Um, you DO realize that in reality, the Galaxy Class doesn't exist and everything about Star Trek has been made up by writers for the purpose of telling entertaining stories, right?
Just for chuckles can someone who is against the idea of the Galaxy Class being a capable warship please give me their reasons for thinking this without using these 4 tired old arguments/excuses
1. The U.S.S Odyssey being rammed by a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship
2. Civilians and Families on board (cough ! cough ! Saratoga at Battle of Wolf 359)
3. Rascals TNG T.V episode (1 Episode out of a 178)
4. Being destroyed by a warp core breach in Generations after multiple hits to the hull from torpedoes
Yes i'm bored but i would like to see other reasons other than these 4 being thrown at why the Galaxy is a failure. It always comes back to people using these arguments and excuses as to why the Galaxy should be held back.
So heres a chance to to convince me and other pro-Galaxy people why the ship should not have a more tactical boff layout than a Excelsior/Ambassador/Galor/D'Kora/Cheyenne ect
Oh forgot one you can also not use the ship was designed during a time of peace. Esp when the ship was fitted with the biggest and most powerful phaser arrays available at launch and biggest torpedo launchers
Does it really matter? No matter what anyone says the fans of the ship are going to overlook it. People cannot turn off fanboyism. It is like your favorite color being blue and then defending blue to everyone who likes every other possible color more. There is no answer that is going to convince a fanboy to change their mind - not Galaxy fanboys, not Connie fanboys wanting a T5, etc.
For myself, I see the Galaxy as being 45 years old and having been replaced by "better" ships three times in this timeline: Galaxy X upgrade, Sovereign, and Odyssey - and that does not even include the Avenger or Vesta. From a practical standpoint they cannot all be equally powerful. If they were then what is the point of upgrades and other ships being built?
So you are left with every fanboy wanting their ship to be the best, be it Galaxy, Sovereign, Ambassador, Excelsior, Connie, whatever. There is no way to win that, as it is all subjective to the individual.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Just for chuckles can someone who is against the idea of the Galaxy Class being a capable warship please give me their reasons for thinking this
Sure thing hoss.
In the context of STO, the cruiser line has to cover all sorts of bases. There's the tactical slanted cruiser. There's the science slanted cruiser. There's the egnineering slanted cruiser.
Tactical slanted cruiser seems to be covered by, at the very least, the Assault Cruiser, the Excelsior and the Avenger. With possibly the Fleet Galaxy X making its presence felt by some builds and parses floating around. Oh and maybe the Tactical Odyssey.
The Science slanted cruiser is the Star Cruiser, the Odyssey Science version, and the Fleet Ambassador.
The Engineering slanted cruiser, well that seems to be the Galaxy's role. Along with the Ops variant of the Odyssey.
It's just a role in the skill trees and the mechanics of the game. The Galaxy got tapped to be engineering heavy. And apparently this many thousands of posts later, the dev team are a-OK with it filling that role.
In the context of STO, the cruiser line has to cover all sorts of bases. There's the tactical slanted cruiser. There's the science slanted cruiser. There's the egnineering slanted cruiser.
Tactical slanted cruiser seems to be covered by, at the very least, the Assault Cruiser, the Excelsior and the Avenger. With possibly the Fleet Galaxy X making its presence felt by some builds and parses floating around. Oh and maybe the Tactical Odyssey.
The Science slanted cruiser is the Star Cruiser, the Odyssey Science version, and the Fleet Ambassador.
The Engineering slanted cruiser, well that seems to be the Galaxy's role. Along with the Ops variant of the Odyssey.
It's just a role in the skill trees and the mechanics of the game. The Galaxy got tapped to be engineering heavy. And apparently this many thousands of posts later, the dev team are a-OK with it filling that role.
Technically, the regular Galaxy filling the traditional Engineering heavy Cruiser for the Feds in STO is sound. TAC-Cruiser wise, it's solid already.
SCI-cruiser, the SCI Odyssey, Starcruiser, and Mirror Heavy Cruiser fit the role capably.
For endgame Fed ships, the Galaxy will cover that base, capably.
But here comes the problem, which I'm sure you know of since you've been around long enough :cool: ... and that is Cruisers heavy in Engineer like the Galaxy have no use in STO. This game's slant towards insane damage has never been higher than now. Defenses from gear, reputation, DOFFs have allowed ships that should be fragile to be resilient enough on their own that their meager repair/heal skills are more than enough to keep themselves alive and even useful for team crosshealing.
