Actually, it was rather bluntly stated that the Lakota would have destroyed the Defiant had it decided to do so, and rather quickly. And I think we can agree the Defiant class warship could output firepower on par with a Galaxy-class exploration ship.
a top spec excelsior being on par with the defiant says a lot about both ships. that starfleet can get a lot of brawn out of even an old hull like that, and that the defient pound for pound has the firepower of a light cruiser 16 times its size, though said light cruiser is a bit antiquated at its core. nether of these ships are even in the top 5 in most powerful starfleet ships ether.
count me as someon who does not agree about that at all. as far as the output of those cannons, a 5 second rapid fire burst i figure would have about the same output of a single full array discharge from one of a galaxy classes main array. and in about 5 seconds, a galaxy could fire at least 5 such shots.
The Excelsior does not predate structural integrity fields. The SIF field is required for any warp-traveling vessel to retain its shape and not tear itself to pieces. Same as the IDF field, which absorbs the shock of sudden movement and prevents creating meat pancakes of the crew (or fish pancakes, if you're counting those fish creatures in an episode of TNG). The Excelsior, although it didn't have phaser strips, did have phaser ball turrets which does the job. And the Excelsior's transwarp drive failed completely.
But I agree with you in the fact that the roles of the Galaxy and Excelsior classes should be switched. There is no way that an older ship should be outperforming a much larger, newer ship.
the SIF was something never mentioned until TNG. i believe the tech manual even mentioned that point. the structural integrity field is basically a collection of force fields honeycombing the ship, with the ability to keep it together even when its no longer structurally sound. who knows, enterprise may have retconned it into existence. i believe the IDF was around though, for when the ship didn't have its warp field operating. its actually that protecting the crew at warp speeds, it places the ship in a field that as far as inertia and physics is concerned is motionless, its that field thats moving through space with the ship inside it.
Which pretty much shows a refit Excelsior going toe to toe with the Defiant (and could have won had the Captain followed orders) I don't think a Galaxy would have faired as well in such a contest (in STO or not.)
how the hell is it possible to come to this conclusion, they were a couple second stringers dukeing it out. again, they are not even close to being the most tactically powerful ships. the defiant is only most powerful pound for pound
The Devs often get hammered with claims of them 'ignoring canon'; but in this case, they seem to be adhering to it.
by then there were already changeling infiltrators at starfleet. the dominion had already worked out literal immunity to phasers, and were able to 100% penetrate federation shields by the time that fight happened. when weyoun and ducat attacked DS9 they were sure the same thing would happen. it didn't, the federation had developed counter countermeasures by then, and when the war got going both sides could damage each other equally. maybe even completely penetrate shields too, because no one bothered using them cept the defiant :rolleyes:
Regarding the Lakota and the annoying DS9 Episode ...
The Lakota received upgrades so that a T3 ship (the Excelsior) could fight a T4 ship (the Defiant).
I don't think STO's tier system really applies to what we saw on screen.
Still, we were never told precisely to what degree the Lakota was upgraded, or how -- it could have been something that isn't easy or practical to do on any large scale, like an experimental and non-replicable power core. It could have been a shady black ops deal, too, given that the Lakota and its crew were complicit in the whole conspiracy. It's really a horrible benchmark for starship power, given the lack of information available.
I don't think STO's tier system really applies to what we saw on screen.
I don't either. But it's the crux of that tired old debate.
The real reason the Excelsior was used in DS9? We all know this. Cheaper to reuse old models, effects, and stock footage.
The real reason the Excelsior outclasses the Galaxy in STO? Al Rivera likes one more than the other.
That's why that particular episode getting cited in these debates just annoys me you know? We're stuck arguing about something Paramount did because of budgetary constraints and applying it to a game that did something because of developer preference.
At this point, I'd just as soon blame Q for the disparity in the cruisers and how they're somewhat backwards. It would make more sense.
Of the T4-T5 ships of the Cruisers (for example the older Vulcan D'kyr is a Science vessel), the oldest is the Excelsior, followed by the Ambassador, followed by the Galaxy.
With regard to the Excelsior, we have this from Star Trek canon (in the DS9 episode "Paradise Lost"):
Which pretty much shows a refit Excelsior going toe to toe with the Defiant (and could have won had the Captain followed orders) I don't think a Galaxy would have faired as well in such a contest (in STO or not.)
The Defiant she goes against is the base model prototype, in other words the ship that's represented in this game by the T4 model so what are you basing this on?
Given the handful of Phaser shots the Lakota fired as opposed to the amount of Phasers the Galaxy class can bring to bear (like in "Best of Both Worlds") I don't see what basis your assumption has.
And what does this have to do with the balance in this game BTW?
You are using the episodes to justify (or rather faiing to justify) the ship in this game being weak which are two entirely different matters.
The Devs often get hammered with claims of them 'ignoring canon'; but in this case, they seem to be adhering to it.
Which means what?
Either there's a clip of an Excelsior in there that survives a collision with a JH fighter I can't find or you have utterly failed to make any point whatsoever.
