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cruisers are underpowered...
borgresearcher
Member Posts: 451 Arc User
Hey there community, i think this is a common sense topic, so after a big talk with some pvp folks on organized pvp, and with my brother ( kirby ) i think almost everyone thinks that actually, cruisers are underpowered, so i decided to create this topic.
well, comparing standard cruisers with standard escorts you will notice that the main trade is hull for turn rate as you can see with this ( not refering consoles, boff stations, crew, device slots, inertia rating or weapon slots ):
...........assault cruiser---patrol escort ( examples )
hull points: 39k
31k
shield mod: 1
0,9
turn rate: 7
16
impulse mod: 0.15
0.20
after comparing the numbers you can clearly see that the patrol escort has 8k less hull, 0.1 less shield, but +9 turn rate and more impulse modifier( why ? cruisers have bigger nacelles -.- ), lets be realistic, the gain of 8k hull doesnt compensate that loss of maneuverability, and the escort has more impulse modifier, this is important, the defense value of an escort almost compensates that loss of hull, which is almost nothing on pvp, anything with more than 50k hull is impractical, you dont need it !
if the cruisers are the mother of all vessels, with the top weapons, the top technology, the space combat tanks, the frontline battle ships, why people prefer escorts ? theres something wrong here right ?
thats because 1 turn rate is not the same of 1k hull as the devs think, thats why cruiseres are underpowered= lack of maneuverability, and a not well compensated resilliency: that is well known
why people dont buy galaxy classes ? dreadnaughts ? omg come on, the spinal beam is almost useless on a ship with that turn rate, its almost the same thing as having dual heavy cannons on the voquv carrier, pointless...
as it seems, carriers dont loose anything to trade off for their hangar slots, so lets make a list
these are the tier5 non-carrier ships with almost or more 40k hull and less than 10 turn rate:(hope i dont forget any )
assault cruiser
star cruiser
odissey star cruiser
ambassador
exploration cruiser and dreadnaught
heavy cruiser retrofit
advanced heavy cruiser retrofit
bortas
neghvar
dkora
this list includes fleet versions.
i didnt include the vorcha (tor'kath on the fleet version) or the galor, because these have 10 turn rate, although the galor doesnt have more than 40k hull, so the galor could be a perhaps ?
i mean, if these ships were good, people wouldnt prefer bops, or escorts ... am i right ?
if you notice, the ships with the lower turn rates on this list, are the ships that pvpers dont use or the ships you dont see pvping!
why ? coz 7 or 8k hull doesnt compensate the high turn rate, and the impulse mod, escorts can do the so much called "speed tank", ive seen bops tanking 6 guys on kerrat, any pvper knows about this.
So, hull and crew is not simetric to turn rate and impulse mod :cool:
if bops have a battle cloak ( let's say, compensating its lack of hull and shield ) why cruisers dont have anything to compensate its lack of maneuverability ? +1 weap slot seems not enough compared to escorts, but for bops ? 1- rear weap slot but a battle cloak and a full uni boff layout seems to be doing it
carriers doesnt seem to loose anything compared to normal cruisers, so my ideas for the ships on the list are:
+1 or 2k hull ( still impractical )
+0.1 shield mod ( like this one particullarly because escorts and cruisers share almost the same shield mod )
Or adding innate abilities
1 innate tractor beam 1 (weak version or something ) with 4 minutes cooldown ( every cruisers on star trek novels have it not beeing science based only, i mean tractor beam should be an enginner skill)
or ( i love this one ) adding 4 innate emergy power to subsystem working almost the same as the innate beam targeting skills on science vessels
like : emergy power to shields, emergency power to engines, weapons and aux
these skills would have 1 minute cooldown and 30sec shared, giving +15 power to the subsystem and repairing it ( not sure if this integrated emergy power to shields would give shield points, but not shield resistance)
with this, these ships would be more resilient against more combat situations, combining it with a red matter capacitor and 1 or 2 boff emergency power skills, it would let the cruiser power not to be disabled as much as other ships ( pretty engineering based isnt it ? xP ), and you would see these ships more on pvp, not overpowering them, please consider my idea devs ...
i hope the pvp community likes this and i hope the failaxy becomes the mister galaxy class again.
