Tier 1 PvP - Engineering Bridge Officer Skills

As with the Science skills discussed in the previous post, only a few Engineering Bridge Officer skills are really effective in PvP.

Engineering Officer:

- Emergency Power to Shields 1 - This is the basic Engineering ability that almost all players receive with their first Engineer Bridge Officer. It provides a healthy dose of shield regeneration, reduces damage done to shields for its duration but more importantly it increases Shield Power (and thus overall shield regeneration) for its entire duration. Since when maxed the cooldown of the skill is 30 seconds and the duration of the buff is also 30 seconds - you can keep the shield damage resistance and power buff on you indefinitely.

Defensive use: Pop this as soon as you get a bit of damage in PvP, if needed combine with max shield power and a high regeneration shield. This will allow you to outlast an opponent in 1v1 situations, provided you can maneuver enough to have him hit different shield facings.

- Emergency Power to Weapons 1 - Provides an immediate boost to Weapon Power causing all energy weapons to do more damage. The buff lasts as long as the cooldown once the skill is maxed, so it is a great way of buffing your damage in preparation for an alpha strike.

Offensive use: Use Emergency Power to Weapons just as you engage and try to couple it with other damage enhancing skills such as Beam Overload, Attack Pattern Alpha or Sensor Scan. The large damage boost gained from stacking all the buffs will allow you to rip through the enemy shields in but a few seconds. Another use is to pop it as soon as you drop from Full Impulse into combat, thus shortening the recharge time of your Weapon Power.

- Emergency Power to Engines 1 - A really overlooked ability, Emergency Power to Engines allows you to temporarily boost your speed and either chase a fleeing adversary or, when used in conjunction with Evasive Maneuvers, escape an encounter.

Offensive use: A common tactic you will encounter, especially when facing Klingons, is the Engine Battery - Evasive Maneuvers trick, which allows a ship to gain a huge speed bonus for a few seconds and fly out of combat range. Using the same trick, plus Emergency Power to Engines will allow a ship to chase the target and reengage it before it has a chance to drop combat and cloak or go to Full Impulse.

Defensive use: Rather than staying in a losing fight you can always try to pop an Engine Battery and use Emergency Power to Engines along with Evasive Maneuvers to run out of weapon range and drop combat. If you do not have a battery available you can simply use Emergency Power to Engines while switching Power from Weapons or Shields to full Engines - thus allowing you to reach maximum speed (and thus maximum efficiency for Evasive Maneuvers) much faster.

Engineering Team 1 - A large instant hull heal that can be used on others coupled with a moderate resistance buff that lasts a relatively long time (30 seconds) plus a chance to repair damage subsystems - all these are contained in a single ability: Engineering Team. The only downside is that it shares a 20 second cooldown with all other team abilities, meaning that after using Engineering Team you will not be able to use Science or Tactical Teams for 20 seconds.

Defensive use: The large heal should be saved until you have actually suffered enough hull damage to make it worth while, but do not be afraid to use it on an ally in need. Anything to keep more ships in the fight is useful, as that means a lower chance of being focus fired by the enemy team.

Tier 1 PvP - Bridge Officer Skills of Choice!

If one wants to fight more than just mindless and quite often extremely weak NPCs one has to venture into one of the many PvP Scenarios and face off against cunning, deviant and downright nasty opposing faction players.

The most important choice in PvP is not necessarily the equipment your ship sports, but what Bridge Officer powers you have at your disposal. In this matter the B'Rel Bird-of-Prey has the advantage as it can bring any type of officer in any combination, while the Miranda Light Cruiser is stuck with one Science, one Engineering and one Tactical. That doesn't mean that a Miranda cannot compete with a B'Rel - on the contrary it only means that a Miranda will always have both offensive and defensive powers available, while a B'Rel can specialize.

Here is a short list of Tier 1 Officer powers you should invest in if you are planning to PvP:

Science Officer:

- Jam Sensors 1 - This extremely wonderful ability is as useful for Lieutenants in their Miranda as it is for Admirals in their Sovereign. Practically it erases you from your target's sensors (aka computer screen) for a number of seconds. You can still shoot and heal and in general act normally, except the target will not be able to see you.

