As a "relatively" new player who has very recently reached the Vice Admiral rank, I find it appalling; both to Star Trek canon as well as basic physics, that cruisers are so obviously and wrongly underpowered. I'm an engineer and moved up through the mission ranks from light cruiser, to constitution, to heavy cruiser, Galaxy, Star Cruiser and now an Odyssey Operation Cruiser.
During the Fed missions, the Cruisers lack of overall power was not that apparent as the mission NPC's left a great deal to be desired. But once I reached endgame and started STF's, my jaw literally dropped. I have my Odyssey decked out with 6 Mk XII Polaron very rare anti Borg beam arrays, and fore and aft Mk XII quantum anti Borg torpedoes. I have all rare dual EPS, neutronium, borg subspace modulator, Borg subtranswarp engine, MACO MK XII deflector, Borg regenerative shield, rare shield field generator, 2 rare Polaron tactical capacitors, etc... By all accounts, my build should be a tank and fighting machine.
Yet I go into STF's(and even with buffs and debuffs out the wazoo and fairly well honed tactical skills) I see these tiny tactical escorts(which are 1/20th the size of me and whose warp cores are producing at least 2 order's of magnitude less energy than me) taking out spheres, nanite generators, transformers, gates, cubes with relative ease and with hundreds fewer shots than I. This is just not right. That would be like sending a light US Naval frigate into to the Straights of Hormuz to fight the entire Iranian fleet while the US battleships and Carriers waited back 50 miles away and fired their 18 inch cannons and caused barely a scratch in the Iranian ship's paint jobs.
Cerainly there is a role for tac escorts in STO, but nothing like the role they currently fill. There is a reason they are called "ESCORTS". They are supposed to accompany the larger cruisers, carriers, etc... into battle and provide support fire and mobility to the fleet. They are certainly not meant to be the Lionshare of the fleets firepower. Cruisers are built to be big and do BIG damage, the price they pay for this is a relative lack of mobility. One beam array on a large Cruiser(like the galaxy, odyssey, star cruiser, or sovereign) should theoretically be putting out more energy per shot than the entire energy output of all the weapons, engines, and aux systems of an escort combined.
There is a reason that Large Cruisers are always the Flagships of fleets. They are large, they are by far the most powerful and they are undoubtedly the most feared by the enemy.
Without question, PW/Cryptic should crank up the power/DPS to ALL large cruiser beam arrays by a factor of 2,3 even 4( yes, cruiser beam arrays should do THE MOST damage of any beam or cannon - simply because the arrays are powered by behemoth warp cores.) Also, the cycle time of torpedoes fired from large cruisers should be MUCH shorter and more torpedoes should be able to be fired at any one time by large cruisers(torpedo spread or not). This would bring the game in line with both Star Trek canon as well as physics(I.e. if your ship is generating 10-100 times more power, this should be reflected in it's tactical capabilities).
So the next time you're the captain of a Galaxy, Sovereign or Odyssey in the midst of an elite STF, and you look over and aside of you is a tactical escort one-twentieth your size completely and easily obliterating a Borg Raptor, Negh'var , sphere or cube with 5 or 6 shots; while you are hammering away with 5 beams at a time per second and doing little to no damage - remember this post and thread.
I feel your pain and I'm sorry you were tricked
Into a worthless profession ( engineer )
I'n a STO weak ship
I think the devs at STO have a wicked warped
Sense of humor and a genuine hate for
Cannon Starfleet vessels
Nothing else can explain it
Start a new Tac character and then you can
Have a little fun I'n the stfs with your cruiser
Your engineer should get into a escort if you
Want to do any damage
Your role some will say is fleet healer and
Diaper changer for those little ships
They also want you to waste skill points I'n threat
Generation so everything shoots at you while they
Lay back and kill it with there tiny ships with your
Big guns
It's a really backwards sick system they
Use here sorta like a old dungeons and dragons
Adventure party I'n space
Not star trek at all
Tac escorts are the warriors 2 axes no armor
Science are the wizards a broken wand
Engineers are the priests a broken staff and full plate armor
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
While I feel there is room for improvement with cruiser turn rate, I have no issues providing decent damage and zombie-like survivability with my engineer in a tac oddy.
Are you going to do decent damage mounting torps on an oddy, other than the 180' torp I don't think so.
Run 8 beams, run 2 copies of eptws, dem2 or 3. Don't spam click all your abilities at once, use synergies instead. Want to help burn down a generator fast? Pop Nadion and get pointblank while broadside. Pop Dem with eps and eptw and hose the snot out of nanite probes with Bfaw.
At any given time an engineer will have something to midigate weapon power drain as long as that engineer is towing the line with synergies. With the right boffs and skills an engineer can tank the tac cube and the gate at the same time on elite and never touch miracle worker...I've done it.
Okay lets look at the issues that have caused this problem with cruisers:-
Problem 1 - Cryptic deciding on Fed cruisers being pure tanks and healers and giving escorts such superior firepower
a) The majority of us are Trek fans and I suspect a healthy portion of us prefer cruisers. The problem is the game has relegated them to a support role (which isn't needed much outside of PvP) and made the gap in firepower between an escort and a cruiser so great that flying an escort is a no brainer. At worst cruisers should have been treated as a jack-of-all-trades master of none class, with a 4th class specifically focused on engineering (and SCE class if you will).
b) A cruiser is a much larger ship and as such should have more powerful weapons. Instead the smaller more mobile ships have all the heavy weapons.
c) Dual Heavy Cannons/Dual Cannons - Lets face it, there's a HUGE gap in damage between a beam array and a dual heavy cannon.
d) Torps are pretty useless except against unshielded targets. Even then in PvP every one has generally enough kinetic resists to make them do pretty worthless damage if they don't crit.
e) Escorts have only about 1000 less shield HP then a cruiser.
