Let me start by saying I love Cryptic, Champions Online is a fantastic game. But a couple things really bother me about Star Trek Online so i'm writing this mostly just to get it down.

What the heck is a deflector dish? That pretty much sums up my entire gaming experience in STO. I like the game, enjoy the gameplay (except the way they did "Sectors", totally ruins the immursion imo) but the itemization, stats, skill etc, I have no idea what i'm doing. Do i want +5 to my deflictor dish or +3.8 to sensors...how should i know. I've already maxed out my skills like "increases beam damage" because hey, i know what that is, but i'm at a total loss after that.

I've looked all over for tool tips, etc...but i really shouldn't have to. For example in Champions if i mouse over Strength for example, or some random power it tells me exactly what it does. Of course I know the world is entirely different, hence why i'm totally at a loss.

Currently i'm playing the game like reading a book in another language, book in one hand, dictionary in the other. or in this case, game on one screen, google up on the other.

Anyway, i may continue to try to muddle through it, I may not.

If you see some guy running around or spamming chat asking dumb questions...please be nice to him, it's probably me.

I probably couldn't give you a good explaination but I think if you look here you might find what you need:

http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...d.php?t=118581

Heh, that was confusing me greatly at first too. A fleetmate tried to expalin it, but that failed. I eventually figured it out myself.

A dish just boosts certain skills. That´s it.
There are the General Player Skills and the deflector dishes give a bonus to skills in the Star Ship Operations category. Nothing more nothing less.
To find out which of those skills you actually use you need to check the space BO powers in your skill window. There´s this pulldown menu in the upper right.
Play around with it.

PS. Also maxing out skills isn´t usually a very bright idea. Diminishing returns and all that.
Above post has a nice guide collection. I found this site very informative too:
http://theenginescannaetakeit.wordpress.com/

only other option is to join a fleet, with Ventrilo or Team Speak, and ask someone knowledgeable.

Different science powers use different "ship operations" attributes.

Deflector dishes and science consoles can boost those attributes.

As far as WHICH to boost? Depends entirely on which skills you use most and want to boost most. For instance, if a skill uses "deflector dish" stuff that boost "deflectors" will affect it, as will "deflector dish"- but "defloctor field" will NOT boost it, thats for other stuff. For best bets, you boost the basic stuff first, as they will have the most bang for the buck, affecting more skills than the later, more specific ones.

There's too many categories for science stuff like this, and they all use different junk. It's dumb, and can waste percious skill points.

IMPORTANT: If you use the "highlight contributions" button on your skills list, you can list all of your personal, ship, and bridge officer skills, and filter it to which skills affect a certain main-skill.

Unfortunately, I think at least one is still wrong. Cryptic has shown no tendency to fix stuff like this in a timely fashion.

The deflector dish is the most important item to equip your ship to boost science Bridge officer abilities ( in space combat ). Each attribute will benifit a specific skill on your main skill tree. To find out what benifits certain abilities, click the drop down on the top left of your skill tree page.

ie; If you have tachyin beam and science team as your science bridge officer skills, the +deflector is the atribute that help you, but if you have tractor beam and or hazzard emitters, them the + emitter attribute helps.

This same goes for certain consoles you equip onto your ship which furth give you advantages in space combat.

Heh, I have exactly the same problem and have asked exactly the same question.

I always assumed that since a deflector dish's primary purpose is to...deflect things...one would think having a better one would increase shields or evasion or something.

I find the skill tree and item descs in this game the most backwards, vague, and confusing ones I have ever seen.

For information on any item just right click on the item in question, choose the option "info"...

you get a better idea of what things do.