What is merit? How can I find it? What is it used for? At the start of the Star Trek Online (STO) open beta I caught myself asking those questions and many more about the merit system. Here I will help clear up some of the confusion you may have with the STO merit system. By the end of my article I would like you to have a better understanding where you can get merit, how it is used, and what you should spend it on.

After you accomplish the tutorial (newb zone) you will warp to your first space station and start your career in Star fleet. Once you speak with the admiral you will be asked to find Commander Suluu, who is in the admiral’s office, just at the other desk. Commander Sulu and the Admiral will give you a variety of missions to accomplish.

Every Episode or mission in the game yields Merit. After you complete a mission you simply click the button left of your mini map to Hail Starfleet and complete your mission. You can hail Starfleet at any time. I recommend once you have completed your mission you do not choose the option to either beam back to your ship or leave the sector but instead turn in your mission. This way you can take your time and you can easily move to the next mission.

Another way to get merit is from completing the encounter missions (enemy contacts or distress hails) in Sector space. These are simply space battle instances which other players can join at any time. These are relatively quick and easy but don’t provide as much merit as the episodes do. However, they also provide skill points for you and your bridge officers.

Remember that once you enter an encounter mission don’t forget to click the hail button on the left hand of your screen. This button should say something like “Hail Gorn Captain” or “Hail Klingon.” Once you do this you should get some merit and skill points as you competed the mission.

You can spend merit by buying bridge officers, teaching your bridge officers new skills, and promoting them to the next rank. After you turn level 11 you will be granted access to your new class vessel. Here you can choose what type of vessel you want to use.

After you get your new vessel you will have a new console slot on your ship to advance your bridge officer. This slot is only available to the rank of said officer. So, if you have a slot for a tactical lieutenant commander but only have ensign crew members you will need to promote the necessary crew member to lieutenant commander. You will need assign the crew member to the console via the assignments tab on your skill over view screen.

Once you have promoted your officer you will want to see what skills this crew member will use. It is best to see if the new skill is something you would want to use or choose a better one to fit your play style. If you later wanted to change the shill you will lose all skill points invested in the said skill. So, for example, if your tactical bridge officer has High Yield Torpedo I and you find after putting in points you want to change the shill you will lose all points invested into the “High Yield Torpedo I” skill. I focused my skills and officers skills to manly space combat as this was the most appealing and polished part of the game.

I found myself not spending a lot of merit early on in the game. later on in the game you will need a lot of merit to advance or “Promote” your bridge officers to the next rank. I didn’t play around with the bridge officers skills and had a good understanding of what I wanted to invest in. Knowing what type of skill I needed to make the best out of my play style was a big part of my success. With the help of this guide I quickly masted the art of combat and skill progression.

In conclusion, having merit is something you wont need a lot of for some time and the game does a good job of providing it to you. However if you want to “Play around” with your bridge officers by swapping out new skills you will quickly run out of merit. If you want to know more about the ways to maximize your play time with Star Trek: Online I recommend the full suite of STO Guides from Killer Guides. Not only will you learn about merit, but you also will find many other helpful tips.

Getting Started

The Hail Starfleet button sits in the cluster of buttons underneath your map. It shows you who in Starfleet currently has missions or intel to assign you. You also use this button to turn in missions after completing them.

A good practice after completing each mission:

1. Hail Starfleet and turn in your mission and check for any additional missions from your contacts. You’ll see an icon indicating if  a mission is available.
2. Every time you move up a grade (i.e. level) within your rank, Hail Starfleet and check for the new missions available at that grade.
3. Every time you move up a rank,  Hail Starfleet and check.

And with regard to running missions – every time you complete a mission, defeat a particularly difficult opponent, or happen to be in the right place at the right time, you can receive a number of different types of rewards. They are:

• Skill Points – used to level your character

• Bridge Officer Skill Points – to level your Bridge Officers

• Starfleet Merit Points – used to acquire new Bridge Officers and Starships as well as for promoting Bridge Officers

• Loot – captured starships and officers, ship equipment, et cetera

Skills and Leveling

There are 6 ranks in the game:

1. Ensign (EN)
2. Lieutenant (LT)
3. Lieutenant Commander (LT CMDR)
4. Commander (CMDR)
5. Captain (CPT)
6. Admiral (ADM)

For each rank above ensign, there are 10 grades. So a couple hours into the game, you might be a Lieutenant 4, while a few months down the road you could be a captain 10. Where you are along this continuum is determined by how many skill points you have earned and spent.

The skills you can train are located on  your character information display on the Skills tab. Each skill has 10 ranks (0-9), with each rank costing 100 Skill Points (so a fully-leveled skill costs 900 points).

These skills will fall into one of two main categories: Space and Ground. The skills you train do not typically translate into new powers or abilities. Instead, your character’s trained skills increase the effectiveness of your equipment, powers and Bridge Officers.

When attempting to level quickly, remember that mission rewards that yield the largest amount of skill points for the least amount of time invested are the quickest way to level. We’ll get into the details later, but the basic rank (fastest to slowest leveling) is as follows:

1. Secure the Sector (repeatable)
2. PvP
3. Episodes
4. Fleet Actions
5. Exploration (repeatable)

The rankings here tend to vary quite a bit depending on your level and the availability of allies/opponents. If you don’t mind a grind, the repeatable missions are well worth it for the ratio of Skill Points to time invested.