This resulted in a boost to hull and shields and pushed escorts out of the danger zone and ended them being glass cannons. Strangely enough it also resulted in Klingons losing their lower hull/shield disadvantage (different stat boost originally?).
With the change to the recent skill table, it appears to have took this into consideration so people will have the same hull and shields they did with the season 1 change.
Problem 2 - Season 1.2's change to weapon power drain mechanics.
Cryptics changing of how weapon power drains work gave a massive advantage to escorts and took away the EPS flow reg (and an engineers EPS power transfer) advantage from cruisers. Before the change, a cruiser could stack EPS flow regulators to allow it to compete with an escort. Now the only reason to take an EPS flow reg is for beam overload.
Not only that, but it took away some of the thinking aspect of space combat.
Problem 4 - Cryptic giving the tactical escort retrofit another engineering console slot.
Problem 5a - Season 2's Inclusion of field generators
Link - There are no release notes or other documentation found that mention field generators being added to the game. If I remember correctly they were added the same time the emblem currency was added.
If the last shield and hull buff took the Escorts out of the glass cannon zone, this firmly took them out of the danger zone. Now escorts had plenty of room to tank and resist alpha strikes.
Problem 5b - Field Generators becoming science consoles and stackable
This removed one of the biggest advantages cruisers had in the way of shield tanking. A very questionable solution to the old science console problem. Now you can get advanced escorts with more shields than an assault cruiser.
Problem 7 - Unintended nerf to power boost consoles
Link - Not documented
Rare Mk XI engineer power boost consoles used to increase power by +7, now it's a worthless +3.5.
All in all this is why I dumped my cruiser for an escort about a year ago. The only real regret I have is that I prefer the larger ships, but escorts are just so much more superior.
This is a good list. It sure seems strange to me that the flagship class is being dumped for mass produced escort class ships. Your cruiser should be able to take several of those "tough little ships" (Yes Worf, Little!!!) I mean just think of the time and resources needed to build even one starfleet cruiser... It really is not a stretch for me to envision the science and tac ships to be treated as something half way to a shuttle in this game, "select a medium ship" for some special types of missions... I digress...
Could this cruiser problem be addressed at least in part from another direction? I have long thought it would be nice to add various types of synergies to the game. For example, certain bonuses when teams have all 3 classes of ships. Perhaps just having a big state of the art pride of the fleet cruiser in a team could give some type of bonus to the Tac ships assisting it in battling the borg. Perhaps their could be special consoles for cruiser that game a slight team bonus as well as a bonus for the ship itself.
Perhaps there could be only cruiser devices. Does anyone else think it odd that a tiny escort can send off fighters just as easily as a giant cruiser?
There is also the "take command of the fleet" history in Star Trek. Think Battle of Sector 001. Now think about EQ2 and the battle wheel. Perhaps cruisers could issue attack plans that if followed in time would be of some great benefit.
I really have no idea about how hard coding or game balance is to achieve. I just wish that things could be set up so that it is not only uncouth to go off into space without a cruiser but just down right silly...
I think a smart move for cryptic would be to add
A fleet tender class
Give this class all the jobs currently heaped
On cruisers add fighters and corvetts
All the little tank and heal jobs they want from
Cruisers now give to them
Put the Cannon ships from the cruiser line into
The tactical escort line and balance them out
I'n a proper way
People who want a heal boat can have it
People who want a cruiser can have it
Everyone is happy
Cannon is preserved
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I have written it a hundred and one times in just as many threads, Cryptic "pressed" starfleet ships into "roles" they just don't belong.
They invented a whole branch of superior ships, just because of one little hero ship (defiant). What about galaxy Class (cruisers) and intrepid class (science*), don't they deserve to be pictured as heroes too? *in "real" trek, the intrepid clearly was a long range or light crusier, but NOT a dedicated science ship.
What gave them the idea to make Crusiers the most boring and science a pointless gimick ship, compared to escorts?
You are absolutely right, as a cruiser you are just the nurse to those small, ulgy and overpowered buckets, which shouldn't existst in a Star Trek game at all, IMO. (or at least not in such numbers)
It makes me angry when i think how great this game could be, Cryptic had the chance to make a awesome Star Trek game, but they couldn't even implement the ships in a right way.
Even worse is the fact that they don't seem to recognize this problem at all!
They just ignore threads like this and go on with making Lockboxes and if they decide to listen to the community, they listen to people who have very little idea about Trek and just care about the MMO aspect of this game.
They never listen to things like Ship revamps or anything that would make this game and it's ships more like "real" trek.
It's sad to say that but the people in charge have no clue about how to make a believeable Star Trek game, they don't even admit they made a mistake in making crusiers the flying hospitals.
Don't get me wrong here, if this wheren't a Star Trek game it wouldn't be half as bad, but ships in Star Trek subject to other laws as ships in a generic Sci Fi universe.
That's where the devs fault lies. They didn't do the research, they just pressed Star Trek ships into a generic ship system.
5 of 6 Star Trek series had Cruiser type ships as Heroes, but Cryptic decided to make the only other ship the dominating ship typ in their game.
I just don't get that, sorry.