The galaxy was the Best armed ship in the Next generation officers manual.............It was the federation Battleship
It had more power more phasers more torpedos than any other Federation ship
In no way was it weak
STO/Cryptic has made it weak in this game , it was never weak in canon
Anyone who says differnt has not read the manual or is flat out lying...Period
It had double the weapons of a excelsior and remember a excelsior defeated the defiant
with a green caption and crew in DS9 while the defiant had a legendary caption (Worf ) and a veteran crew
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
The galaxy was the Best armed ship in the Next generation officers manual.............It was the federation Battleship
It had more power more phasers more torpedos than any other Federation ship
In no way was it weak
STO/Cryptic has made it weak in this game , it was never weak in canon
Anyone who says differnt has not read the manual or is flat out lying...Period
It had double the weapons of a excelsior and remember a excelsior defeated the defiant
with a green caption and crew in DS9 while the defiant had a legendary caption (Worf ) and a veteran crew
comparing the show to the game...makes no sense and only leads to disappointment.
A action oriented game, no matter how good, can never dublicate what is on a TV show. For gameplay reasons stats and power of certain ships can't be translated 1:1 into a game.
The galaxy was the Best armed ship in the Next generation officers manual.............It was the federation Battleship
It had more power more phasers more torpedos than any other Federation ship
In no way was it weak
STO/Cryptic has made it weak in this game , it was never weak in canon
Anyone who says differnt has not read the manual or is flat out lying...Period
It had double the weapons of a excelsior and remember a excelsior defeated the defiant
with a green caption and crew in DS9 while the defiant had a legendary caption (Worf ) and a veteran crew
So what, you want it to be god-tier?
Fluff-wise, the Galaxy class wasn't designed as a warship, but an exploration vessel (hence the presence of families aboard in early TNG). Starfleet don't believe in warships, and never really started militarizing until the Borg and Dominion showed up.
Also, I don't think you understand that having "more phasers" or "more torpedoes" doesn't mean a hell of a lot in regular ST verse. It's the power behind them that counts, and while the Galaxy did excel at that when first introduced, it started to fall behind later on. In fact, the Intrepid-class (a.k.a. Long Range Science Vessel) was not only more technologically advanced, but also had a warp core that was just as powerful.
In any case, the Galaxy was actually kind of average in canon: D'Deridexes out-classed them in combat power and Marauders matched them one-on-one, just to list two examples of comparable ships.
That being said, I cannot say that I like the treatment being afforded to such an iconic Starfleet vessel, especially when compared to other vessels of the same tier. As to what should be done about it, well...
Fluff-wise, the Galaxy class wasn't designed as a warship, but an exploration vessel (hence the presence of families aboard in early TNG). Starfleet don't believe in warships, and never really started militarizing until the Borg and Dominion showed up.
I'm pretty sure the Excelsior and Ambassador weren't designed as warships either, but they're better warships in STO than the Galaxy which came after them. Justifiably, some people have a problem with that.
Every federation cruiser -to date- was designed for exploration besides Excelsior. Only the ones packed for fire and meant for war were termed as "escorts" since federation doesn't construct warships even though technically every federation escort is a warship.
The excelsior may have been designed during the period of klingon war but it wasn't designed for war OR fighting the Klingons. It was a test bed for transwarp, but it kept failing continuously and was then launched out after a decade: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Excelsior
Galaxy was in every way, a superior ship. And if we're speaking of canon, this is a -fact-. Argue it all you want.
In case of this game? It sucks only in the game, maybe if excelsior was launched at the time when galaxy was today excelsior would have the stats of the current galaxy and probably galaxy the one with current excelsior stats. The way I see it, all these stats and layout depend on when Cryptic released their ships.
Since what's already released and done, I don't expect Cryptic to change a thing and the Galaxy continues to be low on firepower. It still is a powerful tank and support ship in the game.
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I'm pretty sure the Excelsior and Ambassador weren't designed as warships either, but they're better warships in STO than the Galaxy which came after them. Justifiably, some people have a problem with that.
The Excelsior did undergo a major refit around the time of the Dominion War that made it comparable to a Defiant in fighting power. Failure of Transwarp Experiment aside, the Excelsior is actually an excellent ship. It only failed at what it was serving as a test bed for, and that may have had something to do with sabotage. If they're building, re-using, and re-fitting the ship ninety years later, then it's probably an indicator that the ship's design is not only sound, but highly adaptable.
That being said, it is baffling that the Galaxy does not appear to have been upgraded to the same levels and that the Ambassador retrofit now outperforms the Galaxy retrofit. If anything the Galaxy ought to be more adaptable to upgrades than either of them.
In my opinion, if you wanted to improve the Galaxy retrofit...
Make the Lieutenant Tactical, Lieutenant Science, or the Lieutenant-Commander Engineer into a universal slot.
+10 power to auxiliary instead of the usual flat +5 (huge ship has huge warp core)
Make the Saucer Separation module provide a passive buff, in addition to allowing Galaxy-class vessels to detach their saucers.
Her's the simple answer. The Galaxy is available for free, in-game. Cryptic had to make the Excelsior better, in order to get people to buy it. From a canon Star Trek point of view, STO is completely, ridiculous. There are timeships, from the future, flying around. So where the Galaxy would be history's Tin Lizzy, these timeships, would be next year's Bentley. Problem is, ships are Cryptic's greatest source of revenue. So they have to keep making them better than the last. Then, when sales slow, they inevitably, nerf down the abilities, in preperation for the next best ship. These ship 3 packs cost 50.00, that's almost what it cost to purchase a whole expansion, in a standard MMO. And they put out at least three of these a year. What happens to all this revenue is anyone's guess, because it would seem it's not going back into the game, the majority of it, anyway.
