Feed: Star Trek Online Leveling Guide - AggScore: 73.5

Ultimate Star Trek Leveling Guide Review

Epic MMO Guides’ Ultimate Star Trek Online Leveling Guide was just released today. I immediately bought a copy to see if it’s any good and I was horribly disappointed.

There are several things I don’t like about this “Ultimate” Star Trek leveling guide. First and foremost the completely, pardon my language, bullshit statement claiming it will level you up to admiral (level 41) in 24 hours. It’s totally ridiculous and no guide will ever help you level up that fast. Apparently the author achieved that only by doing Exploration quests which I highly doubt. Again, it’s impossible, and even if somehow you decided to level up that way you’d probably die out of boredom while doing it and immediately uninstall the game.

The top-secret “Exploration” leveling guide is nearly half a page long, and other pages are simply filled with useless quest information. While it does seem to list a lot of missions you’ll encounter, the in-game mission log paired with your scanner device provides A LOT more information than this guide. In conclusion, I think using this guide will only slow you down. You’re much better off reading leveling tips in STO Mastery and learn about some combat tactics and tricks you can use along the way rather than following this Ultimate STO leveling guide.

STO Mastery has the same price and I’d even pay double considering how much better it is. You can check out the Ultimate STO leveling guide website here, but don’t fall for the hype and simply skip this guide.

Star Trek Online Mastery Guide Review

Star Trek Online Mastery is a strategy guide containing info on various subjects. My recommendation is to read the guide even before you actually create your character, as it recommends and compares traits and other character customization options. Since it can’t be changed later on you should ensure you don’t make any mistakes.

As for the other things, STO Mastery contains the following:

• Ship guide
• Professions guide
• Missions / Leveling guide
• Skills & abilities guide
• Bridge Officers guide
• Equipment guide

… and more. The content mentioned is just the most interesting part, but there is plenty of more info about kits, combat strategies, accolades and many other subjects. In short, as far as all-in-one strategy guides go Star Trek Online Mastery is the best guide out there, and considering the competition it’s the most detailed Star Trek guide and a bargain.

I highly recommend you to get STO Mastery today as it will definitely help you understand much of the game.

Star Trek PvP Guide

PvP is an important part of gameplay in Star Trek Online. If you play Klingons it’s obviously unavoidable, but even for Federation players it’s very important to be able to fight off other players who are trying to earn their skill points on you and your ship. While PvP in Star Trek is no rocket science, it does take a lot of background knowledge and not just practice, so reading a good PvP guide would be a wise decision for any player starting in this game.

This guide goes into depth on various skills and abilities available to players and analyzes common and uncommon tactics used often to beat your opponents. If you want to rank up as fast as possible make sure you know how to fight in PvP, and this guide will increase your chances of success astronomically. I approve.

Read the full PvP guide…

Star Trek Credits Guide

This Star Trek Online credits guide talks about currencies in the game, both energy credits and Starfleet merits. It successfully guides you with ways to maximize your income in various ways, and also teaches you how to effectively spend money as well as save as much as possible.

If you have any doubts, concerns or misconceptions about currency in Star Trek, this guide will set you straight no doubt.

Read the full guide…

Star Trek Science Ships Guide

Science ships have more advanced deflectors, targeting systems, sensors and better auxiliary power. Science ships also have the ability to detect cloaked ships. Their primary role is support with their buffs and debuffs, and battle control. Clearly they don’t have as much firepower as ships in the other two categories but are more than capable of completing missions on their own.

• Primary Role: Fleet support, ally aid, battle control. Specializes in buffs, debuffs and control.
• Special: Advanced shields, innate subsystem targeting, innate cloak detection; bonus to Auxiliary power.

List of available Science vessels by rank:

Lieutenant Commander:

• Nova
• Aurora
• Quasar

Commander (research science vessel):

• Hope
• Horizon

Captain (long range science vessel):

• Intrepid
• Cochrane
• Discovery

Admiral (deep space science vessel):

• Luna
• Sol
• Polaris

Read more about Science ships…

Star Trek Escort Ships Guide

Escort ships are heavily armed and very maneuverable and fast. They pack more firepower than most other ships and can load cannons. Their cons are their lack of science, medical or engineering skills. If you’re a decent Star Trek fan, you’ll probably remember the Defiant from DS9: who wouldn’t want to ride one?

• Primary Role: Heavy damage ship, boasting incredible firepower for its size.
• Special: Bonus to damage, speed and maneuverability; can load cannons; bonus to weapon power; extra forward weapon slot.

List of available Escort ships by rank:

Lieutenant Commander:

• Saber
• Rapier
• Ushaan

Commander (heavy escort):

• Akira
• Zephyr
• Norway (Oslo re-fit)

Captain (tactical escort):

• Defiant
• Vigilant
• Gallant

Admiral (fleet escort):

• Prometheus
• Phoenix
• Cerberus

Read more about Escort ships…

Leveling in STO Explained

I should first begin by saying there is no experience or levels in Star Trek Online. There are various ways for player progression and it’s not too different than what you can find in other games, but in Star Trek it’s basically just called differently.

In STO there are several ranks:

• Ensign (only during the tutorial)
• Lieutenant
• Lieutenant Commander
• Commander
• Captain
• Admiral

Each of these ranks also has ten so-called sub-ranks. You must attain all these sub-ranks to achieve the main ranks, which roughly means there are 50 levels in STO.

By doing missions (and some other ways like PvP) you gain skill points and based on how many you have you gain levels/ranks, so there’s no experience points either. Skill points can also be gained by doing Genesis missions (random exploration mission) as well as a number of PvE diplomacy missions.

You should use skill points for new skills and skill ranks as soon as you get them, as they improve your ground and space combat performance greatly for both you and your bridge officers.

There’s a lot of different questions and confusion lately about how leveling works in Star Trek Online so hopefully this post will clarify a few things for you. If you’re looking for a leveling guide, click here.

STO Open Beta Begins

Star Trek Online open beta begun today and will last until January 26th. To access the beta you will need to obtain a key from Fileplanet which is next to impossible, or pre-order the game from one of the official retailers.

You can activate your beta key here, and proceed to download the game client from various sources — torrent included. Don’t forget to check system requirements for STO before you buy the game so there aren’t any surprises.

Customers who pre-purchase the game will also have access to headstart after the open beta ends, meaning you will be able to play the game four days before the official launch on February 2nd.

Star Trek Online Character Creation Video

This beta leaked footage shows various options when creating your character in Star Trek Online.

There’s actually a lot more (visual) options available than I originally thought, and apparently there’s no limit to how ugly your character can be — unfortunately. Check out the video embedded below to see what I’m talking about!

If you need a detailed guide comparing all available traits to figure out which ones are best check this!