Depends on the variables. What captain classes ar invovled? Do both sides specifically equip boff powers for the task?
For example, being hit with an full aux snb and not having countermeasures vs the cooldown increase would be bad.
Or a Engineer captains ability to add another shield heal + instant heal.
I was talking captains with the same build setup both in class and in skills. Remember the "all things equal" part?
If we discard those cocnerns and base this on pure ship vs ship stats we have the following:
The escort fields superior firepower in any case, the argument that DHC have a small arc of attack is poitnless sicne all escorts turn exceedingly fast and certainly fast enoguh to hold a crusier in their sights.
+ they can sit in the cruisers 6 o clock position all day, because all the moves a cruiser captain pulls to turn its backside away are also available to the escort in order to STAY there.
There are several ways for a cruiser to shake an escort off of its six, the most important thing for a cruiser captain is to not be predictable in his/her maneuvers. Escort pilots don't have to be as creative.
Now, if cruisers had the ability for a to use DBB aft-wards might make it a little more risky for people to tailgate it. I agree that there is little loss in an escort to just ride the six of a target, most targets don't know how to or just plain old can't defend from it effectively.
Next we have the escorts ability to terminate the encounter any tiem it wants by simply flying away really fast.... yes. flying away really fast. And if it does so in the opposite direction of the cruiser, the escort will be far out of reach by the time the cruiser has turned. Fundamentally, this is what makes escorts such awesoem tanks: they can just fck off for a second to catch their breath which negates the whole limited defense boffs thing people prattle on about all day like it was an disadvantage.
The retreat srves to not only avoid a buffed cruiser (if it is a tac captain for example.) and as such preserve the defense buffs for later use (when it starts its attack for example.)
Its also an eat way out of the snb cooldown: just run away for a bit.
Not to mention walk away from a fight when they are wounded.
This is a big advantage for escorts/raider/etc. They decide when battles start and end because there isn't much a cruiser or sci-ship can really do about it (in most occasions).
A similar situation happens when the majority of a group are using cloaking devices.
If you get down to it: the only times escorts die to cruisers is in team environments when they get crippled by team effort and the crusier gets the last shot in or when the escort captain turns out to be a dud.
Oh and btw: the escort gets to BO3 you over and over and at some point will crit you for wtf damage.
one might notice that BO3 is a beam buff power and as such one would expect the premiere beam users to use it but alas it seems the dedicated dual cannon ships get to use the dedicated beam power too.... hm....
Anyways, their BO3 is going to wreck the cruiser at some point while the cruiser... gets to fizzle around i guess.... The weapons the cruiser will get on target (which is usuaylly only half its complement anyway since the escort sits in the back of the cruiser) are not powerfull enough to break even entry level of shield hardening, not to mention actually burn the bull down fast enough.
You have no excuse to lose to a cruiser in a 1v1 in an escort.
Escpecialy not in the bug ship, escort carrier and patrols.
This is kinda what gets me, it is almost a foregone conclusion. I can deal with escorts being great damage deals and having awesome maneuverability, but it shouldn't be at the point where it can attack cruisers with impunity. Very rarely will a cruiser be able to do enough damage quickly destroy an average escort before it skates away and buffs back up to kill the cruiser.
I've flown escorts for a while and have used what I have learned about how they fly to develop countermeasures to them, which works pretty good on the less creative escorts, but the rate of damage from the cruiser isn't fast/hard enough for the escort to realize they are starting to be in trouble and just scoot away. If the cruiser gets in trouble, even with its larger hull and eng' abilities, its almost impossible to recover.
I really think they do need to revamp the setup of cruisers to take real advantages of its size and crew capacity and rework the firepower capability a smidgen to make it more threatening.
Some ideas:
-Ability to use DBB in the rear (cruisers only)
-Create innate resistances for cruiser hulls based on their intertial values (the bigger and slower the tougher)
-A larger energy capacity (lift the max energy levels hardcap to 130-135 ) to reflect that these ships use more powerful engines and power generators
-Have Engineer Team/Sci Team/Tac team bonuses based off of crew size, as far as I can tell they aren't. The more crew a ship has should improve its ability to react to situations better.