The Excelsior did undergo a major refit around the time of the Dominion War that made it comparable to a Defiant in fighting power. Failure of Transwarp Experiment aside, the Excelsior is actually an excellent ship. It only failed at what it was serving as a test bed for, and that may have had something to do with sabotage. If they're building, re-using, and re-fitting the ship ninety years later, then it's probably an indicator that the ship's design is not only sound, but highly adaptable.
That being said, it is baffling that the Galaxy does not appear to have been upgraded to the same levels and that the Ambassador retrofit now outperforms the Galaxy retrofit. If anything the Galaxy ought to be more adaptable to upgrades than either of them.
In my opinion, if you wanted to improve the Galaxy retrofit...
Make the Lieutenant Tactical, Lieutenant Science, or the Lieutenant-Commander Engineer into a universal slot.
+10 power to auxiliary instead of the usual flat +5 (huge ship has huge warp core)
Make the Saucer Separation module provide a passive buff, in addition to allowing Galaxy-class vessels to detach their saucers.
Actualy, there was the uss venture that was an upgraded galaxy class outfitted with more weapons.
It also seems as if you support the Excelsior-class where it currently stands, as a superior ship to the Galaxy-class. Which, if this game were to follow the path forged by DS9, should be balanced in the opposite manner - the Galaxy-class as a superior cruiser to the Excelsior.
My proposal was not to suit personal preferences. My proposal was to offer the flexibility seen in TNG and occasionally DS9, as a large ship designed for exploration, but capable of a great many other roles as well.
I don't see how you could consider an Excelsior a better -engineering- ship than the Galaxy class. The Excelsior has a 4/2/1 BOFF engineering split, while the Galaxy has a 4/3/1 split, giving the Galaxy everything the Excelsior has with the additional access to a second Lt. Commander Engineering skill. Both ships have the same number of engineering console slots, and the Galaxy has more Hull points. Therefore, I don't see it being -inferior- to the Excelsior in what it is supposed to be doing.
Now, if you are looking at it as I indicated was the wrong way to do so (from that of a Tactical or Science Officer), then you might conclude that the Excelsior was the better -DPS- ship. But then, the Galaxy does include the ability to increase its manueverability to above that of an Excelsior, and to gain an additional phaser. I know alot of people don't consider these, but they are part of the ship, and do add to its versitility and combat abilities in ways the Excelsior does not have the ability to do (the Excelsior, as noted, has only a non-combat ability).
Do I support the Excelsior where it is -as a combat cruiser-? Yes, because that is what it is designed to be. Do I support making the Galaxy what it is supposed to be, that of a -healing/tank cruiser-, yes. Do I support a childish "my ship is bigger than yours" approach to deciding what should be changed, or the continued comparison of the Galaxy to a ship that does not have the same emphasis on capabilities? No. The Galaxy is -not- a combat ship, nor should it be approached as such. It is an exploration ship, which means the ability to withstand unpredictable spacial conditions and survive hazardous areas of space, not the ability to deal out destruction and rampage through enemy fleets.
People who continue to view the Galaxy only through the lens of the Excelsior are being short-sighted. Make it more what it is supposed to be, not what people who should be flying Escorts instead of Cruisers think it should be.
Perhaps we really should get rid of the T5 versions of the Galaxy and Excelsior. That would satisfy those who can't get beyond a pointless rivalry by making sure all Excelsiors were T3 only, all Galaxy class were T4 only, and all the newer ships outclassed both 'older' ship classes. Everyone wins, eh?
Her's the simple answer. The Galaxy is available for free, in-game. Cryptic had to make the Excelsior better, in order to get people to buy it.
If that's the case then I want my Cryptic Points (as they were then) back. I distinctly remember buying the retrofit from the CStore, the only other way it's available is as a 500/600 day Veteran reward.
Regarding the Lakota and the annoying DS9 Episode ...
The Lakota received upgrades so that a T3 ship (the Excelsior) could fight a T4 ship (the Defiant).
Big whoop dee doo.
Everyone casually forgets the Intrepid, Galaxy and Defiant are Tier 4, CAPTAIN RANK ships.
The Retrofits of those vessels are the higher tiered versions.
"It seems the Defiant has had ablative armor installed that wasn't included in the reports to Starfleet."
Both ships had upgrades. And even with that, it is clear that the conclusion was that the Lakota would have destroyed the Defiant instantly had it used quantumn torps (and no doubt the Defiant would have done very serious damage to the Lakota if it had used its own photon torps).
Regardless, I agree that trying to use the series or movies, where scriptwriters can and do twist facts and physics to produce drama (when they even bother to worry about facts and physics, which isn't much to a storyteller on a paycheck) is bad logic. Better to look at what a ship should be within an established framework, and the only framework with which to work is that within STO.
I think this state of affairs could use with a bit more focus on some key facts that have nothing to do with fluff.
The Galaxy is a 20 dollar ship. It has extensive engineering, with capabilities balanced on either side of its engineering abilities. The ship comes with a module that temporarily improves its combat abilities for a short time.
It is considered inferior to another 20 dollar ship (Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit), which not only has noticeably superior manoeuvrability and tactical firepower, but does not suffer from any serious shortcomings for this. The loss of an Lt Cmdr Engineering slot does not hamper its survivability or offensive capability. To add insult to injury, purchase of the ship also comes with a free uniform.