I would be glad, if a dev would be gracious enough to explain that to me.
Thank you for reading or ignoring, depending on who you are.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Ruining the game right......:rolleyes: TT is not required for tanking I don't use it and i tank just fine as long as put most power into shields, at the major bosses( tac cube and the borg scimitar) and gates, but other then those I can put most power in weapons...
But its highly powerful skill that allows people to not manually Redistribution shields, which is something you should be forced to watch while taking damage, causing you to loose focus on pure dps...
Eng Cruiser tanks need to be worthwhile in stfs... If a Tac escort can tank close to as well as a Eng cruiser whats the point of picking that specialty, 2nd stf's need to be altered slightly to encourage tank and healer play more. The dps race is rather escort sided and gets uninteresting quick.
What is it with you all and "Hero shps"? Deary me... and don't give me any of this "Star trek canon says..." I know full well what Star Trek canon states but this is a GAME and by that logic there should be NO "hero ship" but all ships with equal capacity to complete game content in different ways depending upon the players play style.
This dictates there should be no DPS race and no sponge all the damage and do no damage yourself (unless that's what you want to do).
The thing with escorts is they should be (not quite) glass cannons (they need to have a couple of heals so they can actually do their damage), science should do sci stuff and cruisers should be either DPS or tank or healer or other stuff or jack of all trades ships so they do all of the previously stated tasks (with a slight slant towards tanking) but should be out-performed in all these tasks by ANY ship build for it.
What is it with you all and "Hero shps"? Deary me... and don't give me any of this "Star trek canon says..." I know full well what Star Trek canon states but this is a GAME and by that logic there should be NO "hero ship" but all ships with equal capacity to complete game content in different ways depending upon the players play style.
The problem is that the devs see that different, they obviously like DS9 more than anything in Trek.
Thats why i brought up the term "hero ship". DS9 is not everyone favourite show (althrough it was very good one), so not everyone is necessarily a Escort fetishist.
My point is just as you said all ships should be equal in power (ALL ships are hero ships). Just read some previous pages and you will find more than enough argunments why Cruisers (and partly science Ships) are NOT on par with escorts.
Thank you for reading or ignoring, depending on who you are.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
My point is just as you said all ships should be equal in power. Just read some previous pages and you will find more than enough argunments why Cruisers (and partly science Ships) are NOT on par with escorts.
Have a look at this and you'll find (at least with the excelsior) the damage is wrong, full stop.
Cryptic needs to re-design the role of the Cruiser and design it properly. Right now is DPS is all anyone cares about. That's why most players play the escort now-a-days.
Cruisers should NOT just be a heal boat that can only tank and do no damage therefore no threat.
Cryptic needs to re-design the role of the Cruiser and design it properly. Right now is DPS is all anyone cares about. That's why most players play the escort now-a-days.
Cruisers should NOT just be a heal boat that can only tank and do no damage therefore no threat.
Roll a KDF char. Problem solved. There you get your less tank and more gank cruiser.
Other than that, you could get a tac oddy and the wideangle quantum torp from the Regent.
I won't use a Craptor anymore on Klingon side. Dies way too often in elite STF. Battlecruisers on the other hand have a way better balance between firepower and tank in PvE imo.
So no, burst damage isn't everything.
As mentioned previously, the devs are basing their escort worship on the USS Defiant, the "hero" ship of DS9. I always thought it was funny that THE ship specifically designed to fight the Borg was such a small thing.
The Borg was Starfleet's most powerful enemy and their smallest ships(spheres - probes hadn't been seen as of yet to my knowledge) were even larger than Starfleets biggest vessels; the cubes were monstrous - many times the size of Starfleet's largest ships. One would logically presume that a ship designed to specifically counter these behemoths would also have to be huge, powerful and as technically advanced as possible. Yet we see the opposite - a ship one-twentieth the size of Starfleets largest ship with a crew of 50. Special pulsed cannons, ablative armor, regenerative shielding, cloak, etc... I don't care; the Borg would have made minced meat out of this ship in seconds.
I think the reason the Defiant was made so small was due to the logistics of the series it was introduced in, DS9. Sisko apparently had a hand in designing it at Utopia Planitia, which made it quite convenient for him to ask for it to use against the new Dominion threat. But DS9 was not a Federation starbase, far from it. It was a relatively small(as starbases go) ex-Cardassian outpost that was in orbit around Bajor, technically a Bajoran station with some administrative help from the Federation. There were not enough Federation crewman and officers on the station 24/7 to man a large Starship. And you know the whiny Bajorans would have never allowed Starfleet to keep a permanent 1000-2000 man crew stationed on DS9 to man a large starship. So the Defiant HAD to be made small in order for it to be plausible that Sisko, Dax, O'Brien, Kira, Worf and a few other nameless Federation hacks, that happened to be sitting in Quarks playing Dabo, could hop in it at a moments notice and fill all the required stations.
So the next time your in an Elite STF in your mammoth underpowered cruiser watching a tiny escort deliver an inordinate and implausible amount of massive damage from it's diminutive frame, remember who to blame. Whiny Bajorans.
The concept behind the defiant was to
Pack the most firepower with the smallest
Crew I'n the cheapest hull that could take
Punishment
It was to be mass produced and used as
A anti Borg invasion warship to protect
Interior federation worlds
It was and is a great ship to fill that role
It has no long range endurance because none
Is needed for it's mission it's always I'n orbit or
I'n system of what it is assigned to protect.
