Star Trek Online offers several levels of character customization beyond the visual aspects, and that first level the player is introduced to is character traits. You select these traits when creating your character, and the choices are numerous. In Massively’s guide to the character traits of Star Trek Online, we’ll look at the different classes of traits and suggest some builds to get you started.

Please remember a few things when reading this guide. First, the information was all obtained in the late closed beta — so it could have changed without notice at release. If that’s the case we’ll update the guide as soon as we know about the changes, but double check everything and don’t click blindly. Secondly, the traits are only a recommendation and should be adapted to your personal play style. If you’re one of those players who always needs that extra bit of health, get the Peak Health trait no matter what role you’re going to play. Finally, there is currently no way to retrain your traits (or skills), so be sure to select them carefully.

Character Traits Guide Table of Contents
How Traits Work
Species Traits
Federation
Klingon Empire
Space Traits
Ground Traits
Suggested Trait Builds
Suggested Species and Trait Builds
Federation
Klingon Empire

How Traits Work
Traits define the basic attributes, and in some cases, a special action that your character possesses. Traits influence the overall strengths of your character and are central in adapting your character to your play style. As of this writing, once you select your traits at character creation, you cannot revise them later on.

Each character is allowed a total of four traits. Each defined species comes with between one and three predetermined traits, allowing you to fill in the rest to your liking. However, defined species also have limited trait choices to select in their customization. For instances, Humans don’t make good tanks — and cannot get the Elusive ability necessary for space tanking. Custom species allow you to select all four traits to your liking.

It’s important to think about the role you want to play in the game prior to selecting your species and traits combination. Some species lend themselves to specific roles better than others. As an example, the Betazoids lend themselves well to filling a healing / support role with their trait Empathic, which reduces threat and increases the regeneration rate of team members.

Note too that while the general space and ground traits are available to both Federation and Klingon characters (sans specific species restrictions), some individual species traits are unique. Take the Klingon trait Honorable, which increases threat generation by 10% and gives a damage resistance of 5%. That’s an exceptionally powerful tanking trait, and it does not have any counterpart in any Federation species.

Federation Species Traits
Human
Leadership: +15% repair rate
Teamwork: +5% exploit damage
Andorian
Acute Senses: +20% stealth sight, +10% exploit damage
Bajoran
Creative: +5% damage and healing with kits
Spiritual: +10% heals received and +10% regeneration
Benzite
Natural Armor: Resist energy and physical damage
Natural Immunities: Radition and toxic damage resitance
Betazoid
Empathic: Reduced threat generation, increased team regeneraiton
Telepathic: Increases perception, exposure duration, and chance
Bolian
Corrosive Blood: +20% toxic resistance, deals toxic damage when Bitten
Saurian
Circulatory Redundancies: Toxic, fire, and plasma DoT damage resistance
Acute Senses: +20% stealth sight, +10% exploit damage
Trill
Hyper Metabolism: Health regeneration, radiation, and toxic resistance
Vulcan
Logical: +30% psionic, confuse and placate resistance
Physical Strength: +10% melee damage
Borg — Only available to lifetime subscribers
Borg Nanites: +10% ground health and shield regeneration
Efficient: +5 starship engine efficiency. +5 starship energy weapon efficiency. +5 starship auxiliary systems efficiency
Klingon Empire Species Traits
Klingon
Honorable: +5% damage resistance, +10% threat generation
Gorn
Cold-Blooded: 25% fire resistane, +10% plasma DoT resistance
Reptilian Strength: +17.5% melee damage and knockback
Resilient: +5% physical and energy resistance
Lethean
Rapture: Target and Psionic DoT
Telepathic: Increases perception, exposure duration, and chance
Nausicaan
Physical Strength: +10% melee damage
Pirate: +20% stealth, +30% exploit damage
Orion
Seductive: Resist confuse, placate, reduced threat generaiton
Space Traits
Tanking
Elusive: Reduces the chance for enemy ships to hit you with their weapons. +0.1 defense.

Damage
Accurate: Increases the accuracy of space weapons. +0.1 accuracy

Support / Multispec
Efficient: Provides a bonus to your efficiency stats, improving the effectiveness of many of your power management abilities. +5 starship shield efficiency. +5 starship engine efficiency. +5 starship energy weapon efficiency. +5 starship auxiliary systems efficiency.
Astrophysicist: Improves your operations stat, which enhances ship deflector, emitter and sensors abilities. +10 starship operations training.
Techie: Improves your engineering stat, which increases the effectiveness of maintenance, repair and performance powers. +10 starship engineering training.
Warp Theorist: Improves your warp core stat, which increases the power levels of your ship.