It is considered inferior to a free ship (Support Cruiser Retrofit), which not only has slightly better manoeuvrability and superior science capabilities, but does not suffer from any shortcomings for this. In fact, the presence of a Lt Cmdr Science slot arguably makes the cruiser better at tanking, all while having equal or slightly better survivability and offensive capability. Also, did I mention it's free?
It is considered inferior to a 25 dollar ship (Odyssey Cruiser, Tactical and Operations) because the latter does everything that the former does, but better.
"It seems the Defiant has had ablative armor installed that wasn't included in the reports to Starfleet."
Both ships had upgrades. And even with that, it is clear that the conclusion was that the Lakota would have destroyed the Defiant instantly had it used quantumn torps (and no doubt the Defiant would have done very serious damage to the Lakota if it had used its own photon torps).
That says more about the power of quantum torpedoes than it does of the Lakota itself. The Defiant, however, was able to endure the upgraded phaser fire because of its armor, and Benteen admitted that the only way to stop the Defiant was to destroy it.
Again, fairly inconclusive about the power benchmark here.
I think this state of affairs could use with a bit more focus on some key facts that have nothing to do with fluff.
The Galaxy is a 20 dollar ship. It has extensive engineering, with capabilities balanced on either side of its engineering abilities. The ship comes with a module that temporarily improves its combat abilities for a short time.
It is considered inferior to another 20 dollar ship (Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit), which not only has noticeably superior manoeuvrability and tactical firepower, but does not suffer from any serious shortcomings for this. The loss of an Lt Cmdr Engineering slot does not hamper its survivability or offensive capability. To add insult to injury, purchase of the ship also comes with a free uniform.
It is considered inferior to a free ship (Support Cruiser Retrofit), which not only has slightly better manoeuvrability and superior science capabilities, but does not suffer from any shortcomings for this. In fact, the presence of a Lt Cmdr Science slot arguably makes the cruiser better at tanking, all while having equal or slightly better survivability and offensive capability. Also, did I mention it's free?
It is considered inferior to a 25 dollar ship (Odyssey Cruiser, Tactical and Operations) because the latter does everything that the former does, but better.
The Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit comes with a free uniform? I never noticed this. Unless you mean the 'Enterprise-B Costume' mentioned in the wiki, which is just another way of saying you get the Enterprise-B hull options for the ship in addition to the normal Excelsior hull. And I would dispute that the loss of a LT Cmd Engineering slot does not hamper it's survivability, as that is a T3 Engineering slot you are losing.
As far as the Support Cruiser Retrofit, that ship is no longer available, and it -does- suffer some rather important shortcomings. It lacks engineering capabilities compared to other Cruisers. It, in fact, cannot even equal a regular Star Cruiser, having only a Commander and LT engineering BOFF slots. That's barely enough to qualify as a cruiser, and certainly leaves a rather big hole compared to the Galaxy. If you want to dispute this, I'll take my Galaxy class and you can take an Ambassador class (if you can find one now), and we'll see how long we can keep the Kang alive (that is the role of a Cruiser, after all) with only heals and extended shields.
Ultimately, the problem is the place of Cruisers in the game due to the lack of need for other ships to rely on them as they have to on other ships. Engineering abilities need to be enhanced across the board, or ships like the Galaxy need enhanced abilities in the Engineering field that make them stand out and be needed, rather than simply be looked at in terms of how good an Escort it is.
That says more about the power of quantum torpedoes than it does of the Lakota itself. The Defiant, however, was able to endure the upgraded phaser fire because of its armor, and Benteen admitted that the only way to stop the Defiant was to destroy it.
Again, fairly inconclusive about the power benchmark here.
And again why trying to use the media as a guide is going to be inconclusive as a whole. TV Series writers aren't hired to make stories that are consistent and follow established criteria rigidly, but to generate drama in pretty much any way they can. They rarely have to microanalyze previous material to ensure what they want to do is possible, or fits with what has been established (Star Trek has some notoriety for ignoring such things in particular).
After all, when one scene shows full sized starships fighting and manuevering as if they were light fighters, and another in a later show depicts them unable to turn quickly enough to escape ramming ships seen a good ten seconds before impact, it's hard to credit a series with knowing it's own physics and ship abilities, or following them.
They could make a couple changes would make the Galaxy, and other Eng-heavy ships more effective ships in general.
1. Make crew actually a desirable asset to have alive on your ship. They need to do more than increase your hull repair rate. Maybe your percentage of alive crew should have some impact on bridge officer abilities.
They need to fix it so they don't all die in 10 seconds of combat. Right now when you hit a ship with a torpedo, it kills a percentage of the total crew on the ship. On an Escort this might be 10 people. The same hit on a Cruiser would kill 100 or 200 people.
Instead it should kill crew based on a percentage of the damage inflicted to the hull. So a weak torpedo strike might kill 10 people, on an Escort OR on a Cruiser. This would give ships with large crew capacities a meaningful advantage the longer a battle draws out. Escorts would have their crew wiped out quickly, while Cruisers would need to take many more hits before their crews die off.
2. The introduction of armor slots on ships, as mentioned by DStahl in the last Priority One podcast. Give Cruisers special Cruiser-only heavy armor types, and everyone else get to choose from normal armor types. This means all your engineering slots can be used for something other than stacking armor plates, and your Cruisers will still have a tanking advantage over other ship types.
