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New Player Advice

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I just have a trial account, I plan on purchasing a full account soon. I would appreciate any advice people could give. I've been looking around the forums for hours and can't seem to find simple explanations.

I'm coming from a background of World of Warcraft, so please be as thorough as possible (and avoid abbreviations whenever possible). :)

I'm thinking I'd like to be able to have a good balance between survivability and damage.

Also, specifically any advice in training advancement, and how it all works (which are best for what I'm looking for), for example, what are deflectors, and emitters relevant for? I don't see what they're used for whether it's a stat booster or what.

Thank you in advance, I hope to be able to join you all soon.
Post edited by Unknown User on

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  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Dshot wrote:
    I'm thinking I'd like to be able to have a good balance between survivability and damage.

    Work toward a Cruiser then. Escorts are paper thin, and Science Vessels have little in the way of damage.
    Dshot wrote:
    Also, specifically any advice in training advancement, and how it all works...

    Spend skills and rank up. At 11, 21, 32, etc. you'll gain a rank and be able to get a new ship, and use items two mark values above what you could previous.
    Dshot wrote:
    ... for example, what are deflectors, and emitters relevant for? I don't see what they're used for whether it's a stat booster or what.

    They modify Science-based powers. Generally in the descriptions of the powers they tend to tell you what skills are boosted by what (but the descriptions can sometimes be a little hinkey).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Dshot wrote:
    I just have a trial account, I plan on purchasing a full account soon. I would appreciate any advice people could give. I've been looking around the forums for hours and can't seem to find simple explanations.

    I'm coming from a background of World of Warcraft, so please be as thorough as possible (and avoid abbreviations whenever possible). :)

    I'm thinking I'd like to be able to have a good balance between survivability and damage.

    Also, specifically any advice in training advancement, and how it all works (which are best for what I'm looking for), for example, what are deflectors, and emitters relevant for? I don't see what they're used for whether it's a stat booster or what.

    Thank you in advance, I hope to be able to join you all soon.

    okay I'm coming back from a few months break so this might not be too helpful.

    1. Don't neglect your bridge officers for equipment. Unless you plan on doing everything in a group giving your bridge officers even basic shields and armour and weapons will help a lot. Also try to give them tribbles.Tribbles can be bred by leaving them in your inventory with food and eventually the food turns into another tribble, different food/tribble combos give you different tribbles.

    2.For ship combat stick to phasers or disruptors, anything higher than that is just a waste of skill points because they deal the same damage for more investment.

    3. Deflectors! Okay this is a big one so bear with me. Your deflector dish affects all your science abilities and this is how you figure out what you need. Basically your deflector dish is a skill buff, if you open up your skills tab and scroll down to science abilities you should see familiar things like "Deflectors" and "Deflector field" then how you determine what you want is by clicking on the drop down menu at the top right and selecting the ability you want to buff, then it will highlight all the deflector dish skills that you'll want to upgrade, both with points and deflector dishes.

    4. If you want a good mix of survivability and damage I'd suggest a cruiser with a lot of engineering abilities that buff damage, like emergency power to weapons and damage dealing ones like aceton field. Use the dropdown menu at the top right of the skill tab to select the ability you want to improve and look for the highlighted skills to improve it. Also just clicking on the ability gives you a short list.

    5. Starship captain skills. The way these work is that each skill after the first two improve only their tier of ship, and provide a smaller bonus to all the upgraded ship types from that one, generally I'd suggest getting the first two levels if you know what kind of ship you want to pilot and then only get the last one when you've settled on a ship. Then again you get a free respec every rank so you might just want to specialize in what you've got.

    That's all I can think of for now, I'll post again if I remember any more. See you out there!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    WARNING: This is not the end all be all, this is just a suggestion.

    The first 10 levels get tedious after a while and in general suck. Just bear through it, your next tier of ships helps open the game up. :D

    For what your looking for I would suggest choosing an Engineering officer who specializes in cruiser ships. This is not to say that any of the other classes would be bad at this, this is just saying that both on the ground and in space you can put out great damage while being very survivable.

    I also suggest that while your leveling you DO NOT use any of your respec tokens. I believe you acquire one at every rank increase but until you reach max rank you should spend your time experimenting with different builds and ships. If/when you decide to change your build you can multiple times when it really matters, rather then wasting them on the way up.

    The different weapon types are not more damaging then each other when they are the same mark(level) they do have different special effects that have a small chance to occur. When you skill tree its implied that different weapon types are more damaging but they really are not, just keep that in mind.

    If you plan on playing as a federation character don't get discouraged by pvp, klingon players largely live by it so they are in all likely hood going to be better then you when you first jump in. Try it for a few matches before you decide that cloaks are stupid, klingons are overpowered, and the game is TOTALLY MBALANCES BLAAARRGGGG!. (excessive but ive seen it in chat...several times ;) )

    (TL;DR version)
    Really just experiment with different builds and weapon types. Save your respec tokens for end game and you wont have to worry about messing up your build. Thats about it, have fun. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    If your looking for balance you will probably want to fly a cruiser.

