Star Trek Online or popularly known as STO is the first in series of massively multiplayer role-playing game (MMORPG) by the Star Trek franchise. Released in 2010, one of the important characteristic of the game is its extensive freedom to the players to customize many of the features of the game. Ships are an integral part of the game and a player can extensively customize his/her ship. Such customizations could either be cosmetic to enhance the look of the ship or they could be functional which would increase the stealth and lethal capabilities of the ship. The customization of the ship has to be necessarily done at the shipyards. These shipyards are available for both the Federation and the Klingon Empire and are located at the major hubs. Qo’nos and the Earth Space dock usually serve as the places for customization for the Klingon Empire and the Federation respectively. Every new ship acquired by a player lets him/her edit the features without any cost. However, additional customization would depend on the changes being made and may require Energy Credits or Starfleet Merit.
Among others, the available customizations for ships include Model, Design and Naming. There are six different ship models and need to be chosen from Saucer, Hull, Nacelles, Pylons, Secondary Array and Mission Pod. However, the last two models are restricted to the Science Tier 5 only. The design customization of the ship include the decals, windows, decal color and plating color whereas under the naming customization, the player can customize the Ship name, Registry number, Registry prefix as well as Registry Suffix. However, the feature to change the registry prefix is currently limited to special digital editions of the game. The registry can be changed from NCC to NX and vice versa in these special editions. In addition to all these customizations, there is also a possibility for the customization of the bridge design and its layout.
In addition to choosing from Escort, Cruiser, Science or other categories, the player is also allowed to customize the functionality of his/her ship. These include Fore weapons, to fire weapons from the front of the ship, Ship Deflector Dishes, Ship Shields, the number of Impulse engines, Aft weapons to fire from the rear of the ship, and other consoles like Engineering, Science and other Tactical consoles. In addition to these, the player can also customize the weapons in terms of the individual type of Torpedo, Mine and Energy Weapon. Usually, a diverse portfolio of weaponry is suggested with each weapon being used tactfully. For example the extent of damage a torpedo can drastically vary according to the capability of the enemy ship.
Ship Customization is one of the favorite topics of many players and there have been a plethora of suggestions on how to make the customization process and interface more user-friendly and efficient. Quite a few videos showing the customization of the ships can be found at major video hosting sites and are an ideal solution for new players to learn the intricacies of ship customization. However, certain sections of the gaming community have opined that an excessive customization leads to loss of interest in the real game and hence excessive customization needs to be avoided.