The TAC Cruisers epitomize this. A Fleet Sovvy, Excelsior, Ferengi D'Kora, Galor, etc. have more than enough build space to make the ships more than sturdy enough for anything in this game, while still giving the team the firepower to make the content trivial.
And firepower with enough resiliency (or evasiveness; one way or another to stay alive longer) and crosshealing is what's needed in today's game. A full on "healer" such as the Cmdr/LtCdr ENG ships are are not needed. Maybe within STO's first year, yes, but not today.
I'll even lump the Gal-X, even post "reboot" into that mix.
Whatever people think they can do to put good dmg output in a Cmdr/LtCdr ENG Cruiser is easily replicated and easily surpassed by the TAC Cruisers. KDF players had already been doing that with the standard Vor'Cha refit, Negh'Var, Fleet Negh'Var. But whatever offensive pushing that can be done on those ships pale greatly in comparison to the Fleet Vor'Cha, Mogh, or any other of the TAC Battlecruisers.
If the devs wanted to keep the standard Galaxy in mediocrity as a full on Cmdr/LtCdr ENG ship, then okay, though not fine with that. But to also put the offensive minded Galaxy-X as the same deal, it's a bit too much. Of all the Galaxy variants, the Gal-X needed a LtCdr TAC station.
But here comes the problem, which I'm sure you know of since you've been around long enough :cool: ... and that is Cruisers heavy in Engineer like the Galaxy have no use in STO.
I get that. But the devs seem to want it to still be in that role. And there are definitely a lot of other options for tactical and science slants in the cruiser lineup. There's a ton of cruisers. And swapping around the Galaxy to be tactically oriented makes things really redundant.
I understand the fandom at work. But I mean, they're not changing their minds you know? There's this thread. And then the reboot. Seems like the discussion has run its course. No matter how many times someone says it deserves this or deserves that, there's just too many cruisers in starfleet as is.
But what I feel is getting overlooked are the posts from hawk and bort. Apparently there's movement afoot, not big strides, so more like baby steps, but movement afoot to shift around BOFF powers.
And so this thread and others may have finally had a more general impact that will get Engineering BOFF powers sorted out to be more useful, giving the engineering slant cruiser more of a niche in game.
That's probably the best hope for Galaxy fans at this point anyways.
At the end of the day, the Galaxy isn't getting a makeover.
If you're a cruiser fan and want to fly something with tactical prowess, probably best to look at the excelsior or the avenger. That was always going to be the case anyways.
Oh forgot one you can also not use the ship was designed during a time of peace. Esp when the ship was fitted with the biggest and most powerful phaser arrays available at launch and biggest torpedo launchers
seeing as this was proved false as the show went on you found out the galaxy and nebula where designed and built wile the federation was at war with the cardassians, tholians, and techazty(sp) and a few boarder skirmishes with minor races
so the show basicly retconned the whole "build during a time of peace" non-sense
Ok so far taking away the 5 bullets that are always fired at the ship, and i'm not talking Game mechanics i'm talking what was shown in the T.V series right through to VOY (Should have sadi that in original post), no one as yet has been able to point out or support why the ship is not a capable combatant.
Just for chuckles can someone who is against the idea of the Galaxy Class being a capable warship please give me their reasons for thinking this without using these 4 tired old arguments/excuses
1. The U.S.S Odyssey being rammed by a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship
2. Civilians and Families on board (cough ! cough ! Saratoga at Battle of Wolf 359)
3. Rascals TNG T.V episode (1 Episode out of a 178)
4. Being destroyed by a warp core breach in Generations after multiple hits to the hull from torpedoes
Yes i'm bored but i would like to see other reasons other than these 4 being thrown at why the Galaxy is a failure. It always comes back to people using these arguments and excuses as to why the Galaxy should be held back.
So heres a chance to to convince me and other pro-Galaxy people why the ship should not have a more tactical boff layout than a Excelsior/Ambassador/Galor/D'Kora/Cheyenne ect
Oh forgot one you can also not use the ship was designed during a time of peace. Esp when the ship was fitted with the biggest and most powerful phaser arrays available at launch and biggest torpedo launchers
i'm not really against the gal-r/x getting more tac slots but thats just because i feel that trying to match a storyline-based pseudo-science understanding of a ship as presented in the shows with a purely numbers/mechanics based definition of a ship in sto is quite futile as the mechanics of the game are not really used in a way that supports this matching. Not saying it cant be done just that it isnt only a question of the bo-layout.
