A new article posted on the official Star Trek Online gives an overview of the various types of ships available in Star Trek Online, as well as  how they differ from one another. Also described, albeit briefly, is the type of visual customization players can expect for their ships.

Visual customization is described as:

Visiting a ship “tailor” will allow you to change the color of your ship, the nacelles, the neck and/or nacelle pylons, its saucer, its name, its registry number and so on. And since ships have paperdolls and Bridge Officer stations, the decisions you make in how you outfit the ship’s weaponry, impulse engines, shields, deflector dish and mods guarantee your gameplay experience will be unique to other players, but at the same time still feel like Star Trek.

Moving on from there we learn about the various ship types:

• Bridge Officer station arrangement. Science vessels favor Science Officer stations, Escorts favor Tactical Officer stations and Cruisers favor Engineering Officer stations.
• Utility. Science vessels are innately able to detect cloaked ships and are specialized in subsystem targeting. Cruisers have lots of crew, repair very quickly and lots of power to distribute across their subsystems. Escorts are the gunboats of the Federation fleet; they maneuver quickly and can equip cannons.
• Size. Cruisers tend to be larger and less maneuverable than other ships. Escorts are smaller but nimble and feature a lot of firepower for their size. Science vessels typically fall in the middle.
• Weapons capabilities. Cruisers, since they’re larger ships, have more gun bays. Escort ships can outfit high-damage cannon weapons, which other ships cannot. Science vessels are less weapon-focused but offer other capabilities and bonuses such as more powerful deflector beams, tractor beams and sensors.
• Crew complement. Larger ships have larger crews, which affects hull and subsystem repair rate, as well as the effectiveness of boarding parties, the engineering team and crew-based skills your captain may have.
• Modification slots. Similar to Bridge Officer stations, the different ships have varying room for special modifications that can be added to the ship to increase its effectiveness. Similar to slotted gems in other games, mods provide small passive bonuses that affect gameplay and can be interchanged at will.

The various ship types are also described in terms of their roles, and each role should sound pretty familiar to players of the genre.

Escort ships have the primary role of dealing a ton of damage through their access to heavy firepower, and will have a special boost to damage, speed, weapon power, and maneuverability, as well as the ability to load cannons, and make use of an extra forward weapon slot. These ships sound like "DPS" ships, if you will.

Science ships will fulfill the role of "Fleet support", with the ability to repair (heal) friendly ships, detect cloaked ships, and access to certain buffs,. debuffs, and control abilities that can turn the tide of battle. Science ships will  come equipped with advanced shields, innate subsystem targeting, and a bonus to Auxiliary power. Again, in simple terms, these ships seem to fulfill the group support role.

And finally, we have Cruisers. Cruisers are tough, and bear some resemblance to the traditional "tank" archetype, at least in the basic properties of the ship. The Cruiser has a large crew, which helps it stay in the fight longer and repair itself quickly. The Cruiser has more weapon slots than both the Escort and Science vessels, a bonus to power, and a large cargo space (inventory). The Cruiser will also have access to increased boarding party effectiveness, but what that actually entails in gameplay isn't really explained.

There is also no mention of aggro management or manipulation for the Cruiser, so if the Cruiser is indeed intended to be a tank, it does make you wonder why an NPC or a player would actually want to target one. After all, it would appear that the enemy crippling, fleet bolstering, and healing capabilities of the Science vessels or super high damage of Escort vessels would be a more immediate threat.

Read the full article here.

Interesting, looks like I will be playing a tactical commander aboard a cruiser class ship.  This will give me high damage taking capabilities but also the ability push with a bit more high damage weapon capability.

a science vessel that heals and gives buffs/debuffs? since you will spend most of the time in a ship it sounds like this game is literally a class based game except you can class at anytime.

Sounds like any themepark mmo but instead of a priest or whatever, you're a science vessel.

