Starting
a Fleet in Star Trek Online is about as easy as any
game I’ve seen. It only requires a group of 6 (you plus five)
and  a
quick chat with the Fleet Administration
(right next to the Bridge Officer Trainer in the Earth Spacedock).
That's right, it is completely free to start your own fleet. Apparently
the FA didn’t get a cool name like Mora either. Once the
fleet is created, the
whole accoutrement of guild tools opens up. These include banking,
special
uniforms, and other social structuring for guild, err fleet enjoyment.

class="MsoNormal"> style="width: 640px; height: 452px;" alt="Fleet Window"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/81320/preview">

class="MsoNormal"> style="font-style: italic;">Keep up with the latest
news and happenings in the fleet.

Beyond
naming the fleet, there are two things everyone does
when they start a new guild/fleet in any game. First, design the tabard
or
uniform. Second, start doling out ranks to your buddies, while snubbing
a few
people along the way (you know, just to keep them honest). In STO, you
have
some excellent options, but sometimes they get spendy.

style="">Get into the banking
business.

Just
like real life, it’s always fun to get more storage.
The fleet banks start with one tab of 48 slots available. This seems
reasonable, especially considering there are eight tabs a fleet can
purchase.
The hiccup in grabbing those other tabs is the cost. Over 1.2 million
credits
per tab. Ouch. I’m sure later on that will be nothing but as
a LC it seems like
one heck of a lot of money.

The
bank has all kinds of deposit and withdrawl rulesets
that can be put into place to better manage the inventory. 

It all
looks fairly
straight forward and if it goes sideways there is a great log of
transactions.
Funny note here, since STO is a “single name and game
server” architecture when
it comes to naming conventions, it would be a lot harder to hide for
people who
want to steal the bank and run off. We know where you live.

style="">Uniforms, aka
Primping to go Planet Hopping

Fleets
gain access to a uniform clothing facilitator as
well. The uniforms can be created for all kinds of purposes (ground
battle,
special get togethers, etc.) and each uniform can have fleet ranks
assigned to
them. You don’t want a brand new player off the street
wearing the same uniform
as the veterans, right?

A
couple of quick pointers for gaining uniforms as a new
fleet member, and how to show them off. First off, the tailor in Earth
Spacedock, Ghemik Telur, will set you up with your fleet approved
uniform. It’s
a bit tricky though because you have to start a new uniform or modify
an
existing one, and then click “next” a few times
until the top of the dialog box
will show a “Fleet Uniform” line with a drop-down
arrow. Pick the one you’ll go
with and have a ball. The uniforms can get expensive though so watch
your
wallet.

Once
acquired, it’s time to show off the new looks. Go into
the character status window and then right click Armor and Kit in
turns. When
highlighted, an option to “Hide on Costume” will be
available. Go ahead and
turn that off so your fleet uniform can be fully enjoyed.

style="">Types of fleets
hitting STO

STO
caters to many different fleet agendas. There are the
typical fleets of small to midsized groups of family and friends, up
through
larger fleets already planning what to do for endgame (and right now,
they need
to be a bit creative). The largest divider I’ve seen in terms
of fleet
structures is PvP and PvE. Nothing is more divisive (except maybe the
death
penalty) than comparing PvE fleets with those gnashing their teeth, aka
PvPers.

Many
fleets are also using STO as an excellent gateway for
role players. Some fleets have made special channels so that they
won’t disturb
or be disturbed by the rest of the fleet. Other fleets are primarily
Klingon
(which would go back to the PvP/PvE discussion since Klingon fleets
almost have
to be PvP on principle.

In one
of our href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/77687">pre-launch
interviews,
Stephen D’Anegelo, Programming
Lead, Star Trek Online (Cryptic Studios)
offered up some very interesting information like the current 250
player cap
per fleet. The fleet I’m in doesn’t have to worry
about this yet, but we’re
working on it.

Speaking
of fleets, how is yours doing? Is it a small to
medium guild that is growing, staying stable or starting to drop off?
Are you
part of a Klingon guild hell-bent on destruction or are you out in DS9
getting
your role play on? Let me know if you have any things you’d
like to add about
guilds, or if you have any questions.