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.