Originally posted by xuiton

a science vessel that heals and gives buffs/debuffs? since you will spend most of the time in a ship it sounds like this game is literally a class based game except you can class at anytime.

 

Sounds like any themepark mmo but instead of a priest or whatever, you're a science vessel.

by heal they mean can beam over medical officers to help patch up your crew. Debuffs/buffs are somewhat different for debuffs it is things like tacyhon beams that will weaken or disable a section of your shields making you sustain heavier damage. and buffs are like coordinating firing arrays amongst other ships to utilize their superior sensor arrays.

the terms are more to help people to understand what is being said rather than bombard them with new terminology that is not as commonly understood.

Sounds cool as hellio!!!

I have a free ride into open beta since I pre-ordered CO....gonna have to give it a ride!

 If they hadnt FUBAR up CO I would be excited but now I am in wait and see mode. They couldnt even get their own sequel right.

I think CO is pretty good and am looking forward to the beta for STO and my mirror universe outfits.  :o)

As an FYI.  Klingon ships are not going to be broken down like that.    Instead of Escort, Cruiser, and Science    KLingons are going to have Raider, Cruiser, and Carriers.   At the moment it is unclear where the support/control is going to come from on the Klingon side.   The carriers have been said to fill a tank/pets role.

Hopefully Cryptic will get us some more information about the klingon fleet soon.

So far this game seems pretty amazing. Going to definitely try it out and with any luck it may feed my starved MMO addiction for a few years at least.

Bren

Yeah, I'm definately psyched.

lol, yeah I want to be a ship. no actually I want to be Quark or at least someone like him lol.

I'm stoked for this game... really, really excited!  Reading about it brings me back to the old TNG trading card game.

Sorry, call me a hater but the terminology they use serves to illustrate my basic problem with STO. It seems very apparent to me that they are working with the mindest of a standard fantasy based MMO and simply putting a Star Trek skin on it and possibly tweaking a few things here and there to make it feel a bit more sci-fi... but everything about this screams ships = standard fantasy character classes with different skins.

For me, to make sci-fi game.... especialy one that involves capital ship vs capital ship combat feel right...requires an entirely different mindset when designing. You need to take off the MMO hat and put on the Wargamer hat. Really for the space-combat portion of the game I think they would have been well served hiring a design lead that had ZERO previous MMO experience and was grounded in doing Wargames (maybe something like Harpoon, etc)... so that they didn't go in with preset notions that didn't fit the subject they were designing.

For example...in ship to ship combat, there really should be no such thing as "Healing" or "Buffing" or even really "Tank", "DPS" and "CC" as defined in standard MMO terms per say.

If you look at actual naval combat (and I'm hardly an expert at this) the roles break down more along the lines of something like this....

Screens - Small ships that form a peremiter larger capital ships and provide protection against swarms of small attackers or difficult to detect threats (subs, aircraft, missles, etc). These would include Destroyers, certain types of Frigates, Minesweepers, Corvettes, maybe AA Cruisers etc).  They have good detection capabilities, low firepower against capital ships although they can be somewhat effective at close range, good weapon systems for engaging smaller threats. They  can't take alot of damage themselves but have some decent evasion and point defense systems.

Capital Ships -  These have good fire-power and long range weapons. They have good defenses and alot of superstructure but are vulnerable to swarms of small attack craft or hunter-killer type ships that get them at optimum attack range. They want to keep an enemy at range and rely on screens to protect them from enemies closing. They rely on thier ability to sustain damage rather then on speed/evasion to avoid it. You could further divide these into Light (Light Cruisers, Cruisers) and Heavy class ships (Heavy Cruisers, Battle-Cruisers, Battleships) the trade of being speed for firepower/armor.

Hunter-Killers - These would be the "Subs" of the Star Trek world...basicaly stealth ships. They have medium/short range weaponry. They rely on getting into thier optimum firing range undetected where they can unleash a slavo on an unsuspecting target to crippling effect. Thier primary defense is stealth, they can only sustain minimal damage.... and thier especialy vulnerable to screens who can detect and destroy them.

