Star Trek Online Guide

Star Trek Online is set in the year 2409, thirty years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis.
Each character is captain of their own ship and can choose between three factions:

• Federation
• Klingon
• Romulan

Immerse yourself in sci-fi third person action, tactical space combat and exploring the galaxy in a beautifully rendered world of Star Trek.

Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing Star Trek Online in Linux with PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to the Downloaded version of Star Trek Online. Steam and Arc versions may require additional steps.

Note: March 2017 Perfect World Entertainment ended support for Windows XP and Direct X 9. This guide no longer applies until we can pursue more testing in Wine.

Tips & Specs:

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux Explained

Mint 17 64-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.2.8
Wine: 1.7.43

Wine Installation

Click Tools
Select "Manage Wine Versions"

Look for the Wine Version: 1.7.43
Note: Try using stable Wine 1.8 and 1.8-staging

Select it
Click the arrow pointing to the right

Click Next

Downloading Wine

Extracting

Downloading Gecko

Installed

Wine 1.7.43 is installed and you can close this window

Download Star Trek Online Client

Go To: http://download.perfectworld.com/sto/star_trek_setup.exe
Save the star_trek_setup.exe in a folder on your desktop

PlayOnLinux Setup

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Install

Click "Install a non-listed program"

Click Next

Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive"
Click Next

Name your virtual drive: startrekonline
Click Next

Check all three:

• Use another version of Wine
• Configure Wine
• Install some libraries

Click Next

Select Wine 1.7.43
Click Next

Select "32 bits windows installation"
Click Next

Wine Configuration

Applications Tab
Windows Version: Windows 7
Click Apply

Graphics Tab
Check "Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows"
Check "Emulate a virtual desktop"
Desktop size: 1920x1080 (or enter the resolution of your Linux desktop)
Click OK

Installing Packages (Components, Libraries, DLL's)

Check the following:

• POL_Install_corefonts
• POL_Install_d3dx9
• POL_Install_tahoma

Click Next

Note: All packages will automatically download and install

Installing Star Trek Online

Click Browse

Select the star_trek_setup.exe from your desktop folder
Click Open

Click Next again

Click OK

Click Next

Click "I Agree"

Click Next

Uncheck "Create a desktop icon"
Click Install

Uncheck "Launch Star Trek Online"
Click Finish

PlayOnLinux Shortcut

Select "Star Trek Online.exe
Click Next

Click Next again

Select "I don't want to make another shortcut"
Click Next

PlayOnLinux Configure

Select "Star Trek Online"
Click Configure

General Tab
Wine Version: 1.7.43

Note: Click the + to download other versions of Wine, click the down-arrow to select other versions of Wine

Display Tab
Video memory size: Enter the amount of memory your video card/chip uses

Close Configure

Launching Star Trek Online

Select Star Trek Online
Click Run

Launcher Update

Log in with your account credentials (or register)

Star Trek Online Launcher will download and patch the entire game: 9 Gigabytes

Click Engage

Cryptic Loading Screen
When you launch Star Trek Online the first time, you will have to wait about 15-20 minutes
After that it launches fairly quick

Login Again
Sometimes the login will fail and you have to login again

Optimization

Click Options

Display Tab
Adjust windowed or fullscreen
Adjust refresh rate and antialiasing

Graphics Tab
Use Render Quality and Graphics Detail sliders to adjust graphics
Or manually set:

• Screen
• Detail
• Effects
• Lights

Advanced Tab
More settings to increase/decrease performance

Rule of Thumb
High settings = More detail, lower frame rates
Low settings = Less detail, higher frame rates

Conclusion:
Star Trek Online ran really well on my Geforce 550 Ti. I rarely had any issues with loading, controls or diplay settings. The game actually pre-set everything to High and the game is beautiful.
Every once in a while the mouse would not turn your character/ship completely around, but a quick right-click fixes it.

Gameplay Video:

Screenshots:

 

I just used an old Startrek Online set-up program from last year that I still have on my HD.

 

High Res Screenshots:








Setup as in a PlayOnLinux script or the install file?

By they way, thanks for joining the GamersOnLinux forum. I hope you can help out with newbies learning to install games.

 

Perhaps GOL legal Department can contact Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment, to see if they can make a link to the old STO set-up file or maybe post a copy of the file for GOL members to use. Paramount Studio's might have some say in that to since they own the version of Startrek that STO uses for its backstory.

 

By the way STO has a huge showing at the currently ongoing Startrek convention in Las Vegas ongoing as I type this. I wish I was there. I understand that on Friday Denise Crosby, was there playing Tasha Yar's daughter Emperors Sela. Emperors Seala is leader ofm the new Tal Shar Romulan Faction, which is the nemesis of the new Romulan Republic that you can play as. Denise Crosby plays Emperors Seala, in the game including her voice!

 

Oh, so you have the original Disk of the game?
Is that what you meant?

 

Oh, so you have the original Disk of the game?
Is that what you meant?

There has never been a disk. Always download. The set file is an old way to set-up STO from the time before PWE started using that arc program.