The only way for crew to become relevant is for Cryptic to enhance the Boff and Doff integration past keybind, macro, and proc placeholders to the point where they are the crew being injured or killed during space combat rather than the cosmetic crew figure.
We have a First Officer and a representative for the other departments. We acquire new Boffs from both missions and Doff assignments. There should be a hierarchy of battlestations after the officers regularly manning those stations. If a Boff is killed or incapacitated in combat, another should take their station. If another senior officer is not available then that post should fall to the first Doff in line under that department with the appropriate career proficiencies.
Since the assignment of new Boffs and Doffs can occur rather frequently, death of the officers in question should be permanent. More regarding the chance of this happening is discussed below. As they would not be using their armor and sidearms during space combat, their personal effects would be returned to your inventory. To keep it a little simpler, death of the officers would occur in sickbay following the battle and as Captain you would be informed of such.
Various injuries to the officers would induce various times for their recovery to complete recovery. Depending on the injuring sustained, you could have officers return to duty suffering a penalty to their stats relative to the type in injury sustained to the tasks they are required to perform.
Since the officers already have different rarities, they could also have different degrees of experience ranging from Green or Novice to Hardened with this being independent of rank. While the Very Rare officer would have a increased chance of survival because of his rarity his experience might be a detriment to that if he's a Green compared to a Rare or even an Uncommon officer who might be Hardened. The levels of experience could also have the effect of an additional percent to their skills much like the present achievments do for captains.
As the size of the crew generally increases with the size of the ship, Cruisers would have the crew advantage the number states they actually do and crew would finally be relevant. This would also add the possibility of loss to every encounter as the only penalty we have presently for failure is increased time spent at the respawn point and the use of a ship component.
Crew (not boffs or doffs) should have a greater impact on ship recovery, such as ET/ST/TT. As far as I have experienced ET/ST/TT dont really improve with crew size. Making a change that relates to crew size will improve the uses of these abilities on larger ships. No need to perma-death boffs or doffs.
Haven't we had enough deaths of doffs involved in giving a second opinion of a botanist to find new ways to kill them off?
BFaw used to be possible to target a single player and it was way too powerful. Thats one of the reasons it was nerfed.
I would rather see the Beam Version of Rapid fire, like the cannon power. Make it a T1 to T3 power and thats one problem solved. Beams now have a middle of the road ability between Bfaw and BO that gives a good bonus (up to 45% like CRF).
You know, I always though of BO as the equivalent to CRF. Cannons fire bursts and beam fire single shots, theyre find of maximizing their abilities.
As to why you can't use DEM 2 or 3, or Aceton beam 3. Why not? Many ideas on how to do so have been surfacing lately. The AtB1 build is my favorite becuase it gives really good uptime on all abilities and it can even be run as a Single AtB1 to open up more room.
I've been using DEM3 for a while now but I will admit that I am starting to ask myself if it is making a difference in damage, as of late, it hasnt been appearing to be helpful.
My idea was the Beam rapid Fire ( Fire for Effect)
Viola, Cruisers have access to an ability to help them do better damage and we have seen this idea used in the IP before so its canon. The only issue I feel it will cause is that it will over-drain Beams while firing so Beam Arrays would need a drain fix.
Its an interesting idea, but why not improve single cannons damage ability and do the same thing with CRF?
What about the Quad cannon? Its the pinnacle of cannon design yet its worse than the DHCs in efficiency. And thats all DHCs are, very efficient in power consumption thanks to thier slow firing rate under the Season 1.2 weapon drain rules.
Don't forget very efficient per point of damage too.
Crew (not boffs or doffs) should have a greater impact on ship recovery, such as ET/ST/TT. As far as I have experienced ET/ST/TT dont really improve with crew size. Making a change that relates to crew size will improve the uses of these abilities on larger ships. No need to perma-death boffs or doffs.
That would require cryptic to actually get the crew numbers right for each ship.
I've been using DEM3 for a while now but I will admit that I am starting to ask myself if it is making a difference in damage, as of late, it hasnt been appearing to be helpful.
You would have to search for the thread, but I do think at onetime it was shown that DEM did not work properly with Bfaw.
Its an interesting idea, but why not improve single cannons damage ability and do the same thing with CRF?
