OK, so this game is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ confusing.

[Melchor]

you start out in your character creation with your carreer choice. one would think that in like so many other games, this is your most important choice for that character and gives you a basic direction in which you want to develop it.

turns out. it doesnt really affect anything past the abilities that you get in ground missions?

the ship and ship type youre choosing are completely free, and you can chose attack vessels that are heavy on damage gear and stations even if you chose science or engineering as carrer pathes.

but this is where the problem starts. as a new player, with so many choices of ships and their stats, its a lot of ♥♥♥♥ to learn.

then there are all the different weapon types of which there are a ton. this means even more added to the learning curve on what types of weapons you want to specialize.

then there are stations and officers on your ships that matter. though i have to say i have no real idea how to train my officers, switch their skills to match my weapon types (getting rid of torpedo abilities if youre using cannons etc.)

apparantly you can promote your officers? not sure what that does.

then there are kindof your classic RPG skill trees. one for ground and one for space combat.

but wait there is more.

there are also two more skill trees to consider with your specialization options.

but even more. there are also perks.

and even more, there is also reputation which can grant you passives, which adds another layer of decision making and a whole batch of abilities to know and to learn.

but thats not enough. there are endevours opening up at some point which gives you another sort of skill tree for passive stats or abilities?

then there are your duty officers that you can somehow use on your starship that also grant you additional abilities?



my point is, there are so many disconnected game systems that you can all somehow mix and match, that as a new player i have no sense of direction where to even start.

this isnt your average RPG where its a choice of class -> class spec -> matching gear.

at the same time this game kindof seems to lack a real explanation or walkthrough through all of these systems beyond a few short popups.

its actually frustrating.

[vorik]

There's a lot to do in STO and the game attempts to ease you into the basics, but it does a poor training job of detailed nuance like this.

Promoting Bridge Officers:

It's more for the role play aspect of commanding your crew, but there are practical purposes for the design. An engineering player character can teach engineering bridge officers additional skills. The ranking for the bridge officers allow them to access additional skills based on if the ship you select has accommodation for that rank.

Example: the ship you pick has a LT (lieutenant) Science Console.

The bridge officer (BOFF) candidate will come with a set of skills, 1 or 2 for each rank, and if the BOFF is of higher quality, they may have many skills available per rank. Some of these skills in the repetoire will be "red-out" and unavailable, until an appropriate training manual (inventory item) is available.

As a Engineering Officer/Captain, you won't be able to teach your Ensign Science bridge officer any Science skills. But you can buy Training Manuals for sale from Player Science Officers. You would be able to build new Engineering Training Manuals at various ranks for an Engineering BOFF or to sell on the exchange. This selling/buying allows you to find fancy skills like say a Tyken's Rift rank3 so that when you "promote" your Science Ensign Boff to Lt.Commander, they will now be able to use the Tyken's Rift rank3.

However, because your ship only has a LT science Console, you will only have access to the first 2 skills of the BOFF, which you've chosen from their repetoire of skills (configured in one of the tabs on your Character screen, where you see your list of BOFFs and the ship/shuttle currently out of dock). You would need a ship that offers a LT Commander Science Console to use that fancy new Tyken's Rift rank3 in space combat.

Ground skills are similarly learned.


Duty Officers (there's way more to them than just this, but hopefully this intro/background can get you started):
As a Starfleet Captain, you don't run a whole ship by yourself. The duty officers (DOFF) are a kind of mini-game in STO that help you get additional resources for free, especially dillthium, a premium currency that lets you buy more cosmetics and fancy game changing starships, amongst other things (more DOFFs, Fleet (guild) gear that's superior to many drop ground/space gear, like hand weapons, or ship engineering consoles).

WoW (about 5 years?) and Star Wars Online (a year(?)) actually introduced a kind of "duty officer" system after STO introduced theirs. WoW won't give it to you until you're higher level (I think it was introduced in Cataclysm), and SWTOR starts off small, where you can send your smugglers on missions for resources


Hope this helps, and I (or hopefully others) might be able to introduce/answer some of the other things later. Feel free to ask away.

[Melchor]

Originally posted by vorik:

There's a lot to do in STO and the game attempts to ease you into the basics, but it does a poor training job of detailed nuance like this.

Promoting Bridge Officers:

It's more for the role play aspect of commanding your crew, but there are practical purposes for the design. An engineering player character can teach engineering bridge officers additional skills. The ranking for the bridge officers allow them to access additional skills based on if the ship you select has accommodation for that rank.

Example: the ship you pick has a LT (lieutenant) Science Console.

