ok ,

i have just started playing STO now im playing a paid version and what not so do i still have to do missions or can't i just roam around doing what i want without being forced to do missions cause at the moment i can not do nothing but the dam Prelude to a Crisis mission and i don't want to be doing missions 24/7 so can someone help as i can not abort this mission.

i was under the impression of this game being a free roam game not being forced to do missions so some help here would be nice on if you can free move or do i have to do nothing but missions ?

thanks

Prelude to a Crisis ... you mean the tutorial? You're kind of stuck with that one. After that there are a couple of short missions that you should do for some early Bridge Officers and the like but other than that you can putter around doing explorations or system defense instances or PvP or whatnot. Although, I'll tell you from the outset, that your advancement is going to be slow to non-existent if you don't do missions arcs unless you're wanting to do nothing but PvP all day.

And this is a 'free roam' game only in the sense that you can fly around as you like but you're not going to get any character advancement doing that: the vast majority of the skill point/XP comes from doing missions of one type or another or from PvP.

It's definitely the free roam game you want, but you have to get through the tutorial first mate. Just persevere, read all the text and take your time through that mission and after it you can do what you please. There will be many different kinds of missions for you depending on what you like such as; story missions, exploraqtion, pvp, diplomatice etc or you can just fly about as you want.

Some of the best ways to earn progression come from patrols and exploration sectors rather than story arcs if that's not your bag.

Remember that this is an MMORPG, so you'll need to take part in missions of some sort to get better ships and equipment.