This. People really need to stop whining about the DPS of cruisers. . .Federation cruisers are not supposed to DPS. Get over it, folks. They're not supposed to DPS (at least, burst DPS) and they're not supposed to be nimble. Learn to use the cruisers for what they are. . .tanks and healers. Simple as that.
I personally play the game to blow things up and move around quickly, so I use the ships that're designed to do that (raptors and BoPs). I don't use a healer/tank and then complain about how my DPS sucks. If I wanted to tank more, I'd fly a KDF battlecruiser. . .and that's what these whining Fed players should do, if they want a cruiser that can DPS the way they want to.
I will take you at your implicit word that you are an authority on how this game is designed, and how it is supposed to be played. In spite of the presence of cruisers that are actually designed for dealing damage (and often fail at doing so), and in spite of the fact that there are vessels that are both nimble and capable of taking a respectable amount of damage. That only escorts should have a reasonable chance of killing other players in PvP, and that every other ship should only exist to support escorts in that singular goal.
I am doing exactly as you wish, and focusing exclusively on healing and tanking. Again, I have taken this concept that cruisers aren't supposed to deal damage to heart, and have omitted virtually all weaponry on my vessel. The power devoted to an otherwise useless weapons subsystem has instead been committed to powering shields and auxiliary subsystems, which are then better able to focus on healing my companions. In case I should need it to escape pursuers, I can also devote power to my engine subsystem so that I may be able to throw off pursuers.
I suppose that's what you want, right?
May I then ask the following:
Why do beam arrays exist? The only type of vessel that can theoretically make best use of them is unable to effectively damage other players, so then why bother keeping them around if they are such inefficient weapons? Even Turrets can often surpass them in terms of effective and raw DPS.
Why do cruisers have weapon slots? If they are not supposed to DPS or even come remotely close to dealing serious damage, why should they have room for armament?
Why do cruisers then have to bother with having Tactical console slots? Tactical consoles only exist to increase damage of weaponry. So then, why bother with something that does not seriously aid one's overall ability to inflict damage?
Don't give me that same old chaff about how "cruisers are not supposed to DPS". I've already responded to that argument in my first post, which I have re-iterated in response to such assertions for the past few pages. I am healing and I am tanking, and that's virtually all I am doing in PvP nowadays. Sometimes, I throw out a tractor beam or a graviton pulse in support of my allies.
Do you agree with my position then? Since cruisers are not supposed to DPS or really inflict any meaningful damage, they may as well go without armament and focus on the tasks that people really want of them. What do you have to say about the nature of armament on cruisers? None of you have truly answered in the sense of what cruisers are supposed to accomplish with their weaponry that escorts and escort-hybrids can pull of their own, and none of you have either offered solid, concrete proof to that effect.
Gecko in his infinite wisdom decided to remove pressure damage from the game. While giving more heal procs and resists to everybody. But he also decided not to substitute anything for it. Hence he invalidated a whole player career, and left the matching ship type to be hanging in the balance. Lots of gear is obsolete, so are BO and Cpt skills.
I knew I never really liked the guy for a reason. :P
I have come to the same conlcusion as the Topic starter, however for other reasons.
I just love the Galaxy class and i tried to make it a at least playable DPS ship, yeha i know that sounds crazy.
I got any equipment that helped to make even a tiny bit more Damage, but it really doesn't make a difference.
I tried almost any other ship Star Trek like ship (Crusier/Science shiip) in the game (sorry but for me Escorts are just generic Sci fi pew pew ships), they just can't live up to my expectations i have regarding to a Star Trek ship. Doing a Fleet Action/ STF with all but escorts and only myself as only Cruiser makes me completely unessential. No matter what i may do Escorts did everything better, lol.
Yeah, call me noob, i don't care. But i would rather stop playing STO completely before i give up and switch to escorts.(i just hate them...)
Me too. I want to feel big and impressive. I have thousands of people on board, I'm self sustaining, and I need no one elses help. I want to feel like I'm flying a miniature city. With guns.
As for the OP, I have had quite some success with my Galaxy-X. Has good staying power, and good spike damage, and is more maneuverable than people like to admit. But it's still vulnerable to Aceton Assimilators (and Klingons wonder why PvP is dead), and requires a very specific train of thought.
It is very hard to go back to other types of ships once you get used to a Dread.
[*]Why do beam arrays exist? The only type of vessel that can theoretically make best use of them is unable to effectively damage other players, so then why bother keeping them around if they are such inefficient weapons? Even Turrets can often surpass them in terms of effective and raw DPS.
Beams arrays exist to enable science-carriers to use their subsystem targeting ability. Also, to paint your targets with APB.
[*]Why do cruisers have weapon slots? If they are not supposed to DPS or even come remotely close to dealing serious damage, why should they have room for armament?
To put turrets on for procs and to shoot down plasma torpedoes, and maybe a torpedo launcher for setting opponents on fire to cause them to burn their HEs. The rapid-fire spew of turretballs works nicely with things like Tetron Glider, enabling you to annoy your opponents with it.
[*]Why do cruisers then have to bother with having Tactical console slots? Tactical consoles only exist to increase damage of weaponry. So then, why bother with something that does not seriously aid one's overall ability to inflict damage?
You use them to stick your Universal Toy Consoles in.
The worst part of it is, even with all this...carriers are still doing your job better than you are, AND they're causing damage.
Beams arrays exist to enable science-carriers to use their subsystem targeting ability. Also, to paint your targets with APB.
Dual Beam Banks.
To put turrets on for procs and to shoot down plasma torpedoes, and maybe a torpedo launcher for setting opponents on fire to cause them to burn their HEs. The rapid-fire spew of turretballs works nicely with things like Tetron Glider, enabling you to annoy your opponents with it.
I'll give you that, but is it really doing anything that other ships can do, or do better than you?
You use them to stick your Universal Toy Consoles in.
That seems to be the case.
The worst part of it is, even with all this...carriers are still doing your job better than you are, AND they're causing damage.
Exactly. Cruisers are put out of business even in their remaining niche. Anything you can do in your cruiser, the Recluse can do better, without all that superfluous baggage liike "unnecessary Tactical Powers" or "Weapons".