If I should list key features of the galaxy class versus other classes and we assume that all ships are fitted with the most recent tech, so bascially we can ignore age and only look at the basic hull design of the ship, then the galaxy class is most definitly versatile as in being easily modify-able. I remember reading statements to that affect in the technical manual of the galaxy class though it was ages ago.
The sad thing is that sto maneuvered itself in a very stale position concerning ship design as its ship related mechanics force ships to be quite similar in most regards. There are (within a class of ships as say fed cruisers of the same rank) only very small difference in hull/shield, BO-layout and number of bo-abilities granted, number of weapons, position of weapon points, base power, console layout and number of console slots in general, intertia and all that makes up a ship.
So yes, given that this game wastes 90% of its own design elements through bad asset management the only "spot" left is an engi heavy cruiser. When you look at the fed playable cruisers with 10 console slots, the galaxy class is one of the biggest and most "heavy" looking ships in this. So if you look at it this way, its logical to make it the eng heavy one.
Not saying I feel thats great work done by cryptic or anything. I just feel that is how they look at it and how they try to match canon/show-related stuff with their own game.
If they ever introduce a system (as gecko once implied in a pod cast) where you can refit your ship yourself, design its stats more freely and thus hopefully get a much higher variety of ships as in having tradeoffs like choosing between (warning just random values inserted) +30 base power or +10k hull or +2 console slots or +bo-ability of rank x, - then i would hope that the galaxy class gets some benefits as in being modifyable with lower costs or within greater bounds, then i would feel the galaxy class has been adopted well to sto.
Everything else just feels like being too heavily influenced by the shows on one side or the game mechanics on the other. The game just doesnt use all its potential in that regard and thus we got dont know how many cruiser ships that are almost equal.
TL;DR:
I like following this discussion from time to time but it will remain futile as long as cryptic doesnt reevaluate its own design options and how they relate to the game mechanics and how powerful/dps-heavy/tankable a ship is in the end. The scimitar cant have 12 weapon slots to mirror what was said in the movie because the game handles weapon slots in a way that is incompatible with what the shows presented us with and the degrees of freedom concerning the stats of a ship within a class as say fleet/endgame fed cruisers are much to narrow to map the variety of ships from the shows onto the game stats. (reason for that again being the bad space fight mechanics)
So yes, given that this game wastes 90% of its own design elements through bad asset management the only "spot" left is an engi heavy cruiser. When you look at the fed playable cruisers with 10 console slots, the galaxy class is one of the biggest and most "heavy" looking ships in this. So if you look at it this way, its logical to make it the eng heavy one.
There are actually a couple cruisers that are engineering heavy at the fleet level. The Fleet Heavy Cruiser Retrofit has a Cmd Eng and LtCmd Eng and the Fleet Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit has Cmd Eng, Lt Eng, and En Eng - both have 4 Engineering console slots. Neither of these ships looks tanky...yet they are by virtue of their bridge officer layout. The thing about these two cruisers is that neither is as gimped as the Galaxy. The FAHCR in particular is quite tanky, but is also very capable of putting out damage. Even the FHCR I would argue is a better "tank" by virtue of its console slot arrangement. It's more useful to have more sci slots then Engineering. Engineering is notoriously known as the dumping ground for universals.
The argument that its the only engineering heavy ship i think is flawed in that the two ships i mentioned are both very engineering heavy, but are more balanced - able to put out decent damage.
That's the main issue I have with the Galaxy-R. I can use my FAHRC and "tank" just as much damage, all the while putting out double the dps.
Some people claim it's a content issue... nothing to tank, but even if there were content that required us to tank significant amounts of damage I still wouldn't use the Galaxy-R. Not when there are ships out there that can absorb just as much damage, but can also do more damage.
the fleet ambassador wile sci heavy i feel is a way better tank then the gal-r as it can be set up with high level TSS ST or HE and can have the uni LT be set up for eng giving it a commander and LT eng wile leaving a LT and ensign tac
The argument that its the only engineering heavy ship i think is flawed
That's not the argument. The argument is it's the best engineering heavy ship. As in, it's layout is designed to be the most engineering slanted ship in the game.