Offensive use: use this when your target turns to face you to blind him while you pound away on his shields and hull.

Defensive use: Jam a target (even if attacked by multiple ones) to reduce incoming damage and maybe give you time to escape.

Counter: Science Team 1 removes all Science debuffs and if applied on the target it will clear Jam Sensors.

- Tractor Beam 1 - The Tractor Beam is an offensive tool, made to slow a target down and prevent turning in order to present fresh shield faces to incoming fire. This is a purely offensive ability best used against the side or rear of enemy ships. It is more effective the more Auxiliary Power you have, but at Tier 1 you will likely be running in full Weapon Power mode as there is little use for high auxiliary.

Offensive use: Use Tractor Beam while behind an enemy to keep it in place while you break its shields and rip through the hull. Especially useful when the enemy has a tendency to bolt if severely damaged, as is the case with Klingon Bird-of-Preys.

Counter: Polarize Hull removes Tractor Beam.

- Polarize Hull 1 - Provides a large Energy Damage Resistance bonus and makes your ship immune to Tractor Beams for the duration. This is both a situational cooldown (to be used when Tractor Beams hold you in place) and a defensive one as the damage resistance increase is significant.

Defensive use: Either use Polarized hull when focus fired by multiple ships or simply save it if you know the adversary has Tractor Beam. Of note is the fact that even though it says that the Damage Resistance only applies to your hull, it actually applies to your shields as well.

Counter: Don't use Tractor Beam if you see the enemy glowing orange. Wait out its 15 second duration then you can safely Tractor him to death.

- Science Team 1 - Provides an instant Shield boost to yourself or a targeted ally, reduces damage done to Shields for 30 seconds and has a chance of removing Science debuffs for 30 seconds. All in all this is an ability that continues to be useful all the way up to the final Ranks. The fact that it does not rely on Auxiliary or Shield Power and always functions at maximum efficiency is just an added bonus.

Defensive use: The Shield restore part of the Power make it useful no matter what the circumstances, but the real strength of this Bridge Officer Power comes from its ability to remove debuffs. At Tier 1 these are limited to Jam Sensors, but you can really muck up a Klingon's day if you remove his Jam Sensors just as he is about to flee for his life. You can also use it on any ally in a 10 km radius to boost his Shields or clear his debuffs, a useful little option that will help you much more than if you hold on to it for just yourself.

The following posts in this blog will deal with Engineering and Tactical Powers. Once those are done I will focus on some basic PvP offensive and defensive tactics - from initiating an attack to escaping to fight another day.

Tier 1 PvP - The Miranda versus the B'Rel Bird-of-Prey

The introductory PvP Tier can be a harrowing experience for new players, especially those that join a Scenario having faced nothing but the early NPC squadrons you fight in the first few missions. The experience can be quite negative, as the difference in playstyle between PvE and PvP and between Klingons and Federation are quite staggering.

This post will focus more on the ships involved than on the actual tactics, because fitting a ship the right way for PvP is as important as knowing how to fly it.

First lets take the Miranda:

Hull: 10000
Shields: 3600 (Covariant MK1)
Turn Rate:11.4
Weapon Ports: 2 Forward, 1 Rear
Bridge Officer Slots: 1 Ensign Tactical, 1 Ensign Engineering, 1 Ensign Science

The shields come from one of the very early quests, so it is quite likely that a Fed player will have better shields by the end of T1.

Now the B'Rel:

Hull: 8000
Shields: 3600
Turn Rate: 23
Weapon Ports: 2 Forward, 1 Rear
Bridge Officer Slots: 3 Ensign Universal

You can clearly see that a B'Rel, while less resilient than a Miranda, is a more versatile ship. The B'Rel is also built from the start as a damage dealing vessel, using forward facing cannon and torpedo launcher and a rear turret. The Miranda on the other hand is handed to the player as a Cruiser, set up for broadsiding then turning to face the unshielded side of the target to let loose a torpedo. This does not work in PvP, where the B'Rel will fly circles around a Cruiser Miranda. A Miranda needs to hit hard and fast as well to be able to take out a B'Rel before the superior maneuverability of the Klingon ship takes its toll. Going the forward facing cannon/torpedo route with a turret behind is a good idea, same as going with 3 beam arrays and simply broadsiding the fragile BoP into submission. What you don't really want to do is combine the setups, like Cruisers do. You cannot effectively broadside with just 2 arrays and you cannot effectively burn down a BoP with a cannon up front and mines behind.