In a generic Sci fi game i would agree that cruisers should just do one thing, tank. But STO isn't a generic Sci Fi game, no matter if even the devs or Mr. Rivera want to admit that. Ships in Star Trek work different.
Big ships have more power, small ships tend to have less power. The more power you have the more powerful weapons/shields you can run. Very easy, isn't it?
Now the problem STO has, is that it is a MMO. MMOs tend to put things in catergories if it's appropriate or not.
I am not a canon fanatic, i understand that Cryptic had to make some adjustments to the Star Trek universe /ship mechanic to work in a MMO. But they did it too redical and in my opinion most of it just wrong.
Now in the last several months/years they made escorts much more durable, the problem is that cruisers are now obsolete. I am NOT saying that cruisers should AGAIN be nurses to those little annoying jetfighter/X-Wing things called Escorts.
I think cruisers sould get more firepower to become much more like Star Trek cruiser should be.
Don't missunderstand me here i don't want any ship type to be over powered, i rather want Escorts and Cruisers more equal. Escorts fast and hard hitting, Cruisers slower but also hard hitting.
Escorts get their durability through fast movement and a few heals and Crusiers get durability through resistance buffs and healing. Both ships should be able to generate more or less equal firepower. As a Star Trek fan since i can remember it just feels completely wrong that Cruisers are supposed to be just supporters and being outgunned by ships 1/5 their size in this game.
Apparently for many players STO is just another MMO and expect it to work like any other MMO.
Obviously they don't have a problem with it being completely different than anything which is shown on a Star Trek show. But for me, and i know a lot of other people too, some of those blatant discrepances are just a pain and really not understandable especially since it wouldn't be a big problem to make it right.
I don't want to rant about Cryptics work, that's really not what i want to do. I actually hope they continue on their course to fix some of the biggest flaws of STO and finally give Cruisers a more firepower.
In my opinion, some KDF cruisers are much more true to Star Trek when it comes to BOFF and Console Layout. They have a much better balance between defense and offense IMO.
On the other hand, Cryptic somehow came to the strange idea that Starfleet ships should be more focussed in working together with other ships, instead of being able to work indepentently.
As i see things it should be exactly the other way round. Klingon cruisers should be much more the Heavy Tank ships, maybe doing more AOE damage.
On the other hand Starfleet cruisers should be much more able to fill out several roles like offensive and defensive likewise, just as STOs klingon cruisers, being aqble to pose a real threat to an enemy.
How it should be:
Starfleet = Versatile all round ships, focussed on cruisers
Klingon = Specialised ships, focussed on escorts
Of course there are some exceptions like the defiant. But Cryptic made the general tendency completely wrong in STO in my opinion.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
so lets just have all the ships with identical slots, stats and features... and only visual differences...
Everyone wants to:
tank
dps
debuff
speed
Give cruiser increased damage on par with what they want and escort is worthless - so u need to compensate and greatly improve tanking abilities of a escort. In turn sci ships need boost at both areas too. BUT wait... now escort can tank dps .. bu has more turn rate... so need to boost cruisers... they are too weak compared to them... And why cant i use tractor beam 3 on my escort? not fair. But sci ships want DHC too now!!!
in addition... if the federation -cruiser approach would have been taken... how many people would actually play sto? I wont.. i HATE slow turning ships... its like riding a whale in desert.
I want you and everyone else here to answer how much better or worse off a cruiser is with no weapons systems at all. Prove to me without a shadow of a doubt that yes, a cruiser's weapons systems will make a meaningful contribution to a PvP encounter.
One particularly bad pvp scenario comes to mind :
Inner fleet pvp , the other side (KDF) came at us with a ton of Sci ships and escorts .
There was so much shield healing being dropped by the Sci ships that we could not even dent their escorts , so ... after we were like 30:0 , I started to target ships randomly (instead of trying to target the targets that were called by our team leader) .
I got lucky and noticed Vorcha to whom I managed to deal a tiny bit of damage , and then a bigger bit of damage with Beam overload 3 .
I called that ship a target and well the end result was still 48:2 , but hey , I made a small difference in an un-winnable situation .
FYI , I used 4 [Accx3] Mk11 dual beam banks on the front of my Galor , as an Engineer .
And yes , I know that I'm there to support , and I'm aware that my build is not meant to 'one shot' ships (unless they are an unlucky B'Rel :P) .
But all in all , it has been my experience that as an Engineer , with multiple dual beam banks (with or without one torp on the front) can deal support pressure damage .
Sure , it would be nice if that damage was a bit stronger , but it is what it is .
Gravity Well - Does not hold players, even when stacking 4 Mk XII Blue Graviton Generator consoles (the repel goes up from -0.72 to -0.73 with FOUR consoles).
You might want to try Particle Generators to boost GW .
In a generic Sci fi game i would agree that cruisers should just do one thing, tank. But STO isn't a generic Sci Fi game, no matter if even the devs or Mr. Rivera want to admit that. Ships in Star Trek work different.
Big ships have more power, small ships tend to have less power. The more power you have the more powerful weapons/shields you can run. Very easy, isn't it?
Now the problem STO has, is that it is a MMO. MMOs tend to put things in catergories if it's appropriate or not.
I am not a canon fanatic, i understand that Cryptic had to make some adjustments to the Star Trek universe /ship mechanic to work in a MMO. But they did it too redical and in my opinion most of it just wrong.
Now in the last several months/years they made escorts much more durable, the problem is that cruisers are now obsolete. I am NOT saying that cruisers should AGAIN be nurses to those little annoying jetfighter/X-Wing things called Escorts.
I think cruisers sould get more firepower to become much more like Star Trek cruiser should be.
Don't missunderstand me here i don't want any ship type to be over powered, i rather want Escorts and Cruisers more equal. Escorts fast and hard hitting, Cruisers slower but also hard hitting.
Escorts get their durability through fast movement and a few heals and Crusiers get durability through resistance buffs and healing. Both ships should be able to generate more or less equal firepower. As a Star Trek fan since i can remember it just feels completely wrong that Cruisers are supposed to be just supporters and being outgunned by ships 1/5 their size in this game.
Apparently for many players STO is just another MMO and expect it to work like any other MMO.
