To not slot the maximum number of Energy weapon Tactical consoles that your ship can have? Particularly on escorts.
Back when I started playing early on in the year and right up to when I took a 3 month hiatus, the rule of thumb was for all of your tac consoles to buff your selected energy weapon. But now it seems like a LOT of people are dropping a console or two and slotting Torpedo consoles.
When and why did this start happening? I just don't get it
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My KDF Sci flys a Peghqu' which has 4 x Tac slots and the DTS console sits in one of them for two reasons:
a) I need both Sci slots for Field Generators as the Peghqu' seems to have paper-thin shields.
b) Plasmonic Leech is a great universal console, particularly for Science builds that are weapons power heavy (as mine is) - so that goes in an Eng slot.
At first I had 4 x Disruptor Induction Coils but was pulling aggro way too much (which my Sci setup wasn't really equipped to deal with) so I sacrificed a Tac slot and have become a good deal more sturdy (and subsequently useful in STFs) since.
Rationales may vary but if you use torps (with say, THY) then sacrificing one energy console that's contributing very little for another that contributes a lot may not be a bad strategy.
Couldn't agree more!
Brace yourself, but I put fore and aft torp launchers on my cruiser LE GASP! :eek:
But I like it
i often use items for the "visual" effect because it makes the game more fun. you are absolutely correct about it not always being dps.
i love the way a good torpedo spread looks and i switch torps around to keep if fresh.
i don't slot torp consoles in my tac though.
great post.
I could be wrong but the last time i check the consules do not have a diminishing return. equip one at a time and you will see that each one adds the same amount of damage, and that is baased off of base damage of the weapon being used not he boofed or skills dumped into weapons.
Interesting to know but doesn't change the fact that additional DPS on a single weapon type may be perceived as 'overkill' which in my experience with the Chimera, Peghqu' and Defiant Retrofit in PvE, it almost certainly is.
And let's face it, Tacs get most of their awesome DPS spikes from APA and other skills.
*Edit* I will note as a personal preference though, that if it's viable to slot max Tac consoles I will - in the case of the Sci/Peghqu' it was counter-productive and since the ship is diminished by losing the DTS console, the Tac slots were the only place it could go.
^^^ exactly this. With a side of this ^^^
you can never have too much dps...
brilliant how you defend your gimped setup...
Also, TCDs. Even a mid level console boosts it 25% or so. That's 25% of a MASSIVE boom. That takes a 17000 damage mine to 21250 damage. That's a BIG improvement.
So sometimes breaking the chain of "all same weapons consoles" can be a smart move.
DPS doesn't matter if your ship blows up. If you are building something other than a glass cannon escort, the tactical slots become where you slot things like universal consoles instead of the sci and eng slots.
Exactly, Several of my characters have an Armatage or Chimera fitted for STF runs that uses 3 energy and 1 (photon) torpedo console. On Kang defense I can take out the shields of the attacking ships with CSV then fire several torpedo spreads to kill them at a decent range.
Right, so tiny increments added to a figure that runs into the thousands. I have to laugh at people who refuse to run a single torpedo console because they MUST equip all energy weapon consoles in the tactical slots. :rolleyes:
90 doesn't seem like much, and having all of the buffs would probably put it around 150-200 DPS. That's for one DHC.
I run 4 DHCs in the fore, so, that's about 800 more DPS total. Then add the 3 turrets I have on the aft, and that would be a probable total of over 1,000.
So, yes, it can make a difference.
Lol @ 'gimped'
And remember - this is a Sci ship - one that out-aggros most escorts when I PuG with it
Out of pure curiosity, could you post you entire setup. BOFF skills and doffs included?
Sure - I'll stick in on the skills planner in a little while
But adding in that extra torp console can make life very interesting. Take for example the Photon Torpedo console. At a decent mk level, it gives +26.2% extra damage. The ONLY ship I run that on is my Qin heavy raptor. And for one reason only. KHG space set. It already gives me +25% torp damage, so I add on that exra 26.2% and suddenly my torps do 51.2% damage. Also the Qin has that extra ensign. Bleh. Be that as it may, that console actually ADDS to my dps. Especially because I have purple Projectile Weapons Officers which means I TRIBBLE torps all day long. So in that particular case (not all cases mind you), that photon console actually adds more DPS than another disruptor induction coil.
And of course, torps are always fun. I mean they are great for killing things like gateways, transformers, anything without shields, some things with shields... etc. I often find more amusement watching a torp spread 1 followed by a THY1 than I do with a CRF1. And tbh torps are great for huge burstage. Especially when you fire off 5 of them in quick succession courtesy of DOffs and all of them crit for around 30k (gotta love APA3).
Here you go: Peghqu' Science STF build
It's a little light on the science with only the Grav Well on the Boffs but it puts out some great DPS and of course has all the Captain science skills available - more than capable of protecting the Kang solo in CSE.
My other main ship is a Kar'fi which I've also built for manoeuvrability and DHC DPS - the Kar'fi has the benefit of a Cmdr. Sci station though so I get to use TBR or TR3 as well (at the expense of the Tac skills).
