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Forums > Home› Feedback› Federation Discussion

Cruisers - are they fun?

fluffydoormanfluffydoorman Member Posts: 26 Arc User
edited April 2013 in Federation Discussion
I have a very simple question. Can cruisers be fun? I'm not talking about massive DPS. Can they be fun? No flame wars on Escorts vs. Cruisers vs. Barbies or whatever. I'm not looking for the ultimate build to play. I just want to know from people that have run with Cruisers on whether they can be fun to do. Personally I play a Tac, but I'm curious about Eng and Sci as well.

I'm lvl 50 now, so I'm mainly concerned with end game cruisers. What's enjoyable, what's not. What are people enjoying.
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  • sirokksirokk Member Posts: 990 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    fluffydoorman wrote: »
    I have a very simple question. Can cruisers be fun? I'm not talking about massive DPS. Can they be fun? No flame wars on Escorts vs. Cruisers vs. Barbies or whatever. I'm not looking for the ultimate build to play. I just want to know from people that have run with Cruisers on whether they can be fun to do. Personally I play a Tac, but I'm curious about Eng and Sci as well.

    I'm lvl 50 now, so I'm mainly concerned with end game cruisers. What's enjoyable, what's not. What are people enjoying.

    Personally, yes! I love to fly my Excelsior Retrofit with my Engineer - but he also flies an Advanced Escort just fine.

    Cruisers are supposed to be healers and also distract the target (though Procs and firepower) so that the other ships, the escorts and sci ships, can do their jobs easier.

    Regarding character role vs ship type, Tactical officers are best suited for Escorts, Engineers as best for Cruisers and Science... you know. But that does not mean that an Eng can't fly an escort or a tac cannot fly a science cruiser.. they can, just not as efficiently.

    For you it really comes down to your play style and what YOU think is FUN. Try out different ships, mirror ships can be purchases on the Exchange for 100K to 900K.. a lot less expensive than the Dilithium ships and C-Store ships.

    Hope this helps.
    Star Trek Battles Channel - Play Star Trek like they did in the series!Avatar: pinterest-com/pin/14003448816884219Are you sure it isn't time for a "colorful metaphor"? --Spock in 'The Voyage Home'
    SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
  • elric071elric071 Member Posts: 159 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    My main character since I started playing the game 3 years ago is an Engineer. When I started her, I flew the cruisers that were available when the game first launched. At the time I couldn't stand them...They turned like a pig in the mud, and didn't really put out the damage I wanted.

    So after reaching level 50 with Selenia, I took a leap and got a Defiant Refit with my RA-UH (didn't even have VA's at the time...:eek:) ship token and loved it. For the longest time, I ran Selenia in Escorts exclusively. Eventually I got bored with that flying style and went back to Cruisers. Also I had started getting into PvP at this time and decided I wanted to try to be a healer because she just couldn't keep up with the damage output of a Tac in an Escort. So I went and bought an Excelsior Refit.

    Since that time, I've pretty much flown only cruisers with her. Are Cruisers fun? To me they are because they suit my preference of being a tank/healer (Vesta's make a great healer with an Engineer at the helm, too).

    I would say, if you like the playstyle of the "fighter" mentality of an escort, stay with escorts. If you are bored with your escorts, as I was, give an Excelsior a try. One of my fleet mates is downright scary in his Fleet Excelsior with his tac captain at the helm. It is a different playstyle, but it is fun if you like that sort of thing :D

    Hope my little rambling helps :rolleyes:

    Qapla'!
    Illigitimi Non Carborundum

    Co-Founder of TOS Veterans and TOS Qan Mang
  • maximumnamemaximumname Member Posts: 19 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I find using fleet excelsior, I keep an eject warp plasma on it which, when combined with an evasive, lets me do a little crowd control to save a PUG CSE or do amusing attack runs
  • sander233sander233 Member Posts: 3,992 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Cruisers can definitely be fun if you can find a build that makes you laugh. Personally, I find dumping EWP3 and spitting a Breen cluster torp out my aft launcher to be absolutely hilarious.
    16d89073-5444-45ad-9053-45434ac9498f.png~original

    ...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
    - Anne Bredon
  • UnknownUnknown
    edited April 2013
    This content has been removed.
  • altechachanaltechachan Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Cruisers are fun for me namely for "broadsiding powerslides". It takes some practice and it definitely freaked our some of my fleetmates the first time they saw me do it.
    Member since November 2009... I think.
    (UFP) Ragnar
  • corbinwolf#9797 corbinwolf
    corbinwolf#9797
         Member Posts: 565 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    As a tact captain I recently returned to cruisers after a long stint in escorts only. Truthfully, I have more fun in cruisers. There is more to think about and more to do other than just focusing on pew pew pew. As to what cruiser is right for you, well, that is something you are going to have to decide because each cruiser has its own character. Personally i can't get enough of the fleet excelsior and am looking forward to purchasing the fleet assault cruiser in a few days when it unlocks.