Obviously they don't have a problem with it being completely different than anything which is shown on a Star Trek show. But for me, and i know a lot of other people too, some of those blatant discrepances are just a pain and really not understandable especially since it wouldn't be a big problem to make it right.
I don't want to rant about Cryptics work, that's really not what i want to do. I actually hope they continue on their course to fix some of the biggest flaws of STO and finally give Cruisers a more firepower.
In my opinion, some KDF cruisers are much more true to Star Trek when it comes to BOFF and Console Layout. They have a much better balance between defense and offense IMO.
On the other hand, Cryptic somehow came to the strange idea that Starfleet ships should be more focussed in working together with other ships, instead of being able to work indepentently.
As i see things it should be exactly the other way round. Klingon cruisers should be much more the Heavy Tank ships, maybe doing more AOE damage.
On the other hand Starfleet cruisers should be much more able to fill out several roles like offensive and defensive likewise, just as STOs klingon cruisers, being aqble to pose a real threat to an enemy.
How it should be:
Starfleet = Versatile all round ships, focussed on cruisers
Klingon = Specialised ships, focussed on escorts
Of course there are some exceptions like the defiant. But Cryptic made the general tendency completely wrong in STO in my opinion.
I agree
When I play KDF pvp in my bop from all ships in the group I always tend to strike first the cruisers >> if there are any in game<< And the simplest explanation why would be: even if they can tank like pro I know that they don't pose a threat to me and i know that fraze "Captain she cant take much more" Boom. I don't want to attack the sci first and risk sensor malfunction-shutdown, system failure, being drained, stuck in a grav well, get nuked or scanned. Attacking escort its like :chicken chase who has the better turn rate and in the end you risk getting shoot and die
This game made made cruisers useless!
Dont you tac/escort guys pull those mmo speeches to us like cruisers and the captain are great as they are. Star Trek ships dont follow that logic, and forcefully making it "Escorts Online" is wrong balance is needed and appreciated !
You don't have to be a canon fanatic to want cruisers to be powerful.
Cruisers were the main "hero" ships. The Defiant, for all of its glory, was a sidekick who never really got compared toe-to-toe with a Sovereign or Galaxy class, though the Galaxy class was shown to be quite a threat in DS9 battle episodes and the Sovereign was both shown to be very powerful in battle as well as often referred to in off-screen materials as a ship designed to fight the Borg. The Prometheus was a one-episode gimmick. Just where the Intrepid fits into things is questionable at best, but I suspect the devs wanted at least one hero ship in each of the three main lines of Starfleet ships.
Now, some might say that the aforementioned paragraph indicates canon fanaticism, but it does not. What does it show? That the vast majority of airtime and hero ships were cruisers of one stripe or another.
People say this game "isn't about Trek" for one reason or another (usually because of the abundance of violence). I disagree. It's about a mainstream Trek that does not cater specifically to moral tales or allegory. It is also about a Trek that is designed to be a video game. Most video games are for people to blow stuff up in. This does not solely fall to video games, though. Even among Trekkies, much of the debate that you're going to see is not about the nuances of how Kirk metaphorically killed God one time versus the speech Picard gave espousing one or another allegorical point and how they compare/contrast. Oh, it's there alright, and a lot of it, don't get me wrong. But you're going to see a lot more of things such as comparison as to whether the Enterprise or Defiant could win in a toe-to-toe fight.
So in short, this game is, arguably, attempting to create a Trek universe through which the player can experience it, which is tailored to mainstream desires and video game design. Ergo, people are going to want cruisers - the hero ships - and people are going to want those cruisers to break things and kill Borg. Lots of things, and lots of Borg. And they are willing to pay to do it, which is why STO is market viable in the first place.
Do I think escorts should be made obsolete? No, not really - but I do think that if escorts are actually as OP as they say then cruisers need a buff, or escorts need a nerf. My personal experience has been that I tend to come up in the high end of the DPS game during STFs in an Assault Cruiser Refit or Fleet Assault Cruiser, but I PUG, so I'm not dealing with people who have hyperoptimized themselves into a corner of boredom. Nor am I dealing with those who view this as just another MMO that should follow the same designs that have been used since time immemorial. So I am not entirely convinced escorts are THAT OP, although even I can see how much more quickly a nanite generator falls to an escort.
My personal conspiracy theory take on it is that escorts are, without their firepower, the least desired ship, save for the Defiant, Prometheus, and to a lesser extent the Akira (which seems to have a small but rabid fan following because of the quantity of torpedo tubes it was supposed to have, or something). As such we have the cruisers to look pretty and feel like Trek ships, and the escorts to break things. This is one reason the Galaxy class ships are somewhat lackluster, because people will buy them anyway to play story missions, Foundry stuff, and other random space encounters, and then buy an escort for STFs.
quite simply no dps on escort and u can just remove it from the game - or even if cruisers/sci get on par with it.
High dps advantage is the only thing that makes escort worth playing and to a lesser extent, the turn speed.
Yes, star trek is about cruisers manly - but that only works i nseries/movies and books where you have only one main hero ship not 10000.
"nerfing" is a bad term, it never solves anything - just creates new problems.
Cruiser without dps still has tankign ability etc - what woudl a escort have without it? Paperthin hull, shield, almost no crew, no useful debuffs/disables or anythign at all - it would be only useful as a shuttle for cruisers.
quite simply no dps on escort and u can just remove it from the game - or even if cruisers/sci get on par with it.
High dps advantage is the only thing that makes escort worth playing and to a lesser extent, the turn speed.
Yes, star trek is about cruisers manly - but that only works i nseries/movies and books where you have only one main hero ship not 10000.
"nerfing" is a bad term, it never solves anything - just creates new problems.
Cruiser without dps still has tankign ability etc - what woudl a escort have without it? Paperthin hull, shield, almost no crew, no useful debuffs/disables or anythign at all - it would be only useful as a shuttle for cruisers.
IF Cruiser get on par with Escorts firepower you give players the choice which ship they want to fly.
Sure, Star Trek is about cruisers, just as BSG is about small space fighters. If you change that you change the whole universe, thus Star Trek itself.
No one wants escorts to be useless, but many people want the iconic ships no longer to play a support role.
Why not give both ship types similar capabilities?
Why not make escorts more durable and why not give Cruiser more firepower, so in a 1 on 1 both ships pose a danger to the other one, instead of one (the cruiser) being just the victim?