I'm all for improvements for Single cannons. Especially since many Klingon sources talk about how they where mounted down the length of thier ships. Its like where the feds use Beam Arrays the Klingons use single cannons for the same purpose.
You are correct about the 125 power cap, but it's been test proven that it's only a UI thing. Most players can get their power well past 125, which it still does, even if the UI doesn't show it. I know for a fact on a roll, I can get my Tac Oddy's weapons power to almost 170, which means when I do a full 7 BA broadside, my power levels don't go below 98. It's actually kinda scary when I pull it off and a BFAW going at the same time. Suddenly rapid fire hits of 800+ on the target for something insane like 50+ hits.
Unfortunately I won't be able to test the above until I get home, but if it's a UI issue and not an actual cap, then all you have to do is run EPtW on any ship currently at 125 total weapon energy before any buffs. Document any energy weapon damage output with no buffs active, then hit EPtW. If the weapon damage rises, then no 125-cap is present, and that 125 limit is just for display. If the damage does not move, then 125 is indeed a hard cap.
But you are correct, the lower tier tac BOff slots and lack of DCs and DHCs still will limit the overall damage output, but beams on 100+ power will always do at least 600 damage (if you use mk XII weapons, even the white ones). Taking the above example, 168 + 5 power is 173. +5 energy when applied to beams is another 2% damage. Which doesn't seem like much, but over time it will stack up. But since overclocking your weapons is common especially with cruisers (who can pull it off nicely due to their high level engi BOffs) I was more looking at the other subsystems.
However I am agreed that it would be interesting to see this, even if it was only on tribble. And who knows, I could be horribly wrong and what you proposed could be the perfect solution to cruisers supposedly feeling underpowered. I know I certainly wouldn't complain if I got another +5 power to all my subsystems on any of my cruisers.
But imagine this: stock AC/MUAC/stock SC/MUSC/Ops Oddy, full borg set, your +5 additional power: +15 power to all subsystems. Cruiser captain wet dream right there XD.
Yep, testing is the best way to check if enhanced cruiser power will be game breaking or not
Don't forget very efficient per point of damage too.
The effieciency of pwoer dictates into the better damage output since they hit the WP lows very rarely and when they do its not as bad as the Beam arrays. All due to thier firing rate making them efficient.
I'm all for improvements for Single cannons. Especially since many Klingon sources talk about how they where mounted down the length of thier ships. Its like where the feds use Beam Arrays the Klingons use single cannons for the same purpose.
I would kill for single heavy cannons (firing mechanism similar to dhcs).
Unfortunately I won't be able to test the above until I get home, but if it's a UI issue and not an actual cap, then all you have to do is run EPtW on any ship currently at 125 total weapon energy before any buffs. Document any energy weapon damage output with no buffs active, then hit EPtW. If the weapon damage rises, then no 125-cap is present, and that 125 limit is just for display. If the damage does not move, then 125 is indeed a hard cap.
Yep, testing is the best way to check if enhanced cruiser power will be game breaking or not
Unless the changed it very recently, DontDrunkImShoot has done extensive testing on this.
Contact him for details.
Unless the changed it very recently, DontDrunkImShoot has done extensive testing on this.
Contact him for details.
Last time I checked, Weapon Power was only evaluated up to 125 for damage calculation purposes, but any 126+ overflow was still accounted via power-drain totals. Anyone able to confirm or deny this?
Average damage = 329. You can clearly see the effects of power drain, where the first round of fire starts high and immediately drops off sharply until it reaches an equilibrium near the end of the salvo.
Now, here's the same target, weapons, and range, but this time I had him shoot at me to charge my MACO shield, as well as installed Plasmonic Leech and activated EPTW1, for a hypothetical total of +43 power to weapons which should give me an "overcapped" power level of 165.
Average damage = 528. The profile is rather strange in that the damage drops and then immediately recovers, but in terms of damage output, no contest whatsoever.
Average damage = 329. You can clearly see the effects of power drain, where the first round of fire starts high and immediately drops off sharply until it reaches an equilibrium near the end of the salvo.
Now, here's the same target, weapons, and range, but this time I had him shoot at me to charge my MACO shield, as well as installed Plasmonic Leech and activated EPTW1, for a hypothetical total of +43 power to weapons which should give me an "overcapped" power level of 165.
