Any feedback on the potential performance of this vessel?
Why surprised? At this point, we kinda expect Cryptic/PWE to engage in "price gouging", so when a Dev Blog appears, that shows yet ANOTHER price hike, at some point you simply go to far. Even at 4 modules you're pushing it (20 bucks for ONE CHARACTER item?!?), and then the blog showed FIVE modules.
Here's a hint (and Mr BranFlakes may gladly pass along my feedback); You'll get MORE sales for a digital item, if you REDUCE the cost of said items. Not INCREASE.
Well, DOFF'd PSW1 to reduce the CD on Nadeon Trics...when Nadeon Trics could spread. Course, they still can - but the Friday notes for Tribble changed that, so it's likely it will be gone this Thursday. No more nerdgasms.
Yeah I know all of those tactics it just doesn't measure up to a LC skill option although if you look at the romulan sets they were designed around using photonic shockwave and then tractor skills as a secondary. Just poor design imo if you are going to design a set with that much of a dilithium tag on it and is designed purely around a skill that not really anyone would ever want to use in its current form. When comparing it to the combination of thie Fleet K'maj with a romulan set on it. I'll probally just use a DHC/DC/2x photon 4 turret setup and drop engineering heals and sci probally heals since the days of all sci's in pvp they were nerfed and never looked at again for balance purposes.
the problem is, there is nothing within the system that favors size, size in every instance is a negative, wile the smaller the ship is the better it is. which is insane.
This is a very good point. Its somehow opposite linear thinking from the norm, were big has always been better. Only here, smaller is better. What i wish is that Cryptic somehow followed Wold of Tanks take on how they balance their game. If you are a light tank you're fast with a high top speed, maneuvarble, hard to target but have a sucky gun that wont do much damage, and you die easy. If you're a medium tank you have an oki good gun that will perform good for its role, have decent speed and mobility, but if you get shoot at you cant take many hits before you go down. Lastly you got the heavy tanks. You're slow as heck, can barely turn with low top speed, but you have one helluva of a gun that will annihilate everything, and you can take a poudning before going down.
So question is; Why cant STO somehow balance around this to make each ship perform an obvious role it was intended for?
Co-founder of The Spanish Inquisition TSI - Cause no one expects it!
PaxOttomana: gawd mirror event is like fighting a tsi premade, they keep comin and comin!
So question is; Why cant STO somehow balance around this to make each ship perform an obvious role it was intended for?
Who determines that role though? The forums of full of folks with different ideas of what the roles for each ship should be...many of them having nothing to do with Star Trek.
So question is; Why cant STO somehow balance around this to make each ship perform an obvious role it was intended for?
When the player base of any game has an outrage about anything the people in charge of the outcome will do the easiest and laziest of all possible solutions. So its easy and lazy like it was done to make escorts the most powerful like it was said the smaller the better. I can't disagree with that because most ody's and bortas's are collecting dust now. Same with the old heavy science builds are no longer used.
In the end though it just makes it harder on people trying to make money off ships because the less variety for the player to choose from leaves the devs less room to work with new money makers. I'm sure if the people at PWE look at it from that angle it would be fixed so they can come out with ships people actually want to buy instead of boring them with grinds and quit playing their games
Tbh, it's one of the better KDF options for Sci Captains out there. Imo, most of the Raiders are too weak for only 3 sci consoles, most of the BCs and Vet Ship only have 2 Sci consoles. This seems like a support/debuff ship w/potential for other things.
Perhaps a Tet Glider + DEM + CVS + DHC + Weapons proc w/a PSW or VM and/or SS and TB, maybe aux2batt mixed in. For potential pressue debuff/damage build and some cc/debuff.
I'd rather the Eng Commander Boff and Lt Com Sci swap places as well as swap consoles, but there are worse options for a KDF Sci.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Why does the Ambassador get a turn rate of 7, that feels like an 8 (probably because the model is small and the turn axis is good - another long unattended balance issue) get more hull than the Odyssey class which has a turn rate of 6?
