Building 101: New and F2P

This resource serves to attempt to address all of these topics. There are three main types of builds: energy, exotic, and projectile (though many blur the lines between them). We'll cover each in turn, starting with energy as it's the most popular (if not necessarily the most powerful). Each post will make some basic recommendations and major heavily on easy-to-acquire, practical recommendations mostly geared towards new/free-to-play players that will require some grinding but not multiple millions of energy credits or Zen / Lobi purchases or gamble boxes. In other words, these aren't builds that can be assembled readily at level 50, but most of the build can and the rest can be progressed through playing Advanced TFOs to finish out reputations and fleet unlocks to make viable endgame builds. With some upgrading and maybe a C-store ship purchase, they could also fly Elite successfully. These posts will make some nods to expensive high-value items as potentially future considerations but they're not essential. We're going to go heavy on practical and light on theory. Building on the energy basics for players that want to learn how to tank, we've written a guide to tanking that will help players attract and absorb damage for their team starting on Advanced difficulty and progressing into Elite, where tanking really shines. For advanced game mechanics, check out How Starships Work in STO.

Maybe you're lost in the myriad acronyms used by veterans commonly (even us!) and the terminology is simply too much. We've assembled an acronym list to help decipher some of the most common abbreviations. 

We'll link to some other people's works in each section, but a preemptive shout-out is merited to Thisvideoiswrong (Exotics and Hangars), Spencer/CasualSAB (Projectiles), and Renze (Projectiles) for their own contributions and compilations into foundational shipbuilding. As you get started with shipbuilding, don't forget the ten fundamental guidelines of PvE shipbuilding that you can certainly break once you know what you're doing but are solid and safe for starters:

1. Pick One Way of Doing Damage and Do It Really Well Before Branching Out. Pick one damage-related focus and do it well. You can add secondary things or flavor/theme choices after the fact, but you need to do one thing really well before you can branch out. I.e. "This ship will do Phaser Cannon things really well." Yes, more advanced shipbuilders can stretch this one pretty far but for starters it's a good principle.

2. Have a Plan to Kill Everything. Enemies will not surrender if you withstand them forever or disable their subsystems. It's fun to be invulnerable and tanking is important for certain Elite TFOs and disables can be fun/thematic, but if you ever want to get anywhere in solo content, you're going to need damage.

3. Use Ships for Things They Are Good at and Not Things They Are Bad At. This is the first guideline you can break once you know what you're doing or just for flavor, but there are some build types and ships that go together like oil and vinegar. It can work, but only if you shake it up first, which generally requires greater game knowledge. Ships that can't run dual cannons are bad choices for cannon builds. Ships without Secondary Deflectors aren't great at doing space magic. Ships without LtCmdr Command or higher will struggle to be effective kinetic platforms without a lot of handholding. Ships with 6 weapons don't make the greatest beamboats. Yes, all of these things can be made to work (see: Speed Tank on HSE) but when you're first learning, start by building a ship to its strengths.

4. Learn to Pilot Properly. Broadside for beamboats. Nose on for everything else, no strafing or "attack run" nonsense. Circling enemies is not generally advisable and will lead to longer combat times. Flying away is only for when the enemy is about to kill you or the objective does not involve defeating them. Really cannot overstate the importance of piloting, it's probably around half of your performance starting out.

5. Pick Between Beams or Cannons and Not Mix Them Until You Know What You Are Doing. For beginners, you should have all beams or all cannons. Mixing is for more advanced shipbuilders in specific (but very valid) scenarios.

6. Do Not Slot Multiple Firing Modes for Your Chosen Energy Weapons. At most, 1 firing mode, i.e. Beam Overload OR Fire at Will, not both. Scatter Volley is eminently better than Rapid Fire. There are some setups that have multiple modes that are valid but to start out with...it's easier to say just don't.

7. Do Not Mix Energy Flavors on Energy Builds. One energy flavor only (e.g. Phaser, Polaron) and any flavor-specific damage consoles had better be matching it. If you know what you're doing or if it's an exotic/kinetic build where the weapon is there for a set bonus, you can rainbow it up. Likewise, no +Torpedo consoles on an energy build or vice versa.

8. Use Projectile Weapons Properly. 1 torpedo maximum on an energy build. It goes in the front if you want it to fire. It goes in the back if you want it just for a set bonus. Exotic or kinetic boats need to be using the right torpedoes and that's what Torp Finder is for. There will be no usage of Tricobalts, Chronitons, or Transphasic torpedoes. If you want to do silly things with them once you know what you're doing, fine, but as a class, all 3 are ... not good. Mines are powerful but for people who really know what they're doing.

9. Have a Good Cooldown Scheme. Figure out a plan for cooldown reduction. Boff powers work best when you can use them more often and it's relatively easy to do it.

10. Set Your Power Levels Properly. In an energy build, set weapons power to 100. In an exotic build, set aux power to 100. This is non-negotiable until you really know what you're doing and have some very nice toys to break rules with.