It is a warship with a single mission
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
The concept behind the defiant was to
Pack the most firepower with the smallest
Crew I'n the cheapest hull that could take
Punishment
It was to be mass produced and used as
A anti Borg invasion warship to protect
Interior federation worlds
It was and is a great ship to fill that role
It has no long range endurance because none
Is needed for it's mission it's always I'n orbit or
I'n system of what it is assigned to protect.
It is a warship with a single mission
I understand what ur saying. My point is that the "small specific missioned warship" design was necessary due the logistics of DS9. If you look on Wikipedia it states the designers wanted a "beefed-up" runabout because they were getting tired of the cramped runabout sets on DS9. But they could not plausibly write a proper, large starship into DS9(the logistics of the show would not allow this). So the small, cheaper, mission minded warship was an after-effect of this situation. Had DS9 been screenwritten as a large Federation Space Sation or Spacedock in orbit above Bajor, the Defiant would be totally different, in fact, it probably would not exist. They most likely would have just retrofitted an existing Galaxy or Sovereign Class with a Spinal Lance or some such other advanced weaponry if they really wanted to create THE anti-Borg vessel.
Cryptic needs to re-design the role of the Cruiser and design it properly. Right now is DPS is all anyone cares about. That's why most players play the escort now-a-days.
Cruisers should NOT just be a heal boat that can only tank and do no damage therefore no threat.
I am doing good dps in my Oddy Tac criuser eqiuped with cannons and turrets as well as q torps.It is not just the criuser it the BO you use on them.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Age StarTrek-Gamers Administrator
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer Star Trek Gamers
since any ship from z-store can be bought without even spending 1 cent...i suppose you just need to play the game and eventually you can buy a "p2w" ship after atleast 1 month playing.
and the assault cruiser, is not even that bad for dealing dmg. If you go with a starcruiser and expect to deal good dmg aswell, it is simply a case of bad decission.
making 90 million on the exchange isn't even that hard, if you follow some guids and common sense. Thats enough to buy a really good cruiser for playing a DD in a cruiser.
let me make a quick calculation here. 3 char slots making together 8k-9k dilithium (atleast 2k only for the foundry and academy daily) per day. meaning about 50 zen per day.
lets say you do some stfs on weekends bringing your weekly pensum to about 75-80k dilithium. that means you earn 500 zen per week, not investing more than 10 hours a week.
after a little over a month you can actually afford a new ship, without playing too much and/or having more than the initial 3 chars.
I didn't even count the drops from stfs that eventually will be sold for dilithium once you got what you want.
also just standing at the exchange for a few hours on weekend will eventually result in giant profits. Or you can just get some doff packages from your fleetbase and sell those common doffs on the exchange...the cheapest go for 30k, some for nearly 200k.
if you are lucky or know the exchange you can make 90 millions in a matter of days.
so is this game p2w? Yes, but the "P" stands for "play" and "pay"
Why should a Galaxy more powerful than an Defiant?
A Galaxy is so big because it needs to be self sustained for 5years +.
It's room for it's rather large science department. They need a lot of power.
It needs room the large supercomputers for the science depart. AND Power
It needs room for all the scientist.
It needs room for their family.
It needs room for the staff running just a huge room.
AND their family.
Versus the Defiant
Weapons with an big engine and some armor to keep it together.
And DS9 established that an Defiant is more than a match for the Excelsior Class.
But yeah, Escorts are too tanky at the moment. Reduce that and you need more cruisers in STF's to heal the escorts or tank the enemy.
So, reduce engi boff slots on Escorts and give cruisers a aggro boost.
Problem solved for STF's.
PVP ... well that's another beast. I personally think that balance in PVP is nearly impossible with an game engine that uses different classes, skills an equipment.
And DS9 established that an Defiant is more than a match for the Excelsior Class.
Sorry to burst your Defiant loving bubble but had said Excelsior class ship used more than 2 of her phaser banks and ANY of her torpedo launchers there wouldn't have been a Defiant left and the Lakota would only have suffered minor damage and a few casualties if any
Better would be an redesign of certain skills and mechanics like TT an EptS.
Because I'm either a really worthless Cruiser pilot or my Escort is really sturdy :cool:
Meh, its a silly solution at best and solves nothing.
With a Ensign in Engineering you relegate the Escort to basically little to no BOff defense against attack and it will push the design of escorts into speed tanking (very high engine power and constant ApO cycling to maintain highest possible bonus defense stats) or rapid resist stacking in hopes of surviving.
You will make the escort more than a glass-cannon, you will make the escort the one-shot/ one attempt weapon and have all those players currently flying escorts regulated to an existance of attempting a single shot from surprise and if it doesn't score a kill, run and try again later. Giving no ability to loiter in combat or dogfight.
All becuase a subsection of the fanbase believes at thier core the Cruiser should be the prefered vessel to play and all others secondary. All becuase of hubris.
Oh for the love of god...
Enough with the Lakota vs Defiant... That horse has been beaten so many times it doesn't even look like a bloody horse anymore...
Cruisers aren't supposed to be damage dealers. And if you want a DD, sorry to say, go escort (throws up again). And as for no p2w? Yeah, you die more often. Eventually you'll get tired of it (like me), pick up the oddy 3 pack/regent/something (like me), and be much happier (like me). Love my oddy lol.
And as for the comment on the tankiness of escorts? Yeah, they are a mite too sturdy atm, but tbh, not much will be done. So you kinda just gotta go with it.
