i think there needs to be more then normal and heavy , 3 kinds would be best light normal and heavy would be best so that it would be along th lines of other bonuses like shields or hull between the classes on the fed side , and give a normal Armour for battle cruisers but then make the heavy for the kdf carriers just so battle cruisers dont get it all
I think you mean Raider.;)
Marauder is the term used for one of the Orion Flight Deck Cruisers.:)
Raider. Yes. Good catch.
Still, the BoP has a design that is very unique. The Raptor is far closer to an escort. I can't figure out why so many people think the BoP is the KDF version of an escort. Escorts don't have full universal consoles, battle cloak or as few weapons as the BoP. Sure they both can equip dual cannons, but so can battle cruisers and raptors. And the turning rates between raptors and escorts are close. The BoP turns better than anything else in the game. Even better than the JHAS.
Raptors really are the closest thing the KDF has to an escort.
Still, the BoP has a design that is very unique. The Raptor is far closer to an escort. I can't figure out why so many people think the BoP is the KDF version of an escort. Escorts don't have full universal consoles, battle cloak or as few weapons as the BoP. Sure they both can equip dual cannons, but so can battle cruisers and raptors. And the turning rates between raptors and escorts are close. The BoP turns better than anything else in the game. Even better than the JHAS.
Raptors really are the closest thing the KDF has to an escort.
I'm not entirely sure why that is.
Maybe it's because of this:
We want to add a ship armor slot. Having more itemization is good
Ok so where is this coming from ?
Is it coming from -- we have too many items that don't get equipped ?
Or is this coming from -- we want to sell you more items but we are concerned that you won't buy them because you are too busy stacking armor consoles to slot anything else .
Because if you genuinely want to give us more slots -- to slot that next console you want to sell us -- then do that instead of talking about 'armor' .
We don't want to raise the survivability of every ship in the game.
We feel Cruisers could use an increase in survivability.
Why is that ?
It's ok , you can give us the numbers ... some of us might actually understand (and translate it for the rest of us) .
I'm sure you've not missed it but 'we feel' that Cruisers could use some more DPS via Beam weapons .
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.
And the above is what got me the feeling of 'not enough info' .
Does this mean that that you're intending to roll up all the exotic Engineering Damage Resistance consoles (be they based on energy or kinetic) into a ball and call is simply "armor" ?
Would this 'armor' come in special flavors ?
Would there be more than one slot for 'armor' ?
Why is that ?
It's ok , you can give us the numbers ... some of us might actually understand (and translate it for the rest of us) .
I'm sure you've not missed it but 'we feel' that Cruisers could use some more DPS via Beam weapons .
People complain about Escorts being able to survive just as well as Cruisers if given the right build. Giving Cruisers (and only Cruisers) heavier armor than the other classes would go a way towards remedying this issue. If it's easier to survive in a Cruiser, then you can more easily put more of your Engineering slots in the offensive options they have.
Does this mean that that you're intending to roll up all the exotic Engineering Damage Resistance consoles (be they based on energy or kinetic) into a ball and call is simply "armor" ?
Yes, because that's what they all are. All the Engineering damage resistance items are some kind of armor, whether it's identified as an alloy, armor, or hull plating.
I am very sceptical with the idea of messing with things. How much DL are these fancy new armor consoles going to cost us and how much grinding are we going to be bored to tears with to unlock getting them? I don't feel the balance is off in STO with the ships currently. A friend of mine has a Galaxy X that will wipe the floor with almost any escort outside of the very best escort pilots STO has to offer. Each ship needs to have a strangth and weakness to keep things different. From the very little stated about the armor idea, it just sounds like a way to make the whole defense approach to space combat generic.
The last time Cryptic decided to change consoles into other consoles, I was left with a ton of consoles that were useless in their new form that I had worked hard to aquire before the changes. This was a blaintant steel toes kick to the groin! As a result of these changes, almost every ship build across all of my toons were ruined in some form or another. I don't have any issues with changes to STO but the past goes to show that Cryptic doesn't think these changes through before shafting the players. If they go a head with these changes without thinking them through thuroughly first. Players are going to find another game to play, myself included!