The bridge officer (BOFF) candidate will come with a set of skills, 1 or 2 for each rank, and if the BOFF is of higher quality, they may have many skills available per rank. Some of these skills in the repetoire will be "red-out" and unavailable, until an appropriate training manual (inventory item) is available.

As a Engineering Officer/Captain, you won't be able to teach your Ensign Science bridge officer any Science skills. But you can buy Training Manuals for sale from Player Science Officers. You would be able to build new Engineering Training Manuals at various ranks for an Engineering BOFF or to sell on the exchange. This selling/buying allows you to find fancy skills like say a Tyken's Rift rank3 so that when you "promote" your Science Ensign Boff to Lt.Commander, they will now be able to use the Tyken's Rift rank3.

However, because your ship only has a LT science Console, you will only have access to the first 2 skills of the BOFF, which you've chosen from their repetoire of skills (configured in one of the tabs on your Character screen, where you see your list of BOFFs and the ship/shuttle currently out of dock). You would need a ship that offers a LT Commander Science Console to use that fancy new Tyken's Rift rank3 in space combat.

Ground skills are similarly learned.



Hope this helps, and I (or hopefully others) might be able to introduce/answer some of the other things later. Feel free to ask away.

ok, so thank you for the reply and. this helps but honestly i have the feeling this makes the game even more complex and adds another system i dont know about it.

so i have to chose from a huge amount of possible skills that the bridge officer has available, then train him with training manuals and select the appropriate skills for the weapons/gear i want to use on my ship?

where do i get those training manuals. as engineer i dont need manuals to train engineer officers but can just do it?

[vorik]

Originally posted by Melchor:

so i have to chose from a huge amount of possible skills that the bridge officer has available, then train him with training manuals and select the appropriate skills for the weapons/gear i want to use on my ship?

yes, but weapons and gear are independent from BOFF skills. There are DOFF bonuses and bonuses from ship gear that might enhance some BOFF skills, directly or indirectly (i.e. Phaser damage tactical console will buff all phaser fire, but if your tactical BOFF has some fancy phaser skill like https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Ability:_Beams:_Fire_at_Will you can improve performance of your ship by mitigating the reduced damage of 80%, killing the enemy ships faster).

Originally posted by Melchor:

where do i get those training manuals. as engineer i dont need manuals to train engineer officers but can just do it?

in the past training manuals were not needed, but now the design requires training manuals to supplement your BOFF's skills. you can purchase these at the Exchange, basically an auction house. They improved, slightly, the layout of Earth Starbase (ESB), so it's easier to find the Bank/Mail/Exchange areas. If you've completed the intro S.S. Azure rescue mission, you can access the Exchange/Bank/Mail directly like 1x an hour(?). You can build these manuals also, from your own officer skills from the Research tab of the DOFF management screen.

if you haven't been there yet, go to https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page (easy to also google stowiki) - there's a ton of detailed info on each of the items.

yeah it's always been a somewhat complicated game, until you get the hang of all the systems. They have a *galaxy* of materials -- paradise for us

[Qwox]

yeah, the game is complex but i'm sure you will appreciate it once you better see through the systems. It gives you lots of ways to build for YOUR playstyle.

most of the questions seem to be answered but i dont see an answer for the boff (bridge officer) promotion. Each boff has 4 skills. The first is accessible at the ensign level, to use the second you need to promote your boff at least to lieutenant, for the third to lieutenant commander and the last one to commander. And your ship needs seating for the apropriate level too. A cruiser never has a tactical commander seat, so you cant use the last ability, even if you promote your tactical boff to commander.
For the training manuals, level 1 and 2 can be bought by a npc vendor at the homeworlds and deepspace 9 and some other places. The 3rd level needs to be crafted or bought from the exchange. There are some exceptions but for the most part it works that way.

Now, what abilities you want to use is your decision. For example, i like to use at least tactical team, attack pattern beta and a beam or cannon ability (beam overload, fire at will, cannon scatter volley, cannon rapid fire) for tactical. If i have more seating i can add to that.
For Engineering and Science i like survivability skills (hull and shield heals) and some sort of cooldown reduction (auxilliary to battery + 3x Technician doffs or Photonic Officer) if possible. Except for science ships. For those you want some science damage and control abilities too.
But in the end it's like i said, your decision. Play around with the different abilities and see what you like. Then you can look for equipment, doffs etc that boost those abilities.

Dont get distracted and confused by all the different things. Focus on one until you understand them better, then move to another. There is no need to optimize or even use doffs at the start. Get comfortable with your boff and captain abilities first.