What i want is STO to become a more true Star Trek game, where i can fly a cruiser without being doomed into a healer role, for ships 1/3 the size but with 3x the firepower.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
this is something ive been harping on for quite a wile. with the borg set, stf sets, the rep system, embassy consoles, FAW having no accuracy, all those things that give passive Resistance or actual heals are a direct nerf to pressure damage.
at this point, no energy weapon other then a DHC can impact a ship in pvp. it is completely pointless in a match to fire non DHCs energy weapons for dealing damage. this is because this damage dealing is over time, and so is passive and active heals over time that are constantly cycled. befor set shields, people had about 30-50% shield resistance, now with maco and elite shields its 55-76% resistence. this isn't so much a nerf on spike damage, it just makes it MORE needed, but is a direct nerf to pressure damage.
at this point, beam arrays could be buffed to deal more dps then DHCs, and the escort would still be dealing damage more effectively. that escort can droip a shield faceing in 1 cycle, and deal hull damage faster. the pressure damage beam arrays are shooting have to deal with 4 whole facings before it ever sees hull, and any cross healing can easily replenish shield hitpoints. spike is damage that kills a facing, and deals damage through that down facing faster then someone can react and compensate.
outside of a duel, were no one would run and theres no outside assistance, pressure damage is completely dead.
quite simply no dps on escort and u can just remove it from the game - or even if cruisers/sci get on par with it.
High dps advantage is the only thing that makes escort worth playing and to a lesser extent, the turn speed.
Yes, star trek is about cruisers manly - but that only works i nseries/movies and books where you have only one main hero ship not 10000.
"nerfing" is a bad term, it never solves anything - just creates new problems.
Cruiser without dps still has tankign ability etc - what woudl a escort have without it? Paperthin hull, shield, almost no crew, no useful debuffs/disables or anythign at all - it would be only useful as a shuttle for cruisers.
Escorts are the fastest most maneuverable and most destructive ship in the game. Making Cruisers and Sci ships have a little more DPS would not make people stop using Escorts because they would still be superior in speed maneuverability and destructive ability. All that would happen is that Cruisers and Sci ships would be more useful in PvE.
Yesterday I was in a game with me using a BoP and the 3 other players (all in cruisers) with 1 person short for the mission and the mission took freaking forever. Had 1 of those cruiser been a escort or having Cruiser with more DPS from Beams the mission would not of taken as long. Beams need to be improved in some way so that Cruisers and Sci ship are more useful. I hate being in missions with multiple cruisers and sci ships (unless Vesta) because the optional fails half the time at least and missions takes much longer. Optional never fails with a lot of Escorts unless someone does something stupid that ruins it or all the other escorts die many many times because the players using them sucks.
Anyone who is happy with the way things are either does not care about time it takes for missions to be completed (balance) at all or does nothing but private matches with very good Cruiser/Sci ship players (something that is uncommon to find with public matches) and does not notice that their is a problem. 1 of 3 ship types should not be so vastly better at doing most of everything in the game (completing missions).
I am not a very good player I am above average and I can use a Escort with half the effort for double the effect then with any Cruiser or Sci ship (not counting Vesta). That IMO is totally BS that Escorts are that much better at doing things.
Honestly?
I don't get it, why make a Star Trek game if the most important aspect, the most obvious thing that makes it different that other Sci Fi universes (Big ships like cruisers, exploring the universe) are just supporters or completely insignificant?
This is not criticism, i just struggle to understand some of cryptics motives.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
at this point, beam arrays could be buffed to deal more dps then DHCs, and the escort would still be dealing damage more effectively. that escort can droip a shield faceing in 1 cycle, and deal hull damage faster. the pressure damage beam arrays are shooting have to deal with 4 whole facings before it ever sees hull, and any cross healing can easily replenish shield hitpoints. spike is damage that kills a facing, and deals damage through that down facing faster then someone can react and compensate.
...
I think this is something to think about. Escorts are so much more maneuverable, they can penetrate one shield facing and damage an enemies hull because it's captain can keep its weapons facing on that one vulnerable side of an enemy ship. This is something a Cruiser cannot, or only against very big and even slower enemies.
So, assumed both Cruisers and Escorts would have exactly the same firepower, the much more maneuverable escort can take advantage of its high maneuverability. this would be a huge tactical advantage, a Escort captain had to think and maneuver cleverly, instead of just parking his ship and keep fireing. But maybe this would be too complicated for some players....
This would even correspond to canon Star Trek, where O'Brien said, the Defiant has ALMOST the firepower of a Galaxy Class, which is still unbelieveable powerful, if you think about the size differences.
Basicly a Escort wouldn't have such an enormus firepower as in STO, but instead be able to strike exactly where it needs, so it DOESN'T need Galaxy class like firepower at all. It's biggest weapon would be its maneuverability, and be able to attack the enemy where it hurts the most.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Honestly?
I don't get it, why make a Star Trek game if the most important aspect, the most obvious thing that makes it different that other Sci Fi universes (Big ships like cruisers, exploring the universe) are just supporters or completely insignificant?
This is not criticism, i just struggle to understand some of cryptics motives.
I agree with this. It is very odd just from a design standpoint. Kind of like if you wanted to make a Star Wars Rogue Squadron game where an X-Wing was not the best in the game, or even competitive. It is almost counter to what you set out to do.
quite simply no dps on escort and u can just remove it from the game - or even if cruisers/sci get on par with it.
High dps advantage is the only thing that makes escort worth playing and to a lesser extent, the turn speed.
Yes, star trek is about cruisers manly - but that only works i nseries/movies and books where you have only one main hero ship not 10000.
"nerfing" is a bad term, it never solves anything - just creates new problems.
Cruiser without dps still has tankign ability etc - what woudl a escort have without it? Paperthin hull, shield, almost no crew, no useful debuffs/disables or anythign at all - it would be only useful as a shuttle for cruisers.
I never said anything about negating the DPS advantage of escorts, and you neglect to mention that the raw impulse speed (with all the defence advantages that ensue) combined with a range of highly useful abilities makes the escort a far tougher nut than you so claim. In any case, do you have any proof to back up your assertion how "that only works i nseries/movies and books where you have only one main hero ship not 10000"?
