Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online (often abbreviated to STO) is a Star Trek themed free-to-play MMORPG developed by the Cryptic Studios, published by Perfect World Entertainment.

Setting

 * See also Chronology and Canon in Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online begins 30 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis and 22 years after the destruction of Romulus (seen in Star Trek (2009). The year is 2409 and the infiltration by the Undine (Species 8472) has led to a new war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, and a Romulan Republic (under Spock's protege D'Tan) has broken away from the remnants of the Romulan Star Empire (under Empress Sela). The game covers characters, locations and events from all series and films, including the latest releases such as Star Trek: Picard.

Gameplay

 * For information on how to get started, see the links on the wiki's main page.

Gameplay revolves around playing a character of desired faction in an open world, with various locations and elements from the Star Trek universe. It features a combination of space, where you take control of a starship, and ground portion of the game, where you control an avatar from the first or third person view. Game starts with a character customization, and a tutorial which introduces player with basic mechanics and available game formats, such as PvE (episodic storyline, PvE Queues), PvP and other content slowly unlocked with leveling.

Game release
The launch of Star Trek Online for Microsoft Windows occurred on February 2, 2010. Players who pre-ordered had early access, called Head Start, which began January 29, 2010. The launch build was temporarily revived on April 1, 2015, known as Star Trek Online: Rebirth, allowing players to experience the game as it originally existed.

On November 12, 2013, a beta version of Star Trek Online became available for MacOS, but official support ended on February 5, 2016.

Development
Star Trek Online was originally being developed by Perpetual Entertainment, but in January 2008 the company announced it would no longer be developing the game and the license and content was transferred to Cryptic Studios, while the game was being published by Atari Interactive and Namco Bandai.

After Perfect World acquired Cryptic, it was announced on August 31, 2011 that they would be offering Star Trek Online in a free-to-play model in addition to its subscription option. The details of such a system, with free silver accounts and paying gold accounts, were announced September 6. The free-to-play service launched on January 17, 2012. By July 2012, Star Trek Online was the top performing game for Perfect World North America.

System requirements
As of March 1, 2017, Star Trek Online no longer supports Windows XP and Direct3D 9, or Video Cards with a Direct3D Hardware Feature Level less than 10.0. To ensure a smooth gaming experience, it is recommend that the following specifications are met:
 * OS: Windows® Vista SP2, 7, 8 or 10
 * Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz (or equivalent AMD CPU)
 * Memory: 2 GB
 * Hard Disk: 21 GB
 * Graphics: NVidia GeForce 8000, ATI/AMD Radeon HD 2000, Intel G965M Express, Intel HD Graphics 2000 or better (Supports Direct3D Hardware Feature Level 10 or higher)
 * Sound: DirectX 10 compatible sound chip or onboard audio capability with the latest sound drivers
 * Network: Broadband Internet connection required

Updates

 * Main artice: Season, Release notes

In Star Trek Online, major updates/patches are called seasons in reference to the television show. Season numbering has remained consistent between PC and Console releases, despite seasons 1-11 being released at launch for console. The largest updates have been called expansions, which to date include;


 * Legacy of Romulus: introducing the Romulan Republic faction and early-game KDF characters.
 * Delta Rising: adding the Delta Quadrant and a Star Trek: Voyager focused storyline.
 * Agents of Yesterday: introducing the TOS Starfleet mini-faction and a Temporal Cold War story.
 * Victory is Life: focusing on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Since Victory is Life, the game has focused on releasing expansions overtime with thematicly-linked seasons.
 * Season 15 to Season 18 focused on Star Trek: Discovery.
 * Season 20 started a Year of Klingon theme.

Statistics
For the 3rd Anniversary of Star Trek Online, PC Gamer released some game statistics :
 * 2 million existing player characters
 * 10 million starships in service
 * 10 billion light years travelled
 * 1 billion planetary encounters
 * 800 million episodes completed
 * 16,500 fleets in service

For the 4th Anniversary of Star Trek Online, additional statistics were released :
 * 3.2 million existing player characters
 * 16 million starships in service
 * 300 playable starships to command
 * 2.8 million reputation projects completed
 * 75.8 million duty officers in service
 * 21,500 fleets in service

For the 5th Anniversary of Star Trek Online, additional statistics were released :
 * 3.8 million existing player characters, on 2.5 million accounts
 * 51% tactical, 28% engineering, 22% science
 * 73% Starfleet, 16% Klingon, 11% Romulan
 * 421 playable starships to command
 * 107 million duty officers in service
 * 25,040 fleets in service

8th Anniversary updated statistics :
 * 5.2 million total players (62% on PC, 19% on PS4, 19% on Xbox)
 * 139 unique species available as captains, bridge officers, or duty officers
 * 502 unique playable ships
 * 161 playable episode

Perpetual Entertainment screenshots
Some of the very few in-game screenshots released, shortly before Perpetual Entertainment stopped development.