For what it is worth, I believe the players should be involved with any systemic changes on Tribble from start to finish. The same applies to any new ships and whatnot. The in-house QA team really does not seem to play the game well at best given the results of things when the players get stuff or have very limited testing variables at worse and dont operate in the same environment as the players.
With that stated, I can see Cryptic wanting to keep some things secret for marketing purposes and I'm fine with it. In such situations they should have a select group of players under NDA and give them a private environment such as "redshirt" to test things on.
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
The premise seems flawed - cruisers need more DPS, not more survivability.
_________________________________________________ [Kluless][Kold][Steel Heels][Snagtooth] [Louis Cipher][Outta Gum][Thysa Kymbo][Spanner][Frakk] [D'Mented][D'Licious]
Joined October 2009. READ BEFORE POSTING
Makes perfect sense for an MMO though. You've already got a forum littered with folks crying how overpowered Escorts are. Now you want to give Escorts access to Cruiser level armor?
People complain about Escorts being able to survive just as well as Cruisers if given the right build. Giving Cruisers (and only Cruisers) heavier armor than the other classes would go a way towards remedying this issue. If it's easier to survive in a Cruiser, then you can more easily put more of your Engineering slots in the offensive options they have.
Yeah , but isn't this really a PVP issue ? I don't recall ppl complaining that Escorts were too tanky in PVE .
This is why I brought up the slots issue .
I think that Cryptic is creating all these consoles to sell , some on the c-store , some on the Lobi store -- and more to the point they intend some of these consoles to have synergy with other consoles -- and all that is happening is that ppl rarely use all 3 pieces to create the synergy because they are too busy stacking Eng consoles 4 hull resistance .
Not having a proper place to slot the synergy consoles also hurts their bottom line a bit , and this is not exclusive to Cruisers .
All the Engineering damage resistance items are some kind of armor, whether it's identified as an alloy, armor, or hull plating.
The closest we came to this type of 'simplification' is when the skill trees weapons choices revamp reduced them simply Torpedoes/Energy .
Gone were the multiple options .
If this would be the same type of revamp -- that would leave us with no 'flavor' except maybe choice between more 'energy armor' and 'kinetic armor' .
At this rate of simplification , if they ever revamp PVP (with it's own skill tree) , that will be left with 'weapons' , 'shields' , 'speed' as they only choices you can spec into .
That's great for the P-47. It doesn't really apply here. It's fairly evident from previous Dev posts that Escort survival comes from higher maneuverability and burst damage.
There's no escorts that rely on toughness to help keep themselves alive? You should let the HECs, Patrol Escorts, Blockade Runners, the Charal and some of the Raptors know that. Like it or not, there are absolutely analogs to the P-47 in the existing starship stable.
Setting up Cruisers as the only ships capable of passively mitigating damage is lunacy.
There's no lunacy. Cruisers were designed from the get-go to have higher survival based on larger hulls and more console slots that could be used for armor.
What's the balance measure if Escorts get even more armor now? Less DPS? Slower turn rate?
I guess you missed the part where the addition of an armor slot on all ships would necessitate a complete rework of armor consoles. Toss in the heavy armor variants and hey presto, cruisers still have better survival, but now have actual options on what they want to do with engineering slots instead of mashing armor and gimmick consoles.
Armor Slot for all ship types (Escorts can equip Light Armor, Science Light/Medium, Cruisers Medium/Heavy)
The heavier the armor, the more survivability you get. On the flipside, you'll lose agility (turn rate mostly). This would ofcourse necessitate a full rebalance of current turn rates (especially on Cruisers).
I'm rather hesitant to throw my 2 cents in because I'm not sure we've been given a good explanation of the Dev's intent .
Ok so where is this coming from ?
