The problem with jumping into an MMO before you know whether you're going to like it is that you might not put as much thought into certain decisions as you should. For instance, what your ship looks like. When I started playing Star Trek Online, it was out of a sense of obligation. So when it came time to customize my ship, I just hit the randomize button.

I got the traditional saucer, with two nacelles slung low underneath it and close together. Sure, I thought, whatever. Looks fine. It's a space ship. What are you going to do? Click accept.

After the jump, the ship envy begins.

So as I'm going along figuring out the game - and there's a whole lot of that in Star Trek Online, one of the most poorly documented games I've ever had to figure out - I sure enough got a bit attached to my ship. After all, I spent a fair amount of time staring at it. Like any good game with enough meat, I started to care about what was happening and how I was doing. I got invested. Which is just what an MMO wants you to do. Then it has you.

But as I flew around the Beta Sigmundi Orion sector or whatever (I'm not quite invested enough to care what places are called yet), I saw a lot of other ships. Ships with more detailed saucers. Ships with Millenium Falcon-esque half-discs. Ships with nacelles thrust wide as if they were wings. Ships angled forward like runners eager to jump off the starting line. Ships with darker somber color patterns and cool names. Ships with sleek lines and sexy futuristic JJ Abrams movie curves. Ships that people probably sat down to carefully piece together before they started playing. Ships that were all way cooler than mine.

In comparison, my ship looked like a hybrid between a dinner plate and a downhill skier. The nacelles were too low, too straight, too close together, and thrust too far back. The lines along the straight parts of the ship were unimaginative and rote, like something Ford made in the 80s. It even had a stupid name that I'm not going to repeat here.

And that's what I had to look at while I grew fonder and fonder of the game. My lousy ship that I didn't like and everyone else's cool ship that looked ready to zip into warp drive, scan some anomalies, and unload photon torpedoes into Klingon Birds of Prey, looking photogenic the whole time. Every time I saw someone else's ship, I thought, Dang, I wish my ship looked like that.

But my ship served me well enough. I got a good thing going with a dual heavy disruptor and photon torpedo launcher on the bow. They have narrower firing arcs than phaser banks, so I had to be pointed almost directly at a target to fire. I couldn't accomplish anything in tight turning fights. I did a lot of what flight sim nerds call "booming and zooming": flying straight at an enemy to unload my weapons, then running away until I had enough distance to turn around and do it again. I learned Star Trek Online's combat system this way. I learned to manage auxiliary power and my Evasive Maneuvers skill to spin around quickly to make another pass. I learned how best to use my engineering officer's Emergency Power to Shields ability to catch a second wind in a closely fought battle. My science officer's Sensor Jam shut down enemy targeting as I got within that window where beam weapons do a lot of extra damage because you're at close range. I learned the fine unwieldy art of struggling with the game's terrible camera. I learned that Star Trek Online is in dire need of more and better hotkeys. I didn't fare well when I was swarmed by a bunch of enemy ships, but in a one-on-one battle, I could take on ships far more powerful than mine.

Mostly, I learned that although Star Trek Online is a bit like a space action game, it's got a lot of detail under the hood. Just because it plays at a snappy pace doesn't mean it's not incredibly detailed. Complex. Even complicated. A game like this without a manual, or some better tutorials, or even more helpful tooltips is going to scare away a lot of people. Not me, of course. I was getting attached to my ship.

So did I come to love my ungainly little downhill skier/dinner plate hybrid? Nope. I trashed it as soon as I could. I just got promoted to Lieutenant Commander and along with it came the option to get a new ship. And the first thing I did when I got my new ship was jump into the ship editor to make it look how I want. After that, I went through each of my officers and gave them matching uniforms.

It's official: I actually care about Star Trek Online.

Tomorrow: the USS Furious Turtle's maiden voyage
(Click here for the previous Star Trek Online game diary.)