A) This is already possible. You absolutely can defeat players using the 'best' gear with cheaper gear from missions etc. As you say, it takes superior skill to do so - and some of that skill includes understanding STO's gear system, and making sure the gear you are using synergizes well with the powers you've selected and the weapons you are running.
If a cruiser pilot knows what he is doing, he is invulnerable to an escort. Cruiser heals have the ability to blunt even the most powerful alpha strike, and once in a slugging match the escort's limited heals can't keep up with the sustained pressure damage from a cruiser. At best the escort will be forced to disengage and hope the cruiser chases him into a trap.
As for you last comment - Why should cruisers not ever be killable by escorts? Because you like cruisers? For all the kvetching that has gone on in this thread about how escort captains just want to have a 'super-ship', I keep seeing posts like this that seem to assert that cruisers should just be the best at everything.
A) One set of initials... P2W makes this possible.
Exactly.. "Knows what he is doing"
Cruisers are BIG and I do mean BIIIGGG targets. My DHCs should NEVER and I mean NEEEEVVVEERRR miss their target whereas in an escort, I am designed to "avoid" a cruiser fire.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
base stats of weapons are created by the Devs , not players. You can't argue if the stats show cannons do hundreads of more damage than beams. That show an imbalance, it only gets worse when you add player skill trees, ships base stats, and ship builds. The weapons need to be balanced before you can even begin to balance the ships or the game. Every ship can not arm the same type of weapons which creates an imbalance in itself.
Everyship is not meant to be able to mount every type of weapon.
Cannons (the plural) do not do more damage than beams.
Cannons (single) at mark 12 white do 159 DPV/212DPS with a 180 degree firing arc.
Beam Array (single) at mark 12 white do 220 DPV/176 DPS with a 250 degree firing arc.
Dual cannons at mark 12 white do 192DPV/256 DPS with a 45 degree firing arc.
Dual Beam Banks at mark 12 white do 287 DPV/229 DPS with a 90 degree firing arc.
Dual heavy Cannons at mark 12 white do 384 DPV/256 DPS with a 45 degree firing arc.
Only the Dual cannons do more DPV than any beam array or Dual beanm array. To handicap that DPV DHCs have half the firing arc of a Dual Beam Array and 205 degrees less of a firing arc of the single Beam Array. There is no differences in the hundreds between them. Infact the DHC does less than a hundred more than a DBB in DPV and only 27 points more in DPS.
In fact if you look at the stats of teh Beams versus Cannons then one thing should be readily apparent.
Cannons are meant for Burst style attacks, hence the low DPV but high DPS, and Beams are meant for sustained attacks, hence thier high DPV but low DPS.
What truelly gives the cannons thier bite is the Tactical BOff skills plus Player skills plus consoles.
What truelly gives beams thier bite is the Tactical BOff skills plus Player skills plus consoles.
There is no huge imbalance as the Cruiser, a multirole deep space vessel designed for extended service away from starbases and resource yards is not meant to be a master of any particular role but modifiable to cover a specific role if desired.
You can design a Cruiser to be a DPS boat but not as good as an Escort and only if you give up some inherent tankyness. (though said tanky can be compensated for with good BOff skill usage)
An Escort makes the pinnacle of DPS boat in STO but will not make a good, or even sloppy, healboat as its not adaptible to the role.
- Captain Hikaru Sulu and Helmsman Lojur
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Although all starship weapons in Star Trek: Online have the same maximum range of 10km, it?s been mentioned several times by the developers that different weapons are affected by range at different rates. This article presents the results of in-game testing done to determine what those differences actually are.
(If you?re not interested in tables of numbers, you can skip to the Energy Weapons Summary section for the results of the testing.)
Index
o Beam Weapons
o Cannon Weapons
o Energy Weapons Summary
o Projectile Weapons
o Range and Accuracy
Note: Testing Method
All the test results detailed below were achieved by finding stationary, unshielded targets in missions (defence turrets, mining facilities and the like), firing on them multiple times with a single weapon at a given range, averaging the results, then moving to a new range and repeating the process. A few things to bear in mind:
o The average damage listed is ?per strike? ? for example, a beam array ?strikes? four times each time it?s fired
o All weapons used were common (white) versions, with no special bonuses
o Within each test, weapon power settings and captain skills were kept constant ? the only thing that changed was the range
o Each attack was followed by a pause of a few seconds to make sure that the current weapon power level was at maximum before firing again
o As I don?t have a log analyser or anything similar, the sample sizes were not very large. As such, the average damage has been rounded to the nearest integer, and all results should be treated as approximate
Beam Weapons
Average damage of a phaser beam array at different ranges:
Allowing for a margin of error in the data, then, it appears that beam weapons do maximum damage up to 1km, and then start to drop by around 4% damage per km, down to about 65% damage at 10km.
I haven?t yet done extensive testing with dual beams or other damage types, but some quick comparisons of damage at 10km and 1km with a variety suggests that all beam weapons are affected by range in a similar fashion.
Cannon Weapons
Average damage of a dual phaser cannon at different ranges:
Once again allowing for a margin of error in the data, it appears that cannon weapons do maximum damage up to 2km then start to drop by around 8% damage per km, down to about 35% damage at 10km.
I haven?t yet done extensive testing with cannons, dual heavy cannons, or other damage types, but some quick comparisons of damage at 1km, 2km and 10km with a variety suggests that all cannon weapons are affected by range in a similar fashion.
Turrets
I haven?t been able to do extensive testing yet, but a comparison of turret damage at 1km, 2km and 10km suggests that they are affected by range in exactly the same way as cannons, which matches with dev statements that turrets are counted as cannons for the purposes of range.
Energy Weapon Summary
Based on the testing done so far:
o The damage done by all energy weapons (beams and cannons, including turrets) is affected by the range to the target
o Beam weapons are less affected by range than cannons (including turrets)
o Beam weapons deal full damage up to 1km, then start to suffer a range penalty of around 4% damage per km, down to a minimum of around 65% damage at 10km
o Cannon weapons (including turrets) deal full damage up to 2km, then start to suffer a range penalty of around 8% per km, down to a minimum of around 35% damage at 10km
o The damage listed on an energy weapon?s tooltip in the weapons tray or on your hotbar is based on minimum range (1km or less for beams, 2km or less for cannons, including turrets)
As I?m a sucker for graphs, here?s a comparison of how beam and cannon weapons appear to perform over range:
The upshot of all this is that those captains utilising a weapons load-out that favours cannons or turrets need to be much more aware of the range to their target than those who favour beams.
This is particularly important when using abilities that boost weapon damage in general (such as Emergency Power to Weapons or Tactical Team) and cannons in particular (such as Cannon: Rapid Fire).
As all these abilities modify your current weapon damage, and that damage is significantly reduced by range, triggering them at long range in a cannon or turret-armed ship can waste a lot of their potential benefit ? in general, it?s better to wait until you?ve closed to within 4-5km or less.
.... yeah, HUGE differences, right?
Truth is: before power levels and BOff powers come into play, weapon types are already near perfectly balanced with ship types.
.... yeah, HUGE differences, right?
Truth is: before power levels and BOff powers come into play, weapon types are already near perfectly balanced with ship types.
Surprised?
Seems the issue is not about DPV then but burst damage. Something a Cruiser is not designed to do easily for a reason.
you completely ignore fireing arcs...again. what should a cruiser with 6 or 7 turnrate do with dual cannons? can't you see where your assumption is so obviously wrong?
The same thing a Dreadnaght does. My dreadnought is more dangerous than my Galaxy-R with exact same turn rate.