Here's the reason the Ambassador has a great "feeling" turn rate. it has a turn of 7 with an inertia of 40. By comparison the Oddy has a 6/20, the galaxy a 6/25, the regent a 7/30 and the excel an 8/40
That's why the ambassador feels nimble... it's the inertia. I think the problems with the turn on the oddy and galaxy would be best served by raised their inertia by at least 10 while keeping the turn they already have. And raising the regent by 5.
Formerly Known as Protector from June 2008 to June 20, 2012
Please enable us to buy a token with Zen to faction change a 25th Century FED to a TOS FED.
I like the performance of the current versions so the fleet ones will be a blessing.
Question ... Why does the KDF ship have less hull than the FED one?
It has a better turn rate, it fits cannons, it cloaks. For this it loses 1 device slot and ~5k hull base when compared to the fed version.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
That said I'd give it an extra +0.5 turnrate making it 7.5. That way it turns faster than the larger assault cruiser but not as fast as the nimble excelsior.
Any feedback on the potential performance of this vessel?
oha...
*reduces Rage & Pitchfork alert status back to default condition*
i have to say i didn't really take a look at the stats yet, but as long as the Ships Center Axis is between it's nacelles, instead of in the center of the Ship, i will not fly that thing.
Thats just not working for me.
i have to say i didn't really take a look at the stats yet, but as long as the Ships Center Axis is between it's nacelles, instead of in the center of the Ship, i will not fly that thing.
Thats just not working for me.
It's kind of twisted - because I got used to the odd pivot on the Qin pretty fast - but the Ambassador...meh, I just can't get used to it - it's just too off.
That said I'd give it an extra +0.5 turnrate making it 7.5. That way it turns faster than the larger assault cruiser but not as fast as the nimble excelsior.
But yeah, nicely balanced.
The Ambassador class actually has a mass larger than the sovereign class. It needs a slight inertia nerf imo.
Any feedback on the potential performance of this vessel?
I think something that should seriously be looked at are special abilities that are comparable to cannon usage. The KDF ship outclasses the Fed ship by far in large part because of the added utility of DPS over survivability but also because cannon usage and better turnrates are so much more dramatic in terms of their influence on playstyle.
My overall feedback is this:
I get wrist cramps and have trouble turning as a "mouse steerer" with ships that have a turnrate below 10 in extended play sessions. It just isn't as fun. I would totally support something like upping base turnrate on all ships while implementing a lower hardcap. Slow turning doesn't feel majestic. It feels irritating and it isn't how my favorite vintage Trek games (Judgment Rites, Starfleet Academy) handled ship maneuverability. I'm not going to tell you any one solution is right. (There could be any number of solutions, including possibly having keybinds for a tray-based "pull a 180" so I don't have to commit a hand to a slow turn.) But this pigeonholes me into playing escorts. I don't feel alone in this regard.
If the KDF ship gets cannons and a higher turnrate, the Fed ship needs something meaningful. The amount of survivability you offer in exchange for DPS isn't enough to sway me generally. And I'm not sure offering dramatically more is the best option either because that much survivability is seldom called for and passive survivability is less kinetic and less fun.
My personal feeling is to look at offering:
- Subsystem targeting, at a minimum, when a comparable KDF ship has cannons. Either way, it goes beyond standard cruiser configuration.
- Add flight deck cruiser capability to the Ambassador and the Galaxy Fleet ships. Possibly two hangar slots for the Galaxy. It can't be any more imbalanced than the Armitage and provides these ships with utility they currently lack, making them feel inferior to the Excelsior without any added perk.
In general, my feeling is that science leaning cruisers need subsystem targeting. (This could also make them more viable for Science Captains who want tankiness over the turnrate of sci-vessels.) And cruisers with a strong engineering/support focus in either faction probably need hangar bays added.
And if you can add one hangar bay to an escort, you can add 1 hangar/subsystem targeting to the Ambassador and 2 hangars to the Fleet Galaxy.
Additionally, by adding hangars to fleet cruisers, that gives you a rationale to look at upgrading the Odyssey to fleet tier.
By which I mean:
Tac Fleet Ody -> Gets cannons, Turnrate boost over other Odysseys
Sci Fleet Ody -> 1 Hangar, Subsystem Targeting
Eng Fleet Ody -> 2 Hangars
And where does the Excelsior fall in? Well, frankly, I wouldn't give it anything extra as I'd consider it to have effectively received a couple of turnrate boosts already.
