In STO, the Duty Officer system provides experience, bonuses to space and ground combat, income (including dilithium) and some unique equipment. Duty Officers can also be made "active"; five for space and for ground warfare. See the detailed thread for further information on how to use doffs effectively.
R&D Materials and Lock Boxes
- Both are junk unless you know what you're doing and really want to specialise/invest heavily in these things. Don't bother.
Throughout STO, you will be able to collect various materials (eg, 'Duranium Ore') through wave-matching mini-games or through rewards from various fleet actions. For new players, you don't need to spend time searching every map to collect these (quick tip: press v and follow the Light); they are generally only useful if you want to spend time crafting equipment. This is more useful late game when you know what you want to build, and most players don't bother crafting stuff - however, for those who do it can be pretty lucrative; I just sold a Tier 2 Antiproton Beam Array with [CrtD]x3 for 5 million Energy Credits on the exchange... If you want to dabble, craft low-level gear that the market wants. You might also want to collect blue quality (or higher) resources, as they can be worth a little bit on the exchange, but otherwise just skip it. Successfully completing the mini-game will grant you an extra resource (eg, 5 Duranium Ores instead of 4).
Similarly, when you kill enemies they will drop, from time to time, various "lock boxes"; the current flavour of the month are 'Year of Hell' Lockboxes. This is Cryptic's way of getting players to spend real money on the game through buying 'master keys' with Zen to then unlock these boxes for a tiny chance of some really high-end ships. If you want to play STO as a free-to-play, don't bother collecting these. I generally have a few in my inventory just because it is easier to pick the boxes up than skip them and try and only pick up the other items, but from time to time dump them on the exchange for cheap.
Playing the game
- Follow the story; doing other missions on the side can be fun and rewarding, but can also get tedious.
There is a lot to do in STO, from following the main storyline, to patrolling random star systems, to player-vs-player combat, to pursuing the duty officer aspect of the game and enjoying the player-generated content (known as the Foundry). But I would suggest when first starting out to just simply follow the storyline - your character will level up to 60 before the story ends, so don't worry about that. Once you've played for a bit and have the hang of the game, then go back and do the other side missions. Once you do the 'patrol' missions or etc, do yourself a favour and see if you can select some sort of sector patrol mission from the "Available" list from the "Starfleet" button next to the minimap; generally you will get extra XP or other bonuses from doing the exact same work.
Fun missions
- Give STO a chance: if you're not sure that you're having fun, stick around until Level 15 for the missions "Everything Old is New" and the follow-on "Night of the Comet"; they are very Star Trek Original Series retro missions that are a bit of fun.
If you're not sure that you're enjoying STO, I'd suggest sticking around until level 15 or so (about four hours' play) for the mission "Everything old is new again" and the follow-on "Night of the Comet" - they are very retro. Around level 18-20 there are missions for those trekkies who enjoy the Klingon narrative (including a dirge sung in Klingon) and missions involving the Guardian from the Original Series "City on the Edge of Forever" episode, featuring The Voice of Spock. They are also fun.
Later Content - or 'Help I'm an Admiral and things just got serious!!'
- When you reach level 50, which will occur before you finish the story arc, STO really opens out - you gain access to 'endgame' level ships but your enemies are tougher.
- For tips on the Admiralty system, including what to do with early-game ships, see the main article: [Guide] Admiralty and Duty Officers for New Players.
As a Rear Admiral (Level 40) you will receive leave from Admiral Quinn for your last set of free ships (unless you're a Lifetime Subscriber, which I wont go into here). These Tier 5s are the Prometheus (Advanced Escort), Sovereign (Assault Cruiser) and Trident (Deep Space Science) ships. For most free players, this is the pinnacle of your choice of ships that arent from special events. However, you can grind Dilithium Ore, refine it into Dilithium and eventually trade it for Zen to purchase higher level ships from the Zen store - dont fret, it sounds daunting at first, but you'll get there surprisingly quickly if you focus. Do not purchase cheaper ships (which will be Tiers 1-4) as you've grown past them already - focus on Tier 6 (or at least upgrade-able) Tier 5 ships.