Perhaps you are right. "Nerfing" is a bad term and it doesn't necessarily solve everything, but it is also largely responsible for the ascendancy of the escort and the downfall of the cruiser in the current PvP metagame. What do you have to say about that?
A cruiser with tanking ability but no dps is called a brick: it just waddles around contributing nothing to the fight. This in turn detracts from its ability to tank properly, since enemies are focusing on targets that actually pose a threat to them, or at least those that are far easier to kill.
As for your comments about escorts having "paperthin hull, shield, almost no crew" and so on... I would have to say that it is terribly at odds with reality. A well-built escort can be some of the hardest targets to kill, moreso than a cruiser.
STO, but instead be able to strike exactly where it needs, so it DOESN'T need Galaxy class like firepower at all. It's biggest weapon would be its maneuverability, and be able to attack the enemy where it hurts the most.
TBH, I would say that there is a case for the Defiant itself to possibly trade firepower for durability. When I first started, I was rather shocked to see how frail the Defiant was - didn't the ablative armor do anything above standard armor? That was my thought, anyway.
But that's just an idle thought, and not necessarily one that should be acted on, although I think it's worth considering in the bigger picture, if nothing more than to reflect on possible alternatives.
A cruiser with tanking ability but no dps is called a brick: it just waddles around contributing nothing to the fight. This in turn detracts from its ability to tank properly, since enemies are focusing on targets that actually pose a threat to them, or at least those that are far easier to kill.
Very well said.
Plus, honestly, I don't think most people pick up a ship that's basically one of the hero ships to be a white mage. In fact, since STO appeals to a much larger target demographic than most MMOs, I would bet that a lot of people are disappointed at the "white mage"-y-ness of cruisers. I was. I don't see a dedicated support ship getting much glory or... well, really, much of anything other than managing healing cooldowns and sitting vaguely within reach of the escorts.
haha, i kind of agree with you. But think about how many people would simply quit because they can't maneuver their cruiser around a block of rock and die when they collide.
seen people actually get stuck in a rock in a PVP match...wasn't a bug, they simply couldn't handle their ship.
I never said anything about negating the DPS advantage of escorts, and you neglect to mention that the raw impulse speed (with all the defence advantages that ensue) combined with a range of highly useful abilities makes the escort a far tougher nut than you so claim. In any case, do you have any proof to back up your assertion how "that only works i nseries/movies and books where you have only one main hero ship not 10000"?
Perhaps you are right. "Nerfing" is a bad term and it doesn't necessarily solve everything, but it is also largely responsible for the ascendancy of the escort and the downfall of the cruiser in the current PvP metagame. What do you have to say about that?
A cruiser with tanking ability but no dps is called a brick: it just waddles around contributing nothing to the fight. This in turn detracts from its ability to tank properly, since enemies are focusing on targets that actually pose a threat to them, or at least those that are far easier to kill.
As for your comments about escorts having "paperthin hull, shield, almost no crew" and so on... I would have to say that it is terribly at odds with reality. A well-built escort can be some of the hardest targets to kill, moreso than a cruiser.
Currently cruiser are in poor state and rarely used in pvp. Out of all possible changes to them maybe the simplest one to do would be to increase the basic dmg. Cruisers weapons of choice "beam arrays" make them powerfull like dhc !
TBH, I would say that there is a case for the Defiant itself to possibly trade firepower for durability. When I first started, I was rather shocked to see how frail the Defiant was - didn't the ablative armor do anything above standard armor? That was my thought, anyway.
But that's just an idle thought, and not necessarily one that should be acted on, although I think it's worth considering in the bigger picture, if nothing more than to Reflect on possible alternatives.
TBH i always had the impression of the Defiant being more like a Heavy armored Bee, instead of just a gun platform as it is in STO.
On topic:
In my opinion, the most easy sollution would be to heavy incease Beam Arrays Base Damage just as rakija879 said.
Cryptic could turn Beam Arrays into similar weapons like DHCs, delivering similar damage but giving it more time to "reload".
Since damage over time is completely useless and not wanted at all, i think that would be the best sollution.
This would open up the possibility to slightly rework how Beam arrays work. I think it would be extremely cool (and much more canon, btw) to:
1. increase Beam array Damage, similar to DHC, but also increasing their cooldown a bit.
2. make beam arrays fire like one single array.
For example, a ship has 3 beam arrays fore and 3 beam arrays aft. For and aft arrays would each work like one sinlge array. Fireing one sinlge beam, which delivers the combined damage of all forward or aft arrays, but never both. So it would be possible to do very heavy damage, which cannot be easily healed away.
It is not the point to increase any ships firepower to become OP, my aim is to make Cruisers more like they should be in a star trek game and a viable alternative to escorts.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Apparently, you didn't read too carefully, because I said "cannon cruiser with aux 2 batt DEM".
Dude, its really not that complicated. Keep the Aux2Batt, put some Beam Arrays instead of cannons, spec heavily into tac damage abilities, get the 180 torp from the Regent, and then have at it.
Dude, its really not that complicated. Keep the Aux2Batt, put some Beam Arrays instead of cannons, spec heavily into tac damage abilities, get the 180 torp from the Regent, and then have at it.
Tried it.
Doesn't really work, or work as well as I'd like. I've found more success with turrets than I have had with beam arrays. Cannons of any form simply blow beam arrays out of the water when it comes to overall utility and effective DPS, with the possible exception of cruiser-to-cruiser actions.
...with the possible exception of cruiser-to-cruiser actions.
Which basically go on until the end of days, when trumpets sound and the apocalypse destroys the world. Or until one of the players fall asleep at their computer and goes afk.
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.
So, stop pretending you are a Sci-boat and drop the torps/DBB, buy yourself some nice [Acc]x2/3 beams and have fun. (The tractor mines are probably the best thing that has ever happened to cruiser captains anywhere; forcing Tacs to pop APO early since 2011)
Ow man, those tractor mines are the scourge of civilized humanity, and any ship I witness dropping these becomes the first ship I try to kill. Be warned, I only need to pop APO once to line up my guns, then you die.