Fire arcs don't matter if you put the straight shooting weapon on a small escort ship that can trun in place like a turret. Everybody in PVP knows you can't out manuver escorts because they can do this. Maybe you wouldn't have to arm cannons on cruisers if they made beams do nearly as much damage.
Consuptuption is irrelevant, since the Dual cannons can't fire while I'm broadsiding and my beams will have all the power they need. The rear has no real threat with all beams. Once an escort gets in close to your rear, point blank range, you are not going to shake him. You can turn left or right it would not stop him from being on your rear. If beams had a little more umf in them then players would not just sit in one spot take all 4 beams firing on him.
.... yeah, HUGE differences, right?
Truth is: before power levels and BOff powers come into play, weapon types are already near perfectly balanced with ship types.
Surprised?
Oh numbers, how I love you and your ability to show objective facts.
The same thing a Dreadnaght does. My dreadnought is more dangerous than my Galaxy-R with exact same turn rate.
Fire arcs don't matter if you put the straight shooting weapon on a small escort ship that can trun in place like a turret. Everybody in PVP knows you can't out manuver escorts because they can do this. Maybe you wouldn't have to arm cannons on cruisers if they made beams do nearly as much damage.
Consuptuption is irrelevant, since the Dual cannons can't fire while I'm broadsiding and my beams will have all the power they need. The rear has no real threat with all beams. Once an escort gets in close to your rear, point blank range, you are not going to shake him. You can turn left or right it would not stop him from being on your rear. If beams had a little more umf in them then players would not just sit in one spot take all 4 beams firing on him.
WHat makes you think you are supposseed to be able to juke and weave to shake an escort?
Thats likes saying an F22 is being unfair to a 787 airliner in a dog fight and the 787 deserves a buff becuase of its just incapable of competing.
As to being toast if an escort gets on your six, then since you know this come up with a way to compensate for it like many other Crusier players have done.
Use EWP, TB, a Tric Mine, Jam sensors, Scramble Senosrs, AMS, etc etc.
BtW, I have out manuevered Escorts in a BortasQu before when they where on my six, just saying a full reverse is sometimes all you need to catch them offguard.
That Pivot in place Escort has at most a -5% Bonus Defense sitting still, at worst a -15% bonus defense and Beams already do more damage than all cannons except the DHCs and they only exceed by 97 points.
Beams only truelly differ in that they are not a Burst damage weapon unless used with Beam Overload OR A REALLY INVENTIVE USE OF dem AND A WEAPON BATT.
If that Escort is sitting still and you can't kill him or gaurd against the burst attack you know is incomming, you are doing something wrong.
Seems the issue is not about DPV then but burst damage. Something a Cruiser is not designed to do easily for a reason.
Burst damage is ironically excactly where beams are strongest: Beam Overload powered by weapon battery -> Ouch.
Well, that and Tactical Captain abilities, those make a huge difference, closely followed by Science (if good Sub-nuke timing ...). It's just Engineers that lack punch, but they can instead survive such a burst, no reason to complain.
And before we get started on BOff abilities, let's not forget that Cruisers have the one big equalizer here: EPtW. Every other ship type has to choose between being a glass-cannon, or suffering heavy drain - Cruisers can have thier pie and eat it, too.
I'll not deny that Escorts can deal more damage than Cruisers - but the gap beween even the lowliest Cruisers in terms of dps (Star Cruiser, Galaxy-R), or Science Ships for that matter, and the best DPS Escorts isn't more than 50% - and there's quite a lot of Cruisers in the middle of the pack, and Battle Cruisers (including the Galaxy-X, btw(!)) are very near the top.
Oh, and then there's Carriers. Those really are OP. But nobody cares about them. :P
Burst damage is ironically excactly where beams are strongest: Beam Overload powered by weapon battery -> Ouch.
Ouch indeed. Also a good Weapon batt to push Weapons power past 125 (temporarily) and DEM makes a good punch with beams. Something cannons can not do.
Who ever said Engineers are suppossed to be dishing out massive damage in combat?
(Though nadion inversion, EPS transfer and a good BO3 set-up can hurt from an Engineer. With the right DOffing they can get off more than one BO3 in an action)
Anyways my point is that the escort is designed to fly in close, unleash its buffed attack and hopefully follow through to kill its target while teh Cruiser is meant to be a sustained attack (broadside) wearing its enemy down while surviving the retaliation of its target.
Two completely different combat styles.
Anyways my point is that the escort is designed to fly in close, unleash its buffed attack and hopefully follow through to kill its target while teh Cruiser is meant to be a sustained attack (broadside) wearing its enemy down while surviving the retaliation of its target.
Two completely different combat styles.
Aye.
And Science is designed to disable ships and/or shields, and then kill the vulnerable floating chunk of metal.
And Carriers are designed to either strip disable/strip and have pets kill the vulnerable floating chunk, or to have the pets do the disableing and do the killing themselves.
Make that: Four completely different combat styles.
I mean, there ARE some reasons I actually like this game.
So, wait - huh? Are you seriously trying to argue that all weapons should do the same exact damage (let's be generous and assume you mean the same effective damage normalized over range, fire arc, and rate of fire), as the first step to balance? Because that... that is fantastic. Yes, let's do that exact thing. That way, escorts, (which are the combat oriented DPS class) get to do LESS damage than cruisers, because they only have 7 weapons instead of 8.
Then, when it becomes evident that somehow the seven weapon escorts are STILL rolling you, let's go ahead and nerf the maneuverability of escorts, because that, too, is an 'imbalance'. Oh, and while we're at it, Sci ships have extra powers other ships don't have. That's not fair, let's go ahead and get rid of those. Oh, and Escorts have more Tac slots than cruisers, so, that's not fair, let's adjust those down. In fact, let's make every ship exactly like every other ship stat-wise. Also, captain powers aren't identical, so, let's get rid of them. That sounds fun.
Of course, when you are STILL getting rolled, then it will be that certain ships 'look faster' and that 'imbalance in looks' is throwing off your game. So, let's make sure that all ships look the same so that you don't have to worry about that. Then, let's make sure there is no difference in latency between different connections, because that also could be a reason why you fail.
Ugh.
Okay, so here it is in simple terms. Yes, cannons do more damage, because they have a narrower arc. Yes, escorts that are well-helmed can do much to minimize that disadvantage. Yes, the net result is that escorts will do more damage than cruisers. Since the CORE GAME DESIGN is that this should be so, it's not exactly a news flash. If you are trying to argue that escorts should not be the DPS class, well, sorry, that ship has sailed. If you are trying to argue that the damage advantage afforded to escorts is somehow insurmountable, you are flat wrong. If you are trying to say that balance means all things must be exactly equal in all ways, then you have no conception of balancing through competing strengths and weaknesses, and probably have a difficult time negotiating yourself through a game of 'rock paper scissors'.
Orientation of ships leaning Tac, ENG, Sci are based on the the BOFF layout, not weapons. The are no special weapons that are made to cater to a specific class of ship that are not console driven. The fact that most ship types on the KDF, except for carriers, can arm DHC's. Many of their BOFF layouts are universal so you can make your ship cater to Sci, ENG, or Tac.