Why is this thread still going? It's getting to the point were even the OP thinks it's silly XD.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
All becuase a subsection of the fanbase believes at thier core the Cruiser should be the prefered vessel to play and all others secondary.
You mean like a subsection of the fanbase believes at THEIR core the Escort should be the preferred vessel to play and all others secondary and the same with a subsection of the fanbase and the Science ships?
Yes I did just flip your argument on it's head and use it against you.
I for one am fed up of this. It's time to end the DPS race for a start, give all ships the ability to deal damage in their own way and for no 1 ship to be so powerful as to make the others look completely incompetent, enough is enough, tac career buffs should not buff EVERYTHING, the borg set is overpowered (hence tank/scorts), sci powers should have some strength to them, eng/cruisrs should not pay both damage AND movement for healing.
Ok, having said that, I'll express my opinion on the order of most damage to least damage dealing power.
1: Escorts, they've been set up for it, they have the most powerful weapons, anyone who denies this needs to look again
2: Cruisers: They have the most weapon slots but need a slight boost, this or escorts need to be brought down a little so that sci ships and cruisers aren't made incompetent for damage
3: Science: They (should) have debuffs and CC to hold their targets and reduce their defence etc to deal damage and keep up with the other two.
I personally think escorts should do a lot of spike damage but low sustained so they have to pick their targets, direction and timing carefully to be effective.
Cruisers should do brute force damage, sit and do med-high damage output (by use of broadside) sustained by their power management allowing them to bring shields down and deal heavy, brute force, damage. This could be compensated for by a lower rate of fire, they WOULD NOT however be the primary DDs, that falls to tac/scorts, cruisers would be able to deal good straight damage allowing them to focus more in their allies while dealing with enemies and keeping the pressure on enemies while escorts wait for their moments.
Science would be putting debuffs on their targets to keep them down and facilitate the cruisers damage dealing capacity, this would affect themselves and escorts also while in PvP they would be playing with their targets.
Again, no ship would be so powerful as to make the others look bad but at the same time they would all rely on one another, escorts would rely on cruisers to keep a target busy and prep the target their next pass, cruisers would rely on escorts to deal the primary damage and rely on science to keep the target debuffed so they too can do damage to it, science would rely on escorts to do damage and escorts would rely on science in the same way as cruisers. On top of this everyone would rely on cruisers for heals as escorts would be glass cannons and science don't carry many heals anyway.
from what i have seen in game true escorts are king of DPS but they usually do it in bursts of high powered offence before they have to set up again. crusiers on the other hand if you keep the power on weapons up you can deliver a high amount of sustained DPS on a target for way longer than a escort. Crusiers are designed to wear an enemy down by shrugging off hits. Escorts while they can do this they don't really have the healing abilities a crusier has to keep up longevity in combat so they are usually forced to leave early if they sustain too much damage. and in game crusers can tank 10 ships for a good amount of time i have done this myself in the terran incursion even under torpedo spam you can hold on due to your HP. i say crusiers and escorts have their own niches of combat in which both do very well at. i think people are just want to see crusiers just overwhelm enemies with as much DPS as a escort. they are not going to get that nor is the escort going to have as many healing powers as a crusier. And i have gone on a long discussion hope you find my results interesting.
Comments
During the Fed missions, the Cruisers lack of overall power was not that apparent as the mission NPC's left a great deal to be desired. But once I reached endgame and started STF's, my jaw literally dropped. I have my Odyssey decked out with 6 Mk XII Polaron very rare anti Borg beam arrays, and fore and aft Mk XII quantum anti Borg torpedoes. I have all rare dual EPS, neutronium, borg subspace modulator, Borg subtranswarp engine, MACO MK XII deflector, Borg regenerative shield, rare shield field generator, 2 rare Polaron tactical capacitors, etc... By all accounts, my build should be a tank and fighting machine.
Yet I go into STF's(and even with buffs and debuffs out the wazoo and fairly well honed tactical skills) I see these tiny tactical escorts(which are 1/20th the size of me and whose warp cores are producing at least 2 order's of magnitude less energy than me) taking out spheres, nanite generators, transformers, gates, cubes with relative ease and with hundreds fewer shots than I. This is just not right. That would be like sending a light US Naval frigate into to the Straights of Hormuz to fight the entire Iranian fleet while the US battleships and Carriers waited back 50 miles away and fired their 18 inch cannons and caused barely a scratch in the Iranian ship's paint jobs.
Cerainly there is a role for tac escorts in STO, but nothing like the role they currently fill. There is a reason they are called "ESCORTS". They are supposed to accompany the larger cruisers, carriers, etc... into battle and provide support fire and mobility to the fleet. They are certainly not meant to be the Lionshare of the fleets firepower. Cruisers are built to be big and do BIG damage, the price they pay for this is a relative lack of mobility. One beam array on a large Cruiser(like the galaxy, odyssey, star cruiser, or sovereign) should theoretically be putting out more energy per shot than the entire energy output of all the weapons, engines, and aux systems of an escort combined.
There is a reason that Large Cruisers are always the Flagships of fleets. They are large, they are by far the most powerful and they are undoubtedly the most feared by the enemy.
Without question, PW/Cryptic should crank up the power/DPS to ALL large cruiser beam arrays by a factor of 2,3 even 4( yes, cruiser beam arrays should do THE MOST damage of any beam or cannon - simply because the arrays are powered by behemoth warp cores.) Also, the cycle time of torpedoes fired from large cruisers should be MUCH shorter and more torpedoes should be able to be fired at any one time by large cruisers(torpedo spread or not). This would bring the game in line with both Star Trek canon as well as physics(I.e. if your ship is generating 10-100 times more power, this should be reflected in it's tactical capabilities).
