STO Min/Max

I spent my limited game time this past weekend, working on Min-Maxing in STO. I’m a bit of an oddity with min-maxing. In some ways, I’m very meticulous about finding the best set up. But in others, I don’t care about a point here or a point there and will always choose look over function. In SWG for example, during the height of 90% Comp Armor days, I went through a stubborn streak because I didn’t like the look of the armor. So instead I’d run around with no armor as a smuggler/Teras Kasi Master.

Fortunately, STO is pretty forgiving in the look department. Each ship class has a number of looks, and each ship type has a variety of variations. While there might be a slight load out difference within the type, it’s relatively small. Generally, can find a ship to love that will do what you want it to do.

There are a variety of routes you can take with your characters/ships. They more or less fit into traditional Tank, Healer, DPS, and Crowd-Control roles. You can even combine some of these roles effectively.

Several things will affect how well you can fill that role:

1. Player Captain’s career path (Tactical, Engineering, Science)
2. Ship Type (Escort, Cruiser, Science)
3. Ship Equipment (Weapons, Engines, Shields, Consoles)
4. Bridge Officer Abilities

I want to start taking a look at the different roles and how to fill them with the various ships. I can either go the route of looking at each Ship Type and how they fill each role, or each role and how each of those four things can help fulfill that role. That second one might be the easier of the two.

I won’t claim to be an expert and this will entirely be based on my limited experience. I don’t have much PVP or Klingon experience so Federation ships will be the primary focus.