Seriously more spam and sensor analyis on Cruisers?
You know there are already more ship types fed side w/hangars than KDF?
Feds already have sturdy support ships w/sensor analysis. They're called Sci Ships and Feds are far better than KDF options.
There are Cruiser/Sci ships crossovers. Look for the 1s w/Commander Sci Lt Commander Eng or Commander Eng Lt Commander Sci Boff layouts. Look @ the Oddy Sci varient w/Sensor Analysis already in the game.
There are Cruiser Escort Crossovers (destoyers and Heavy Escort Carrier).
At this point I'd rather people just buy the ship that fits their style, (it's likely already in the game) then ask for Hologram skins of their favorite ship.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
1) What on Earth is the point in flying a Gal-R?
2) How exactly is the Kamarag's marginally stronger damage potential balanced against the Ambassador? They could both fill the exact same healing role if they wanted to, so what does the Amby gain over the Kamry in comparison?
3) Even on an Engie, beams are still not really viable for these ships...
Seriously more spam and sensor analyis on Cruisers?
You know there are already more ship types fed side w/hangars than KDF?
Feds already have sturdy support ships w/sensor analysis. They're called Sci Ships and Feds are far better than KDF options.
There are Cruiser/Sci ships crossovers. Look for the 1s w/Commander Sci Lt Commander Eng or Commander Eng Lt Commander Sci Boff layouts. Look @ the Oddy Sci varient w/Sensor Analysis already in the game.
There are Cruiser Escort Crossovers (destoyers and Heavy Escort Carrier).
At this point I'd rather people just buy the ship that fits their style, (it's likely already in the game) then ask for Hologram skins of their favorite ship.
I'm not suggesting this just for Fed side.
Really, the way I see it, an ideal balancing method would be -- and this is purely on the backend:
Strip Escorts/Sci/Cruisers down to core components and values in a fairly balanced state on a whiteboard to take a look at.
Whenever possible, treat non-ship class abilities (ie. cruisers with cannons), high turnrates, exotic stat buffs, battle cloak, and special abilities as bonuses.
Try to equalize out the bonuses.
From there, I'd probably also look at shuffling around which powers are on a given ship's console and making consoles usable on every ship.
So, for example: The Defiant and the Galaxy-X. You don't want their cloaks to be usable on other ships, naturally. So you eliminate their cloak consoles. You make cloak an innate power of each ship. In place of this, you lower the Defiant's turnrate down to 15 (standard escort turnrate) and make the Defiant's special console a "+2 to base turnrate console." The Galaxy-X's console instead becomes a phaser lance console (which only triggers the full special animation on the Galaxy-X but which is usable on any ship).
Shuffle things around so that anything that must be exclusive to a ship is an innate bonus (one of the two or three that any ship gets) and, instead, the special consoles from all ships are fair game for all ships, like the lower tier consoles are.
I think ships would be considerably more balanced if they subdivided the innate specials (ie. cruiser with cannons, high turnrate, hangar) off from the base stats and treated those as one or two bonuses that every ship gets.
Then you look at a ship like the Galaxy or Ambassador, which is pretty darned vanilla. And you look at giving them two to three of the standard bonuses (non-class bonus ability, cloak, innate power, hangar pet, higher turnrate than the norm for the class). So that every ship (C-Store and Fleet tier anyway) is, on the whole, a vanilla ship with two to three of those extra perks.
And don't count hull as a factor in that consideration.
So, for example:
Boost the Vor'cha hull by 4k. But as it has Cloak, Cannons, and +4 Turnrate, you find 2-3 things to add to the Galaxy like maybe 2 hangar slots and subsystem targeting.
For Spocks sake, I love the Galaxy, but giving it hangars is horrible idea. That's like peeing on the legacy of that ship. I'm sure Cryptic will eventually sell more spam...i mean flight deck cruiser, but in a brand new design.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
Basically, what I'm saying is that when designing a ship, I think they should start off by balancing hull, base turnrate, and shield modifier.
Then every ship should get three "design extras" from a pool which includes +4 base turnrate, cloak (for cruisers), battlecloak (for escorts/sci), hangar pet, cannons (cruiser/sci), subsystem targeting (cruiser/escort), universal station, etc.
