Noob question

[Nordark]

As someone who hasnt really played STO at all or even watched any Star Trek, any advice on what faction and class would be the most "fun"? Hopefully I dont sound completely dumb saying this but I think it would be cool to go like a carrier build with fighters if thats even a thing. TIA

[cap-boulanger]

There are carriers and fighters, though they do not have a significantly longer range than ship weapons, so you can't really fight a carrier as a standoff weapon like they do in real life.

I would recommend starting as Romulan (they have in my opinion the best starting storyline, as well as some space combat advantages), either as Tactical or Engineer. Class choice being based on your preferred ground fighting style (do you like shooting yourself, or using placeable weapons like automated turrets and mines?). When the storyline leads you to have to choose to ally with either the Federation or Klingons, go Federation.

Also, right now there's a special Winter Event in progress from which you can earn a free endgame-level ship. I *think* yesterday or today is the last day you can start and actually complete the project for free, but there is also a partial buyout option.

(EDIT: I meant Romulan faction. There are, as one of the other posters mentioned, advantages to the Alien race, which is one of the options within the faction.)

[SeaDog]

Yes, pick Tactical Romulan Alien and align with the Federation. This will give you Romulan bridge officers (Romulan Operative Trait) and 10 personal space and ground traits (vs 9). You can play any class of ship and build with this. Check out "STO Budget Builds" by Counteryolo on youtube for good information on space and weapon sets to get from missions specific to your desired weapon types.

Keep in mind though, any profession or race can successfully complete any of the content in this game.

[jonnin]

Class, in a nutshell:
engineer is the easiest. On the ground, you can summon toys to help fight, which include shield and health healing, gun turrets (automatic), mines (enemy steps on) and more. In space you can do most of the ship healing opening up your bridge officers for more damage abilities. You still want a light heal from them but not as much as everyone else.

science on the ground heals and stuns enemy, a few abilities do some damage. I find it hard to play, and mostly just shoot and self heal -- I am terrible at it. In space you can summon aid and have a number of buffs and debuffs. The summoned ships are strong. Not quite as easy to keep alive as engineer, but pretty durable.

tactical on the ground or in space either is about doing more damage. While its the most powerful all around, extra damage is not required: the game lets you do easily 2-3 times what is actually necessary, and more than that if you go all in. You may find it harder to stay alive, esp if you also use damage focused ships (escort/raider designs).

faction: do not pick jem-H right away, it starts at high level and bypasses too much of the game. Its a quick alt faction, but not knowing what to do at that level is a death sentence.
race, romulan is nice (can play federation or klingon ally after a short intro) due to their racial perk (crit themed) and bridge officers also get that. Ship wise, its cosmetic, the same models are on both sides 95% or so. Race within sides... apart from alien and romulan the differences are relatively minor. Consider role playing it instead?

carriers: I really like being a science carrier player. There are a number of hangar bay enabled scienceish ships, but I think you can find carriers for most any style of play (except, they are never going to be heavy front weapon fast moving ships, you will be in a bit of a cow that is hard to steer and likely to use beam weapons, which is perfectly fine. A typical setup is 4 front, 4 aft weapons that shoot an overlapping 200ish degree arc so you shoot at stuff from the side like a cannon laden pirate ship).

[Agnithrax]

You don't need to know a lot of lore or anything to play, but after playing a bit you can binge Star Trek on the side to pick up on some of the lore and guess what; the shows are pretty good so: bonus. Knowing the show adds layers but you can pretty much suss out who's who and what's what just by the tone of the NPC's and later on if you watch the shows and start up some alts you'll notice more layers and cameo appearances going on that you didn't see at first keeping things fresh. Romulan flying a carrier is a solid playstyle, that's my main. LLAP

[Jaynoble55]

Fun is subjective and you dont give us a lot to go on with your personal tastes. So ill break it down.

If you find blowing things up to be fun then 100% go Romulan. They have the best racials and access to two more romulan operatives than non romulans have. A Romulan Alien is a standard choice for many players as it gives you a extra personal space trait slot.

Following this logic, if you want to blow things up going with a Tac officer is paramount. I myself play a Sci captain and I love it, but ill always be 10-20% behind a tac officer in DPS.

I say these things because every other type of fun is simply available to all choices. Klingons have updated starter quests. Fed is a hyper-fleshed out faction and Romulan is a good middle ground.

Also, about carriers. They are very weak ATM. Cryptic "fixed" one of the key traits allowing carriers to do competitive DPS. Full sci carriers (support carriers) are the weakest. FD carriers esp ones with 7-8 weapon slots are your best choice now.

