Escorts aren't meant to tank. They should never have been able to.
Give them 0.6. Give them a healthy bonus, perhaps the healthiest between escorts, scis and cruisers, to the armour console, to compensate so they can take a couple hits should their shields go down, enough to pop off a heal or two.
Scis already have rock hard high shields and decent hull, and Eng have very high and powerful hull and decent shields. Tacs should have low shields and awesome armour resistance for when their shields fail, at which point they beat a hasty retreat.
escorts are meant to be flown by tacs who by the class definition are meant to deal damage. Really amuses me so many people are so bad at this game and have a problem dealing with it.
Its a bit like people who are use to having their asses wiped for them, being told that heres the toilet paper do it yourself and having to figure out how to do it. The level of difficulty on each is the same ie incredibly low, so it really amuses me how many awful players cry on the forums from the butthurt.
fair play to tacs who make good use and are effective in escorts, imagine what they could do with a cruiser.
The Sovvy and Regent are exactly the same bar these differences:
Regent has +10 power to weapons, shields, and Aux. Sovereign has +5 power to all subsystems. Regent has a different BOff layout. Regent turns slightly slower (sprite image is larger, and it doesn't have that other 5 power to engines the Sovvy has, and as such, moves a little more slowly).
The Regent is not as tanky as the Sovereign, but hits quite a bit harder. However, other than that small trade-off, they are identical in ability.
Loss of Lt Cmdr Engineering in favour of Lt Cmdr Tactical means a world of difference in my books.
Option 2, but Science cruisers should not be left out in the cold like escorts. Perhaps a middle ground for them.
Honestly, the Option 3 that was presented by a commenter that gave armor modifiers like shield modifiers sounds like a real good idea. Keep all the good ideas of option 2, but instead of heavy armor for cruisers, each ship would have an armor mod stat. For example, a Galaxy should have a higher mod than an Excelsior while both should be higher than any escort. Honestly an Intrepid should have equal the mod of an Excelsior. Stuff like that. The Odyssey should be up there maybe past a Galaxy.
Then you should do a balance pass on Engineering consoles and make them shine since those console slots will be useful again and not clogged with armor and universal consoles. I felt the power consoles got too hard of a nerf during the f2p transition and we should meet in the middle. The Engineering slots will be a Universal console dumping ground if the Engineering consoles don't get some love.
Take your time and do it right. Find a way to compensate us who managed to buy for millions of EC or those who crafted Mark XII purple armor.
And for the love of God someone make a freaking warp core thread. SOOOOO much could be done with that. In the future when they increase the level cap, there should be no more tiers.... Just mark levels of cores that allow more kit bashing. Give me a Mark XIV warp core that gives me Warp 18, extra shield HP, an extra console slot for each category.
join Date: Sep 2009 - I want my changeling lava lamp!
opurtunity here to sell special armors in the c-store to fit on ships canon wise.
Yes, a lot of the special armor type abilities in game could be pushed into an armor slot as well. Like the Armor for the Intrepid that covers the whole ship when you activate it. I believe the Defiant was outfitted with special armor as well.
join Date: Sep 2009 - I want my changeling lava lamp!
There is already a huge amount of diminishing returns for damage resistance. Please refer to the STO Wiki article below details of which are from the mouth of the Geko himself.
This refers to hull damage resistance, which I have no complaints about. IIRC, you can boost shield damage resistance up to 75% (the cap) without any diminishing returns.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
This refers to hull damage resistance, which I have no complaints about. IIRC, you can boost shield damage resistance up to 75% (the cap) without any diminishing returns.
In a game environment when the remaining 25% is enough to tear anyone to shreds in the blink of an eye, I don't see a problem with that.
Don't believe me? Spend 20 minutes PUGging PvP in a cruiser. Count your deaths, and come back.
some things I noticed in the first few posts that even though I recognize as being fair I still have trouble being happy with :P.
