Uh, provided that you build a cruiser right, I can find little to no difference between a beam shot and a cannon burst. A fleet excelsior can MATCH (Not almost, MATCH) almost any escort I have for firepower. A Fleet Assault Cruiser will be able to sustain that firepower, even in broadside.
The Vorcha is a an Attack Cruiser wich means it's compared with cruisers, not escorts. Raptors and raiders are escorts. If you may know, almost all KDF ships are armed with cannons except for the carriers so that can they culd deal alot of damage quite easy if they wanted to.
What is the sense of equiping DHCs on a KDF battle cruiser if you don't have the turn rate to use them in PvP? Every escort will simply park in your back, where only the turrets tickle their shield, while the majority of firepower, the DHCs in the front, cannot unload their damage. Even normal cannons are useless, because they also don't fire backwards.
Sure, in PvE, the KDF battle cruisers are superior in damage compared with the Fed ones, because of cannon damage. In PvE you can even equip the BortasQ with DHC. PvP is a quite different thing.
In PvE, only if Fed cruiser using the Aux2Bat build, they can match the damage with beam arrays. However, for this they need to give up alot of tanking ability, while KDF battle cruiser can go heavy tank and do good damage.
I agree with the beam power drain mechanic being bugged. But I also agree with this from OP:
How? Simple. The cannon's primary advantage is that it has a rapid refire & fire rate plus the boff abilities buff ALL cannons not just one (unlike beams) when firing on a single target.
Ok, FAW is affecting all beams. But what about BO and Target Subsystem? Make those "all beam" abilities (assault cruiser firing 8 BO3, or sci going with 16 Target Shields) would buff their damage dealing significantly. Would also bring the beams back to escorts.
Of course BO would have power drain issues, but well, some drawbacks are needed.
One thing that occured to me, is if beams and turrets for that matter do not actually "help" the defensive embassy console procs. The dmg output is low, mitigated by shield resistances and they can proc shield or hull heal, hence in effect actually helping the target.
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I agree with the beam power drain mechanic being bugged. But I also agree with this from OP:
Ok, FAW is affecting all beams. But what about BO and Target Subsystem? Make those "all beam" abilities (assault cruiser firing 8 BO3, or sci going with 16 Target Shields) would buff their damage dealing significantly. Would also bring the beams back to escorts.
Of course BO would have power drain issues, but well, some drawbacks are needed.
I kind-of agree with this - kind-of because BO whilst being able to deliver a phenomenal single strike only really adds up to the DPS you'd do firing all your beams anyway - it's good for punching through a shield facing but you don't really do any extra DPS with it.
But if all 6/7/8 beams hit with the same force? You'd vaporize whatever you hit fun, but sadly not practical.
I've largely stayed out of this debate since it's been going on pretty much since the game went live (although the disparity is greater now). Personally, I think on a well-built Fleet cruiser beams do DPS just fine - I'd like to see their power-drain reduced but that's it really.
Sure, in PvE, the KDF battle cruisers are superior in damage compared with the Fed ones, because of cannon damage. In PvE you can even equip the BortasQ with DHC. PvP is a quite different thing.
1.) Beam arrays don't fire backward either. A cruiser equipped with beams will either have 3 arrays and a torpedo, or 4 arrays, to shoot at the escort riding their six. Which would do exactly nothing to it.
2.) The 5% of STO players that specialize in PVP should have a 5% stake in the game's balance decisions.
Here's my problem with this kind of thinking. When you ask these sort of people how to "properly" build a cruiser, they will be all to happy to describe how they run weapon batteries, nadion inversion, EPTW, BFAW-doffs, EPS Transfer, and the preserved heart of a witchdoctor, to power their beams.
All of this, to be only moderately weaker than dual cannons instead of catastrophically crippled by power drain.
Meanwhile, where's the people running dual cannons having power drain problems? They don't exist.
If you can seriously look at ship A, which is devoting half of its capacity just to not fall flat on its face when it tries to fire its weapons, and compare it to ship B which plugs in a set of weapons and sets power to maximum and then never worries about it ever again, and not realize that this is a serious gameplay balance problem, then I don't even know how to talk to you. It's like trying to explain the principles of mathematics to somebody who thinks the counting numbers are one, two, purple, dog, squish.