2. The introduction of armor slots on ships, as mentioned by DStahl in the last Priority One podcast. Give Cruisers special Cruiser-only heavy armor types, and everyone else get to choose from normal armor types. This means all your engineering slots can be used for something other than stacking armor plates, and your Cruisers will still have a tanking advantage over other ship types.
That's a terrible idea, since being able to tank is not a problem for cruisers right now, it's that escorts tank too well. Other than freeing up more slots for universal consoles, I fail to see how this fixes anything.
That's a terrible idea, since being able to tank is not a problem for cruisers right now, it's that escorts tank too well. Other than freeing up more slots for universal consoles, I fail to see how this fixes anything.
More engineering consoles might be a good idea too. If there isn't any type of console you would consider useful to put there. Having 4 or 5 eng consoles should give a Cruiser an advantage somehow.
1) Across-the-board reduction in Engineering/tanking abilities of Escorts and Science ships to make the Cruiser an important part of the team. This would likely be resisted the most, as no one likes having their ships nerfed, and the captains of these classes would resent having to rely on Cruisers to complete difficult missions.
2) Increase the difficulty level of all end-game content to the point that Engineering abilities beyond that of an Escort or Science vessel become necessary for completion. Again, this will meet with resistance, as we have already seen with STFs which used to include high-damage attacks. No one flying a non-Cruiser wants to need a Cruiser to complete end-game content.
3) A revamp of the Engineering abilities of Cruisers to give them a unique place equal to Science and Escort vessels in a team. This would have to be something Escorts and Science vessels would be unable to use, or it loses value. This would not address the need for Cruisers on a team, but would at least make them important members whose contribution might be sought instead of 'the-ship-that-isn't-an-Escort/Science ship'.
As we can see with the most recent Andorian Escort, the Devs are continuing the practice of making Escorts and Science ships able to perform without the need of Cruisers (the supposed 'glass cannon' ship has just as many Engineering consoles as any standard Cruiser and two Engineering BOFF slots, making it more than able to take damage and putting the lie to the phrase). This makes the possibility of convincing them to implement option 1 very low, especially when Engineers are the 'little people' of STO in the view of the Devs.
Based on the above, I would say only option 3 has much chance of seeing the light of day, and that only if the Devs bother to care.
More engineering consoles might be a good idea too. If there isn't any type of console you would consider useful to put there. Having 4 or 5 eng consoles should give a Cruiser an advantage somehow.
Unfortunately, there are Escorts and Science Ships out there with 4 Engineering Slots who would be able to derive the same benefits. It will take something more to make Cruisers abilities stand on par with those two types.
Until that happens, I don't see the Galaxy class fulfilling its true place in STO.
Until that happens, I don't see the Galaxy class fulfilling its true place in STO.
Hit the nail on the head here. As of right now, the Galaxy and all her variants have no place in current STO meta. Insane tankiness (which the Galaxy has), uber survivability (which the Galaxy also sports), are not required in any current game content. And until that changes, the Galaxy is useless.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
This is all entertaining, but you do know the real reason the galaxy is TRIBBLE, right?
Unless all ships have identical stats, there's always going to be a "worst" ship no matter what. So why not make the worst ship(s) the ship they know will sell well anyway, because they know there's enough rabid fanboys (and chumps) that'll buy it no matter what its stats.
It doesn't matter if it's as weak in combat as a concussed duckling, and turns with the grace of a three-legged hippo. Fanboys buy it anyway, and likely have multiple versions. Cause oh, they had to have saucer seperation. And oh they had to have the antimatter spread. Then why not get the fleet version?
And now they complain because it sucks. Well, it always sucked. It sucked in the show, it sucks in the game. And now you want cryptic to go back and alleviate the suck. Why? It sucked when you bought it, and the stats were available before you clicked the buy button. They already have your money, and they know if they can come up with a justification to release another version (that still sucks) you'll probably buy that, too. They got no motivation to improve it.
Personally I'm glad it worked out this way. I never wanted to fly around in the gimptastic galaxy, so I'm glad they made it suck as much in the game as it did in TNG so I'm not even tempted.
I'm sorry if you feel differently, but you knew (or should have) what you were buying, bought it anyway, and got what you paid for. :P
Comments
a top spec excelsior being on par with the defiant says a lot about both ships. that starfleet can get a lot of brawn out of even an old hull like that, and that the defient pound for pound has the firepower of a light cruiser 16 times its size, though said light cruiser is a bit antiquated at its core. nether of these ships are even in the top 5 in most powerful starfleet ships ether.
count me as someon who does not agree about that at all. as far as the output of those cannons, a 5 second rapid fire burst i figure would have about the same output of a single full array discharge from one of a galaxy classes main array. and in about 5 seconds, a galaxy could fire at least 5 such shots.
the SIF was something never mentioned until TNG. i believe the tech manual even mentioned that point. the structural integrity field is basically a collection of force fields honeycombing the ship, with the ability to keep it together even when its no longer structurally sound. who knows, enterprise may have retconned it into existence. i believe the IDF was around though, for when the ship didn't have its warp field operating. its actually that protecting the crew at warp speeds, it places the ship in a field that as far as inertia and physics is concerned is motionless, its that field thats moving through space with the ship inside it.
how the hell is it possible to come to this conclusion, they were a couple second stringers dukeing it out. again, they are not even close to being the most tactically powerful ships. the defiant is only most powerful pound for pound
by then there were already changeling infiltrators at starfleet. the dominion had already worked out literal immunity to phasers, and were able to 100% penetrate federation shields by the time that fight happened. when weyoun and ducat attacked DS9 they were sure the same thing would happen. it didn't, the federation had developed counter countermeasures by then, and when the war got going both sides could damage each other equally. maybe even completely penetrate shields too, because no one bothered using them cept the defiant :rolleyes:
The Lakota received upgrades so that a T3 ship (the Excelsior) could fight a T4 ship (the Defiant).
