Don’t worry, no matter which class you pick, it's not going to gimp you. Your class skills are mostly, if not all, ground based talents. So long as you know how to pull a few mobs and not all of them, the ground based stuff isn’t difficult. The challenging and exciting part of the game is in space and all 3 classes pick from the same talents for space. Don't confuse the Engineering space talents which every class can choose with the engineering ground talents for engineers only.
What race should I be?
None of the race skills are overpowered, so play what you want. However I am going alien so I can pick the 4 race skills I like the best. There are 6 skills which effect space battles:
- - Accurate: .1 Accuracy (.1 means 10%)
- Astro: +10 Starship operations training: Sensor, Deflector, Emitter (maxes at 28% instead of 18%)
- Efficiency: +5 Shield eff, +5 Engine eff, +5 Energy weapon eff
- Elusive: .1 Defence (.1 means 10%)
- Techie: +10 Starship engineering training: Systems performance (aux stuff)
- Warp Theorist: +10 Starship warp core training: Power level, Power Management
Which bridge officer do I want?
Bridge officers can use 2 skills to start, one ship and one ground. The best one I found was an Engineer with Emergency Power to Shields. Your shields are down, taking hull damage, use this skill and get your shields back; it's a life saver. If you are not offered an engineer with this skill, go to Sol and hire one or train your existing one in this skill ASAP. It costs the same 100 to hire an Ensign or train one.
You can make use of 3, one of each type, bridge officers on your newbie ship. For a Tactical officer Focus Fire (lowering the damage resistance of the target with each attack from you or your allies) would be a good choice. However I found Torpedo High Yield to be more fun delivering a devastating blow when their shields were down.
The Science office I was given came with Tachyon Beam (drains targets shields). Against large ships you can't defeat them if you can't out damage their shield regeneration. Tachyon Beam is a big advantage against large powerful shields. However Polarize Hull (Damage resistance, breaks Tractor Beams) or Science Team 1 (repairs shield damage, science buff) or Weapon Malfunction (temporarily prevent target form firing) all look interesting, but I have no experience with them.
Where should I put my skill points when levelling?
If you look at the skill bar graph you will see you get 6% for the first point in that skill, 4% for the second, 2,2,1,1,1,.5,.5 for a total of 18%. To avoid diminishing returns putting a point in each one and levelling them all up together is the way to go. You do not need to max a skill, or even put any in, to pick the one beside it in the next column. Since I don't value ground skills as much as space skills I would let the class specific skills and the team skills lag behind the space skills, and end up with 7 in each of the space skills and 5 in each of the ground skills. You need to apply 6700 points (67 skill ups) to open up the Lieutenant Commander (2nd column) skills.
My Logitech G13 game pad isn't working!
Star Trek Online.exe is the launcher, use \Star Trek Online\Live\GameClient.exe instead.
Why where the ships so big and nasty in that mission when the ones before and after were just right?
When you enter a star system from subspace for a mission, you are automatically grouped with others doing the same mission. The game scales the enemies to how many people enter. If you would have got 3 frigates by yourself, you will get 6 frigates and a battleship if there are 3 of you. One time, early on, I came into a mission with 4 others. One by one each of the others left. I could kill off the little ships with hit and run tactics, but with my newbie weapons I was unable to overpower the much larger ship's shield regeneration and had to give up. In most games grouping makes missions easier. However in this game if the pugs aren't as good as you the mission is harder than soloing.