Guide to Leveling in STO

Many players, especially new ones, ask the questions "how can I level up quickly?" or "what order should I do things?". These are perfectly good questions which deserve a perfectly good answer. This guide will help you understand the mechanics of leveling up and how to gain experience faster.

Before we begin I want to define some terms that I will be using:

Episodes : A mission that follows a story and should be completed in order.
Defend mission : A mission where you must enter an Enemy Encounter by flying near an enemy ship in the specified sector, or by using the glowing red clouds. With these you must destroy a certain number of enemy groups.
Exploration mission : A mission where you must enter an exploration area and visit a certain number of unknown systems.
Diplomatic mission : A mission that does not have combat and gives both diplomatic experience and regular experience.
Duty Officer Assignments : Missions you send your duty officers on.

The best thing to do is the Episodes because they are "chained" together. After you complete one the next will unlock. You will level up fairly quickly through this method. At the same time you can use the Duty Officer system to gain additional experience by sending your Duty Officers on assignments. You can also do diplomatic missions which give additional experience as well as diplomatic experience (used in the duty officer system). Defend and Exploration missions are good as well because they can provide additional experience and rewards. If you ever get bored with doing episodes you can take a break and do these.

The links below can further help you with the various missions: