Questions about Armitage loadouts

mrcaton1

Hello, I'm a relatively new player (since, say, October), and I've been running my tactical fed captain without much real thought to game mechanics. Now as I get a little better gear, I was hoping some of you could shed some light on a few questions so I can be more effective running elite space STFs.

1) I fly a heavy escort carrier (which I really, really love!) with advanced peregrine fighters as my hangar item. I feel like those peregrine quantums give a nice boost to my damage, but I've seen others advocate for runabouts because of their tractors. Thoughts?

2) Because of my peregrine pets, I have chosen disruptors as my primary beam/cannon energy type. The idea is the increased damage that can proc from disruptors will magnify my fighter damage as well. Does that seem like a sensible choice? I have two polarized dual disruptor cannons and a dual disruptor beam upfront, and a disruptor beam array aft. (I read somewhere that two cannons is the optimum number; please correct this notion if that is mistaken.)

3) I have assumed that consoles on my ship do NOT boost pet damage directly. That is, a quantum torpedo console will not boost the quantum torps fired by my peregrines. True?

4) I've seen some people advocate for antiproton cannons on an escort because of the crit bonus. Does the fact that I am boosting my pet damage with disruptors offset that in anyway?

5) I've been using photon torpedoes as my primary ordinance, in part because the carrier comes with the torpedo point defense system and I thought it made sense to synergize that with photon torpedo consoles. Which brings me to my next question . . .

6) Do consoles that boost photon torp damage boost the damage from the Armitage's torpedo point defense system? I have to say, I love sending out a torpedo spread and the torp point defense system at the same time. Boom boom.

7) How do consoles stack? Do most captains use multiple consoles for their primary damage type (i.e., disruptors in my case)?

8) Do active Doff bonuses stack? That is, can a Doff which lowers a recharge time be combined with other Doffs who offer the same bonus for even more recharge time reduction?

Thanks in advance for the advice!

jacenjacen24

Hello and welcome.

The advanced peregrine are good.

I would ditch the beams and go 3 dhc and torp up front and 3 turrets in rear.

Photon is fine. It fires faster than quantum but does less dmg per torp. Quantum fire slower but do more dmg per torp.

If you like beams alot the ditch the canons an go beams. However i and other escort captains will advise the dhc/turret build. And that is because it greatly out dmgs beams. And when you use a "canon rapid fire" all of your turrets proc with your cannnons. So you will have all 6 weapons firing at once.

Disruptor is fine.

Consoles stack. There is no dimished return. So get 4 disruptortact consoles and make it rain.

Doffs stack as well. So you can really lower your cooldowns by stacking the correct doffs.

Now this is a game so play it the way it makes you smile. But i seriously reccomend getting 3 dhc and 1 quantum up from 3 turrets in rear. Get boffs with cannon rapid fire cannon scatter volley attack pattern beta torp spread and torp high yield.

You pair them up. So you hit attack beta CRF and THY you pound on a facing til shields almost drop hit ur toprs drop then drop the facing and kaboom. The same for CSV and TS. That is for multiple ships in front of you.

Also i forgot. Ditch the torp defense system for most things that arent missions and fleet actions. When torps hit shileds they do almost no dmg. So unless you are fighting a whole lotta shieldless opponents they dont do much dmg.

Good luck captain.

shockwave85

Pretty much everything jacen said, except to add:

Generally people prefer to use consoles that boost their energy damage type, and ignore the torpedoes. The reason is that torpedoes are weapons of opportunity that you'll use only in the specific case of being pointed at a ship with its shield facing down. Energy weapons you fire constantly, and as jacen pointed out the bread and butter of an escort is cycling two copies of Cannon Rapid Fire with a full compliment of Dual Heavy Cannons and Turrets. That is what will do most of your damage, the torpedoes are just gravy.

Agreed about the torpedo defense system. It's fun to watch, but its utility is questionable. Often it just winds up getting me a lot of unwanted aggro. The Thunderchild's phaser point defense might be more useful since it can affect shields also, but I don't have that so I can't comment. You'd also have to switch energy type to phaser to get full effect out of it. Ironically, the HEC, being a carrier, is the ship least likely to need point defense. The main goal of it is to clear fighters and torpedoes off you, something your own fighters can already do.

mrcaton1

Thanks for the responses! Good information. I've spent some time today perusing the forums for the first time since I started playing the game and there seems to be a lot of consensus on the 3xDHC fore/3turret aft loadout for escorts. And I use CRF all the time in my current loadout, not realizing that turrets counted as cannons for those purposes. I had sort of ignored turrets. Off to the exchange for some turrets!

cinerama818

But what about his 3rd question? Do consoles increase the damage of the figter pets? In other words do peregrine fighters benefit from an phaser relay console?

vesolc

cinerama818 wrote: »

But what about his 3rd question? Do consoles increase the damage of the figter pets? In other words do peregrine fighters benefit from an phaser relay console?

They don't.

mixiplix777

ideal armitage. (cant squeeze anything else in without half a billion ec)
I love my armitage

1 purple torpedo doff
2 blue energy weapon cannon doffs
2 blue conn officers for tact team.

1 fleet quantum,
2 polarized disuptors dhcs
1 fleet disruptor dhc
2 polarized turrets
1 fleet disruptor turret
4 28% disruptor consoles.
1 eps, 1 field gen, +4 wep power,
torpedo system, borg assimiltaed console
maco 3pc (gonna try the aegis 3 pc later today)

1 danube or delta

the best advice i can give is max weapon and warp core systems.
2/3 in energy spec and projectile spec.

anti proton are ok but disruptors boost their own damage, which is sort of like a perma crit for everyone, not just you.

direct energy mod 2, aux to shields, hazard emitters, reverse polarity, tractor beam.

did I mention I am a science captain...

escorts

yes it is still a crunchy escort, but while it is alive the damage has been unparrelled in taking first in stb24 or gorn minefield - which is descent farming purple mk xis.