Sure, you can do this if you want, but I would strongly advise against this. The Varanus is part of what I prefer to call the Sci/eng group. In other words, due to having only 2 tac consoles, your damage is going to be severely gimped as compared to an equivalent escort or even a battlecruiser. Tac Initiative is also only going to work on two tac Boff abilities, which is very limited.
Having said that, if you want to do damage with sci skills, high spec in Particle Generators along with abilities dependent on this such as Grav Well, Tractor Beam Repulsors and Photonic Shockwave are a must.
"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." - Rocky Balboa (2006)
Your Tac powers will buff the damage, shield drain, and (I believe) energy drain of your science powers. This is nice as it makes your powers stronger, but without SNB to remove the counters that these abilities prompt, remember that your "target is debuffed" windows will generally be smaller than Sci cappy's. You'll also, likely, find that things like Tractor Beams will be harder to stick to people as you'll be prompting the use of counters to clear them vs clearing said counters and then using the ability.
If you're going to stick to PvE, you should try and get yourself setup with shield drains and quantum torps w/appropriate doffs (you'll mangle things and virtually never be a detriment to your team). Or powerful grav wells. Just make sure you fill your Sci console slots in the same manner you would your Tac slots (IE: if you're focusing on drains, wall-to-wall Flow Caps; damage, wall-to-wall Particle Gens; etc.). PvP is a trickier beast. Hull hit is a lot more viable as players don't have inflated HP, so TBR and Transphasic weapons can be very effective, especially against ships that lack hull robust hull heals. The new Romulan T5 ability with Gravity Well deserves special mention as being something not to be underestimated (imagine Eject Warp Plasma 3 that drags you in and then starts melting your hull).
The main thing to remember is that you'll only have 2-3 Tac consoles ever to work with, so you'll be relying on your Sci powers to do more of your heavy lifting and damage dealing than if you were in, say, a Raptor or Bird of Prey or certain Battlecruisers.
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
Gone ate the days in this game where a captain is stuck with the ships in the same class
Yeah it's limited in tac slots and tac Boffs
So what, aslong as you don't expect the same damage as an escort then don't worry
Spec into sci powers and spool up grav well 3 bolt some single cannons on the front bit of rapid fire and watch those NPC's pop
Yeah maybe not at the rate of a bop or raptor or destroyer but at least you'll have fun plus you'll have 14k shields per facing which means you'll last a lot longer than a boringscort
Elite cube -
Heghta bop - 50 seconds approx depending on buffs
Guramba - 20 seconds approximately depending on buffs
Varanus - 1min 40 approximately depending on buffs
----=====This is my opinion you don't have to listen and no one else has to read them these "OPINIONS" are based on my exploits and my learning other people will have their opinions and that's fine just don't knock my way of doing things thanks=====---- :cool:
So I have a tactical Gorn, and I'd LIKE him to use racial ship.
The Varanus has nice shields, but it's a science ship, through and through. Advice?
I'm thinking I should respec my Gorn as if he were a science captain, mostly, and then use tac abilities to spike damage and refresh abilities.
I've been flying a Gorn Tactical in a Gorn ship since I hit Lvl 50 (A long time ago). I've tried other birds, but I've always come back to the Varnaus.
Your ship is a very solid one, the only thing that sucks is killing stuff fast. You can set up a build that can pretty much ignore the enemy actions on normal difficulty and still be effective.
The only time I've had an issue was with a time limit. I'd win, no doubt, however it'd be some time, which often was longer than the time allowed to kill the target.
I normally run With Gravity Well I and III, with a high Aux and lots of Shield and hull heals.
I've found there's two appraoches.
1: Torpdeo build. I tried loads of torp types until I settled on Plasma. With three plasma laucnhers you can get a torpedo in the air every three seconds (the end of the cycle is slightly longer at 4).
That gets a constant plasma burn going on the enemy, and who cares if their shields are still up? This leaves you loads of power to run into Shields .
Tactical Abilities are normally two torpedo spreads, linked with Gravity well it gets allot of things on fire Very quickly.
I feel that the Fleet ship will only work even better with this build (third Plasma burn console). Not quite got there yet.
The other option I used is Two Cannons and three Turrets, along with a chroniton Torpedo.
For power management I put the power from shields into Weapons, and then strapped on a Plasmodic leech console. A gravity well followed by a Cannon scatter volley gets a startling strike rate and a fairlly signifficant boost to the the systems at low power.
I did try beam banks insted of cannons, with beam fire at will (kept the turrets though to control Agro generation) due to the ranges I normally fired at, but I just didn't like the down range effect, it felt less damaging. I suspect this is due to the lower fire rate, and the Turrets not getting boosted meaning that the power change wasn't as pronounced.
