Star Trek Online Science Escort Guide

STO Star Trek Online
Science Escort Guide / Tactical Medical Guide
**TMP** TACTICAL MEDICAL PROJECT **TMP**
By The Donny of LOTUS FLEET
Revision 1 - 01.21.2010


Hello All' As being a Science Captain with Escort ships is the way I decided to go I wanted to write a guide on what I found to work the best and really mesh together...

There are not very many guides out there yet since the game is still in beta and rightfully so it's hard to say what is good and what is not early in the game - who knows there may be nerfs or changes done - With that said I am going to revise this guide as much as possible to always provide the best guide I can for this combo


BEFORE YOU START TIPS:
1) Get the right abilities for your bridge officers!!! You want to go to the Bridge Officer "TRAINER" and get the right abilities before you start putting points into the abilities you don't want - because if you train after the fact it will overwrite your current ability and you lose any points you had put into it...



Ground - This guide uses unique strategy of knock downs, AOE's and Healing life & shields on team mates While optimizing fun for the captain

Space - Let's face it everyone knows the escort's weakness is how much damage it can take, your always going to deal good damage and have the offense due to all the tactical slot's bu what's the point if you get popped in seconds before you can take anyone down? This guide focuses on keeping DPS high and keeping your survivability high as well



So how is all this accomplished you ask??? Let's get started...



Rank: Lieutenant

In your first ship you only have 1 of each console so there's not to much to this part right? Wrong... You want to have the correct skills you plan on using so you can start pumping points into those suckers...


1) Bridge Officers - One Tactical, One Engineer, One Medical and YOU Science Captain.

Tactical Officer (GROUND): Photon Grenade - AOE Damage and knockback!!
Recommend: +9 Point into this ability

Tactical Officer (SPACE): High Yield Torpedo - This speaks for it self save this till enemy shields are down and let it fly for huge damage
Recommend: +9 Points into this ability

Engineer Officer (GROUND): Shield Recharge - This is healing for your shield I can't stress how many times this will save your life and turn the tides in your favor
Recommend: +9 Points into this ability

Engineer Officer (SPACE): Emergency Power to shields - This ability will save your ass as well. short version it saves/replenishes/ repairs shields to your ship
Recommend: +9 Points into this ability

Science Officer (GROUND: Medical Tricorder: This heals the life of the targeted team mate, this is one of the most important ability's on the ground next to shield recharge. Have your bridge officer pick this up because you will be getting other abilities, let him heal while you kill!
Recommend: +9 Points into this ability

Science Officer (SPACE): Science Team: Similar to the engineer shield repair on the ground; this ability will repair you or ally ship shields in space - this is HUGE to have and use as much as possible.
Recommend: +9 Points into ability


2) Ground Weapons

Captain KIT: Researcher - This has an AoE knockback and stasis field to keep an enemy mez'd; Use the AoE Knockback as much as possible

Captain (you): Disrupter Full Auto Assault: This weapon has 2 very good attacks; use the AOE attack as much as possible
TIP: A very important tactic here is to have TWO of these FULL AUTO ASSAULT guns, After you use the big AOE damage shot, Switch to your second gun and use the AOE shot again. This will allow you to get Two huge AoE shots off everyone 10 Seconds :) keep switching back and forward on cool down

Bridge Officers (Away Team): Keep your weapons mixed and matched between your bridge officers. EXAMPLE: have each member hold 1 of the following: "HOLD" weapon, Sniper Weapon, Knockback, Cone AoE

3) Ship Weapons: At this point your weapons are limited due to lack of slots. Not to much to recommend here

Front Weapons
Slot1: Phasers or Cannons - If your already comfortable with maneuvering
Slot2: Photon torpedo

Back:
Slot1: Phasers



LT Strategy Summary: Space
Right now you should be beating people pretty bad by the same fire output as them but being able to heal/repair your shields twice will give you the huge advantage here, out last them till their shields are down then hit the torpedo's for the win.