Average damage = 528. The profile is rather strange in that the damage drops and then immediately recovers, but in terms of damage output, no contest whatsoever.
Power overcapping: confirmed (if bizarre)
I finally got home to run these Weapon Subsystem Power vs. Weapon damage tests at 125-energy cap. The results:
Weapon: Romulan Experimental Beam Array
Current Weapon Subsystem Power total = 125
Base DPS, no Buffs present: 928.1
Base DPS, EPtW1 or 2 active: 941.1 DPS for 5 seconds (EPtW grants +10% damage for 5 seconds), 928.1 DPS from 5 to 30 seconds
This seems to confirm that 125 weapon power is a hard damage calculation cap, but any extra energy is factored in where if present weapon energy > 125, damage is computed at 125. Basically any extra weapon power over 125 is ignored during damage calculations, but factored in when weapons drain power. This allows ships running > 125 weapon power to stay at 125 longer during sustained energy weapon bursts.
I finally got home to run these Weapon Subsystem Power vs. Weapon damage tests at 125-energy cap. The results:
Weapon: Romulan Experimental Beam Array
Current Weapon Subsystem Power total = 125
Base DPS, no Buffs present: 928.1
Base DPS, EPtW1 or 2 active: 941.1 DPS for 5 seconds (EPtW grants +10% damage for 5 seconds), 928.1 DPS from 5 to 30 seconds
This seems to confirm that 125 weapon power is a hard damage calculation cap, but any extra energy is factored in where if present weapon energy > 125, damage is computed at 125. Basically any extra weapon power over 125 is ignored during damage calculations, but factored in when weapons drain power. This allows ships running > 125 weapon power to stay at 125 longer during sustained energy weapon bursts.
Sorry I took so long to answer your post but I just got home. Basically what you said was correct, and I would have told you that for damage only, the 125 is a hard cap. But that overclocking on weapon power was mostly to reduce weapon energy drain. Because it doesn't matter how much higher your weapon power is over 125 for damage, but if you have it overclocked, it applies to weapon energy drain.
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.
Average damage = 329. You can clearly see the effects of power drain, where the first round of fire starts high and immediately drops off sharply until it reaches an equilibrium near the end of the salvo.
Now, here's the same target, weapons, and range, but this time I had him shoot at me to charge my MACO shield, as well as installed Plasmonic Leech and activated EPTW1, for a hypothetical total of +43 power to weapons which should give me an "overcapped" power level of 165.
Average damage = 528. The profile is rather strange in that the damage drops and then immediately recovers, but in terms of damage output, no contest whatsoever.
Power overcapping: confirmed (if bizarre)
plasmonic leech increases weap power in the cycle per cycle, power to weaps is a buff that gives you a powerboost until you reach cap but only does so once. Using it inside the beams cycle will increase that cycles damage. but the effect is lost when the next cycle begins. You are now at power cap. you will now get the old drain curve.
plasmonich leach works inside the cycle, you get power while firing constantly which results in hingher numbers.
its the same for all offboff power sources, if they start when the cycle is running you get more use out of it because the power boost happens when its most needed. mako is such a source since its effect can and will kick in while a cycle is running and since it is constantly readded its acts like a passive leech in that regard.
Sorry I took so long to answer your post but I just got home. Basically what you said was correct, and I would have told you that for damage only, the 125 is a hard cap. But that overclocking on weapon power was mostly to reduce weapon energy drain. Because it doesn't matter how much higher your weapon power is over 125 for damage, but if you have it overclocked, it applies to weapon energy drain.
Soft Cap of 125. Thats the cap for damage.
Hard Cap of 150. Thats the max. Weapon Power level to counter the energy drain. Anything higher than that is nullyfied.
But just 1k DPS is even at this range a little bit low. You can get more than that
Soft Cap of 125. Thats the cap for damage.
Hard Cap of 150. Thats the max. Weapon Power level to counter the energy drain. Anything higher than that is nullyfied.
But just 1k DPS is even at this range a little bit low. You can get more than that
You sure it's just 150? I have had full 7 beam salvos (-70 to WP) that only drop my weapons power to 90. And that is without hitting an EPtW in the middle of a salvo (something else I do to kick up damage randomly). I am sure it's at least 160.
