The Hilbert Guide

A cookie cutter approach to PVP in Star Trek Online by Hilbert@mancom

You can comment on this guide in its thread on the STO forums.

Contents

The intention of this guide is to give you the information you need to stop being a liability for your side in a PVP match.

You won't be given information about various concepts and how to make your own decisions.

You will be given exactly one basic build for your ship class that you just need to implement. A solid build is an important first step, because you cannot succeed without a good build. Then you can begin practising how to fly it.

Since I will give you exactly one build, there are often ways to modify the build without changing the core idea - like choosing a different ship within a class or using different energy types. If you know what you are doing, you can make these adjustments. But if you really knew what you were doing, you probably wouldn't need a cookie cutter guide.

Since there are now many items in the game that are timegated (reputation system), require membership in a fleet and sufficiently advanced fleet holdings or are only obtainable from chance-based events (lockboxes, doff packs), I provide Basic, Advanced and Elite configurations for the ships. These are variations of a common theme. The Basic version can be easily set up by a single player without progress in the reputation system. The Advanced version includes gear from the reputation system, lower level fleet gear and easily obtainable doffs. The Elite version additionally includes high-level fleet gear and rare items that can only be obtained by chance or for high prices on the exchange. Despite using expensive gear, the Elite version is not supposed to be the best ship design in the game, it is intended to be a competitive and easy to learn build that is largely independent of shortlived "flavour of the week" fads.

The bridge officer abilities for the Basic layout are chosen in way so that they are available from either the bridge officer trainer or from candidates that you can easily buy from the exchange or C-Store.

For the most part the guide gives gear recommendations which are easily obtained and comparatively cheap. Since the changes in Season 7 regarding how one acquires STF gear have made some of the items more difficult to get and the fleet starbase and reputation systems offer new items that can be unlocked, the Basic gear recommandations are now accompanied by a suggested gear progression that you can use as an outline of how to upgrade your gear over time.

The Basic builds use ships that you get for free during leveling up. If you don't have that ship, you don't have to pay tons of dilithium to obtain it, you can simply get the Mirror version of the ship in a usually cheap reward box on the exchange.

All the Basic gear is available from the dilithium store (beneath your mini map) or as PVE mission rewards.

The following list gives the sources for the items that are not available in the dilithium store.

Item Source Assimilated Module ("Borg console") Omega reputation Assimilated Deflector Array Omega reputation Assimilated Subtranswarp Engines Omega reputation Assimilated Regenerative Shield Array Omega reputation M.A.C.O. Resilient Shield Array Omega reputation Adapted M.A.C.O. Covariant Shield Array Omega reputation Kinetic Cutting Beam Omega reputation Subspace Field Modulator Klingon War: Skirmish Paratrinic Shield Array Klingon War: Past Imperfect Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Beam Array Klingon War: Past Imperfect Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Dual Heavy Cannons Klingon War: Past Imperfect Supercooled Combat Impulse Engine Breen Invasion: Cold Case Polarized Parabolic Deflector Breen Invasion: Cold Call Obelisk Subspace Rift Warp Core Solanae Dyson Sphere: Sphere of Influence Omni-Directional Antiproton Beam Array Solanae Dyson Sphere: Sphere of Influence Antiproton Beam Array Mk XI [Acc]x2 Solanae Dyson Sphere: Sphere of Influence

(mission replay after the first run) Plasmonic Leech Fed: Exchange (was part of a lockbox)

KDF: C-Store Vandal Destroyer Advanced Fleet weapons Fleet Starbase T2 Enhanced Engineering Consoles Fleet Dilithium Mine T2 Red Matter Capacitor Preorder bonus for the Collector's Edition Advanced Tactical Vulnerability Consoles Fleet Spire T3

This guide is built around your spacebar. You will have to pilot your ship, keep pressing spacebar all the time and every now and then use heals on yourself and your allies.

Keybinds

As to make this spacebar way of PVPing possible, you have to use keybinds to bind abilities to your spacebar.