So the next time you're the captain of a Galaxy, Sovereign or Odyssey in the midst of an elite STF, and you look over and aside of you is a tactical escort one-twentieth your size completely and easily obliterating a Borg Raptor, Negh'var , sphere or cube with 5 or 6 shots; while you are hammering away with 5 beams at a time per second and doing little to no damage - remember this post and thread.
Into a worthless profession ( engineer )
I'n a STO weak ship
I think the devs at STO have a wicked warped
Sense of humor and a genuine hate for
Cannon Starfleet vessels
Nothing else can explain it
Start a new Tac character and then you can
Have a little fun I'n the stfs with your cruiser
Your engineer should get into a escort if you
Want to do any damage
Your role some will say is fleet healer and
Diaper changer for those little ships
They also want you to waste skill points I'n threat
Generation so everything shoots at you while they
Lay back and kill it with there tiny ships with your
Big guns
It's a really backwards sick system they
Use here sorta like a old dungeons and dragons
Adventure party I'n space
Not star trek at all
Tac escorts are the warriors 2 axes no armor
Science are the wizards a broken wand
Engineers are the priests a broken staff and full plate armor
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Are you going to do decent damage mounting torps on an oddy, other than the 180' torp I don't think so.
Run 8 beams, run 2 copies of eptws, dem2 or 3. Don't spam click all your abilities at once, use synergies instead. Want to help burn down a generator fast? Pop Nadion and get pointblank while broadside. Pop Dem with eps and eptw and hose the snot out of nanite probes with Bfaw.
At any given time an engineer will have something to midigate weapon power drain as long as that engineer is towing the line with synergies. With the right boffs and skills an engineer can tank the tac cube and the gate at the same time on elite and never touch miracle worker...I've done it.
Brody
This is a good list. It sure seems strange to me that the flagship class is being dumped for mass produced escort class ships. Your cruiser should be able to take several of those "tough little ships" (Yes Worf, Little!!!) I mean just think of the time and resources needed to build even one starfleet cruiser... It really is not a stretch for me to envision the science and tac ships to be treated as something half way to a shuttle in this game, "select a medium ship" for some special types of missions... I digress...
Could this cruiser problem be addressed at least in part from another direction? I have long thought it would be nice to add various types of synergies to the game. For example, certain bonuses when teams have all 3 classes of ships. Perhaps just having a big state of the art pride of the fleet cruiser in a team could give some type of bonus to the Tac ships assisting it in battling the borg. Perhaps their could be special consoles for cruiser that game a slight team bonus as well as a bonus for the ship itself.
Perhaps there could be only cruiser devices. Does anyone else think it odd that a tiny escort can send off fighters just as easily as a giant cruiser?
There is also the "take command of the fleet" history in Star Trek. Think Battle of Sector 001. Now think about EQ2 and the battle wheel. Perhaps cruisers could issue attack plans that if followed in time would be of some great benefit.
I really have no idea about how hard coding or game balance is to achieve. I just wish that things could be set up so that it is not only uncouth to go off into space without a cruiser but just down right silly...
A fleet tender class
Give this class all the jobs currently heaped
On cruisers add fighters and corvetts
All the little tank and heal jobs they want from
Cruisers now give to them
Put the Cannon ships from the cruiser line into
The tactical escort line and balance them out
I'n a proper way
People who want a heal boat can have it
People who want a cruiser can have it
Everyone is happy
Cannon is preserved
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I have written it a hundred and one times in just as many threads, Cryptic "pressed" starfleet ships into "roles" they just don't belong.
They invented a whole branch of superior ships, just because of one little hero ship (defiant). What about galaxy Class (cruisers) and intrepid class (science*), don't they deserve to be pictured as heroes too?
*in "real" trek, the intrepid clearly was a long range or light crusier, but NOT a dedicated science ship.
What gave them the idea to make Crusiers the most boring and science a pointless gimick ship, compared to escorts?
You are absolutely right, as a cruiser you are just the nurse to those small, ulgy and overpowered buckets, which shouldn't existst in a Star Trek game at all, IMO.
(or at least not in such numbers)
It makes me angry when i think how great this game could be, Cryptic had the chance to make a awesome Star Trek game, but they couldn't even implement the ships in a right way.
Even worse is the fact that they don't seem to recognize this problem at all!
They just ignore threads like this and go on with making Lockboxes and if they decide to listen to the community, they listen to people who have very little idea about Trek and just care about the MMO aspect of this game.
They never listen to things like Ship revamps or anything that would make this game and it's ships more like "real" trek.
It's sad to say that but the people in charge have no clue about how to make a believeable Star Trek game, they don't even admit they made a mistake in making crusiers the flying hospitals.
Don't get me wrong here, if this wheren't a Star Trek game it wouldn't be half as bad, but ships in Star Trek subject to other laws as ships in a generic Sci Fi universe.
That's where the devs fault lies. They didn't do the research, they just pressed Star Trek ships into a generic ship system.
5 of 6 Star Trek series had Cruiser type ships as Heroes, but Cryptic decided to make the only other ship the dominating ship typ in their game.
I just don't get that, sorry.
I would be glad, if a dev would be gracious enough to explain that to me.
Thank you for reading or ignoring, depending on who you are.