I I also tried replacing the Torpedo with another cannon and a turret with the Borg cutting beam. However the long range of the firing ment that the damage output from the Torpedo was superior.
The 'support' ships KDF-side are Gorn ships that have been adopted by KDF (Draguas, Phalanx, Varanus).
Hmm. This is the sort of road I went down the last time I was active... 'I can sort of make this work, but there's nothing productive about it'
Thanks! I have been thinking of starting a Klingon character... actually I did but deleted it. I want to start over. Dunno which species to go with, though being honest, seems like Klingon itself is the way to go.
"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." - Rocky Balboa (2006)
Hmm im thinking of getting this and setting it up as torpedo boat.
DC romulan torp rep(when avalible) and omega torpedo
2 turrets and cutting beam
Leach console and AA console. I think tertrion type. Instead of the DC could do 3 turrets. Run TT1 and HY1 since both have pretty fast refresh the 2 rep launchers spray torpedos like they are candy. Now just to save the 2500 zen to buy this ship and try it out. Could use either 2 tetryon or 2 plasma torpedo consoles im thinking torpedo consoles since the turrets would be just for stripping shields.
I had a similar problem with a Tac and wanted to pilot a Gorn ship.
I thought have cannons at first but decided against them after trying them out. As a Sci ship the Varanus gets 4 of the target sub system abilities. Two of those aren't the best, but targets weapons and shields are extremely useful, and they are free powers on a ship that only has two tac boff slots.
This character will hit Rep 5 tomorrow and I think I'm going to get him the Omega plasma torpedo and cutting beam, they will probably be useful in this setup. I haven't parsed with the current config, but I can tell you its putting out alot of DPS, 1,100dps from the each of the dual beam banks alone, unbuffed. Buffed they are well over 2k.
I've also chained the target subsystems and torpedo spread together so this ship always has at least one of those active.
Anyway, here it is. There's still room for improvement though. All the weapons will eventually be replace with fleet variants. I do have alot of shield and hull heals. The hull heals might be alittle redundant with the repair platform and might try out some powers once I get around to it.
Ok, you know, after blowing the dust off the Varanus on my Gorn and loading it with two Quantum torps (purple XI [Borg], but still pretty nice), beam array fore/aft, turret aft, bio-neural aft, ...
Wow. Ok, it works pretty darn nicely in pve. In fact, I was taking stuff out much faster than my engineer in a Guramba, whom I thought was doing a good job.
When I get enough reputation I'll start doing Rom plasma stuff, but that's a ways off (he has 0 rep, 0 marks, so boo)
Thanks for ideas and encouragement.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Comments
Having said that, if you want to do damage with sci skills, high spec in Particle Generators along with abilities dependent on this such as Grav Well, Tractor Beam Repulsors and Photonic Shockwave are a must.
If you're going to stick to PvE, you should try and get yourself setup with shield drains and quantum torps w/appropriate doffs (you'll mangle things and virtually never be a detriment to your team). Or powerful grav wells. Just make sure you fill your Sci console slots in the same manner you would your Tac slots (IE: if you're focusing on drains, wall-to-wall Flow Caps; damage, wall-to-wall Particle Gens; etc.). PvP is a trickier beast. Hull hit is a lot more viable as players don't have inflated HP, so TBR and Transphasic weapons can be very effective, especially against ships that lack hull robust hull heals. The new Romulan T5 ability with Gravity Well deserves special mention as being something not to be underestimated (imagine Eject Warp Plasma 3 that drags you in and then starts melting your hull).
The main thing to remember is that you'll only have 2-3 Tac consoles ever to work with, so you'll be relying on your Sci powers to do more of your heavy lifting and damage dealing than if you were in, say, a Raptor or Bird of Prey or certain Battlecruisers.
Gone ate the days in this game where a captain is stuck with the ships in the same class
Yeah it's limited in tac slots and tac Boffs
So what, aslong as you don't expect the same damage as an escort then don't worry
Spec into sci powers and spool up grav well 3 bolt some single cannons on the front bit of rapid fire and watch those NPC's pop
Yeah maybe not at the rate of a bop or raptor or destroyer but at least you'll have fun plus you'll have 14k shields per facing which means you'll last a lot longer than a boringscort
Elite cube -
Heghta bop - 50 seconds approx depending on buffs
Guramba - 20 seconds approximately depending on buffs
Varanus - 1min 40 approximately depending on buffs
The 'support' ships KDF-side are Gorn ships that have been adopted by KDF (Draguas, Phalanx, Varanus).
Hmm. This is the sort of road I went down the last time I was active... 'I can sort of make this work, but there's nothing productive about it'
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
I've been flying a Gorn Tactical in a Gorn ship since I hit Lvl 50 (A long time ago). I've tried other birds, but I've always come back to the Varnaus.