As a Vice Admiral (Level 50), with enough Zen, you will gain access to top of the line ships such as Tier 5 - Upgraded and Tier 6 ships, the Reputation system which in turn provides access to high-end gear, traits and so on. From Level 50, STO changes significantly from a sole focus on following the story, to the (as at Season 9: Delta Rising) the seemingly never-ending 'grind' for top end gear, Player-vs-Environment (PVE) "Fleet Actions" where you can earn Reputation Marks and Dilithium, and other content.
Around Level 50, players suddenly find themselves struggling to compete in comparison to other players, and the enemies start to get tougher rather suddenly (particularly in the Delta Quadrant). I recommend excellent advice like @tbonecrackerjack's advice on how to max out the performance of your ships without spending Zen or tens of millions of EC.
Free to play, or pay to win?
- In my opinion, STO is definitely a free to play game - the only question is how much time you're willing to devote to it.
- If you are thinking about purchasing a Lifetime Subscription (LTS), you should absolutely wait until they go on sale (for US$199 rather than US$299) - this happens about twice a year.
As a new player, it can be hard to determine whether its worth spending real money on a free-to-play game, and whether it is necessary. In short, STO is completely playable without ever paying a cent; the story arc is long and involved, and there are alternative means to earning Zen by refining dilithium. However, purchasing Zen and other things such as a subscription (or Lifetime Subscription) is particularly helpful if you are going to run more than one character (particularly more than one of the same faction, ie Federation). A Subscription indirectly helps your other characters progress; through the account bank to share items and resources, through Zen purchased ships that can be used by characters of the same faction, and other handy things such as a dilithium-refining duty officer mission. For LTS players you also get certain free Tier 6 ships for each faction and an income stream of 500 Zen per month. It also helps support the game, of course. There are also a bunch of other cosmetic things, such as uniforms, titles and so on which are not essential to playing the game. I looked at the value of LTS halfway through this thread.
Have fun!
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My Ship Builds: USS Conqueror, HMS Victorious, HMS Concord, ISS Queen Elizabeth, Black Widow III
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- Don't panic! Just play the game, do missions, visit planets. Do not worry about min-maxing right from the beginning. Do not invest resources and money before you know, if you really like this game. Take it easy.
- Experiment with different gear. There are plenty different items from drops and missions (and cheap stuff from exchange). See what you like best. Some prefer full auto-rifles, others prefer split beam rifles. It is a game, find an enjoyable play style for you.
- STO is quite complex. Spent some time on the forum and the wiki to see what is out there. There are plenty of guides, builds and people who can answer your questions.
- There are different things to do in STO. It is not all about running borg STFs with the "best" gear equipped. You can spend time with Doffing or accolade hunting or role playing or trading or crafting or whatever. I even heard rumors that there is still PVP in this game.
- Don't be afraid of ground. Many players do not like it and say it is bad. It is not. It is doable and it is enjoyable.
Imo essential if your a TOS RP player. Personally I find the the sub-50 missions are more fun for me these days before getting into the gear grind rush, but I have played the game almost daily for 2 years now and it still has appeal.
The most important thing is enjoy the game there is no need to rush to the end.
My Ship Builds: USS Conqueror, HMS Victorious, HMS Concord, ISS Queen Elizabeth, Black Widow III
Click here to view my DeviantArt.
To add to this. I find ground combat only became fun after extensive rebinding of my ground control keys. The default controls can be rather clunky and altering the 'Controls' portion of the Escape menu can further improve your performance and allow ground combat to go a lot more smoothly and fluidly.
This works for Space combat too, so don't be afraid to take a break and carefully play with Control rebinding if you find controlling your ground character or spaceship to be too cumbersome.
These controls will guide you for the rest of your career in STO, so it is important the controls feel natural to you. Using the muscle memory from other games and rebinding the keyboard/mouse/joystick control to controls you similarly used in other games will make the transition easier and learning curve less steep.
Example: I use Shift+C in another game to duck and roll. I rebound that command in STO so ducking and rolling comes more naturally and I do not need to learn new controls for what is effectively the same thing.
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My own advice?
1: Your Miranda, T'Liss, or B'Rel are garbage. They do not represent your typical space experience, particularly at higher levels. Do not base your first impression of STO's space combat on the lower-level ships. Space combat only becomes fun and interesting at higher levels with more powers, consoles, and abilities to play with.