The way their designs worked out, one ship had to end up that way. It was the Galaxy. They like it that way. And for players who want to do something more science slanted or more tactical slanted, they have offered a half dozen other options.
like i said b4 the Galaxy-R only needs 1 Universal Boff stations to make it more use useful and adaptable compare to newer ships.
Kind of strange for Cryptic to give the Galaxy-X a universal boff station and not give the Galaxy-R one, even though they're both at the same Tier. One could say that they change ''Team'' abilities because they don't want to change the Galalxy-R.
Any ship that runs 3 Boff stations that either a locked Tac, Eng or Sci catagories having 8 boff abilities needs to be change and have 1 boff station. the problem with such things is obvious... if someone runs a Raptor for an example having 3 Tac stations n 8 boff abilities on em having limited choices escpecially running an all cannon boat, u'll have a bunch of boff abilities running Tac Teams, Attack Patterns, Cannons abilities shared the same CD... at best running a all cannon ship u'll will need around 6 boff abilities not 8 unless u want to use those extra 2 abilities for something like a beam or a Torp abilities that will reduce the effectiveness of ur ship the way how the Character Skills is made in the game, like being if u run and cannon and torp ship skill setup u will have to use skills to increase Torp damage at the expense of defense, speed or survivalbility.
So what i'm trying to point out that certain ships having no universal boff stations will have a bunch of boff abilities conflicting with each other with shard CD therefor reducing the effectiveness of performance of the ship, and i really do believe that certain older ships do need a revamp having atleast 1 Universal Boff Station.
As for the Galaxy-R stats i don't have a problem with it, though i believe that the Galaxy-R should have got 3 Tac, 2 Sci consoles along with the 4 Eng (5 Fleet Variant) since on TNG the Galaxy has more firepower than the Galor which in this game the Galor has more firepower than the Galaxy-R.
That's not the argument. The argument is it's the best engineering heavy ship. As in, it's layout is designed to be the most engineering slanted ship in the game.
The way their designs worked out, one ship had to end up that way. It was the Galaxy. They like it that way. And for players who want to do something more science slanted or more tactical slanted, they have offered a half dozen other options.
The problem being that even with the team cooldowns being taken away you still can't really set the ship up optimally for *tanking* without some useless skills being stuck in there. Your invariably stuck running ET1 and two EPTX abilities in the Ensign stations or some other EPtX ability that you a) rarely use at all and or b) have to wait to come off cool down to use. Either option isn't very attractive.
they should just go ahead and remove the eptx shared cooldown also to make eng heavy ships more interesting
with all the power creep who cares for some more
I can see soooo many things going wrong with this. We might as well kill the shared cool down for the Auxillery to abilities while we're at it. Next you'll know, people will be asking for all shared cooldowns to be cut.
That statement can lead to he** in a hand basket.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "Look at me I'm a target!" "Fire the Lance on my mark... MARK! "How many times have we gone into the breach again R'shee?" My proposal for a Galaxy bundle
That's not the argument. The argument is it's the best engineering heavy ship. As in, it's layout is designed to be the most engineering slanted ship in the game.
The way their designs worked out, one ship had to end up that way. It was the Galaxy. They like it that way. And for players who want to do something more science slanted or more tactical slanted, they have offered a half dozen other options.
theres nothing to preserve though, theres always the ody that could run that terrible station setup on the fed side. you can proboly once again blame the defiant for the 0 action the galaxy R got, like somehow even all theses years later you cant change 1 without making the exact changes to all 3. stupefying logic.
theres nothing to preserve though, theres always the ody that could run that terrible station setup on the fed side.
That's not really how they're working it. The Ody is meant to be redundant in that it has a tactical, engineering and science slant with its three versions.
The Galaxy is where it is. It's not getting turned into a tactical cruiser. They read this thread, took the feedback and reacted to it. In a way that most people in this thread do not like.
If i were to try and argue for a removal of the shared cd of eptx abilities it would go like this:
Just look at pl. It boosts all power lvls, more or less constantly, by about 20-30 depending on flowcaps. Thats basically identical to what you get as eng captn from eps power transfer but it has only 30s/2m uptime. And you get 1 eptx at most. So g you want to play power focused there is no way around pl which is about the same as eps-pt or a bit less than all 4 eptx running at the same time. So if there is a console that already does this (and more cause it also reduces enemy power lvls) it cant be that op to remove the eptx shared cd. Maybe they should just rework the eptx related eng trait so it removes the shared cd instead of adding all power types of lesser magnitude to all the eptx abilities.