Support carriers can still be fun, but expect to hit a wall if you go chasing DPS.

As far as captain type and carriers the following applies.

Sci actually does pet builds best. Attack pattern alpha does not apply to pets and I am almost sure tactical team does not either. Sensor Scan does. The difference can be minor or greater depending on the pets and build/carrier.

All i got. Welcome and have fun.

[Smask]

from a new player ish .. as other player stated, you dont give alot of info.. ^^

Any class ... will be fun.. your perception of what you like.. all classes are able to dish out damage in serious amounts with the right build and gear.. STO is not really setup for "tank/dps/heal" teams.. its power creek valley... anyone can dish out high numbers..

The ships decides more what type O fun you have, than the classes..

All classes can fly tac/sci/engi/raider/etc ships.

The classes on the ships only decides what stations are available for that type of ship!

Want a quick turner go escort
Want a tanky ship go cruiser++
Want a brain ship.. go sci..

I recommend you just try various ships out as you play along and up...
And welcome...

[times05]

IMHO this game is tough to enjoy, unless you're a Star Trek fan. There's like soooooo many little cameo appearances and little things from Star Trek shows/movies that to outsider you'll likely be wondering what in the world is going on.

Like take Leeta for example, absolutely terrible hero/villain without any context. But if you watch DS9 it'll make perfect sense (well not even all DS9, like 3-4 VERY SPECIFIC episodes) and out of that they make such a big deal in this game. And that's pretty much what the whole game is, at least the fun part about it, the stories themselves. Every single story, is taken from canon Star Trek and spun out and expanded upon. Little tiny details blown up to be the size of elephants. Without the stories themselves, I dunno if game mechanics themselves are fun enough to actually enjoy beyond like maybe 20-30 hours tops. To a super fan, that watched all the shows, seen all movies, and probably played most star trek games in the last 20-30 years or so, those little tiny details and expanded story lines are really what keeps me playing.

[SangReal]

Originally posted by times05:

IMHO this game is tough to enjoy, unless you're a Star Trek fan. There's like soooooo many little cameo appearances and little things from Star Trek shows/movies that to outsider you'll likely be wondering what in the world is going on.

Like take Leeta for example, absolutely terrible hero/villain without any context. But if you watch DS9 it'll make perfect sense (well not even all DS9, like 3-4 VERY SPECIFIC episodes) and out of that they make such a big deal in this game. And that's pretty much what the whole game is, at least the fun part about it, the stories themselves. Every single story, is taken from canon Star Trek and spun out and expanded upon. Little tiny details blown up to be the size of elephants. Without the stories themselves, I dunno if game mechanics themselves are fun enough to actually enjoy beyond like maybe 20-30 hours tops. To a super fan, that watched all the shows, seen all movies, and probably played most star trek games in the last 20-30 years or so, those little tiny details and expanded story lines are really what keeps me playing.

Agree 100%. Never really got into Voyager, DS9 or ENT until the game launched. The game made me give those series another shot, and I'm glad I did. Watching the shows and playing the game (and reading books and comics if you get really into it) all feed into each other quite well.

[Nordark]

Originally posted by times05:

IMHO this game is tough to enjoy, unless you're a Star Trek fan. There's like soooooo many little cameo appearances and little things from Star Trek shows/movies that to outsider you'll likely be wondering what in the world is going on.

Like take Leeta for example, absolutely terrible hero/villain without any context. But if you watch DS9 it'll make perfect sense (well not even all DS9, like 3-4 VERY SPECIFIC episodes) and out of that they make such a big deal in this game. And that's pretty much what the whole game is, at least the fun part about it, the stories themselves. Every single story, is taken from canon Star Trek and spun out and expanded upon. Little tiny details blown up to be the size of elephants. Without the stories themselves, I dunno if game mechanics themselves are fun enough to actually enjoy beyond like maybe 20-30 hours tops. To a super fan, that watched all the shows, seen all movies, and probably played most star trek games in the last 20-30 years or so, those little tiny details and expanded story lines are really what keeps me playing.

I actually started watching star trek discovery and started the fed discovery and liked that I knew references that were being made in the story.

[Nordark]

Originally posted by Jaynoble55:

Fun is subjective and you dont give us a lot to go on with your personal tastes. So ill break it down.

If you find blowing things up to be fun then 100% go Romulan. They have the best racials and access to two more romulan operatives than non romulans have. A Romulan Alien is a standard choice for many players as it gives you a extra personal space trait slot.

