Tactical, Engineering and Science; the three main career options when starting with your new character. I'm aware this is likely to end up as a potential long-term agenda, but I'm thinking these options could be expanded upon.

In my opinion the Federation should be Engineering focused, the Klingons would obviously be Tactical focused and a third faction (hint Romulans) should be Science based. We'd still have all three options for each faction, though a Klingon player who has chosen a Tactical Career would maybe get a little bit of a bonus in some way?

If not that, then I think it would be worth looking at how different factions play. At the moment, the one and a half factions that we've got all play the same. Shouldn't Klingons feel more warrior-like? Klingons should be more warrior-focused with their own unique captain abilities (rather than a general set). Same would apply to eventual Romulans; base their captain abilities around stealth maybe? Just something to differentiate between different factions, thus if someone owns different toons for the different factions, they'd have some variety other than appearance and social maps; gameplay should feel different too.

I'm aware this probably wont be no easy job, but I think in the long run it would make the game community a happier one. I know I'd feel better having different play styles.

While interesting, I feel it would add an unnecessary level of complication to the game. I believe there's already a fair bit of differentiation between the two sides via the ships we can get, as well as DOFFs. For both PVE and for any hopes of PVP, I think "less is more."

Additionally, I've noticed over the years that one group's "bonus" will tend to be held as the baseline for everyone/thing else. As a result, "OMG such-and-such is gimp," regardless of its factual status, will become the perception. It could be totally in line for performance, but will be held up against the bonus'd group.

As is, we've got a lot of different options, and can assemble a personal style from those. I think that's fine, and better than some innate push towards one or the other.

To the OP, you clearly have the Feds and Romulans flipped in their preferred roles. The feds are all about science, the Romulans are the engineer race. They built the vault, their ships are fast and powerful but look like they should break given the high speed maneuvers they do and they are powered by black-holes. Engineers need to know a great deal about the stresses that effect any thing they build.

No op, BAD! Stop trying to bring in faction specific bonuses. I prefer it the way it is right now, everyone is free to play what they want without feeling like they're missing out! Have you never played MMOs with systems like what you propose?

Fair enough.

I'm not entirely sure about this. Maybe they'd both be Engineering focused? The reason I had Science down for the Romulans is because of two things.

Firstly the Remans would be a huge part of any Romulan Faction, and Remans tend to be Science-focused (the fact we've got a Unique Reman Boff should be easy acknowledgement for that). Secondly, whilst it could be argued for Tactical, Romulans lie in the shadows; they use their stealth and trickery to their agendas, such that probably wouldn't be possible without science.

There were two suggestions up there, only one of which allowed for faction-specific bonuses.

STO is actually my first (and probably only) MMO I'll play.

Please believe me when I say it causes resentment and frustration unless handled exceedingly well and that its "proven" by player min/maxers (not devs) that indeed its all equal... Unless you want a bonus but on a different faction.....then you go straight to frustration and resentment. I honestly do not feel Cryptic (or indded most Dev studios) is capable of such the balancing act required to make it work, much less that it would be satisfactory to the player base even if perfectly balanced.

Yeah... generally, players are the reason we can't have anything nice

Balance is hard enough even if both sides are the same. If they're not (like, Starcraft, fighting games, etc), its even harder. SC was getting balances patches for YEARS to get it where it is

And, really, there are gamers who simply love to break the engine - its a mental challenge, like a game, and they have fun doing it. No game survives contact with gamers. One of my good friends loved breaking fighting game engines (he's a former tournament player) - taking a game purported to be balanced and breaking the thing was a joy for him. Hell, it was fun watching him do demonstrations and like like, too ^_^

Well, KDF ships actually DO have significant differences from Fed ships. None of the KDF ships is comparable to a Fed Science vessel. KDF gets BoP instead.

KDF ships are heavily armored compared to fed vessels for certain. It woul be cool if the game reflected this.