The next important difference is the Bridge Officer slots. The Miranda has 1 of each, meaning it can never really specialize in anything, while the Klingon Bird-of-Prey can field any combination of Bridge Officers. What that means for a Miranda Captain is that he needs to have a good balance of both offensive and defensive abilities, preferably PvP oriented like Polarize Hull, Engineering Team, Science Team, High Yield Torpedo, Jam Sensors etc.. and be ready to react to any situation. The BoP is usually more specialized, few go the Federation route and stick one of each type of Bridge Officers on their bridge.

Overall the matchup between ships really comes down to experience in flying the ship. New Klingons will struggle with the forward facing Bird-of-Prey while new Federation Captains will not know how to handle a fast moving, hard hitting target. They will join a Scenario fielding their PvE Bridge Officers and fittings and wonder why the Klingons tear them up.

Smooth Headstart?

January the 29th was the day STO officially launched its Headstart for all the faithful that preordered. Many hoped and many dreamed that it would be a smooth launch, that the servers would stay up, that issues found in Open Beta were resolved in a final massive patch... unfortunately the same people realized that STO will have a rocky launch and that at best the issues discovered in Open Beta would only be solved weeks if not months down the road.

Things started well. On January the 29th at 10 am ( 6 pm Gmt) the servers went up. Actually they went up a few minutes early, but that's a side bonus. They were laggy and they were crowded and yet they didnt crash... the first 30 minutes. With the number of people hammering the Log In buttons it was a small miracle that the servers managed to survive the first 10 minutes, let alone 30 minutes. Nobody was really surprised when they crashed. It was prime-time in Europe after all.

Forums were flooded with encouragement posts - "this is the smoothest launch ever"; "you should've seen the Champions Online crap!"; "be grateful this isn't like the Anarchy Online debacle" etc. People were genuinely happy that the game had launched even though the servers were down.

This sentiment would change over the coming days. Saturday and Sunday both saw scheduled and unscheduled "Server Maintenance" lasting several hours at a time. The mood on the forums darkened as Dev response was poor and well... cryptic. Issues had not been solved. Missions became impossible to complete for seemingly arbitrary reasons. GM response was late (understandable with the number of issues and complaints present) and usually not very helpful.

Finally the Devs implemented the only solution they could think of until they managed to get more and better servers: institute log in queues. On paper it was a good idea... but in reality the queues rarely budged, often your position in them went up rather than down and after hours of waiting you were still number 1121.

As you can imagine the forums were not so peaceful during the frequent server failures and the subsequent queues. Headstart was marketed as play time, not down time . If people can't use an item they paid for, they get angry.

On the other hand the massive problems come from the very large number of people wanting to try the game out. This basically means that at least for the near future, the funding for STO is assured. Great news considering the game was released early due to lack of funds. Hopefully this will provide the necessary resources for Cryptic to truly create a viable 2 faction (or any number of factions) game.

In conclusion, seeing as the official launch is tomorrow, here's a big "GOOD LUCK" to Cryptic and its servers. If they stay up during prime time tomorrow it will be a big PR plus.

The B'Rel Bird-of-Prey

The most recognizable Klingon ship has to be the standard Bird-of-Prey. This sleek silhouette chills the spine of any Captain as promise of short, bloody and all over the place violence - also known as "The Klingons are hailing us!" - looms over soon to be space-debris Federation ships.

It seems only natural then that the starter ships for new Klingon warriors should be the B'Rel Bird-of-Prey, the oldest and least powerful BoP model.

Do not let its age and limited weaponry fool you though. The B'Rel might not have the shields or hull of a Federation Miranda class Light Cruiser, but it packs a meaner punch, handles better and has a Cloak that allows it to close the distance easier. Unlike the later Birds-of-Prey, the B'Rel possesses only a normal Cloak, meaning it can only turn invisible out of combat. Later models have access to the Battle Cloak, allowing them to slip away even in the heat of ship to ship dogfighting if the situation turns against them.

