Beginners Guide Ship Building Basics | 5 Things You Need to Know | Star Trek Online 2024

[@AzraelThanatos]

One thing that I'd suggest for a new player is also to stockpile your refined dilithium to get enough for the 10 pack of Phoenix boxes. Grab the Prolonged Engagement Console, Torpedo, and one of the phasers (either of them unlocks both for reclaim). You also want the Sompek Lightning, ground Shield, and both the gauntlets and assault (take your pick early on as what you're using or slot into the second weapon slot). They're not that expensive to snag and you should be able to get them pretty quickly there, the big thing is the ability to reclaim them if you need them...the ground shield is one you can keep reclaiming and putting on your bridge officers for a good and essentially free shield that will level with you, the ground weapons you can do the same. The ship set is a good starting point and they're great phasers which level with you. After that, the Bozeman Drive is a great thing, but it's a per-character, though it's still a good leveling one that means there's less you need to worry about. The Bajor core/singularity is decent as well if you want them. There's also the various doffs and admiralty ships you can snag as you have extra tokens (start with the doffs, there are several good ones there and the extra damage against specific foes ones are great slotted in early on, the ships are more for a later system since Admiralty unlocks later on).

[@radaro.9682]

I can't work out how to define the shit. Can't ever remember where the window is and I always play solo anyway so probably doesn't matter.

[@matth6014]

Theres a page that lists most of the starship traits. Alot people probably dont know about. As a new player i suggest educating yourselves on traits. For example alot of people using rcs accelerators for turn rate or the polaric modulator for speed. When theres traits that will give 5-10x what the consoles give allowing for a more flexible build.will also help you plan your builds out and choose the right ships. Another example people using consoles to jack up crit chance when endeavors and other traits can give you as much as 10-100% crit chance.

[@lethalsong5585]

I learned something new. Thank you. One main thing I tell my friends (after the ALL ONE ENERGY TYPE!) is to change auto-fire from "until target defeated" to "until exit of red alert" - I forget the exact wording of those options but it's at the bottom of the Space Control tab I think. It becomes more important as your dps increases and things die faster.

[@Shadohz75]

***headscratch*** Say what? You referring to "auto-attack"? There's like 5 different settings.

[@Mac_1701]

Great vid for new and experienced players. A bit of explanation on the order in which to activate abilities helps out immensely. Away to hunt for the key bind vid now

[@anthonyfry567]

Absolutely agree with you on this! I returned a few months ago after about a 4 yr absence, so a lot has changed. Plus, even my characters that were "max level" back then, are woefully undergeared. Couple that with the fact that I was never really much of a "power player", and this is exactly the kind of video I needed to help me get my head around things. I have seen a lot of the other videos out there, but they all end up talking up endgame/reputation gear/abilities and isomags, like a new player will know what that means in the short term. So a video like this, that explains how to gear at the lower levels, with level specific gear/abilities, is absolutely what was needed. Thanks Stu!

[@Caelum_NLD]

Thanks, Stu! I am still very much a noob and this helped a lot. Made me look forward to ordening my characters and their progression way better!

[@gmradio2436]

One bit of advice I give is to rerun content at higher levels. A fair amount of rewards are leveled so if you found something you like, but out leveled, you can get it again, and you can run missions to get rewards multiple times.

[@NZBigfoot]

Some mission reward gear can be freely upgraded up to MKXII, its not all mission reward gear but ive forgotten which ones are.

[@Lee-St]

Very helpful Stu thanks

[@paulkirby2761]

