After many glorious space battles, I’ve finally made Lieutenant Commander with my very keen Vulcan Engineer. It took a while, as I haven’t been getting enough play time in game lately, and it did get a little grindy, but overall, I really enjoyed it.

The pace of the game is definitely not for those interested in extremely quick leveling. Although there is plenty to do, and the the experience for mission is quite generous at lower levels, you don’t get the experience until you’re done the mission, so it seems like a long time between XP gains.

Let me explain: In Star Trek Online, many of the missions have several parts to them, what you might call in another MMO a Quest Chain. These Missions take you all over a map, usually with some combat thrown in, and they take a while to finish. The upside to this is that they tend to be a lot of fun, especially if you take the time to read the Mission Text.  I haven’t hit a point where the mission all seem the same yet, which makes things flow along smoothly.

How did it get grindy then? Simply the amount of time that it took to get to the next Rank. I found that I was really struggling to get those last few quests in, but the promise of a new ship was a great carrot to drive me forward.

What did I get for all this hard work? A brand spankin’ new ship, that’s what! For those of you who don’t know, when you gain a new Rank in ST:O, you receive a token for a new ship that is appropriate for that class. This isn’t the only way to get a ship, but it’s a great way to start a new Rank.

At Lieutenant Commander, you have your first opportunity to specialize your ship to fit your play-style. Being someone who prefers high survivability to high damage output or versatility, I decided to go with a Cruiser. This is the “tank” style ship, with low damage output compare to the damage dealing Escort, and not as many abilities as the Science Vessel.

I notice an immediate difference the first time I went into combat with my Cruiser. I suddenly began to destroy ships with the greatest of ease, a casual glance causing the weaker enemies to explode simply from fear.

Although ship types are not necessarily tied to which class you’ve chosen, my limited experience has shown me that players will get the best bang for their buck if they choose a ship that is most suited for their class: Cruiser for Engineer, Escort for Tactical and Science Vessel for Science.

U.S.S. Reporter - Lt. Cmdr Cruiser

It’s a fun start to the game, and now that I’m getting more into the details of the game, I’m finding that it’s a great addition to my MMO stable.

See you in-game!