Star Trek Online at Ten Ton Hammer

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of… you! Star Trek Online went live this past Tuesday and that means it’s time to get your Trek on, or as my wife puts it, “geek out”. To help you get started, here’s a brief editorial with some tips and hints you can use to make the most out of your budding career as a Starfleet officer.

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With a tap on your chest and a quick, "One to beam aboard," into your communicator, your body quickly dematerializes as you leave planet-side for the first time as a Starfleet officer.

Your feet haven't left the transporter pad before a man with less hair and more forehead veins than you've ever seen steps forward with a firm handshake and a look that could melt the duranium plating off any starship. "Now that you've finally beamed aboard, Ensign, I have some bad news for you. The Borg have returned to sector space, the ship's entire officer compliment has been killed, and it's up to you to assume command and get the crew out of this mess. You're not at the Academy anymore, youngster, so buck up. Welcome to the real fleet."

Quite the way to begin your day, isn't it? If you haven't already taken a look at our Space UI Guide, Ground UI Guide, Space Combat Guide, and Ground Combat Guide you really owe it to yourself to do so. There's some great info in all of them for everyone from the brand new novice to the self-proclaimed veteran. Combined together, these guides will give you a solid foundation to making your way through the game.

If you're the impatient type though (and really, who among us isn't these days?) and just want to jump into the game head first, you shouldn't have to worry about drowning. The tutorial, while high on action, takes it fairly easy on you. There's a lot of information that gets covered and a lot that seems to be skipped for the sake of brevity.


The Federation has a desperate need for officers with proven combat skills and fortunately for you, Admiral Quinn thinks Starfleet could use someone with your leadership abilities. In light of this, and the fact that the Federation has been embroiled in a brutal war with the Klingon Empire since their withdrawal from the Khitomer Accords in 2399 (approximately ten years ago), he's given you command of your first starship. I'd say congratulations, but now is when the hard work really begins.

The beginning levels of the game have you completing a number of missions for various Starfleet Officers from Earthdock in the Sol system. You'll spend the early levels focusing primarily on space combat missions with a bit of ground combat tossed in for good measure. As you progress further through the game's storyline and start traveling outside of your initial sector block, the ratio between space and ground combat will get a lot closer.

At this stage in your career, you should just concentrate on getting comfortable with the controls of the game and some basic combat tactics (see the links I listed at the beginning of the article!). Take the time to learn how to change your ship's power settings on the fly, slow down your ship to keep an enemy in range, and how to get the best out of your away team during those ground combat missions. You can get through a number of levels by just "going along” with it all, but if you take the time to really learn what makes you and your ship tick now, it will pay off in dividends later.

All the proof you need of this is to take a look at some of the compatriots you’ll find yourself automatically partnered with during some of the open instance missions. When you really learn how to control your ship, shift your shields, adjust power levels, and take out a target quickly, you're going to see there are those who haven't even learned the basics yet. As a perfect example to highlight this, I was privy to combat with two vastly different groups on back-to-back missions last night.


The first group was filled with players that knew their stuff without a doubt. We plowed through targets that should have given a better challenge, but with three people that knew how to focus fire on not only the same ship, but also the same shield faces, our enemies didn’t stand a chance. Combine this method of targeting enemies with the ability to keep a favorable position of your target and you'll be welcome in any group (an advanced space combat tactics guide is coming soon!).

Let's just be polite and say the next group I found myself in was *nothing* like the first. At one point, I realized that myself and one other player were taking on an entire squadron that had been thrown at us virtually by ourselves. The other players in our group were wandering around the edges of the battle, occasionally tossing a photon torpedo into the mix, and getting themselves blown up any time they actually entered the fray. Take the time to learn. Both you and your future groupmates will thank you for it!

Your first few days in Star Trek Online as a Starfleet officer will be exciting, but shouldn't prove overly difficult. Don't let the simplicity of the early missions lure you into a path of complacency. As you progress through the game, even the random exploration missions you'll go on not only become more interesting, but also much more challenging.

In the meantime, enjoy the beginning of your Starfleet career. Learn how to play the game and your character and you'll soon find yourself doing everything from escort an ambassador to engaging in a massive fleet action battle - all before level five.

It's an exciting time to be a Starfleet officer in the United Federation of Planets, Ensign. Are you up to the challenge?