Its the BOFF layout that makes an escort Tac heavy. There is no other ship type that get to use the other combat manuvers but the escort. The cruisers are engineer heavy due to is Commander lvl Eng BOFFs, so on. I disagree with this type catagorizing because it dosen't fit canon, ship catagory role should be based on her captain. There were not many science dedicated ship classes in Star Trek, the Oberth and Olympic were the only ones. When you look at TNG, many multiprpose vessels were used for science missions like the Miranda Class, and sometimes the Nebula Class. The Intrepid, Nebula, and Rhode Island, Luna classes were cruisers. Nebulas were mulitpurpose ships used as assault ships, science ships, transports and support ships. The only reason people think the USS Voyager was a science ship because Captain Janeway had a science background. Lunar Class is definately not a science ship because its considered an explorer ship. The USS Titan had all the same roles as all the old Enterprises had in the past, exlporing, first contact, etc. Escorts in Star Trek are not armed with cannons except for the Defiant Class, and there were not many of those. Thats only a concept started by this game. If beams were on the same level as cannons, them you wouldn't see them all on escorts, and there wouldn't be a problem for other ships doing damage. It would be up to the captain's skill tree to what kind of damage his ship will deal.
There is nowhere in Star Trek material saying that cannons did more damage than beam arrays beams had more range. Thats totally made up in this game.
Thanks for these however I feel it a little... convenient... that for your 6 beam test you weakened your enemies defence (I believe by 50%) "6x Beam Array + Sensor Scan: 1373 DPS"
Thanks for these however I feel it a little... convenient... that for your 6 beam test you weakened your enemies defence (I believe by 50%) "6x Beam Array + Sensor Scan: 1373 DPS"
Just sayin
Sensor Scan is an ability carried by all Science Ships. It's a stacking damage debuff that makes up for the Sci's lack of weapon slots.
And it's automatically applied to whatever they're shooting at, and only applies to them.
It's up to 30% btw, and at that 30% you get 75% x 130% = 97.5% the dps of 8 weapons, using only 6.
The line is a quip at the "Sci sucks" whiners, who are just as annoying as the "Cruisers suck" whiners, or the "Escort or go home" fanboys - all of them are equally bad, and equally lack understanding of this game.
Edit: Nevermind ... "Sensor Analysis" is what it should have been ...
This game's mechanics are actually quite good. What you could complain about is the quite heavy P2W, the lack of content, the lack of quality content, the lack of challenging content, the lack of reason to create fleets for more than social reasons or starbases, the state of the community, customer service, developer relations, .... ummm, need I go on?
All of these get ignored. Instead people who can't accept that they need to improve their gameplay come and whine about perceived injustices and "broken" combat.
Thanks for these however I feel it a little... convenient... that for your 6 beam test you weakened your enemies defence (I believe by 50%) "6x Beam Array + Sensor Scan: 1373 DPS"
Just sayin
i think he means actually sensor analasys. And as i stated before (or in another thread) the difference between escort def and cruiser def is actually less than 20% at same speed setting (full) and same power level. (when i tested it, it was 16% more for the escort)
but that aside, in his test he only compared raw numbers without any buffs or energy levels, and also without any defense consideration.
Consuptuption is irrelevant, since the Dual cannons can't fire while I'm broadsiding and my beams will have all the power they need. The rear has no real threat with all beams. Once an escort gets in close to your rear, point blank range, you are not going to shake him. You can turn left or right it would not stop him from being on your rear. If beams had a little more umf in them then players would not just sit in one spot take all 4 beams firing on him.
that cruiser setup you described here...is actually the reason i think you have no idea of how to setup a cruiser thats worth something.
DC mixed with broadsiding beams, srsly? thats the reason why you deal no damage.
WHat makes you think you are supposseed to be able to juke and weave to shake an escort?
Thats likes saying an F22 is being unfair to a 787 airliner in a dog fight and the 787 deserves a buff becuase of its just incapable of competing.
As to being toast if an escort gets on your six, then since you know this come up with a way to compensate for it like many other Crusier players have done.
Use EWP, TB, a Tric Mine, Jam sensors, Scramble Senosrs, AMS, etc etc.
BtW, I have out manuevered Escorts in a BortasQu before when they where on my six, just saying a full reverse is sometimes all you need to catch them offguard.
That Pivot in place Escort has at most a -5% Bonus Defense sitting still, at worst a -15% bonus defense and Beams already do more damage than all cannons except the DHCs and they only exceed by 97 points.
Beams only truelly differ in that they are not a Burst damage weapon unless used with Beam Overload OR A REALLY INVENTIVE USE OF dem AND A WEAPON BATT.
If that Escort is sitting still and you can't kill him or gaurd against the burst attack you know is incomming, you are doing something wrong.
You are already stating the obvious. I didn't ask for a buff. I want the beams to be more powerful so I can keep people off my back. Your comparison of the 787 with the F22 is irrelevant because the 787 has has no weapons and is made out of just aluminum, where as military planes are composed of aluminum and kevlar composite armor to withstand flak blast. Comparing the World War II air fortresses to German fighters is more in line with the discussion. Bombers in those days were armed to the teeth with many machine gun turrets and it would take more than one fighter plane to take it down. While one fighter would distract the turret gunners the other fighter or fighters would come in blasting on the otherside.
i think he means actually sensor analasys. And as i stated before (or in another thread) the difference between escort def and cruiser def is actually less than 20% at same speed setting (full) and same power level. (when i tested it, it was 16% more for the escort)
but that aside, in his test he only compared raw numbers without any buffs or energy levels, and also without any defense consideration.
that cruiser setup you described here...is actually the reason i think you have no idea of how to setup a cruiser thats worth something.
DC mixed with broadsiding beams, srsly? thats the reason why you deal no damage.
You don't understand how it works because don't fly one. Why should I explain to you further if you not going to fly a dreadnought?
.... yeah, HUGE differences, right?
Truth is: before power levels and BOff powers come into play, weapon types are already near perfectly balanced with ship types.
Surprised?
This comparision is ridiculous, because it don't count in energy drain as well as skills as cannon rapid fire 3, which give cannons a huge damage boost, compared to burst only beam overload, which also drains alot of energy.
Starship Weapon Calculator gives some clue about, how DHCs realy outperform beam arrays.
Btw. a good escort pilot can easily outmanouver a 8 beam setup. If he cannot get advance against turnrate 5-8 cruiser, he should delete STO and start playing maybe minesweeper.
Thats a comment from one who started playing engineer cruiser and now plays tac escort ... for some reason my performance increased by about 500% ...
You are already stating the obvious. I didn't ask for a buff. I want the beams to be more powerful so I can keep people off my back. Your comparison of the 787 with the F22 is irrelevant because the 787 has has no weapons and is made out of just aluminum, where as military planes are composed of aluminum and kevlar composite armor to withstand flak blast. Comparing the World War II air fortresses to German fighters is more in line with the discussion. Bombers in those days were armed to the teeth with many machine gun turrets and it would take more than one fighter plane to take it down. While one fighter would distract the turret gunners the other fighter or fighters would come in blasting on the otherside.
Beams are more powerful. The disadvantage of having escort on your six is that it halves your weapon loadout meaning less DPV on him plus dince your running he can chase.
What they need to allow is maybe DBBs in the aft on Cruisers and some Science vessels.
Remember this mean KDF too.
If you like we can virtually imagine a weaponized military version though I made the comparison to focus on the handling differrences.
You are already stating the obvious. I didn't ask for a buff. I want the beams to be more powerful so I can keep people off my back. Your comparison of the 787 with the F22 is irrelevant because the 787 has has no weapons and is made out of just aluminum, where as military planes are composed of aluminum and kevlar composite armor to withstand flak blast. Comparing the World War II air fortresses to German fighters is more in line with the discussion. Bombers in those days were armed to the teeth with many machine gun turrets and it would take more than one fighter plane to take it down. While one fighter would distract the turret gunners the other fighter or fighters would come in blasting on the otherside.
the assesment of bombers being "armed to the teeth" must be seen in another light. The guns of a bomber were not designed to destroy incoming enemy planes, but to force them off their attack vector. The cannons on those fighters had superior range by far...but it was difficult to aim in those plains, and even harder when fired upon and doing evasive actions.