LT Strategy Summary: Ground
Keep using your Knock Back's and AoE/Cone Attacks as much as possible; this will cause groups of enemies to die fast while their damage output is low due to the constant knockdowns they are getting and if they do manage to attack you got a shield repair and healing going on by your away team :)
TIP: KNOCKBACKS/AOE'S ARE VERY VERY CONE DIRECTED!!! You must have yourself and the enemies positioned directly in front of you or these attacks are hardly effective. The best thing to do is leverage Doorways and small narrow area's / corridors to your advantage to force close combat, that is when your AoE's and Knockbacks are most effective!!!! Switch between your two weapons using your AoE shot's every second they are up - you will get a lot of Agro but your Engineer and Science officers should keep you alive.





Rank: Lieutenant Commander

So your getting your first real Escort ship!!! Just a taste of the potential you are soon to have.


1) Bridge Officers - Two Tactical, One Engineer, One Medical and YOU Science Captain.

TIP: Promote your Tactical Officer to take advantage of being able to use two abilities in space now due to the new ship tactical console slot - Make sure the one you promote is on the correct console.

LT Tactical Officer 1 (GROUND): Photon Grenade - AOE Damage and knockback!!
Recommend: +9 Point into this ability

LT Tactical Officer 1 (SPACE): Target Shield Subsystem - this ability will drain your targets shields very useful for your offensive
Recommend: +3-5 Points into this ability

LT Tactical Officer 1 (SPACE2): High Yield Torpedo - This speaks for it self save this till enemy shields are down and let it fly for huge damage
Recommend: +9 Points into this ability


Tactical Officer 2 (GROUND): Photon Grenade - AOE Damage and knockback!!
Recommend: +9 Point into this ability

Tactical Officer 2 (SPACE): Torpedo Spread - This ability buffs your next torpedo attack
Recommend: +9 Points into this ability

Engineer Officer (GROUND): Same as before no changes made - N/A
Recommend: + Points into this ability

Engineer Officer (SPACE): Same as before no changes made - N/A
Recommend: + Points into this ability

Science Officer (GROUND): Same as before no changes made - N/A
Recommend: + Points into this ability

Science Officer (SPACE): Same as before no changes made - N/A
Recommend: + Points into ability


2) Ground Weapons

Captain KIT: Researcher - This has an AoE knockback and stasis field to keep an enemy mez'd; Use the AoE Knockback as much as possible

Captain (you): Disrupter Full Auto Assault: Same Strategy as above just make sure your using newer weapons with more DPS

Bridge Officers (Away Team): Keep your weapons mixed and matched between your bridge officers. EXAMPLE: have each member hold 1 of the following: "HOLD" weapon, Sniper Weapon, Knockback, Cone AoE

3) Ship Weapons: 3 slot's in front? Now were talking!!!

Front Weapons
Slot1: Phasers
Slot2: Phase CANNON's
Slot3: Photon torpedo

Back:
Slot1: Phasers



LT CMDR Strategy Summary: Space
You have more firepower now so you keep the same strategy as before except now your adding in all the Debuffs from science - Make sure you use your debuffs that you just got always when starting a battle, Also make sure your always behind your enemy as much as possible and they are in your front; I personally keep my torpedo's on Auto Fire and spam Space bar to keep all my phasers/canons going off and your torpedo's will auto fire while spamming spacebar


LT CMDR Strategy Summary: Ground
NOTE: KNOCKBACKS/AOE'S ARE VERY VERY CONE DIRECTED!!! You must have yourself and the enemies positioned directly in front of you or these attacks are hardly effective. The best thing to do is leverage Doorways and small narrow area's / corridors to your advantage to force close combat, that is when your AoE's and Knockbacks are most effective!!!!