If you can seriously look at ship A, which is devoting half of its capacity just to not fall flat on its face when it tries to fire its weapons, and compare it to ship B which plugs in a set of weapons and sets power to maximum and then never worries about it ever again, and not realize that this is a serious gameplay balance problem, then I don't even know how to talk to you. It's like trying to explain the principles of mathematics to somebody who thinks the counting numbers are one, two, purple, dog, squish.
That's nonsense. That Escort has all it's tac slots filled with: APO, CSW/CRF, TT & THY/TS
Most likely it also has EP2W & A2B.
This leaves Hazard Emitters and Transfer Shield Strength or whatever for Science slots.
What you say is true for every ship. There is some build to optimize damage.
1) Procs on DHCs are not more powerful. They're 100% the same.
2) DHCs receive the exact same bonuses from a given boff ability as every other cannon type
3) What makes DHCs better is not some crazy base damage superiority, but their power efficiency. Solve the drain problem for DCs, single cannons and beams, and they'll be just
as good as DHCs.
4) If you really think FaW only affects one beam array, you've got serious issues.
You completely misread my post.
1- Im not saying they are now. Im saying the proc on my suggested SINGLE heavy cannon BE twice as strong.
2- Yes they do. But DHS has higher damage and much better power efficiency. When CRF is applied it becomes better than dual cannons when it comes to power drain : dmg ratio. Much better.
3- Correct, see #2. The issue is not about solving power drain..that is balanced as it now except for the DHC's.
4- FAW affects all beams. I was talking about overload vs CRF. You cannot really compare FAW to Cannon spread since FAW has a limit on how many targets it hit whereas cannon spread does not (or its limit is way higher).
Why frack with cannons, especially change the DHCs to Single Heavy Cannons, when the issue is with beams? Nerfing cannons based on perception doesnt fix beams.
Fix Beam Arrays, not nerf cannons.
Fix Beam Array power drain issue.
Give Beams a CRF style BOff ability in the game.
Adjust All other weapon types to make sense in reflection with handicaps balanced to thier increased damage values.
DBBs a better Firing arc.
Single Cannons a better firing arc.
Dual Cannons a better firing arc.
Create a Heavy Beam Bank that is to Cruisers as DHCs are to Escorts.
Create a Beam turret.
Do anything but go backwards by nerfing cannons, especialy based on perception.
Why? Because the perception of thier suckage will never change to those who continue to to thinks cannons are why thry suck.
Because Beam Arrays still suck because they havent fixed them yet.
I think beam arrays are fine as they are. By 'fixing' beams you merely turn them into somewhat copies of cannons and thats just dumb. Each weapon needs to have its big pro and big cons to using them. Right now the beams are just right...cannons are not. Cannons just have massive pro's and no cons.
In my suggestion, im literally putting the CON in the cannons. The DHS once removed makes cannons become more of a burst-damage weapon rather than a spike damage weapon and beams become the spike damage weapon (via overload) that have PBAOE-like attack mode (FAW). CRF would no longer be the OMFGOUCH damage since DHS is gone. The Dual cannons can still put out a really good amount of damage but you'll need to fire the entire CRF duration worth of DualCannon to achieve the same effect that a 1/4th of CRF duration snapshot from DHS's.
I would add two more suggestions:
1- Give all energy weapons a power consumption reduction/increase based on the ship's weapon power level settings.
If you think about it, if you lower weapon power the damage the weapon does goes down..but why then does the power consumption stay the same? It should also go up or down.
Firing a beam or cannon at 100% power should have 2x power consumption penalty but it would do 2x the base damage. Lowering it to 25% power should lower power consumption to 1/4th and DO 1/4th of the base damage.
2- Beams: Increase the duration of the beam's 'lase' animation to 2x what it is now. Its rather silly and un-trek like to see a beam array just spamming short duration beams. To counteract the reduction in 'shots' simply increase the dmg, proc % chance and proc effect so that it all remains the same as it is now per weapon cycle..its just less beams visually being spat out but each beam lasts twice as long and we can enjoy the visuals.
(it could also allow them to add the famous trek 'phaser charge-up' animation of the lights coming from both sides of the saucer beam array, meeting in the middle and spitting the beam out).
I do agree with having a beam turret. Id LOVE that! I once even spent a week trying to 'hack' the client's graphics to see if I could make the turrets fire beams not little puffs.
I think beam arrays are fine as they are. By 'fixing' beams you merely turn them into somewhat copies of cannons and thats just dumb. Each weapon needs to have its big pro and big cons to using them. Right now the beams are just right...cannons are not. Cannons just have massive pro's and no cons.
