Last week I promised I'd have my full Star Trek Online review/comments/etc up. Well, here they are. The game is fairly complex, and there's a lot to cover, so I'm hoping I can make this review make sense. ;)

Let me start off by saying the typical MMO "holy trinity" mentality of pigeonholing everything into tank/dps/healing is really hindering people's thinking with this game. While those functions are still present in the game, you are not limited to these roles by your choice of "class." Everyone is, and is meant to be, a hybrid. Everyone at some point will need to tank something, heal something, and damage something. Your "class" choice is more how you approach all of those things, not which one you can approach.

I'll describe the space combat side of the game first, as it's where probably 80% of the game is spent. The ground combat is no less detailed though! You just spend less time there.

Ok, so when you create your character, you choose his or her career - which can be Science Officer, Engineering Officer, or Tactical Officer. This choice has a very general effect on how your character will approach problems, and gives you access to a few career-specific abilities at various points in the game. You're then put through a short tutorial series of missions, and end up field-promoted to captaining your own basic ship.

Ships are very detailed; almost like a separate character. They have several slots to equip items in - a number of front and rear weapon slots, an Impulse Engine slot, shield slot, etc - everything you'd figure a Star Trek ship would have. They also have console slots - classed as Engineering, Science, and Tactical. Your first ship has one of each; later ships have differing amounts, depending on what class of ship it is. You can equip consoles in these slots that modify various things relating to the type of console it is. Turn rates, shield power, things like that.

You also have Bridge Officers. These are very detailed "pets"; you can choose their name and appearance (using the full Cryptic-trademark detailed character designer). Each BO also has a career, from the same choices as your character. The BO's career controls which abilities they have access to, and you can choose from several for your BO, within their career.

On your ship, Bridge Officers man stations. Your first ship has one each of Science, Tactical, and Engineering stations. This is how you gain abilities in space: the BO that is manning a station makes available the abilities they possess. You'll just have one ability each at the start.

You can also manage the power levels of your ship's systems: engines, shields, weapons, and auxiliary. This can have a large effect on your ship's performance, and this is another fairly detailed meta-game, and a subject of much discussion/argument on the official forums.

Space combat is akin to naval combat, rather than being arcade-style. Weapons have different firing arcs, so positioning is important. You've got to know your ship's turning rate, and your firing arcs, in order to best decide how to approach your battles. You have shields in all four directions, and you also need to manage them as well, perhaps turning a weakened side away from an enemy's fire, or even diverting more power to that side. And of course, you've also got the activateable abilities each of your BOs provides. There's a lot to pay attention to during a space battle!

Ground combat is pretty detailed as well. You gain usable abilities based on the "kit" you have equipped. This might be the ability to lay down a mine field, or construct a phaser turret, or maybe throw a grenade. There are quite a few different kits you can equip (one at a time though - but higher quality ones sometimes grant 2 or more abilities). You also have slots for personal shields, armor, and weapons. Your BOs also can come with you on your Away Team, and they also have usable abilities. They can't equip kits, though; their abilities come from their career. They do have personal shields/armor/weapon slots though.

So, in ground combat, you have a small army of extremely customizable pets with you. It's very much the Ultimate Pet Game™©!

Ground combat itself is fairly tactical - there's no auto-fire, and cover matters. You can also double-tap movement keys to "roll" to take less damage.

"Leveling" in the game is different. The "levels" aren't numbered: you have a rank and a grade. You start out at Lieutenant. As you gain skill points, you progress through Lt. Grade 1, then Lt Grade 2, and so on. Grade is gained by earning skill points. To increase in rank, however, you have to spend those skill points. Of course, you normally want to spend them as soon as they're earned, as they do provide a major benefit. Once you hit Lt. Grade 11, and have spent all the points you earned getting there, you will be promoted to Lt. Commander, and gain access to a Tier 2 ship.