What I've found as a negative in this game as a new player so far is, I'm a bit of a Star Trek nerd, and as such I actually enjoy playing a Constitution and Miranda and Klingon alternatives of they era etc, but as soon as I leveled up my character and started unlocking newer ships with more HP, weapons and console slots etc, the missions themselves along with Patrol difficulties seemingly scales with that. Now, that might seem normal but sadly it made my little Constitution Class feel very obsolete compared to my Galaxy and then Sovereign. I really wanted to be able to have the option to play on with whatever ship I wanted yet without being at such a massive deficit in all areas. I discovered this sort of tier and leveling template spills over to equipment too. The downside to that is it placed a lot of emphasis on leveling my character up to lv65 ASAP since it feels very wasteful to invest a few hours completing missions and episodes for various sets of equipment only for those sets to be again, obsolete. Getting a full set of lV mission sourced phasers and consoles only to be then offered a much superior set of Xll versions of the same set by the time I quickly level of my character just felt like bothering with anything much before lv65 was kinda dumb and something I'd only end up having to do again. In most cases a ship will need 6 or 7 of that same phaser bank, and that's 6 or 7 repeats of the same mission. That's fine, but not before you unlock the top level of that weapon or console which as mentioned, seemingly scales with the level of your character. I am really enjoying the game though and that's only a new player feedback on what I've found to be a bit counterproductive and not a rant about "why the game sucks!'. It doesn't suck, far from it. I'm loving the emersion into the Trek world and getting to own and play these iconic ships I grew up watching. For some reason I'm not seeing any Galor Class or Ferengi Marauder for sale from the ship vendors which is s pity, nor is there any Borg ships, but in the case of Borg ships I guess that's not a bad thing since they'd be massive over-powered and it would get pretty damn crowded around popular space stations if lots of players turned up with giant Borg Cubes(actually most Borg ships tend to be huge lol). It's a great game for escaping the hectic fast paced PvP world or just a wet rainy day. I've so much to learn, so clueless right now, but I've found those are the most enjoyable moments of any new game. Once a player gets everything and knows most things does the reason to play and interest levels diminish so I'm gonna enjoy the noob experience.

[@leespiderpod]

Thanks, I have a real mishap-mash of weapons at the moment

[@NightridingDoom]

Torpedo exception: Altamid Plasma torpedo are boosted by Plasma tactical consoles, so look for plasma damage amplifier when running that build. Even if it says kinetic damage, it is still boosted by the plasma tactical consoles

[@kitfo18]

Getting back into the game after a long time. Lets put it this way I played on day 1... Great over view on builds!.

[@matthewday7565]

Another important thing for a beginner, if there is a recruitment event, jump on it, there are 4 which come up through a year, and they all offer account wide bonuses, even if you don't fancy being Klingon... Temporal Recruit - the star feature is an account wide reclaim bonus for Reputation project items, some of the best kit you can get for free at a later stage - instead of being made at Mark XII Very rare, they are made at Mark XIII Ultra rare. Klingon Recruit - start feature is an account wide 10% Endeavour XP boost - again, Endeavours come a bit later, and are well worth doing, even without the 10% bonus - and if you want a Klingon, the event includes a very capable ship that levels with you. There are other bonuses, character and account, from all 4, but they are collect, rather than ongoing

[@matthewkeeling886]

Once your KDF recruit is L65 you can get that BoP on non-KDF characters due to the cross-faction flying unlock and both the console and trait are useful for most characters.

[@stue2298]

The Delta recruit to get all the account-wide unlocks for the rest of you characters you will need to make one for each faction Fed, KDF and Romulan. Yes make those recruit characters, even FTP has enough to make a main and the 4 recruitment event characters.

[@AzraelThanatos]

@@stue2298Yep, and there's a recurring bug that can hit which makes it so that some of the Romulan ones might not correctly flag as complete...according to one of cryptics people, if it doesn't trigger, you're going to need another character because it's potential issues between your characters aligned faction and various things in the missions...normally just run through it with a character aligned to the other faction and it'll work while letting you see the variation of the story there (It's normally the mission where you get assimilated and your allied faction rides to the rescue near the end with the completion flag). I've almost finished all of the recruits. Gamma just needs to finish getting one of the remaining commendations to max, while KDF needs a few more of the TFO ones (Can't remember if it's both of the top ones or just the highest for random ones completed, and I need to finish the Romulan TFO one).

[@stue2298]

@@AzraelThanatosI nearly there with the recruitment event characters, just need another 50 random TFOs withmy KDF recruit.

