One of the biggest problems I have found so far with the game is the incredible amount of information NOT available to the players. This coupled with the current lack of a respec option boggles the mind.

What exactly am I talking about here you may ask? Following this is list of things where KEY information is missing to:
Allow the player to evaluate what is and what is not worth having by informing and helping them understand what each thing does, its effect, and use.

• The effect each console has on ship, weapons, and abilities. There is no clear way to understand this effect. This is further complicated by no communication that stacking items has a reduced effect.
  
  
• The effect of skills on your ship, weapons, and abilities. Sure we can judge from seemingly arbitrary numbers that after 7 points in a skill it is not as useful putting any more points in it. How much more damage do my phasers, etc do after so many points. These stats need to be shown on your ship stat window.
  
  
• A clear indication of what each skill does. What is the difference between HYTI and HYTII? Between tractor beam I and II.
  
  
• Which skills share cooldowns with others?
  
  
• Lack of a complete list of abilities that certain skills effect. Putting ETC in there is just plain lazy. [I am quite sure I have seen this on 1 or 2 skills].
  
  
• There needs to be a way to EASILY see all skills available in each slot on each BO. For example: Right click the skill spot should bring up a drop down list in which you can preview (see the ability description) all skills that particular BO can have in that particular spot.
  
  
• There needs to be a ability index where we can see the difference between Ability X rank X and others of that same ability but rank Y.

How can you possibly expect any player to enjoy collecting and changing loot when EVERYTHING beyond the basic tooltip on an item is INVISIBLE. How the hell is a player suppose to know she/he is improving their character when they have no information on what MOST items are doing in relation to their SPEC, SHIP, etc.


Comments, adds, etc most welcome. Edit: changed font colour perhaps it was too dark.

you are so right in so many ways but they really need to adopt a system like EvE's ship atribute before doing anything.

because it is pretty irrelevent to even look at the ship stats.
it was lmfao

and you cant even see base stats on the weapons that would effect your hit or miss ratio
i miss enough to know that accuracy bonus on the weapons is irrelevent LOL

1 out of 100 shots maybe.

the damage does not vary much either based on the targets orientation/range/speed relative to my own.

the weapons all fire at 10 km LAZY as **** range.

the ship does not have a base sensor strenth so sensor jamming will last a default 16 seconds and will always happen

if alls you want is more irrelevant info go for it, hope you get them

but they still wont mean anything if they dont take more of a simulator approach to the problem

in eve in order to properly calculate chance to hit with you turrets.

the angular velocity must be lower then the tracking speed
your targets angular velocity is the targets distance/heading/velocity/signaure vs. my velocity and speed.
(signature radious does play a role in it as well)

and all the before mentioned can be manipulated by skills and mods quantifiable on the fitting window.

i really dont think cryptic devs would be able to pull if off, to put that much detail in the games mechanics they are to focuse on end game raids LOL
says it right here
http://www.startrekonline.com/upcoming_content

This is a work around.

Cryptic still needs to add this to the interface the OP is completely right.

Workaround: Be in sector space have your weapons on your shortcut bar individually. You will notice that the tool tip DPS on your weapons is higher than the items dps on your ships paper doll. This is because they take skills into acount.

You can now add weapons consoles and see your weapon DPS go up in real time by using the Tool tips for these shortcut icons (you can hit the P key to add them to your shortcut bar). This works for skills as well but you have to hit the accept button.

Weapon damage isn't capped in the same way as turn rate and damage resistance. This is because the effectivness of damage is linear while the effect of mitigation is exponential.

Hope this info helps

This reflects a couple of myths that developers of MMO's seem to believe in.

1. People like to discover how things work themselves. Certainly there are some people who do but my guess is it's about 2% of the player base. The rest of us want to be able to read about it (~70%) or not even have to read about it (~30%).

2. Not explaining how things works prolongs the life of the game. To a certain extent this was true in the first MMOs. Now though it's just an irritation that cuts costs marginally. Diablo II is a good example of a game that did provide accurate info on game workings and it wasnt exactly a flop, either financially or in terms of player numbers/game longevity.

Ship consoles either add +x ammount to a skill (that's right, skill) or add a %, %s have a relatively diminishing return in that they seem to work off a lower base number of some sort, basing this off an escort. consoles that add + to skill (integers) do not have a diminishing return

If you press P while in space, you can highlight each skill and see what other skills are used to bolster it. This may sound mean but you should just memorize all the bridge officer skills, it'll also help you should you come up againts them in PvP.

Ability index would be nice, I agree, but experimentation with skills help that. You'll have enough bridge officer points at rear admiral to try out every single skill, right now i'm at 71,000 and counting.

Hope that helps.