In my suggestion, im literally putting the CON in the cannons. The DHS once removed makes cannons become more of a burst-damage weapon rather than a spike damage weapon and beams become the spike damage weapon (via overload) that have PBAOE-like attack mode (FAW). CRF would no longer be the OMFGOUCH damage since DHS is gone. The Dual cannons can still put out a really good amount of damage but you'll need to fire the entire CRF duration worth of DualCannon to achieve the same effect that a 1/4th of CRF duration snapshot from DHS's.
I would add two more suggestions:
1- Give all energy weapons a power consumption reduction/increase based on the ship's weapon power level settings.
If you think about it, if you lower weapon power the damage the weapon does goes down..but why then does the power consumption stay the same? It should also go up or down.
Firing a beam or cannon at 100% power should have 2x power consumption penalty but it would do 2x the base damage. Lowering it to 25% power should lower power consumption to 1/4th and DO 1/4th of the base damage.
2- Beams: Increase the duration of the beam's 'lase' animation to 2x what it is now. Its rather silly and un-trek like to see a beam array just spamming short duration beams. To counteract the reduction in 'shots' simply increase the dmg, proc % chance and proc effect so that it all remains the same as it is now per weapon cycle..its just less beams visually being spat out but each beam lasts twice as long and we can enjoy the visuals.
(it could also allow them to add the famous trek 'phaser charge-up' animation of the lights coming from both sides of the saucer beam array, meeting in the middle and spitting the beam out).
I do agree with having a beam turret. Id LOVE that! I once even spent a week trying to 'hack' the client's graphics to see if I could make the turrets fire beams not little puffs.
My idea is to fix the drain issue with beams to correct thier inefficiency and retain all thier other attributes. Creating a new beam buffing BOff ability only helps the viability of beams and overall gameplay.
Your ideas strike me as just nerfong cannons to the point that they make beams look better in comparison, which is no fix for the Beam Array issue.
My idea is to fix the drain issue with beams to correct thier inefficiency and retain all thier other attributes. Creating a new beam buffing BOff ability only helps the viability of beams and overall gameplay.
Your ideas strike me as just nerfong cannons to the point that they make beams look better in comparison, which is no fix for the Beam Array issue.
Like I said, beams are fine and cannons are what have a really overpowered advantage. What you seem to want is for beams to be improved so they are basically a lased cannon with different boff abilities. Thats not improving the game, thats just turning it more and more into a generic no-flavor game.
Beams don't have an efficiency problem. You're comparing them to cannons which have a ridiculously good efficiency.
The fact that beams have access to disable subsystem abilities and much wider firing arcs makes their alleged power inefficiency balanced. Cannons on the other hand were given very high efficiency and very high damage output with narrow firing arc as an attempt at some sort of balancing act... which was really dumb since the ships that make use of cannons are literally quick turning escorts (we really cant count the few cannon capable cruisers/carriers in comparison to the huge number of escorts/raptors).
So... like I said: Remove the very highest dps/power efficient cannon (that IS the real source of the dps/pwr eff issue) and replace it with a single heavy cannon. Then add power cost modifiers to the weapons based on the ship's weapon power setting and finally, for beams, just a cosmetic enhancement, make the beam animations last twice as long for this makes it TREK.
I was there when you said it the first time and as I continue to say, I disagree, and have my reasons on why.
I believe the game would be lessened if the DHCs are nerfed when they are the one thing about cannons done correctly.
There is a risk that could change if even just beam drain is directly addressed but its a diffinent if DHCs are changed dirrectly to accomidate what I find to be Beam Arrays design problem.
A bar has been set by DHCs with Tac buff support on escorts. Its time for beams to be made more for cruisers in a similiar fashion.
Its an honest desire to see beams better ingame, even for me. I like putting my Tac in a slow cruiser, BortasQu at the moment, and playing a tanking heal support role. I would like beams to be better for such play.
Emergency power to weapons trades places with Auxiliary to Dampeners, becoming a LT->COM level ability.
Then,
Emergency power to weapons 1 (lieutenant): +20 weapon power, 25% immunity to weapon power drain
Emergency power to weapons 3 (commander): +40 weapon power, 50% immunity to weapon power drain
That would solve the problem quite nicely. You want to run a damage-dealing cruiser, then just slot a high level EPTW for the drain resistance.