Alse the incredible numbers of those bomber squads asured that not all could be taken down before reaching the target.
the fighter escorts of those bombers actually took care of enemy fighters. Once those fighters had to return due to fuel capacity, the bomber squads suffered heavy losses due to fighter attacks.
In general though it can be said that 1 fighter against 1 bomber was death sentense for the bomber.
the light armament of bombers were never intended to take down enemy fighter planes (although they did of course) rather to make it more difficult to shoot at them.
numbers actually indicate this, that most of the luftwaffe was shot down by other fighter aircrafts.
but to your problem of keeping enemies off your back:
use vent plasma, it's a great dmg ability and clears your tail mercyless and has the escort captain rotate in his seat for sure
Tractor beam repulsor is great if you use a more sci oriented cruiser
chroniton mines or torps in the rear work excellent
full stop and reverse
you also have 4 device slot for a reason...use the deuterium surplus, not for running away but to run circles around the escort for a change
there is also this very cheap console, subspace jump, a real burner, if you don't have it up to now, get it.
and now here is the number one burner, escort captain will hate me for this: If the advantage of the escort is it's turnrate...then take it from her. Thats the secret actually, immobilization!
do not try to smash firepower against firepower, search the weakness and exploit it.
This comparision is ridiculous, because it don't count in energy drain as well as skills as cannon rapid fire 3, which give cannons a huge damage boost, compared to burst only beam overload, which also drains alot of energy.
Starship Weapon Calculator gives some clue about, how DHCs realy outperform beam arrays.
Btw. a good escort pilot can easily outmanouver a 8 beam setup. If he cannot get advance against turnrate 5-8 cruiser, he should delete STO and start playing maybe minesweeper.
Thats a comment from one who started playing engineer cruiser and now plays tac escort ... for some reason my performance increased by about 500% ...
First, let me congratulate on advancing from a very bad cruiser captain to a not-THAT-bad escort captain. of course you could just have learned to fly cruisers, but ...
Oh, and relying on a tool that's not been updated for more than two seasons? Starship Weapons Calculator was last updated in Oct/2011. Combat mechanics have changed quite a bit. If you even looked at that tool, you'd notice that most of the skills it uses to calculate damage don't even exist anymore.
As you already quoted, yes, that comparison ignores drain and BOffs. You really want to go there?
- Sure, CRF3 adds ~16.7% dps (50% with a 1/3 uptime) - but why aren't you comparing it to BA:FAW3 instead? That one's pretty close at 13.3% dps (40% at 1/3 uptime).
- Energy drain is actually favouring Cruisers: take a Tac Ody (+10 power) with Saucer Seperation (+10 power) and EPtW3 (+25 power) - and the +45 total make the +15 of an Escort look really, really harmless. Don't you think that +30 power won't compensate an extra -8 drain?
- yes, DHC are super-energy efficient, despite the -12 drain, as they only fire twice each cycle while all other weapons fire four times, making drain less of an issue - but cruisers still have that one going for them.
- what escorts really bring to the table that cruisers can't match is attack patterns, namely AP:O, and usually more tactical Console and BOff slots. That puts them slightly ahead, but not far, at least not if compared against the better P2W cruisers.
Oh, and ... while a good escort captain should indeed be able to outmaneuver any cruiser: no escort can outheal battery-fueled BO salvos, while any good cruiser can outheal an escort. If you can take down cruisers, you're not fighting good ones. Good ones do all the stuff baudl mentioned, and then some.
Sure, CRF3 adds ~16.7% dps (50% with a 1/3 uptime) - but why aren't you comparing it to BA:FAW3 instead? That one's pretty close at 13.3% dps (40% at 1/3 uptime).
B:FAW only is usefull in 1on1 situatations with no one else around. Otherweise you will only waste your damage on some random targets around you. And, with exception to some minority of cruisers, B:FAWIII is not avaiable for cruisers, since requiring a Lt. Com. Tac slot.
- Energy drain is actually favouring Cruisers: take a Tac Ody (+10 power) with Saucer Seperation (+10 power) and EPtW3 (+25 power) - and the +45 total make the +15 of an Escort look really, really harmless. Don't you think that +30 power won't compensate an extra -8 drain?
Who skills EPTWIII? It is just a waste of the Lt. Com. Eng. Slot, which can be filled with RSP, EWP or the most reasonable choise EPTSIII, which are all more powerfull compared to the small damage boost optained by EPTWIII.
Oh, and ... while a good escort captain should indeed be able to outmaneuver any cruiser: no escort can outheal battery-fueled BO salvos, while any good cruiser can outheal an escort.
Yeah, nice, zombie cruisers can outheal escorts ... However, an smart escort pilot can easily retreat from every battle with a cruiser he is going to loose, so, in the best case, a cruiser can survive an attacking escort, but not beat it.
Another thing is, that in PvE healing is not required - the damage in high end content can be handeled by any good equipped escort captain without the need of any specific healer. Trading healing against damage is even reduce your potential in PvE because of the timer based mission optionals.
In PvP scorts may not have the survivability of cruisers, but they are far away from being fragile. Even an Heghtha BoP with Borg-Set and KGH shield can handle multple attackers some time before he need to retreat - the trick is to maintain high defense rating, making alot of the shots aimed at you miss.
I don't suggest to buff the damage of cruisers, but reduce the survivability of escorts compared to cruisers so that cruisers as tanks and healers become more usefull.
.... yeah, HUGE differences, right?
Truth is: before power levels and BOff powers come into play, weapon types are already near perfectly balanced with ship types.
Surprised?
From a different thread.
Originally Posted by nicha0
As I read on in this thread there are a lot of terrible cruiser captains.
I combat log all my fleet alerts (its pretty consistent, STFs have too large distance gaps)
As a tac in an escort I used to average 6500 dps.
After one patch that dropped to 5500 dps, I thought I was messed up, obviously they devs changed something.
I bought fleet weapons and my numbers are back to 6500 dps, except against Tholians, they are wicked.
Now when I log fleet mates that I've coached to do damage an eng escort does 4500 dps in a non P2W ship.
A sci cruiser does 3500-4000 dps in excellsior
Normal pug cruisers 1500 dps
So is the problem cruisers or is it that people have no clue what they are doing? You'd be amazed how many tac escorts are running 800 dps.. seriously. The best pug cruiser I've ever seen is 2200 dps outside of our fleet.
Cruisers are more than fine, even 3500 dps as a sci cruiser is very capable, less than 1k difference between an escort.
And my response
So a 2,000 DPS gap is perfectly fine to you??
Using your peak at 6,500 dps in an Escort as a Tac Captain that is almost a 44.5% dps increase over the next closest number you posted....
Lets say his numbers jump to 5,000 in a P2W escort, that is still a 27.28% difference....
I notice that there are no Eng Cruiser numbers, so lets go with Science in the Excelsior numbers since those will be very close to what an Eng will be putting out as well.
So your 6,500 DPS compared to the Eng in an Excelsior Cruiser at 3,500 dps.
At this point the Engineer needs to cover a 3,000 DPS gap to reach your numbers.
That is an insane 85.72% DPS difference. You've almost doubled his numbers! And that's not even touching peak DPS figures.
Let us say that it is the 4,000 dps number and not the 3,500 one.
62.5% difference.
Totally fair...
Base line stats for the weapons are indeed quite close to each other.
Its not until you start using Captain/BOff abilities, various DOffs and an increased number of tactical consoles that you start to see the real difference.
FAW is great, when there is fewer than two targets.
