Ok, please forgive the wall of text, I do have some things to ask the GB community about this game. I grew up watching TNG and the latter series and this game has made me think about getting it. I have watched all of Set Phasers To Fun, It has made me reminisce my days where i played ST Away Team, Armada etc. However, I want to get some answers to some questions that have made me think about pre-ordering this game or not.
 
1. The Fleet 
Part of what makes an MMO what it is is joining a guild/fleet and utilising that to the full. My experience with Guild Wars was pretty special in the alliance (made up of guilds) that I joined. events were planned, and the chat window was active as ever with different things happening. I really want to get the best out of this if a Fleet is created for the retail version when it hits next week. So I'm wondering if the Fleet will have a similar experience to say an alliance/guild? 
 
2. The Subscription 
The UK doesn't offer anything specific on the annual or life-time payments for this game, it's a little hazy right now. Though I do know that a 6 month sub is close to £47. I'm not experienced with subs in ppm MMO's so I ask is it the case that when my sub is over, can I wait a while and IF I decide to play a month or so later I just renew the sub or choose a smaller one, or is it an automatic renewal after 6 months to pay for a further 6 months?
 
3. Quests 
I'm pretty sure that the beta was geared so that you will be getting a fair few early action moments in its run as not to make players work for them whether I'm wrong or it expands later on in the game. As the full game goes live, would you think that the mission structure would deviate from patrolling to combat planetside / space, or would it involve something deeper do you think? I would actually want to take on exploring, scientific, diplomatic quests within this game to break it up a little.  
 
4. Single-Player aspects
SPTF videos did have a fair amount of single-player quests, Guild Wars can be entirely played as a single player experience too. Although i did see missions that involved groupings of players in a map to finish a quest of some sort which seems cool. I'm wondering if, like GW or any MMO-esque game that can have a party of members from the same fleet can take part in missions etc. or whether I'm missing the point entirely and that there are more effective ways to join in a collective (pardon the Borg pun) experience like PVP matches or seasonal events that merits such a payment made in an earlier question.
 

3. I think the quest/mission system is pretty varied, but I only got to Lt. Cmdr. 2 (level 12) in the beta. Most of the mission seemed to have some form of combat (space and/or ground), but there were several others (the minority that I encountered, to be sure) that were just small exploration or diplomatic stories. Nothing huge, mind you, but there was variety. Unfortunately, it's not easy to tell from the mission text exactly what you're getting. Perhaps if there's an online quest database for the game shortly after release you'll be able to cater which missions you pick?
 
4. Almost all the quests I ran into other than the "open group" or "pick-up raid" type missions were do-able either solo or with a group. If you're grouped, the leader gets to choose which players get to bring bridge officers. If you have a 5-player group, no one brings any bridge crew and you might want to ensure that you're kitted out with a mix of the different classes.

1. There was always a few fleet members on during beta, chat had its busy times and slow times, I saw a few group up many times. How many will be buying and returning is uncertain at this point, there's a thread on it here. You could also browse the STO forums for fleets that are recruiting and get an idea of how they intend to run things, maybe one of them could be what you want or expect from a fleet. I'm hoping the SNL will thrive, even if it has a slow beginning.
 
2. If you were to preorder, the annual sub is £86.60 inc. VAT while the lifetime is £180.94 inc. VAT. The prices on the site do NOT include VAT and, while it is clearly stated on at least two occasions during the payment process, some users had not noticed this. Annoyingly, you won't even see the price in £s until you enter a preorder code and click the special offer button on thier site and choose either option. For monthly, I'd guess that you could cancel and resubscribe when you want to play again, it's an mmo after all, they want you back playing and paying.
 
3. Some quests were pretty boring, run of the mill things like 'Eliminate enemy squadrons' and such but there were good ones in there. The story missions were the best, I went back in time in one quest, won't spoil that one whatsoever. I've been trapped in some sort of wormhole with Hirogen and on yet another story mission I had to set up pattern enchancers to go 'out of phase' with the current dimension in order to investigate what transpired in a mission entitled 'Ghost Ship'. From what I've read from those who were in the closed beta, there was around 85% of the content missing from open beta. The patrol missions were, to me anyway, a bit of a filler to gain levels before I'd continue the story. Defence of sector ones were repeatable over and over. Deep space ancounters in open beta were limited to 5 players within an instance, but that may be higher later as I think it was 20, just like the fleet actions, in closed beta.

another question. 
 
I read on the Steam forums that the deluxe content wont be released for the head start but on the official launch day next Tuesday. So I'm wondering if our ship prefixes will change on release day or will we be given store credits to buy those deluxe items for free off cryptic?

I got a feeling you'll be able to change that in the 'rename ship' function, once you get the code. Of course, I don't know that for sure but If you can't, you should ticket a GM and tell them to change that. 

 Cause I would. :3
 
Or just wait to rename your ship till Tuesday to be sure. Leveling up is probably a bit more important than the details of names and prefixes. :)

Not sure about the prefix, but for preorder items, they are tied to the retail code, not the preorder one. After head start, once retail code is entered and tied to your account, the next time you play a pop up message is supposed to come up on screen directing you to the C-Store where the items are unlocked for you and available for no cost (no Cryptic points required).

If you're going to do a digital pre-order then do it from Atari. You get 500 free C points for the C store. That's = to money.

" If you're going to do a digital pre-order then do it from Atari. You get 500 free C points for the C store. That's = to money. "

" If you're going to do a digital pre-order then do it from Atari. You get 500 free C points for the C store. That's = to money. "