Your ship is a very solid one, the only thing that sucks is killing stuff fast. You can set up a build that can pretty much ignore the enemy actions on normal difficulty and still be effective.
The only time I've had an issue was with a time limit. I'd win, no doubt, however it'd be some time, which often was longer than the time allowed to kill the target.
I normally run With Gravity Well I and III, with a high Aux and lots of Shield and hull heals.
I've found there's two appraoches.
1: Torpdeo build. I tried loads of torp types until I settled on Plasma. With three plasma laucnhers you can get a torpedo in the air every three seconds (the end of the cycle is slightly longer at 4).
That gets a constant plasma burn going on the enemy, and who cares if their shields are still up? This leaves you loads of power to run into Shields .
Tactical Abilities are normally two torpedo spreads, linked with Gravity well it gets allot of things on fire Very quickly.
I feel that the Fleet ship will only work even better with this build (third Plasma burn console). Not quite got there yet.
The other option I used is Two Cannons and three Turrets, along with a chroniton Torpedo.
For power management I put the power from shields into Weapons, and then strapped on a Plasmodic leech console. A gravity well followed by a Cannon scatter volley gets a startling strike rate and a fairlly signifficant boost to the the systems at low power.
I did try beam banks insted of cannons, with beam fire at will (kept the turrets though to control Agro generation) due to the ranges I normally fired at, but I just didn't like the down range effect, it felt less damaging. I suspect this is due to the lower fire rate, and the Turrets not getting boosted meaning that the power change wasn't as pronounced.
I I also tried replacing the Torpedo with another cannon and a turret with the Borg cutting beam. However the long range of the firing ment that the damage output from the Torpedo was superior.
Hope that helps and gives you some ideas.
Thanks! I have been thinking of starting a Klingon character... actually I did but deleted it. I want to start over. Dunno which species to go with, though being honest, seems like Klingon itself is the way to go.
DC romulan torp rep(when avalible) and omega torpedo
2 turrets and cutting beam
Leach console and AA console. I think tertrion type. Instead of the DC could do 3 turrets. Run TT1 and HY1 since both have pretty fast refresh the 2 rep launchers spray torpedos like they are candy. Now just to save the 2500 zen to buy this ship and try it out. Could use either 2 tetryon or 2 plasma torpedo consoles im thinking torpedo consoles since the turrets would be just for stripping shields.
I thought have cannons at first but decided against them after trying them out. As a Sci ship the Varanus gets 4 of the target sub system abilities. Two of those aren't the best, but targets weapons and shields are extremely useful, and they are free powers on a ship that only has two tac boff slots.
This character will hit Rep 5 tomorrow and I think I'm going to get him the Omega plasma torpedo and cutting beam, they will probably be useful in this setup. I haven't parsed with the current config, but I can tell you its putting out alot of DPS, 1,100dps from the each of the dual beam banks alone, unbuffed. Buffed they are well over 2k.
I've also chained the target subsystems and torpedo spread together so this ship always has at least one of those active.
Anyway, here it is. There's still room for improvement though. All the weapons will eventually be replace with fleet variants. I do have alot of shield and hull heals. The hull heals might be alittle redundant with the repair platform and might try out some powers once I get around to it.
Fore Weapons:
1 Photon Torpedo, 2x Dual Disruptor Beam banks Mk12
Aft Weapons:
3x Disruptor Turrets MkXI
Deflector:
Honor Guard Mk10
Impulse Engine:
Honor Guard Mk10
Shield:
Honor Guard Mk10
Devices:
Subspace Field Modulator
And whatever else you want
Engineering Consoles:
Plasmonic Leech, Borg Assimilated console, Repair Platform
Science Consoles:
Field Generator Mk11, Particle Generators Mk11 x3
Tactical Consoles:
Disruptor Induction Coil Mk11 x2
Boff Powers:
Tactical:
Tac Team 1, Torpedo Spread 2
Engineering:
Emergency Power Shields 1, Reverse Shield Polarity 1
Emergency Power Shields 1
Science:
Hazard Emitters 1, Transfer Shield Strength 2, Gravity well 1, Gravity Well 3
Polarize Hull 1, Hazard Emitters 2, Tyken's Rift 2
Plasma and grav well and photonic shockwave?
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Wow. Ok, it works pretty darn nicely in pve. In fact, I was taking stuff out much faster than my engineer in a Guramba, whom I thought was doing a good job.
When I get enough reputation I'll start doing Rom plasma stuff, but that's a ways off (he has 0 rep, 0 marks, so boo)
Thanks for ideas and encouragement.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?