That would prevent tacs and scis from using it and only engs can go power crazy as it should be.
I'd like a new engineer BOFF skill like DEM but for torpedo weapons. This would give a purpose to eng heavy stations and torpedoes, what do you think?
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Does it really matter? No matter what anyone says the fans of the ship are going to overlook it. People cannot turn off fanboyism. It is like your favorite color being blue and then defending blue to everyone who likes every other possible color more. There is no answer that is going to convince a fanboy to change their mind - not Galaxy fanboys, not Connie fanboys wanting a T5, etc.
For myself, I see the Galaxy as being 45 years old and having been replaced by "better" ships three times in this timeline: Galaxy X upgrade, Sovereign, and Odyssey - and that does not even include the Avenger or Vesta. From a practical standpoint they cannot all be equally powerful. If they were then what is the point of upgrades and other ships being built?
So you are left with every fanboy wanting their ship to be the best, be it Galaxy, Sovereign, Ambassador, Excelsior, Connie, whatever. There is no way to win that, as it is all subjective to the individual.
This would sound more plausible if the Excel wasn't a damn power house compared to it's much newer Galaxy cousin.
This would sound more plausible if the Excel wasn't a damn power house compared to it's much newer Galaxy cousin.
Well fan bias is the exact reason why the Excelsior is as powerful as it is. If a certain someone were a bigger fan of the Galaxy than the Excelsior, the roles would most likely be reversed.
If only the ensign engineer of the galaxy was made universal like the dreadnought (logic, no?). That would have made a lot!
Adding on this, it will be nice if the Lt tactical boff become Lt-commander tactical after saucer separation (a bit like the Solonae with the tactical mode). It will add something special over the Ops odyssey with chevron separation. At least this will make the Galaxy competitive with the other DPS cruisers, but not too much.
Adding on this, it will be nice if the Lt tactical boff become Lt-commander tactical after saucer separation (a bit like the Solonae with the tactical mode). It will add something special over the Ops odyssey with chevron separation. At least this will make the Galaxy competitive with the other DPS cruisers, but not too much.
That's honestly what I expected them to do with it. An opportunity lost, I think.
Hopefully a "retune" of engineering bridge officer abilities in the future will improve things a bit, unless Cryptic plans on introducing new content that requires support and tank roles.
Y'know, a long time ago, I used to love this ship. I mean, I really enjoyed flying around in my Fleet Gal-R, being a tank in the Voth Breach missions...
...then I got the Fleet Gal-X and I've now come to realize that I essentially got the same ship, except that one had more Tac power and the other doesn't.
...I hate to say it, but I'm halfway tempted to release my Fleet Gal-R and redistribute its gear to other, better ships.
Comments
This is like finding out Santa isn't real.
1. The U.S.S Odyssey being rammed by a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship
2. Civilians and Families on board (cough ! cough ! Saratoga at Battle of Wolf 359)
3. Rascals TNG T.V episode (1 Episode out of a 178)
4. Being destroyed by a warp core breach in Generations after multiple hits to the hull from torpedoes
Yes i'm bored but i would like to see other reasons other than these 4 being thrown at why the Galaxy is a failure. It always comes back to people using these arguments and excuses as to why the Galaxy should be held back.
So heres a chance to to convince me and other pro-Galaxy people why the ship should not have a more tactical boff layout than a Excelsior/Ambassador/Galor/D'Kora/Cheyenne ect
Oh forgot one you can also not use the ship was designed during a time of peace. Esp when the ship was fitted with the biggest and most powerful phaser arrays available at launch and biggest torpedo launchers
For myself, I see the Galaxy as being 45 years old and having been replaced by "better" ships three times in this timeline: Galaxy X upgrade, Sovereign, and Odyssey - and that does not even include the Avenger or Vesta. From a practical standpoint they cannot all be equally powerful. If they were then what is the point of upgrades and other ships being built?
So you are left with every fanboy wanting their ship to be the best, be it Galaxy, Sovereign, Ambassador, Excelsior, Connie, whatever. There is no way to win that, as it is all subjective to the individual.