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.
Actually that should be fairly easy to test with the use of batteries. Using all manner of power boosts available and then a battery on top should push your weapon power well over 200. Mount 8 beam arrays and see what your actual power level works out to be mid-salvo, add 70, and that's the hard cap.
Actually that should be fairly easy to test with the use of batteries. Using all manner of power boosts available and then a battery on top should push your weapon power well over 200. Mount 8 beam arrays and see what your actual power level works out to be mid-salvo, add 70, and that's the hard cap.
I have been known to fire off BO2 without a battery for recovery (I had EPtW1, EPS Power Transfer, NI and DEM (doff) in play at the time giving me somewhere around 200 if that is possible with 400% weapon power drain resistance) the BO AND broadside together did around 23k in that volley without dropping below 125 weapon power.
I have been known to fire off BO2 without a battery for recovery (I had EPtW1, EPS Power Transfer, NI and DEM (doff) in play
Then everything else is irrelevant.
Nadion Inversion completely negates power drains. You could have an effective power level of 125 or 6 billion and it wouldn't make any difference.
The problem is that Inversion has a very poor duty cycle and is unsuited for general combat. The difficulty a beam boat faces is getting sufficient weapon power for general combat i.e. has 100% duty cycle.
Nadion Inversion completely negates power drains. You could have an effective power level of 125 or 6 billion and it wouldn't make any difference.
The problem is that Inversion has a very poor duty cycle and is unsuited for general combat. The difficulty a beam boat faces is getting sufficient weapon power for general combat i.e. has 100% duty cycle.
A tactic I often use to get better uptime on the engi captain abilities is to stagger my activations. I know it's common practice to hit EPS and NI, but I stagger the two. I hit EPS first, and when that's about to run out, I hit NI. Then I hit EPS again shortly thereafter. And two minutes later, I rinse and repeat. It's actually much more effective than the usual 3 minute cycles.
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.
Sorry I took so long to answer your post but I just got home. Basically what you said was correct, and I would have told you that for damage only, the 125 is a hard cap. But that overclocking on weapon power was mostly to reduce weapon energy drain. Because it doesn't matter how much higher your weapon power is over 125 for damage, but if you have it overclocked, it applies to weapon energy drain.
Hence a higher damage range because power is down less.
A tactic I often use to get better uptime on the engi captain abilities is to stagger my activations. I know it's common practice to hit EPS and NI, but I stagger the two. I hit EPS first, and when that's about to run out, I hit NI. Then I hit EPS again shortly thereafter. And two minutes later, I rinse and repeat. It's actually much more effective than the usual 3 minute cycles.
I have a similar tactic using the DEM doff, I run up FAW2/BO2 (Dependent upon my number of targets/my game plan upon entering a zone) with AP:B2, EPS and then DEM, wait for the cds on FAW/BO and AP:B and then use NI to support them, then I run them without a power buff allowing my next attack to be EPS and DEM (doff) backed
Because KDF cruisers have more agility, cloaking devices, and DHCs. They're fine the way the way they are.
(as a KDF engineer who's has extensive bridge time on the Negh'var and Vor'cha)
I think an easier solution would be to revamp the Galaxy-X into something like a KDF battle cruiser and see how things go. Failing that add +1 or +2 turning to all fed cruisers. I found turning to be one of the single biggest game changers when I flew my free Ody.
You sure it's just 150? I have had full 7 beam salvos (-70 to WP) that only drop my weapons power to 90. And that is without hitting an EPtW in the middle of a salvo (something else I do to kick up damage randomly). I am sure it's at least 160.
1 beam alone doesnt drain power. So you get one without a drain, but the 6 others drain power. Thats why -60 and not -70
Comments
I was talking captains with the same build setup both in class and in skills. Remember the "all things equal" part?
There are several ways for a cruiser to shake an escort off of its six, the most important thing for a cruiser captain is to not be predictable in his/her maneuvers. Escort pilots don't have to be as creative.
Now, if cruisers had the ability for a to use DBB aft-wards might make it a little more risky for people to tailgate it. I agree that there is little loss in an escort to just ride the six of a target, most targets don't know how to or just plain old can't defend from it effectively.