*Edit* Oh, and no Doffs on this yet - the character is still working on her Doff collection
Yeah, pretty much sums it up. I have every T5 and T5+ cruiser in Game. Each one has a different build, not to make it better then others, but just to be different.
Yeah folks... remember...
no feeding the trolls...
Instead, I have as many unique consoles as I can fit:
Assimilated Console,
Grappler from the NX-01,
Impulse Capacitance Cell,
Isometric Charge console,
Cloak console,
Automated Defense Turret,
Point Defense System,
and I think I'm missing one or two, but I forget what.
I've only recently started playing PvP on STO. After my first match, I came out of it having out-damaged everyone else in the arena. One of my teammates commented and told me that I wouldn't stand a chance against a properly specced cruiser, so I challenged him. It was a tougher match, sure, but I still got him.
Last week, I was pulled into a PvP match against a team from another fleet, and in the first match I came out rated second in overall damage (and only some 2-3000 total damage behind the leader), and first in the second match. Both times, I had nearly double the damage dealt by everyone else on the map (apart from the guy who beat me on damage in our first match).
As I said, I'm pretty limited in my PvP experience in STO, so can anyone tell me, in a 15-kill space match, is 500,000 damage good? Or 750,000 damage in a 20-kill match?
But, anyways, my point is you don't need to stack consoles on top of each other for good damage.
lol! I love it!
Must be a lot of fun to fly
My own particular 'niche' in STO is taking ships (and professions) that aren't DPS-biased and trying to squeeze the maximum possible damage out of them without sacrificing (too much) their class strengths.
My Fed Tac predominantly flies an Excelsior which gets great DPS and can soak up damage like you wouldn't believe.
My KDF Eng flies a B'rel which has been outfitted to do the maximum possible damage an Eng can do whilst still retaining good survivability.
My Sci is similar - specced to deal huge amounts of DPS (for a Sci) but without sacrificing too much of the fun Sci stuff.
Whilst the focus is generally on damage-dealing, it's important to me that all these ships can be self-sufficient so if I have to, I'll sacrifice (a little) firepower to make a build that feels right.
Impressive! Only thing I would change was the Lt. Cmdr skill of the Cmdr to CSV2 instead of CRF2. In combination with GW it helps against crowds.
When it comes to energy weapons, I'm much more interested in the tactical uses of EB than raw DPS.
I favor hit-and-run tactics over sustained park-and-shoot or broadsides, but I don't like escorts 'cause I don't like their low survivability. I dunno, I guess a lot of my early experiences in the game taught me to value a defensively balanced build, soooo... cruiser. Anyway, I'm a Sci flying a T5 Excelsior, with polaron cannons up front, and polaron turrets in back in order to maximize forward facing energy bonus chance, and one each of tricobalt mine and tricobalt torp in aft slots. Tac console slots are 2 tricobalt and 1 assimilated module.
The whole thing is built around dive bombing runs: I use the polaron EB to crack an enemies shields and gimp their subsystems on the charge in before laying a couple high yeald eggs in their lap and hitting "evasive maneuvers" to skedaddle back out of range in one swoop*. It takes more than one run to kill really big enemies, but the polaron EB spam keeps them from chasing, returning fire, or regenerating at their proper level while I recharge for the next run.
That's the basics, a least, without getting into the boff abilities or devices I use in this.
Maybe not the heaviest of heavies, but heavy enough to solo Elite STF cubes, so I'm satisfied.
*It's actually kind of hilarious now that I think about it: I must look like a total Leroy to other players who don't know what I'm doing.
i just could have made a point and give some calculations why the second resi console was BS and a 4th disruptor console was way better for his build...but i didn't, because i do not care that much.
anyway, his decission to equip his ship as he wants...i do not want to change what he thinks about his build, but it is not optimal. period.
anyway, why stack a console that only is actually working when the shields are gone and has already a diminishing return on the second console that cuts about a third of it's usefullness...and not stack a forth that boosts all 7 of his weapons by about 70 dps each, is constantly usefull and has 0 diminishing return?
Thanks! I did have CSV for a little while for exactly that reason but it felt a little weak compared with the focused fire of CRF (in comparison with a Tac, there's just not enough to buff it for it to really work for me). The only thing I really miss is a Tractor Beam - I had one for a while but the Peghqu' really needs those hull and shield healing abilities to cope with damage.
Because if I build it the way you'd suggest (which I have - that was my initial build for a while) it's just too fragile. There's a 'tipping point' between offence and defence with this ship/build and that Disruptor Coil/Neutronium Alloy was it - and unless you fly the same build in the same configurations you'll never 'get' it.
Sure, I could've lost the Plasmonic Leech but this is still a Sci ship, even if I run with high weapons power, the Leech buffs my Aux levels nicely in combat which means I'm not completely gimping my Sci skills in order to put out more DPS - note also that I'm specced into Flow Caps and I'm using the Omega set for the Tetryon Glider.
Is it the optimal setup? I very much doubt it, but what it does it does very well - it puts out more than respectable damage, doesn't TRIBBLE up my Sci skills, can take a big hit without popping - that's what I call a balanced build and they're the kind that are (to me at least) the most fun to fly.