2: Disable your fly-in notifications. This is achieved by clicking the Downwards-pointing arrow in the upper-right corner of your mini-map, click Notifications Settings and uncheck Gameplay Announcements in Chat and Fly-In. This prevents annoying Lockbox winner announcements and those players who get through No Win Scenario.
3: Disable Zone chat. This is achieved by right-clicking your chat tab, and scrolling down the right side of the menu until you see Zone. Uncheck that box as soon as you possibly can, ideally during the tutorial.
4: Make friends who know the game. Do not be afraid to ask dumb questions, but take advice with an open mind and learn from experts.
Ultimately, you will find your own path and question everything and everyone's advice at some point. Including my own.
My Ship Builds: USS Conqueror, HMS Victorious, HMS Concord, ISS Queen Elizabeth, Black Widow III
Click here to view my DeviantArt.
im not sure this is the best advice.
the races and factions are clearly not the same, with each of them having distinctive advantages/disadvantages, eg kdf marauding, romulan crits, feddie sci, etc and there are some choices a newbie can make that would make for a dreadful first toon.
the professions are certainly not the same. tac is fairly straight-forward and newbie-friendly, while sci is quite a bit more convoluted requiring more knowledge to spec into and play effectively.
lastly, you cannot change your toons gender, profession, race, or faction at a later date. your only option is to roll a new toon...
additionally, this is obviously written as a non romulan fed!
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The only advice I could add, and it's already been stated: have fun!
This should be stickied, BTW...
CM
Hi, thanks for the reply!
Whilst I agree that the Constitution class Enterprise is a good early choice of ship for Zen, and the weapons that come with it are quite handy to have, I deliberately didnt get into the aspect of the game that requires real-world money or dilithium grinding for Zen to acquire. The main reason is that this guide was for new players doing their first STO character; it is very rare for new players to pay money for a game that is free to play when they havent actually played it.
But once you make your second character, totally get the Enterprise.
You've convinced me - next char I make might be a tac-cat.
Interesting - I remember testing this a couple of years ago and found no discernible difference. Perhaps I was using the wrong vendors? I'll go and have a play around and make a change above if I find the contrary.
I agree that the various weapon types have their roles (with the Pulsewave acting like a shotgun) but it really depends on your playstyle. As one of the other players commented, experiment a bit; try what you like. I was trying to keep the guide simple - STO confronts you with a lot of complexity early on, so this guide will give an answer to "which weapon do you suggest I use" as opposed to "what is the best weapon for all/specific situations". At such low levels (<20) there isnt a huge difference anyway.
Yes, the Original Series bundle (which also comes with a Tier 1 Constitution Class ship and Bridge, by the way!) goes a long way to make things cool if you're using STO to role play - though again this costs Zen (which I was trying to avoid) and RP might be something someone new to the game might come back to once they've got off the ground a little bit.
Hi, thanks for the reply. I'm not convinced that it is possible to make a 'dreadful' first character - what combination of race and profession makes the game unplayable? I cant think of any that makes the game so frustrating you want to break stuff.
I agree that there are combinations of races and professions that are ideal for certain styles of play and certain ship builds etc, however that is not the purpose of this guide. This guide was a generic look at getting off the ground, rather than trying to optimise for intricate builds right from the start; indeed I suggested that once you get the hang of the game a new player might want to go back and build exactly what they wanted.
Ah yes, somehow I completely disregarded the choice of profession. Whilst that has been done to death pretty much everywhere, I might put in a short description soon. Thanks for pointing that out!
This is true, however you can change many things with the right combination of menu selection, grinding, luck and zen, including most racial traits, respec tokens, genetic resequences and character names. But I really didnt want to get into that kind of detail - as it really is only for advanced players - so I said "essentially"
Thank you, much obliged
True, it is a good opportunity to try different types of ship, though I personally wasnt a fan of the Support Cruiser - very engineering heavy and not enough Science boff slots
Aha, thanks - clearly outsourced my work for me
Also, I've just played your Foundry mission - really enjoyed it!! Clever mix of storylines. Thanks!
My Ship Builds: USS Conqueror, HMS Victorious, HMS Concord, ISS Queen Elizabeth, Black Widow III
Click here to view my DeviantArt.
For example, if the next mission requires a player to be at Commander, play just enough Patrol Missions to make your char a Captain. Then go back and play the next Story Mission. The NPC's level up and down based on the player's level, yes. But I always had a great deal more success when I did things this way.