sorry for my bad english, cheers
Prime
well, comparing standard cruisers with standard escorts you will notice that the main trade is hull for turn rate as you can see with this ( not refering consoles, boff stations, crew, device slots, inertia rating or weapon slots ):
...........assault cruiser---patrol escort ( examples )
hull points: 39k
31k
shield mod: 1
0,9
turn rate: 7
16
impulse mod: 0.15
0.20
after comparing the numbers you can clearly see that the patrol escort has 8k less hull, 0.1 less shield, but +9 turn rate and more impulse modifier( why ? cruisers have bigger nacelles -.- ), lets be realistic, the gain of 8k hull doesnt compensate that loss of maneuverability, and the escort has more impulse modifier, this is important, the defense value of an escort almost compensates that loss of hull, which is almost nothing on pvp, anything with more than 50k hull is impractical, you dont need it !
if the cruisers are the mother of all vessels, with the top weapons, the top technology, the space combat tanks, the frontline battle ships, why people prefer escorts ? theres something wrong here right ?
thats because 1 turn rate is not the same of 1k hull as the devs think, thats why cruiseres are underpowered= lack of maneuverability, and a not well compensated resilliency: that is well known
why people dont buy galaxy classes ? dreadnaughts ? omg come on, the spinal beam is almost useless on a ship with that turn rate, its almost the same thing as having dual heavy cannons on the voquv carrier, pointless...
as it seems, carriers dont loose anything to trade off for their hangar slots, so lets make a list
these are the tier5 non-carrier ships with almost or more 40k hull and less than 10 turn rate:(hope i dont forget any )
assault cruiser
star cruiser
odissey star cruiser
ambassador
exploration cruiser and dreadnaught
heavy cruiser retrofit
advanced heavy cruiser retrofit
bortas
neghvar
dkora
this list includes fleet versions.
i didnt include the vorcha (tor'kath on the fleet version) or the galor, because these have 10 turn rate, although the galor doesnt have more than 40k hull, so the galor could be a perhaps ?
i mean, if these ships were good, people wouldnt prefer bops, or escorts ... am i right ?
if you notice, the ships with the lower turn rates on this list, are the ships that pvpers dont use or the ships you dont see pvping!
why ? coz 7 or 8k hull doesnt compensate the high turn rate, and the impulse mod, escorts can do the so much called "speed tank", ive seen bops tanking 6 guys on kerrat, any pvper knows about this.
So, hull and crew is not simetric to turn rate and impulse mod :cool:
if bops have a battle cloak ( let's say, compensating its lack of hull and shield ) why cruisers dont have anything to compensate its lack of maneuverability ? +1 weap slot seems not enough compared to escorts, but for bops ? 1- rear weap slot but a battle cloak and a full uni boff layout seems to be doing it
carriers doesnt seem to loose anything compared to normal cruisers, so my ideas for the ships on the list are:
+1 or 2k hull ( still impractical )
+0.1 shield mod ( like this one particullarly because escorts and cruisers share almost the same shield mod )
Or adding innate abilities
1 innate tractor beam 1 (weak version or something ) with 4 minutes cooldown ( every cruisers on star trek novels have it not beeing science based only, i mean tractor beam should be an enginner skill)
or ( i love this one ) adding 4 innate emergy power to subsystem working almost the same as the innate beam targeting skills on science vessels
like : emergy power to shields, emergency power to engines, weapons and aux
these skills would have 1 minute cooldown and 30sec shared, giving +15 power to the subsystem and repairing it ( not sure if this integrated emergy power to shields would give shield points, but not shield resistance)
with this, these ships would be more resilient against more combat situations, combining it with a red matter capacitor and 1 or 2 boff emergency power skills, it would let the cruiser power not to be disabled as much as other ships ( pretty engineering based isnt it ? xP ), and you would see these ships more on pvp, not overpowering them, please consider my idea devs ...
i hope the pvp community likes this and i hope the failaxy becomes the mister galaxy class again.
sorry for my bad english, cheers
Prime
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Cruisers also get higher level engineering slots than anyone else, which adds a lot to survivability as well as to their team role as healers.
I'm not saying cruisers aren't weak, just that they don't need to be compared to escorts.
The basic problem with cruisers, the one which is not compensated by their engineering emphasis, is that beams are underpowered. The exact problem is debatable -- maybe it's a lack of a beam equivalent to CRF, or maybe beams drain too much power, or maybe it's some combination of factors, but ships which rely on beams can't output acceptable damage. Or maybe the problem is just that beams are the only weapon with a wide enough arc to be used by cruisers -- maybe if some torpedoes had wider arcs that could give cruisers the extra punch they need.