More than two and its effectiveness drops dramatically. In PvP its not a very useful skill compared to CSV or CRF and in PvE it can also function as a hazard as many of the STF's punish for random firing... which is exactly what FAW is. BO is a one and done ability, yes it does hit hard, 12k crits on accident aren't uncommon. But it doesn't compare to the burst abilities nor have the drawbacks of something like CRF. And even then, its dps/damage output is pitiful compared to any other ability out there in the game.
lets say an average hit of 8k every cd. How much damage do you think you dish out with CRF each cycle?
Anyways, I think you could buff the Beam Array damage up to that of the DHC, increase its cycle, eliminate DBB and it would still be fine. Escorts would still be the primary DD by a comfortable margin.
The thing is that Veraticus is right in his assessment, we could afford a slight boost to bam damage and even to their boost skills and it still wouldn't go anywhere near putting escorts out of a job, in fact I think if you escort pilots (even the best of you) if you were totally honest would LIKE to see a cruiser sit out of your way and still do some nice supporting damage, in fact as an tac in an escort I would LOVE this in an STF, ISE generators would be easier to manage as the team wouldn't be waiting so long for the cruiser to catch up.
Also as an engineer in a cruiser I'd feel more useful to a team, not only could I then dish out some fair heals AND not get in the way of you escorts because I can deal some nice support damage without having to get up close and personal.
as much as you would love to say I'm wrong this would boost team DPS, which happens to be the most important thing in the game, and would give you escort pilots the ability to relax in PvE as the team wouldn't need you to deal ALL the damage thus when you do do that awesome damage dealing thing you do (alpha striking a KASE gateway and bringing it from 40% to 0% in a matter of seconds, yes, been there, done that) you are more appreciated for it and it would keep you on your toes in PvP as suddenly them cruisers , who I admit don't have the best pilots, would be all the more damgerous.
well this discussion is going in circles for some time. Despite all this threads that demand a buff for beams or cruisers, cryptic won't do anything in that direction. They balance around hard numbers and statistics...and those just do not support the claims that a buff is needed.
Base line stats for the weapons are indeed quite close to each other.
Its not until you start using Captain/BOff abilities, various DOffs and an increased number of tactical consoles that you start to see the real difference.
Captain abilities is part of the choice you make when you decide to create a character. If you do not like not being the heavy hitter then do not choose Engineer over Tactical. I do not see why the Engineer class suddenly needs a damage boost to compete with a different class designed to be the damage dealing class.
Anyone can use the DOffs and the number of tactical consoles on a ship is a part of said ships design, so while yes once you add all these factors into the equation the damage numbers start to have real differences its not unexpected as the classes start to show thier proffessional bonuses, of which only the tactical has direct damage multipliers.
FAW is great, when there is fewer than two targets.
More than two and its effectiveness drops dramatically. In PvP its not a very useful skill compared to CSV or CRF and in PvE it can also function as a hazard as many of the STF's punish for random firing... which is exactly what FAW is.
BFAW is not a damage increasing skill though and never was intended to be in combat. BFAW is a pet killing skill designed back when the KDF had the only pets and the feds where tired of trying to counter them. Its not a damage dealing skill unless you are hoping to Proc a target or do damage indirectly via DEM or Sensor Analysis etc.
BO is a one and done ability, yes it does hit hard, 12k crits on accident aren't uncommon. But it doesn't compare to the burst abilities nor have the drawbacks of something like CRF. And even then, its dps/damage output is pitiful compared to any other ability out there in the game.
lets say an average hit of 8k every cd. How much damage do you think you dish out with CRF each cycle?
The differences in damage between BO and CRF is highly buffed by the Tactical captain skills of ApA, TacFleet, GDF and TI3 (for speed) over every other class in the game as befits the class choice. I expect a tactical captain to ride in a do high damage with his weapons of choice. When said abilites are buffed 40k BO3s can happen and 8k CRF3 can happen easily if timed right and even the difference between the two is only 8k, with BO3 coming out on top.
Comparing damage out put between abilities is fine but does not show any differences that are not to be expected in abilities that have different Tiers and can be buffed better by one class (whos function is damage output) over the other classes (whos function is not direct damage output). Its a moot point and is likened to comparing oneself to a professional shooter. You may wish to be more deadly and hit the bullseye as often as the Pro but without his skills you will not.
Buffing Cruisers is not an option becuase its a direct favortism to one class of vessels over the others and doing such should be avoided in my opinion.
Buffing beams may work but all the Beam buffing BOff abilities are one Tier lower than the highest cannon Ability and it would be easy to unbalance the game if not doen properly.
I would prefer a new class of beam Array be designed and implemented that falls into the area between a BA and DBB, say a heavy beam array with a 180 degree field of fire.
Or institute some new Beam and Cannon BOff abilities to fill in the gap, lower CRF down to T1 through T3, etc.
Overall the differences in direct damage out put between the Tac/Escort and all other vessels is functioning as intended consider tac is the damage class and Cruiser and Science are not.
The differences in damage out between the Character classes seems right as well since the Tactical can greatly buff damage in proportion to how much the Engineer can buff thier healing. Science so far is the only real loser as Cryptic has yet to balance them and make them useful at the same time.
This debate has become circular and is a debate as old as gaming itself, the debate of Why is my Cleric (Engineer/Cruiser) not as dangerous as your fighter(Tactical/Escort)?
The answer is the same as it ever was, He is not suppossed to be otherwise he would be a fighter.
the assesment of bombers being "armed to the teeth" must be seen in another light. The guns of a bomber were not designed to destroy incoming enemy planes, but to force them off their attack vector. The cannons on those fighters had superior range by far...but it was difficult to aim in those plains, and even harder when fired upon and doing evasive actions.
Alse the incredible numbers of those bomber squads asured that not all could be taken down before reaching the target.
the fighter escorts of those bombers actually took care of enemy fighters. Once those fighters had to return due to fuel capacity, the bomber squads suffered heavy losses due to fighter attacks.
In general though it can be said that 1 fighter against 1 bomber was death sentense for the bomber.
the light armament of bombers were never intended to take down enemy fighter planes (although they did of course) rather to make it more difficult to shoot at them.
numbers actually indicate this, that most of the luftwaffe was shot down by other fighter aircrafts.
but to your problem of keeping enemies off your back:
use vent plasma, it's a great dmg ability and clears your tail mercyless and has the escort captain rotate in his seat for sure
Tractor beam repulsor is great if you use a more sci oriented cruiser
chroniton mines or torps in the rear work excellent
full stop and reverse
you also have 4 device slot for a reason...use the deuterium surplus, not for running away but to run circles around the escort for a change
there is also this very cheap console, subspace jump, a real burner, if you don't have it up to now, get it.
and now here is the number one burner, escort captain will hate me for this: If the advantage of the escort is it's turnrate...then take it from her. Thats the secret actually, immobilization!
do not try to smash firepower against firepower, search the weakness and exploit it.
Thanks for the tips :-)
Hopefully the OP uses his time now to learn to play instead of making useless posts.
(And hopefully Cryptic ups the damage on cruisers OR changes the STF )
In PvP scorts may not have the survivability of cruisers, but they are far away from being fragile. Even an Heghtha BoP with Borg-Set and KGH shield can handle multple attackers some time before he need to retreat - the trick is to maintain high defense rating, making alot of the shots aimed at you miss.
I don't suggest to buff the damage of cruisers, but reduce the survivability of escorts compared to cruisers so that cruisers as tanks and healers become more usefull.
Cruisers and even science vessels benefit from that same Equipment set-up and have better access to higher heals to boot, the only extra bonus an Escort has is an easy ability to run from combat over the Cruiser and a 10% higher Bonus Defense for moving at full speed.