Sure thing hoss.
In the context of STO, the cruiser line has to cover all sorts of bases. There's the tactical slanted cruiser. There's the science slanted cruiser. There's the egnineering slanted cruiser.
Tactical slanted cruiser seems to be covered by, at the very least, the Assault Cruiser, the Excelsior and the Avenger. With possibly the Fleet Galaxy X making its presence felt by some builds and parses floating around. Oh and maybe the Tactical Odyssey.
The Science slanted cruiser is the Star Cruiser, the Odyssey Science version, and the Fleet Ambassador.
The Engineering slanted cruiser, well that seems to be the Galaxy's role. Along with the Ops variant of the Odyssey.
It's just a role in the skill trees and the mechanics of the game. The Galaxy got tapped to be engineering heavy. And apparently this many thousands of posts later, the dev team are a-OK with it filling that role.
Technically, the regular Galaxy filling the traditional Engineering heavy Cruiser for the Feds in STO is sound. TAC-Cruiser wise, it's solid already.
SCI-cruiser, the SCI Odyssey, Starcruiser, and Mirror Heavy Cruiser fit the role capably.
For endgame Fed ships, the Galaxy will cover that base, capably.
But here comes the problem, which I'm sure you know of since you've been around long enough :cool: ... and that is Cruisers heavy in Engineer like the Galaxy have no use in STO. This game's slant towards insane damage has never been higher than now. Defenses from gear, reputation, DOFFs have allowed ships that should be fragile to be resilient enough on their own that their meager repair/heal skills are more than enough to keep themselves alive and even useful for team crosshealing.
The TAC Cruisers epitomize this. A Fleet Sovvy, Excelsior, Ferengi D'Kora, Galor, etc. have more than enough build space to make the ships more than sturdy enough for anything in this game, while still giving the team the firepower to make the content trivial.
And firepower with enough resiliency (or evasiveness; one way or another to stay alive longer) and crosshealing is what's needed in today's game. A full on "healer" such as the Cmdr/LtCdr ENG ships are are not needed. Maybe within STO's first year, yes, but not today.
I'll even lump the Gal-X, even post "reboot" into that mix.
Whatever people think they can do to put good dmg output in a Cmdr/LtCdr ENG Cruiser is easily replicated and easily surpassed by the TAC Cruisers. KDF players had already been doing that with the standard Vor'Cha refit, Negh'Var, Fleet Negh'Var. But whatever offensive pushing that can be done on those ships pale greatly in comparison to the Fleet Vor'Cha, Mogh, or any other of the TAC Battlecruisers.
If the devs wanted to keep the standard Galaxy in mediocrity as a full on Cmdr/LtCdr ENG ship, then okay, though not fine with that. But to also put the offensive minded Galaxy-X as the same deal, it's a bit too much. Of all the Galaxy variants, the Gal-X needed a LtCdr TAC station.
I get that. But the devs seem to want it to still be in that role. And there are definitely a lot of other options for tactical and science slants in the cruiser lineup. There's a ton of cruisers. And swapping around the Galaxy to be tactically oriented makes things really redundant.
I understand the fandom at work. But I mean, they're not changing their minds you know? There's this thread. And then the reboot. Seems like the discussion has run its course. No matter how many times someone says it deserves this or deserves that, there's just too many cruisers in starfleet as is.
But what I feel is getting overlooked are the posts from hawk and bort. Apparently there's movement afoot, not big strides, so more like baby steps, but movement afoot to shift around BOFF powers.
And so this thread and others may have finally had a more general impact that will get Engineering BOFF powers sorted out to be more useful, giving the engineering slant cruiser more of a niche in game.
That's probably the best hope for Galaxy fans at this point anyways.
At the end of the day, the Galaxy isn't getting a makeover.
If you're a cruiser fan and want to fly something with tactical prowess, probably best to look at the excelsior or the avenger. That was always going to be the case anyways.
seeing as this was proved false as the show went on you found out the galaxy and nebula where designed and built wile the federation was at war with the cardassians, tholians, and techazty(sp) and a few boarder skirmishes with minor races
so the show basicly retconned the whole "build during a time of peace" non-sense
i'm not really against the gal-r/x getting more tac slots but thats just because i feel that trying to match a storyline-based pseudo-science understanding of a ship as presented in the shows with a purely numbers/mechanics based definition of a ship in sto is quite futile as the mechanics of the game are not really used in a way that supports this matching. Not saying it cant be done just that it isnt only a question of the bo-layout.
