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Flying the Other Class

flash525flash525 Member Posts: 5,441 Arc User
I'm an Engineer by trade (ironically, both within Star Trek Online and Real Life). Obviously my main focus when choosing a ship to command should be a Cruiser, right? Firstly, would that be a truthful analogy? Secondly, if I were to fly around in non-cruisers, is there anything specific I should be looking at?

I've recently been looking at the Fleet Ships, and as an Engineer, it seems daft me flying a Fleet Science Ship (Nova) with only a single Lieutenant Engineering slot. If I'm going to by flying any Science Ship it should be the Nebula (I can make use of the Universal slot) or the Fleet Research (Olympic) Vessel which makes use of a Lt. Commander Engineer.

Likewise, for Escorts I could have the Fleet Patrol (again, Universal slot to Engineer) and Akira which (alike the Olympic) also makes use of a Lt. Commander Engineer.
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Comments

  • tetonicatetonica Member Posts: 142 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    I don't get what the running assumption is on these forums that your char's powers affect what your boff slots do. Tac's APA skill does, but as far as I can remember that's about it. Your actual skillpoints make much more of an impact on your boff abilities IMO

    Putting an engineer in a ship gives it more survivability and higher energy levels and drain resistance. I don't see how that doesn't benefit any ship; it just lets you focus on shoring up other areas. Of course, trying to be a jack of all trades means you excel in nothing, usually, but it makes you flexible for things like pugging stf's/fa's
    Lynis, Orion Engineer, main
    Rrezeth, Gorn Tactical, primary alt
    Nari, Orion Science, secondary alt
  • adeonhawkwoodadeonhawkwood Member Posts: 49 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    So no it's not true. Your class in STO is not critical to your play-style your choice of ship is what determines your play-style while your Captain is a moderate strength modifier on top.

    As an Engineer Captain myself I find that my Engineer abilities are a lot more useful when I'm flying an Escort or Science Vessel than when I'm flying a Cruiser. A Cruiser is already tough as nails and has good power management (the two places Engineer Captains excel) so the Engineer Captain abilities don't really help a whole lot. Conversely when flying an Escort or Science Vessel my Engineer abilities allow me to compensate for the weaknesses of my ship. The only critical issue with flying an "off-class" ship is if you need your Bridge Officers trained in some rank 3 skills but it's easy enough to find someone to help out with that.

    My main ship is a Multi-Vector Advanced escort and I find layering the Engineer captain on top to be exceedingly effective. Rotate Shield Frequency and Miracle Worker are major life savers and knowing that I have them around means that I can afford to skimp a bit on healing powers from my Bridge Officers in order to take some control skills (Tractor Beam and Gravity Well) whereas a Tactical Officer would probably need additional healing in those slots. EPS power Transfer gives me a major boost to power levels which also makes my ship tougher and improves my controls in a way that would be impossible for a Tactical Officer. Finally Nadion inversion is a minor DPS boost which isn't great but certainly doesn't hurt.

    I'm less fond of Engineer/Science Vessel but that's more of a personal opinion, the skill combos are still good. Rotate Shield Frequency is a lifesaver for Science Vessels (which mostly have strong shields and weak hull) while EPS Power Transfer helps compensate for the fact that Science Vessels have more power management issues than Escorts and Cruisers (due to needing high Aux).
    tetonica wrote: »
    I don't get what the running assumption is on these forums that your char's powers affect what your boff slots do. Tac's APA skill does, but as far as I can remember that's about it. Your actual skillpoints make much more of an impact on your boff abilities IMO
    I think you're thinking of Tactical Initiative.
  • leviathan99#2867 leviathan99 Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    tetonica wrote: »
    I don't get what the running assumption is on these forums that your char's powers affect what your boff slots do. Tac's APA skill does, but as far as I can remember that's about it. Your actual skillpoints make much more of an impact on your boff abilities IMO

    Putting an engineer in a ship gives it more survivability and higher energy levels and drain resistance. I don't see how that doesn't benefit any ship; it just lets you focus on shoring up other areas. Of course, trying to be a jack of all trades means you excel in nothing, usually, but it makes you flexible for things like pugging stf's/fa's

    Well, if your goal is "the most damage possible" then, sure, you want a Tac in an escort. If your goal is "the most tanking possible" you want an engineer in a cruiser. There's some nice sci-sci synergy.