Escorts are far from fragile, yes, but Cruiser are not made of tissue paper iether and have the same survial options as the escorts in this case, aside from the bonus 10% defense allowing them to tank multiple attackers without having to run away as often.
Nerfing the survival of Escorts on this reasoning doesn not make sense as you are gimping a class of vessel for learning how to use the abilities and options provided by the system itself thats open to all classes.
I have however noticed that with the same ship and build my tac gets more damage unbuffed than my engi does also unbuffed and the tac is less skilled up for the thing than the engi
Comments
A) One set of initials... P2W makes this possible.
Cruisers are BIG and I do mean BIIIGGG targets. My DHCs should NEVER and I mean NEEEEVVVEERRR miss their target whereas in an escort, I am designed to "avoid" a cruiser fire.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
Everyship is not meant to be able to mount every type of weapon.
Cannons (the plural) do not do more damage than beams.
Cannons (single) at mark 12 white do 159 DPV/212DPS with a 180 degree firing arc.
Beam Array (single) at mark 12 white do 220 DPV/176 DPS with a 250 degree firing arc.
Dual cannons at mark 12 white do 192DPV/256 DPS with a 45 degree firing arc.
Dual Beam Banks at mark 12 white do 287 DPV/229 DPS with a 90 degree firing arc.
Dual heavy Cannons at mark 12 white do 384 DPV/256 DPS with a 45 degree firing arc.
Only the Dual cannons do more DPV than any beam array or Dual beanm array. To handicap that DPV DHCs have half the firing arc of a Dual Beam Array and 205 degrees less of a firing arc of the single Beam Array. There is no differences in the hundreds between them. Infact the DHC does less than a hundred more than a DBB in DPV and only 27 points more in DPS.
In fact if you look at the stats of teh Beams versus Cannons then one thing should be readily apparent.
Cannons are meant for Burst style attacks, hence the low DPV but high DPS, and Beams are meant for sustained attacks, hence thier high DPV but low DPS.
What truelly gives the cannons thier bite is the Tactical BOff skills plus Player skills plus consoles.
What truelly gives beams thier bite is the Tactical BOff skills plus Player skills plus consoles.
There is no huge imbalance as the Cruiser, a multirole deep space vessel designed for extended service away from starbases and resource yards is not meant to be a master of any particular role but modifiable to cover a specific role if desired.
You can design a Cruiser to be a DPS boat but not as good as an Escort and only if you give up some inherent tankyness. (though said tanky can be compensated for with good BOff skill usage)
An Escort makes the pinnacle of DPS boat in STO but will not make a good, or even sloppy, healboat as its not adaptible to the role.
R.I.P
http://theenginescannaetakeit.wordpress.com/articles-3/weapon-ranges/
Weapon Ranges?In range??
?Not yet, sir.?
?Come on, come on.?
?She?ll fly apart!?
?Fly her apart then!?
- Captain Hikaru Sulu and Helmsman Lojur
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Although all starship weapons in Star Trek: Online have the same maximum range of 10km, it?s been mentioned several times by the developers that different weapons are affected by range at different rates. This article presents the results of in-game testing done to determine what those differences actually are.
(If you?re not interested in tables of numbers, you can skip to the Energy Weapons Summary section for the results of the testing.)
Index
o Beam Weapons
o Cannon Weapons
o Energy Weapons Summary
o Projectile Weapons
o Range and Accuracy
Note: Testing Method
All the test results detailed below were achieved by finding stationary, unshielded targets in missions (defence turrets, mining facilities and the like), firing on them multiple times with a single weapon at a given range, averaging the results, then moving to a new range and repeating the process. A few things to bear in mind:
o The average damage listed is ?per strike? ? for example, a beam array ?strikes? four times each time it?s fired
o All weapons used were common (white) versions, with no special bonuses
o Within each test, weapon power settings and captain skills were kept constant ? the only thing that changed was the range
o Each attack was followed by a pause of a few seconds to make sure that the current weapon power level was at maximum before firing again
o As I don?t have a log analyser or anything similar, the sample sizes were not very large. As such, the average damage has been rounded to the nearest integer, and all results should be treated as approximate
Beam Weapons
Average damage of a phaser beam array at different ranges:
Range (km) Damage
0 144
1 144
2 140
3 135
4 128
5 121
6 115
7 109
8 104
9 98
10 93
Allowing for a margin of error in the data, then, it appears that beam weapons do maximum damage up to 1km, and then start to drop by around 4% damage per km, down to about 65% damage at 10km.
I haven?t yet done extensive testing with dual beams or other damage types, but some quick comparisons of damage at 10km and 1km with a variety suggests that all beam weapons are affected by range in a similar fashion.
Cannon Weapons
Average damage of a dual phaser cannon at different ranges:
Range (km) Damage
0 175
1 175
2 175
3 157
4 146
5 128
6 120
7 102
8 92
9 75
10 66
Once again allowing for a margin of error in the data, it appears that cannon weapons do maximum damage up to 2km then start to drop by around 8% damage per km, down to about 35% damage at 10km.
I haven?t yet done extensive testing with cannons, dual heavy cannons, or other damage types, but some quick comparisons of damage at 1km, 2km and 10km with a variety suggests that all cannon weapons are affected by range in a similar fashion.
Turrets
I haven?t been able to do extensive testing yet, but a comparison of turret damage at 1km, 2km and 10km suggests that they are affected by range in exactly the same way as cannons, which matches with dev statements that turrets are counted as cannons for the purposes of range.
Energy Weapon Summary
Based on the testing done so far:
o The damage done by all energy weapons (beams and cannons, including turrets) is affected by the range to the target
o Beam weapons are less affected by range than cannons (including turrets)
o Beam weapons deal full damage up to 1km, then start to suffer a range penalty of around 4% damage per km, down to a minimum of around 65% damage at 10km
o Cannon weapons (including turrets) deal full damage up to 2km, then start to suffer a range penalty of around 8% per km, down to a minimum of around 35% damage at 10km
o The damage listed on an energy weapon?s tooltip in the weapons tray or on your hotbar is based on minimum range (1km or less for beams, 2km or less for cannons, including turrets)
As I?m a sucker for graphs, here?s a comparison of how beam and cannon weapons appear to perform over range:
The upshot of all this is that those captains utilising a weapons load-out that favours cannons or turrets need to be much more aware of the range to their target than those who favour beams.
This is particularly important when using abilities that boost weapon damage in general (such as Emergency Power to Weapons or Tactical Team) and cannons in particular (such as Cannon: Rapid Fire).
As all these abilities modify your current weapon damage, and that damage is significantly reduced by range, triggering them at long range in a cannon or turret-armed ship can waste a lot of their potential benefit ? in general, it?s better to wait until you?ve closed to within 4-5km or less.
R.I.P
Beam Array Mk XII: 220 DPV, 176 DPS
Cannon Mk XII: 159 DPV, 212 DPS
Dual Heavy Cannon Mk XII: 384 DPV, 256 DPS
Turret Mk XII: 99 DPV, 132 DPS
6x Beam Array + Sensor Analysis: 1373 DPS
4x Cannon+4x Turret: 1376 DPS
8x Beam Array : 1408 DPS
4x DHC+3x Turret: 1420 DPS
.... yeah, HUGE differences, right?
Truth is: before power levels and BOff powers come into play, weapon types are already near perfectly balanced with ship types.
Surprised?
Seems the issue is not about DPV then but burst damage. Something a Cruiser is not designed to do easily for a reason.
R.I.P
The same thing a Dreadnaght does. My dreadnought is more dangerous than my Galaxy-R with exact same turn rate.