If I should list key features of the galaxy class versus other classes and we assume that all ships are fitted with the most recent tech, so bascially we can ignore age and only look at the basic hull design of the ship, then the galaxy class is most definitly versatile as in being easily modify-able. I remember reading statements to that affect in the technical manual of the galaxy class though it was ages ago.
The sad thing is that sto maneuvered itself in a very stale position concerning ship design as its ship related mechanics force ships to be quite similar in most regards. There are (within a class of ships as say fed cruisers of the same rank) only very small difference in hull/shield, BO-layout and number of bo-abilities granted, number of weapons, position of weapon points, base power, console layout and number of console slots in general, intertia and all that makes up a ship.
So yes, given that this game wastes 90% of its own design elements through bad asset management the only "spot" left is an engi heavy cruiser. When you look at the fed playable cruisers with 10 console slots, the galaxy class is one of the biggest and most "heavy" looking ships in this. So if you look at it this way, its logical to make it the eng heavy one.
Not saying I feel thats great work done by cryptic or anything. I just feel that is how they look at it and how they try to match canon/show-related stuff with their own game.
If they ever introduce a system (as gecko once implied in a pod cast) where you can refit your ship yourself, design its stats more freely and thus hopefully get a much higher variety of ships as in having tradeoffs like choosing between (warning just random values inserted) +30 base power or +10k hull or +2 console slots or +bo-ability of rank x, - then i would hope that the galaxy class gets some benefits as in being modifyable with lower costs or within greater bounds, then i would feel the galaxy class has been adopted well to sto.
Everything else just feels like being too heavily influenced by the shows on one side or the game mechanics on the other. The game just doesnt use all its potential in that regard and thus we got dont know how many cruiser ships that are almost equal.
TL;DR:
I like following this discussion from time to time but it will remain futile as long as cryptic doesnt reevaluate its own design options and how they relate to the game mechanics and how powerful/dps-heavy/tankable a ship is in the end. The scimitar cant have 12 weapon slots to mirror what was said in the movie because the game handles weapon slots in a way that is incompatible with what the shows presented us with and the degrees of freedom concerning the stats of a ship within a class as say fleet/endgame fed cruisers are much to narrow to map the variety of ships from the shows onto the game stats. (reason for that again being the bad space fight mechanics)
There are actually a couple cruisers that are engineering heavy at the fleet level. The Fleet Heavy Cruiser Retrofit has a Cmd Eng and LtCmd Eng and the Fleet Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit has Cmd Eng, Lt Eng, and En Eng - both have 4 Engineering console slots. Neither of these ships looks tanky...yet they are by virtue of their bridge officer layout. The thing about these two cruisers is that neither is as gimped as the Galaxy. The FAHCR in particular is quite tanky, but is also very capable of putting out damage. Even the FHCR I would argue is a better "tank" by virtue of its console slot arrangement. It's more useful to have more sci slots then Engineering. Engineering is notoriously known as the dumping ground for universals.
The argument that its the only engineering heavy ship i think is flawed in that the two ships i mentioned are both very engineering heavy, but are more balanced - able to put out decent damage.
That's the main issue I have with the Galaxy-R. I can use my FAHRC and "tank" just as much damage, all the while putting out double the dps.
Some people claim it's a content issue... nothing to tank, but even if there were content that required us to tank significant amounts of damage I still wouldn't use the Galaxy-R. Not when there are ships out there that can absorb just as much damage, but can also do more damage.
That's not the argument. The argument is it's the best engineering heavy ship. As in, it's layout is designed to be the most engineering slanted ship in the game.
The way their designs worked out, one ship had to end up that way. It was the Galaxy. They like it that way. And for players who want to do something more science slanted or more tactical slanted, they have offered a half dozen other options.
Kind of strange for Cryptic to give the Galaxy-X a universal boff station and not give the Galaxy-R one, even though they're both at the same Tier. One could say that they change ''Team'' abilities because they don't want to change the Galalxy-R.
