I ended up rolling a tactical
A fine choice. The only bad thing about Tactical to me is Go Down Fighting. Even with the advantage.... it sucks. It should not suck, looking at it in game *shrug*
As far as I can tell, manually controlling your ship, specifically turning it around your targets properly to get maximum weapon coverage and best shield orientation is a big part of space combat? Unlike for example in EVE where you just set your ship to automatically circle the target at a given distance?
Yeah, and Energy Usage is important. When it comes to Weapons - not Exotic abilities. To make a lonnnng explanation that I wouldn't half understand either, shorter... Try and get your Weapons power level to 125 (in not-sector space - where combat is) and try and keep it as close to there as possible while you are firing weapons..
For example.. Why not use the biggest cannons you can find and put them up front on an Escort and then kit the rest of the ship out with omni's/turrets/Heavy weapon? Energy use. It will suck you down and then your weapons do less damage. That's why tossing some torpedoes in is usually a good idea - that, and, once you get shields down, torpedoes shred.
More to your question: Yes, you will have to manually control your ship with some amount of skill that will generally include both throttle and movement controls to get all the things you want to fire in the cone/arc they need to be in.
If you can hammer the Same Shield (back shields, maybe...?) repeatedly, that's good. Once you chew through Shields, then your Torps (if any) can chew hull along with everything else your throwing at your target. Burning through a single shield side to get to Hull can be very good, if you can manage it. And if that shield just happens to be their back shield.. it may make it hard for them to get at You.
How does the leveling system work? Do you mess your character up if you choose a "wrong" combination of abilities, for example because you can't buy all of them and respecs are nonexistent/exorbitantly expensive?
This is an extremely good and insightful question...
Yes, you can screw up your character! First of all, you don't get a Space Point to spend every level.. You get.... 46 total? Google it or someone correct me but I think there are 46 Space points to spend. So budget those points. Also.. You have to have at least 20 of any of the things in the various trees (tac, eng, sci) to get the Ultimate ability for that tree. Also... there are 3 advantages for Ultimates that cost 1 point each - so, a Maxed Ultimate is going to cost you 23 points in that given tree.
Also.... What's the rush? I have a toon right now that is level 60 and only has half of his Space abilities picked. I played him for quite awhile with Nothing picked after a retcon. And then I chose based on whenever I sat and said "I really wish I had thing X". One time X was more Defense.. One time X was bigger shields.. The first time it was maxing Torpedo damage. So don't be in a hurry. The choices are important but they can wait.
ALSO.. retcons are expensive, dangit : / so, yeah, be aware of that. As you insightfully sensed you might need to be.
Which activities can you do while leveling? Can you just level doing missions, are there dungeon-like activities available (I assume queues fill that role)?
There are so many....activities.. Where to start.. Here is a good one.. If you are not in a Fleet, join one. Now that you are in a Fleet - go to the Research Lab and do the Daily there that gives you a nice chunk of R&D XP + good tradeskilling components. One component commonly sells for 20-40k and sometimes you get 5 - you can use them or sell them. And you get Dilithium - 1.2k? just for doing that.
Fly around and do Doff mishes while you're cooking....?
Hrrrm.. Tradeskilling often requires juggling your time between leveling.
Sometimes I get so stuck in the .... activities ... that's all I do! Often. I just found a new one last week that I do almost daily.
Anyway, I'm having more fun than I expected. Enough to have trouble balancing my time between SWL and STO.
Good post. Glad you're having fun. I like space games and think sto is a pretty good one, too. It's good to have at least 2 games! I enjoy CO, a lot, again. But. Man am I glad it's not my Primary game.. I would look too deep at what's been going on (my nerfed toons and how nerfed they really are, for example) and get too peeved. As is, I can just pop in CO and do simple stuff and have fun and then try and keep up with STO, which, I could probably Live in.
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Btw - Z-Particle is the name of the tradeskilling component from that Research Lab Daily that sells for the highest price (20 - 40k)
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One more thing! Tac captains work well in all ships - Escort, Cruiser, or Sci.