    With the right build you can find yourself not only viable in PVP and PVE, but its always a shock to escorts ... you can certainly give them a run for their money! :D Inevitably, I personally find flying cruisers more Trek like imo. That is just me though.
    "The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." - Rocky Balboa (2006)
  • ursusmorologusursusmorologus Member Posts: 5,328 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I dont know what makes you giggle, but sure its possible to have fun in a cruiser. I have the T5 Ambassador and I have fun with it, throwing EWP and breen cluster torps fore and aft, with a main course of polarized disruptors. Its different from an escort or a carrier, ofc, but once you settle into the rhythm its easy to have fun with it.
    [img]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x57/UrsusMorologus/MechWarrior Online/Catapult_K2 sig.jpg[/img]
  • yargomeshyargomesh Member Posts: 179 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Cruisers are very fun. How you want to play them is going to influence your choice of ship the most, but I'll cover the most popular ones. (My main is also a Cruiser-loving Tac.)

    For End Game Cruisers, there's the Excelsior Retrofit (Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit) that's great for having the highest base turn rate out of any Fed cruiser. Next is the Assault Cruiser Refit, having slightly less turn rate but better subsystem power and comes with a Wide Angle Quantum Torpedo Launcher and Metreon Gas Canisters Universal Console.

    After that I tend to see a mixture of the Odyssey's, Dreadnaughts, Galaxy-X's and Assault Cruisers with a smattering of Star Cruisers. (The Assault Cruiser is great to start off in once you can requisition it.)

    So typically, the Cruisers with the highest base Turn rate seem to be the funnest to play. I love my Excelsior Retrofit and it works well.
  • sjokruhlicasjokruhlica Member Posts: 434 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    With my Fed eng character I fly a Galor Beam boat. It's a blast. Throws out good damage while remaining nearly indestructible.
  • futurepastnowfuturepastnow Member Posts: 3,660 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Oh yes. Cruisers allow me to fly my favorite ship, and that's all I need to have fun.

    The fact that I can get 8.5k DPS out of a Fleet Assault Cruiser with 'canon' weapons is incidental to that fun but certainly doesn't hurt :cool:
  • sollvaxsollvax Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Nothing is more fun than a cruiser (Galaxy R for me)
    Live long and Prosper
  • snoggymack22snoggymack22 Member Posts: 7,084 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    elric071 wrote: »
    So after reaching level 50 with Selenia, I took a leap and got a Defiant Refit with my RA-UH (didn't even have VA's at the time...:eek:) ship token and loved it.

    Your memory is a bit fuzzy. They did have Vice Admirals at the time you got your Retrofit Defiant.

    The level cap at launch was Rear Admiral, level 45. But in July of 2010, Season 2 came out. With that season came a bunch of things. Levels 46-50, the rank of Rear Admiral Upper Half, Level 51, the Rank of Vice Admiral, and ... the Retrofit ships, including the Defiant that you got with your token.

    Those ships were Vice Admiral ships and could only be flown at level 51 when they debuted.
    and decided I wanted to try to be a healer because she just couldn't keep up with the damage output of a Tac in an Escort. So I went and bought an Excelsior Refit.

    As far as healers go, the Excelsior isn't exactly the best ship for that.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • hillard1959hillard1959 Member Posts: 197 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I've actually been flying a Heavy Cruiser Retrofit and been having a blast with it. Using an Aux2Battery setup, there doesn't seem to be much PVE content that I have trouble with. I even placed 1st in Crystalline Catastrophe in it.
  • farmallmfarmallm Member Posts: 4,630 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    That is all I flown for a while. Until here recently I started to level a tactical for an escort. I have really enjoyed my cruisers. They have a learning curve over the escort, but once you got that. They are easy to use and fun.