    Engineers officer leveled abilities are more about survivability.

    Tactical officer leveled abilities are DPS or debuffs.

    Science officers leveled abilities are debuffs a damage resistance and can make a couple of photonic ships to fight for them ever so often. They are for crowd control or support.

    If you want to fly cruisers engineer or tactical would probably be your best bet. Although some science officers like to heal with cruisers.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Since you are pretty new to this game, a good place to start is with picking cruisers as your ship type. They have the best hull and engineering abilities tend to either be heals (Emergency Power to Shields, Aux to Structural Integrity Field, Engineering Team, etc) or damage buffs (Emergency Power to Weapons, Aceton Field, etc), which would satisfy both of your needs.

    Also, unless you're crazy (like me), you'd want to focus on one energy weapon type and one projectile weapon type. I'd suggest phaser or disruptor for your energy choice and photon or quantum for your projectile, as they have the lowest skill point cost.

    I'm still trying to figure out the difference between Deflector Dish and Defector Field beyond what skills they improve.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Welcome to the game.

    http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=186318

    This is a great index of threads.

    The reason the info on the forums is so confusing about charactors is there isn't a perfect build for every class yet. So you have take some things that sound good to you then experiment with them.

    The most important thing to remember is that you have to keep 3 things in mind.

    1) Your charactor and the skills picked

    2) The ship you want to use and the way it is geared

    3) the bridge officers and the powers they use. (which your skills can modify)

    Most other MMOs you just have your charactor and the skills used plus the gear you pick. So there is alot more to think about.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    http://www.stowiki.org/Main_Page

    http://stofan.comxa.com/

    Take a look at those sites, they're really good.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Thank you all for the advice. I have a lot to comb through. N_Danger, thanks for the comparison, that really puts it into perspective.

    So with all this in mind, you have your character (and skills) and your ship (with it's "gear"), does one determine performance in space over the other? For example, if I chose a science vessel for my tactical officer (I realize it's not a fit), which would provide the better effectiveness of space comber, my character (& skills) or the ship (& "gear")? Or is it really a balance between the two?

    I think thus far, skills are the most confusing to me atm. I've fully upgraded Starship Operations (to boost all the stats of any ship I fly). Other than that, have lots of experimenting to do. :)

    I'll keep checking back from time to time, as questions arise.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Dshot wrote:
    Thank you all for the advice. I have a lot to comb through. N_Danger, thanks for the comparison, that really puts it into perspective.

    So with all this in mind, you have your character (and skills) and your ship (with it's "gear"), does one determine performance in space over the other? For example, if I chose a science vessel for my tactical officer (I realize it's not a fit), which would provide the better effectiveness of space comber, my character (& skills) or the ship (& "gear")? Or is it really a balance between the two?

    I think thus far, skills are the most confusing to me atm. I've fully upgraded Starship Operations (to boost all the stats of any ship I fly). Other than that, have lots of experimenting to do. :)

    I'll keep checking back from time to time, as questions arise.

    Well there's two things to think about here. One is that the captain abilities that you get when you rank up. Some of them are universal, for instance evasive maneuvers is available to every single captain once they get to the right level. The other abilities however are governed by your class type. Think about these like your spells/abilities in WoW where you get then when you rank up and for each class it's different, whereas the captain abilities that are universal are more like the key Attack/dodge/hearthstone stuff that everyone gets in WoW.

    Being tactical you'll have abilities in your ship that a science captain wouldn't have, like go down fighting which increases your damage depending on how much hull you've lost. A science captain instead would have a sensor sweep ability to increase damage and detect cloaked ships. They're all useful and you'll find that they bring their own unique style to whatever ship you fly.

    Gear wise it's not super important, just imagine it like leveling equipment in WoW a lot of the time you'll find something nice but it's not like endgame WoW where people will kick you from a group for not having all purples.

    Weapon loadout is a bit different, simply because some ships have 8 weapon slots and the weapons are so different. For cruisers for instance you'll probably want beams and cannons for escorts. Some beam variants on science vessels because they have innate beam targeting abilities. This is also important to remember when picking bridge officer skills, a tactical slot with all cannon abilities is useless to a beam cruiser obviously. I find that having multiple BOs(bridge officers) started differently helps, that way if I want to change it up I just slot a different officer and change weapons.

    Your skill points do affect space combat substantially, I believe more than gear does. So stick to the weapon types that you've picked out, and just pick skills that complement your play style. If you want to be big on DPS pick weapon power efficiency and stuff like that, note also that some of the skills actually give you buffs to your power settiings which is quite helpful.