Following this logic, if you want to blow things up going with a Tac officer is paramount. I myself play a Sci captain and I love it, but ill always be 10-20% behind a tac officer in DPS.

I say these things because every other type of fun is simply available to all choices. Klingons have updated starter quests. Fed is a hyper-fleshed out faction and Romulan is a good middle ground.

Also, about carriers. They are very weak ATM. Cryptic "fixed" one of the key traits allowing carriers to do competitive DPS. Full sci carriers (support carriers) are the weakest. FD carriers esp ones with 7-8 weapon slots are your best choice now.

Support carriers can still be fun, but expect to hit a wall if you go chasing DPS.

As far as captain type and carriers the following applies.

Sci actually does pet builds best. Attack pattern alpha does not apply to pets and I am almost sure tactical team does not either. Sensor Scan does. The difference can be minor or greater depending on the pets and build/carrier.

All i got. Welcome and have fun.

I didnt break done what I find as a fun class because im not a picky person when it comes to classes. As long as it has good flow im happy ya know. Thanks for the detailed response though. Also you mentioned carriers were a bit lacking in dps since recent updates. So I know any class can use any ship now but do science classes go better in a science ship or does it really only matter about the bridge consoles that were mentioned above?

[Nordark]

Originally posted by SeaDog:

Yes, pick Tactical Romulan Alien and align with the Federation. This will give you Romulan bridge officers (Romulan Operative Trait) and 10 personal space and ground traits (vs 9). You can play any class of ship and build with this. Check out "STO Budget Builds" by Counteryolo on youtube for good information on space and weapon sets to get from missions specific to your desired weapon types.

Keep in mind though, any profession or race can successfully complete any of the content in this game.

Why a Romulan alien? IS there any reason beyond aesthetic?

[cap-boulanger]

Originally posted by Nordark:

Originally posted by SeaDog:

Yes, pick Tactical Romulan Alien and align with the Federation. This will give you Romulan bridge officers (Romulan Operative Trait) and 10 personal space and ground traits (vs 9). You can play any class of ship and build with this. Check out "STO Budget Builds" by Counteryolo on youtube for good information on space and weapon sets to get from missions specific to your desired weapon types.

Keep in mind though, any profession or race can successfully complete any of the content in this game.

Why a Romulan alien? IS there any reason beyond aesthetic?

Aliens are a bit more flexible than non-Aliens (gameplay wise) because they have an extra trait slot instead of a locked racial trait.

Romulan (faction) has a higher damage ceiling because you have greater access to bridge officers with +Critical Hit Chance and +Critical Severity traits than anyone else does.

For comparison.... on most endgame-level ships (assuming you are using 2 tactical officers and 3 non-tactical officers)... a Romulan-faction captain can get +10 Critical Hit Chance and +25 Critical Severity from their bridge officer traits, while anyone else can only get +4/+10 (which goes up to +6/+15 with the purchase of one of the most expensive cash-store bundles), and even getting any requires more in-game investment than the Romulan-faction captain needs (because you can buy tactical officers with the Romulan faction-exclusive "Superior Romulan Operative" trait (+2/+5 per officer), but non-tactical are not available; the cash-shop Gamma bundle includes one each of science and engineer officers who have a half-strength version).

(Critical Hit Chance is the proportion of your attacks which score extra damage as a "critical hit"... Critical Severity is the amount of that extra damage.)

------

I personally also think the Romulan faction has the best starting storyline... but that's more a matter of opinion.

[chemiman]

Originally posted by Nordark:

[...] Also you mentioned carriers were a bit lacking in dps since recent updates. So I know any class can use any ship now but do science classes go better in a science ship or does it really only matter about the bridge consoles that were mentioned above?

Not necessarily the consoles, though the number of tac consoles are very important for damage builds. For sci builds the bridge officers and their abilities are more important. The sci consoles then strengthen those abilities, but deflectors and secondary deflectors are equally important, if not more so.

The captain's career abilities can be used on any ship. A good build can combine the strengths of the ship and the captain, like e.g. heavy AoE damage through sci space wizardry (BOff abilities) paired with the survivability from eng captain abilities.

[jonnin]

can you explain about the weakness of sci carriers? I have been flying a paradox dreadnought and it seems fine, but I have been out of the game a while too.

[SeaDog]

A link for alien players: https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Guide:_Canon_alien_race_builds

You can make your alien look like many "canon" races from star trek. Also shows how much versatility the character builder from STO is.