Big whoop dee doo.
Everyone casually forgets the Intrepid, Galaxy and Defiant are Tier 4, CAPTAIN RANK ships.
The Retrofits of those vessels are the higher tiered versions.
I don't think STO's tier system really applies to what we saw on screen.
Still, we were never told precisely to what degree the Lakota was upgraded, or how -- it could have been something that isn't easy or practical to do on any large scale, like an experimental and non-replicable power core. It could have been a shady black ops deal, too, given that the Lakota and its crew were complicit in the whole conspiracy. It's really a horrible benchmark for starship power, given the lack of information available.
I don't either. But it's the crux of that tired old debate.
The real reason the Excelsior was used in DS9? We all know this. Cheaper to reuse old models, effects, and stock footage.
The real reason the Excelsior outclasses the Galaxy in STO? Al Rivera likes one more than the other.
That's why that particular episode getting cited in these debates just annoys me you know? We're stuck arguing about something Paramount did because of budgetary constraints and applying it to a game that did something because of developer preference.
At this point, I'd just as soon blame Q for the disparity in the cruisers and how they're somewhat backwards. It would make more sense.
The Defiant she goes against is the base model prototype, in other words the ship that's represented in this game by the T4 model so what are you basing this on?
Given the handful of Phaser shots the Lakota fired as opposed to the amount of Phasers the Galaxy class can bring to bear (like in "Best of Both Worlds") I don't see what basis your assumption has.
And what does this have to do with the balance in this game BTW?
You are using the episodes to justify (or rather faiing to justify) the ship in this game being weak which are two entirely different matters.
Which means what?
Either there's a clip of an Excelsior in there that survives a collision with a JH fighter I can't find or you have utterly failed to make any point whatsoever.
It had more power more phasers more torpedos than any other Federation ship
In no way was it weak
STO/Cryptic has made it weak in this game , it was never weak in canon
Anyone who says differnt has not read the manual or is flat out lying...Period
It had double the weapons of a excelsior and remember a excelsior defeated the defiant
with a green caption and crew in DS9 while the defiant had a legendary caption (Worf ) and a veteran crew
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
comparing the show to the game...makes no sense and only leads to disappointment.
A action oriented game, no matter how good, can never dublicate what is on a TV show. For gameplay reasons stats and power of certain ships can't be translated 1:1 into a game.
So what, you want it to be god-tier?
Fluff-wise, the Galaxy class wasn't designed as a warship, but an exploration vessel (hence the presence of families aboard in early TNG). Starfleet don't believe in warships, and never really started militarizing until the Borg and Dominion showed up.
Also, I don't think you understand that having "more phasers" or "more torpedoes" doesn't mean a hell of a lot in regular ST verse. It's the power behind them that counts, and while the Galaxy did excel at that when first introduced, it started to fall behind later on. In fact, the Intrepid-class (a.k.a. Long Range Science Vessel) was not only more technologically advanced, but also had a warp core that was just as powerful.
In any case, the Galaxy was actually kind of average in canon: D'Deridexes out-classed them in combat power and Marauders matched them one-on-one, just to list two examples of comparable ships.
That being said, I cannot say that I like the treatment being afforded to such an iconic Starfleet vessel, especially when compared to other vessels of the same tier. As to what should be done about it, well...
I'm pretty sure the Excelsior and Ambassador weren't designed as warships either, but they're better warships in STO than the Galaxy which came after them. Justifiably, some people have a problem with that.
The excelsior may have been designed during the period of klingon war but it wasn't designed for war OR fighting the Klingons. It was a test bed for transwarp, but it kept failing continuously and was then launched out after a decade: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Excelsior
Galaxy was in every way, a superior ship. And if we're speaking of canon, this is a -fact-. Argue it all you want.
In case of this game? It sucks only in the game, maybe if excelsior was launched at the time when galaxy was today excelsior would have the stats of the current galaxy and probably galaxy the one with current excelsior stats. The way I see it, all these stats and layout depend on when Cryptic released their ships.
Since what's already released and done, I don't expect Cryptic to change a thing and the Galaxy continues to be low on firepower. It still is a powerful tank and support ship in the game.
5 FED Fleets | 3 KDF Fleets - T5 Colony on both factions
The Excelsior did undergo a major refit around the time of the Dominion War that made it comparable to a Defiant in fighting power. Failure of Transwarp Experiment aside, the Excelsior is actually an excellent ship. It only failed at what it was serving as a test bed for, and that may have had something to do with sabotage. If they're building, re-using, and re-fitting the ship ninety years later, then it's probably an indicator that the ship's design is not only sound, but highly adaptable.