Giving cruisers a slot for special armor would be awesome, giving science ships a slot for a secondary deflector or a mission module would be great as well, and while escorts do get DHC's I cannot help but feel they get left out of the upgrade party.
first, escorts feds side are the only ships capable of equiping DHC's with a few special exceptions.
while that is a unique ability the escorts do not get a special slot for them.
second, I think giving cruisers warp core slots and science ships secondary deflector slots would be awesome! but it just would not make any sense to leave those slots off other ships.
heres what I think
DHC's already in game, only equiped by escorts
create heavy armor consoles for cruisers that ONLY cruisers can equip
create some new heavy science console or weapon even, im no good at science ships so ill leave that to who ever reads this.
Add three new slots to everyship in the game:
secondary deflector / mission pod
warp core
starship thrusters ( or something more technical )
secondary deflector / mission pod - has a passive that increases effectivness on sci ships
these would have stats to support science ships only, and since escorts / cruiser do not have access to alot of science abilities/high end abilities the science ships will benefit the most from them.
warp core - has a passive that increases effectivness on cruisers
these would have stats to support cruisers only, same as above - science ships and escorts do not have access to high end engineering abilities so they would naturally help cruisers more.
starship thrusters - has a passive that increases effectivness on escorts.
these would have stats to support escorts more, same as above - cruisers and sci ships do not have high end tac abilities so they naturally supprt escorts more.
each of these items could have stats to support the tac, sci, or eng abilities of each ship. but the point is that none of them would break the ships role ( thats why I included the passive above that increases effectivness on the respective ship )
like this one.
dislike ideas about ultra heavy to ultra light for a profession.
First, let?s take Warp Cores out of the discussion. If STO gets a Warp Core, it will have little to do with armor.
Here is the bottom line we are discussing internally:
? We want to add a ship armor slot. Having more itemization is good
? Armor means Damage Resistance (to be consistent with ground Armor). Other enhancement bonuses can be available
? We don?t want to raise the survivability of every ship in the game.
? We feel Cruisers could use an increase in survivability.
? Armor could be added as a set piece.
? Armor could offer a ship material change.
So two options we are discussing:
Option 1:
? Only Cruisers Get Armor.
? No other changes needed (simple).
? We couldn't integrate armor as set piece for everyone, but it could possibly become part of a set only usable by cruisers.
Option 2:
? Everyone gets an Armor slot, but Cruisers can equip Heavy Armor.
? This is dangerous b/c it potentially raises the survivability of every ship in the game. To do this, Armor consoles would have to be changed. They would have to be something that is not related to damage mitigation (so not damage resistance, or bonus HP, or defense). The consoles would have to change to something new, or existing.
? Basic Armor could have lots of options and types, but in general, the damage resistance bonus would be equivalent to about 2 to 3 engineering consoles (for white quality - higher qualities could be better). Heavy armor would be worth much more.
So bottom line, would you be willing to loose Engineering Damage Resistance consoles for an armor slot that gives you about the same resistance, but also offers you more options.
Either option works for me. I don't mind Option 2, especially where PVP is concerned. How would this work for Carriers? Would they be counted the same as cruisers in respect to heavy Armor slots since they are bigger, bulkier ships?
You think that your beta test was bad?
Think about this: American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
I don't think an armor slot is necessary. Cruisers can already do well what they are intended to do, Survive. Additional armor/survivability is not needed. The issue here is the content we have to play. It is DPS centric. When survivability is not as important as DPS, cruiser captains will always be at a dis-advantage in PVE content. However, you cannot give cruisers more dps because then it would out-balance PVP.
Its this never ending cycle. make some Well rounded engaging content that counts suvivability as much as DPS. The closest thing we currently have is NWS, but even in that, DPS is still favored more than survivability as experienced escort captains can survive enough. and the DPS of cruisers isn't enough.
So two options we are discussing:
Option 1:
? Only Cruisers Get Armor.
? No other changes needed (simple).
? We couldn't integrate armor as set piece for everyone, but it could possibly become part of a set only usable by cruisers.