Ground Traits
Tanking
Aggressive: Improves the damage you deal and makes enemies more likely to attack you over other targets. +5% all damage bonus strength. +5% threat generation.
Peak Health: Improves maximum health and toxic resistance. +10% toxic damage resistance. +10% maximum hit points.
Damage Resistance Traits
Cold Blooded: Provides moderate resistance to fire damage and some resistance to plasma fire damage over time effects. +10 Plasma Damage resistance (only affects certain things). +25% fire damage resistance.
Mental Discipline: Provides innate resistance to the effects of psionic attacks as well as confuse and placate. +15% psionic damage resistance. +20% confuse resistance. +20% placate resistance.
Natural Immunities: Provides innate resistance to the effects of radiation and toxins. +33% radiation damage resistance. +33% toxic damage resistance.
Resilient: Provides innate resistance to physical and energy damage. +5% physical damage resistance. +5% all energy damage resistance.
Stubborn: Improves resistance against placate and abilities that reduce your movement speed or prevent you from acting. +40% run speed resistance. +20% hold resistance. +50% placate resistance.
Sturdy: Provides innate resistance to the physical damage and knockback attacks. +10% physical damage resistance. +10% kinetic damage resistance. +10% knockback resistance.
Sure Footed: Improves resistance against powers that knock you back or root you in place. +40% root reistance. +12% knockback resistance.

Damage
Acute Senses: Makes it significantly easier to detect stealthed opponents and increases your exploit damage by 10%. +20% stealth sight.
Covert: Increases the effectiveness of your stealth abilities and boosts exploit damage by 20% while stealthed. +10% aggression stealth strength. +10% perception stealth strength.
Lucky: Increases critical hit chance and expose chance. Does not stack with other expose chance buffs. +3% critical chance.
Physical Strength: Improves the damage of melee attacks. +10% physical damage bonus strength.
Soldier: Increases the damage and critical hit damage of your ranged weapons. +5% all energy damage bonus strength. +10 critical severity.
Telekinesis: Activatable ground trait. Knocks the target back with telekinetic force. 22.86 meter range, 0.75 sec activate, 1 min recharge, 15 physical damage, Knocks back the target 30 feet.
Telepathic: Improves the chance of exposing a target as well as the duration of the expose. Makes it easier to detect stealthed opponents. Does not stack with other expose chance buffs. +20% stealthsight.
Fury: Gradually increases your damage once your health drops below half, making you deal more damage the closer you come to death. Andorian only.
Teamwork: Improves the exploit damage done by you and your allies by 5%. Bolian, Humans only.
Limited Telepathy: Improves the duration of exposes and makes it significantly easier to detect stealthed opponents. Trill, Vulcan only.
Mind Meld: Applies a short duration hold and a longer duration confuse to the target. Vulcan only.
Nerve Pinch: Precise pinch on the target’s neck. Prevents the target from taking action for the duration. Vulcan only.
Bite: Deals moderate melee damage and poisons the target. Gorn only.
Seduce: Confuse the target and trick them to attack their allies. Orion only.

Support / Multispec
Creative: Improves the damage and healing of your kit powers. +5% all damage bonus strength. +5% hit points bonus strength.

Suggested Trait Builds
For custom species, you are allowed to select a total of four traits that will define your character. While it’s possible to entirely stack traits in either space or ground combat, it’s not advisable. Missions and other encounters almost always have both space and ground combat elements in them, and it’s vital that a character is able to be effective in both situations. In this regard, we’ve decided to go with a 2-to-2 ratio for the following recommended trait specs: two ground combat traits combined with two space combat traits.

Tanking
Elusive
Space trait. Will make your ship less likely to be hit.
Techie
Space trait. Will increase the rate at which your ship is repaired and recharges.
Aggressive
Ground trait. Increases threat and damage dealt.
Peak Health
Increases maximum health and provides some toxic damage resistance.
Damage

Accurate
Space trait. Increases the accuracy of your weapons.
Efficient
Space trait. Increases the efficiency of your energy weapons, amongst other things.
Lucky
Ground trait. Increases critical hit chance and expose chance.
Soldier
Ground trait. Increases base damage and critical hit damage.
Support
Astrophysicist
Space trait. Space trait. Increase the operations stat.
Warp Theorist
Space trait. Improves your warp core stat, which increases the power levels of your ship.
Creative
Ground trait. Improves the damage and healing powers of your kit.
Peak Health
Ground trait. Increases maximum health, which never hurts to have in a support role.
Balanced Tanking / Support