That being said, it is baffling that the Galaxy does not appear to have been upgraded to the same levels and that the Ambassador retrofit now outperforms the Galaxy retrofit. If anything the Galaxy ought to be more adaptable to upgrades than either of them.
In my opinion, if you wanted to improve the Galaxy retrofit...
Actualy, there was the uss venture that was an upgraded galaxy class outfitted with more weapons.
I don't see how you could consider an Excelsior a better -engineering- ship than the Galaxy class. The Excelsior has a 4/2/1 BOFF engineering split, while the Galaxy has a 4/3/1 split, giving the Galaxy everything the Excelsior has with the additional access to a second Lt. Commander Engineering skill. Both ships have the same number of engineering console slots, and the Galaxy has more Hull points. Therefore, I don't see it being -inferior- to the Excelsior in what it is supposed to be doing.
Now, if you are looking at it as I indicated was the wrong way to do so (from that of a Tactical or Science Officer), then you might conclude that the Excelsior was the better -DPS- ship. But then, the Galaxy does include the ability to increase its manueverability to above that of an Excelsior, and to gain an additional phaser. I know alot of people don't consider these, but they are part of the ship, and do add to its versitility and combat abilities in ways the Excelsior does not have the ability to do (the Excelsior, as noted, has only a non-combat ability).
Do I support the Excelsior where it is -as a combat cruiser-? Yes, because that is what it is designed to be. Do I support making the Galaxy what it is supposed to be, that of a -healing/tank cruiser-, yes. Do I support a childish "my ship is bigger than yours" approach to deciding what should be changed, or the continued comparison of the Galaxy to a ship that does not have the same emphasis on capabilities? No. The Galaxy is -not- a combat ship, nor should it be approached as such. It is an exploration ship, which means the ability to withstand unpredictable spacial conditions and survive hazardous areas of space, not the ability to deal out destruction and rampage through enemy fleets.
People who continue to view the Galaxy only through the lens of the Excelsior are being short-sighted. Make it more what it is supposed to be, not what people who should be flying Escorts instead of Cruisers think it should be.
Perhaps we really should get rid of the T5 versions of the Galaxy and Excelsior. That would satisfy those who can't get beyond a pointless rivalry by making sure all Excelsiors were T3 only, all Galaxy class were T4 only, and all the newer ships outclassed both 'older' ship classes. Everyone wins, eh?
Except the poor sods who bought the ships, and their fleet equivalents.
Who do you think are the people always making the loudest comments about the two? And yes, I own both, and I fly both.
If that's the case then I want my Cryptic Points (as they were then) back. I distinctly remember buying the retrofit from the CStore, the only other way it's available is as a 500/600 day Veteran reward.
"It seems the Defiant has had ablative armor installed that wasn't included in the reports to Starfleet."
Both ships had upgrades. And even with that, it is clear that the conclusion was that the Lakota would have destroyed the Defiant instantly had it used quantumn torps (and no doubt the Defiant would have done very serious damage to the Lakota if it had used its own photon torps).
Regardless, I agree that trying to use the series or movies, where scriptwriters can and do twist facts and physics to produce drama (when they even bother to worry about facts and physics, which isn't much to a storyteller on a paycheck) is bad logic. Better to look at what a ship should be within an established framework, and the only framework with which to work is that within STO.
The Galaxy is a 20 dollar ship. It has extensive engineering, with capabilities balanced on either side of its engineering abilities. The ship comes with a module that temporarily improves its combat abilities for a short time.
It is considered inferior to another 20 dollar ship (Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit), which not only has noticeably superior manoeuvrability and tactical firepower, but does not suffer from any serious shortcomings for this. The loss of an Lt Cmdr Engineering slot does not hamper its survivability or offensive capability. To add insult to injury, purchase of the ship also comes with a free uniform.
It is considered inferior to a free ship (Support Cruiser Retrofit), which not only has slightly better manoeuvrability and superior science capabilities, but does not suffer from any shortcomings for this. In fact, the presence of a Lt Cmdr Science slot arguably makes the cruiser better at tanking, all while having equal or slightly better survivability and offensive capability. Also, did I mention it's free?
It is considered inferior to a 25 dollar ship (Odyssey Cruiser, Tactical and Operations) because the latter does everything that the former does, but better.
That says more about the power of quantum torpedoes than it does of the Lakota itself. The Defiant, however, was able to endure the upgraded phaser fire because of its armor, and Benteen admitted that the only way to stop the Defiant was to destroy it.
Again, fairly inconclusive about the power benchmark here.
The Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit comes with a free uniform? I never noticed this. Unless you mean the 'Enterprise-B Costume' mentioned in the wiki, which is just another way of saying you get the Enterprise-B hull options for the ship in addition to the normal Excelsior hull. And I would dispute that the loss of a LT Cmd Engineering slot does not hamper it's survivability, as that is a T3 Engineering slot you are losing.
As far as the Support Cruiser Retrofit, that ship is no longer available, and it -does- suffer some rather important shortcomings. It lacks engineering capabilities compared to other Cruisers. It, in fact, cannot even equal a regular Star Cruiser, having only a Commander and LT engineering BOFF slots. That's barely enough to qualify as a cruiser, and certainly leaves a rather big hole compared to the Galaxy. If you want to dispute this, I'll take my Galaxy class and you can take an Ambassador class (if you can find one now), and we'll see how long we can keep the Kang alive (that is the role of a Cruiser, after all) with only heals and extended shields.