I wouldn't complain about this per se, but in general I don't like this option. Unless it was released simultaneously with similar special new slots for the other ship classes. Secondary Deflectors for Sci Ships, ??? for Escorts, etc. Also, there's already grey area on some ships that aren't quite cruisers, but aren't quite other things either, especially on the KDF side. Destroyers come to mind. Also, I wouldn't be too happy if new set pieces were released just for cruisers without similar options for sci and escorts (and others). Seems unfair.
Option 2:
? Everyone gets an Armor slot, but Cruisers can equip Heavy Armor.
? This is dangerous b/c it potentially raises the survivability of every ship in the game. To do this, Armor consoles would have to be changed. They would have to be something that is not related to damage mitigation (so not damage resistance, or bonus HP, or defense). The consoles would have to change to something new, or existing.
? Basic Armor could have lots of options and types, but in general, the damage resistance bonus would be equivalent to about 2 to 3 engineering consoles (for white quality - higher qualities could be better). Heavy armor would be worth much more.
I like the idea of adding the Armor Slot to every ship. I think instead of, or possibly in addition to, having Heavy Armor for Cruisers only, you could have an Armor Multiplier like Shields. Escorts get 0.5-0.6 Armor, Sci get 0.9 or 1.0, Cruisers get 1.1-1.3.
And if Cruisers only get Heavy Armor, and Escorts get DHCs, what do Sci get "only" of? And what about KDF ships like Battle Cruisers, they already have DHCs, do they also get Heavy Armor, as they are Cruisers?
So bottom line, would you be willing to loose Engineering Damage Resistance consoles for an armor slot that gives you about the same resistance, but also offers you more options.
Yes. Assuming I get something for my existing Engineering Resistance Consoles. And I don't want GPL or EC. Let me turn them in for Refined Dilithium. I spent Dil to get them, I should get that Dil back, in equal amount -- Dil that I could apply to the new Armor-Slot item, or allow us to some how trade them in for "vouchers" or "marks" that we could spend on Armor Slot items.
You need to further consider what to do with Eng Consoles. The Power ones got nerfed by half back in S5, so they're useless now (take off that nerf to restore their usefullness). Crew protection consoles are pointless cuz crew is pointless. RCS consoles are ok, but don't help much on the ships that actually need them (would be better if the buff was just a flat +X Turn rate instead of a percentage of base Turn). EPS Consoles are the only reasonably good ones besides the existing Armor ones.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
So bottom line, would you be willing to loose Engineering Damage Resistance consoles for an armor slot that gives you about the same resistance, but also offers you more options.
Absolutely.
Although I'd definitely like to see existing armor consoles converted directly into 'armor slot items' or the like, and have more 'new' engineering consoles created.
I like option 1 as long as science ships get a similar slot for shields. I think this would go a long way toward eliminating the excessive tankiness of escorts vs. sci and cruisers.
excessive tank ability's in escorts? dude my tact kumari spends most of its time dead or re-spawning...sure it has tons of dps, but it has zero when dead.:rolleyes:
I like option 1 as long as science ships get a similar slot for shields. I think this would go a long way toward eliminating the excessive tankiness of escorts vs. sci and cruisers.
<facepalm>
The tankiness you claim escorts have over sci's and cruisers is the escorts firepower that rips thru shields and hull better than the other 2.
AMAZING how almost everyone confuses the escort/TAC captains hull melting guns with the sci/cruisers inability to return fire at the same magnitude. It has NOTHING to do with escorts having LESS shield and heals than SCI's/cruisers. (LESS armor slots as well)
Gecko - Thanks for including us in this very important discussion.
I like the flexibility we have with the current set of Engineering "resistance" consoles.
I have seen a handful of 3rd options and, just like good ole Benjamin Franklin, I am proposing another:
Add a 4th row of console-slots and split the current Engineering console-family into two. The new type of console would be called Armor. The current group of Engineering "armor/resistant" consoles, would be converted to Armor consoles.
(see http://www.stowiki.org/Engineering_Consoles )
My guess of current Engineering console-slot usage by players is that they are all generally occupied by "resistance" consoles. If game-data agrees, adding an appropriate amount of Armor console-slots to each ship would allow more flexibility for everyone with the remaining eight (8) Engineering (non-resistance) consoles while helping to keep survivability balanced across different types of ships including the hybrids.