Elusive
Space trait. Will make your ship less likely to be hit.
Astrophysicist
Space trait. Space trait. Increase the operations stat.
Aggressive
Ground trait. Increases threat and damage dealt.
Creative
Ground trait. Improves the damage and healing powers of your kit.
Balanced Tanking / Damage

Elusive
Space trait. Will make your ship less likely to be hit.
Efficient
Space trait. Increases the efficiency of your energy weapons, amongst other things.
Aggressive
Ground trait. Increases threat and damage dealt.
Soldier
Ground trait. Increases base damage and critical hit damage.
Balanced Damage / Support

Warp Theorist
Space trait. Improves your warp core stat, which increases the power levels of your ship.
Efficient
Space trait. Increases the efficiency of your energy weapons, amongst other things.
Creative
Ground trait. Improves the damage and healing powers of your kit.
Soldier
Ground trait. Increases base damage and critical hit damage.

Suggested Species and Trait Builds — Federation
Tanking

Suggested Race: Andorian
Predetermined Trait: Acute Senses (Increased stealth detection)
Suggested Traits: Elusive (Increased ship defense), Aggressive (Increased ground threat), Techie (Increased repair rate).

Damage

Suggested Race: Human
Predetermined Trait: Teamwork (5% increase in exploit damage), Leadership (Increased space repair rate)
Suggested Traits: Accurate (Improved accuracy of space weapons), Lucky (Improved ground critical hit chance and expose chance).

Support / Healing

Suggested Race: Betazoid
Predetermined Trait: Empathic (Increased team regeneration, reduced threat), Telepathic (Increased perception)
Suggested Traits: Creative (Improve healing and damage of your kit) and Astrophysicist (Improved starship operations training)

Suggested Species and Trait Builds — Klingon Empire
Tanking

Suggested Race: Klingon
Predetermined Trait: Honorable (Increased ground damage resistance and threat), Warrior (Increased ground damage)
Suggested Traits: Accurate (Improved accuracy of space weapons), Techie (Increased repair rate).

Damage

Suggested Race: Nausicaan
Predetermined Trait: Physical Strength (Improved melee damage), Pirate (Improved exploit damage)
Suggested Traits: Accurate (Improved accuracy of space weapons), Warp Theorist (Improved ship power levels)

Support / Healing

Suggested Race: Orion
Predetermined Trait: Seductive (Improved resistance to confuse and placate, decreased threat)
Suggested Traits: Creative (Improve ground healing and damage), Astrophysicist (Improved starship operations training), Warp Theorist (Improved ship power levels)

When it comes to player housing, we love to see creative and unusual things people have done with their spaces. Take for example, this idea cobbled together in Star Wars Galaxies, and sent in to us by Tiktik Deen of the Starhawk Conglomerate on the Starsider server. Tiktik sent in this fun image along with the following note to explain: This is a perfect example of why people loved Star Wars Galaxies. A guild member took the time and resources to create this chess board from in-game holographic models and crafted furniture pieces, then had the dedication and desire to fit everything together perfectly in one of their homes. ([This is an] old pic, the room is more decorated by now.)

Have you done something creative and fun in your MMO home space? We’d love a quick picture tour, if you’d like to share it. Just send the image in to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description of what we’re seeing. (Server, guild, etc. welcome too!) We’ll post them out here for all to enjoy and give you the credit.

One of the frequently-voiced concerns about Star Wars: The Old Republic is the possibility that the non-Force classes will wind up becoming almost irrelevant. Who’s going to pay attention to being a spy when you can wield an energy sword and fling lightning, right? As a matter of fact, the Imperial Agent would like very much if no one ever notices they exist. They’re quite happy to stand in the background and never be observed, because as the latest developer’s entry explains, that’s precisely what the Agent does best. They exist in the shadow, the man of many faces and a hundred names, a presence whose influence is strongest when it isn’t evident at all.

Star Wars: The Old Republic faces the difficult task of making the Sith — traditionally the villains of the franchise — into a playable and likable faction rather than monolithic evil. As the developer entry points out, the Imperial Agent is a major part of that, of giving the chance to look at someone who is quite possibly a proud citizen of the Empire and happy to serve in keeping the peace and bring down the Republic. It’s also a look at the parts between the lines of the films, the spies and intel operators whose role was important but whose faces were rarely seen. But you might decide not to look at the full discussion of the class anyway — and as we’ve mentioned, really, that’s what the agent would want.