Overview: SPACE
This guide is still getting updated but you see the main strategy right? Using Engineer and Science to heal and keep your escort up and using your tactical officers to deal as much damage as possible; I have found this strategy to work the best, before I was going almost all offensive and found out whenever I fought a group of 3 or more ships I would take them out quick yes but due to taking all that fire with no defense I was dying before I could even successfully take them out and the same in PVP - I didn't want to be a glass canon anymore... So I switched to this strategy and now I can dish out major damage still and I have the 2X science and 1X engineer abilities to keep my shields alive and get some good debuffs too also increase effectiveness

Overview: Ground
as you know like 90% of the ground away missions you fight in groups so it seems logical to me to focus on AoE damage... The strat here focuses on AoE Damage by you and your tactical officers while knockbacks, engineer shield regens and your science officers medical tricorder keeps you alive!! You can't lose and you will have fun doing all that damage and watching all the numbers fly across your screen :)





MORE COMING SOON!
PICTURES COMING SOON!
HIGHER RANKS COMING SOON!


Note: This guide was wrote by THEDONNY of Lotus Fleet; I ask if you use this guide to please keep this note in and reference www.thedonny.com as the original Source for this information.

Thank You

STO TAG: Divine@TheDonny

Star Trek ONLINE Review

So today is 1/12/2010 Star Trek online or STO open beta started TODAY!!!

This game is no joke, if I had to explain in short terms I guess it would be close to combining "Star Trek LEGACY" the game and MMO-RPG elements. Here is a brief run down of my experience in the game and what I think about the game but before I start I wanted to point out I have read a lot of other reviews out there and I was getting the impression the game needed a lot of work due to some of the negative reviews I read about small things like the game UI and other non trivial items that make a game fun (TO ME ANYWAY) but after I got my hands on the game myself I was waiting to find these failures, these things that reviews said were annoying, things that I was going to get frustrated with but they never came... they never came....


1) Character's
First things first, you start the game being able to design your own starfleet captain! there are a few races you can choose from or you can even design your own random new alien and add to the species pool!! I will note this if you pick an already created race your customization options only go so far - example if you make a human you cant give him HORNS, why would he have horns hes human...

If you create your own custom race you can do basically whatever the hell you want though - you could probably spend an hour making your character from scratch if you wanted.

Also you get to design your own custom starfleet uniform :) which is pretty neat . some people make themselves look like spiderman which is kinda retarded but hey if they want to look stupid that's their prerogative


Also you get to pick a couple skills like racial abilities inside WoW, Once again if you pick a pre-made race you get designated racial's and a choice of 2 optional.

if you use your own custom alien race you get to pick your own 4 abilities of choice no pre-made forced racial abilities



2) Tutorial
The tutorial in this game is pretty good it does a perfect job of teaching you how to play the game without making you feel your wasting your time inside a tutorial - there are exp gains, unlocks and items you gain - you really can't bypass this tutorial but it's not that painful like some games are... there's actually action right off the bat


3) Pew pew time!!
After your tutorial your left at a MAJOR STARBASE which is just like a major city inside any other MMORPG. There are vendors and even an AUCTION HOUSE.

Here you can customize your ship and recruit new bridge officers and more!! but you don't want to do that because you get some later for free ;) SPOILER!

After shopping and exploring a bit in the city your already tossed your first real missions as a legit starfleet captain (yes an admiral said so)


3) Quests / Missions
What else is an RPG about?? QUESTS!!!
You get a series of quests that are deeply involved inside the story line - not just doing some random quest because some random starfleet guy cant find his napsack anymore. The quests you have are involved in a deep story line just like the star trek shows.

Also they are not just go kill go kill quests. Some are escort, some are defense while others are beaming down to a planet and having negotiations with the locals to provide a solution to their issues but yet all have great rewards :) Don't get me wrong a fair amount of missions are combat related as well - but not to the point to where that's all you spend your time doing... in less your Kligon !! haha


4) Wrap up

Even though the game is in BETA still I will admit the bugs aren't bad. most are minor while some are related purely on stress testing like server full, loading slow, things like that of course are going to pop up in these stages since you have 10000 people hitting the servers hard trying to play haha

I am impressed very much with the game and I think it was worth the wait. I can't wait for the official release to get all that content unlocked and playable I think this game is well worth the price and you will have countless days of fun playing this game even in the beta I can't stop playing.!


p.s. the graphics are great too


My ship the USS ARROGANT
Note: All screenshots were taken from my crappy laptop which still even runs this game good - so the requirements are obviously not too intense I never really got any lag or graphic slow down