Not to mention walk away from a fight when they are wounded.
This is a big advantage for escorts/raider/etc. They decide when battles start and end because there isn't much a cruiser or sci-ship can really do about it (in most occasions).
A similar situation happens when the majority of a group are using cloaking devices.
This is kinda what gets me, it is almost a foregone conclusion. I can deal with escorts being great damage deals and having awesome maneuverability, but it shouldn't be at the point where it can attack cruisers with impunity. Very rarely will a cruiser be able to do enough damage quickly destroy an average escort before it skates away and buffs back up to kill the cruiser.
I've flown escorts for a while and have used what I have learned about how they fly to develop countermeasures to them, which works pretty good on the less creative escorts, but the rate of damage from the cruiser isn't fast/hard enough for the escort to realize they are starting to be in trouble and just scoot away. If the cruiser gets in trouble, even with its larger hull and eng' abilities, its almost impossible to recover.
I really think they do need to revamp the setup of cruisers to take real advantages of its size and crew capacity and rework the firepower capability a smidgen to make it more threatening.
Some ideas:
-Ability to use DBB in the rear (cruisers only)
-Create innate resistances for cruiser hulls based on their intertial values (the bigger and slower the tougher)
-A larger energy capacity (lift the max energy levels hardcap to 130-135 ) to reflect that these ships use more powerful engines and power generators
-Have Engineer Team/Sci Team/Tac team bonuses based off of crew size, as far as I can tell they aren't. The more crew a ship has should improve its ability to react to situations better.
Crew (not boffs or doffs) should have a greater impact on ship recovery, such as ET/ST/TT. As far as I have experienced ET/ST/TT dont really improve with crew size. Making a change that relates to crew size will improve the uses of these abilities on larger ships. No need to perma-death boffs or doffs.
Haven't we had enough deaths of doffs involved in giving a second opinion of a botanist to find new ways to kill them off?
You know, I always though of BO as the equivalent to CRF. Cannons fire bursts and beam fire single shots, theyre find of maximizing their abilities.
I've been using DEM3 for a while now but I will admit that I am starting to ask myself if it is making a difference in damage, as of late, it hasnt been appearing to be helpful.
Its an interesting idea, but why not improve single cannons damage ability and do the same thing with CRF?
Don't forget very efficient per point of damage too.
That would require cryptic to actually get the crew numbers right for each ship.
R.I.P
Unfortunately I won't be able to test the above until I get home, but if it's a UI issue and not an actual cap, then all you have to do is run EPtW on any ship currently at 125 total weapon energy before any buffs. Document any energy weapon damage output with no buffs active, then hit EPtW. If the weapon damage rises, then no 125-cap is present, and that 125 limit is just for display. If the damage does not move, then 125 is indeed a hard cap.
Yep, testing is the best way to check if enhanced cruiser power will be game breaking or not
The effieciency of pwoer dictates into the better damage output since they hit the WP lows very rarely and when they do its not as bad as the Beam arrays. All due to thier firing rate making them efficient.
R.I.P
Unless the changed it very recently, DontDrunkImShoot has done extensive testing on this.
Contact him for details.
R.I.P
Last time I checked, Weapon Power was only evaluated up to 125 for damage calculation purposes, but any 126+ overflow was still accounted via power-drain totals. Anyone able to confirm or deny this?
Did some quick and dirty testing.
Weaponry: 7 beam arrays (6 disruptor, 1 experimental romulan)
Basic weapon power level: 122
Range to target: 9.5km
Damage output: image
Average damage = 329. You can clearly see the effects of power drain, where the first round of fire starts high and immediately drops off sharply until it reaches an equilibrium near the end of the salvo.
Now, here's the same target, weapons, and range, but this time I had him shoot at me to charge my MACO shield, as well as installed Plasmonic Leech and activated EPTW1, for a hypothetical total of +43 power to weapons which should give me an "overcapped" power level of 165.
Damage output with power boosts: image
Average damage = 528. The profile is rather strange in that the damage drops and then immediately recovers, but in terms of damage output, no contest whatsoever.