    TL DR version: Bridge officers>Skills>Gear but they're all bad unless you make them work together, like statting a resto druid talent wise, getting all the gear for a feral druid and then only buying moonfire and starfire. All you need to do is make them work together and you should be good.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Ok, so I actually went through the tutorial and taking my time (or so I thought) to get everything I could out of it since I started the officer I'd like to keep and build on. I went through the Stranded in Space mission. There was a Career Accolade called Above and Beyond. I tried to complete it, oddly I missed escorting the engineering crew...how is that possible? And there's no way to go back and do it again with this same character is there?

    Regarding difficulty, is there a difference between Normal, Advanced & Elite other than there difficulty? For example, does Elite drop better loot than Normal would? Or is it simply the difficulty level of the game? And how does this translate when you join a team, or fleet and play together, what if you have different difficulty settings?

    Thanks again guys for all the info, so much easier to get it from the source(s) then trying to find it in sporadic posts :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Dshot wrote:
    Ok, so I actually went through the tutorial and taking my time (or so I thought) to get everything I could out of it since I started the officer I'd like to keep and build on. I went through the Stranded in Space mission. There was a Career Accolade called Above and Beyond. I tried to complete it, oddly I missed escorting the engineering crew...how is that possible? And there's no way to go back and do it again with this same character is there?

    Regarding difficulty, is there a difference between Normal, Advanced & Elite other than there difficulty? For example, does Elite drop better loot than Normal would? Or is it simply the difficulty level of the game? And how does this translate when you join a team, or fleet and play together, what if you have different difficulty settings?

    Thanks again guys for all the info, so much easier to get it from the source(s) then trying to find it in sporadic posts :D

    I'm not sure, that one has been reported as buggy in the past I believe.

    At higher difficulties you get better look more often, the team leader selects the difficulty and at the higher ones there is a death penalty that is pretty hefty at low levels but trivial at higher ones like most games.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    did you find and talk to all the injured crew on that ship twice? There are crewmembers laying around the ship. As you progress to the engine room, talk to each one. One of your bridge crew will tell you that they were able to stabilize the injured crewman but the plasma conduits need to be fixed before they can be transported. once you have stabilized all the crewmen, fix the last plasma conduit and enter the engine room. As you lead the engineering crew back to where you started, talk to the injured crew again. They will stand up, thank you, and beam away. After you reach the cargo bay, you and the engineering crew you were escorting will beam away. Protect the damaged ship, then you will be told to "lock on to the Captain". Beam her out and if you got all the injured crewmen, you should get the accolade.

    Hope that helps clear that up. Unfortunately, you cannot replay that mission at this time (I think). However, you have two choices: You can start over since you have just begun and won't lose much time or resources, or you can wait until Season 3 comes out. Season 3 introduces a new ability to replay old missions. No guarantee this mission will be replayable, but odds are good.

    Edit: I forgot, welcome to STO.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    ChaseFK wrote:
    did you find and talk to all the injured crew on that ship twice? There are crewmembers laying around the ship. As you progress to the engine room, talk to each one. One of your bridge crew will tell you that they were able to stabilize the injured crewman but the plasma conduits need to be fixed before they can be transported. once you have stabilized all the crewmen, fix the last plasma conduit and enter the engine room. As you lead the engineering crew back to where you started, talk to the injured crew again. They will stand up, thank you, and beam away. After you reach the cargo bay, you and the engineering crew you were escorting will beam away. Protect the damaged ship, then you will be told to "lock on to the Captain". Beam her out and if you got all the injured crewmen, you should get the accolade.

    Hope that helps clear that up. Unfortunately, you cannot replay that mission at this time (I think). However, you have two choices: You can start over since you have just begun and won't lose much time or resources, or you can wait until Season 3 comes out. Season 3 introduces a new ability to replay old missions. No guarantee this mission will be replayable, but odds are good.

    Edit: I forgot, welcome to STO.

    Actually (I just tested this), I ran through the mission again, 1) I got the accolade, not sure how I missed the escorting part (I did get the 12 injured members), 2) You only need to talk to the injured crew once (once the leaks are fixed, you can talk to them then even before you talk to the captain.

    And thank you for the welcome :) Not sure when I'll have a full account yet, but will keep that in mind.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Dshot wrote:
    Actually (I just tested this), I ran through the mission again, 1) I got the accolade, not sure how I missed the escorting part (I did get the 12 injured members), 2) You only need to talk to the injured crew once (once the leaks are fixed, you can talk to them then even before you talk to the captain.

    And thank you for the welcome :) Not sure when I'll have a full account yet, but will keep that in mind.

    I remade a new character and this happened to me. I got credit for healing all the victims but didn't get credit for the escort part. The only thing I can think of is that you must escort the crew out first then go back and heal the victims. It may have a timer that doesn't appear and you want get credit if you don't escort them out first. Or just a bug.

    I also think that someone who has the quest can share it with you even if you have completed it. You can go to the earth space dock and ask in zone chat if someone can share it with you.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    You can turn your armor and kit invisible while wearing it. Right click on the item when it's equipped, and select "Hide from Costume" on the dropdown menu.

    A lot of people don't seem to figure that out.
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