Bridge Officers and Powers

You will rely more on your Bridge Officers than anything else in STO. Your choice of Bridge Officers (Tactical, Science, Engineering) is up to you.

Each Bridge Officer has two sets (space and ground) of four Powers which correspond to their rank. They can be ranked Ensign, Lieutenant, Lt. Commander, Commander.

Each Power has nine levels (1-9) and each level costs 50 Bridge Officer Skill Points. In order to promote your Bridge Officer to the next level to access better powers, you must not only be promoted yourself (you must be Lt. Commander to promote an Ensign Bridge Officer to Lieutenant), but must have also spent the requisite number of Bridge Officer Skill Points and have enough Starfleet Merits available.

Your first three Bridge Officers are most easily aquired through missions. The downside to this method is that you don’t get to pick your BOff power sets — you have to take what you are given. You can also buy your Bridge Officers from the vendor at Sol, however you’ll be spending 100 Merits per Bridge Officer.

You can have more Bridge Officers than you have space on your bridge. Consider purchasing some extra Bridge Officers and specializing their equipment for specific tasks like ground combat.

Equipment (Gear)

Throughout the game, you will pick up a ton of equipment from missions, loot drops, research, and the exchange. This equipment will fit into one of the following categories:

Space

• Single Beam

• Dual Beam

• Cannon

• Turret

• Torpedo Launcher

• Mine Launcher

• Deflector

• Shield

• Impulse Engine

• Bridge Terminal (Tactical, Engineering, or Science)

• Device

Ground

• Pistol

• Rifle

• Heavy Weapon

• Personal Shields

• Armor

• Kit (Tactical, Engineering, or Science)

• Hypos/Food

• Shield Batteries

Note that there are many different varieties within each of these categories, each with their strengths and weaknesses.

Many pieces of equipment (like phasers or shields) come with a roman number after them indicating their power level. These correspond with ranks as follows:

• Lieutenant: I and II

• Lieutenant Commander: III and IV

• Commander: V and VI

• Captain: VII and VIII

• Admiral: IX and X

So a Lieutenant may be able to loot a Resilient Shield Mk. III, but he won’t be able to use it until he is a Lt. Commander.

There are three quality tiers for equipment in STO. They follow the standard MMO trope of color-coding:

• White (Common)

• Green (Uncommon)

• Blue (Rare)

The higher the quality tier of an item, the more powerful is is compared to items of a similar level.

Remember that the stats for a piece of equipment in your inventory are the stats prior to modification by your own skills. So, for example, a character with skill points in shield-related skills can significantly increase the amount of damage a shield will absorb.

Items and equipment you do not want to keep should be put in the Replicator and traded for Energy Credits.

Conclusion

I will continue to update this post as I get further into the open beta and especially once the game has been officially released. In the meantime, I have found the Star Trek Online Guide, made by the MMORPG ninjas at Killer Guides to be extremely helpful in getting my act together in the beta. I suggest you give their guide a try.

In STO players create their own alien races using the Species Creator. Each species can be saved as a template that can be traded to other players and player skills, kits and ships allow each captain to take on a different role.

In STO players can choose from three career paths: Tactical, Engineering and Sciences, or in more familiar terms, DPS, tank and support. Character advancement is skill-based and completion of objectives, missions and episodic content yields rewards in Skill Points, Bridge Officer Points, Energy (the currency of STO) and Starfleet Merit. In order to handle progression players also gain ranks, which are dependent on the number of Skill Points earned. For example, when you reach the rank of Admiral you get access to the final tier of starships.

Skills in STO are attributes that provide enhancement to powers and make players better at using their powers. As players advance, skills get more specific, and they can stack. There are currently 100 skills in the game, and each skill has nine ranks. Some skills are common across all careers, and some will be career-specific.

Powers are similar are abilities your character can use such as the ability to fire a barrage of quantum torpedoes or the martial arts ability of close-combat melee. Powers also come from career-specific kits, though there are many abilities that are common across all careers.

Kits are a separate feature and used by captains only on away or ground missions. Each career has access to three different types of kits, and everyone has access to hypo-syringes, which are used for healing and can be obtained through drops and from vendors.

The Tactical career path has access to Soldier, Security and Special Ops kits, which provide abilities such as team buffs and martial arts, threat management and escort (the ability to beam down other team members), and stealth, respectively.

The Engineering career path has access to Fabrication, Technician and Combat kits, which provide turrets and shields, buff/debuff of equipment, and mines and grenades.

The Sciences career path has access to Medical, Research and Scientist kits, which provide better personal and group heals, direct personal debuffs (such as decreasing speed and health), and crowd control (such as stasis fields).

There are five Starship Captain Ranks: Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, Commander, Captain and Admiral. Each rank has 10 levels, yielding a total of 50 levels. Rank is dependent on skills attained, so if you gain a great number of Skill Points but never use them, you can remain a lowly Lieutenant and never be able to promote your crew.

Bridge Officer Points are used to level Bridge Officer Powers. Starfleet Merit is used for promoting bridge officers and acquiring new ships when a player is at the rank to unlock them. Energy is used to equip ships, characters and crews — in customizing looks as well as purchasing and upgrading equipment.

I hope this basic rundown has helped. If you want a detailed guide to advancing in STO, I recommend the premium Star Trek Online Guide from Killer Guides. Just like all the guides from Killer Guides, it is top-notch quality.