Attack Craft - Fighters/Bombers, Torpedo Boats, etc. Basicaly craft that are very small, highly manuverable, fast and deployed in large numbers. Thier goal is to quickly close with the enemy, get past his screens and engage the enemies capital ships at short range and overwhelm thier defenses with thier numbers and strikes to weak points and critical systems.

Carriers - These carry attack craft into battle and act as a base for controling them and supporting them. They are essentialy lighter versions of Capital Ships but without direct armaments themselves. They rely on thier Attack Craft to kill enemies.

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

Sorry, call me a hater but the terminology they use serves to illustrate my basic problem with STO. It seems very apparent to me that they are working with the mindest of a standard fantasy based MMO and simply putting a Star Trek skin on it and possibly tweaking a few things here and there to make it feel a bit more sci-fi... but everything about this screams ships = standard fantasy character classes with different skins.

For me, to make sci-fi game.... especialy one that involves capital ship vs capital ship combat feel right...requires an entirely different mindset when designing. You need to take off the MMO hat and put on the Wargamer hat. Really for the space-combat portion of the game I think they would have been well served hiring a design lead that had ZERO previous MMO experience and was grounded in doing Wargames (maybe something like Harpoon, etc)... so that they didn't go in with preset notions that didn't fit the subject they were designing.

For example...in ship to ship combat, there really should be no such thing as "Healing" or "Buffing" or even really "Tank", "DPS" and "CC" as defined in standard MMO terms per say.

 

If you look at actual naval combat (and I'm hardly an expert at this) the roles break down more along the lines of something like this....

 

Screens - Small ships that form a peremiter larger capital ships and provide protection against swarms of small attackers or difficult to detect threats (subs, aircraft, missles, etc). These would include Destroyers, certain types of Frigates, Minesweepers, Corvettes, maybe AA Cruisers etc).  They have good detection capabilities, low firepower against capital ships although they can be somewhat effective at close range, good weapon systems for engaging smaller threats. They  can't take alot of damage themselves but have some decent evasion and point defense systems.

Capital Ships -  These have good fire-power and long range weapons. They have good defenses and alot of superstructure but are vulnerable to swarms of small attack craft or hunter-killer type ships that get them at optimum attack range. They want to keep an enemy at range and rely on screens to protect them from enemies closing. They rely on thier ability to sustain damage rather then on speed/evasion to avoid it. You could further divide these into Light (Light Cruisers, Cruisers) and Heavy class ships (Heavy Cruisers, Battle-Cruisers, Battleships) the trade of being speed for firepower/armor.

Hunter-Killers - These would be the "Subs" of the Star Trek world...basicaly stealth ships. They have medium/short range weaponry. They rely on getting into thier optimum firing range undetected where they can unleash a slavo on an unsuspecting target to crippling effect. Thier primary defense is stealth, they can only sustain minimal damage.... and thier especialy vulnerable to screens who can detect and destroy them.

Attack Craft - Fighters/Bombers, Torpedo Boats, etc. Basicaly craft that are very small, highly manuverable, fast and deployed in large numbers. Thier goal is to quickly close with the enemy, get past his screens and engage the enemies capital ships at short range and overwhelm thier defenses with thier numbers and strikes to weak points and critical systems.

Carriers - These carry attack craft into battle and act as a base for controling them and supporting them. They are essentialy lighter versions of Capital Ships but without direct armaments themselves. They rely on thier Attack Craft to kill enemies.

 

This.

Hrmm, I'm an Eve Online player so I'm looking for something new and fresh that has to do with outerspace. I'm torn between STO and Jumpgate: Evolution...

Grumpy, I think you raise some good points but consider that they need to make each ship a lot less specialized and give it a lot more solo capabilities.   I mean, they don't have to, but soloability is clearly a direction their interested in.    Personally, I think it's the right choice.