But the part which is lacking is firepower, and it's lacking whether you compare them to escorts or not.
Basically what your recommending is cruisers should be zipping around like escorts
I love flying cruisers I don't find any of mine underpowered I also love flying bops and escorts
However I will agree with the first poster that it is in fact beams that are underpowered and the Boff powers that go with them crf and single cannons make beams and bfaw look like Childs play
Single cannons + turrets + crf + dem = death
Beams + bfaw + dem = uncontrollable lines going everywhere instead of on the target
the best premade is a 5 crusiers/carrier team, that is the answer to your post. Escorts are always the weak point in the team
Vin Naftero@playhard88 - FED Sciencie
K'tan@playhard88 - KDF Tactical
Argento@playhard88 - RRF Tactical (FED)
Tac: 9 abilities in 3 different CD groups.
Sci: 8 abilities in 7 different CD groups.
Eng: 5 abilities in 2 different CD groups where 4 of the 5 abilities are in the same CD group.
This creates an issue right from the start for a ship that's going to mainly have Eng BOFFs.
Address that issue - bring Ensign Engineering BOFFs in line with the rest and see how it goes from there. Changing anything else before that, could simply result in other problems down the line...
1. Defense and movement
2. Beams and DHC
These two relationships contribute greatly to the difference in the classes. Until these are addressed things like hull and turn rate will not really get at the disparities between the classes. There have been a number of discussions in just the past few days on this so I'm not going to drag them out again.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
yes noob, on the game you say "failaxy" and "failoddy" but here you say that cruisers are ok, you are just another escort handler affraid of getting kicked by a bigger ship, give me a cruiser that is as good to engys as the jem bug is to tacs, oh sorry, you cant =/
cruisers have 8 weap slots, but thats not energy efficient as you can see here
# Weapons--- Total Drain / Resulting Power--- Damage per Weapon--- Total damage
1---> -0 / 100--- 200%--- 200%
2---> -10 / 90--- 180%--- 360%
3---> -20 / 80--- 160%--- 480%
4---> -30 / 70--- 140%--- 560%
5---> -40 / 60--- 120%--- 600%
6---> -50 / 50--- 100%--- 600%
7---> -60 / 40--- 80%--- 560%
8---> -70 / 30--- 60%--- 480%
, thats why the default set ever comes with 1 torpedo fore and aft, cruisers resilliency is not compensated by its lack of maneuverability
all ships have some unique extras
escorts = dual heavy cannons cappable
sci vessles = sensor analisys
carrier = 2 hangar bays and some of them with more hull than cruisers
bop = fully universal stations, crazy turn rate and battle cloak
cruisers ... huh ? what ? not capable of dhc, no sensor analisys, no hangar bays, no universal stations, no crazy turn rate AT ALL, and you guys say its ok ? please
and the ships who benefit from 2 of those benefits, will loose something, as the vesta do with dhc and hangar, but 27800 hull and 1.35 shield mod
so what the cruisers gain ?
how can everybody not ride a cruiser and say its underpowered, but when its time to call that to the forum you say its ok ? obvious, escort users are affraid of the time when cruisers get what they deserve and finally show its pottencial
carriers dont loose nothing on its gain of 2 hangar slots, so my idea was to add something to the rest of the cruisers, making them balanced compared to carriers and not underpowered, which people think it is On the game
Beam arrays themselves are ok (note the word of choice) I don't think their boff skills have problems, a properly used FAW is a very powerful tool and in some cases can be as powerful as CRF for cannons. An adjustment to their drain mechanics would make them good weapons the other problems that has really highlighted their weaknesses is the escorts newly increased capacity to do damage (new consoles etc) and the escorts ability to shrug off damage, fix/compensate for these and beam arrays will be a viable option once more.
Nothing else really matters right? Because it all stems from this. You have Acc and Defense that ONLY mean something when they are compared to one another. You have these modifiers that are baked into the hull, so that when we try to add hull health to compensate for crappy movement and defense....we get....even CRAPPIER movement and defense.