Is it coming from -- we have too many items that don't get equipped ?
Or is this coming from -- we want to sell you more items but we are concerned that you won't buy them because you are too busy stacking armor consoles to slot anything else .
Because if you genuinely want to give us more slots -- to slot that next console you want to sell us -- then do that instead of talking about 'armor' .
Why is that ?
It's ok , you can give us the numbers ... some of us might actually understand (and translate it for the rest of us) .
I'm sure you've not missed it but 'we feel' that Cruisers could use some more DPS via Beam weapons .
And the above is what got me the feeling of 'not enough info' .
Does this mean that that you're intending to roll up all the exotic Engineering Damage Resistance consoles (be they based on energy or kinetic) into a ball and call is simply "armor" ?
Would this 'armor' come in special flavors ?
Would there be more than one slot for 'armor' ?
More info needed .
I agree with Aelfwin on this one currently, we need more information on the subject.
If you had a separate Armor slot, you could use your Engineering console slots for Turn Consoles and +Weapon power consoles. Not a perfect solution, but it would help.
I think separate armor slots are something that should apply to Cruisers only.
There are escorts with 4 engineering console slots; even the defiant has 3 engineering console slots. If armor consoles can no longer be equipped in engineering slots, then escorts will just stack RCS accelerators. Cruisers attempting the same thing will get much less benefit from RCS accelerators. The result will be to further increase the turning advantage escorts have over cruisers.
Instead of disrupting the console layout synergy we currently have why not have the armour consoles in their current form apply their resists to a ship the same way the shields do. In fact, why not use the same shield mod number already in use by the shield system ?
I admit it may make some ships incredibly tough (temporal science ship) but it might make things more manageable in the long run on a ship by ship basis.
No, I don't like either of the devs ideas but if it has to be done I think my idea would produce less 'sticker shock' from not having to invent an entire new class of armour, or revamp every piece we currently have, and where/when we use it.
You'd think that they are in this game, but they aren't. They're outclassed at both support and tanking by carriers.
If the STO made Federation cruisers more like canon, they'd be more like bigger and tougher Birds of Prey with no cloaking. They would be something like a Mario: the average middle-of-the-road vessel that doesn't excel at anything in particular, but does fairly well at anything.
Galaxy-class vessels were actually quite sprightly, even if they were massive vessels. Certainly, they were nowhere near as massive as Jem'Hadar Dreadnoughts. However, in STO, Jem'Hadar Dreadnoughts actually handle slightly better than a Galaxy-class cruiser, in spite of being close to three times the size and with higher natural durability. They can mount DHCs, and also come with hangar bays and inherent subsystem targeting, while a Galaxy of the same level has... Saucer Separation.
What the hell is a cruiser supposed to do that makes it better than any other vessel can't do better? With my support cruiser, I take pride in my healing abilities and can do it as well (if not better) than a lot of cruisers. I can tank pretty well too, if I'm not being forced to keep fire off of a friendly. Imagine my shock when a Tactical captain shows up in a Caitian and proceeds to outheal me by approximately 200,000 hitpoints.
I think we're going to have to man-up and face the fact that Federation cruisers have fallen far, far behind.
Armour consoles might be a step in the right direction, but I think we are going to have to start asking ourselves what a cruiser is supposed to be doing in the first place.
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.
What about option three. if ever ship gets three armor slots.
The difference is for ever armor you slot you lose turn rate and speed.
A cruiser would be able to slot 2 armor slot with no penalty while a science ship could mount One.
An escort can mount zero with out a penalty.
If cruiser mount none or one armor slot they would get turn rate and speed bonus. Since they less then normal amount.
after there got to be pros and cons.
Examples Let say each armor effect turn rate by 2 and speed by 5.
Crusier with no armor has +4 to turn rate and +10 speed.
Cruiser with one armor has +2 to turn rate and +5 to speed.
Cruiser with two armor has 0 and 0 effect it turn rate
Cruiser with three armor has -2 turn rate and - 5 speed
Science ship with no armor has +2 to turn rate and +5 speed
Science ship with one armor has 0 and 0
Science ship with Two armor has -2 turn rate and - 5 speed
Science ship with three armor has -4 turn rate and -10 speed.
Escort with no armor has 0 to turn rate and 0 to speed
Escort one armor has -2 to turn rate and -5 speed
escort with two armor has -4 to turn rate and -10 to speed
escort with three armor has -6 to turn rate and -15 to speed
* 2 to turn rate and 5 to speed where just random number pull from know where.
Comments
I think you mean Raider.;)
Marauder is the term used for one of the Orion Flight Deck Cruisers.:)
Still, the BoP has a design that is very unique. The Raptor is far closer to an escort. I can't figure out why so many people think the BoP is the KDF version of an escort. Escorts don't have full universal consoles, battle cloak or as few weapons as the BoP. Sure they both can equip dual cannons, but so can battle cruisers and raptors. And the turning rates between raptors and escorts are close. The BoP turns better than anything else in the game. Even better than the JHAS.
Raptors really are the closest thing the KDF has to an escort.
I'm not entirely sure why that is.
Maybe it's because of this:
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20061116200752/memoryalpha/en/images/5/51/IKS_Rotarran_and_USS_Defiant_retreat_from_DS9,_Call_to_Arms.jpg
in the hearts of many people they are so very much alike they don't bother to check the stats.
Ok so where is this coming from ?
Is it coming from -- we have too many items that don't get equipped ?
Or is this coming from -- we want to sell you more items but we are concerned that you won't buy them because you are too busy stacking armor consoles to slot anything else .
Because if you genuinely want to give us more slots -- to slot that next console you want to sell us -- then do that instead of talking about 'armor' .
Why is that ?
It's ok , you can give us the numbers ... some of us might actually understand (and translate it for the rest of us)
I'm sure you've not missed it but 'we feel' that Cruisers could use some more DPS via Beam weapons .
And the above is what got me the feeling of 'not enough info' .
Does this mean that that you're intending to roll up all the exotic Engineering Damage Resistance consoles (be they based on energy or kinetic) into a ball and call is simply "armor" ?
Would this 'armor' come in special flavors ?
Would there be more than one slot for 'armor' ?
More info needed .
The last time Cryptic decided to change consoles into other consoles, I was left with a ton of consoles that were useless in their new form that I had worked hard to aquire before the changes. This was a blaintant steel toes kick to the groin! As a result of these changes, almost every ship build across all of my toons were ruined in some form or another. I don't have any issues with changes to STO but the past goes to show that Cryptic doesn't think these changes through before shafting the players. If they go a head with these changes without thinking them through thuroughly first. Players are going to find another game to play, myself included!
With that stated, I can see Cryptic wanting to keep some things secret for marketing purposes and I'm fine with it. In such situations they should have a select group of players under NDA and give them a private environment such as "redshirt" to test things on.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
[Kluless][Kold][Steel Heels][Snagtooth]
[Louis Cipher][Outta Gum][Thysa Kymbo][Spanner][Frakk]
[D'Mented][D'Licious]
Joined October 2009. READ BEFORE POSTING
That makes absolutely no sense at all. Cruisers aren't the only ships to ever have armor plating in the Star Trek universe.
That's where the "heavy armor" variant comes in.
That's like arguing fighter planes don't need armor because they don't get shot.
I'll reference you the P-47.
Yeah , but isn't this really a PVP issue ? I don't recall ppl complaining that Escorts were too tanky in PVE .
This is why I brought up the slots issue .
I think that Cryptic is creating all these consoles to sell , some on the c-store , some on the Lobi store -- and more to the point they intend some of these consoles to have synergy with other consoles -- and all that is happening is that ppl rarely use all 3 pieces to create the synergy because they are too busy stacking Eng consoles 4 hull resistance .
Not having a proper place to slot the synergy consoles also hurts their bottom line a bit , and this is not exclusive to Cruisers .
The closest we came to this type of 'simplification' is when the skill trees weapons choices revamp reduced them simply Torpedoes/Energy .
Gone were the multiple options .
If this would be the same type of revamp -- that would leave us with no 'flavor' except maybe choice between more 'energy armor' and 'kinetic armor' .
At this rate of simplification , if they ever revamp PVP (with it's own skill tree) , that will be left with 'weapons' , 'shields' , 'speed' as they only choices you can spec into .
There's no escorts that rely on toughness to help keep themselves alive? You should let the HECs, Patrol Escorts, Blockade Runners, the Charal and some of the Raptors know that. Like it or not, there are absolutely analogs to the P-47 in the existing starship stable.
Setting up Cruisers as the only ships capable of passively mitigating damage is lunacy.
I guess you missed the part where the addition of an armor slot on all ships would necessitate a complete rework of armor consoles. Toss in the heavy armor variants and hey presto, cruisers still have better survival, but now have actual options on what they want to do with engineering slots instead of mashing armor and gimmick consoles.
Armor Slot for all ship types (Escorts can equip Light Armor, Science Light/Medium, Cruisers Medium/Heavy)
The heavier the armor, the more survivability you get. On the flipside, you'll lose agility (turn rate mostly). This would ofcourse necessitate a full rebalance of current turn rates (especially on Cruisers).
I agree with Aelfwin on this one currently, we need more information on the subject.
There are escorts with 4 engineering console slots; even the defiant has 3 engineering console slots. If armor consoles can no longer be equipped in engineering slots, then escorts will just stack RCS accelerators. Cruisers attempting the same thing will get much less benefit from RCS accelerators. The result will be to further increase the turning advantage escorts have over cruisers.
Instead of disrupting the console layout synergy we currently have why not have the armour consoles in their current form apply their resists to a ship the same way the shields do. In fact, why not use the same shield mod number already in use by the shield system ?
I admit it may make some ships incredibly tough (temporal science ship) but it might make things more manageable in the long run on a ship by ship basis.
No, I don't like either of the devs ideas but if it has to be done I think my idea would produce less 'sticker shock' from not having to invent an entire new class of armour, or revamp every piece we currently have, and where/when we use it.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Exactly. In a cruiser, I can tank for any length of time against any enemy that can't kill me in a single attack.
Ever done a 1v1 PvP match between two cruisers? I have. It's painful. We could both heal in excess of the damage the other could do.
currently only time i die is do to a 200,000 damage hy3 plasma torp
that's PvE don't PvP much but i figure i would probably die pretty quick
Armour consoles might be a step in the right direction, but I think we are going to have to start asking ourselves what a cruiser is supposed to be doing in the first place.
What about option three. if ever ship gets three armor slots.
The difference is for ever armor you slot you lose turn rate and speed.
A cruiser would be able to slot 2 armor slot with no penalty while a science ship could mount One.
An escort can mount zero with out a penalty.
If cruiser mount none or one armor slot they would get turn rate and speed bonus. Since they less then normal amount.
after there got to be pros and cons.
Examples Let say each armor effect turn rate by 2 and speed by 5.
Crusier with no armor has +4 to turn rate and +10 speed.
Cruiser with one armor has +2 to turn rate and +5 to speed.
Cruiser with two armor has 0 and 0 effect it turn rate
Cruiser with three armor has -2 turn rate and - 5 speed
Science ship with no armor has +2 to turn rate and +5 speed
Science ship with one armor has 0 and 0
Science ship with Two armor has -2 turn rate and - 5 speed
Science ship with three armor has -4 turn rate and -10 speed.
Escort with no armor has 0 to turn rate and 0 to speed
Escort one armor has -2 to turn rate and -5 speed
escort with two armor has -4 to turn rate and -10 to speed
escort with three armor has -6 to turn rate and -15 to speed
* 2 to turn rate and 5 to speed where just random number pull from know where.