STO - Player Progression

In their regular 'Ask Cryptic' sessions the forum members got to ask questions about player proression to the team.

Sklarz: Are we limited to one branch? say I'm Engineering and I go down maintenance and then later I decide I also want to do some in Modification. Are we limited to one branch or can we go all out and get them all?

You’re not limited to any branch; you can acquire all the skills within your profession. You can start going down the Maintenance branch, but it’s not really a branch in the traditional sense. You can pick and choose any skills you want. But different tiers of skills become available as you rank up. The skill system isn’t technically a skill tree – lower-rank skills affect higher-rank skills, but there aren’t any prerequisites for the most part (more on that later).

For example, if you’re a Tactical officer, you can take Starship Energy Weapons training, or Starship Projectile Weapons training. You gain access to both of those skills as a Lieutenant. When you become a Lieutenant Commander, Beam Weapons, Cannon Weapons, Torpedo Weapons and Mines become available. At that point, if you put all your points into Starship Energy Weapons, you can go back and put points into Projectile Weapons training, or you can put it into Torpedoes.

At the next rank, Commander, there’s Phaser, Disruptor, Photon and Quantum skills. What you’re getting is more specialized skills. So if you put all your points into Energy Weapons, then Beam Weapons, then Phasers, you’ll be really good at phaser beams, generally good at all beams and OK at all types of energy weapons. You’d be not so great at disruptor cannons at that point, because you didn’t put anything into Cannons or into Disruptors, but you did put some points into Energy Weapons.

There is one true skill tree in the game, and that is the ship trees. Some of your skills govern your ability to captain certain types of vessels. You start off in a light cruiser based on the Miranda class, but from there your decisions will affect what ships become available to you. For instance, the tier 1 Escort is based on the Saber class. In order to fly the tier 2 Escort, you’ll need to have spent points to learn how to fly the Saber. You can put points you want into Science, Cruiser or Escort, but you can’t fly a tier 4 Cruiser just because you can fly a tier 4 Escort. You’ll need to learn how to pilot the previous Cruisers first. But you can fly every ship in the game on one character, if you invest the points.