Comments
I will take you at your implicit word that you are an authority on how this game is designed, and how it is supposed to be played. In spite of the presence of cruisers that are actually designed for dealing damage (and often fail at doing so), and in spite of the fact that there are vessels that are both nimble and capable of taking a respectable amount of damage. That only escorts should have a reasonable chance of killing other players in PvP, and that every other ship should only exist to support escorts in that singular goal.
I am doing exactly as you wish, and focusing exclusively on healing and tanking. Again, I have taken this concept that cruisers aren't supposed to deal damage to heart, and have omitted virtually all weaponry on my vessel. The power devoted to an otherwise useless weapons subsystem has instead been committed to powering shields and auxiliary subsystems, which are then better able to focus on healing my companions. In case I should need it to escape pursuers, I can also devote power to my engine subsystem so that I may be able to throw off pursuers.
I suppose that's what you want, right?
May I then ask the following:
Don't give me that same old chaff about how "cruisers are not supposed to DPS". I've already responded to that argument in my first post, which I have re-iterated in response to such assertions for the past few pages. I am healing and I am tanking, and that's virtually all I am doing in PvP nowadays. Sometimes, I throw out a tractor beam or a graviton pulse in support of my allies.
Do you agree with my position then? Since cruisers are not supposed to DPS or really inflict any meaningful damage, they may as well go without armament and focus on the tasks that people really want of them. What do you have to say about the nature of armament on cruisers? None of you have truly answered in the sense of what cruisers are supposed to accomplish with their weaponry that escorts and escort-hybrids can pull of their own, and none of you have either offered solid, concrete proof to that effect.
I knew I never really liked the guy for a reason. :P
Me too. I want to feel big and impressive. I have thousands of people on board, I'm self sustaining, and I need no one elses help. I want to feel like I'm flying a miniature city. With guns.
As for the OP, I have had quite some success with my Galaxy-X. Has good staying power, and good spike damage, and is more maneuverable than people like to admit. But it's still vulnerable to Aceton Assimilators (and Klingons wonder why PvP is dead), and requires a very specific train of thought.
It is very hard to go back to other types of ships once you get used to a Dread.
To put turrets on for procs and to shoot down plasma torpedoes, and maybe a torpedo launcher for setting opponents on fire to cause them to burn their HEs. The rapid-fire spew of turretballs works nicely with things like Tetron Glider, enabling you to annoy your opponents with it.
You use them to stick your Universal Toy Consoles in.
The worst part of it is, even with all this...carriers are still doing your job better than you are, AND they're causing damage.
Dual Beam Banks.
I'll give you that, but is it really doing anything that other ships can do, or do better than you?
That seems to be the case.
Mmmhmm.
I'll give you that, but is it really doing anything that other ships can do, or do better than you?[/quote]
Nope.
Exactly. Cruisers are put out of business even in their remaining niche. Anything you can do in your cruiser, the Recluse can do better, without all that superfluous baggage liike "unnecessary Tactical Powers" or "Weapons".
Big ships have more power, small ships tend to have less power. The more power you have the more powerful weapons/shields you can run. Very easy, isn't it?
Now the problem STO has, is that it is a MMO. MMOs tend to put things in catergories if it's appropriate or not.
I am not a canon fanatic, i understand that Cryptic had to make some adjustments to the Star Trek universe /ship mechanic to work in a MMO. But they did it too redical and in my opinion most of it just wrong.
Now in the last several months/years they made escorts much more durable, the problem is that cruisers are now obsolete. I am NOT saying that cruisers should AGAIN be nurses to those little annoying jetfighter/X-Wing things called Escorts.
I think cruisers sould get more firepower to become much more like Star Trek cruiser should be.
Don't missunderstand me here i don't want any ship type to be over powered, i rather want Escorts and Cruisers more equal. Escorts fast and hard hitting, Cruisers slower but also hard hitting.
Escorts get their durability through fast movement and a few heals and Crusiers get durability through resistance buffs and healing. Both ships should be able to generate more or less equal firepower. As a Star Trek fan since i can remember it just feels completely wrong that Cruisers are supposed to be just supporters and being outgunned by ships 1/5 their size in this game.
Apparently for many players STO is just another MMO and expect it to work like any other MMO.
Obviously they don't have a problem with it being completely different than anything which is shown on a Star Trek show. But for me, and i know a lot of other people too, some of those blatant discrepances are just a pain and really not understandable especially since it wouldn't be a big problem to make it right.
I don't want to rant about Cryptics work, that's really not what i want to do. I actually hope they continue on their course to fix some of the biggest flaws of STO and finally give Cruisers a more firepower.
In my opinion, some KDF cruisers are much more true to Star Trek when it comes to BOFF and Console Layout. They have a much better balance between defense and offense IMO.
On the other hand, Cryptic somehow came to the strange idea that Starfleet ships should be more focussed in working together with other ships, instead of being able to work indepentently.
As i see things it should be exactly the other way round. Klingon cruisers should be much more the Heavy Tank ships, maybe doing more AOE damage.
On the other hand Starfleet cruisers should be much more able to fill out several roles like offensive and defensive likewise, just as STOs klingon cruisers, being aqble to pose a real threat to an enemy.
How it should be:
Starfleet = Versatile all round ships, focussed on cruisers
Klingon = Specialised ships, focussed on escorts
Of course there are some exceptions like the defiant. But Cryptic made the general tendency completely wrong in STO in my opinion.
Everyone wants to:
tank
dps
debuff
speed
Give cruiser increased damage on par with what they want and escort is worthless - so u need to compensate and greatly improve tanking abilities of a escort. In turn sci ships need boost at both areas too. BUT wait... now escort can tank dps .. bu has more turn rate... so need to boost cruisers... they are too weak compared to them... And why cant i use tractor beam 3 on my escort? not fair. But sci ships want DHC too now!!!
in addition... if the federation -cruiser approach would have been taken... how many people would actually play sto? I wont.. i HATE slow turning ships... its like riding a whale in desert.
One particularly bad pvp scenario comes to mind :
Inner fleet pvp , the other side (KDF) came at us with a ton of Sci ships and escorts .
There was so much shield healing being dropped by the Sci ships that we could not even dent their escorts , so ... after we were like 30:0 , I started to target ships randomly (instead of trying to target the targets that were called by our team leader) .
