The Junkyard Project: Capable ships for the new VA

razielblackwing

Howdy folks! Thanks for having a look at this thread. As advertised, I intend to discuss shipbuilding for the new Vice Admiral.

I'm a member of a fleet (Xiphias - look for us in play!) that frequently runs episodes, STFs, and various other missions in groups. Lately, I've noticed that most of the high-ranking members of the fleet (myself included) tend to fly around in C-Store or Lobi Store ships. So, I took it into my head to build and use a ship that could be available to any player. So, I started gathering gear for the Mirror Assault Cruiser I had sitting in my shipyard.

Then, I took it a step further. While the Mirror Assault Cruiser is hypothetically available to anyone (currently 500K on the Exchange), I was kitting it out with lockbox and rep-grind weapons. So, I decided to see what I could do with what would be available to a starting VA, and began a ship build based on spending zero Zen, Lobi, dilithium, fleet credits, and as little EC as possible. One of my fleetmates referred to it as a junkyard ship, thus giving the endeavor its name.

razielblackwing

The Junkyard Escort

For the ship itself, I started off with a Mirror Patrol Escort. I had one kicking around, and they're not expensive on the Exchange - 40K EC the last time I checked. I went with the Mirror Universe ship because I wanted to use a ship equivalent to what a Rear Admiral would get and I didn't want to spend 120K dilithium on it, and because I like escorts. I chose the Patrol Escort because of the particulars of its Bridge Officer stations. Details below:

Front Weapons Slots: 4 / Aft Weapon Slots: 3 / Device Slots: 2
Console Slots: Engineering 3 / Science 2 / Tactical 4
Bridge Officer slots: Tactical Commander and Lieutenant Commander, Science Lieutenant, Engineering Liutenant and Ensign

The main difference between the Mirror Patrol Escort and the Mirror Advanced Escort being the Ensign slot (science for the Advanced Escort) and, I expect, one less Eng console slot and one more Sci console slot. Unless otherwise specified, all equipment is Mk XI.

Ship Equipment
Shield Array: Breen Dielectric Oscillation Resilient
Impulse Engine: Breen Supercooled Combat
Deflector: Breen Polarized Parabolic
Front Weapons: Plasma-Disruptor DHCs x3, Rapid Reload Transphasic Torpedo Launcher
Aft Weapons: Uncommon Disruptor Turrets x2, Breen Transphasic Cluster Torpedo
Devices: Engine Batteries x20, Subspace Field Modulator
Engineering Consoles: rare Neutronium Alloy, rare Monotanium Alloy x2
Science Consoles: rare Shield Emitter Amplifier x2
Tac Consoles: uncommon Disruptor Induction Coil x2, rare Transphasic Compressor x2

Boff Abilities
Enginneering: Emergency Power to Shields 1 x2, Directed Energy Modulation 1
Science: Hazard Emitters 1, Transfer Shield Strength 2
Tactical: Tac Team 1 x 2, Torpedo Spread 1 & 3, Cannon Rapid Fire 1 & 2, Cannon Scatter Volley 3

So, with my options for buying gear deliberately limited, I got the bulk of the equipment for kitting the ship from Episode rewards. You can replay most Episodes and the rewards scale to your character, so they're a viable source of gear for your ship. The only things I couldn't get as mission rewards were the aft turrets. The ones I bought were under 10K on the Exchange. All told, I believe I spent less than 100K EC, and that price includes the ship itself and consoles I could have gotten as episode rewards but bought on the Exchange instead for convenience sake. Very much within the reach of a new VA!

I decided I wanted to base the build on one of the available Space sets to take advantage of the bonuses, and chose the Breen set because I already had it. The Breen impulse engine is efficient at low power levels, letting me dial down the engine power and put more in weapons and shields. This is the reason I chose engine batteries for one of my device slots - to compensate for the generally low engine power as needed.

The other device slot is taken by the Subspace Field Modulator, which is nice. It's basically a console that takes a device slot - you can pop it for energy damage resistance and it has a cooldown.


The Breen set gives a bonus to Transphasic projectile damage, which accounts for the projectile weapons I chose. The RR Launcher went in front so I could use Torp Spreads, thus the Transphasic aft. I tend to favor disruptors for the DR-debuff and I also like putting plasma burns on opponents, hence the Plasma-Disruptor DHCs - a mission reward from Klingon War: Past Imperfect.

Consoles are fairly self-explanatory: Eng and Sci towards ship survival, Tac towards increasing DPS. DItto for Boff abilities, with the exception of the Directed Energy Modulation. I will admit, Scatter Volley 3 is hard to get. If I didn't have a Boff who had it, I'd have done Scatter 2 and Rapid Fire 3 instead.

So, the very first thing I did once I launched this ship and got its ability tray sorted out was take it into KASE, because I wanted to see how it performed - more specifically, I wanted to see if I could solo a Borg Cube with it. I'll admit, it's challenging. This build doesn't have the DPS you'd get from harder-to-get gear. However, it can be done if you're careful and smart. I've had it in KASE, ISE, CSE, and run the Tau Dewa dailies with it. It does fine in all three STFs, and it cleans up in the Tau Dewa Dailies.