So let's take where I think the Aquarius should be, balanced entirely for turnrate. (Keep in mind, numbers here are just my guesstimates.)
For Spocks sake, I love the Galaxy, but giving it hangars is horrible idea. That's like peeing on the legacy of that ship. I'm sure Cryptic will eventually sell more spam...i mean flight deck cruiser, but in a brand new design.
I'm not sure I see it. The turnrate proportional to other ships isn't going up. It does equip shuttles and was a military transport in Yesterday's Enterprise, which suggests the frame is right for the task.
The Vor'cha's hull loss isn't an appropriate penalty for the three extras it gets, which is why I say get rid of the hull penalty and look at the Galaxy getting three buffs comparable to (but not identical to) the +4 turnrate, cloak, and cannons. (And doing similar with the Ambassador, keeping us on topic.)
I could see several Galaxy configurations pretty easily.
Two hangars and subsystem targeting. (YE's Galaxy Warship.)
Cloak, Cannons, Hangar. (Dreadnaught. With lance as a console add-on instead of cloak.)
Hopefully, you can at least see where the basic idea comes from. Base balancing of shields/turn/hull/maybe crew (with other stats like inertia resulting from those). Then three bonuses similar to the Vor'cha.
You can even get into negative bonuses for modded ships. For example, Galaxy saucer with nacelles attached starts as escort balanced. Remove cannons (class power). Gets standard three bonuses plus fourth bonus as compensation for removal of cannons.
The point is combat oriented RPG balance.
Looking at the Ambassador, she has one universal, which is one special mod but is not significantly overtuned against the fleet star cruiser in other ways so she needs a couple of more bonuses stacked on to hit three bonuses.
That could take any number of forms.
One would be +4 turnrate and subsystem targeting.
I'd urge you not to compare this TOO readily to different tiers of ship or between classes because this approach would probably mean buffing a LOT of the less played T5 ships around the Battle Cruiser model, with the proviso that hull becomes a step 1 balancing process (weighed against turnrate/shield mod, which means buffing the Vor'cha's hull) and step 2 is focused around combat novelty balance. This would mean buffing almost all but the most popular ships.
Check Tribble, the Aquarius shield mod has been fixed, shield mod is 0.85 for the regular version and 0.94 for the fleet version. All the fleet only retrofits and fleet ships based on them have been fixed as well.
As for the fleet Ambassador, nice ship but no better or worse than the current batch, just a bit different. Nice for those that like the power of Science.
The problem with the Galaxy isn't the ship itself, it is the fact that unlike tactical, 99% of the engineering consoles are useless, the ones that work have nasty diminishing returns and way too many engineering bridge officer powers share the same cooldowns to make the extensive engineering slots useful. Also it turns like a pregnant whale and then add the general suckage of beam arrays and related powers... The fact that the ship and the saucer separation animation still has graphic bugs do not help either.
The Galaxy could be fixed, as far as combat goes by something that follows the canon of the ship like...
Extra Large Beam Array Collectors: up to three beam arrays of the same energy type installed on the Galaxy on each facing are grouped into a virtual single beam array that does the added damage of the entire group. This is a toggle.
So DPS would stay the same, beam spam would decrease due to less beams being used, but it would make the Galaxy dangerous by increasing burst damage by 3 times. Also Beam Overload would be nice for a change...
Comments
Why surprised? At this point, we kinda expect Cryptic/PWE to engage in "price gouging", so when a Dev Blog appears, that shows yet ANOTHER price hike, at some point you simply go to far. Even at 4 modules you're pushing it (20 bucks for ONE CHARACTER item?!?), and then the blog showed FIVE modules.
Here's a hint (and Mr BranFlakes may gladly pass along my feedback); You'll get MORE sales for a digital item, if you REDUCE the cost of said items. Not INCREASE.