It is at Tier 2 where ships become even more customizable. You will choose between a Cruiser, an Escort, or a Science Wessel. Many players don't realize they don't have to (and probably shouldn't!) choose the ship that corresponds to their career. What the different types of ships give you (in addition to different turn rates, hull and shield strengths and the like) is more BO stations and console slots of a type depending on the ship's class. Cruisers have more Engineering slots, Science Wessels have more Science slots, and Escorts have more Tactical stuff. This allows you to really customize and hybridize depending on what you like doing. Your first T2 ship is free; it's awarded to you for being promoted. You can buy more ships - so you can try all 3 types if you like.

You also gain BO skill points as you play, which you can use to improve your BOs. They also have a rank - and you can promote them when they've been trained with a certain amount of skill points. You can promote a BO to one rank under your current rank. So at Lt., your BOs can only be Ensigns. At Lt. Commander, you can promote to Lt, and so on. Increasing a BO's rank gives them access to new skills, and as they gain rank they will have more skills available at once. A Lt. rank BO has 2 space and 2 ground abilities, and so forth. Eventually, you can see, you'll have a LOT of abilities to choose from and use.

Whew. Ok. Hopefully that mechanics run-down made a little sense. Sound daunting? It kind of is - and it's even more complex than I've gone into - I didn't even mention what skills you're spending those skill points on, and what they affect, and how... It's pretty complex. And, to be honest, not well explained in the game's UI.

I know what you're really wanting is a more general run-down of how the game is. Stability, bugs, content depth and amount, things like that. Well, here goes...

I started during the preorder customer Head Start. It was pretty bad, honestly. Server stability was not the best, and server-side lag/rubber-banding was pretty bad. Is this a new thing? Not really - but this was noticeably worse than many recent MMO launches. Things improved quite a bit once retail release happened, but there have been a lot of patches during this first week. Yes, patches are good, as they fix and enhance things, of course, but players really just want to play, so the numerous patches have been annoying the playerbase.

The game's UI is a step backwards, compared to, say, WoW, or most other MMOs. We've all become used to highly customizable, configurable, and very detailed UIs. STO's .. isn't. You can move elements, but that's about it. Some things don't save - like enabling the 2nd and 3rd ability bars. Sometimes. They save for some people, not for others. Quite a few bugs there. Usable, but a definite step backwards.

Content. Well. It's a rule that MMOs at release are always content-light, and this is no exception. There's a lot of repeatable patrol/etc missions, and you do have to do those in order to progress, as the story missions alone aren't enough. On the plus side, the story missions are very well done, and very "Star Trek-y", for sure. Read my first few posts about the game for an idea of how some of them proceed. So, yeah, content is light, and there is literally no endgame content, so level-rushing is a bad idea; good thing I tend not to. ;)

As far as non-leveling things to do, there's plenty. Lots of players (for now) to socialize with, systems to fly around and look at, all that kind of stuff. Even during missions, there's "non mission stuff" to do - crew to heal, things to scan/investigate, and so on. Very Star Trek-like.

One major criticism that many Star Trek fan players have is that there's too much of a focus on combat vs. what "should be" in a Star Trek game. In one way, they're not wrong; there is a lot of combat. But, this is a video game, and most video games focus on conflict, and that usually means combat. That's where the excitement is. So, I understand why there is a lot of combat. Still, though, there are many non-combat mission goals, and some missions where there's no combat at all. The problem, though, is that the non-combat objectives aren't detailed enough. "Scan an artifact" - it's just a single button press interaction. It could be made into a mini-game where you have to press the right controls on your "tricorder", or similar, to make the non-combat stuff feel as detailed as the combat. But... they had to focus on combat for release. That's just a reality of the game industry. I understand it. The beauty of an MMO is that it can and will evolve heavily post-release. If it survives, of course...

I have a lifetime subscription to STO. I hope it survives a long while. With all the negatives I've posted, you'd think I'm saying the game is doomed. Well, I'm not - but Cryptic does need to move fast. The fact that the game is Star Trek will carry it pretty far, but it doesn't make it invincible. They've got to fix a lot of bugs, shore up content, and get the server rock stable. I like the game, and I'm glad I'm Lifetime, but as I said, Cryptic has a lot of work ahead of it.