    However, you never really need the "most X possible." Moreover, if you're playing solo content or in disorganized teams, balance can be good.

    If you absolutely want the best team composition in a coordinated fashion, sure, it's probably something like 3 Tacs in Escorts and 2 cruisers with engineers or 1 cruiser/eng and 1 sci/sci.

    However, that level of minmaxing is never really NEEDED. Even STFs rely more on weapon loadouts and tactics. The only place I can think where it might be is No Win Scenario and, there, imbalanced builds tend to hold the team back. Although maybe you'd want a well specialized team in there with threat consoles. Something like 2 cruiser tanks (ideally D'Koras for the damage + tanking, I think) with +threat and 3 escorts/destroyers (probably 3 Chimeras/Penghu' for the lotus ability) with -threat.
  • assimilatedktarassimilatedktar Member Posts: 1,708 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    If your goal is "the most tanking possible" you want an engineer in a cruiser. There's some nice sci-sci synergy.

    You are assuming that an engineer in a cruiser is able to hold the aggro.:D

    The only captain who really gets benefits from flying the matching type of ship is the scientist because many of his captain abilities scale with auxiliary power, but even that doesn't change the fact that they can still be damned useful in an escort (no idea about cruisers). My favourite is currently a tactical captain in a science ship (Aventine) with tactical lieutenant and lieutenant-commander BOs and Feedback Pulse III. It's a monster.
    FKA K-Tar, grumpy Klingon/El-Aurian hybrid. Now assimilated by PWE.
    Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
  • erei1erei1 Member Posts: 4,081 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    I use escort only on my engineer. I want the firepower from the escort, and the turn rate. I don't like the "fat whale" cruiser. I also have a tac in escort, and while my tac have obv. more DPS, my engi have more survability, which is nice in eSTF. And for everything else, I can't see any differences.
    I can do the top damage in pug (not that hard), and used to be number 1 in pug group event while leveling. Not a challenge, granted, but it means I wasn't useless.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • leviathan99#2867 leviathan99 Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    You are assuming that an engineer in a cruiser is able to hold the aggro.:D

    The only captain who really gets benefits from flying the matching type of ship is the scientist because many of his captain abilities scale with auxiliary power, but even that doesn't change the fact that they can still be damned useful in an escort (no idea about cruisers). My favourite is currently a tactical captain in a science ship (Aventine) with tactical lieutenant and lieutenant-commander BOs and Feedback Pulse III. It's a monster.

    With the new +threat consoles, he probably can. And you'd only pull threat if you have them too.
  • pwstolemynamepwstolemyname Member Posts: 1,417 Arc User
    edited December 2012
    I mostly use a science captain. I use a general purpose skill build and I use a lot of differant ships across the spectrum. I also use 33 boffs to give me the optimum ability build for any role in any ship.

    I speak with experiance when I say that captain skills are nice, but the bread and butter of any setup is the boff abilities. If you need to use your captain skills to make a ship efficent you probably need to re-train your boffs.

    I highly recomend obtaining a few extra boff slots, you cirtainly dont need the crazy number I have, 10 to 16 is a nice number for most people. Spend a couple of hours with the STO wiki open and a spredsheet. Use the boff abilities page and player ship info pages to work out a good ability setup for each of the ships you want your captain to fly and then retrain your boffs so that you can use those setups with the smallest total number of boffs.

    You may also wish to take into concideration which active space doffs you intent to use as this may effect your ability choices.
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