Fire arcs don't matter if you put the straight shooting weapon on a small escort ship that can trun in place like a turret. Everybody in PVP knows you can't out manuver escorts because they can do this. Maybe you wouldn't have to arm cannons on cruisers if they made beams do nearly as much damage.
Consuptuption is irrelevant, since the Dual cannons can't fire while I'm broadsiding and my beams will have all the power they need. The rear has no real threat with all beams. Once an escort gets in close to your rear, point blank range, you are not going to shake him. You can turn left or right it would not stop him from being on your rear. If beams had a little more umf in them then players would not just sit in one spot take all 4 beams firing on him.
Oh numbers, how I love you and your ability to show objective facts.
WHat makes you think you are supposseed to be able to juke and weave to shake an escort?
Thats likes saying an F22 is being unfair to a 787 airliner in a dog fight and the 787 deserves a buff becuase of its just incapable of competing.
As to being toast if an escort gets on your six, then since you know this come up with a way to compensate for it like many other Crusier players have done.
Use EWP, TB, a Tric Mine, Jam sensors, Scramble Senosrs, AMS, etc etc.
BtW, I have out manuevered Escorts in a BortasQu before when they where on my six, just saying a full reverse is sometimes all you need to catch them offguard.
That Pivot in place Escort has at most a -5% Bonus Defense sitting still, at worst a -15% bonus defense and Beams already do more damage than all cannons except the DHCs and they only exceed by 97 points.
Beams only truelly differ in that they are not a Burst damage weapon unless used with Beam Overload OR A REALLY INVENTIVE USE OF dem AND A WEAPON BATT.
If that Escort is sitting still and you can't kill him or gaurd against the burst attack you know is incomming, you are doing something wrong.
R.I.P
Burst damage is ironically excactly where beams are strongest: Beam Overload powered by weapon battery -> Ouch.
Well, that and Tactical Captain abilities, those make a huge difference, closely followed by Science (if good Sub-nuke timing ...). It's just Engineers that lack punch, but they can instead survive such a burst, no reason to complain.
And before we get started on BOff abilities, let's not forget that Cruisers have the one big equalizer here: EPtW. Every other ship type has to choose between being a glass-cannon, or suffering heavy drain - Cruisers can have thier pie and eat it, too.
I'll not deny that Escorts can deal more damage than Cruisers - but the gap beween even the lowliest Cruisers in terms of dps (Star Cruiser, Galaxy-R), or Science Ships for that matter, and the best DPS Escorts isn't more than 50% - and there's quite a lot of Cruisers in the middle of the pack, and Battle Cruisers (including the Galaxy-X, btw(!)) are very near the top.
Oh, and then there's Carriers. Those really are OP. But nobody cares about them. :P
Ouch indeed. Also a good Weapon batt to push Weapons power past 125 (temporarily) and DEM makes a good punch with beams. Something cannons can not do.
Who ever said Engineers are suppossed to be dishing out massive damage in combat?
(Though nadion inversion, EPS transfer and a good BO3 set-up can hurt from an Engineer. With the right DOffing they can get off more than one BO3 in an action)
Anyways my point is that the escort is designed to fly in close, unleash its buffed attack and hopefully follow through to kill its target while teh Cruiser is meant to be a sustained attack (broadside) wearing its enemy down while surviving the retaliation of its target.
Two completely different combat styles.
R.I.P
Aye.
And Science is designed to disable ships and/or shields, and then kill the vulnerable floating chunk of metal.
And Carriers are designed to either strip disable/strip and have pets kill the vulnerable floating chunk, or to have the pets do the disableing and do the killing themselves.
Make that: Four completely different combat styles.
I mean, there ARE some reasons I actually like this game.
Orientation of ships leaning Tac, ENG, Sci are based on the the BOFF layout, not weapons. The are no special weapons that are made to cater to a specific class of ship that are not console driven. The fact that most ship types on the KDF, except for carriers, can arm DHC's. Many of their BOFF layouts are universal so you can make your ship cater to Sci, ENG, or Tac.
Its the BOFF layout that makes an escort Tac heavy. There is no other ship type that get to use the other combat manuvers but the escort. The cruisers are engineer heavy due to is Commander lvl Eng BOFFs, so on. I disagree with this type catagorizing because it dosen't fit canon, ship catagory role should be based on her captain. There were not many science dedicated ship classes in Star Trek, the Oberth and Olympic were the only ones. When you look at TNG, many multiprpose vessels were used for science missions like the Miranda Class, and sometimes the Nebula Class. The Intrepid, Nebula, and Rhode Island, Luna classes were cruisers. Nebulas were mulitpurpose ships used as assault ships, science ships, transports and support ships. The only reason people think the USS Voyager was a science ship because Captain Janeway had a science background. Lunar Class is definately not a science ship because its considered an explorer ship. The USS Titan had all the same roles as all the old Enterprises had in the past, exlporing, first contact, etc. Escorts in Star Trek are not armed with cannons except for the Defiant Class, and there were not many of those. Thats only a concept started by this game. If beams were on the same level as cannons, them you wouldn't see them all on escorts, and there wouldn't be a problem for other ships doing damage. It would be up to the captain's skill tree to what kind of damage his ship will deal.
There is nowhere in Star Trek material saying that cannons did more damage than beam arrays beams had more range. Thats totally made up in this game.
Thanks for these however I feel it a little... convenient... that for your 6 beam test you weakened your enemies defence (I believe by 50%) "6x Beam Array + Sensor Scan: 1373 DPS"
Just sayin
Sensor Scan is an ability carried by all Science Ships. It's a stacking damage debuff that makes up for the Sci's lack of weapon slots.
And it's automatically applied to whatever they're shooting at, and only applies to them.
It's up to 30% btw, and at that 30% you get 75% x 130% = 97.5% the dps of 8 weapons, using only 6.
The line is a quip at the "Sci sucks" whiners, who are just as annoying as the "Cruisers suck" whiners, or the "Escort or go home" fanboys - all of them are equally bad, and equally lack understanding of this game.
Edit: Nevermind ... "Sensor Analysis" is what it should have been ...
This game's mechanics are actually quite good. What you could complain about is the quite heavy P2W, the lack of content, the lack of quality content, the lack of challenging content, the lack of reason to create fleets for more than social reasons or starbases, the state of the community, customer service, developer relations, .... ummm, need I go on?
All of these get ignored. Instead people who can't accept that they need to improve their gameplay come and whine about perceived injustices and "broken" combat.
... bah, now you triggered my rant-mode.
i think he means actually sensor analasys. And as i stated before (or in another thread) the difference between escort def and cruiser def is actually less than 20% at same speed setting (full) and same power level. (when i tested it, it was 16% more for the escort)
but that aside, in his test he only compared raw numbers without any buffs or energy levels, and also without any defense consideration.
that cruiser setup you described here...is actually the reason i think you have no idea of how to setup a cruiser thats worth something.
DC mixed with broadsiding beams, srsly? thats the reason why you deal no damage.
You are already stating the obvious. I didn't ask for a buff. I want the beams to be more powerful so I can keep people off my back. Your comparison of the 787 with the F22 is irrelevant because the 787 has has no weapons and is made out of just aluminum, where as military planes are composed of aluminum and kevlar composite armor to withstand flak blast. Comparing the World War II air fortresses to German fighters is more in line with the discussion. Bombers in those days were armed to the teeth with many machine gun turrets and it would take more than one fighter plane to take it down. While one fighter would distract the turret gunners the other fighter or fighters would come in blasting on the otherside.
You don't understand how it works because don't fly one. Why should I explain to you further if you not going to fly a dreadnought?
This comparision is ridiculous, because it don't count in energy drain as well as skills as cannon rapid fire 3, which give cannons a huge damage boost, compared to burst only beam overload, which also drains alot of energy.
