You don't know how much of an effect it has on me to open up the "Credits" section on a big-name game like that and see the names of people I used to work with at other companies. These aren't just names taking up space in a section they're legally required to include somewhere, these are *real people* who happen to be my friends. It is for them that I want this game to succeed. It is for them that I want the company to thrive. So if you're wondering why I'm rapidly turning into an STO fangirl, and refuse to believe that it's a genuinely good game, you can blame that for my reason.

I've been doing some research and discovered a bunch of things that aren't immediately obvious upon first starting the game.

1. How to turn on auto-fire.

I saw the auto-fire options in the options menu when I was originally poking around in there, but couldn't figure out why my weapons weren't auto-firing. Last night, I tried right-clicking on my ship's phasers, and breathed a sigh of relief. Before then, I'd been spamming Shift to fire both phasers whenever they were off cooldown, and my thumb was really starting to hurt.

2. How to turn off display of armor and kits.

I was really sad when I got my first body armor and saw that it replaced my uniform. I'd spent so long getting the colors on my uniform just right! I was starting to consider unequipping my armor whenever I was in starbase so that I could run around in a proper uniform, because I really HATE how the armor looks on my character. However, I just discovered that, like above, it is possible to right-click on your armor or kit to hide it so that you just display your uniform.

3. What the hell do these ship console stats do??

I kept getting these Science ship consoles that had weird stats like +7.5 Astrometrics or +12 Spatial Anomaly, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what they were for. Apparently, they add ranks to certain skills (i.e. talents) that in turn buff certain abilities. Unfortunately, it appears that the randomized drops are utterly useless most of the time, because my character only got to level 8 Lieutenant, and the only science consoles I found so far were buffing skills that I can't even learn until I'm an Admiral (level 40+).

Apparently you can see which skills affect your abilities by looking at their more in-depth information on the P screen.

4. This game has nothing to do with the new rebooted movie.

I was reading through the history over the weekend, and discovered that, despite my assumptions that it was tied to the new rebooted franchise, this game doesn't have anything to do with the alternate universe created when Spock went back in time in the new movie. It actually takes place in the original timeline, a decade or two after the future part of that movie exists. I.E. Spock is apparently dead, and the Romulan Empire collapsed after its home planet was destroyed -- they're in the process of rebuilding. The Klingons were at peace with the Federation at one point but when the Klingons attacked the Romulans in their moment of weakness and the Federation defended them, it all went downhill.

I also hear rumors about the Cardassians rebuilding their home planet after the Dominion War, and that they'll eventually be another playable faction. Considering I never watched DS9 or Voyager in-depth, I don't really know many of the details of what that means.