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New Tactical Officers and ship choices
nateham101
Member Posts: 420 Arc User
I need to know something. Something that even though has nothing to do with my enjoyment of this game is causing me to question other's choices when it comes to ships.
I am talking about these new players coming to the game, and they are everywhere! They are the new players that choose the tactical profession, usually human Starfleet. In some point during their leveling process, they decide that choosing a Star Cruiser is a good idea. A star cruiser! If I am not mistaken, there are escort and other ship choices when obtaining the free ship token. And upon reaching level 50, they continue to use this same ship. Now, we hit level 60 still piloting that star cruiser...and we seem to have some zen to spend and it happens to be a ship sale as well. Instead of purchasing one of the new shiny tactical variant flahships and escort, an Arbiter or even an Avenger, we choose a Guardian Cruiser! Come on now...
I need to know what is so special about this level 40 star cruiser that would cause these players to gravitate towards it. What is so tactical about this ship, about the Guardian Cruiser? We choose the tactical profession so that we can maximize our DPS. If I am not mistaken, the star cruiser and the Guardian Cruiser are more defensive oriented ships than they are tactical. There is no good reason for this choice. The logic escapes me. Is there someone out there on the interwebs writing articles about how great the star cruiser and guardian cruisers are for tactical officers in STO? Giving these fresh new players some bad information before they play the game? I am not writing this because I seen a single tactical captain in one, I am writing because every star cruiser and guardian cruiser I have seen just today alone, was a human tactical officer. Not a single engineer or even a science officer. I can not list the amount I have seen in the past few months.
Is there some fundamental disconnect in the understanding of the game mechanics?
Please enlighten me.
I am talking about these new players coming to the game, and they are everywhere! They are the new players that choose the tactical profession, usually human Starfleet. In some point during their leveling process, they decide that choosing a Star Cruiser is a good idea. A star cruiser! If I am not mistaken, there are escort and other ship choices when obtaining the free ship token. And upon reaching level 50, they continue to use this same ship. Now, we hit level 60 still piloting that star cruiser...and we seem to have some zen to spend and it happens to be a ship sale as well. Instead of purchasing one of the new shiny tactical variant flahships and escort, an Arbiter or even an Avenger, we choose a Guardian Cruiser! Come on now...
I need to know what is so special about this level 40 star cruiser that would cause these players to gravitate towards it. What is so tactical about this ship, about the Guardian Cruiser? We choose the tactical profession so that we can maximize our DPS. If I am not mistaken, the star cruiser and the Guardian Cruiser are more defensive oriented ships than they are tactical. There is no good reason for this choice. The logic escapes me. Is there someone out there on the interwebs writing articles about how great the star cruiser and guardian cruisers are for tactical officers in STO? Giving these fresh new players some bad information before they play the game? I am not writing this because I seen a single tactical captain in one, I am writing because every star cruiser and guardian cruiser I have seen just today alone, was a human tactical officer. Not a single engineer or even a science officer. I can not list the amount I have seen in the past few months.
Is there some fundamental disconnect in the understanding of the game mechanics?
Please enlighten me.
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Ok, so FAW I or II? The tactical oriented cruiser choices would allow FAW III. Does not make sense. The star cruiser offered a Lt tactical boff seat. At least choose the Assault Cruiser, no lt com tac but it has more tac consoles and 2 tac seats.
First, the Star Cruiser is a free ship awarded in game as to where ships like the Tactical Flagship is a Zen Purchase. People that are grinding Dilithium for Zen will stick with their free ship until they get the resources to upgrade.
You need to get over the idea that class has anything to do with your ship because it doesn't. Tactical Officers don't need to stick to Escorts or Cruisers with heavy Tactical Focus, they can fly any ship they want even Science Vessels and be very effective. Just like Engineers can fly escorts, Science Officers can fly Destroyers, etc. There is no 'wrong way' and no class is bound to any one ship type.
As for why they would pick the Star Cruiser over the free Assault Cruiser, nothing more then personal preference. They will pick the ship that fits what they want to do, or the ship that looks the way they want to look. No other reason other then 'because they want to.' I hardly ever see any Star Cruisers anyway, so not sure where you're seeing all of them.
Either way, in the end people will play the way they want and you should let them. Do what you like to do and let other people play what's fun for them. They're not doing it 'wrong' and you're not doing it 'right' because there is no right or wrong.
Thats not how a BFAW boat works. The reason a scimitar can get the high dps you're referring to is that it can stack a large amount of crit and crit severity. This is largely done by using 4 or 5 spire tactical consoles upgraded to mk xiv and slotting superior romulan operative bridge officers. Neither of the ships the op mentioned is capable of doing this effectively. And BFAW I is nowhere near as effective as BFAW III. Not just any cruiser can run BFAW and "wreck the game" as you put it.
Keep up with the program dude. It's science online now. Particle generators and all that. Plus gravity wells with the size of sun.
Science sure does seem to be on the rise which is definitely a good thing. Parity is always a good thing and it was created by making Science more desirable to play and not by making current builds worse. It's a good thing for the game overall and I'm happy to see this starting to take off.
I happen to be flying it with an engineering captain right now (my tac is using the vet ship) and it tore through Noye and his gang without breaking a sweat. I was a little surprised to see multiple threads on how hard Time and Tide was supposed to be.
The Star Cruiser is one of the best looking ships in the game imo. Not really surprised many people are using this ship
Yup. And at least Science builds require more than one ability. You can't keep firing gravity wells more than 2/3 of total combat time, not without a large amount of cooldown reduction things at least. Also, Lt.Cmdr tac stations allow for FAW 3, whereas you'll only be able to slot a Gravity Well 1 in a Lt.Cmdr. Science station.