Granted OP you would think that sure isn't it possible they put BIGGER engines on bigger ships but no. And many of those other things you mentioned. But you didn't even need to bother. When def/acc/crit gets resolved, most of the other stuff will go away.
Part of this gets back to initial faction design. I mentioned in another thread in another sub-forum, but I'll paraphrase here:
KDF = Hit&Run, think literal Birds of Prey dive bombing for food.
Fed = Wolf pack, not the fastest, but have highest endurance and use teamwork for a kill.
Along those lines KDF Battle Cruisers were designed for movement, where Fed Cruisers were designed for lumbering support platforms. The KDF BCs are not weak, but some of the strongest options in the game for high pressure damage w/survivability.
Fyi, there's an Oddy varient w/sensor analysis, and another w/Saucer Sep for increased movement.
Back the inital Fed/KDF design, Cryptic changed its revenue stream to include ship sales. This led to hybrid sales and buffs to lotto/pay items. So things changed:
All revenue ships got better shields and hulls and boff layouts. Many got turnrate boosts as well.
Hybrids like Destroyers got rolled out with "Kirk" like Boff/defense mods, meaning they can put out DPS while self sustaining defenses and/or some CC/Debuffs.
Sci Shield Stripping Boffs were nerfed, so the applied pressure damage from BAs weakened. Various abilities over time via Doff/Rep system also contributed to all ships ability to sustain themselves.
BAs attributes w/FaW and FaW fixes/changes are also an issue.
Further, APO extending defensive bonus past initial 5 seconds and cooldown based Doffs have boosted Escort defensive capabilities.
But, there have been some boosts to Fed Cruisers repair capabilities, including but not limited to ES doffs.
Imo, the APO defense should be fixed to 5 second duration and the BAs procs need to be fixed. Sci shield stripping Boff powers need a boost. Then see how things are. The cat is out of the bag as far as hybrid ships blurring Faction Uniqueness, I'd just like to see them blurred less.
Lastly, Raiders have been the least boosted ships imo. Better to compare base Fed Cruiser design model to $KDF BCs, $Sci and $Escort and $Hybrid ships.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
so every other type of damage from sources like cruisers ends up being basically irreverent in the DHC/TT, ES, etc.. tug of war
oh, and every time they add some new thing that heals over time, or boosts regeneration, it DIRECTLY reduces the effectiveness of things like beam arrays, and the other lesser used cruiser weapon single cannons
Then work on weapons, as they sorely need work.
again with the doffs that make omega to global? thoes doffs are not the problem. people have been using 2x omega on escourts for how long?
What you quoted was one of many changes I listed including buffs to repair abilities and not the main point in my post. I didn't even suggest looking at it until other things had been done.
"Imo, the APO defense should be fixed to 5 second duration and the BAs procs need to be fixed. Sci shield stripping Boff powers need a boost. Then see how things are."
That said the old 2x omega builds != doffs that put APs at global builds.
effectively APO3x2+xtra LtCommander Tac Boff != APO3+ APO1
effectively APO3x2+APD1x2 +xtra LtCommander Tac Boff != APO3+APO1+APD1 (not that many people spent slots on 3 AP Boffs)
I'm not sure why acknowledging this is a big deal.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Lobi shield mines and to a lesser extent Tet Glider aside, imo Sci shield stripping Boff powers and Target subsystem shields are under powered and also reduces the effectiveness of DoT pressure Damage builds.
Also, there are a larger variety of ways to boost power levels now making defenses and shield resistances more effective than when harder choices had to be made.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Agreed +1. Although reducing escort survivability sounds good to me (*cough* defense bonus), it might be worth a look at cruiser damage again. Back when cruisers were doing more damage, an escort with a failed alpha could rarely stick around for a sustained fight without bleeding out the jugular. Just please don't pigeon cruiser damage builds to FAW
Random tangent: Cryptic's spell check doesn't recognize "survivability" but somehow "jugular" is ok.
Yeah, if you want to sit there and fall asleep.