Yeah I know all of those tactics it just doesn't measure up to a LC skill option although if you look at the romulan sets they were designed around using photonic shockwave and then tractor skills as a secondary. Just poor design imo if you are going to design a set with that much of a dilithium tag on it and is designed purely around a skill that not really anyone would ever want to use in its current form. When comparing it to the combination of thie Fleet K'maj with a romulan set on it. I'll probally just use a DHC/DC/2x photon 4 turret setup and drop engineering heals and sci probally heals since the days of all sci's in pvp they were nerfed and never looked at again for balance purposes.
This is a very good point. Its somehow opposite linear thinking from the norm, were big has always been better. Only here, smaller is better. What i wish is that Cryptic somehow followed Wold of Tanks take on how they balance their game. If you are a light tank you're fast with a high top speed, maneuvarble, hard to target but have a sucky gun that wont do much damage, and you die easy. If you're a medium tank you have an oki good gun that will perform good for its role, have decent speed and mobility, but if you get shoot at you cant take many hits before you go down. Lastly you got the heavy tanks. You're slow as heck, can barely turn with low top speed, but you have one helluva of a gun that will annihilate everything, and you can take a poudning before going down.
So question is; Why cant STO somehow balance around this to make each ship perform an obvious role it was intended for?
PaxOttomana: gawd mirror event is like fighting a tsi premade, they keep comin and comin!
Who determines that role though? The forums of full of folks with different ideas of what the roles for each ship should be...many of them having nothing to do with Star Trek.
When the player base of any game has an outrage about anything the people in charge of the outcome will do the easiest and laziest of all possible solutions. So its easy and lazy like it was done to make escorts the most powerful like it was said the smaller the better. I can't disagree with that because most ody's and bortas's are collecting dust now. Same with the old heavy science builds are no longer used.
In the end though it just makes it harder on people trying to make money off ships because the less variety for the player to choose from leaves the devs less room to work with new money makers. I'm sure if the people at PWE look at it from that angle it would be fixed so they can come out with ships people actually want to buy instead of boring them with grinds and quit playing their games
Perhaps a Tet Glider + DEM + CVS + DHC + Weapons proc w/a PSW or VM and/or SS and TB, maybe aux2batt mixed in. For potential pressue debuff/damage build and some cc/debuff.
I'd rather the Eng Commander Boff and Lt Com Sci swap places as well as swap consoles, but there are worse options for a KDF Sci.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Here's the reason the Ambassador has a great "feeling" turn rate. it has a turn of 7 with an inertia of 40. By comparison the Oddy has a 6/20, the galaxy a 6/25, the regent a 7/30 and the excel an 8/40
That's why the ambassador feels nimble... it's the inertia. I think the problems with the turn on the oddy and galaxy would be best served by raised their inertia by at least 10 while keeping the turn they already have. And raising the regent by 5.
Please enable us to buy a token with Zen to faction change a 25th Century FED to a TOS FED.
I like the performance of the current versions so the fleet ones will be a blessing.
Question ... Why does the KDF ship have less hull than the FED one?
U.S.S. Maelstrom, NCC-71417 (Constitution III-class/flagship) --- Fleet Admiral Hauk' --|-- Dahar Master Hauk --- I.K.S. qu'In 'an bortaS (D7-class / flagship)
It has a better turn rate, it fits cannons, it cloaks. For this it loses 1 device slot and ~5k hull base when compared to the fed version.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
That said I'd give it an extra +0.5 turnrate making it 7.5. That way it turns faster than the larger assault cruiser but not as fast as the nimble excelsior.
But yeah, nicely balanced.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
I know it sucks. I know it's flaky. But c'mon, look who's posting it.
K'maj - Tactical Captain
Traits: Accurate, Elusive, Efficient Captain, Warp Theorist
Passives
New Rom: Precision, Emergency Secondary Shielding
Omega: Omega Weapon Training, Omega Graviton Amplifier
TT1, CRF1
TT1, THY2
TS1
EPtS1, AtS1, Extend2, DEM3
PH1, TSS2, VM1
DOFFs: EWO(Cannon), 2x SE(VM-Add), SDO(BFI), Medic
Weapons
Fore: Omega Torp, 3x Phased Polaron DHC
Aft: Hyper-Plasma Torp, Cutting Beam, 2x Phased Polaron Turret
Deflector: AKHG
Engine: AKHG
Shields: Fleet
Consoles
Tac: 3x Phase Mods
Eng: Tachyo, Borg, Leech, Neut
Sci: 2x Rom Flow [Pla], 0Point
As many Human BOFFs as you can manage...