    You build it right, you will be impressed what you can live through. I been through some intense battles and like how I lived through that.
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    Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
  • theodrimtheodrim Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I put a couple million EC down today on buying and kitting out a mirror universe sovereign, and honestly I enjoy it quite a bit -- though I wish I'd gone for the mirror space whale instead, I find myself really missing TT. It's the most fun I've had since my Defiant-class, and my Nova- before it back in tier 2.
    Somebody getting uppity about canon? No problem! Just take a deep breath, and repeat after me:

    Spock's Brain.
  • reginamala78reginamala78 Member Posts: 4,593 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    No mention of the amusement at simply soaking the worst hits in the game without caring? There's just something supremely satisfying about eating stuff like Borg high-yields or the Crystalline Entity's discharge, seeing that they didn't even crack your shields, and thinking 'that all you got?'
  • blitzy4blitzy4 Member Posts: 839 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I just love the look of my heavy cruiser retrofit.
    jKixCmJ.jpg
    "..and like children playing after sunset, we were surrounded by darkness." -Ruri Hoshino



  • jbmaverickjbmaverick Member Posts: 935 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I used to fly nothing but cruisers, loved the lasting power on them for PvE play. I always tried to fly the heavy tank in STFs, but a few seasons ago they made it significantly harder to do that (even with my mostly-casual fleet as team mates) and I switched to the Chimera escort (which is about as close to a cruiser as you can get with an escort). I may take another stab at a heavy tank cruiser once my fleet gets a little higher on the Embassy tiers and we gain access to the better +Threat consoles. That said, the upcoming Emergency Power changes on Tribble are going to make some people have to massively alter their cruiser builds, so I'll reserve judgement until next month.
    The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
  • captainretsetcaptainretset Member Posts: 92 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I fly escorts or heavy escorts. However, my free Ambassador T5 ship has been sitting looking at me so I decided to get it out and play. One reason is so I can fly round in an Enterprise ;)

    I have a very good plasma build for the Chel Grett or Armitage so I stole as many bits of that as I could and bought some cheapo Mk XI bits for the rest. I have tried it with 6 beams/2 torps, 2 single cannon/hyper torp/experimental array/cutting beam/3 turrets and the same but with 2 DBB - this is the one I have stuck with. I use a 2X EPTW and 2x EPTS build.

    It has actually been good fun working how to allocate the meagre tac boff slots (currently TT1, APB1 and THY1) and maximise DPS in ESTFs. With the single cannon or DBB build it gives around 6000DPS in ISE. I was worried this would be a handicap but use of ACT has shown it is ususally the main damage dealer in PUGS ... the rubbish some people bring to the table is shocking!

    So, for me, a cruiser is proving fun. I'm sure I will be back in something with a better turn rate and DPS soon but no rush.
  • shpoksshpoks Member Posts: 6,967 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Oh yes, cruisers can be much fun! :) It has been my starship of choice since I started playing STO. If you're not here to overwhelm yourself with every single detail and stat and just want to have fun playing STO, you can have a blast in cruisers, regardless of your character's class.
    The mixture of that look and class we came to be familiar with from the shows and the sheer durability and reliability of the cruiser makes it a lot of fun to fly, especially if, like myself, you don't overally care how fast you buzz around.
    Lately, I'm becomming more and more in love with my Ambassador. I kinda' knew that I'd like it right from the start since I was nagging Cryptic about a sci-oriented cruiser for quite a while before the anniversary. I was not impressed at the start, but it's growing on me fast, something in the way she shoots her beams makes me feel like in a Trek show. :D

    And I need not speak about the KDF battlecruisers, I think that it has been established in STO that they are fantastic and provide silly amounts of fun when flying one. :)
    HQroeLu.jpg
  • elric071elric071 Member Posts: 159 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    snoggymack22 wrote: »
    Your memory is a bit fuzzy. They did have Vice Admirals at the time you got your Retrofit Defiant.

    Your right, my memory is very fuzzy...too much abuse in my 20's :rolleyes:
    I couldn't remember the exact timeline, sorry for the inconsistancies.
    snoggymack22 wrote: »
    As far as healers go, the Excelsior isn't exactly the best ship for that.