For example, if a Science ship currently has three (3) Engineering console-slots it could likewise be given three (3) Armor (resistance) console-slots. A Cruiser with four (4) Engineering console-slots could be given five (5) Armor console-slots to increase the survivability of Cruisers. You could also decrease Engineering console-slots appropriately to keep overall slot balance among ships.
Creating a 4th row of Armor-console slots would also make it more appealing for STO customers to obtain Zen-Store and Lobi-Store ships and consoles.
To keep escorts from getting OP'd and too tanky then you make the number of plating slots be relative to the amount of overall hull. That way an escort could actually put less plating than before, making them less tanky overall, which is something that is needed in this game. There are far too many tanky escorts right now.
But also you make the cruisers require more plating items to fill their slots so that way it costs more to plate them fully. It would not make them any more tanky than they are now but it would free up their Engineering consoles for things that are relevant like EPS consoles or SIF generators etc.
It's not fair to Engineers that hull plating goes in the Engineering console slots. After all we don't make weapons go in the Tac console slots.
Anyway read the original thread on this topic (link is above) for more of my thoughts.
I like how people took my idea then totally didn't even post it in the same thread.
My first thought is that if armor offers a visual change to the ship, then it should be available to all ships. If you believe that Cruisers need increased survivability and that is the only reasoning for this then simply increase innate Cruiser stats.
I have no objection to an armor slot and frankly it does make sense. Moving the Engineering armor consoles to their own slots would work nicely, but should be made available to all ships.
Gecko - Thanks for including us in this very important discussion.
I like the flexibility we have with the current set of Engineering "resistance" consoles.
I have seen a handful of 3rd options and, just like good ole Benjamin Franklin, I am proposing another:
Add a 4th row of console-slots and split the current Engineering console-family into two. The new type of console would be called Armor. The current group of Engineering "armor/resistant" consoles, would be converted to Armor consoles.
(see http://www.stowiki.org/Engineering_Consoles )
My guess of current Engineering console-slot usage by players is that they are all generally occupied by "resistance" consoles. If game-data agrees, adding an appropriate amount of Armor console-slots to each ship would allow more flexibility for everyone with the remaining eight (8) Engineering (non-resistance) consoles while helping to keep survivability balanced across different types of ships including the hybrids.
For example, if a Science ship currently has three (3) Engineering console-slots it could likewise be given three (3) Armor (resistance) console-slots. A Cruiser with four (4) Engineering console-slots could be given five (5) Armor console-slots to increase the survivability of Cruisers. You could also decrease Engineering console-slots appropriately to keep overall slot balance among ships.
Creating a 4th row of Armor-console slots would also make it more appealing for STO customers to obtain Zen-Store and Lobi-Store ships and consoles.
This sounds like a good idea.
Give all ships armour console slots equal to their current Engineering slots, and maybe give cruisers another extra bonus armor slot or two .
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
I like both options. They both boost cruiser resistance while still allowing for resistance items for other ships. But option two would also open up the console slots I use for resistance on my non-cruisers, which could be handy as well.
As for existing consoles, I'd be ok with the change-over involved in Option 2. But I'd prefer if they were converted to new-armor (maybe dropped into my overflow), if it's at all possible. But I know that'd probably require more server scriptwork.
Take a look at my Foundry missions! Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
I like the idea of adding the Armor Slot to every ship. I think instead of, or possibly in addition to, having Heavy Armor for Cruisers only, you could have an Armor Multiplier like Shields. Escorts get 0.5-0.6 Armor, Sci get 0.9 or 1.0, Cruisers get 1.1-1.3.
That seems like the best way to do this, although I still think it is unnecessary. But a multiplier based on ship type works for me.
As someone else said (or maybe that was you), if the armor has a ship material attached to it, it should be available to all ships.
Option 2:
? Everyone gets an Armor slot, but Cruisers can equip Heavy Armor.
