This is going to be one of those subjects that is going to create a significant amount of debate but its good to get a start on what kind of leveling system STO could have.

I would personally like to see a 2 tier system of leveling that address Rank within Starfleet which is dictated by your ability to complete missions with a completion evaluation for each mission of (and these are only examples) Failed, Accomplished, and Successful. with this concept in mind the system would evaluate your performance and then assign you one of the 3 completion ranks that i just mentioned, based on this the system you would then be evaluated when you are ready for promotion to the next rank. Now should you play through the majority of you missions rather quickly but still complete it you would obviously be promoted with in star fleet slower then someone who took their time and completed each mission completely and received a ranking of Successful there by receiving a higher cumulative score and is thereby promoted faster.

Now the second Tier ranking system would actually be profession based and ranging anywhere from level 1 to 50, 60, etc etc. with that in mind a Individual would also have the ability to choose a alternate profession that would have rank limits going to level 25, 30, etc etc. You max rank in this field would only have a max rank being half that of your primary profession, the reason for this is that within Starfleet it is unlikely that someone would be profitiant in two profession equally however having a limted knowledge of another profession is within canon.

Some examples of this have been:

Troi: Counselor / Helm

Parris: Helm / Medical

Beverly: Medical / Cybernetic engineering

Janeway: Command / Science

the examples can go on for ever.

I really think STO would be better without levels or classes and go a true skill based system. let the players decide what skills they want to learn and form a path that caters to what they want to do. want to be an engineer, then train  deep down the multiple types of engineering skills, ant to command, the train the command skills paths, want to be a ships counselor who's also a bad ass security chief, well train the counsoler skills and the tactical paths.

truely STO is a ripe example of a game that needs to be fully skill based with no levels or classes. nbow ranks can be obtained within your organization by using prestige as the marker, have 1000 prestige, you get promoted to LtJg, got 25000, promoted to captain, lose 1000, get demoted to commander, ect. But the core game needs to be a true skill based ssytem to conform with Star Trek canon societies already in place.

Somehow i dont like a leveling system in trek, something more...   advanced? I must ponder on this.

I would like to see a system where experience, rank and skills all work hand in hand. I envision a system where missions can be conducted by any player at any rank. When the mission is completed, experience is gained by the player in two forms. The first form is a direct translate of the experience gained which advances your ability to increase in rank. The second half of the system is that I see a point system much like the attributes system in "Fable" where for each mission you get a variety of points that go into different categories such as Engineering ability, Scientific knowledge, Medical expertise, Combat tactics and Command traits. How you approach and proceed thru the mission determines how much of each of the different point types you get, therefore your discipline is chosen naturally, but it doesn't tie you down to one path either. You would be free to advance other skills if you so choose as well.

Here Here!

i think it would be important to have some sort of capping on skills etc.

as in an engineer can achieve 100% in related skills, but a maximum of 75% in non-related skills.

i think this way it would mean that there are no UBER-characters running about, and that you would always have an advantage over non-engineers in relevant problems par example.

also it would mean that if there was 'more than one way to skin a cat', it would be the players adaptability and logic that would be the key. As in one person may blast a ship to disable it, whereas a science officer may hack their systems and disable the ship that way.

Just a thought...