User:UnknownParticipant/Sandbox/Star Trek Online Quick Start Guide
Hello, and thank you for taking the time to visit! Star Trek Online is the premier group for gaming within Bravo Fleet and we have so much to cover, so let's skip the preamble and get right to the meat.
I am going to write this like you have never even heard of Star Trek Online, so if it seems a little beneath your level, please just use the Table of Contents to skip to your relevant section.
Getting The Game
Supported Systems
Bravo Fleet Gaming Department supports Star Trek Online on a Windows-based PC only. Cryptic, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the consoles were to have separate ecosystems from the PC version and there is no crossplay. Our assets on the PC server are quite substantial, whereas we have no presence on the consoles. If the console gamers would like to come together to form a fleet, please ask around for interest in doing so; there are a couple of PS and at least one XBOX user the Gaming Department are aware of, and it takes five players online at the same time to create a fleet.
System Requirements
As of November 8, 2021, the system requirements for Star Trek Online are as follows:
Operating System: Windows® 7, 8 or 10 (64-bit) CPU: Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz (or equivalent AMD CPU) RAM: 2 GB Hard Disk: 21 GB Graphic Display: NVidia GeForce 8000, ATI/AMD Radeon HD 2000, Intel G965M Express, Intel HD Graphics 2000 or better (Supports Direct3D Hardware Feature Level 10 or higher) Sound Drivers: DirectX 10 compatible sound chip or onboard audio capability with the latest sound drivers Network: Broadband Internet Connection Required
Please note that this is subject to change at any time, as the game is evolving. They are turning off DirectX 10 support and moving to DirectX 11 or newer as of the end of 2021. However, any halfway decent Windows 10 desktop or laptop made within the last five years should have no trouble running Star Trek Online.
Other Operating Systems
There has been a few asks about Mac and Linux versions of this game. Please note that there is no native way to make Star Trek Online work on either MacOS or any distro of Linux; however, using versions of WINE players have seen successes at running Star Trek Online from these unsupported operating systems.
There is a great walkthrough of WINE here: https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Linux_OS_and_Mac_OS_X
Installation
Star Trek Online is available through several different channels:
- Cryptic has their own launcher named Arc, which you can obtain through their website here;
- There is a Steam version available here; and
- Epic Games has a version available here
There are advantages to each version - Arc logins take advantage of an extra costume, Steam and Epic both use the same logins you use for those programs already. Bravo Fleet recommends the Arc Games browser if you are only going to be playing this game on your PC, but you can use the other games systems if you want to unify other games purchases or something.
Whichever option you pick, pick a place to install the launcher and game with a lot of hard drive space. STO has some large patches, and running out of storage space is always a worry with this game. The requirements at launch were a lot smaller, and as the game gets older and adds more content it expands how much space it takes up. Ideally you will want at least 60 GB free on whatever drive you select for installing.
Do not expect to play the game immediately after installing the launcher. It needs to complete patching with Cryptic's servers. It takes a while, even on a Gigabit internet connection - at the time of this writing it is about 20 GB, which on an ideal traffic day would take at about half an hour to install. With anyone using anything less than Gigabit that same installation can take hours.
Once that is done, you will have the option to "Engage". Click it and we are off to the Star Trek Universe.
First Time In
Star Trek Online makes this part really easy to start, but also gives you some really big decisions right up front. After the splash screen and connecting, you are presented with some choices right away that affect you much later in the game. We will go over the options here.