Download the file spacebar.txt (right-click, then "Save target as ...") and place it in your STO directory which is usually at

C:\Users\Public\Games\Cryptic Studios\Star Trek Online\Live

Start STO, log in with the character you want to play, go into a space map. (There are different keybind sets for ground and space!) Then enter the following command into your chat box:

/bind_load_file spacebar.txt

This keybind file changes three keys:

Your spacebar now activates not only your energy weapons, but also all abilities that you place in tray 7 (we will get to this in a second) and redistributes your shields. The T key now sends a message to your team announcing your current target. Your fourth mouse button (if your mouse has four buttons) will now trigger shield redistribution. You can use this if you don't want to fire your weapons (thus not use spacebar) but still want to redistribute shields - e.g. if you have been hit by Scramble Sensors.

Filling tray 7

You can select different views for your tray. It shows two or three out of ten possible rows. You can add an ability to multiple locations of your tray (e.g. in two different rows) by pressing P to bring up the ability list and then dragging it to your tray.

Select tray 7 and add the abilities that are required by the individual ship builds (see the respective sections). Tray 7 does not need to be visible to have the spacebar keybind work. You can therefore select a different row again after you are done wih tray 7 and set up your regular trays like you are used to.

The importance of spacebar

The spacebar is your key to success. Pressing it every couple of seconds keeps your weapons firing, your shields redistributing and your buff cycle going.

Make sure that your weapons are set to autofire. To do that bring your tray into mode 1,2 or 3 where you can see the weapons box. Right click on your weapons until they all have a green outline:

After you have done that, you can switch to a mode that hides your weapons box (if you want that).

Targeting friendly players

You can use the F1 key to select yourself. This can be useful if you want to make sure that a heal that you activate goes to yourself, like clearing yourself with Science Team from AMS/SS/SNB.

Use the keys F2-F5 to target the other players on your team.

Keep in mind that the range for heals is 10km (7.5km for Extend Shields). If you are more than 10km away from your allies, you cannot heal them and they cannot heal you. So stay in range of them.

Setting up sensible options

As with the keybinds, you need to be in space with your character for the following.

Use the key Escape to bring up the menu window and select Options. Go to Controls. Set it up as shown here:

Then go to HUD and set all the Show ... Name / Life / Reticle options (with the exception of the two options under Yourself at the end) to Always. Example:

Power settings

Setting up correct power settings is one of the most important things in the game. Bring your power settings box into mode 3. Now you can select a power mode with one of the four symbols at the top (the defaults are weapons / shields / engine / balanced). After having selected a power setting, you can adjust the settings with the power sliders. After having set new power levels, press the floppy disk button to save the preset.

Which power settings you have to use is mentioned in the individual ship class sections.

Duty Officers (Doffs)

The Duty Officer system allows you to gain passive bonuses by equipping up to 5 Duty Officers on your Active Roster. The doffs can have significant effects on the performance of a ship and sometimes enable builds that would not be possible without doffs. The Basic ship recommendations do not require doffs, the Advanced and Elite versions do.

Traits

Make sure to select Accurate and Elusive.

If you are an engineer, select Grace Under Fire and EPS Manifold Efficiency. If you are a science captain, select Photonic Capacitor. If you are a tactical captain, select Crippling Fire.

Reputation passives

The reputation system offers choices of passive abilities for space at T2 and T4. One should use these choices to increase one's strengths, not to attempt covering one's weaknesses. The following choices are sensible:

Reputation Role Healing / Support Damage Omega T2 Hull-Reparing Nanites Omega Weapon Training T4 Superior Shield Repair Romulan T2 Enhanced Shield Systems Precision T4 Emergency Secondary Shielding Nukara T2 Enhanced Shield Penetration T4 Defense Offense Dyson T2 Hull Reinforcement Targeting Systems T4 (no consensus yet)

General comments

Escorts deal damage. They have little healing and usually rely on heals from team mates to survive.

Spec

This spec is identical to the cruiser spec and therefore flexible enough to switch between all types of escorts and cruisers. No reason to spend money on respecs when you can just use a "one size fits all" spec.

The spec shown is for a Tactical captain. To adopt it for any other class you only have to change the ground portion of the skills.