Ruining the game right......:rolleyes: TT is not required for tanking I don't use it and i tank just fine as long as put most power into shields, at the major bosses( tac cube and the borg scimitar) and gates, but other then those I can put most power in weapons...
But its highly powerful skill that allows people to not manually Redistribution shields, which is something you should be forced to watch while taking damage, causing you to loose focus on pure dps...
Eng Cruiser tanks need to be worthwhile in stfs... If a Tac escort can tank close to as well as a Eng cruiser whats the point of picking that specialty, 2nd stf's need to be altered slightly to encourage tank and healer play more. The dps race is rather escort sided and gets uninteresting quick.
This dictates there should be no DPS race and no sponge all the damage and do no damage yourself (unless that's what you want to do).
The thing with escorts is they should be (not quite) glass cannons (they need to have a couple of heals so they can actually do their damage), science should do sci stuff and cruisers should be either DPS or tank or healer or other stuff or jack of all trades ships so they do all of the previously stated tasks (with a slight slant towards tanking) but should be out-performed in all these tasks by ANY ship build for it.
Thats why i brought up the term "hero ship". DS9 is not everyone favourite show (althrough it was very good one), so not everyone is necessarily a Escort fetishist.
My point is just as you said all ships should be equal in power (ALL ships are hero ships). Just read some previous pages and you will find more than enough argunments why Cruisers (and partly science Ships) are NOT on par with escorts.
Thank you for reading or ignoring, depending on who you are.
Have a look at this and you'll find (at least with the excelsior) the damage is wrong, full stop.
So i don't know what's going on here
Cruisers should NOT just be a heal boat that can only tank and do no damage therefore no threat.
Roll a KDF char. Problem solved. There you get your less tank and more gank cruiser.
Other than that, you could get a tac oddy and the wideangle quantum torp from the Regent.
I won't use a Craptor anymore on Klingon side. Dies way too often in elite STF. Battlecruisers on the other hand have a way better balance between firepower and tank in PvE imo.
So no, burst damage isn't everything.
The Borg was Starfleet's most powerful enemy and their smallest ships(spheres - probes hadn't been seen as of yet to my knowledge) were even larger than Starfleets biggest vessels; the cubes were monstrous - many times the size of Starfleet's largest ships. One would logically presume that a ship designed to specifically counter these behemoths would also have to be huge, powerful and as technically advanced as possible. Yet we see the opposite - a ship one-twentieth the size of Starfleets largest ship with a crew of 50. Special pulsed cannons, ablative armor, regenerative shielding, cloak, etc... I don't care; the Borg would have made minced meat out of this ship in seconds.
I think the reason the Defiant was made so small was due to the logistics of the series it was introduced in, DS9. Sisko apparently had a hand in designing it at Utopia Planitia, which made it quite convenient for him to ask for it to use against the new Dominion threat. But DS9 was not a Federation starbase, far from it. It was a relatively small(as starbases go) ex-Cardassian outpost that was in orbit around Bajor, technically a Bajoran station with some administrative help from the Federation. There were not enough Federation crewman and officers on the station 24/7 to man a large Starship. And you know the whiny Bajorans would have never allowed Starfleet to keep a permanent 1000-2000 man crew stationed on DS9 to man a large starship. So the Defiant HAD to be made small in order for it to be plausible that Sisko, Dax, O'Brien, Kira, Worf and a few other nameless Federation hacks, that happened to be sitting in Quarks playing Dabo, could hop in it at a moments notice and fill all the required stations.
So the next time your in an Elite STF in your mammoth underpowered cruiser watching a tiny escort deliver an inordinate and implausible amount of massive damage from it's diminutive frame, remember who to blame. Whiny Bajorans.
Pack the most firepower with the smallest
Crew I'n the cheapest hull that could take
Punishment
It was to be mass produced and used as
A anti Borg invasion warship to protect
Interior federation worlds
It was and is a great ship to fill that role
It has no long range endurance because none
Is needed for it's mission it's always I'n orbit or
I'n system of what it is assigned to protect.
It is a warship with a single mission
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I understand what ur saying. My point is that the "small specific missioned warship" design was necessary due the logistics of DS9. If you look on Wikipedia it states the designers wanted a "beefed-up" runabout because they were getting tired of the cramped runabout sets on DS9. But they could not plausibly write a proper, large starship into DS9(the logistics of the show would not allow this). So the small, cheaper, mission minded warship was an after-effect of this situation. Had DS9 been screenwritten as a large Federation Space Sation or Spacedock in orbit above Bajor, the Defiant would be totally different, in fact, it probably would not exist. They most likely would have just retrofitted an existing Galaxy or Sovereign Class with a Spinal Lance or some such other advanced weaponry if they really wanted to create THE anti-Borg vessel.
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
And those of us who don't fly P2W?
since any ship from z-store can be bought without even spending 1 cent...i suppose you just need to play the game and eventually you can buy a "p2w" ship after atleast 1 month playing.
and the assault cruiser, is not even that bad for dealing dmg. If you go with a starcruiser and expect to deal good dmg aswell, it is simply a case of bad decission.
making 90 million on the exchange isn't even that hard, if you follow some guids and common sense. Thats enough to buy a really good cruiser for playing a DD in a cruiser.
let me make a quick calculation here. 3 char slots making together 8k-9k dilithium (atleast 2k only for the foundry and academy daily) per day. meaning about 50 zen per day.
lets say you do some stfs on weekends bringing your weekly pensum to about 75-80k dilithium. that means you earn 500 zen per week, not investing more than 10 hours a week.
after a little over a month you can actually afford a new ship, without playing too much and/or having more than the initial 3 chars.
