[XB1] Been playing a little over two months now. Here's some information I wish I knew ahead of time - hopefully it helps you, too. Plus, details of how to use the Boost Your Captain claim to its fullest!

This is a great, under-rated game. I'm annoyed with myself that I wrote it off so quickly after the PC launch - I missed out until a friend that lives far away talked me into jumping into it on console with him.

Anyway, some thoughts in no particular order:

-Do not buy anything from the C-store that you will not use at level 60. You will get there VERY VERY quickly with the boost your captain event, explained more (and really the reason for this post).

-Be careful buying a ship. Do your homework first and make sure any source you use to make a decision isn't from 2015 or earlier. None of the info that's more than a year old is useful at this point. Much has changed.

-My first character was KDF. Unfortunately, I had to abandon him after about a week of playing @60 because the faction has very few players, and essentially no active fleets that have more than three people on at any time.

If you're going to play alone, don't care about the benefits of a fleet, etc. by all means, play whatever faction you'd like. But if you're looking to make some friends, tackle group-based content, and enjoy the benefits a solid fleet can provide, do not roll KDF or commit your Romulan Captain to their cause. You will, by and large, be playing entirely alone.

Don't bother commenting about how players are around. Yes, there are people around. But the numbers are very, very few. Maybe 5% of the population Starfleet has (comparing # of instances in hubs, active fleets, etc.) I've never seen a second instance of First City, or even a half-full one except for Friday/Sat prime time and even then, never more than 30 people. Earth Space Dock has literally 10x that in primetime.

• The Boost your captain giveaway is insanely good for new players, and ANYONE looking to make an alt. Because you have Xbox live, you can set a console as your "Home Console" (google it, not giving instructions here) which enables ALL accounts using that console to also utilize xbox live as if they were a gold member. It's a pretty great deal for families.

If you're looking to get into STO, or want an alt, simply make a new account on your xbox (NOT A NEW LIVE ACCOUNT) and play STO through that. Switching between accounts on the console is ridiculously easy - its instant and takes three button pushes.

You can roll a new character on the new account, and at level 3 after the tutorial claim the ship, boxes of loot every 10 levels, and the XP Bonus - which is the REAL reason to do this.

Your character will get DOUBLE XP up until it hits level 60. It also gets a boost item that will instantly raise you from 50>60. USING THIS AT LEVEL 50 IS BAD, DON'T BE BAD.

With the double xp, you can level a character from 1>60 in about 10 hours of dicking around doing deep space encounters (just a preference I have, you can do any missions and level it quickly).

DO NOT USE THE 50>60 BOOST UNTIL YOU ARE LEVEL 59. Why? Because you still level from 50>60 twice as fast. Using an item to save you two hours of playing the game is stupid. Especially because if you wait until level 59 to use it, you still get double the XP, which makes you level 60 with anywhere from 12-14 Specialization points thanks to the bonus XP.

So, you get a new char, T6 ship, level 60, and ~13 spec points for about 10 hours of work and minimal effort to make another sign-in account on your xbox.

If you're new, want an alt, or just a new char, this is ridiculously easy to do, take advantage of it while it lasts!