> Spec at STO Academy <

Ship and Officers

Basic Advanced Elite Ship Ship type: Patrol Escort (formerly called Fleet Escort)

Alternatives (not a complete list; ships may require slight alterations in the console setup): Fed: Mirror Universe Patrol Escort, Chimera Heavy Destroyer KDF: Guramba Siege Destroyer, Peghqu' Heavy Destroyer, Mirror Universe Qin Heavy Raptor

Gear Fore

Weapons Deflector Impulse Warp Shields Aft

Weapons Devices Engineering

Consoles Science

Consoles Tactical

Consoles Front weapons: 4 Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Dual Heavy Cannons Mk XI

Aft weapons: 3 Disruptor Turret Mk XI [Acc] [CrtH] [Dmg]

Deflector: Polarized Parabolic Deflector

Engine: Supercooled Combat Impulse Engine

Warp core: Obelisk Subspace Rift Warp Core

Shield: Paratrinic Shield Array

Devices: Engine Battery Shields Battery

Engineering consoles: 2 Neutronium Alloy Mk XI 1 RCS Accelerator Mk XI

Science consoles: 2 Field Generator Mk XI

Tactical consoles: 4 Disruptor Induction Coil Mk XI Bridge Officers Ship Stations







See Abbreviations for the full names of the bridge officer abilities. Tactical Cmdr: TT1 / APB1 / CRF2 / APO3

Tactical LtC: TT1 / CSV1 / APO1

Engineering Lt: EPtS1 / AtSIF1

Engineering Ens: EPtS1

Science Lt: ST1 / TSS2 Duty Officers No particular doffs are required. Ship Ship type: Patrol Escort (formerly called Fleet Escort)

Alternatives (not a complete list; ships may require slight alterations in the console setup): Fed: Mirror Universe Patrol Escort, Chimera Heavy Destroyer KDF: Guramba Siege Destroyer, Peghqu' Heavy Destroyer, Mirror Universe Qin Heavy Raptor

Gear Fore

Weapons Deflector Impulse Warp Shields Aft

Weapons Devices Engineering

Consoles Science

Consoles Tactical

Consoles Front weapons: 4 Advanced Fleet Antiproton Dual Heavy Cannons Mk XII [Dmg]x2 [Acc]x2 ①

Aft weapons: 1 Advanced Fleet Antiproton Turret Mk XII [Dmg]x2 [Acc]x2 ① Omni-Directional Antiproton Beam Array [Acc] [Dmg] [Arc] ① Kinetic Cutting Beam Mk XII [Dmg]x3

Deflector: Assimilated Deflector Array

Engine: Assimilated Subtranswarp Engines

Warp core: Obelisk Subspace Rift Warp Core

Shield: M.A.C.O. Resilient Shield Array

Devices: Engine Battery Shields Battery

Engineering consoles: 2 Neutronium Alloy Mk XI 1 RCS Accelerator Mk XI

Science consoles: Field Generator Mk XI Assimilated Module ("Borg Console")

Tactical consoles: 4 Console - Tactical - Antiproton Mag Regulator Mk XI ① Bridge Officers Ship Stations







See Abbreviations for the full names of the bridge officer abilities. Tactical Cmdr: TT1 / APB1 / CRF2 / APO3

Tactical LtC: TT1 / CSV1 / APO1

Engineering Lt: EPtS1 / AtSIF1

Engineering Ens: EPtW1 ②

② Science Lt: ST1 / TSS2 Duty Officers 3 Engineering - Damage Control Engineer (Chance to reduce the recharge time for Emergency Power to subsystem abilities) of green quality or better ② Ship Ship type: (Fleet) Patrol Escort (formerly called Fleet Escort)

Alternatives (not a complete list; ships may require slight alterations in the console setup): Fed: Mirror Universe Patrol Escort, Chimera Heavy Destroyer KDF: Guramba Siege Destroyer, Peghqu' Heavy Destroyer, Mirror Universe Qin Heavy Raptor Other: Jem'Hadar Attack Ship

Gear Fore

Weapons Deflector Impulse Warp Shields Aft

Weapons Devices Engineering

Consoles Science

Consoles Tactical

Consoles Front weapons: 3 Advanced Fleet Antiproton Dual Heavy Cannons Mk XII [Dmg]x2 [Acc]x2 1 Advanced Fleet Dual Antiproton Beam Bank Mk XII [Dmg]x2 [Acc]x2 ②