Give me 2-3 Vestas and 3-2 Escorts and it'll ruin a 5 Cruiser premade.
well it kinda is. i hate the one side talk of apd, i dont see people making a big deal on sci team 3 or et 3 on global. thats alot of burst healing numbers in a match. i do agree omega needs to be fixed so it dont do more then it should. but leave the doffs out of it. while you say thats an extra slot i can say the same for sci and engys.
but this whole topic of crusiers are underpowered is just stupid. they do healing. i know engys in cruisers are ment to be a hybrid of dps/healing but i tend to hate that idea. if you want to do damage go in escorts, if you want to heal go in a crusier or sci ship. am i the only one who is a bit worried that you guys get cruisers buffed and we go back to cruisers online? faw is getting fixed. that should help a bit, but again i am a bit worried about it. yeah it helped eat sheilds but rendered mines useless.
Most damaging guns forward, every ship the same amount of guns, same firing angles etc.
What would happen if cruiser mounted weapons have a higher arc then escort mounted weapons. If cruisers can mount all weapons types everywhere? Reducing, eliminating the blind spots of cruisers that make it so easy for escorts to kill cruisers with impunity .
Or restrict what MK of a gun can be placed on a ship class. There is a canon reason for the ent-d to be so big for example. Its the phaser emitter strips. They are so power full because they are so large. Much larger then the entire defiant. Yet in game the situation is pretty much reversed. The weapons are the same, shuttle, cruisers, escort. but the number of tac consoles and boff slots are more important. And in that area the escort usually wins big time.
I don't think the imbalance can be addressed without having different ship types effect what and how much they can mount. Be it weapons, boffs, MKs and so on.
R.I.P
Otherwise the only defense bonus that escorts get is the 10% over the cruisers. Everything else is power stacking through variuos means, trait buffs, passives buffs and equipment buffs.
Making so a held or slowed Escort is once again highly vulnerable defensewise would be a step towards balancing them in PvP.
Or they give Cruisers a bonus 10% to defense for being being massive to even it out.
My 2 ec.
R.I.P
Remove the defense bonus from APO instead imo...
Not only cruisers, but also Science Captains and Engineers and engineering BO abilities of lower tiers. As well as beam tac BO abilities compared with cannons.
STO wit all this cannon spam feels more like Star Wars than Star Trek at all ...
Anyone, who says that beams are ok because they have a higher arc, have no clue, because the arc where acutally any damage is dealt is broadside (250?-180?)x2 = 140?.
Their arc is less than normal cannons while dealing less damage. Sounds fair ...
An escort who got broad sided from a cruiser should maybe play farmville, because with turrate of >15 against turnrates of <10 iot is quite easy to not get broad sided.
To sweeten the deal make the respecs a LOT cheaper so that players can afford them. With such setp - make LOTS of money (that's for Cryptic).
Make the bonus difference between 3rd level of BOFF powers a LOT greater then between first two. 1st level bonuses should be minimal (like 1% bonus, 10% bonus - 50% bonus). Making the powers specific for ship types relevant again (EPtS - I look at you...). This would also solve the problem of overhealing as escorts would not be able to slot powers that can heal them really effectively (thus turning them into glass cannons).
Cut available power to 100 while keeping the power level requirements. Sloting 100% of power to most subsystem would not be possible, even getting 100% to one will at expense of shooting down everything else if don;t have skill bonuses. Get batteries or skills or suffer. Would cut the DPS of escorts while giving them great spike damage from DHC and batteiries. While not TRIBBLE as much sci (which rely on Aux) and cruisers (with eng power boost skills).
Or do anything that will force players to think and make the game about skills at flying, not at creating keybinds.
And reverse game to pre-F2P state
Wrong.
Wrong.
Depends entirely on range and positioning.
i think this is dragging a bit and all are posting the unbalanced things, which is good i think, but the point of the post is the cruisers of the list i made, they are not used on pvp, and, come on, premades ? what is that ? 5 cruisers ? dont be that ignorant, are you saying 5 regents or 5 oddys are better than 5 jem bugs ? dont fool me sad animal.
carriers dont loose anything compared to cruisers ( and some of the carriers have even more shield and hull ) i will say this as many times as i need. so cruisers need something to compensate that.
please tell me why the advanced escort is balanced to the hec ? because it has 5 tac consoles ? that would be your justification right ? so, tactical console slots are more important than engineer console slots. still think theres nothing wrong with escorts/cruisers ?
about the doffs im not sure about what it would make more impact, nerf the apo in itself, or to do something about the doffs, but 1 of them is needed for sure
-boost cruiseres on the list
-correct jam procs
-revamp of skills / new skills
-boost sci shield stripping skills ( cpb, tachyon beam )
this is my dream.