    I agree. I use my Fleet Excelsior as an STF DPS beam boat, I can usually pull 5-6k with it, sometimes as much as 8k depending on the team I'm on. My main healing PvP rig is the Sci Vesta. In that ship I usually pull anywhere from 800k-1.5 mil healing in a typical 15 kill-5v5 match. I didn't include that in the first post because he was asking about cruisers....didn't seem relevant...hehe. I also use the Oddy for a healing rig (don't remember which version) but recently switched to the Vesta because I got sick of overshooting the fight due to the Oddy's increadibly high inertia and low turn rate :(. I can do just as much, if not more, healing in the Vesta and I can actually turn...LOL

    Qapla'!
    Illigitimi Non Carborundum

    Co-Founder of TOS Veterans and TOS Qan Mang
  • theanothernametheanothername Member Posts: 1,511 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    fluffydoorman wrote: »
    I have a very simple question. Can cruisers be fun? I'm not talking about massive DPS. Can they be fun? No flame wars on Escorts vs. Cruisers vs. Barbies or whatever. I'm not looking for the ultimate build to play. I just want to know from people that have run with Cruisers on whether they can be fun to do. Personally I play a Tac, but I'm curious about Eng and Sci as well.

    I'm lvl 50 now, so I'm mainly concerned with end game cruisers. What's enjoyable, what's not. What are people enjoying.

    The bigger the better (fun wise). 2x tacs & 1x eng all with cruisers as mainship (the Tacs with Defiant/BoP as secondary collecting dust).

    But whats fun to me don't have to be fun to someone else.
  • cmdrscarletcmdrscarlet Member Posts: 5,137 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    OP: yes.

    I'm playing an Excelsior-Refit because:
    1) It looks cool to me
    2) Transwarp all over the galaxy = l33+
    3) It looks cool to me
    4) 4 weapon slots fore and aft = Pew pew light show
    5) It looks cool to me

    Good luck and have fun :)
    Kathryn S. Beringer - Endless Excelsior - Veritatum Liquido Cernerne - a proud off-meta build
    TT2r1Y3.png
  • ajma420ajma420 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Personally, I'm ok with any ship though I play mostly on my Fed Heavy Escort Carrier. I do like cruisers only because they tank. As someone who plays on escorts about 85% of the time it actually gets annoying not to deal the most DPS in the match, but its slightly offset by the fact that I dont get blow apart in 10 sec by a tactical cube.

    Don't get me wrong, cruisers and science ships are fun but not as efficient as escorts.

    With that said, my favorite cruisers are the Fed dreadnought (if you consider it a cruiser) and fleet version of the Odyssey.
    Light Speed! - No, light speed is too slow. We need LUDICROUS SPEED!

    Ajma420 - Lv 50 Tac - Pride of the Federation
    Catherine The Great - Lv 50 Tac - Pride of the Empire
    Vladimir - Lv 50 Tac - Pride of the Rihannsu Empire
  • UnknownUnknown
    edited April 2013
    This content has been removed.
  • age03age03 Member Posts: 1,664 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    The earlier versions are those seen in TMP Kirks era .The TNG ones aren't so great except the oddy with the chevron off.

    They don't make criusers like they use to.
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    USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
    Star Trek Gamers
  • momawmomaw Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    With the changes to emergency power being considered on Tribble, it's a bad time to be interested in cruisers. I would really suggest waiting to see how that pans out before buying anything.
  • age03age03 Member Posts: 1,664 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    momaw wrote: »
    With the changes to emergency power being considered on Tribble, it's a bad time to be interested in cruisers. I would really suggest waiting to see how that pans out before buying anything.

    You mean they are going to gimp Fed Geers more so than they now in way of ships?
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Age StarTrek-Gamers Administrator
    USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
    Star Trek Gamers
  • zarathos1978zarathos1978 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    This again. I doubt EPtX fix will harm cruisers in any way. Would require more thought and planing, times of mindles space smashing will be over. But I do not think it's a bad think. There is enough stuff floating around to mitigate the resilence window.

    As for OP - sure, cruisers are fun. In PvE they are great fun. Nothing better then Kirk your way around in the big ship. Escorts may be more efficient, but that does not mean that they are more funny. And in PvP... well, in OPvP perhaps not, but in PUGs? Pack a zombie cruiser, go and taunt some guys from enemy team over zone chat and enjoy them mindlessly attacking you for the rest of the game while your team shoots them down one after another. Again and again. In PUGland tank-cruisers are pretty viable :D
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