Aft weapons: 2 Advanced Fleet Antiproton Turret Mk XII [Dmg]x2 [Acc]x2 ① ②

Kinetic Cutting Beam Mk XII [Dmg]x3

Deflector: Assimilated Deflector Array

Engine: Assimilated Subtranswarp Engines

Warp core: Elite Fleet Reinforced Warp Core Mk XII [SEP] [W->S] [SCap] [AMP] [SST] ①

① Shield: Adapted M.A.C.O. Covariant Shield Array Mk XII ①

① Devices: Engine Battery Red Matter Capacitor

Engineering consoles: 1 Enhanced Neutronium Alloy Mk XI [+Turn] 2 Console - Engineering - Enhanced RCS Accelerator Mk XI [+AllRes]

Science consoles: Plasmonic Leech ① Assimilated Module ("Borg Console")

Tactical consoles: 4 Vulnerability Locator Mk XII [+AP] Bridge Officers Ship Stations







See Abbreviations for the full names of the bridge officer abilities. Tactical Cmdr: TT1 / APB1 / CRF2 / APO3

Tactical LtC: TT1 / CSV1 / BO3 ②

② Engineering Ens: EPtS1 / RSP1

Engineering Lt: EPtW1

Science Lt: TB1 / TSS2 Duty Officers 2 Engineering - Damage Control Engineer (Chance to reduce the recharge time for Emergency Power to subsystem abilities) of purple quality

(Chance to reduce the recharge time for Emergency Power to subsystem abilities) of purple quality 1 Engineering - Warp Core Engineer (Chance of removing all debuffs on use of any Emergency Power ability) of any quality

2 Tactical - Conn Officer (Reduce the recharge time for Attack Patterns Beta, Delta and Omega) ②

Note: If you don't have these doffs, keep the Bridge Officer layout of the Advanced setup.

Circled digits ①, ② etc. indicate sets of changes that need to be done at the same time to avoid undesired negative effects when upgrading from the previous setup.

The ability Attack Pattern Omega 3 is not available from the trainer, but it is available on various cheap bridge officer candidates of levels green and better. It can also be trained by sufficiently skilled tactical captains.

The abilities that you need to put into tray 7 (see also general concepts) are:

Basic: EPtS1 / EPtS1 / CRF2 / APO3 / CSV1 / APB1 / APO1 / AtSIF1 / Fleet Support

Advanced: EPtS1 / EPtW1 / CRF2 / APO3 / CSV1 / APB1 / APO1 / AtSIF1 / Fleet Support

Elite: EPtS1 / EPtW1 / CRF2 / APO3 / CSV1 / APB1 / Fleet Support

An example for a filled tray (tray 7 is hidden) in mode 4 is shown here:

Power levels

As seen in the tray screenshot of the previous section, your (base) power levels should be 100 / 25 / 50 / 25. Overwrite one of the default presets with these values. It is extremely important that you use 100 in weapons.

Note: For the Elite setup with the Fleet Warp Core, change your power levels to 90 / 35 / 40 /35.

How to play

Make sure that you have read about the general concepts and follow the advice from that section.

Start your buff cycle by manually activating EPtS, APO3 and CRF2. Once you have started this cycle, you just need to keep pressing spacebar every couple of seconds to keep it going. Repeat this start procedure whenever you have dropped out of combat and have no abilities active. But don't worry if this is too difficult to remember at first. Using spacebar to start up the buff cycle can slightly lower the efficiency of the cycle, but not ruin the build.

Point your escort at the target you want to shoot and use spacebar to trigger the shooting. It is important that you keep your target in the (very limited) 45° arc of your front dual heavy cannons. Adjust your flight speed as needed as to not constantly fly "through" your target. But keep in mind that lower speed means lower defense rating and thus you will take more damage if you "park" next to your target. Finding a balance between moving and having a good firing position is vital and can only be achieved by lots of training.

Use your captain abilites at your discretion. The bridge officer abilities that are available for manual triggering are TT1, ST1 and TSS2. Use ST1 to clear SNB, SS, AMS from yourself and other players. Use TT1 to redistribute your shields faster when needed and to clear stacked FOMM on yourself or others. Use TSS2 for shield healing on yourself and others when needed.

