Anyone found a way to turn OFF the automatic suck me into the encounter thing, i'm sitting there in sector space tooling with my skills half the time when it interupts me with a wandering klingon

honestly i liked being able to choose my instance, so i could ignore that kinda crap

not checked since headstart started, but right up to the end of beta you could click the change isntance button on the map, then click the check box at the bottem 'allow me to pick my own isntance' or something

failign that, dont sit on a hostile patrol route, they dont fly aroud to much

Best time to mess with skills is in a friendly system (Sol, Memory Alpha, K7, etc.) or at the end of a mission. When you've completed a mission and are asked if you want to return to sector space select Continue Exploring (or the equivalent) and you'll be free to tinker with no threat of attack.

WEll, regardless, I don't want to go into the random encounters, it just eats up my time to go in, wait for warp to finish, and leave, plus i have to mess with my skills at the same time. Honestly, I don't like being forced into an enounter.

I'm afraid they're right you can't just sit in the middle of a war zone and say 'hey don't shoot me, I'm on the phone'

Afaik they removed the option to always choose instance after OB, which is a pity.

Don't like to do the encounters? Then don't sit around in sector space.
They will follow players and suck them into the encounter, so the thing to do is give them a wide berth when in sector space and don't spend any more time there than necessary.