[@csnyder6997]

New player here. Thanks! Very informative

[@troyturner2407]

This was very good it helped me a lot. Thanks!

[@koppadasao]

Crash course? Oh, I hope not! Crashing isn't nice. It's rather unhealthy, actually.

[@shadowhenge7118]

Ramming Speed!!

[@enstarfanensemble1092]

Worf: Set crash course! TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE!

[@Yandarval]

For starting players/toons. If you are given weapons and gear with an Infinity (∞) symbol. Those item will level up with you until you get better gear. For example, Upon reaching level 10. Your gear will act as Mk IV gear. Mk VI at 20 etc. However, this is basic gear. I would suggest turning autofire off on any torps at low level. Then, use the manual fire (*) located above the ship weapon display. As torps lose 75% of their damage, if there is any shielding in the way. So bring down the shields before firing.

[@AzraelThanatos]

Yep, you just need to remember to open them in the upgrade screen when you're near top level (I think the autolevel only works to level 50 with MK XII) after which they level like anything else does.

[@overbyte]

Great work. Glad I found the channel

[@paulkirby2761]

Oh and a question. There was only a very limited few ship options to choose from for free with the leveling system. After discoveriny I'm a bit of a Star Trek nerd I always wanted a Nebula and Excelsior Class Starship. Those are not in the free reward ship options sadly, so I saved refined dilithium and bought the Nebula which I was really delighted with purely from the aesthetics perspective, ignoring performance etc. But I think I read that buying a ship like this(or indeed any ship) with Dilithium is a complete waste and that it's better spent on equipment. Right, the question!(We got there ppl!) As a free2play player(at least for now) and seemingly no other way to freely get a Nebula or Excelsior, why is getting the ships that I actually want a waste of Dilithium? Was there some other free way to obtain these ships? Also, what equipment are ppl referring too that can be purchased with Dilithium? All I've seen is the Traders section which buys/sells items with energy credits? Bonus question. I'm running a second character too which is a Klingon. I'm not rushing through the game and enjoy the stories and lore of the quests and missions BUT, unlike my Fed character my Klingon character doesn't seem to be rewarded a free ship at lv50 and only the right to purchase some better ship option. My question is, at what levels are Klingon characters rewarded a free ship? Also, how can I quickly find these newly "allowed" ships for purchase? I tried to whittle the list of purchasable and free ships down by clicking on my characters current rank as to exclude all other non-applicable options but what was left were ships I mostly couldn't buy, seemingly already had for free from lv40(I think) and therefore not an upgraded option, or were ships I wasn't able or allowed to buy? I'm a bit lost in the ship yard tbh!

[@brobasticbroham446]

Dude they should hire you as a consultant for reworking the toutorial mission tree

[@terranadmiral6758]

I’m currently using a vaadwuar polaron build on my KDF recruits jem’hadar dreadnought cruiser and isomags are great because I can still have regular tactical consoles on my ship to boost up my weapons as well

[@MCStu]

Very Nice!!

[@Terixofevermore]

A question I would ask, is as your are leveling and doing different missions, it’s sometimes very difficult to stick to rigorous damage types. Would you just use the weapons that come from the next starship you unlock? Or should one go out of there way to find upgrades every ten levels. Once you hit 50 you start to hit a slight wall, and the game basically never tells you or gives you any decent money making opportunities untill then. Once you hit the delta quadrant, I feel your basically almost required start upgrading gear. Any advice on that?

[@adrewadrew5860]

From my expirence HUD and camera settings are very important. You can do second part explaning that.

[@GaiaCurvy83]

very helpful, thank you.

[@weylinstoeppelmann9858]

What is the benefit of using weapon batteries when the setting is already at 100% boosted to 125%? Like I see the default max is 125, but the +20 from EPtW and the +5 (or +15 on escorts) reaches that already. Isn't anything over 125 wasted? I was using a setting of max weapons and the rest to engines, with batteries for shields and aux to plug those gaps when it seems prudent (like about to use aux scaling abilities, or about to take lethal damage from a torp spread and want my shields to mitigate as much of that kinetic as possible.