I got lucky and noticed Vorcha to whom I managed to deal a tiny bit of damage , and then a bigger bit of damage with Beam overload 3 .
I called that ship a target and well the end result was still 48:2 , but hey , I made a small difference in an un-winnable situation .
FYI , I used 4 [Accx3] Mk11 dual beam banks on the front of my Galor , as an Engineer .
And yes , I know that I'm there to support , and I'm aware that my build is not meant to 'one shot' ships (unless they are an unlucky B'Rel :P) .
But all in all , it has been my experience that as an Engineer , with multiple dual beam banks (with or without one torp on the front) can deal support pressure damage .
Sure , it would be nice if that damage was a bit stronger , but it is what it is .
You might want to try Particle Generators to boost GW .
I agree
When I play KDF pvp in my bop from all ships in the group I always tend to strike first the cruisers >> if there are any in game<<
This game made made cruisers useless!
Dont you tac/escort guys pull those mmo speeches to us like cruisers and the captain are great as they are. Star Trek ships dont follow that logic, and forcefully making it "Escorts Online" is wrong balance is needed and appreciated !
Cruisers were the main "hero" ships. The Defiant, for all of its glory, was a sidekick who never really got compared toe-to-toe with a Sovereign or Galaxy class, though the Galaxy class was shown to be quite a threat in DS9 battle episodes and the Sovereign was both shown to be very powerful in battle as well as often referred to in off-screen materials as a ship designed to fight the Borg. The Prometheus was a one-episode gimmick. Just where the Intrepid fits into things is questionable at best, but I suspect the devs wanted at least one hero ship in each of the three main lines of Starfleet ships.
Now, some might say that the aforementioned paragraph indicates canon fanaticism, but it does not. What does it show? That the vast majority of airtime and hero ships were cruisers of one stripe or another.
People say this game "isn't about Trek" for one reason or another (usually because of the abundance of violence). I disagree. It's about a mainstream Trek that does not cater specifically to moral tales or allegory. It is also about a Trek that is designed to be a video game. Most video games are for people to blow stuff up in. This does not solely fall to video games, though. Even among Trekkies, much of the debate that you're going to see is not about the nuances of how Kirk metaphorically killed God one time versus the speech Picard gave espousing one or another allegorical point and how they compare/contrast. Oh, it's there alright, and a lot of it, don't get me wrong. But you're going to see a lot more of things such as comparison as to whether the Enterprise or Defiant could win in a toe-to-toe fight.
So in short, this game is, arguably, attempting to create a Trek universe through which the player can experience it, which is tailored to mainstream desires and video game design. Ergo, people are going to want cruisers - the hero ships - and people are going to want those cruisers to break things and kill Borg. Lots of things, and lots of Borg. And they are willing to pay to do it, which is why STO is market viable in the first place.
Do I think escorts should be made obsolete? No, not really - but I do think that if escorts are actually as OP as they say then cruisers need a buff, or escorts need a nerf. My personal experience has been that I tend to come up in the high end of the DPS game during STFs in an Assault Cruiser Refit or Fleet Assault Cruiser, but I PUG, so I'm not dealing with people who have hyperoptimized themselves into a corner of boredom. Nor am I dealing with those who view this as just another MMO that should follow the same designs that have been used since time immemorial. So I am not entirely convinced escorts are THAT OP, although even I can see how much more quickly a nanite generator falls to an escort.
My personal conspiracy theory take on it is that escorts are, without their firepower, the least desired ship, save for the Defiant, Prometheus, and to a lesser extent the Akira (which seems to have a small but rabid fan following because of the quantity of torpedo tubes it was supposed to have, or something). As such we have the cruisers to look pretty and feel like Trek ships, and the escorts to break things. This is one reason the Galaxy class ships are somewhat lackluster, because people will buy them anyway to play story missions, Foundry stuff, and other random space encounters, and then buy an escort for STFs.
High dps advantage is the only thing that makes escort worth playing and to a lesser extent, the turn speed.
Yes, star trek is about cruisers manly - but that only works i nseries/movies and books where you have only one main hero ship not 10000.
"nerfing" is a bad term, it never solves anything - just creates new problems.
Cruiser without dps still has tankign ability etc - what woudl a escort have without it? Paperthin hull, shield, almost no crew, no useful debuffs/disables or anythign at all - it would be only useful as a shuttle for cruisers.
IF Cruiser get on par with Escorts firepower you give players the choice which ship they want to fly.
Sure, Star Trek is about cruisers, just as BSG is about small space fighters. If you change that you change the whole universe, thus Star Trek itself.
No one wants escorts to be useless, but many people want the iconic ships no longer to play a support role.
Why not give both ship types similar capabilities?
Why not make escorts more durable and why not give Cruiser more firepower, so in a 1 on 1 both ships pose a danger to the other one, instead of one (the cruiser) being just the victim?
What i want is STO to become a more true Star Trek game, where i can fly a cruiser without being doomed into a healer role, for ships 1/3 the size but with 3x the firepower.
at this point, no energy weapon other then a DHC can impact a ship in pvp. it is completely pointless in a match to fire non DHCs energy weapons for dealing damage. this is because this damage dealing is over time, and so is passive and active heals over time that are constantly cycled. befor set shields, people had about 30-50% shield resistance, now with maco and elite shields its 55-76% resistence. this isn't so much a nerf on spike damage, it just makes it MORE needed, but is a direct nerf to pressure damage.
at this point, beam arrays could be buffed to deal more dps then DHCs, and the escort would still be dealing damage more effectively. that escort can droip a shield faceing in 1 cycle, and deal hull damage faster. the pressure damage beam arrays are shooting have to deal with 4 whole facings before it ever sees hull, and any cross healing can easily replenish shield hitpoints. spike is damage that kills a facing, and deals damage through that down facing faster then someone can react and compensate.
outside of a duel, were no one would run and theres no outside assistance, pressure damage is completely dead.
Escorts are the fastest most maneuverable and most destructive ship in the game. Making Cruisers and Sci ships have a little more DPS would not make people stop using Escorts because they would still be superior in speed maneuverability and destructive ability. All that would happen is that Cruisers and Sci ships would be more useful in PvE.
