Can Ground Missions Be Skipped?

[Rochambeaux]

And just focus on space missions, etc.?

New to the game and I love the ships, space combat etc but the ground stuff is just terrible.

[Eggy]

It is pretty bad. Just do the ground missions that you have to - the story/tutorial missions - then you'll be free to focus on the space missions & PvE queues.

[Sirius]

Be aware that you will be constantly grinding for levels though - even when you simply do every mission in sequence, there are times when you will miss a bit for level up.

Also, quite a few missions are both, space and ground - so to complete them and to get the reward and XP you need to slug through them.

I say this because missions have clear level requirements, and nothing sucks more than being three levels short for the next arc and you really don't want to do the ground missions.

As Eggy says, after you are done with the story though, yeah no reason not to ignore ground combat as much as you can if you really hate it that much.

Just be aware that even in the endgame, there are some things that may require you to do ground combat - Like for example the Dyson rep: While you can technically do space STFs for those Voth implants and the marks, too few people do it nowadays (so basically never any events going aside from the ones that give just marks), and sometimes you just "have" to do the ground battlezone for your daily marks + those implants for rep projects.

I was like you once too, I HATED the ground portion, it feels clunky and like an afterthought that never was well done at all. On top of that, it's just another drain on your resources if you plan on using it late game.

I have since acknowledged that it's part of STO, and with a bit of fiddling it's kind of fun, if still really bad compared to space fights.
Still, with a bit of investment into the rep ground stuff etc, it's bearable. But that's just me.

[Vellari]

Level progression wise you propably can get away with skipping some (most annoying) ground missions on Episode content.

If you do every single episode in order, you are likely to hit max level 60 somewhere in the Dyson Sphere story arc, which still leaves a bunch of episodes to go (delta, iconian and current arc).

Personally I have characters that are max level and still in the Cardassian story (but I also have veteran xp boost in effect).

[Rochambeaux]

Thanks all. Based on your comments I'm going to take a pass. Disappointing as I love the idea of developing Romulna ships/crews; but the ground aspects are just painful.