As the Klingon Empire does not have access at the moment to any meaningful PvE content, the article will focus on flying a B'Rel in PvP, especially against the Federation Tier 1 ship - the Miranda.

Unfortunately, being less sturdy means that the BoP cannot employ the same tactics as successfully as the Federation starter ship. A Klingon Captain must make the most of the maneuverability of the B'Rel in order to win against an equally skilled Federation player. One cannot play the BoP as a Cruiser as in a broadsiding contest the Miranda wins hands down.

Instead the BoP must be flown as an Escort, sporting a rear Turret, preferably Phaser to counteract the Disruptor damage resistant shields of Federation players and a forward Dual-Beam or Cannon. Finally the standard torpedo launcher, be it Photon or Quantum, is an absolute necessity. The basic tactic is to get behind a Federation ship, under 5 kms, uncloak and start firing. Keep behind the target by using Evasive Maneuvers to counteract any sharp turns, reducing impulse speed to half to allow for better turning and if possible using a Tractor Beam I from a Science Bridge Officer to keep the weakened rear shield in your sights.

Between a Turret and a Heavy Cannon the targeted shield should drop instantly allow you to pop a High Yield Torpedo right into the exposed hull.

If the fight is not going your way, either hit Rotate Shield Frequency (Engineer only) and try to finish off your victim or switch full power to Engines, hit Evasive Maneuvers and get the hell out of there. The massive speed boost should allow you to clear the 10 km max weapon range before incoming fire tears your fragile BoP apart. If you manage to get out of range you will get out of combat and must cloak to slink away and repair your damaged ship.

All in all the B'Rel Bird-of-Prey is a versatile, if a little fragile, ship. Unlike the Miranda Light Cruiser, one must always focus on doing as much damage as possible before retreating as the shields and hull on a BoP do not last long enough for prolonged battles.

The Miranda Class Light Cruiser

Ensign, meet Miranda. Miranda, meet your new Captain. You two will be spending a lot of time together.

Now I know she doesn't look like much, in fact she's little more than a bare hull. Two forward weapon slots, one rear, a single console of each type and not enough crew for a conga line is all you get. Basic shield, basic engines, basic everything... How exactly are you supposed to take this shell of ship into combat against the Orion Syndicate or against the might of the Klingon Empire?

Well it's not as bad as it sounds. Slap on a few consoles, maybe some better Impulse Engines and Resilient Shields and you are golden. Since you still need to kill stuff you might need to boost your Phaser Arrays a bit and hopefully you can snag an early Quantum Torpedo Launcher really blow things away.


Once you've gotten rid of most of your basic gear it's time to specialize. There are many ways to fly a Miranda. Initially she is built as a Cruiser, with two 250 degrees Phaser Arrays, one back and one front and a forward facing Photon Torpedo Launcher. This is fine if all you plan on doing is broadsiding enemies with both your Phasers and launching a Torpedo once their shields collapse, but in all honestly it is a very inefficient way of dealing with multiple fast ships and overall your damage potential is limited even against larger opponents. The sole advantage in PvE is that you can rotate to keep your strongest shield facing the enemy while still keeping two Phasers peppering the target, but usually you want targets dead fast not limping around you while you try and line up a Photon Torpedo.


The second, and for me the best way to outfit the Miranda in PvE is to dump the rear Phaser Array in favor of a Turret. Turrets deal less damage than a 250 degrees Array but they fire in any direction. They can be hard to find as Federation and you might only find Disruptor Turrets but these work as well. Next try and get either a Cannon (heavy works best) or better a Dual-Beam Array instead of your basic front Phaser. Cannons have a 45 degree firing angle so that might be a little small when trying to kill Birds of Prey or Orion Frigates, but Dual-Beam Arrays have a 90 degree angle, perfectly matching your Torpedo Launcher. Beam weapons lose less damage at longer range, whereas Cannons deal little damage at ranges over 5 kms. If you manage to swing a Mark II Photon Torpedo Launcher or a Quantum Torpedo Launcher you will find that taking down even the strongest of Battleships becomes a chore rather than a challenge.