   I am particularly looking forward to something rarely seen in online games; a slow, strategic combat instead of jump-around-like-a-bunny while masing buttons like a madman.      As a brief rant, I am so sick of seeing people talking about how skill should be more important than gear (it should), but the skill they really mean is this work-the-keyboard like a concert pianist type skill, and not one of aforethought and planning.

Looks kinda fun, probably will give it a try, just for the IP if not anytning else. 

And I don't mind being a ship.

Hope it is not going to end up like an ersatz of Earth & Beyond.

Originally posted by xuiton

a science vessel that heals and gives buffs/debuffs? since you will spend most of the time in a ship it sounds like this game is literally a class based game except you can class at anytime.

 

Sounds like any themepark mmo but instead of a priest or whatever, you're a science vessel.

Yeah... Kinda what xuiton said. Honestly, when I saw the science vessel mentioned I was hoping that it would be a bit more of a free-form game... but then it goes on to talk about how it works in combat (A Science vessel in combat? Really? ) and it was a bit disappointing.

Meh. Maybe I'll play a free trial or something, but it just looks like another typical class based game. Except we can change classes by buying a new ship. Meh.
 

The fact that boarding actions were mentioned sounds really cool though. But the fact that even something like a supposed "Science" vessel is going to be nothing more then a combat logistics ship doesn't really make me feel like there will be a lot of free-form game play. Ah well, whatever.

Originally posted by Uronksur

Originally posted by xuiton

a science vessel that heals and gives buffs/debuffs? since you will spend most of the time in a ship it sounds like this game is literally a class based game except you can class at anytime.

 

Sounds like any themepark mmo but instead of a priest or whatever, you're a science vessel.

 

Yeah... Kinda what xuiton said. Honestly, when I saw the science vessel mentioned I was hoping that it would be a bit more of a free-form game... but then it goes on to talk about how it works in combat (A Science vessel in combat? Really? ) and it was a bit disappointing.

 

Meh. Maybe I'll play a free trial or something, but it just looks like another typical class based game. Except we can change classes by buying a new ship. Meh.
 

 

The fact that boarding actions were mentioned sounds really cool though. But the fact that even something like a supposed "Science" vessel is going to be nothing more then a combat logistics ship doesn't really make me feel like there will be a lot of free-form game play. Ah well, whatever.

Re Science in combat:

See

Enterprise A-E, NX, Voyager

 Captain kirk, whats that?

OH NO ITS  X-WINGS AND TIE FIGHTERS, STAR WARS IS COMING TO GET US 

old republic will prevail!

(yes, i had to post this :P )

Originally posted by nekollx

Originally posted by Uronksur

Originally posted by xuiton

a science vessel that heals and gives buffs/debuffs? since you will spend most of the time in a ship it sounds like this game is literally a class based game except you can class at anytime.

 

Sounds like any themepark mmo but instead of a priest or whatever, you're a science vessel.

 

Yeah... Kinda what xuiton said. Honestly, when I saw the science vessel mentioned I was hoping that it would be a bit more of a free-form game... but then it goes on to talk about how it works in combat (A Science vessel in combat? Really? ) and it was a bit disappointing.

 

Meh. Maybe I'll play a free trial or something, but it just looks like another typical class based game. Except we can change classes by buying a new ship. Meh.
 

 

The fact that boarding actions were mentioned sounds really cool though. But the fact that even something like a supposed "Science" vessel is going to be nothing more then a combat logistics ship doesn't really make me feel like there will be a lot of free-form game play. Ah well, whatever.

 

Re Science in combat:

See

Enterprise A-E, NX, Voyager

I know, I was just hoping to hear of a little more role diversity. I never said they shouldn't have any science vessels in combat, I was just a bit surprised that they spoke of them entirely in terms of their combat roles. Meh. Who knows, maybe next week they'll announce some big planetary exploration and surveying alternate career thing and do a big release on some huge non-combat features.