K'maj - Science Captain
Traits: Accurate, Elusive, Astrophysicist, Warp Theorist
Passives
New Rom: Precision, Emergency Secondary Shielding
Omega: Omega Weapon Training, Superior Shield Repair
TT1, DPB1
TS1
EPtS1, RSP1, EWP1, AtS3
PH1, HE2, TB3
ST1, Tach2
DOFFs: MAS(EWP), DCE(AtS), TBO(TB), SDO(BFI), Medic
Weapons
Fore: Chron Dual Beam, Chron Torp, 2x Phased Tetryon DHC
Aft: Tach Mines, Chron Mines, Cutting Beam, Phased Tetryon Turret
Deflector: Axion [Flow][Ins][Eng][SciCdr]
Engine: Omega
Shields: Omega
Consoles
Tac: 3x Pulse Gens
Eng: Tachyo, Borg, Leech, Neut
Sci: Rom Flow [ShH], Rom Grav [HuH], Rom Part [Pla]
As many Human BOFFs as you can manage...
K'maj - Engineer Captain
Traits: Accurate, Elusive, Techie, Warp Theorist
Passives
New Rom: Enhanced Shield Systems, Sensor Targeting Assault
Omega: Hull-Repairing Nanites, Superior Shield Repair
TT1, APD1
FAW1
EPtS1, Extend1, AtS2, Extend3
EPtA1, ET2
PH1, HE2, TSS3
DOFFs: DCE(AtS), 2x DCE(EPt), SDO(BFI), ME(EPtA)
Weapons
Fore: Tric Torp, 3x Polarized Disruptor Array
Aft: Tric Torp, 3x Polarized Disruptor Array
Deflector: Fermion [Flow][Ins][Eng][SciCdr]
Engine: KHG
Shields: KHG
Consoles
Tac: Induction Coil, Tachyo, Borg
Eng: Leech, Neut, 2x SIF
Sci: Rom Emitter [ShH], Rom Emitter [HuH], FG
As many Human BOFFs as you can manage...
oha...
*reduces Rage & Pitchfork alert status back to default condition*
i have to say i didn't really take a look at the stats yet, but as long as the Ships Center Axis is between it's nacelles, instead of in the center of the Ship, i will not fly that thing.
Thats just not working for me.
It's kind of twisted - because I got used to the odd pivot on the Qin pretty fast - but the Ambassador...meh, I just can't get used to it - it's just too off.
Very much so. The KDF ship should have been what the Bortasq was.
Awesome specs.
EDIT: to be more specific. The K'maj stats should have been the stats of the bortasq.
The Ambassador class actually has a mass larger than the sovereign class. It needs a slight inertia nerf imo.
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I think something that should seriously be looked at are special abilities that are comparable to cannon usage. The KDF ship outclasses the Fed ship by far in large part because of the added utility of DPS over survivability but also because cannon usage and better turnrates are so much more dramatic in terms of their influence on playstyle.
My overall feedback is this:
I get wrist cramps and have trouble turning as a "mouse steerer" with ships that have a turnrate below 10 in extended play sessions. It just isn't as fun. I would totally support something like upping base turnrate on all ships while implementing a lower hardcap. Slow turning doesn't feel majestic. It feels irritating and it isn't how my favorite vintage Trek games (Judgment Rites, Starfleet Academy) handled ship maneuverability. I'm not going to tell you any one solution is right. (There could be any number of solutions, including possibly having keybinds for a tray-based "pull a 180" so I don't have to commit a hand to a slow turn.) But this pigeonholes me into playing escorts. I don't feel alone in this regard.
If the KDF ship gets cannons and a higher turnrate, the Fed ship needs something meaningful. The amount of survivability you offer in exchange for DPS isn't enough to sway me generally. And I'm not sure offering dramatically more is the best option either because that much survivability is seldom called for and passive survivability is less kinetic and less fun.
My personal feeling is to look at offering:
- Subsystem targeting, at a minimum, when a comparable KDF ship has cannons. Either way, it goes beyond standard cruiser configuration.