The only downside of the build above is that you will always need to face your enemy, as your only side weapon is a low damage Turret. This means that your forward shield will take the brunt of the enemy Torpedo Volleys and can and will fail, so a Bridge Officer with Emergency Power to Shields I is practically a necessity. On the other hand targets will die quickly from your combination of Turret, Dual-Beam and Torpedo fire, thus allowing you to complete missions faster and exchange your lovely Miranda for a brand new ship sooner.

In PvP the Miranda is not nearly maneuverable enough to try and pull off the Escort style of play, with all DPS concentrated in a 90 degree forward arc. Klingon Birds of Prey will circle around you and hit your unprotected sides and rear, dropping your shields fast with their Disruptors and blowing holes in your hull with their well timed High Yield Torpedoes. In PvP you want to be able to hit anything anywhere. Two 250 degree Phaser Arrays allow you to always fire on the enemy, especially while maneuvering to protect weakened sides. Another option is to carry Mines in the rear slot, but these are only effective in great number.

Whichever way you choose to fly it, the Miranda remains a very versatile, if a little poorly endowed ship. Just remember - a ship is only as good as its Captain!

Races - Custom

The ability to create a custom race is perhaps the best option for players that really want to mold their character to their personality or wish to min-max. While the Federation and Klingon races are all iconic, the traits they are required to take usually end up hurting specialist characters. If you want to make the best Space Captain or Ground PvPer you really need to pick only the traits that will suit you best. Luckily Cryptic's custom race creator is powerful enough to allow you to create almost any type of anthropomorphic alien, no matter how weird.

The traits below are all available when creating a Custom Race and can be juggled around to find the perfect mix. Keep in mind however that some traits do not stack with each other (usually mentioned here) or if they stack they suffer from diminishing returns.

Acute Senses – 20% Stealth Sight, 10% Exploit Damage – A decent PvP and PvE trait, the Stealth Detection is what draws most attention, not the Exploit damage. Realistically, if you hit a target with an Exploit, it will usually just die. 10% more death is unnecessarily mean.

Accurate (Space) – 10% Accuracy – A surprisingly useful trait as there are very few Accuracy modifiers to be found early game. Hitting more often translates into doing more damage. Add to that the fact that this is one of a handful of Space traits and you might just want to grab it on any aspiring Picard.

Aggressive – 5% Damage Bonus and 5% Threat Generation – 5% permanent damage boost is nothing to scoff at, though the Threat Generation bit may be unattractive for Science or Engineering Officers.

Astrophysicist (Space) – 10 Starship Operations Training – Improves Deflector, Emitter and Sensor Abilities – This is another decent Space trait. Deflector, Emitter and Sensor Abilities are usually Science abilities like Tachyon Beam, Tractor Beam etc. This trait is even more useful if you plan on flying Science ships and thus using higher ranked Science Bridge Officers.

Cold-Blooded – 25% Fire and 10% Plasma DoT Resistance – This is a waste of a trait unless you want to take if for RP reasons. The Fire resistance may come in handy in some PvE encounters, but there are always ways to circumvent such environmental hazards.

Covert – 20% Exploit Damage while Stealthed, 10% Stealth, 10% Stealth Perception – The perfect trait for a Tactical Officer using Stealth Kits, it can be useful on other Officers as well due to the Stealth Perception. However, if you do not plan on playing a Tactical Officer, skip it in favor of Acute Senses or other Ground feats.

Creative - 5% Damage and Healing with Kit Abilities – This is not as good as it sounds. Sure more effective Kit abilities are always a plus, but 5% is too low a number for something you use sparingly (due to the cooldown). It might turn out to be of use later on when you have access to 3 or more Kit abilities, but unless you plan on playing a Science Officer and healing, skip it.

Efficient (Space) – 5% Starship Shield, Engine, Auxiliary and Energy Weapon Efficiency – One of the best all around Space traits, the extra Power boost to all the Starship systems can be felt right away. This is a trait that will stay useful throughout the game, even if its impact is not as readily noticeable.