Starship Weapon Calculator gives some clue about, how DHCs realy outperform beam arrays.
Btw. a good escort pilot can easily outmanouver a 8 beam setup. If he cannot get advance against turnrate 5-8 cruiser, he should delete STO and start playing maybe minesweeper.
Thats a comment from one who started playing engineer cruiser and now plays tac escort ... for some reason my performance increased by about 500% ...
Beams are more powerful. The disadvantage of having escort on your six is that it halves your weapon loadout meaning less DPV on him plus dince your running he can chase.
What they need to allow is maybe DBBs in the aft on Cruisers and some Science vessels.
Remember this mean KDF too.
If you like we can virtually imagine a weaponized military version though I made the comparison to focus on the handling differrences.
R.I.P
the assesment of bombers being "armed to the teeth" must be seen in another light. The guns of a bomber were not designed to destroy incoming enemy planes, but to force them off their attack vector. The cannons on those fighters had superior range by far...but it was difficult to aim in those plains, and even harder when fired upon and doing evasive actions.
Alse the incredible numbers of those bomber squads asured that not all could be taken down before reaching the target.
the fighter escorts of those bombers actually took care of enemy fighters. Once those fighters had to return due to fuel capacity, the bomber squads suffered heavy losses due to fighter attacks.
In general though it can be said that 1 fighter against 1 bomber was death sentense for the bomber.
the light armament of bombers were never intended to take down enemy fighter planes (although they did of course) rather to make it more difficult to shoot at them.
numbers actually indicate this, that most of the luftwaffe was shot down by other fighter aircrafts.
but to your problem of keeping enemies off your back:
use vent plasma, it's a great dmg ability and clears your tail mercyless and has the escort captain rotate in his seat for sure
Tractor beam repulsor is great if you use a more sci oriented cruiser
chroniton mines or torps in the rear work excellent
full stop and reverse
you also have 4 device slot for a reason...use the deuterium surplus, not for running away but to run circles around the escort for a change
there is also this very cheap console, subspace jump, a real burner, if you don't have it up to now, get it.
and now here is the number one burner, escort captain will hate me for this: If the advantage of the escort is it's turnrate...then take it from her. Thats the secret actually, immobilization!
do not try to smash firepower against firepower, search the weakness and exploit it.
First, let me congratulate on advancing from a very bad cruiser captain to a not-THAT-bad escort captain. of course you could just have learned to fly cruisers, but ...
Oh, and relying on a tool that's not been updated for more than two seasons? Starship Weapons Calculator was last updated in Oct/2011. Combat mechanics have changed quite a bit. If you even looked at that tool, you'd notice that most of the skills it uses to calculate damage don't even exist anymore.
As you already quoted, yes, that comparison ignores drain and BOffs. You really want to go there?
- Sure, CRF3 adds ~16.7% dps (50% with a 1/3 uptime) - but why aren't you comparing it to BA:FAW3 instead? That one's pretty close at 13.3% dps (40% at 1/3 uptime).
- Energy drain is actually favouring Cruisers: take a Tac Ody (+10 power) with Saucer Seperation (+10 power) and EPtW3 (+25 power) - and the +45 total make the +15 of an Escort look really, really harmless. Don't you think that +30 power won't compensate an extra -8 drain?
- yes, DHC are super-energy efficient, despite the -12 drain, as they only fire twice each cycle while all other weapons fire four times, making drain less of an issue - but cruisers still have that one going for them.
- what escorts really bring to the table that cruisers can't match is attack patterns, namely AP:O, and usually more tactical Console and BOff slots. That puts them slightly ahead, but not far, at least not if compared against the better P2W cruisers.
Oh, and ... while a good escort captain should indeed be able to outmaneuver any cruiser: no escort can outheal battery-fueled BO salvos, while any good cruiser can outheal an escort. If you can take down cruisers, you're not fighting good ones. Good ones do all the stuff baudl mentioned, and then some.
B:FAW only is usefull in 1on1 situatations with no one else around. Otherweise you will only waste your damage on some random targets around you. And, with exception to some minority of cruisers, B:FAWIII is not avaiable for cruisers, since requiring a Lt. Com. Tac slot.
Who skills EPTWIII? It is just a waste of the Lt. Com. Eng. Slot, which can be filled with RSP, EWP or the most reasonable choise EPTSIII, which are all more powerfull compared to the small damage boost optained by EPTWIII.
Yeah, nice, zombie cruisers can outheal escorts ... However, an smart escort pilot can easily retreat from every battle with a cruiser he is going to loose, so, in the best case, a cruiser can survive an attacking escort, but not beat it.
Another thing is, that in PvE healing is not required - the damage in high end content can be handeled by any good equipped escort captain without the need of any specific healer. Trading healing against damage is even reduce your potential in PvE because of the timer based mission optionals.
In PvP scorts may not have the survivability of cruisers, but they are far away from being fragile. Even an Heghtha BoP with Borg-Set and KGH shield can handle multple attackers some time before he need to retreat - the trick is to maintain high defense rating, making alot of the shots aimed at you miss.
I don't suggest to buff the damage of cruisers, but reduce the survivability of escorts compared to cruisers so that cruisers as tanks and healers become more usefull.
From a different thread.
And my response
Base line stats for the weapons are indeed quite close to each other.
Its not until you start using Captain/BOff abilities, various DOffs and an increased number of tactical consoles that you start to see the real difference.
FAW is great, when there is fewer than two targets.
More than two and its effectiveness drops dramatically. In PvP its not a very useful skill compared to CSV or CRF and in PvE it can also function as a hazard as many of the STF's punish for random firing... which is exactly what FAW is. BO is a one and done ability, yes it does hit hard, 12k crits on accident aren't uncommon. But it doesn't compare to the burst abilities nor have the drawbacks of something like CRF. And even then, its dps/damage output is pitiful compared to any other ability out there in the game.
lets say an average hit of 8k every cd. How much damage do you think you dish out with CRF each cycle?
Anyways, I think you could buff the Beam Array damage up to that of the DHC, increase its cycle, eliminate DBB and it would still be fine. Escorts would still be the primary DD by a comfortable margin.
Also as an engineer in a cruiser I'd feel more useful to a team, not only could I then dish out some fair heals AND not get in the way of you escorts because I can deal some nice support damage without having to get up close and personal.
as much as you would love to say I'm wrong this would boost team DPS, which happens to be the most important thing in the game, and would give you escort pilots the ability to relax in PvE as the team wouldn't need you to deal ALL the damage thus when you do do that awesome damage dealing thing you do (alpha striking a KASE gateway and bringing it from 40% to 0% in a matter of seconds, yes, been there, done that) you are more appreciated for it and it would keep you on your toes in PvP as suddenly them cruisers , who I admit don't have the best pilots, would be all the more damgerous.
So if anything this is win win for eveyone
R.I.P
Thanks for the tips :-)
Hopefully the OP uses his time now to learn to play instead of making useless posts.
(And hopefully Cryptic ups the damage on cruisers OR changes the STF
Cruisers and even science vessels benefit from that same Equipment set-up and have better access to higher heals to boot, the only extra bonus an Escort has is an easy ability to run from combat over the Cruiser and a 10% higher Bonus Defense for moving at full speed.
Escorts are far from fragile, yes, but Cruiser are not made of tissue paper iether and have the same survial options as the escorts in this case, aside from the bonus 10% defense allowing them to tank multiple attackers without having to run away as often.
Nerfing the survival of Escorts on this reasoning doesn not make sense as you are gimping a class of vessel for learning how to use the abilities and options provided by the system itself thats open to all classes.
R.I.P
any ideas?