Try to lure the BOPs out of the area. Take them out. You can then go in slowly. Target and shoot the mines. That is what I did on my escort I'm leveling on. Where if I just went it I would got chewed up.

See if you put skill points in your BOFFs and Captain. You gain in powers that way. And keep the icons/keys updated as you add new moves.

One other point which has gone unmentioned here: Those pockets of metreon gas? If you're within critical distance (seems to be a single-digit variable) when one goes up, it'll damage you too. Usually when I go down that fast, it's because I let myself get within 4 km of a pocket, and the enemy used a torpedo spread or something. The weapon hits me, and the splash damage sets off the metreon gas and finishes me off.

The technique I've developed for that is to go in slowly, target the metreon gas whenever I'm within 10 km, and hit it with the beam weapons. The only danger then is that I might have missed another pocket or two, and they might go up in a chain reaction...

It hasn't been mentioned, but the OP sounds new enough to the game he may not be aware of power levels. In the bottom center portion of your HUD is a small display as part of your ship status that displays power levels. If you haven't modified them since you got your ship, your power levels will be 50 to all four system. There are four presets buttons above the power level, and the left most preset will put you in attack configuration.

The attack power level preset configuration will give you 100 power to weapons, 50 to shields and 25 to engines and auxiliary. At these levels your shields will be unaffected but your energy weapons will deal twice the damage. You may find that part of your problem is taking too long to destroy the NPCs, allowing them an opportunity to deal significant damage to you. By increasing your weapons power, you will shorten the duration of the engagement, reducing the amount of damage you'll take.

Make sure not to shoot the metreon gas when you're in range of it's explosions.

You might also need a better shield. At level 11+ you should have access to the "skirmish" mission, which upon replay has a good covariant shield as a reward. It's not required but it'd make things easier.

Tactical team and emergency power to shields are very handy. I'd also recommend taking hazard emitters and transfer shield strength.

I agree going back to replay the missions. To upgrade your current gear. And at times, more stuff is added when you do replay missions. My self currently is going back on some of them for new gear on my new tactical ship and Captain.

Ok sorry for not responding for a while I have a newer ship now and I guess I never scrolled down far enough on skills for my ship, because I had zero points in "shield emitters" and now that I have a few more levels, almost to level 24 now, my shields are way better and the ship I chose at level 20, a cruiser instead of a Science vessel seems to be a lot more powerful.

Just wanted to thank everyone for all the posts, they all really helped me out.

The thing I am having trouble with now is I have one empty slot on my bridge crew and I can't seem to figure out how to get someone to fill that slot...hummn But hey thats why I like this game I have to figure a lot of stuff out and that can be fun too

Oh and I guess I need to go read up on duty officers because I have all these duty officers, and so far I have never done a thing with them at all...not really sure what all of that is about need to go do some reading and research I guess ...

As you level you gain new officers to choose from. If not hit the "Explore Clusters" for the dil reward for doing 3 systems. Then use that to buy one from the vendor at the ESD. Or use the Duty Officers to gather dil for you to do it. Sometimes you might find one on the exchange as well. At times a special Bridge Officer mission shows up in the Duty list. I have got a couple from that as well.

There is several ways to gain new Bridge Officers.

Well I just wanted to thank everyone for all the suggestions, I finally beat that Briar Patch mission!!! YAY! thanks again everyone all suggestions really really helped alot

Actually I enjoyed shooting those metreon gases from the distant just to take out several Klingon ships.

I personally just go buy them off the exchange. The prices range from 1 EC to "A Lot of EC" depending on the quality, traits, and species desireability.

Female Trill go fast for reasons I really don't want to think about...

But the differences don't matter unless you're doing PvP or need a bigger e-peen, OP. Just go and get the class that you need. It won't cost much at all and this way you will have more dilithium to spend on more useful stuff instead of spending it at the Boff vendor.