Quick answers to the questions we hear most, plus a few interaction tips that aren't obvious from just looking at the screen. Don't see your question here? Tell us — we're always adding to this list.
It's back, rebuilt and rebranded as the STO Academy Build Planner — see Welcome Back, Captains for the full story.
No — the full build editor works without one, and you can save a build to a file on your device with no account needed. Creating an account gets you cloud save slots, shareable build links, public build search/profiles, badges, and the ability to submit content to the catalog.
A cloud slot is tied to your account and synced to our servers — it gets a permanent shareable link the moment you first save to it, and you can load it from any device you sign into.
Saving to a file downloads a .stobuild file to your device instead. No account needed, no slot limit, but it's on you to keep track of the file and load it back in yourself.
Click the small i button on a skill node, or — on desktop — right-click the node itself. On a touch device, press and hold it.
Skill trees are prerequisite-chained — you need every skill between your current selections and the one you want, and enough points left to afford the whole chain at once. A skill that's grayed out usually means one of those two things isn't true yet.
On Ship Equipment (not Ground Equipment — that one doesn't support this), an equipped slot can be copied three ways: click the small copy icon that appears on the slot, right-click the slot (desktop), or press and hold the slot (touch). Once copied, a "Copying, click a slot to paste" banner appears at the bottom of the screen — click any compatible slot to paste it there, or "Finish" to cancel.
That category might not have any catalog entries yet. Most empty-list screens have a "Submit one?" or "Know of one? Submit it" link that jumps straight to the contribution form for that exact category.
Those are an item's modifiers — the same bracket notation the game itself uses. How many you can pick depends on the item's rarity; higher rarity means more modifier slots.
Bridge Officers are the crew you actually station and equip with abilities, in space and — as Away Team members — on the ground. Duty Officers are a separate roster (also split space/ground) that grant passive bonuses rather than being assigned abilities directly.
A Bridge Officer seat's rank and specialization (or a universal seat's chosen career) both limit which abilities can go there — the picker only ever shows abilities that are actually eligible for that specific seat.
Every saved cloud slot gets a permanent /b/{shortId} link the moment you first save it — from My Builds, toggle a slot to public to let anyone with the link view it read-only.
Refit copies someone else's public build into your own editor as a starting point, crediting the original build. It's the fastest way to try a build you found before tweaking it into your own.
Head to Add Content and pick what you're proposing — the form adapts to the content type you choose.
Any signed-in player can review a pending submission — once 3 people approve it, it's promoted straight into the live catalog automatically. There's no separate reviewer role; anyone can vouch for a submission except its own submitter.
Yes, as long as it's still pending and nobody has approved it yet — once someone's vouched for it, the content they approved can't change out from under them, so editing and withdrawing both lock at that point.
Most badges award automatically the moment you actually do the thing they're for — save your first build, share one, get a submission approved, and so on. A few are hand-awarded. Your full badge catalog (earned and not) is at Badges.
Yes, from Account — it permanently removes your builds, share links, and the account itself. That part can't be undone.