Its a great idea on its on but I still hold the opinion that the flaw lies in beam design fixes and keeps the player free to choose any BO ff ability without limitatoon to attain effecient fdrain effects.
Thougj the idea that EPTW should give a WP drain buffer is cool
The fact that beams have access to disable subsystem abilities and much wider firing arcs makes their alleged power inefficiency balanced.
Strongly disagree.
1.) Subsystem targeting requires a very high Flow Capacitors score in order to have a meaningful impact on the target. So there's an added level of infrastructure cost.
2.) The ships most likely to use beam arrays don't have the tactical slots available to use subtargeting abilities.
3.) Subtargeting has a 45 second cooldown with 10 second active time. Power-efficient dual cannons do more damage all the time.
4.) Subtargeting does not increase your basic damage output. It can create a vulnerability on the target, but without damage output to capitalize on that vulnerability it's a useless ability.
I don't think they are BS. My Fed cruiser uses 4 of them, granted I PVE solo most my gaming time. With that set up it can do damage from broadside. I focus all 4 on a target, drop speed down to a crawl, and just rain down on it. Soon as the shields drop, turn head on and fire torpedoes. Using this I blown up all kinds of ships. It all matters how your play style is. Also very handy on those pesky fighters and multiple smaller ships you fight. I use the "Fire at Will" on those to help take those out faster as well.
Now my KDF Battlecruiser is different. That one is packing DHCs and DBs in the front. So that ship is totally different on how to attack. That one you don't want it to be facing you. As it will literally eat ships of any size up. Even the Battleship ones, I call those easy targets.
Beams has their place in use, and different play styles. I don't have any problems with them.
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Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I use all beams on my eng toon's galor, and can keep the weapon power above 100 about 90% of the time, even using FAW or broadsiding. It's all in what you want from your cruiser. Mine's built to be an attack cruiser, to shield tank and still dish out decent damage ( typically in the 750-1100 dps range ,per beam, as indicated by the HUD display), while staying alive. It's all in your focus. A healer or straight up tank is not going to be a DPS king because that's not what you built it to be. To excel in one area is to compromise in another. That's just how it is.
I use all beams on my eng toon's galor, and can keep the weapon power above 100 about 90% of the time, even using FAW or broadsiding. It's all in what you want from your cruiser. Mine's built to be an attack cruiser, to shield tank and still dish out decent damage ( typically in the 750-1100 dps range ,per beam, as indicated by the HUD display), while staying alive. It's all in your focus. A healer or straight up tank is not going to be a DPS king because that's not what you built it to be. To excel in one area is to compromise in another. That's just how it is.
My Engineer in a Steamrunner disagrees. He tanks tac cubes and still does more damage than a beam boat is capable of.
For that matter my Tac in a Fleet Defiant also disagrees, he can tank tac cubes for about a minute without a sweat and does more damage than my steamrunner and a beam boat combined! If said cube isn't dead after a minute well that just means I disengage for about ten seconds and groan about bad PuGs before going in to finish the job.
Because you see, the two most important parts about tanking in STO would be Emergency Power to Shields and a solid amount of shield power. Oh and Hazard Emitters. And the Yo-Yo manuever. That's about all one needs.
'scuse me? I killed a jem dread just last ngiht with my galot. Nothing but polaron mk XI purple beams. It's not in the ship, it's how you fly it. BO3 supported by tac team 1, apA, apB, fire on my mark, go down fighting with 40% hull, tac fleet and a critical hit, and I shot for 50k damage, brought him down too 10% hull. Didn't take much too finish him off...
I AM THE HARBINGER OF HOPE!
I AM THE SWORD OF THE RIGHTOUS!
If you can seriously look at ship A, which is devoting half of its capacity just to not fall flat on its face when it tries to fire its weapons, and compare it to ship B which plugs in a set of weapons and sets power to maximum and then never worries about it ever again, and not realize that this is a serious gameplay balance problem, then I don't even know how to talk to you. It's like trying to explain the principles of mathematics to somebody who thinks the counting numbers are one, two, purple, dog, squish.
Hmmm, you realize the reverse is also true don't you? Cruisers fret to do damage and escorts fret to survive. But good news! the new Rom beam array uses up no power, that should help calm down anyone having too difficult a time. Personally, I expect my cruiser alt to get it sometime next decade since the rep system is such good and exciting fun to get alts through!
Hmmm, you realize the reverse is also true don't you? Cruisers fret to do damage and escorts fret to survive. But good news! the new Rom beam array uses up no power, that should help calm down anyone having too difficult a time. Personally, I expect my cruiser alt to get it sometime next decade since the rep system is such good and exciting fun to get alts through!
But the new array, is ugly plasma ? GIVE ME PHASER. I would really love STARFLEET variant of the rumulan set with phasers + photons. Sad part is, the romulan set is almost the thing I imagined for Galaxy set.
Console - > saucer sep
Romulan set like Heavy Phaser Beam array
Omega-like (with charges) dual photon torpedo launcher
2: piece bonus +phaser dmg
3: piece bonus heavy beam array hit
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
But good news! the new Rom beam array uses up no power, that should help calm down anyone having too difficult a time.
Romulan experimental beam doesn't consume power by itself, but it IS affected by your weapon power level, which will still be drained like crazy from your other arrays.
It shouldn't be dependent on your weapon power since it's supposed to have its own power supply built in.
Also, it's rather suspicious that the devs made it unique so we can't have more than one. An entire beam boat made of non-draining arrays would solve the problem in a rather spectacular way.
Devs knows, that with ability to slot multiple such arrays, their belowed DHC escorts would be kicked from the top of the food chain. It wont happen, ever.
I suppose that, for the same reason, any sort of change fixing beam issues wont happen. Or will be sabotaged (read: it's working as intended).
[Brings out popcorn, thinking how funny it is to read about moaners that scream for God-mode buttons... ...Mah ship must turn on a dime. Insta-oneshott, tank borg queen lancewaeponz alone, heal everything at once 200%. At least...]
[Brings out popcorn, thinking how funny it is to read about moaners that scream for God-mode buttons... ...Mah ship must turn on a dime. Insta-oneshott, tank borg queen lancewaeponz alone, heal everything at once 200%. At least...]
Are we speaking about escorts ?
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
[Brings out popcorn, thinking how funny it is to read about moaners that scream for God-mode buttons... ...Mah ship must turn on a dime. Insta-oneshott, tank borg queen lancewaeponz alone, heal everything at once 200%. At least...]
Comments
My apoligies then as it came off as another post with hidden agendas hidden withon agendas as they all tend to sound like after a while.
R.I.P
Beams are fine. They're just not loved right.
Or are turrets overpowered? I vote we remove turrets, or increase their power drain to 10 and cut their damage in half. This is half sarcastic.
What is the sense of equiping DHCs on a KDF battle cruiser if you don't have the turn rate to use them in PvP? Every escort will simply park in your back, where only the turrets tickle their shield, while the majority of firepower, the DHCs in the front, cannot unload their damage. Even normal cannons are useless, because they also don't fire backwards.
Sure, in PvE, the KDF battle cruisers are superior in damage compared with the Fed ones, because of cannon damage. In PvE you can even equip the BortasQ with DHC. PvP is a quite different thing.
In PvE, only if Fed cruiser using the Aux2Bat build, they can match the damage with beam arrays. However, for this they need to give up alot of tanking ability, while KDF battle cruiser can go heavy tank and do good damage.
Ok, FAW is affecting all beams. But what about BO and Target Subsystem? Make those "all beam" abilities (assault cruiser firing 8 BO3, or sci going with 16 Target Shields) would buff their damage dealing significantly. Would also bring the beams back to escorts.
Of course BO would have power drain issues, but well, some drawbacks are needed.
I kind-of agree with this - kind-of because BO whilst being able to deliver a phenomenal single strike only really adds up to the DPS you'd do firing all your beams anyway - it's good for punching through a shield facing but you don't really do any extra DPS with it.
But if all 6/7/8 beams hit with the same force? You'd vaporize whatever you hit
I've largely stayed out of this debate since it's been going on pretty much since the game went live (although the disparity is greater now). Personally, I think on a well-built Fleet cruiser beams do DPS just fine - I'd like to see their power-drain reduced but that's it really.
1.) Beam arrays don't fire backward either. A cruiser equipped with beams will either have 3 arrays and a torpedo, or 4 arrays, to shoot at the escort riding their six. Which would do exactly nothing to it.
2.) The 5% of STO players that specialize in PVP should have a 5% stake in the game's balance decisions.
Here's my problem with this kind of thinking. When you ask these sort of people how to "properly" build a cruiser, they will be all to happy to describe how they run weapon batteries, nadion inversion, EPTW, BFAW-doffs, EPS Transfer, and the preserved heart of a witchdoctor, to power their beams.
All of this, to be only moderately weaker than dual cannons instead of catastrophically crippled by power drain.
Meanwhile, where's the people running dual cannons having power drain problems? They don't exist.
If you can seriously look at ship A, which is devoting half of its capacity just to not fall flat on its face when it tries to fire its weapons, and compare it to ship B which plugs in a set of weapons and sets power to maximum and then never worries about it ever again, and not realize that this is a serious gameplay balance problem, then I don't even know how to talk to you. It's like trying to explain the principles of mathematics to somebody who thinks the counting numbers are one, two, purple, dog, squish.
That's nonsense. That Escort has all it's tac slots filled with: APO, CSW/CRF, TT & THY/TS
Most likely it also has EP2W & A2B.
This leaves Hazard Emitters and Transfer Shield Strength or whatever for Science slots.
What you say is true for every ship. There is some build to optimize damage.
He's dead, Jim.
You completely misread my post.
1- Im not saying they are now. Im saying the proc on my suggested SINGLE heavy cannon BE twice as strong.
2- Yes they do. But DHS has higher damage and much better power efficiency. When CRF is applied it becomes better than dual cannons when it comes to power drain : dmg ratio. Much better.
3- Correct, see #2. The issue is not about solving power drain..that is balanced as it now except for the DHC's.
4- FAW affects all beams. I was talking about overload vs CRF. You cannot really compare FAW to Cannon spread since FAW has a limit on how many targets it hit whereas cannon spread does not (or its limit is way higher).
I think beam arrays are fine as they are. By 'fixing' beams you merely turn them into somewhat copies of cannons and thats just dumb. Each weapon needs to have its big pro and big cons to using them. Right now the beams are just right...cannons are not. Cannons just have massive pro's and no cons.
In my suggestion, im literally putting the CON in the cannons. The DHS once removed makes cannons become more of a burst-damage weapon rather than a spike damage weapon and beams become the spike damage weapon (via overload) that have PBAOE-like attack mode (FAW). CRF would no longer be the OMFGOUCH damage since DHS is gone. The Dual cannons can still put out a really good amount of damage but you'll need to fire the entire CRF duration worth of DualCannon to achieve the same effect that a 1/4th of CRF duration snapshot from DHS's.
I would add two more suggestions:
1- Give all energy weapons a power consumption reduction/increase based on the ship's weapon power level settings.
If you think about it, if you lower weapon power the damage the weapon does goes down..but why then does the power consumption stay the same? It should also go up or down.
Firing a beam or cannon at 100% power should have 2x power consumption penalty but it would do 2x the base damage. Lowering it to 25% power should lower power consumption to 1/4th and DO 1/4th of the base damage.
2- Beams: Increase the duration of the beam's 'lase' animation to 2x what it is now. Its rather silly and un-trek like to see a beam array just spamming short duration beams. To counteract the reduction in 'shots' simply increase the dmg, proc % chance and proc effect so that it all remains the same as it is now per weapon cycle..its just less beams visually being spat out but each beam lasts twice as long and we can enjoy the visuals.
(it could also allow them to add the famous trek 'phaser charge-up' animation of the lights coming from both sides of the saucer beam array, meeting in the middle and spitting the beam out).
I do agree with having a beam turret. Id LOVE that! I once even spent a week trying to 'hack' the client's graphics to see if I could make the turrets fire beams not little puffs.
Your ideas strike me as just nerfong cannons to the point that they make beams look better in comparison, which is no fix for the Beam Array issue.
R.I.P
Emergency power to weapons trades places with Auxiliary to Dampeners, becoming a LT->COM level ability.
Then,
Emergency power to weapons 1 (lieutenant): +20 weapon power, 25% immunity to weapon power drain
Emergency power to weapons 3 (commander): +40 weapon power, 50% immunity to weapon power drain
That would solve the problem quite nicely. You want to run a damage-dealing cruiser, then just slot a high level EPTW for the drain resistance.
Problem... what do we then do with our ensign engineering skill slots?
Like I said, beams are fine and cannons are what have a really overpowered advantage. What you seem to want is for beams to be improved so they are basically a lased cannon with different boff abilities. Thats not improving the game, thats just turning it more and more into a generic no-flavor game.
Beams don't have an efficiency problem. You're comparing them to cannons which have a ridiculously good efficiency.
The fact that beams have access to disable subsystem abilities and much wider firing arcs makes their alleged power inefficiency balanced. Cannons on the other hand were given very high efficiency and very high damage output with narrow firing arc as an attempt at some sort of balancing act... which was really dumb since the ships that make use of cannons are literally quick turning escorts (we really cant count the few cannon capable cruisers/carriers in comparison to the huge number of escorts/raptors).
So... like I said: Remove the very highest dps/power efficient cannon (that IS the real source of the dps/pwr eff issue) and replace it with a single heavy cannon. Then add power cost modifiers to the weapons based on the ship's weapon power setting and finally, for beams, just a cosmetic enhancement, make the beam animations last twice as long for this makes it TREK.
I believe the game would be lessened if the DHCs are nerfed when they are the one thing about cannons done correctly.
There is a risk that could change if even just beam drain is directly addressed but its a diffinent if DHCs are changed dirrectly to accomidate what I find to be Beam Arrays design problem.
A bar has been set by DHCs with Tac buff support on escorts. Its time for beams to be made more for cruisers in a similiar fashion.
Its an honest desire to see beams better ingame, even for me. I like putting my Tac in a slow cruiser, BortasQu at the moment, and playing a tanking heal support role. I would like beams to be better for such play.
R.I.P
Its a great idea on its on but I still hold the opinion that the flaw lies in beam design fixes and keeps the player free to choose any BO ff ability without limitatoon to attain effecient fdrain effects.
Thougj the idea that EPTW should give a WP drain buffer is cool
R.I.P
Strongly disagree.
1.) Subsystem targeting requires a very high Flow Capacitors score in order to have a meaningful impact on the target. So there's an added level of infrastructure cost.
2.) The ships most likely to use beam arrays don't have the tactical slots available to use subtargeting abilities.
3.) Subtargeting has a 45 second cooldown with 10 second active time. Power-efficient dual cannons do more damage all the time.
4.) Subtargeting does not increase your basic damage output. It can create a vulnerability on the target, but without damage output to capitalize on that vulnerability it's a useless ability.
Now my KDF Battlecruiser is different. That one is packing DHCs and DBs in the front. So that ship is totally different on how to attack. That one you don't want it to be facing you. As it will literally eat ships of any size up. Even the Battleship ones, I call those easy targets.
Beams has their place in use, and different play styles. I don't have any problems with them.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Even cannons + turrets out damage them AND have a larger firing arc.
My Engineer in a Steamrunner disagrees. He tanks tac cubes and still does more damage than a beam boat is capable of.
For that matter my Tac in a Fleet Defiant also disagrees, he can tank tac cubes for about a minute without a sweat and does more damage than my steamrunner and a beam boat combined! If said cube isn't dead after a minute well that just means I disengage for about ten seconds and groan about bad PuGs before going in to finish the job.
Because you see, the two most important parts about tanking in STO would be Emergency Power to Shields and a solid amount of shield power. Oh and Hazard Emitters. And the Yo-Yo manuever. That's about all one needs.
I AM THE SWORD OF THE RIGHTOUS!
Hmmm, you realize the reverse is also true don't you? Cruisers fret to do damage and escorts fret to survive. But good news! the new Rom beam array uses up no power, that should help calm down anyone having too difficult a time. Personally, I expect my cruiser alt to get it sometime next decade since the rep system is such good and exciting fun to get alts through!
But the new array, is ugly plasma ? GIVE ME PHASER. I would really love STARFLEET variant of the rumulan set with phasers + photons. Sad part is, the romulan set is almost the thing I imagined for Galaxy set.
Console - > saucer sep
Romulan set like Heavy Phaser Beam array
Omega-like (with charges) dual photon torpedo launcher
2: piece bonus +phaser dmg
3: piece bonus heavy beam array hit
Romulan experimental beam doesn't consume power by itself, but it IS affected by your weapon power level, which will still be drained like crazy from your other arrays.
It shouldn't be dependent on your weapon power since it's supposed to have its own power supply built in.
Also, it's rather suspicious that the devs made it unique so we can't have more than one. An entire beam boat made of non-draining arrays would solve the problem in a rather spectacular way.
I suppose that, for the same reason, any sort of change fixing beam issues wont happen. Or will be sabotaged (read: it's working as intended).
Are we speaking about escorts ?
Yeah, I think the guy is talking about escorts.