- Add flight deck cruiser capability to the Ambassador and the Galaxy Fleet ships. Possibly two hangar slots for the Galaxy. It can't be any more imbalanced than the Armitage and provides these ships with utility they currently lack, making them feel inferior to the Excelsior without any added perk.
In general, my feeling is that science leaning cruisers need subsystem targeting. (This could also make them more viable for Science Captains who want tankiness over the turnrate of sci-vessels.) And cruisers with a strong engineering/support focus in either faction probably need hangar bays added.
And if you can add one hangar bay to an escort, you can add 1 hangar/subsystem targeting to the Ambassador and 2 hangars to the Fleet Galaxy.
By which I mean:
Tac Fleet Ody -> Gets cannons, Turnrate boost over other Odysseys
Sci Fleet Ody -> 1 Hangar, Subsystem Targeting
Eng Fleet Ody -> 2 Hangars
And where does the Excelsior fall in? Well, frankly, I wouldn't give it anything extra as I'd consider it to have effectively received a couple of turnrate boosts already.
You know there are already more ship types fed side w/hangars than KDF?
Feds already have sturdy support ships w/sensor analysis. They're called Sci Ships and Feds are far better than KDF options.
There are Cruiser/Sci ships crossovers. Look for the 1s w/Commander Sci Lt Commander Eng or Commander Eng Lt Commander Sci Boff layouts. Look @ the Oddy Sci varient w/Sensor Analysis already in the game.
There are Cruiser Escort Crossovers (destoyers and Heavy Escort Carrier).
At this point I'd rather people just buy the ship that fits their style, (it's likely already in the game) then ask for Hologram skins of their favorite ship.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
both the ambassador and sovereign have less mass then a galaxy class saucer! the inertia is so all over the place.
1) What on Earth is the point in flying a Gal-R?
2) How exactly is the Kamarag's marginally stronger damage potential balanced against the Ambassador? They could both fill the exact same healing role if they wanted to, so what does the Amby gain over the Kamry in comparison?
3) Even on an Engie, beams are still not really viable for these ships...
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
Does fleet shipyards mean the end of the c-store?
How long ago was the Vesta 3-pack?
The Regent?
Steamrunner?
Atrox?
What's the next Z-Ship?
How many lockbox/lobi/fleet ships will have come between the last and next Z-Ship?
Hrmmm, there does appear to be that trend....
who says psw1 is not worth it?
I'm not suggesting this just for Fed side.
Really, the way I see it, an ideal balancing method would be -- and this is purely on the backend:
Strip Escorts/Sci/Cruisers down to core components and values in a fairly balanced state on a whiteboard to take a look at.
Whenever possible, treat non-ship class abilities (ie. cruisers with cannons), high turnrates, exotic stat buffs, battle cloak, and special abilities as bonuses.
Try to equalize out the bonuses.
From there, I'd probably also look at shuffling around which powers are on a given ship's console and making consoles usable on every ship.
So, for example: The Defiant and the Galaxy-X. You don't want their cloaks to be usable on other ships, naturally. So you eliminate their cloak consoles. You make cloak an innate power of each ship. In place of this, you lower the Defiant's turnrate down to 15 (standard escort turnrate) and make the Defiant's special console a "+2 to base turnrate console." The Galaxy-X's console instead becomes a phaser lance console (which only triggers the full special animation on the Galaxy-X but which is usable on any ship).
Shuffle things around so that anything that must be exclusive to a ship is an innate bonus (one of the two or three that any ship gets) and, instead, the special consoles from all ships are fair game for all ships, like the lower tier consoles are.
I think ships would be considerably more balanced if they subdivided the innate specials (ie. cruiser with cannons, high turnrate, hangar) off from the base stats and treated those as one or two bonuses that every ship gets.
Then you look at a ship like the Galaxy or Ambassador, which is pretty darned vanilla. And you look at giving them two to three of the standard bonuses (non-class bonus ability, cloak, innate power, hangar pet, higher turnrate than the norm for the class). So that every ship (C-Store and Fleet tier anyway) is, on the whole, a vanilla ship with two to three of those extra perks.
And don't count hull as a factor in that consideration.