Elusive (Space) – 10% Defense – A bigger chance to be missed is always useful.

Lucky – 3% Critical Strike and Expose Chance – Too bad this is a Ground trait. The Expose Chance is nice, especially in PvP and the extra Critical Strike Chance is great too. Overall if you are building a Ground PvP or PvE specialist, pick this one up. The Expose Chance increase does not stack with other Expose buffs such as Telepathic.

Mental Discipline – 15% Psionic Damage Resistance, 20% Confuse and Placate Resistance – I have yet to encounter a lot of situations where these types of Resistances will come in handy. In PvP you will only likely see Psionic Damage if you are fighting Lethean Players who remember to use Rapture, and even then it will be low. On the other hand Confuse Resistance can come in handy against Orion Females and Vulcans even in Tier 1 PvP battles.

Natural Immunities – 33% Radiation and Toxic Damage Resistance – Again Resistances to damage types you rarely encounter do not make for a good trait.

Peak Health – 10% Toxic Damage Resistance, 10% Maximum Hit Points – The Toxic Damage Resistance is useless, but the 10% increase to Maximum Hit Points can be a life saver in PvP. There are numerous occasions where I survived with less than 30 Hit Points only to heal back to full with a Medical Tricorder the next second. If you plan on PvPing, you cannot go wrong with this trait.

Physical Strength – 10% Melee Damage – The feat is only useful if you are going to play a Tactical Officer specializing in Close Combat, else it will see little use.

Resilient – 5% Damage Resistance – 5% less damage across the board means 5% more uptime for you in both PvP and PvE. Those extra seconds can mean the difference between victory or death, but unless you are building a specialized Ground fighter there are more useful traits to be had both for Ground and Space.

Soldier – 5% Energy Damage, 10 Critical Severity – 5% Energy Damage basically applies to all ranged weapons, while the extra Critical Strike Damage will come in handy from time to time. As with the previous trait, 5% is a lot when you are down to the final Phaser Shot and nothing when the adversary is at full health.

Stubborn – 40% Snare Resistance, 20% Hold Resistance, 50% Placate Resistance – A pretty good trait considering the amount of Hold effects that you will encounter. The Snare Resistance also comes in handy, but the Placate Resistance has yet to prove useful to me. Overall this is a decent PvP trait that merits a serious look.

Sturdy – 10% Physical Damage Resistance, 10% Kinetic Damage Resistance, 10% Knockback Resistance – The bane of Close Combat Officers, Sturdy allows characters to better mitigate a charging Gorn or Klingon and maybe to survive long enough to react. The Knockback Resistance works against any types of Knockbacks so it will always remain useful.

Sure Footed – 40% Root Resistance, 12% Knockback Resistance – This is another mostly PvP trait. Being Rooted and shot down before you get a chance to fight back is not fun and this trait can help you avoid that. The same goes for the large variety of Knockbacks present in PvP.

Techie (Space) – 10 Starship Engineering Training – The trait increases the Repair rate of you ship, but 10% is a bit low in the heat of battle.

Telekinetic – Telekinesis – Targeted Knockback and Light Physical Damage – The fact that you need to channel this active ability for 0.75 seconds limits its use in large scale PvP, but one versus one it can be a tide turner.

Telepathic – 20% Stealth Sight, Increased Exposure Duration and Chance – The trait is the same as Acute Senses, only increasing Expose Chance and Duration rather than Exploit damage. Overall a better choice for the Away Team fan. The Expose Chance increase does not stack with other Expose buffs such as Lucky.

Warp Theorist (Space) – 10 Starship Warp Core Training – This is a feat that is almost a must have for any serious Starship Captain. The extra power is not much, but if you plan on min-maxing then you really have no better option for a Space trait.

As you can see there are actually very few traits that affect the performance of your Ship. Most traits are Ground focused, so building a dedicated Space Captain basically means picking up Accurate, Elusive and 2 other Space traits of your choosing.

Ground Captains have a lot more thinking to do, but overall traits that buff Expose Chance along with some resistance to Holds/Knockbacks/Roots work well.