I didn't even count the drops from stfs that eventually will be sold for dilithium once you got what you want.
also just standing at the exchange for a few hours on weekend will eventually result in giant profits. Or you can just get some doff packages from your fleetbase and sell those common doffs on the exchange...the cheapest go for 30k, some for nearly 200k.
if you are lucky or know the exchange you can make 90 millions in a matter of days.
so is this game p2w? Yes, but the "P" stands for "play" and "pay"
We can shut up and die.
And yes, I'm not flying P2W either.
No, you'll just die a little more often. :P
Why should a Galaxy more powerful than an Defiant?
A Galaxy is so big because it needs to be self sustained for 5years +.
It's room for it's rather large science department. They need a lot of power.
It needs room the large supercomputers for the science depart. AND Power
It needs room for all the scientist.
It needs room for their family.
It needs room for the staff running just a huge room.
AND their family.
Versus the Defiant
Weapons with an big engine and some armor to keep it together.
And DS9 established that an Defiant is more than a match for the Excelsior Class.
So, reduce engi boff slots on Escorts and give cruisers a aggro boost.
Problem solved for STF's.
PVP ... well that's another beast. I personally think that balance in PVP is nearly impossible with an game engine that uses different classes, skills an equipment.
Really, reduce the standard escort LT engineer BOff slot down to Ensign?
R.I.P
Better would be an redesign of certain skills and mechanics like TT an EptS.
Because I'm either a really worthless Cruiser pilot or my Escort is really sturdy :cool:
The Lakota was pulling its punches :P
Sorry to burst your Defiant loving bubble but had said Excelsior class ship used more than 2 of her phaser banks and ANY of her torpedo launchers there wouldn't have been a Defiant left and the Lakota would only have suffered minor damage and a few casualties if any
See this for the Lakota's specs
Meh, its a silly solution at best and solves nothing.
With a Ensign in Engineering you relegate the Escort to basically little to no BOff defense against attack and it will push the design of escorts into speed tanking (very high engine power and constant ApO cycling to maintain highest possible bonus defense stats) or rapid resist stacking in hopes of surviving.
You will make the escort more than a glass-cannon, you will make the escort the one-shot/ one attempt weapon and have all those players currently flying escorts regulated to an existance of attempting a single shot from surprise and if it doesn't score a kill, run and try again later. Giving no ability to loiter in combat or dogfight.
All becuase a subsection of the fanbase believes at thier core the Cruiser should be the prefered vessel to play and all others secondary. All becuase of hubris.
R.I.P
Enough with the Lakota vs Defiant... That horse has been beaten so many times it doesn't even look like a bloody horse anymore...
Cruisers aren't supposed to be damage dealers. And if you want a DD, sorry to say, go escort (throws up again). And as for no p2w? Yeah, you die more often. Eventually you'll get tired of it (like me), pick up the oddy 3 pack/regent/something (like me), and be much happier (like me). Love my oddy lol.
And as for the comment on the tankiness of escorts? Yeah, they are a mite too sturdy atm, but tbh, not much will be done. So you kinda just gotta go with it.
Why is this thread still going? It's getting to the point were even the OP thinks it's silly XD.
You mean like a subsection of the fanbase believes at THEIR core the Escort should be the preferred vessel to play and all others secondary and the same with a subsection of the fanbase and the Science ships?
Yes I did just flip your argument on it's head and use it against you.
I for one am fed up of this. It's time to end the DPS race for a start, give all ships the ability to deal damage in their own way and for no 1 ship to be so powerful as to make the others look completely incompetent, enough is enough, tac career buffs should not buff EVERYTHING, the borg set is overpowered (hence tank/scorts), sci powers should have some strength to them, eng/cruisrs should not pay both damage AND movement for healing.
Ok, having said that, I'll express my opinion on the order of most damage to least damage dealing power.
1: Escorts, they've been set up for it, they have the most powerful weapons, anyone who denies this needs to look again
2: Cruisers: They have the most weapon slots but need a slight boost, this or escorts need to be brought down a little so that sci ships and cruisers aren't made incompetent for damage
3: Science: They (should) have debuffs and CC to hold their targets and reduce their defence etc to deal damage and keep up with the other two.
I personally think escorts should do a lot of spike damage but low sustained so they have to pick their targets, direction and timing carefully to be effective.
Cruisers should do brute force damage, sit and do med-high damage output (by use of broadside) sustained by their power management allowing them to bring shields down and deal heavy, brute force, damage. This could be compensated for by a lower rate of fire, they WOULD NOT however be the primary DDs, that falls to tac/scorts, cruisers would be able to deal good straight damage allowing them to focus more in their allies while dealing with enemies and keeping the pressure on enemies while escorts wait for their moments.
Science would be putting debuffs on their targets to keep them down and facilitate the cruisers damage dealing capacity, this would affect themselves and escorts also while in PvP they would be playing with their targets.
Again, no ship would be so powerful as to make the others look bad but at the same time they would all rely on one another, escorts would rely on cruisers to keep a target busy and prep the target their next pass, cruisers would rely on escorts to deal the primary damage and rely on science to keep the target debuffed so they too can do damage to it, science would rely on escorts to do damage and escorts would rely on science in the same way as cruisers. On top of this everyone would rely on cruisers for heals as escorts would be glass cannons and science don't carry many heals anyway.