[@MCStu]

As soon as you fire your weapons you start losing weapons power, the batteries helps offset that.

[@paulkirby2761]

Thanks for the tips in this vid btw. Really nice 👌

[@starwolven]

spend a few hundred dollars and you'll be good to go. Have fun tracking all the traits you need, some are requirements out of the zen store, others from the lobi store. Phasers are the easiest to build, especially if you pick up a DOMINO console, so I think they are the most beginner friendly weapon type.

[@SP-fc9bx]

Do you need to have your weapons all the way up. Or just make sure that there up so you are 125/100. In other words, you set your weapons up to say 75 but the bonus "green" bare sends you to the 125 mark.

[@MCStu]

All the way up

[@brucesim2003]

IMO, photonic should be last in the rotation. If you do it 1st, by the time you activate the last in the rotation, you have lost some time of the photonic effect. If you do it last, the full effect of photonic lands in the middle of all the other cooldowns, and is probably shorter than the cooldowns of the other skills. Hence, it will shorten the cooldown of everything for it's full effect, instead of having most skills only partly effected. Early on it may make little difference, but as you progress and your rotation gets longer, it will be noticeable.

[@stue2298]

for engineer consoles because the Isomags are just saturated i have seen them as low as 1,000 EC, just pick up a few Mk2 with random mods and put them on your starship. They will help you even with the random mods. If you are in a fleet you can always ask a kind fleet member to craft some very rare MK2 weapons of the flavour you want and use them, and hopefully you get get enough Dil to upgrade those weapons and keep them for most of you leveling experience.

[@datalor3698]

Do Attack Pattern buffs stack, or you can only have 1 active? For example, is it a mistake to have APB1 and APA3 on the same tray?

[@MCStu]

Ya, just one. They both will not run at the same time.

[@datalor3698]

@@MCStu thanks for clarifying this, and offering good down-to-earth advice. The good (and bad) of STO is that by not explaining you anything you can still learn something new even after years of on and off playtime. Part of its old-school charm I guess. There's plenty of room for a "Top 10 things Star Trek Online doesn't explain you" video

[@focusonrevenues]

Great job MC Stu

[@GaryMiddler]

Will this transfer to console as well - or do we need a separate console versions setup

[@MCStu]

Yes 100%

[@shawncoleman8530]

Ok great! I've been hoping for an update for beginners... when setting weapon power level, if you have bonuses, does setting it at 100 matter if you hit 125 before the slider is set to 100? So if the slider is at 85, but that gets you to 125 on the bar, is that good or should it still be at 100?

[@MCStu]

Set at max , when you fire your weapons it draws from that power pool so 125 is better then 100... Always go max on weapons power.

[@Ashendal]

It still should be at 100 due to how the game handles power levels and "excess" power. Max it out.

[@dragonoid3456]

Great vid.

[@dragonoid3456]

In console a lot of this is the same but with no power preset function and having a radial select menu instead, how can one set proper activation chains?

[@willardclarke5186]

Hi, I'm like still trying to figure his console stacking out, I have let's say Three Neutronium alloy right, I noticed I get the full amount with the first layer, then about around half for the second layer and for the third layer I get maybe around 15% of its rating. Does this stacking method work for tactical consoles as well. I run with a beam upgrade and two phaser relays let's say and it gets some good amount dmg output. But does the console stacking degrading effect hard-core on tactical or is that just for the other sections on the ship?

[@MCStu]

There is a diminish return on stacking resistance...

[@TheSilentWitcher]

Very nice work, have you thought about doing the next part of this video called, I don't know, Advanced Ship Building to help more experienced players who are already developing and have access to Rep Gear to get more out of their setup, or is that what your other videos are for? Because I personally learned a lot from them, which I appreciate, but I think a summary of them would be great... 😉

[@alanpattee4383]

great job!

[@lordflashheart8153]

Please can you do a video on the exchange, yesterday someone had a acetone beam 3 on the exchange for 50 million, I had a little laugh especially when I can R&D it for far much more cheaper, 2500 ec and i think its 400 dil.