Power overcapping: confirmed (if bizarre)
I finally got home to run these Weapon Subsystem Power vs. Weapon damage tests at 125-energy cap. The results:
Weapon: Romulan Experimental Beam Array
Current Weapon Subsystem Power total = 125
Base DPS, no Buffs present: 928.1
Base DPS, EPtW1 or 2 active: 941.1 DPS for 5 seconds (EPtW grants +10% damage for 5 seconds), 928.1 DPS from 5 to 30 seconds
This seems to confirm that 125 weapon power is a hard damage calculation cap, but any extra energy is factored in where if present weapon energy > 125, damage is computed at 125. Basically any extra weapon power over 125 is ignored during damage calculations, but factored in when weapons drain power. This allows ships running > 125 weapon power to stay at 125 longer during sustained energy weapon bursts.
Sorry I took so long to answer your post but I just got home. Basically what you said was correct, and I would have told you that for damage only, the 125 is a hard cap. But that overclocking on weapon power was mostly to reduce weapon energy drain. Because it doesn't matter how much higher your weapon power is over 125 for damage, but if you have it overclocked, it applies to weapon energy drain.
plasmonic leech increases weap power in the cycle per cycle, power to weaps is a buff that gives you a powerboost until you reach cap but only does so once. Using it inside the beams cycle will increase that cycles damage. but the effect is lost when the next cycle begins. You are now at power cap. you will now get the old drain curve.
plasmonich leach works inside the cycle, you get power while firing constantly which results in hingher numbers.
its the same for all offboff power sources, if they start when the cycle is running you get more use out of it because the power boost happens when its most needed. mako is such a source since its effect can and will kick in while a cycle is running and since it is constantly readded its acts like a passive leech in that regard.
Soft Cap of 125. Thats the cap for damage.
Hard Cap of 150. Thats the max. Weapon Power level to counter the energy drain. Anything higher than that is nullyfied.
But just 1k DPS is even at this range a little bit low. You can get more than that
You sure it's just 150? I have had full 7 beam salvos (-70 to WP) that only drop my weapons power to 90. And that is without hitting an EPtW in the middle of a salvo (something else I do to kick up damage randomly). I am sure it's at least 160.
I have been known to fire off BO2 without a battery for recovery (I had EPtW1, EPS Power Transfer, NI and DEM (doff) in play at the time giving me somewhere around 200 if that is possible with 400% weapon power drain resistance) the BO AND broadside together did around 23k in that volley without dropping below 125 weapon power.
Then everything else is irrelevant.
Nadion Inversion completely negates power drains. You could have an effective power level of 125 or 6 billion and it wouldn't make any difference.
The problem is that Inversion has a very poor duty cycle and is unsuited for general combat. The difficulty a beam boat faces is getting sufficient weapon power for general combat i.e. has 100% duty cycle.
A tactic I often use to get better uptime on the engi captain abilities is to stagger my activations. I know it's common practice to hit EPS and NI, but I stagger the two. I hit EPS first, and when that's about to run out, I hit NI. Then I hit EPS again shortly thereafter. And two minutes later, I rinse and repeat. It's actually much more effective than the usual 3 minute cycles.
Hence a higher damage range because power is down less.
R.I.P
Why just fed Cruisers? Why just them?
R.I.P
Because KDF cruisers have more agility, cloaking devices, and DHCs. They're fine the way the way they are.
(as a KDF engineer who's has extensive bridge time on the Negh'var and Vor'cha)
Not true, with EPtW1, NI, FAW2 and AP:B2 in place I still get down to 120
I have a similar tactic using the DEM doff, I run up FAW2/BO2 (Dependent upon my number of targets/my game plan upon entering a zone) with AP:B2, EPS and then DEM, wait for the cds on FAW/BO and AP:B and then use NI to support them, then I run them without a power buff allowing my next attack to be EPS and DEM (doff) backed
I think an easier solution would be to revamp the Galaxy-X into something like a KDF battle cruiser and see how things go. Failing that add +1 or +2 turning to all fed cruisers. I found turning to be one of the single biggest game changers when I flew my free Ody.
1 beam alone doesnt drain power. So you get one without a drain, but the 6 others drain power. Thats why -60 and not -70
I think somebody owns a Galaxy-X and wishes they didn't. >_>