Yesterday I was in a game with me using a BoP and the 3 other players (all in cruisers) with 1 person short for the mission and the mission took freaking forever. Had 1 of those cruiser been a escort or having Cruiser with more DPS from Beams the mission would not of taken as long. Beams need to be improved in some way so that Cruisers and Sci ship are more useful. I hate being in missions with multiple cruisers and sci ships (unless Vesta) because the optional fails half the time at least and missions takes much longer. Optional never fails with a lot of Escorts unless someone does something stupid that ruins it or all the other escorts die many many times because the players using them sucks.
Anyone who is happy with the way things are either does not care about time it takes for missions to be completed (balance) at all or does nothing but private matches with very good Cruiser/Sci ship players (something that is uncommon to find with public matches) and does not notice that their is a problem. 1 of 3 ship types should not be so vastly better at doing most of everything in the game (completing missions).
I am not a very good player I am above average and I can use a Escort with half the effort for double the effect then with any Cruiser or Sci ship (not counting Vesta). That IMO is totally BS that Escorts are that much better at doing things.
I don't get it, why make a Star Trek game if the most important aspect, the most obvious thing that makes it different that other Sci Fi universes (Big ships like cruisers, exploring the universe) are just supporters or completely insignificant?
This is not criticism, i just struggle to understand some of cryptics motives.
So, assumed both Cruisers and Escorts would have exactly the same firepower, the much more maneuverable escort can take advantage of its high maneuverability. this would be a huge tactical advantage, a Escort captain had to think and maneuver cleverly, instead of just parking his ship and keep fireing. But maybe this would be too complicated for some players....
This would even correspond to canon Star Trek, where O'Brien said, the Defiant has ALMOST the firepower of a Galaxy Class, which is still unbelieveable powerful, if you think about the size differences.
Basicly a Escort wouldn't have such an enormus firepower as in STO, but instead be able to strike exactly where it needs, so it DOESN'T need Galaxy class like firepower at all. It's biggest weapon would be its maneuverability, and be able to attack the enemy where it hurts the most.
I agree with this. It is very odd just from a design standpoint. Kind of like if you wanted to make a Star Wars Rogue Squadron game where an X-Wing was not the best in the game, or even competitive. It is almost counter to what you set out to do.
I never said anything about negating the DPS advantage of escorts, and you neglect to mention that the raw impulse speed (with all the defence advantages that ensue) combined with a range of highly useful abilities makes the escort a far tougher nut than you so claim. In any case, do you have any proof to back up your assertion how "that only works i nseries/movies and books where you have only one main hero ship not 10000"?
Perhaps you are right. "Nerfing" is a bad term and it doesn't necessarily solve everything, but it is also largely responsible for the ascendancy of the escort and the downfall of the cruiser in the current PvP metagame. What do you have to say about that?
A cruiser with tanking ability but no dps is called a brick: it just waddles around contributing nothing to the fight. This in turn detracts from its ability to tank properly, since enemies are focusing on targets that actually pose a threat to them, or at least those that are far easier to kill.
As for your comments about escorts having "paperthin hull, shield, almost no crew" and so on... I would have to say that it is terribly at odds with reality. A well-built escort can be some of the hardest targets to kill, moreso than a cruiser.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW4eqZ9xdnc
TBH, I would say that there is a case for the Defiant itself to possibly trade firepower for durability. When I first started, I was rather shocked to see how frail the Defiant was - didn't the ablative armor do anything above standard armor? That was my thought, anyway.
But that's just an idle thought, and not necessarily one that should be acted on, although I think it's worth considering in the bigger picture, if nothing more than to reflect on possible alternatives.
Very well said.
Plus, honestly, I don't think most people pick up a ship that's basically one of the hero ships to be a white mage. In fact, since STO appeals to a much larger target demographic than most MMOs, I would bet that a lot of people are disappointed at the "white mage"-y-ness of cruisers. I was. I don't see a dedicated support ship getting much glory or... well, really, much of anything other than managing healing cooldowns and sitting vaguely within reach of the escorts.
haha, i kind of agree with you. But think about how many people would simply quit because they can't maneuver their cruiser around a block of rock and die when they collide.
seen people actually get stuck in a rock in a PVP match...wasn't a bug, they simply couldn't handle their ship.
Currently cruiser are in poor state and rarely used in pvp. Out of all possible changes to them maybe the simplest one to do would be to increase the basic dmg. Cruisers weapons of choice "beam arrays" make them powerfull like dhc !
TBH i always had the impression of the Defiant being more like a Heavy armored Bee, instead of just a gun platform as it is in STO.
On topic:
In my opinion, the most easy sollution would be to heavy incease Beam Arrays Base Damage just as rakija879 said.
Cryptic could turn Beam Arrays into similar weapons like DHCs, delivering similar damage but giving it more time to "reload".
Since damage over time is completely useless and not wanted at all, i think that would be the best sollution.
This would open up the possibility to slightly rework how Beam arrays work. I think it would be extremely cool (and much more canon, btw) to:
1. increase Beam array Damage, similar to DHC, but also increasing their cooldown a bit.
2. make beam arrays fire like one single array.
For example, a ship has 3 beam arrays fore and 3 beam arrays aft. For and aft arrays would each work like one sinlge array. Fireing one sinlge beam, which delivers the combined damage of all forward or aft arrays, but never both. So it would be possible to do very heavy damage, which cannot be easily healed away.
It is not the point to increase any ships firepower to become OP, my aim is to make Cruisers more like they should be in a star trek game and a viable alternative to escorts.
[/SIGPIC]
Dude, its really not that complicated. Keep the Aux2Batt, put some Beam Arrays instead of cannons, spec heavily into tac damage abilities, get the 180 torp from the Regent, and then have at it.
Tried it.
Doesn't really work, or work as well as I'd like. I've found more success with turrets than I have had with beam arrays. Cannons of any form simply blow beam arrays out of the water when it comes to overall utility and effective DPS, with the possible exception of cruiser-to-cruiser actions.
Which basically go on until the end of days, when trumpets sound and the apocalypse destroys the world. Or until one of the players fall asleep at their computer and goes afk.
Ow man, those tractor mines are the scourge of civilized humanity, and any ship I witness dropping these becomes the first ship I try to kill. Be warned, I only need to pop APO once to line up my guns, then you die.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG