Is there a skill "tree" that allows you to specialize in different areas of ground combat (like, choose to focus on long range, suppressive fire, close combat, etc..)?
Interesting question. There are skills that allow you to specialize in ground combat areas, tactical, science, medical - and the kits that you get for each of these areas create further specialties. My Tactical Character has Photon Grenades MkII for his ground kit, there is also a Suppressing Fire kit. My Engineering Character can build and deploy phaser turrets via his kit...
Will there be projective weapons as well as energy based?
Yes - I don't have a complete list. The TR-116 from DSN is available as a pre-order bonus, there are others.
Will there be explosives (grenades, mines, etc..)?
I have Photon Grenades MKII on the ground, and there are defietly mines in space, though I do not know if there are mines for ground combat, I would assume so....
When you enter a new zone, will you have to choose from a list of servers like in CO?
You can set it to automatically choose for you, or you can manually select from the list. If you are in a team, you will automatically be placed in the same server/instance as your team mates.
Is it possible to have a Fleet tax? so that the fleet gets like 10% of the money the members get from loot and such?
I do not know. There is a Fleet Bank, though I am not sure if you can set taxes etc.
What is the coolest thing about STO that has not been covered/mentioned by cryptic in public so far?
Cryptic have been pretty upfront with us to date. I don't know what there is that I could say, that hasn't already been mentioned. I love the Starship Customization, and combat is beautiful. I think there are alot of "little details" that haven't been mentioned by Cryptic, that really make the game something special.
Will science ships be able to solo missions? Will they be able to solo them in an adequate timeframe? (not taking double the time an escort would take) Or are they just important fleet-members?
I haven't flown any missions in a science ship, however, the way that most missions work, basically scales the "level" of the enemy to match you own level. A science ship may not have as many offensive weapons as an Escort, but I think the other factors that make up that ship would allow you to complete the mission in a decent amount of time. Cryptic have recently been fiddling with the "average mission length" to make it as balanced and reasonable as possible at launch.
How does the party-system work out? Is it easy, even with a low (beta-)population, to find groups easy? Do the fights scale properly when grouped?
Its very easy to fine groups, there is actually a button for it on the user interface. Even in beta, teams work very well. If you are about to enter a mission and there are people already doing that same mission, you will often be asked if you want to automatically create a team with them, though you can still select to do it solo
Is respeccing your skills easy or in at all? For example you tried out a new skill, figured it doesn't suite you, can you get rid of it, maybe even with a points refund? Are skillpoints limited at all or could you, as a maxed out admiral, still collect new points? Is there a limited number of skilltrees you can spec into or do certain skills cancel others out?
As of right now, I havent seen an option in STO for "resetting" or "reversing" your skills like you can do in Champions Online. Also, there isn't a skill house that allows you to "try" skills beforehand. The skill system in STO is really very different than Champions. Its hard to explain, but I think a skill house where you could try skills before hand, would not work very well.
You can always gain new skillpoints, at any rank. If you run out of missions to do, there is still PvP to gain skillpoints.