What I am about to say next may seem at odds with the above. It is definitely heretical in the extreme.
DO NOT 'power level'! Ever.
There is no valid reason to race like mad for Vice Admiral and all the things beyond it. You'll arrive there soon enough anyway. Some people get so tied up in char leveling they miss out on enjoying the game. And despite what some around here state, there are a great many very enjoyable things about STO.
The Foundry Is Your Friend.
Whenever I wanted to try out a different ship from the free offerings, I never had enough Dilithium. Unless I purchased Zen and converted it. Which isn't really an efficient use of RL currency. The Foundry Missions are an excellent source of Dilithium. Some of the user created missions within the Foundry are at least equal to or in a lot of cases superior to the 'official' content. Whenever I want to do a mission which feels like real Star Trek, I go check out the Foundry. I am nearly always delighted with the choice.
Away Team Duplication of Effort.
You have two Engineering Boffs on your Away Team. If one Turret Fabrication is good, two of them has to be better, right? Nope. You want an Away Team to have the broadest possible range of useful abilities. Make sure you have all the abilities you really want first. Then, if you have left over slots, fill them with duplicated abilities. You also want the right mix of Boffs. Unlike the ship Boff slots, the Away Team allows you to have any type of Boff in any amount up to the max of four. You want Four Tactical officers? Okay, then go for it!
However, this may not be practical until you get more comfortable with the game. I recommend the following force mix. Which includes your char. Two Tactical/Two Engineer/One Sci. This is the mix which seems to be the most effective for me. Others are equally valid, I just prefer this one.
"Have Fun! Shoot Bad Guys!"
Another thing which gets overlooked is having fun while playing STO. This is a game. Something we do to entertain ourselves. It should not be allowed to become a lifestyle choice. Star Trek is supposed to be a TV series which has some very good films as well. It should not be treated as a religion. Star Trek and STO by extension should not be taken as seriously as some people around here treat them. (Hail Gene! In His Name, we grind!) Others want to measure how successful they are at playing the game. This is done in all sorts of ways. From DPS meters to how fast one can finish an STF in. I used to do these.
One day, someone asked me ingame if I was enjoying myself. I was surprised to find the answer was, "No." And had apparently been so for a long time. Stopped playing for about a week. when I came back, I had new criteria for whether or not I was playing the game successfully.
- Never play STO long enough in one session so it stops being fun.
- The shinys I want will show up when they are ready to. Not when I want them to.
- If I had fun and am looking forward to the next time I play STO, I played STO successfully this time.
Thank you again!:D
race and gender are 99% cosmetic. Small racial differences are barely worth a mention, apart from the *outstanding* romulan traits (space: operative, and ground: plasma weapons).
Facton is extremely important.
KDF get access to multiple things that make the game easier --- plasma leech console, which nearly every player uses at endgame, and a couple of others including one that can move you behind your target (BOP raider flanking or making use of pedal to the metal.. etc). They can get tons of contraband which can be converted to dilithum and that to zen ... opening up access to everything in the game easier. They have a set of empire defense missions that are extra nice for leveling up, earning dil, and vendor trash loot or even usable items early on. A top dpser can do all 4 of those missions in half an hour and nearly hit their daily dil cap, earn over 1/2 mil in junk vendor money, and get a chunk of a specialization point all at once. Downside to kdf are fewer players, less developed fleets, and a very small but solid selection of ships.
Romulans get access to high dps trait as a race and officers with the same. Their ships are mostly dps oriented. It is THE faction for damage dealing. It is not so hot for anything else -- and almost "bad" for science due to their ship selection. Almost all rom ships are very similar to each other in terms of actual performance, with one or two exceptions (the one science ship, for example).
Federation is a mixed bag. You get more races to pick from, more ships, more players and popularity, bigger fleets etc. But leech and contraband are hard to get, their officer and racial traits have little to no use in space combat (all factions have strong ground traits, by the way), and while the ships are well rounded dps is not their primary design goal. Feds have better sciene ships, generally.