[@RotalHenricsson]

I... i was expecting something more... lore-related. Laying down the first frames, planning window holes, placing the first armor plates... but uh this is good too, this is good too

[@Bubble_0f_d00m]

Trek Ship building basics: Step one. *Where to build your ship.* Now I know many of you want to build your ship at the space shipyards in earth orbit, especially in the giant spinning battle top often seen in Kirk Trek movies, but most of those are for repair and refit. Utopia Planitia in orbit above Mars is the most common location for actually building a new ship. However, if time traveling Romulans destroyed a little ship called the Kelvin, you may want to build your ship on the ground in Iowa. Why? Because corn fed, farm grown starships are proven to grow 10x the size of their main timeline counterparts.

[@its_a_MADD_world]

Early on, couldn't you just use consoles that boost beam damage? That way, you could just use the best weapons you find. I know later on you don't want to do that, but in the beginning, does it really matter?

[@matthewkeeling886]

In theory, yes. However, the consoles that boost beams/cannons instead of the energy type have a lesser boost at any given level/rarity combination. This means that it is usually better to home in on a single energy type first, then chose weapon type. If you are mostly getting the weapon type consoles as drops then you can do the other way around but you should settle on both quickly.

[@cadaren7118]

I love you MC Stu

[@tmcgrenere]

Heard treachery that STO is now under threat!

[@troublewithtribbles1747]

🎉

[@jetnova16]

You’re actually wrong about shields, I’ve played from day one on both PC and Console and then since Cryptic changed the required specifications for PC I’ve stuck with Console and shields are needed, and all my characters are at level 65! Plus it’s not required whatsoever to have all the same weapons types, in fact you actually do want both energy weapons and torpedoes. Torpedoes when player CORRECTLY in conjunction with Energy Weapons do considerable damage. This is because ENERGY WEAPONS are meant to WEAKEN enemy shields then you used a torpedo volley and it finishes them off! NEVER FAILS in any TFO that I do or story mission or patrol. Thus you actually have to use your energy weapons right in conjunction with your torpedoes. It’s never a problem utilizing an Energy Weapon and Torpedoes. What you’re supposed to do is use a conjunction of Torpedo Tactical Consoles and your equivalent energy weapon tactical consoles and utilize Universal Console sets as well, it’s NOT A NET LOSS! Thus the best RIGHT build is ONE FORWARD AND ONE AFT TORPEDO, and the remaining Energy Weapon either cannons and arrays. In fact ONLY my Lexington-class doesn’t utilize a Torpedo Tactical Console, instead it gets the buffs from set related Universal Consoles helping both weapons. Utilizing both Beam Overload, Fire At Will, Cannon Overload (on ships with Cannons), the Torpedo High Yield and Torpedo Spread. Many players have been utilizing these Established Star Trek Canon Builds and found they give better results.

[@necroticavalon5176]

I stopped watching at "shields don't make a big deal" about 2 minutes in. Another min-maxing Tactical Escort elitist. Maybe they don't, if all you're after is the big dps numbers, and don't mind dying a few times when you get swarmed and whittled down. Some people like playing immersively. Some just play for the story. Oh, and for Science builds and science ships, especially if you want any tanking ability, shields very much DO make a big deal, since their hull multiplier is crap. For Science DPS's, Aux makes a big deal to get their space-magic going. So even from a meta perspective your generalisation is UTTER nonsense. I just love it when someone makes a "beginner's guide" and then starts with very specific min-maxing end game bullshit like this. Especially since this applies to exactly ONE type of play, with ONE type of ship class. Escorts, and hit/run tactics.

[@MCStu]

Nothing to do with elites or big DPS, hull and resistance do better then shield. I don't like it, its the mechanis of the game. You can make shield work and if that is what you like, do it. We are all here to have fun....

[@necroticavalon5176]

@@MCStu So don't start a guide with 'shields don't make a big deal'. Just cuz YOU can't make them work. That's a you problem.