I will be playing through the demo to decide whether I want to invest in this MMO.
What decisions at character creation are crucial and cannot be changed later? I hate to find out an hour or so in that I made some awful clangers when generating my char.
Do you take the demo char forward into the game proper, or do you reroll when you subscribe to the paid game?
Fixed typo in thread title; moved Cafe Society --> the Game Room.
Thats a question I don’t know. I was in open beta, but I deleted that character just before launch. Perhaps someone else has an answer.
You can get a respec from an NPC in the central hub of StarFleet Base, Sol. (I don’t remember the cost.)
You also earn free respecs upon reaching certain rank milestones.
Sorry I can’t be more specific.
I never had a demo copy of STO, but my character created during the free trial period (I started playing a few months after launch) did not get deleted or altered.
I only played for a few months but if I remember right there did not seem to be a big power difference between the various character types and you can always use you other crew members to balance things out, so it is pretty hard to make a character that is underpowered or had any unuseable specs.
I’m still playing STO, although my time is very limited.
Things you cannot ever change, as far as I know:
I think everything else is changeable, although changing your chat-handle requires cash. Other things can be changed via in-game mechanics, usually by spending Starfleet Merits (earned by completing missions).
Of course, you want to know how important each of those five things are.
Faction is probably easiest to decide. The Feds have more missions, more costumes, more content in general. The Klingons have more than they started with, but expect to grind PvP if you want to advance.
Career is crucial, but hard to decide. I recommend playing each until you played up into the Lt Cmdr rank. The starter Lt ship is too generic to get a good sense of the differences among the careers. Of course, the ships aren’t class-restricted; a Tactical captain can use a Science or Engineering vessel, etc. Because of that the different careers aren’t much different in space.
The real difference among the careers is ground missions. Each career gets different kits to wear. The kit is what gives you abilities beyond shooting your weapon. You get a good variety of kits through missions. Keep and try them all to see what career you like best.
Gender is entirely cosmetic. Choose as you like.
Species is cosmetic, except for the trait options.
Traits are small bonuses and sometimes penalties that can choose from. Choices depend on species. None of them are overpowered, but some might not be as useful. Even the best ones are only small bonuses. By the time you’re at a high rank, other factors will be more important.
Thanks all. Where is Memory Alpha? And what are these alien artifacts and radiation samples for?
Memory Alpha is due north of the Sol system; you’ll have to go to the next sector block. There are crafting stations there where you use samples taken from anomalies to upgrade equipment. I think there’s a mission to get you started. I’m not sure because they massively revamped crafting. It is much easier and more straightforward than it used to be.
I suggest going to Memory Alpha and talking to the different NPCs standing around in the different areas there. You’ll get a feel for what you can do.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the STO Wiki has a lot of useful information. For example, see the article on Crafting.
I do not think I will continue past the 30 days you get from buying the game. It’s OK but it’s not for me. Too repetitive. Fly ship to system, then either patrol around killing stuff, or beam down to planet and run around killing stuff.
To be fair i haven’t gone above Lieutenat 6 so there may be more to the game that I haven’t seen yet, but this isn’t one I fancy investing time in.
I think I will take a look at City of Heroes next.
There’s some “diplomatic” missions at higher levels that involve very simple puzzles. But most of the missions are either space combat or ground combat.
I think you’ll find most MMOs to be similarly repetitive. The key is finding one that repeats fun stuff. 
I liked levelling in WoW, just couldn’t hack the end game grinding. I may have to go back and level up to 85 now Cataclysm has hit. Theres a 6 day free trial on City of Heroes to look at also.
Fair warning, City is intensely repetitive. In fact I’d be hard-pressed to name a more repetitive game. But if you find the combat fun, you won’t mind, like Pleonast says.
I bought STO right after release and I was so angry at Cryptic for releasing such a broken game. After a couple of weeks I uninstalled it and went back to playing WOW…ugh!
About 2 months ago I decided to give it another try and I’m amazed at how far this game has come! Everything seems fixed and it seems to be completely bug free. Although it is still repetitive I think that most mmos are. The most promising thing about STO is the new Foundary feature that lets players create content for the game.
I joined a fleet and even though my gaming time is limited because of real life demands, I’m really enjoying STO. I’d recommend giving it a try, the game is easy to play and at the same time so deep and complex once you learn it.
I’m sure I’ll be playing Old Republic once it hits shelves but in the mean time…
BRAVO Cryptic!
p.s. I’m so sick of WOW I want to vomit
I play a few hours of STO a month just to take a break from the high/medieval fantasy genre.
I finally have a (science) character who made the rank of Rear Admiral, Lower Half (sigh: wtb “commodore” rank title).
I completed “The Arena” featured episode, and picked the ship shields as a quest reward. It actually changed the appearance of my starship! 
Does this become more common in the higher ranked (Commodore+) mission chains, or was that just something unique to this (newer) featured episode?