Captain type is also very important.
pretty basic there... any captain can do well in any role using any type of ship. Yes, even tacticals can tank it up in a tanky ship, and sci can fly an escort, etc.
the basics are good enough to pick:
NOTE -- I speak only of the captain, not his officer's skills in whatever ship type. A sci ship seats more sci officers and can do things regardless of the captain type. A tactical ship can seat tac officers and does the same things regardless of captain type. This is JUST about the captain!
tactical -- does damage, lots of it, mostly with weapons but *can* excel with science builds. Not an awesome tank, but can wing it well enough for this game.
engineer -- best survival, and loaded with neat ground skills.
science --- well rounded, excellent on the ground, balanced in space.
Damage is a major part of STO. Tanking, healing, crowd control (apart from using it to do aoe damage), and other such things all play a distant third place to damage, which is important enough to take the #1 and #2 spots for importance. People can, and do play tanks and healers etc. But most of those ALSO do solid damage. It is, at the end of the day, a combat game.
Quick rule of thumb. If the venders sell hypos/batteries like in the shipyard or personal requisitions then it is 50%. If they sell food or drink like jumba stick or saurian brandy then it is also 50%.
If they sell commodities or are an arms dealer then it is 40%.
Not all venders are created equal.
Once you've ranked up, it is only usable in the sector space patrols where the NPCs are only level 5 or something, but then you are just facerolling and not as fun because they are so easy, otherwise if you do the Tour the Galaxy it can be used.
The TOS ship is only $5 unless you happen to get it on sale, but not mandatory in any way, just nostalgic.
EDIT: I also wanted to mention a simple breakdown of the character classes:
Tactical: Best space and ground offensive character to hitting the hardest with self and team abilities.
Engineering: Best defensive and team support career, able to best boost power levels and repairs for self and team.
Science: Best at using science to debuff enemies and controlling groups of enemy characters, some self and team buff abilities.
Perhaps there is a better way to express this, but the descriptions above start to give an idea of the distinctions between the career types.
SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
Thank you! And yes, the game really opens up at Level 50 (and now, beyond!).
If you're thinking of using Zen to buy ships, then favour the higher tier (upgradable tier 5 ships, or tier 6 ships) as you'll zoom past the lower-tier ships very quickly. However, some of the lower tier ships have great modules that you can transfer onto top ships (eg, the Point Defence System from the Tier 3 Escort (Thunderchild)).
Full auto rifles are currently bugged and doing way too much damage. They're still my favorite of the conventional weapon types, though. Romulan players have access to the plasma repeater pistol and piercing beam rifle, which are both incredibly good. I ran common repeaters up til level 50 because their secondary damage output still trumped the rare gear I was getting through the story. I went on a tangent there, but I've heard that using a mix of different weapon types on your boffs actually works out better. The expose/exploit mechanic encourages this, too.
I advise every player to get into R&D ASAP. It's a big daunting interface and not well explained, so I could see players looking at it, getting confused, and not bothering. (The newly introduced UI lag when switching tabs is not helping things.) Still, players should pick a school, and start crafting themselves some mk II gear with all those white R&D mats they'll be collecting, then slotting a research project in that same school when they log off.
Focus on one school for each slot you have -- beams, cannons, ground weapons, or engineering are a nice idea for a first school since you'll get lots of use out of the gear, but science is the go to for a captain that plans on flying sci vessels. This will pay off if you keep playing. What I don't advise is crafting too many things above mk II, or ever using the finish now button. Keep making mk II gear, and sell it on the exchange. If you get the right modifiers on an energy weapon, you could make millions of EC, easily.
Lastly, enjoy levels 10-30. I feel STO's space combat feels its most balanced at these levels, you're pretty evenly matched with the ships you're fighting. Lots of fun stuff only opens up at 50, but I always miss flying t2-3 ships.
Also the console off of the Oberth (FED) and B'Rotlh (KDF) are one's you'll probably take with you all the way to level 50 if your playing as a Fed with a Sci based build or as a KDF in a Bird of Prey. I have both and they are great items if you are into C store stuff.
Can't speak to the Rom Tier 1 console but I'm sure someone here will chime in for that info.
Even before the Full Auto Rifles were bugged, they still did some of the most direct damage in the game (ie, without using secondary fire, which BOFFs have difficulty using at effective times); they were second to Pulsewave Rifles and (I think) dual pistols. Both of the latter weapons were relatively short-ranged though, whereas full autos did their DPS from afar; ie, behind a chrontion mine barrier, behind turrets or within shield generators and etc. Plus they're cheap as chips, so hard to go past them.