Skills/Perks are a bit more tricky because reskills are not free, although you can get a few for free by maxing your reputations. The following is my allrounder build: https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/ba216f5c09c0b99f99e9c6eb70206937
It works for pretty much everything NOT science related. Like for Escorts, Cruisers etc. and all 3 classes.

Edit:
Ah and for weapon type. Choose what you like, they are very similar in damage but leave tetryon aside for now, it got a bit neglected. Might get better with the new event console but who knows. Phaser and Disruptor are probably the most used ones. Plasma, Polaron and Antiproton is good as well. The big difference is the 2,5% proc.

[Vin362]

There is also the bridge officer trainer which the game doesn't tell you about unless you talk to him either in Earth Space Dock or the First City depending on faction/alignment.

[Melchor]

Originally posted by Qwox:

yeah, the game is complex but i'm sure you will appreciate it once you better see through the systems. It gives you lots of ways to build for YOUR playstyle.

i just wish for a new player, the game would have a few ways to hold your hand through all the systems, and default you to a few cookie cutter builds, until you really understand what youre dealing with.

just like a checkmark you can put somewhere on character creation. here are 3 different builds, chose 1 of them and every option from there on our will have a "recommended" marker where to put your points next, to default you through to a funtioning build.

once you understand how the systems work, could go on to experiment on your own and slowly branch out either with the same, or other characters.

extreme complexity in itself isnt neccessarily bad and they probably aimed at longlivety by bombarding your with options. but without guidance, its a pain in the ass if youre new to the game.

its like youre hit in the face with a sledgehammer in terms of options, and its hard to decide where to even begin or what to prioritise.

[Qwox]

I realy dont like the seating of the free level 61 ships but here are two build i clicked together realy fast i would probably use. Both dont use lockbox abilities and for the cruiser i would slot the 2 free engineering slots with auxilliary to battery and use 3x rare technician doffs for cooldown reducion. But new players dont have them right away and they are pretty expensive on the exchange, so i left the slots free. Take whatever you want and if you have technicians, use them and slot aux2bat in both slots. You can get free ones from the B'Tran cluster doff mission chain.

Exploration Cruiser Retrofit:
https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/959b249faa531d25a1bd8a86f69dd1f0

Tactical Escort Retrofit:
https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/f7978194a79e601b76464fbb2d03e56d

For equipment, use what you have. Then get setpieces from missions that complement your weapon type. Reputation reward boxes can also have usefull stuff.
Later on check out reputation (engine, core, shield) and fleet (colony deflector, core, tactical consoles from the spire and colony) equipment.
If i had no consoles at all i would try to get damage increasing ones for tactical, resistance for engineering and shield increasing for science. Those are cheap and work well as a start.
And for weapons, use ONE type, not a rainbow build. If it's phaser, use all phaser, if disruptor, all disruptor etc.

[Melchor]

Originally posted by Qwox:

I realy dont like the seating of the free level 61 ships but here are two build i clicked together realy fast i would probably use. Both dont use lockbox abilities and for the cruiser i would slot the 2 free engineering slots with auxilliary to battery and use 3x rare technician doffs for cooldown reducion. But new players dont have them right away and they are pretty expensive on the exchange, so i left the slots free. Take whatever you want and if you have technicians, use them and slot aux2bat in both slots. You can get free ones from the B'Tran cluster doff mission chain.

Exploration Cruiser Retrofit:
https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/959b249faa531d25a1bd8a86f69dd1f0

Tactical Escort Retrofit:
https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/f7978194a79e601b76464fbb2d03e56d

For equipment, use what you have. Then get setpieces from missions that complement your weapon type. Reputation reward boxes can also have usefull stuff.
Later on check out reputation (engine, core, shield) and fleet (colony deflector, core, tactical consoles from the spire and colony) equipment.
If i had no consoles at all i would try to get damage increasing ones for tactical, resistance for engineering and shield increasing for science. Those are cheap and work well as a start.
And for weapons, use ONE type, not a rainbow build. If it's phaser, use all phaser, if disruptor, all disruptor etc.

thanks

[Qwox]

Here some gameplay related things i just observed myself doing while playing.

Because i use intelligence as my primary specialisation i try to stay behind my enemies (=dmg buff).

I use my buff abilities before i activate my weapon abilities.

I've put some "run all the time while in combat"-abilities on a spambar so i can constantly (aprox. once a second) click my spambar button while i'm in combat. Makes it alot easier to keep them on cooldown. You can achieve that by a custom keybind.
I personally use spacebar as spam button and quickbar 4 as spambar.

For the cruiser build i would put these abilities on that bar, from left to right.
Emergency Power to Weapons III, Tactical Team I, (maybe) Fire at Will II, both aux2bat (if available) and (as a tactical captain) Go Down Fighting

For the escort build.
Both Tactical Teams, both Attack Pattern Beta, (as a tactical captain) Go Down Fighting

Now, for the keybind. As an example, here's my spacebar spam button. If you want to use it copy the following content into a txt file and save it.
https://pastebin.com/9JuQd3HY

Put the skills you want on the spambar into quickbar 4 and load the keybind ingame while in a ship in space.
Type in chat after you adjusted the path to your file:
/bind_load_file c:\path\to\your\keybind.txt

To remove that keybind: /unbind Space
Or to unbind all keybinds: /unbind_all

If you want to create your own keybinds, there's a tool that makes it very easy.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/sto-keybind/

[Maj_Cyric]

I would suggest watching some of "Teacher Kirby's" videos.. She has a lot of videos for the Newbie and Noobs alike on how to do things and what this or that is in STO..

https://www.youtube.com/c/TeacherKirby/playlists

[NavFamG]

Originally posted by Melchor:

your career choice..... turns out it doesn't really affect anything past the abilities that you get in ground missions?

- That and the mini games you get while on that ground mission. Tac might be to kill stuff, Eng fix stuff and Sci guy to play with the computers. But you're right it doesn't effect you as much as other games.

Originally posted by Melchor:

then there are all the different weapon types of which there are a ton.

- The advice I've heard for this is A) pick the one's that do the most damage and B) Don't mix your weapons; either go with beam, cannon or ? etc...... Most likely so you get max benefit from your buffs you slot in the tactical console spots on your ship.

Originally posted by Melchor:

then there are stations and officers on your ships that matter. though i have to say i have no real idea how to train my officers, switch their skills to match my weapon types (getting rid of torpedo abilities if you're using cannons etc.)

- If you click on your bridge officers (the guys listed below your Captain and ship) you can open up their skill panel. They'll start with just 1 skill in each rank, but you can train them to learn other things as has been explained. One thing I didn't see was when you get a new officer you DON'T have to let him be one of your officers. You can click on the icon and one of the options is 'create manual'. Look them over and if there's one you want you can turn the guy into a manual instead and then teach that skill to one of your current bridge officers. I.E. you use torpedoes alot, but your tac guy doesn't have a good torp skill, but the new guy does, you could just swap out the people OR turn the new guy into a manual and teach your current guy that skill.

To switch default skills; open up the guys skill panel and click on the skill you want to make it the active one (symbol will show up in the panel at the top). NOW go to the 'Stations' tab at the top of the panel and click on it. Find the guy you just changed and click on him, a small hot bar should show up in the upper right hand of that panel. Click 'default skills' and the skill will change to the new one.

Originally posted by Melchor:

there are also two more skill trees to consider with your specialization options.

- This isn't as useful as it could be. You pick 2 specialization options; I did 1 ground and 1 space and then dumped points in them as I got them. The Problem is most quests involve both space and ground combat and you can ONLY change between the 2 spec's while in sector space (outside of the mission) so pretty much one or the other will end up getting ignored. I usually set mine to space and left it.

Originally posted by Melchor:

then there are your duty officers that you can somehow use on your starship that also grant you additional abilities? (I'll include the Admiralty system too since it's kind of the same)

- Duty Officers are like your general crew and most are there for another little mini-game; escort officials, investigate a space cloud etc.... and earn you xp and dil. Some of the things you do cost EC so you have to watch you don't spend down to zero. You can actually just level using the duty officer system!

Admiralty is kind of the space except you're using your fleet (ships you've collected) to do missions for different space factions. In addition to xp and dil you can also gain more ships etc... as you level up in that faction.

Duty officer skills: You can slot up to 5 in both space and ground. You're looking for certain skills that the DO's have that will be useful like reduce the cool down time for grenades and torpedoes and any others useful to how you play. One slotted they aren't available for regular duty officer missions.

Yes it is a complex game; watch some youtube videos, open up each panel you can find and float your cursor over them and read what they do. Look in the available missions section and see what 'how to' quests you can find.

You might never get a grasp on the whole, but you'll be in a better spot to make use of what you do know.

[cap-boulanger]

The "bridge officer trainer" is just a vendor that sells training manuals. There's one located at each "homeworld" and a few at other places (like DS9, your fleet starbase, etcetera)