 

Oh I see. so you can launch STO without using Arc.
I found that once its downloaded and installed, you can create a shortcut right to the exe and skip Arc all together, but obviously you need to download it through Arc at least once.

 

Oh I see. so you can launch STO without using Arc.
I found that once its downloaded and installed, you can create a shortcut right to the exe and skip Arc all together, but obviously you need to download it through Arc at least once.

Unless like me you have an old set-up file that still works. Although I still had to make a short cut to the Startrek Online launcher.

 

yeah, you must have been there from the beginning.
By the way, I didn't reply to your comment about Denise...
I think its pretty cool when Developers can hire talent from the Series for a game. Its pretty cool.

 

yeah, you must have been there from the beginning.
By the way, I didn't reply to your comment about Denise...
I think its pretty cool when Developers can hire talent from the Series for a game. Its pretty cool.

I was there from open beta, to head start, launch and more. I was there fore the first year anniversary. I was busy and missed the 2nd year anniversary. I was there for the 3rd year anniversary. I saw the launch of the foundry, the weekly episodes, captains reports, The Defarri, the cardassion missions, all the Klingon nonsense, the Borg, the Tholian invasion and just this June, the launch of Legacy of Romulas. There was other stuff like Q (Thom Delanchi) but I can't remember everything but I was there for almost everything. In fact all my characters all have the veteran title before their name. My Vice Admiral has a Chimera class dreadnought, which is the most powerful ship in Starfleet and is a 1000 day Gold subscriber veteran reward.

 

Dang, you really are committed to the cause...
I had no idea how much development has been done with Star Trek Online... wow, I got to say, its been under heavy work and a lot to do.

 

Over 3 years since launch and it beat WOW as the most successful launch for an MMORPG back in February of 2010. Not that all its content launches have been as good as the initial one but, they have all been great launches. I was happy 3 days after Legacy of Romulas launched and I was playing from Linux. Some slight network problems forced me to use Windows for about 3 days.

 

Over 3 years since launch and it beat WOW as the most successful launch for an MMORPG back in February of 2010. Not that all its content launches have been as good as the initial one but, they have all been great launches. I was happy 3 days after Legacy of Romulas launched and I was playing from Linux. Some slight network problems forced me to use Windows for about 3 days.

Of course Me and a few hundred players played the heck out of LOR on the Tribble test sever. Cryptic invited a bunch of to a closed beta to see how much stuff we could break. They wanted to find the major bugs and stress the sever before it went live on the Holo deck sever.

 

Of course Me and a few hundred players played the heck out of LOR on the Tribble test sever. Cryptic invited a bunch of to a closed beta to see how much stuff we could break. They wanted to find the major bugs and stress the sever before it went live on the Holo deck sever.

I keep forgetting to type r in server.

 

That's pretty awesome! I didn't know anyone beat World of Warcraft with initial launch... Thats what you get Blizzard!!!

It really looks like Perfect World has a great business model and is providing what gamers want... lots of content, customization, social interaction, updates.

So Cryptic is the developer for most of these Perfect World games?
Looks like they are doing Neverwinter also...
Have you tried Champions Online yet?

 

That's pretty awesome! I didn't know anyone beat World of Warcraft with initial launch... Thats what you get Blizzard!!!

It really looks like Perfect World has a great business model and is providing what gamers want... lots of content, customization, social interaction, updates.

So Cryptic is the developer for most of these Perfect World games?
Looks like they are doing Neverwinter also...
Have you tried Champions Online yet?

Cryptic does their games and PWE does their games PWE is Cryptic's main financier. PWE came up with the greatest way to do free games that I have ever seen, thousands of gamer’s agree with that. You can play any PWE or Cryptic game for free and most of the content is available and most of the rest becomes available after you have played a certain amount of time. I have played both Neverwinter and Champions and since they are both Cryptic games then you can install and launch them from the STO launcher. Just subscribe on the games website then in the launchers options set to display all games. Every time you launch it you can click the drop down radio box and select your game.

 

So do both studios have their own development team or are they contracting someone else to do the actual game development?

I'm going to check out Champions and will probably do a guide for it also.
Free is GREAT and one way to boost Linux gaming is to provide a bunch of easy-to-install free games.

What other games do you play in Linux?

 

For years Paramount had been trying to find a company to make STO. They gave the contract to several company's that tried and failed. Finally the tried Atari. Atari decided to try this new company known as Cryptic Studios to develop the game - later the rights were sold to PWE -. I remember thinking 'I don't think this will work and even if it does, so far all Startrek games have been lousy'. Not only was I wrong about it failing but it is one of the best games I have ever played and for the first time in ST history an ST game is a blast to play.

I wonder if COL uses the same dependences as STO.

Have you tried World of Goo via Steam for Linux or Towns also on Steam for Linux?
How about Space Pirates and Zombies (SPAZ) on Steam for Linux?

 

If Cryptic is the developer then they probably used the same engine and probably require the same libraries. The games actually look very similar too...

Yes, I have World of Goo, but not Space PIrates/Zombies or Town.
I was following Towns development on Moddb.com for a long time, just never bought it.
What about PlayOnLinux? I have an ongoing list of games and am always looking for a new/old game that runs well in PlayOnLinux.