As for non-federation players, plasma weapons etc for romulans with the relevant trait are pretty good.
I'm not sure that there is much point to this - the R&D school implies that you know what you want to build (eg, will it be immediately apparent to bulk up on your Science school in order to build epic Field Generators for your ship's shields? Prolly not.) Therefore, I think once players have played for a bit and understand the game, they can then go back and optimise what they want in a new character, and then start the new school, well suited to the aspect of the game they are after (eg ground/space, DPS/tanking, etc).
I agree. In some respects, I think the story is a bit silly insofar as by level 30 you've destroyed like 200 klingon ships, 50 romulan ships and a few other borg, hirogen, orion and other randoms. Essentially, in the "real world" you'd be the most badass ship ever built, but the story doesnt suggest it is very important ever. IMO i'd prefer stronger enemies but far fewer of them (eg, destroying one enemy ship per mission would be plenty). But who am I to suggest such heresy... It'd make the Accolades of killing x hundred enemy ships essentially impossible
My suggestion is for unlocking the level 15 traits, not crafting gear. R&D schools take forever to level up that high -- getting an early start on it is a really good idea. The science trait, in particular, in incredible, which is why that's my go-to suggestion if someone is even remotely considering using exotic damage abilities.
I actually view crafting high mark gear or special gear as a much more forgiving version of lockboxes, and don't recommend it to players at all. The people who are crafting these things are oversaturating the market with them, so with a few exceptions, it's pretty cheap to just buy what you want. Crafting mk II is a nice way to get a spike of EC now and then, and you're gambling with mats everyone has too many of anyway.
I have been grinding out my R&D since the revamp following much the same rules. 4 schools on 1 toon, 3 on another (with appropriate purple DOFFs), no dilithium spent and I'm at level 16. I have done some serious crunching of costs of making high end gear and agree that it ends up being a lower risk lock box, particularly due to the isolinear chip's cost and importance.
I hadn't considered crafting MkII and selling it, that's great advice. My fleet needs a lot of torpedo launchers and I'm debating crafting them up due to the extreme EC cost of purchasing them outright. Anyone know where I can get a lot of 250 MK VII Torp launchers? lol
If you are KDF or Rommie which is KDF aligned, as soon as possible grab the ship which has the Plasmonic Leech Console. Once one char purchases the ship, all your KDF chars will have access to this Console. To say it is highly useful understates it.
When Speccing your char, think hard before you spend those points. Having a char which is okay at everything is usually not as useful as having a char which is very good at a few things. For example, I do not use torps on most of my builds. So, spending points on any projectile related skill means I have wasted those points. I do want my chars to be able to drain their targets, due to having the Plasmonic Leech on nearly every KDF ship I own, so I maxxed out the points in areas which improved this.
As a corollary to this, go ahead and purchase a ReSpec Token. These are Account based rather than char based. So if you get something wrong, you can fix it. I'd probably leave the fix until I got to lvl 50. You will have a much better feel for what you want the char to do by then.
Green is your friend. Mk XII Uncommon is cheap and plentiful. "Going Green" allows you to try out all the gear without having to incur the expense of Purple to find out you made a mistake.
Avoid spending Dilithium until the last possible second. I spent a huge pile of Dil making sure my LTCMDR TAC was all decked out in Purple. Felt good, too. Until I realized I was going to have to use that gear for a very long time to recoup my investment. By spending Dil too early, I short changed myself later on when I got to the ships I really wanted to buy. Never spend any Dilithium someone has not had to pry out of your hand first.
When you find a combo of Ground gear you like for you char, go ahead and outfit your Away Team in matching gear. It ls neat to have three or four different types of weapons and shields sometimes. Most times, it isn't worth the expense. Auto rifle or Pulse wave or pistols are my recommendations. Everything else takes too long to recharge.
Melee weapons can be a lot of fun. Some of the storyline NPCs, such as Borg Drones, are a piece of cake when you whack them with a lirpa or Bat'leth. If you do decide to go hand to hand, make sure your Away Team's Ground Abilities support this. Motion Accelerator and Lunge are good places to start.
I've noted that a lot of the game's AIs seem to get confused by players attacking them with melee. And by confused I mean they don't do as much stuff.
My character Tsin'xing