The important thing is to keep your target in arc to deal damage. Only your front cannons deal massive damage. The 360° weapons are only support and not sufficient as your only means of dealing damage.

Flying an escort requires good piloting skills, the rest is spacebar and the occasional heal.

Note for the Elite configuration: ST1 is replaced by a tractor beam. Use the TB to hold your targets. The Warp Core Engineer doff is taking over the clearing duties of ST (only for self-clearing). BO3 is a burst damage ability. Use it against already weakened targets while holding them in your tractor beam. AtSIF is replaced by RSP, this needs to be manually triggered to refill your shields when under fire.

Warning: This cruiser build is outdated and does not yet take advantage of Doffs, but nevertheless it is still a valid template for a basic versatile cruiser and can serve as a starting point for your own designs.

General comments

Cruisers are versatile ships. They can provide healing and they can deal damage. In contrast to an escort a cruiser's damage is constant pressure damage and not spike damage. The following cruiser build is designed to provide your team with heals and damage at the same time.

Spec

This spec is identical to the escort spec and therefore flexible enough to switch between all types of escorts and cruisers. No reason to spend money on respecs when you can just use a "one size fits all" spec.

The spec shown is for a Tactical captain. To adopt it for any other class you only have to change the ground portion of the skills.

> Spec at STO Academy <

Ship

Fore

Weapons Deflector Impulse Shields Aft

Weapons Devices Engineering

Consoles Science

Consoles Tactical

Consoles

Ship type: Star Cruiser

Front weapons: 4 Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Beam Array Mk XI

Aft weapons: 4 Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Beam Array Mk XI

Deflector: Assimilated Deflector Array

Engine: Assimilated Subtranswarp Engines

Shield: M.A.C.O. Resilient Shield Array Mk XI

Devices: Engine Battery / Subspace Field Modulator / Auxiliary Battery / Shields Battery

/ Auxiliary Battery / Shields Battery Engineering consoles: 3 Neutronium Alloy Mk XI / Assimilated Module ("Borg Console")

/ Science consoles: Emitter Array Mk XI / 2 Field Generator Mk XI

/ 2 Tactical consoles: 2 Disruptor Induction Coil Mk XI

For alternate gear suggestions if you don't have access to the Borg / MACO gear, see the section Gear.

Bridge Officers

Ship Stations









See Abbreviations for the full names of the bridge officer abilities.

Tactical Lt: TT1 / FAW2

Engineering Cmdr: EPtS1 / ET2 / ES2 / AtSIF3

Engineering LtC: EPtS1 / EPtW2 / RSP2

Science Lt: ST1 / TSS2

Science Ens: HE1

The ability Auxiliary Power to the Structural Integrity Field 3 is not available from the bridge officer trainer. You can get it on some bridge officer candidates on the exchange or you can buy it from the C-Store in the form of a Federation Aenar Bridge Officer Requisition that you can then use to buy an Aenar Engineering Officer Candidate that has this ability.

One thing is important when you set up your bridge officers: Skill EPtW2 only to level 6 so that it has a 60 seconds cooldown! This way it fits perfectly between the two copies of EPtS1.

The abilities that you need to put into tray 7 (see also general concepts) are:

EPtS1 / EPtS1 / EPtW2 / FAW2 / Fleet Support

An example for a filled tray (tray 7 is hidden) in mode 4 is shown here:

Power levels

Your (base) power levels should be 100 / 25 / 50 / 25 if your primary intention is to deal damage and 100 / 25 / 25 / 50 if you want stronger heals. Overwrite two of the default presets with these values. It is extremely important that you use 100 in weapons.

How to play

Make sure that you have read about the general concepts and follow the advice from that section.

For a cruiser that does a lot of target switching to heal allies, it is a good idea to set the option Auto attack (in Options -> Controls) to "Toggle, non-combat cancels".

Use your spacebar to keep your buff cycle going, fire weapons and redistribute your shields.

