Nothing's stopping you from trying all sides. While Fed does have the majority of the playerbase due to Star Trek being naturally Fed centric, all the factions have a community.
Fed, TOS-Fed, KDF and Roms all have different starting story episodes that merge together later on. So if you like the story episodes you should create a captain in each faction.
For ground combat, tactical, engineering and science captains all play differently. They are not really dps, tank, healer like in other MMOs but their powers are different.
For space combat, it is the ship type that matters. Any captain type can fly any ship. A tac ship is more DPS but more fragile, a cruiser is more sturdy, a science ship lets you do space magic. You can try all 3 ship types with any captain type.
With most PvE content being cross-faction, you shouldn't feel like one side is a better choice over the other when it comes to finding players to team with. Personally, I enjoy the KDF side more. Vastly superior early story missions, consoles like Plasmonic Leech are on C-Store ships so you don't have to spend hundreds of millions in EC to get one, and it is also offers more chances to donate towards your fleet due to a lower regular population of players on that side.
If you decide to go KDF though and are looking for a decent fleet. I am a leader of a KDF fleet that is working towards T5 for the Starbase and with everything else done but K-13, which is on its way to Tier 2. If you are interested, then shoot me a PM. It's purely casual, so no bossing people around, no mandatory contributions, etc. Just good people having fun with other people.
The overwhelming majority of player created captains are in the Federation faction based on the Cryptic's 5th Anniversary (2015) Infographic for STO. There was none for the 6th Anniversary this year.
However, all factions have fleets that you can join and interact with. Though if you live in a country with a timezone, that is completely different from most players, then it could be difficult to interact with other players regardless of which faction you play.
You have enough character slots to create one captain for each faction. That is also the best way to play all the available story missions. Each faction have around 35 to 40 unique missions to the best of my knowledge at the beginning of the game mixed in with some missions common to all factions. But definitely by the time you start the Cardassian Struggle story arc all factions will play the same missions with the same objectives.
Romulan if you like green, and want the most DPS and ships shaped like birds, and want a decent story.
Klingon if you want moral justification for killing everything in sight and don't want to interact with other players.
Federation if you want to tank or science, player interactions and a huge variety of ships and uniforms.
Preferences may change over time and with experience, so another vote for make one for each faction and get the most out of the free to play aspect that's completely free. Later you can focus more on what you enjoy playing as most, or all 3 equally.
Devs: Provide the option to Turn OFF full screen flashes from enemy ship explosions
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Answers
Basically. Even if someone doesn't have a favorite, the slots are still there for any new player to at least try all factions.
If you decide to go KDF though and are looking for a decent fleet. I am a leader of a KDF fleet that is working towards T5 for the Starbase and with everything else done but K-13, which is on its way to Tier 2. If you are interested, then shoot me a PM. It's purely casual, so no bossing people around, no mandatory contributions, etc. Just good people having fun with other people.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/9065123-star-trek-online-5-year-anniversary-infographic
However, all factions have fleets that you can join and interact with. Though if you live in a country with a timezone, that is completely different from most players, then it could be difficult to interact with other players regardless of which faction you play.
You have enough character slots to create one captain for each faction. That is also the best way to play all the available story missions. Each faction have around 35 to 40 unique missions to the best of my knowledge at the beginning of the game mixed in with some missions common to all factions. But definitely by the time you start the Cardassian Struggle story arc all factions will play the same missions with the same objectives.
Klingon if you want moral justification for killing everything in sight and don't want to interact with other players.
Federation if you want to tank or science, player interactions and a huge variety of ships and uniforms.