Just for fun, I wanted to see how much time has passed for our characters in STO. So, I timed how long it took at maximum warp to get from Vulcan to Sol. It took 1 minute, exactly. In Star Trek IV, it takes a couple hours. I gave the game the benefit of the doubt, and decided that with improved warp engines, it would take about half an hour.

This means that for every 60 seconds of player time in sector space, half an hour goes by for a character. That's 30 character hours in 1 player hours. In one year, there are 8,760 hours, which means 262,800 character hours have gone by, or 10,950 days - which is 30 years. So, it's completely plausible to have a great many Admirals running around, since they've gone through 30 years of experience and missions.

Of course, once you leave sector space the crazy time warp isn't on, since it clearly doesn't take half a character hour to walk down a hallway. But even if you don't add the time spent playing missions to the time in sector space, there's still a lot of time spent there. I'd say it's safe to say that at least 10 years have gone by for our characters since the attack on Vega.

Anyways, just thought I'd share my conclusions. It's more a "for fun" exercise, but it's certainly interesting.

Very cool thought experiment there.

You know whats funny? I just gave my character a mustache and beard because I figured he had aged a bit and needed to change his grooming habits once in a while....

Humorous timing.

So what happens if you idle in sector space? Would your character eventually die of old age while sitting less than a parsec from Earth?

I had a thought...

While we are in sector space others may be on ground maps spending 'regular' time.
How do we reconcile the difference?

I suggest averaging the accelerated time with actual real time to get something in between....

Understand that it is just a game?

There is no way to do math on it to figure it out, because its a game.

Also, if you keep track of things in your journal, you can see that they have stardates on them, and the missions are moving through time. It seems like the end of the Devidian series was in 2411 already,

Its one of those things you can't examine too closely. Don't pull back the curtain to see the tiny bald man at the microphone.

Basically, write it up to suit your own story, and don't try to make it line up perfectly. Because it can't.

Wow great timing

IIRC during the Khittomer Accord STF, it references you travel back in time 5 years, to just before the Borg attack on the Vega colony. Which would put that amount of time from when you play the tutorial to running around at Admiral level in Borg space.

omg i love this math, dude that's awesome it actually helps my rp quite a bit

party pooper