? This is dangerous b/c it potentially raises the survivability of every ship in the game. To do this, Armor consoles would have to be changed. They would have to be something that is not related to damage mitigation (so not damage resistance, or bonus HP, or defense). The consoles would have to change to something new, or existing.
? Basic Armor could have lots of options and types, but in general, the damage resistance bonus would be equivalent to about 2 to 3 engineering consoles (for white quality - higher qualities could be better). Heavy armor would be worth much more.
If you go with option 2, then you would have to change the other engineering consoles, not just the armor consoles. Otherwise, I think the most likely effect will be to further increase the turn rate discrepancy between escorts and cruisers. If escorts can no longer equip armor consoles in their engineering slots, then they will use those slots for universal consoles and RCS accelerators only. Since cruisers benefit much less from RCS accelerators, the result will be to widen the turn rate gap between escorts and cruisers.
First, let?s take Warp Cores out of the discussion. If STO gets a Warp Core, it will have little to do with armor.
Here is the bottom line we are discussing internally:
? We want to add a ship armor slot. Having more itemization is good
? Armor means Damage Resistance (to be consistent with ground Armor). Other enhancement bonuses can be available
? We don?t want to raise the survivability of every ship in the game.
? We feel Cruisers could use an increase in survivability.
? Armor could be added as a set piece.
? Armor could offer a ship material change.
So two options we are discussing:
Option 1:
? Only Cruisers Get Armor.
? No other changes needed (simple).
? We couldn't integrate armor as set piece for everyone, but it could possibly become part of a set only usable by cruisers.
Option 2:
? Everyone gets an Armor slot, but Cruisers can equip Heavy Armor.
? This is dangerous b/c it potentially raises the survivability of every ship in the game. To do this, Armor consoles would have to be changed. They would have to be something that is not related to damage mitigation (so not damage resistance, or bonus HP, or defense). The consoles would have to change to something new, or existing.
? Basic Armor could have lots of options and types, but in general, the damage resistance bonus would be equivalent to about 2 to 3 engineering consoles (for white quality - higher qualities could be better). Heavy armor would be worth much more.
So bottom line, would you be willing to loose Engineering Damage Resistance consoles for an armor slot that gives you about the same resistance, but also offers you more options.
"Cruiser survivability" isn't as much of a problem as some people might argue. The problem is that at the moment all cruisers really can do is heal,heal, heal and hope that a significantly higher dps opponent see's a more interesting target because the cruiser isn't doing enough damage to make opponents have to worry about their own survival in a fight.
The tankiness you claim escorts have over sci's and cruisers is the escorts firepower that rips thru shields and hull better than the other 2.
AMAZING how almost everyone confuses the escort/TAC captains hull melting guns with the sci/cruisers inability to return fire at the same magnitude. It has NOTHING to do with escorts having LESS shield and heals than SCI's/cruisers. (LESS armor slots as well)
Escorts have far greater durability through the usage of attack patterns omega and delta and their innate defense bonus along with similar (2-3) armor slots as cruisers. We are not talking about damage ability at all.
My guess is that you are not a competitive PVP player. Check out the forums there for some great discussions about why escorts tank so well.
Comments
escorts are meant to be flown by tacs who by the class definition are meant to deal damage. Really amuses me so many people are so bad at this game and have a problem dealing with it.
Its a bit like people who are use to having their asses wiped for them, being told that heres the toilet paper do it yourself and having to figure out how to do it. The level of difficulty on each is the same ie incredibly low, so it really amuses me how many awful players cry on the forums from the butthurt.
fair play to tacs who make good use and are effective in escorts, imagine what they could do with a cruiser.
Be careful what you wish for .....
Loss of Lt Cmdr Engineering in favour of Lt Cmdr Tactical means a world of difference in my books.
Honestly, the Option 3 that was presented by a commenter that gave armor modifiers like shield modifiers sounds like a real good idea. Keep all the good ideas of option 2, but instead of heavy armor for cruisers, each ship would have an armor mod stat. For example, a Galaxy should have a higher mod than an Excelsior while both should be higher than any escort. Honestly an Intrepid should have equal the mod of an Excelsior. Stuff like that. The Odyssey should be up there maybe past a Galaxy.
Then you should do a balance pass on Engineering consoles and make them shine since those console slots will be useful again and not clogged with armor and universal consoles. I felt the power consoles got too hard of a nerf during the f2p transition and we should meet in the middle. The Engineering slots will be a Universal console dumping ground if the Engineering consoles don't get some love.
Take your time and do it right. Find a way to compensate us who managed to buy for millions of EC or those who crafted Mark XII purple armor.
And for the love of God someone make a freaking warp core thread. SOOOOO much could be done with that. In the future when they increase the level cap, there should be no more tiers.... Just mark levels of cores that allow more kit bashing. Give me a Mark XIV warp core that gives me Warp 18, extra shield HP, an extra console slot for each category.
would be nice to finally have something to stop those 1-hit-invisi-torps-of-death
Yes, a lot of the special armor type abilities in game could be pushed into an armor slot as well. Like the Armor for the Intrepid that covers the whole ship when you activate it. I believe the Defiant was outfitted with special armor as well.
This refers to hull damage resistance, which I have no complaints about. IIRC, you can boost shield damage resistance up to 75% (the cap) without any diminishing returns.
it was outfitted with basic ablative armor; the only thing special about it was it was the first ship to get that armor
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
In a game environment when the remaining 25% is enough to tear anyone to shreds in the blink of an eye, I don't see a problem with that.
Don't believe me? Spend 20 minutes PUGging PvP in a cruiser. Count your deaths, and come back.
like this one.
dislike ideas about ultra heavy to ultra light for a profession.
Either option works for me. I don't mind Option 2, especially where PVP is concerned. How would this work for Carriers? Would they be counted the same as cruisers in respect to heavy Armor slots since they are bigger, bulkier ships?
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Its this never ending cycle. make some Well rounded engaging content that counts suvivability as much as DPS. The closest thing we currently have is NWS, but even in that, DPS is still favored more than survivability as experienced escort captains can survive enough. and the DPS of cruisers isn't enough.
I wouldn't complain about this per se, but in general I don't like this option. Unless it was released simultaneously with similar special new slots for the other ship classes. Secondary Deflectors for Sci Ships, ??? for Escorts, etc. Also, there's already grey area on some ships that aren't quite cruisers, but aren't quite other things either, especially on the KDF side. Destroyers come to mind. Also, I wouldn't be too happy if new set pieces were released just for cruisers without similar options for sci and escorts (and others). Seems unfair.
I like the idea of adding the Armor Slot to every ship. I think instead of, or possibly in addition to, having Heavy Armor for Cruisers only, you could have an Armor Multiplier like Shields. Escorts get 0.5-0.6 Armor, Sci get 0.9 or 1.0, Cruisers get 1.1-1.3.
And if Cruisers only get Heavy Armor, and Escorts get DHCs, what do Sci get "only" of? And what about KDF ships like Battle Cruisers, they already have DHCs, do they also get Heavy Armor, as they are Cruisers?
Yes. Assuming I get something for my existing Engineering Resistance Consoles. And I don't want GPL or EC. Let me turn them in for Refined Dilithium. I spent Dil to get them, I should get that Dil back, in equal amount -- Dil that I could apply to the new Armor-Slot item, or allow us to some how trade them in for "vouchers" or "marks" that we could spend on Armor Slot items.
You need to further consider what to do with Eng Consoles. The Power ones got nerfed by half back in S5, so they're useless now (take off that nerf to restore their usefullness). Crew protection consoles are pointless cuz crew is pointless. RCS consoles are ok, but don't help much on the ships that actually need them (would be better if the buff was just a flat +X Turn rate instead of a percentage of base Turn). EPS Consoles are the only reasonably good ones besides the existing Armor ones.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Absolutely.
Although I'd definitely like to see existing armor consoles converted directly into 'armor slot items' or the like, and have more 'new' engineering consoles created.