Use your captain abilites at your discretion. You have a lot of bridge officer abilities that are not triggered by spacebar. Use ST1 to clear SNB, SS, AMS from yourself and other players. Use TT1 to redistribute your shields faster when needed and to clear stacked FOMM on yourself or others. Use TSS2 for shield healing on yourself and others when needed. Use AtSIF3, HE1, ET2 for hull healing on yourself and others. Use ES2 on other players to strengthen their shield resists. ES2 cannot be used on yourself, so you should give it to others in need of shield resists whenever possible. Use RSP as a last resort shield refill when you are under heavy fire.

The important thing is to keep healing your team and yourself. Only if your allies are alive they can in return send heals to you and do damage to the enemy team. Attempt to keep your target on your side by circling around it. This way you can fire all your eight beams in a broadside and maximise your damage. If you have your target in front of you or behind you, you can only use four of your eight beams and thus lose 50% of your damage. Try to focus on the same target as the primary damage dealer on your team (quickly check the scoreboard during the match to see who is doing the highest damage).

Pay attention to the health bars of your team members to see when they need heals.

General comments

Escorts deal damage. Since damage is the only thing that is of any importance in PVE encounters they are very good PVE ships (regular missions, STFs, Red Alerts, ...) for any captain type. No matter whether you are Tactical, Engineer or Science, an escort is an effective way to get through PVE fast.

Attention: This escort build is not suited for PVP matches. It is specifically designed to deal with NPCs in a fast and extremely easy way.

Spec

This spec is identical to the regular escort spec and therefore flexible enough to switch between all types of escorts and cruisers. No reason to spend money on respecs when you can just use a "one size fits all" spec.

The spec shown is for a Tactical captain. To adopt it for any other class you only have to change the ground portion of the skills.

> Spec at STO Academy <

Ship and Officers

Basic Advanced Ship Ship type: Patrol Escort (formerly called Fleet Escort)

Alternatives (not a complete list; ships may require slight alterations in the console setup): Fed: Mirror Universe Patrol Escort, Chimera Heavy Destroyer KDF: Guramba Siege Destroyer, Peghqu' Heavy Destroyer, Mirror Universe Qin Heavy Raptor

Gear Fore

Weapons Deflector Impulse Warp Shields Aft

Weapons Devices Engineering

Consoles Science

Consoles Tactical

Consoles Front weapons: 4 Antiproton Beam Array Mk XI [Acc]x2

Aft weapons: 2 Antiproton Beam Array Mk XI [Acc]x2 Omni-Directional Antiproton Beam Array [Acc] [Dmg] [Arc]

Deflector: Polarized Parabolic Deflector

Engine: Supercooled Combat Impulse Engine

Warp core: Obelisk Subspace Rift Warp Core

Shield: Paratrinic Shield Array

Devices: Engine Battery Shields Battery

Engineering consoles: 3 Neutronium Alloy Mk XI

Science consoles: 2 Field Generator Mk XI

Tactical consoles: 4 Console - Tactical - Antiproton Mag Regulator Mk XI Bridge Officers Ship Stations







See Abbreviations for the full names of the bridge officer abilities. Tactical Cmdr: TT1 / FAW2 / APB2 / APO3

Tactical LtC: TT1 / FAW2 / APO1

Engineering Lt: EPtS1 / AtSIF1

Engineering Ens: EPtW1

Science Lt: HE1 / TSS2 Duty Officers 3 Engineering - Damage Control Engineer (Chance to reduce the recharge time for Emergency Power to subsystem abilities) of green quality or better Ship Ship type: Patrol Escort (formerly called Fleet Escort)

Alternatives (not a complete list; ships may require slight alterations in the console setup): Fed: Mirror Universe Patrol Escort, Chimera Heavy Destroyer KDF: Guramba Siege Destroyer, Peghqu' Heavy Destroyer, Mirror Universe Qin Heavy Raptor

Gear Fore

Weapons Deflector Impulse Warp Shields Aft

Weapons Devices Engineering

Consoles Science

Consoles Tactical

Consoles Front weapons: 4 Advanced Fleet Antiproton Beam Array Mk XII [Dmg]x2 [Acc]x2]

Aft weapons: 1 Advanced Fleet Antiproton Beam Array Mk XII [Dmg]x2 [Acc]x2 Omni-Directional Antiproton Beam Array [Acc] [Dmg] [Arc] Kinetic Cutting Beam Mk XII [Dmg]x3

Deflector: Assimilated Deflector Array

Engine: Assimilated Subtranswarp Engines

Warp core: Obelisk Subspace Rift Warp Core

Shield: M.A.C.O. Resilient Shield Array

Devices: Engine Battery Shields Battery

Engineering consoles: 3 Neutronium Alloy Mk XI

Science consoles: Nukara Particle Converter Assimilated Module ("Borg Console")

Tactical consoles: 4 Console - Tactical - Antiproton Mag Regulator Mk XI Bridge Officers Ship Stations







See Abbreviations for the full names of the bridge officer abilities. Tactical Cmdr: TT1 / FAW2 / APB2 / APO3

Tactical LtC: TT1 / FAW2 / APO1

Engineering Lt: EPtS1 / AtSIF1

Engineering Ens: EPtW1

Science Lt: HE1 / TSS2 Duty Officers 3 Engineering - Damage Control Engineer (Chance to reduce the recharge time for Emergency Power to subsystem abilities) of green quality or better

The ability Attack Pattern Omega 3 is not available from the trainer, but it is available on various cheap bridge officer candidates of levels green and better. It can also be trained by sufficiently skilled tactical captains.

The abilities that you need to put into tray 7 (see also general concepts) are:

EPtS1 / EPtW1 / APO3 / APB2 / APO1 / FAW2 / FAW2 / AtSIF1 / TT1 / TT1

An example for a filled tray (tray 7 is hidden) in mode 3 is shown here:

Power levels

As seen in the tray screenshot of the previous section, your (base) power levels should be 100 / 50 / 25 / 25. This is the default attack preset. It is extremely important that you use 100 in weapons.

How to play

Make sure that you have read about the general concepts and follow the advice from that section.

This build is super easy to fly. You only need to press spacebar every couple of seconds to keep your buff cycle going. Keep moving and circle the target you want to shoot. You deal the most damage when your broadside hits the target.

Use your captain abilites at your discretion. The bridge officer abilities that are available for manual triggering are HE1 and TSS2. Use TSS2 for shield healing on yourself and others when needed. Use HE1 for hull healing on yourself and others and to clear plasma fire procs.

Tactical

APA Attack Pattern Alpha (Tac Captains only) APB Attack Pattern Beta APO Attack Pattern Omega BO Beam Overload CRF Cannon Rapid Fire CSV Cannon Scatter Volley FOMM Fire On My Mark (Tac Captains only) GDF Go Down Fighting (Tac Captains only) TS Torpedo Spread TT Tactical Team

Engineering

AtSIF Auxiliary Power to the Structural Integrity Field EPtS Emergency Power to Shields EPtW Emergency Power to Weapons ES Extend Shields ET Engineering Team RSF Rotate Shield Frequency (Eng Captains only) RSP Reverse Shield Polarity MW Miracle Worker (Eng Captains only)

Science

AMS Anti-Matter Spread (Pay-to-Win console that is universally despised) HE Hazard Emitters SNB SubNucleonic Beam (Sci Captains only) ST Science Team SS Scramble Sensors TB Tractor Beam TSS Transfer Shield Strength

STO Academy - this site has a very good skill planner

STOWiki - a wiki about everything in STO

Official STO PVP forums

2013-12-30: updated sections for the Escort and PVEscort builds

2012-11-17: changed gear suggestions to reduce dilithium cost of the sample builds and added a new section about gear to address some of the changes in S7

2012-09-21: moved to hilbertguide.com

2012-08-03: the "Fleet Escort" is now called "Patrol Escort"

2012-06-20: changed the PvEscort's weaponry to phasers (no need to change existing setups)

2012-05-14: added a PvEscort build for STFs, added some "Pro-Tips" for optional BO layouts that are not available from the BO trainer

2012-04-14: made minor adjustments to the spec (no need to respec) and the cruiser console setup

2012-04-06: added a short Doff section and some fancy graphics

2012-03-03: initial version

The OrganizedPVP chat channel in STO provides the main social hub for players interested in PVP.