Not to mention that you need completely different gear and skills to actually make it work a bit, for example, torpedo skills and high aux power rather than weapon power. It'll be difficult to change back to energy weapons later on, for these reasons. Plus, there are narrower targeting arcs for most Sci abilities.
Which is why I hope they won't nerf anything sci-related. There's a lot of powerful sci players, and there seem to be more recently. But that's actually a good thing indeed, since it's an entire build that's powerful. Not just one ability like with FAW.
Guardian on the other hand? Nice BOFF layout, okay console layout and it looks like a classic Starfleet ship aka like an Enterprise offshoot.
4 tac consoles? You can slot 'approximately' 7 now. Power creep and all that. Assuming AP, you have your base 5 in the ship, 1 more AP specific from lockbox, and effectively 1 more from the terran console + one other bonus somewhere (lobi crit console, or something). And with the new and improved scimitar...
It's preferences. I still fly a Ha'feh class since LOR. I'm very aware there are more top level shinies tactical ships. Frankly, I don't want every new shiny that they dish out.
The people I play with or chat with are similiar. We dont rush to get new ships even up to the point of waiting months after.
I wouldnt get bothered by it. Just fly what you like.
There's also still a lot of people who like to run profession in the same type of ship, aka Engineers in Cruisers, Tactical officers in Escorts, etc. It's a popular thing, much like canon ships being very popular.
But yeah, the versatility you mention was a definite plus since day 1. I always found my engineer did much better than my tactical guy in Escorts simply because the captain abilities helped with survivability when things went pear shaped. But the tactical officer could get the better alpha strike going in the same escorts because of better burst damage capabilities. So it was a tic more optimized for pure damage. But we're talking back in the days when people nicknamed it "escorts online."
EDIT: Regarding the OP, (and the reason I clicked on the topic in the first place) ... I hadn't noticed this at all, but then this morning I queued up for a mission and lo and behold right in front of me as I warped in was a tactical officer in a star cruiser! Hah!
Also, as some had said, the Star Cruisers, as well as all ships in general, are universal in terms of what type of captain can control them. For example, I'm a Tac-Fed, and I fly a Temoral Science Dreadnought (the new Paradoxes). You can any career officer you want and not be limit to just the ships that fit the career. All the ships are meant to be flown by anyone and everyone.
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For the level 40 Stars, I have to say it's the end-ship you end up with if you don't buy any ships from the stores. Also, like others have suggested, they may be holding on to flying these ships until they the money to buy their ship of choice. And as others have said, their visual style is very attractive, despite the goodness of the Assault types.
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Or because they like it looks? Because they'll only use it for a few days at best?
Tier 6 Star Cruiser FTW!
To lend my support, I actually bought a Fleet Star Cruiser yesterday... I think the models are still pretty cool. But they are definitely lower quality than new ones. Particulary noticeable on the Star Cruiser saucers - the undersides seem completely featureless.
I'm keeping a tally total for a week. Looking forward to seeing the result.
I haven't seen 3 Star Cruisers in the last year.
So I bought a T5 tactical Odyssey, back before the T5U upgrade came out. It was big and slow, but I set it up to do decent damage and tank pretty hard, and I found that I seldom ever died anymore. So that was my main reason for being a tac guy in a cruiser.
Then I got my T6 fleet Arbiter (battlecruiser), and it's been my main go-to ship ever since, as it's basically a tac/eng hybrid with a nice balance between survivability and raw firepower. It's ugly as sin but I still love that ship (I made mine pure dark grey to hide some of the hideousness of the design). It's not quite the greatest DPS monster, but the way I've got it set up now, targets tend to go "boom" pretty quickly. I was able to rip right thru the Annorax and those rogue Krenim and Na'khul ships in Time and Tide, no problem.
Did the same thing, also because of the very useful trait for my Sci characters. I haven't managed to do high DPS yet, but that may be cause I was flying it on my ground toon who hasn't really specialised in Sci stuff. Low DPS doesn't matter much anyway, (whale) cruisers have always been among my favorite ships
I usually pick the Star Cruiser when I reach level 40. Just to have it, it's one of the few ships that I really want in my roster even if I'm not flying it all the time. I do hope that a T6 version will come with a higher Sci boff station though.
This, because as far as the free level-up ships are concerned, there's no major difference in damage output if everything is using FaW, and if you can sacrifice a little damage to gain a lot of survival, why not? Tacs in cruisers have been common for at least the last 4-odd years I've played, and science vessels are also popular due to the 50+% cat2 damage boost to any damage type that's inherent to the career, moreso with a GDF/Zahl combo.
Faded, but not gone
For players who do not want to spend any money or grind at all, they basically stuck with whatever free T5 starship they select. In my opinion a T5 starship is still viable for playing missions at level 60. Yes, it will be more difficult compared to playing missions at level 50 so space battles will take longer, but T5 starships are still viable enough.
The great thing about STO is that there are 3 events every year that rewards players with a free top tier (currently T6) starship. All it takes is a bit of grinding for a couple / few weeks which generally takes between 3 - 10 minutes per daily grind depending on the specific event. It is possible that these new players have not completed grinding for the free T6 starship or has decided to bother doing so.
Now as for tactical captains flying a cruiser or engineering starship... Well the only thing I will do is point people to Star Trek - TOS and Star Trek - TNG where you essentially have tactical captains in command of a cruiser.
Because there's nothing in the game aside from PvP that requires a T6 ship.