Any ship that runs 3 Boff stations that either a locked Tac, Eng or Sci catagories having 8 boff abilities needs to be change and have 1 boff station. the problem with such things is obvious... if someone runs a Raptor for an example having 3 Tac stations n 8 boff abilities on em having limited choices escpecially running an all cannon boat, u'll have a bunch of boff abilities running Tac Teams, Attack Patterns, Cannons abilities shared the same CD... at best running a all cannon ship u'll will need around 6 boff abilities not 8 unless u want to use those extra 2 abilities for something like a beam or a Torp abilities that will reduce the effectiveness of ur ship the way how the Character Skills is made in the game, like being if u run and cannon and torp ship skill setup u will have to use skills to increase Torp damage at the expense of defense, speed or survivalbility.
So what i'm trying to point out that certain ships having no universal boff stations will have a bunch of boff abilities conflicting with each other with shard CD therefor reducing the effectiveness of performance of the ship, and i really do believe that certain older ships do need a revamp having atleast 1 Universal Boff Station.
As for the Galaxy-R stats i don't have a problem with it, though i believe that the Galaxy-R should have got 3 Tac, 2 Sci consoles along with the 4 Eng (5 Fleet Variant) since on TNG the Galaxy has more firepower than the Galor which in this game the Galor has more firepower than the Galaxy-R.
The problem being that even with the team cooldowns being taken away you still can't really set the ship up optimally for *tanking* without some useless skills being stuck in there. Your invariably stuck running ET1 and two EPTX abilities in the Ensign stations or some other EPtX ability that you a) rarely use at all and or b) have to wait to come off cool down to use. Either option isn't very attractive.
with all the power creep who cares for some more
I can see soooo many things going wrong with this. We might as well kill the shared cool down for the Auxillery to abilities while we're at it. Next you'll know, people will be asking for all shared cooldowns to be cut.
That statement can lead to he** in a hand basket.
"Look at me I'm a target!"
"Fire the Lance on my mark... MARK!
"How many times have we gone into the breach again R'shee?"
My proposal for a Galaxy bundle
theres nothing to preserve though, theres always the ody that could run that terrible station setup on the fed side. you can proboly once again blame the defiant for the 0 action the galaxy R got, like somehow even all theses years later you cant change 1 without making the exact changes to all 3. stupefying logic.
That's not really how they're working it. The Ody is meant to be redundant in that it has a tactical, engineering and science slant with its three versions.
The Galaxy is where it is. It's not getting turned into a tactical cruiser. They read this thread, took the feedback and reacted to it. In a way that most people in this thread do not like.
That's the synopsis.
Just look at pl. It boosts all power lvls, more or less constantly, by about 20-30 depending on flowcaps. Thats basically identical to what you get as eng captn from eps power transfer but it has only 30s/2m uptime. And you get 1 eptx at most. So g you want to play power focused there is no way around pl which is about the same as eps-pt or a bit less than all 4 eptx running at the same time. So if there is a console that already does this (and more cause it also reduces enemy power lvls) it cant be that op to remove the eptx shared cd. Maybe they should just rework the eptx related eng trait so it removes the shared cd instead of adding all power types of lesser magnitude to all the eptx abilities.
That would prevent tacs and scis from using it and only engs can go power crazy as it should be.
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This would sound more plausible if the Excel wasn't a damn power house compared to it's much newer Galaxy cousin.
Well fan bias is the exact reason why the Excelsior is as powerful as it is. If a certain someone were a bigger fan of the Galaxy than the Excelsior, the roles would most likely be reversed.
Adding on this, it will be nice if the Lt tactical boff become Lt-commander tactical after saucer separation (a bit like the Solonae with the tactical mode). It will add something special over the Ops odyssey with chevron separation. At least this will make the Galaxy competitive with the other DPS cruisers, but not too much.
My 2 cents
That's honestly what I expected them to do with it. An opportunity lost, I think.
Hopefully a "retune" of engineering bridge officer abilities in the future will improve things a bit, unless Cryptic plans on introducing new content that requires support and tank roles.
All that would have done is created hundreds of "That's IT?!?!?!?!" posts where people claim that the ship didn't get what it deserved.
that, and a useable ship. it would still be a sensational victory
...then I got the Fleet Gal-X and I've now come to realize that I essentially got the same ship, except that one had more Tac power and the other doesn't.
...I hate to say it, but I'm halfway tempted to release my Fleet Gal-R and redistribute its gear to other, better ships.