<facepalm>
The tankiness you claim escorts have over sci's and cruisers is the escorts firepower that rips thru shields and hull better than the other 2.
AMAZING how almost everyone confuses the escort/TAC captains hull melting guns with the sci/cruisers inability to return fire at the same magnitude. It has NOTHING to do with escorts having LESS shield and heals than SCI's/cruisers. (LESS armor slots as well)
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
I like the flexibility we have with the current set of Engineering "resistance" consoles.
I have seen a handful of 3rd options and, just like good ole Benjamin Franklin, I am proposing another:
Add a 4th row of console-slots and split the current Engineering console-family into two. The new type of console would be called Armor. The current group of Engineering "armor/resistant" consoles, would be converted to Armor consoles.
(see http://www.stowiki.org/Engineering_Consoles )
My guess of current Engineering console-slot usage by players is that they are all generally occupied by "resistance" consoles. If game-data agrees, adding an appropriate amount of Armor console-slots to each ship would allow more flexibility for everyone with the remaining eight (8) Engineering (non-resistance) consoles while helping to keep survivability balanced across different types of ships including the hybrids.
For example, if a Science ship currently has three (3) Engineering console-slots it could likewise be given three (3) Armor (resistance) console-slots. A Cruiser with four (4) Engineering console-slots could be given five (5) Armor console-slots to increase the survivability of Cruisers. You could also decrease Engineering console-slots appropriately to keep overall slot balance among ships.
Creating a 4th row of Armor-console slots would also make it more appealing for STO customers to obtain Zen-Store and Lobi-Store ships and consoles.
Here's the original one:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=296231
I already thought through most of these things.
To keep escorts from getting OP'd and too tanky then you make the number of plating slots be relative to the amount of overall hull. That way an escort could actually put less plating than before, making them less tanky overall, which is something that is needed in this game. There are far too many tanky escorts right now.
But also you make the cruisers require more plating items to fill their slots so that way it costs more to plate them fully. It would not make them any more tanky than they are now but it would free up their Engineering consoles for things that are relevant like EPS consoles or SIF generators etc.
It's not fair to Engineers that hull plating goes in the Engineering console slots. After all we don't make weapons go in the Tac console slots.
Anyway read the original thread on this topic (link is above) for more of my thoughts.
I like how people took my idea then totally didn't even post it in the same thread.
I have no objection to an armor slot and frankly it does make sense. Moving the Engineering armor consoles to their own slots would work nicely, but should be made available to all ships.
This sounds like a good idea.
Give all ships armour console slots equal to their current Engineering slots, and maybe give cruisers another extra bonus armor slot or two .
As for existing consoles, I'd be ok with the change-over involved in Option 2. But I'd prefer if they were converted to new-armor (maybe dropped into my overflow), if it's at all possible. But I know that'd probably require more server scriptwork.
Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
That seems like the best way to do this, although I still think it is unnecessary. But a multiplier based on ship type works for me.
As someone else said (or maybe that was you), if the armor has a ship material attached to it, it should be available to all ships.
If you go with option 2, then you would have to change the other engineering consoles, not just the armor consoles. Otherwise, I think the most likely effect will be to further increase the turn rate discrepancy between escorts and cruisers. If escorts can no longer equip armor consoles in their engineering slots, then they will use those slots for universal consoles and RCS accelerators only. Since cruisers benefit much less from RCS accelerators, the result will be to widen the turn rate gap between escorts and cruisers.
"Cruiser survivability" isn't as much of a problem as some people might argue. The problem is that at the moment all cruisers really can do is heal,heal, heal and hope that a significantly higher dps opponent see's a more interesting target because the cruiser isn't doing enough damage to make opponents have to worry about their own survival in a fight.
Escorts have far greater durability through the usage of attack patterns omega and delta and their innate defense bonus along with similar (2-3) armor slots as cruisers. We are not talking about damage ability at all.
My guess is that you are not a competitive PVP player. Check out the forums there for some great discussions about why escorts tank so well.