Ultimately, the problem is the place of Cruisers in the game due to the lack of need for other ships to rely on them as they have to on other ships. Engineering abilities need to be enhanced across the board, or ships like the Galaxy need enhanced abilities in the Engineering field that make them stand out and be needed, rather than simply be looked at in terms of how good an Escort it is.
And again why trying to use the media as a guide is going to be inconclusive as a whole. TV Series writers aren't hired to make stories that are consistent and follow established criteria rigidly, but to generate drama in pretty much any way they can. They rarely have to microanalyze previous material to ensure what they want to do is possible, or fits with what has been established (Star Trek has some notoriety for ignoring such things in particular).
After all, when one scene shows full sized starships fighting and manuevering as if they were light fighters, and another in a later show depicts them unable to turn quickly enough to escape ramming ships seen a good ten seconds before impact, it's hard to credit a series with knowing it's own physics and ship abilities, or following them.
1. Make crew actually a desirable asset to have alive on your ship. They need to do more than increase your hull repair rate. Maybe your percentage of alive crew should have some impact on bridge officer abilities.
They need to fix it so they don't all die in 10 seconds of combat. Right now when you hit a ship with a torpedo, it kills a percentage of the total crew on the ship. On an Escort this might be 10 people. The same hit on a Cruiser would kill 100 or 200 people.
Instead it should kill crew based on a percentage of the damage inflicted to the hull. So a weak torpedo strike might kill 10 people, on an Escort OR on a Cruiser. This would give ships with large crew capacities a meaningful advantage the longer a battle draws out. Escorts would have their crew wiped out quickly, while Cruisers would need to take many more hits before their crews die off.
2. The introduction of armor slots on ships, as mentioned by DStahl in the last Priority One podcast. Give Cruisers special Cruiser-only heavy armor types, and everyone else get to choose from normal armor types. This means all your engineering slots can be used for something other than stacking armor plates, and your Cruisers will still have a tanking advantage over other ship types.
That's a terrible idea, since being able to tank is not a problem for cruisers right now, it's that escorts tank too well. Other than freeing up more slots for universal consoles, I fail to see how this fixes anything.
More engineering consoles might be a good idea too. If there isn't any type of console you would consider useful to put there. Having 4 or 5 eng consoles should give a Cruiser an advantage somehow.
1) Across-the-board reduction in Engineering/tanking abilities of Escorts and Science ships to make the Cruiser an important part of the team. This would likely be resisted the most, as no one likes having their ships nerfed, and the captains of these classes would resent having to rely on Cruisers to complete difficult missions.
2) Increase the difficulty level of all end-game content to the point that Engineering abilities beyond that of an Escort or Science vessel become necessary for completion. Again, this will meet with resistance, as we have already seen with STFs which used to include high-damage attacks. No one flying a non-Cruiser wants to need a Cruiser to complete end-game content.
3) A revamp of the Engineering abilities of Cruisers to give them a unique place equal to Science and Escort vessels in a team. This would have to be something Escorts and Science vessels would be unable to use, or it loses value. This would not address the need for Cruisers on a team, but would at least make them important members whose contribution might be sought instead of 'the-ship-that-isn't-an-Escort/Science ship'.
As we can see with the most recent Andorian Escort, the Devs are continuing the practice of making Escorts and Science ships able to perform without the need of Cruisers (the supposed 'glass cannon' ship has just as many Engineering consoles as any standard Cruiser and two Engineering BOFF slots, making it more than able to take damage and putting the lie to the phrase). This makes the possibility of convincing them to implement option 1 very low, especially when Engineers are the 'little people' of STO in the view of the Devs.
Based on the above, I would say only option 3 has much chance of seeing the light of day, and that only if the Devs bother to care.
Unfortunately, there are Escorts and Science Ships out there with 4 Engineering Slots who would be able to derive the same benefits. It will take something more to make Cruisers abilities stand on par with those two types.
Until that happens, I don't see the Galaxy class fulfilling its true place in STO.
Hit the nail on the head here. As of right now, the Galaxy and all her variants have no place in current STO meta. Insane tankiness (which the Galaxy has), uber survivability (which the Galaxy also sports), are not required in any current game content. And until that changes, the Galaxy is useless.
Unless all ships have identical stats, there's always going to be a "worst" ship no matter what. So why not make the worst ship(s) the ship they know will sell well anyway, because they know there's enough rabid fanboys (and chumps) that'll buy it no matter what its stats.
It doesn't matter if it's as weak in combat as a concussed duckling, and turns with the grace of a three-legged hippo. Fanboys buy it anyway, and likely have multiple versions. Cause oh, they had to have saucer seperation. And oh they had to have the antimatter spread. Then why not get the fleet version?
And now they complain because it sucks. Well, it always sucked. It sucked in the show, it sucks in the game. And now you want cryptic to go back and alleviate the suck. Why? It sucked when you bought it, and the stats were available before you clicked the buy button. They already have your money, and they know if they can come up with a justification to release another version (that still sucks) you'll probably buy that, too. They got no motivation to improve it.
Personally I'm glad it worked out this way. I never wanted to fly around in the gimptastic galaxy, so I'm glad they made it suck as much in the game as it did in TNG so I'm not even tempted.
I'm sorry if you feel differently, but you knew (or should have) what you were buying, bought it anyway, and got what you paid for. :P