As everyone knows the open beta for Star Trek Online will soon be ending.  When it ends all server side information about your characters, ships and game progression will be deleted, in other words you start over when you start playing the retail version.  However there is a way to save your custom characters, and a quite simple way.  Log into the game and go to the nearest customize character vendor.  When in the customization menu select the one you want to save to use later in the retail version and click modify.  When in the modify menu on the bottom of the screen you will see a option that says 'save' go ahead and click it.  A message will appear on the screen that says 'costume saved' now you have locally saved the character to your computer and will be usable when you start over in the retail version.  It also would seem that this saves the uniform your character is wearing when you save it also.

Saving your ship isn't quite as simple the best way I've found to do it is to write the options for your ship in wordpad and save until you get the retail version and recreate it.

Some of you might be wondering how to sign up for the head start program and others what the head start program is.  The Head Start program allows people that have pre-ordered Star Trek Online to start playing on the 29th of January instead of waiting for the game release on the 2nd of February.  Signing up for the head start program is pretty simple, first you need to get the pre-order key you obtained after pre-ordering the game.  Following this link http://startrekonline.com/openbeta on the linked page type in your key and activate it.  You are now activated for the head start program, all you have to do now is wait for Friday when your open beta client will be patched and you can start on your real full game of Star Trek Online.