Build Decisions (level 1-10)

System

As someone who barely got to play during the open beta I have a ton of skill point spending questions... For those who have the time, thanks in advance for your opinion:

It takes 67 points spent to get to level 11 for me the 'easy' 9 point skills are:
Starship Command
Energy Weapons
Projectile Weapons

Are there any other 'easy' 9's that you guys see out there? In particular for each profession - I'm doing engineer at the moment and I don't see anything else that should get 9 points as default. Maybe the Warp Core training?

How many points are you guys putting into the away team skills?

Is anyone not spending any points into their professions ground skills? I kind of like the 'pet' factor, so I'll put a few points into those skills but I'm not sure how devoted I want to be to ground combat.

What about Starship Operations skill? For the non-scientists out there, how many points you tossing into this skill. I'd assume that scientists would be more likely to spend 7-9 points here right?

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Being a tac officer, I put a couple points in each of those other areas. If I remember correctly, the bonuses go: 6, 10, 12, 14..... Then it really drops off. I just put enough points in them to get the most return for my areas of non focus. I may be wrong but I'm thinking it makes me a well rounded officer

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Hadronflux wrote: »

As someone who barely got to play during the open beta I have a ton of skill point spending questions... For those who have the time, thanks in advance for your opinion:

It takes 67 points spent to get to level 11 for me the 'easy' 9 point skills are:
Starship Command
Energy Weapons
Projectile Weapons

Are there any other 'easy' 9's that you guys see out there? In particular for each profession - I'm doing engineer at the moment and I don't see anything else that should get 9 points as default. Maybe the Warp Core training?

I feel an easy 9 spent are improving your star ships emitter skills or auxiliary skills. I'm not entirely sure if you enjoy using skills that use your various emitters/deflectors etc. However I very much do. I find it is always useful. Stuff like jamming sensors is vital to my strategy.

Another easy 9 perhaps is simply increasing your various ship energy settings. Typically I increase these with gear like ship consoles or special impulse engines. However, I guess it couldn't hurt.

Lastly! Yeah! I do improve my combat skills for ground combat. I find there are just enough away missions where it is important to improve your ground combat or away team skills. Later on in the game away missions get a lot tougher if you neglected your ground skills altogether. Trust me I know! I went to rank 9 commander in Open Beta and found the away missions a lot more difficult and time consuming than they perhaps needed to be.

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XylemPhoenix wrote:

Being a tac officer, I put a couple points in each of those other areas. If I remember correctly, the bonuses go: 6, 10, 12, 14..... Then it really drops off. I just put enough points in them to get the most return for my areas of non focus. I may be wrong but I'm thinking it makes me a well rounded officer

Correct me if i'm wrong. But I think you get additional bonuses and unlocks for ranking it up to lvl 9

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with the first 10 levels don't matter too much your going to max most of the first skills. Start with sticking with your weapons and skills your BO have they will give you the biggest bonus. Generally the start is pretty even and just to show you how to build a character. build your ship you intend to play further on.

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Get warp core training, the extra energy alone makes it worth it.

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After fiddling with the points on http://sto-builder.binarybit.ch/ I ended up with this - anyone have any thoughts?

Ground
5 - Engineering Maintenance
4 - Engineering/Science/Tactical Team Leader

Space
9 - Starship Command
9 - Energy Weapons
9 - Projectile Weapons
9 - Engineering
9 - Warp Core
5 - Operations

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The ones i see of good payoff is starship training, warp core, energy weapons, and then build up your crew and personal skills with what is leftover.

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Your first 10 levels are pretty much set.
You really only have 4 points to play with.
The default build should be;


Starship Command; 9 / 9

Starship Energy Weapons Training; 9 / 9

Starship Projectile Weapons Training; 9 / 9

Starship Engineering Training; 9 / 9

Starship Warp Core Training; 9 / 9

Starship Operations Training; 9 / 9

[Your class] Officer Skill; 9/9 in one skill (pick the path you like)


That leaves you 4 points to distribute
Optional suggestion for the last 4;
1 in your other class ground skill
1 in your team skills; eng, sci, tac.

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Teleon wrote: »

Correct me if i'm wrong. But I think you get additional bonuses and unlocks for ranking it up to lvl 9

Not the first tier of skill...
higher level skills will unlock some abilities, or the ability to train BOs in that skill, as you hit 9

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Nack you barely spend on the team ground skills (1 point)... Any particular reason why? Seems like with a team of 5, adding 3-4 points into those categories would be more beneficial than myself having 9 in my combat skill.

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Not a lot of end game builds out yet so hard to say what is truly valuable...which of course might change with each and every skill rebalance. As you say, the 3 you picked are almost must max. Beyond that, pick things that either buff skills you use or skills you might want to use someday. The generic ones that buff multiple skills would seem to make sense if possible. I tend to put points into skills of the tree that I started in (ie. science toon, buff science skills) on the theory that I will get more use out of them. On the flip side, many of the 'other' trees will help your BO as well and there are diminishing returns on all of them so there is something to be said in spreading a few points around once you've maxxed out what you wanted at that level. With the skill point cap tho, you probably don't want to max things you don't plan on using...ie if you plan on flying a science ship anything you put into escort is basically wasted. This could change if they ever remove or modify the SP cap, but for now try not to totally waste points on things you won't use.

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Agreed on the ship skills Wuffers. Since these 67 points are a must spend to open the next tier I figure its a lock and there shouldn't be any waste other than issues like the ground skills being more important and needing a 6-7 or something weird like that to be 'effective'.

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Nack wrote:

Not the first tier of skill...
higher level skills will unlock some abilities, or the ability to train BOs in that skill, as you hit 9

That is kind of what I meant. You need it to be rank 9 to train an officer in that ability. That is an unlock in my opinion. But yes... it becomes more important beyond T1

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I honestly go +9 in all skills tier 1 that are space related. Tier 2 it becomes kind of fuzzy but the same rule for me anyways applies there as well. Ground passives tier 1 I usually focus on weapon damage (not melee or tactical engi captain one) as I get more use out of that for quests. Once I'm out of tier 1 I generally won't focus on anything ground related period. Ground pvp is garbage imo and the away team missions for feds are easy enough as long as you spend points on your officers and upgrade their gear. Klingons I don't spend a single point on ground for my bofs as it's pointless. The problem in this area is merits for promotion or stacking the right skills on your officers.

Anyways focusing on tactical captain dps is primary then any skills like VM scramble and jam sensor skills. Engineering my focus is on specific skills that increase eps skill rsp and engi team. I won't max out engi or sci offerings and at best will have a couple or more points in those skills.