So, for example:
Boost the Vor'cha hull by 4k. But as it has Cloak, Cannons, and +4 Turnrate, you find 2-3 things to add to the Galaxy like maybe 2 hangar slots and subsystem targeting.
Then every ship should get three "design extras" from a pool which includes +4 base turnrate, cloak (for cruisers), battlecloak (for escorts/sci), hangar pet, cannons (cruiser/sci), subsystem targeting (cruiser/escort), universal station, etc.
So let's take where I think the Aquarius should be, balanced entirely for turnrate. (Keep in mind, numbers here are just my guesstimates.)
A vanilla escort gets 0.9 shield mod, 31k hull, 15 turnrate.
Aquarius gets a 0.66 shield mod (+2.4 turnrate), 24k hull (+6 turnrate), 15 turnrate...
ADD THAT UP:
Aquarius has a 0.66 shield mod, 24k hull, 23.4 turnrate...
ADD THREE MODS (that's two universal stations, so +4 turnrate):
Aquarius has a 0.66 shield mod, 24k hull, 27.4 turnrate...
INSTEAD OF WHAT WE ACTUALLY HAVE, which is the unimpressive:
Aquarius has a 0.66 shield mod, 24k hull, 17 turnrate...
Effectively, this is just a way of balancing ships in a combat forward, active way by first balancing stats and then balancing bonuses.
I'm not sure I see it. The turnrate proportional to other ships isn't going up. It does equip shuttles and was a military transport in Yesterday's Enterprise, which suggests the frame is right for the task.
The Vor'cha's hull loss isn't an appropriate penalty for the three extras it gets, which is why I say get rid of the hull penalty and look at the Galaxy getting three buffs comparable to (but not identical to) the +4 turnrate, cloak, and cannons. (And doing similar with the Ambassador, keeping us on topic.)
I could see several Galaxy configurations pretty easily.
Two hangars and subsystem targeting. (YE's Galaxy Warship.)
Cloak, Cannons, Hangar. (Dreadnaught. With lance as a console add-on instead of cloak.)
Subsystem Targeting, Universal Station, Universal Station. (Vanilla Galaxy.)
Hopefully, you can at least see where the basic idea comes from. Base balancing of shields/turn/hull/maybe crew (with other stats like inertia resulting from those). Then three bonuses similar to the Vor'cha.
You can even get into negative bonuses for modded ships. For example, Galaxy saucer with nacelles attached starts as escort balanced. Remove cannons (class power). Gets standard three bonuses plus fourth bonus as compensation for removal of cannons.
The point is combat oriented RPG balance.
Looking at the Ambassador, she has one universal, which is one special mod but is not significantly overtuned against the fleet star cruiser in other ways so she needs a couple of more bonuses stacked on to hit three bonuses.
That could take any number of forms.
One would be +4 turnrate and subsystem targeting.
I'd urge you not to compare this TOO readily to different tiers of ship or between classes because this approach would probably mean buffing a LOT of the less played T5 ships around the Battle Cruiser model, with the proviso that hull becomes a step 1 balancing process (weighed against turnrate/shield mod, which means buffing the Vor'cha's hull) and step 2 is focused around combat novelty balance. This would mean buffing almost all but the most popular ships.
Check Tribble, the Aquarius shield mod has been fixed, shield mod is 0.85 for the regular version and 0.94 for the fleet version. All the fleet only retrofits and fleet ships based on them have been fixed as well.
As for the fleet Ambassador, nice ship but no better or worse than the current batch, just a bit different. Nice for those that like the power of Science.
The problem with the Galaxy isn't the ship itself, it is the fact that unlike tactical, 99% of the engineering consoles are useless, the ones that work have nasty diminishing returns and way too many engineering bridge officer powers share the same cooldowns to make the extensive engineering slots useful. Also it turns like a pregnant whale and then add the general suckage of beam arrays and related powers... The fact that the ship and the saucer separation animation still has graphic bugs do not help either.
The Galaxy could be fixed, as far as combat goes by something that follows the canon of the ship like...
So DPS would stay the same, beam spam would decrease due to less beams being used, but it would make the Galaxy dangerous by increasing burst damage by 3 times. Also Beam Overload would be nice for a change...