I recently returned to sto after pre ordering and giving up in the first month as the game back then felt unfinshed. Having come back now it has improved alot and I am once again enjoying it however the difficulty thing is giving me trouble so i was wondering if people can offer any advice on the best way to use it,

Basicly I have been running missions on the advanced difficulty in space its great still not much chance of dying but i have to actually pay attention, havnt noticed any improvement in the drops but im still only a lt, on most ground portions of story missions its a pain but i get by. THe problem is when i try to run some explore delta valonis mission to get badges for equipment in space its fine but as soon as i get a ground mission i seem to run into swordmasters dharg masters and orion matron who dont die for toffee and one shot or two my squad. I tried focus firing them, rooting them etc but still the combination of them and there friends slaughtered me repeated until i felt like quiting sto again

As far is i can see my options are, run the explore missions on normal and face roll them with no challege to get badges.

play on the more advanced satisfying setting but abandon any beam down missions

or get chain killed

what does everyone else do am i missing a trick here ?

What "class" are you playing? I tend to have a harder time in ground missions when I play my Science Officer (even at Vice Admiral) then I do with either my engineer or tactical officers. I have also noticed that the first few "levels" (1-5) of a rank seem easier then the last few (6-10); not sure if this is actually the case or just my perception, but that could be a cause as well.

In explore missions there are some ground missions that have some bugged enemies (mainly the ones with dual pistols). If you encounter one of those that can wipe your entire away team in one hit then report that map through the bug report feature (make sure to write down your current map name as you see it above the mini-map and what the issue is), that way the devs can remove those maps from the game.

The devs have stated that they are going to just nuke the bugged maps for now until they get the new ground combat and explore tech in game with the season 4 launch (may take longer for the new exploration tech to get added)

A lot of it is your level as well. Advanced isn't too bad once your BOffs flesh out their ground powers, plus a bit of tactics by you.

By T3, for example, you can run with 2 sci officers that have medical tricorder I, and Vascular Regen I & II, as well as 2 engineers that run Shield Regen I, either Shield Regen II or Phaser Turret I, and Phaser Turret II. If you yourself are sci, you can run the medic kit yourself and swap out one of the psis for another engineer. Turrets rock because they actually do decent damage and they soak a decent chunk of aggro. But in T1, all you've got is your BOff plinking away and they do crappy damage, ~40% of what your captain does with the same gun.

And there's the tactics. In some situations, you can have your engineers place turrets first, that way, they get into the fight sooner rather than placing turrets the moment the fight starts. You can use vascular regen on your self before the pull, since it provides resists for 10s. CRM 200s are good against those melee happy mobs, since it snares them, making keep out of melee range easier. Good weapon to hook your BOffs up with. And then there's target prioritization. Do you kill easy stuff first or get rid of the guy that is super annoying? It'll depend on the situation.

But mostly, give it a few levels. By 21, you should have enough ground powers and be able to invest enough points in those ground powers.

people invest in ground powers ? i only put 7 points each in ensign level ground powers and thats it. You shouldnt need any other points. The trick to it is if your an engineer have a team with all members having Phaser Turrett 1/2/3 and a medic. If your sci go for a full team that can give additional expose and use mostly grav shift / stasis field/ medical tricorder etc. I have a sci who has nothing but Scis on the away team and elite isnt a problem. However For tactical I have yet to find the ideal away team but im thinkig of trying draw fire and focus fire combination. If your a tact dont let your boffs play with nades. Also give your boffs hypos and shield charges they do use them !

Yes, but in this case, I'm referring to BOff skill points. Most everyone spends those points. If you want to run ground missions on higher difficulty early, then these really become more important than most of the space ones. But you'll be tight on those points until you get to T3. Then it'll become pretty easy to max everything you use, both ground and space.

Beyond that, it is worthwhile to spend points in turret related things as an engineer and in rifle related skills as a tactical.

The current balance of the ground is not that good. Some enemies are overpowered, and it's not just bugged ones. Klingon Swordmasters are just overpowered, not bugged. Even on normal a Swordmaster is actually a threat, which makes them a nightmare on Elite, or even pretty tough on Advanced.

It has nothing to do with points spent on the ground or lack thereof. I put plenty of points into ground on my characters and the Swordmaster is still a real pain in the ass.

That said, if you really learn how to play ground you can usually beat most of the hard enemies. The only exceptions are the truly bugged ones that will incap your entire group in 1 hit with AoE weapons. Unless you adopt very cheesy tactics like taking 4 engineers with all turrets, then those groups remain difficult.

I'd like to see separate difficulty settings for space and ground.

Space has always been too easy and ground has always been a pain in the neck that lasts far longer than it should. Raising the difficulty only multiplies that problem.