Which is not to say you can't improve on it with better gear, but the whole point of the excercise was to come up with a build that's within the reach of someone who hasn't started the Rep grinds and doesn't have piles of EC/dilithium/fleet credits/zen to spend on upgrades. Having an effective ship at the start will make the grinds more manageable, and you can upgrade as new gear comes within reach.

razielblackwing

reserved for The Junkyard Cruiser

Just a quick update on the project: For the JY Cruiser, I wanted to try basing it around the Jem Hadar Mk XI space set. I have one, but I'd bought the Lobi store upgrade, and I wasn't sure if I could get another Mk XI set, having tried when my current set was still Mk XI and found out you couldn't have more than 1 per character. Last night, I ran one of the episodes that give parts of the set as rewards, and I was allowed to pick up one on the components of the set. So, progress is being made. Not looking forward to running one of those eps 8 times for the JH beam arrays, but I expect I'll be doing it.

razielblackwing

reserved for The Junkyard Science Ship

theanothername

Nice project!

I could imagine the JY Sci Ship with the mission reward jem hadar set & polaron setup.

thunderfoot

This thread is an excellent idea! I'd like to help out if I can. Please PM me at your convenience.

deianirrah

A splendid idea, just to mayhaps add to it: if You are referring to items gained by the completion of missions like the Plasma-Disruptor DHCs or the Subspace Field Modulator, it might be worth posting a Link to the particular mission. And that You will get a version of Your Tier of some of the mission rewards, making it easier to get rare MK XI gear by just replaying old missions, f. e.

voyagerfan9751

While this is a great idea. I would like to point out something. For a project where you admit to wanting to spend "as little EC as possible" using ships that are either lockbox available or only via the exchange is kind of counterproductive.

Assault Cruiser
Star Cruiser
Patrol Escort
Advanced Escort
Deep Space Science Vessel
Reconnaissance Science Vessel

These Ships are all totally free to any player who reaches 40. The Assault Cruiser especially used to be a very viable end game ship. I would love to see someone discuss these ships and how to best outfit them on the cheap but still make them very much a contender in endgame battles.

razielblackwing

voyagerfan9751 wrote: »

While this is a great idea. I would like to point out something. For a project where you admit to wanting to spend "as little EC as possible" using ships that are either lockbox available or only via the exchange is kind of counterproductive.

A fair point. To explain my choice of the MU ship - I only have 1 toon at VA, and I'm not keen to grind up another one. When I reached 40, I opted for the Assault Cruiser. So, I didn't have a free RA escort to work with, and I'm not about to spend 120K dilithium for one when I could just spend a little EC for a MU equivalent. Besides, I'd think any build I do with a MU ship could be copied on the equivalent Starfleet vessel.

When I do the Junkyard Cruiser, I suppose I can use the Starfleet Assault Cruiser as the base ship. I think the Mirror Assault Cruiser is a better-looking ship though. Just my personal taste.

That said, I don't consider myself the sole authority on good ship builds. I invite anyone who's interested in doing so to post their own junkyard builds for discussion. If you have any of the RA ships kicking around, give one a junkyard build and let us know how you fare with it.

sirokk

I like the idea of builds that don't use the Reputation weapons and consoles. Not everyone wants to grind 'til your fingers bleed to spend hundreds of thousands of Dilithium and EC to get a particular Rep set to end-up with marginally better stuff, especially if all you want to do is PvE.

The mirror ships are good enough to test with. Perhaps just suggest configurations for the non-Mirror equivalents. It's the BOff and DOff configurations that will make the biggest difference in performance though.

DontDrunk... and Mav have some great builds that you may get some inspiration from. Yes they are titled PvP, but as a result the builds are overspec for PvE. Perhaps they are be converted to JY builds:

Star Trek Online > Feedback > PvP Gameplay > The new PVP help and ship build thread
(http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=427091)

Thanks.

tangolight

razielblackwing wrote: »

A fair point. To explain my choice of the MU ship - I only have 1 toon at VA, and I'm not keen to grind up another one. When I reached 40, I opted for the Assault Cruiser. So, I didn't have a free RA escort to work with, and I'm not about to spend 120K dilithium for one when I could just spend a little EC for a MU equivalent. Besides, I'd think any build I do with a MU ship could be copied on the equivalent Starfleet vessel.

When I do the Junkyard Cruiser, I suppose I can use the Starfleet Assault Cruiser as the base ship. I think the Mirror Assault Cruiser is a better-looking ship though. Just my personal taste.

That said, I don't consider myself the sole authority on good ship builds. I invite anyone who's interested in doing so to post their own junkyard builds for discussion. If you have any of the RA ships kicking around, give one a junkyard build and let us know how you fare with it.

Still, it might be confusing for a new VA who might be reading this. I'd just call it a 'Patrol Escort' and leave it at that, as the layout and stats are the same. The only difference the MU version brings is the different look (and the ability to use the MVAM console, but that isn't relavant to this subject since you're avoiding C-Store stuff). That way, a new VA knows that they can use your build with the Patrol Escort they picked up at level 40.

thunderfoot

I have both the Vor'cha Retrofit and the MU Vor'cha. I have mounted Plasma-Disruptor hybrid DHCs from the "Second Star to the Right" Mission on both and used Mk XI Blue consoles and other equipment. They are very much the same ship with either one more Engineering buff or one more Science buff. They have both done very very well in PVE. The few times I have used either ship in PvP, they did not perform as well as I wanted. This is due to my limited PvP experience more than any flaw or problem with the ship and equipment.

brokenmirror2012

Preliminary Advice to the OP. Do NOT USE Breen. JH>Rom>Regular gear > Breen. Recommend mk X assimilated from the Omega Tier, Its very easy to get, and the Paratronic Shields from a Klingon War Mission, (Its a Covariant Capx4 Shield)

To the OP on a side note, Your Junkyard Escort is... Questionable. Replace CSV 3 with APO3, Replace TS3 with CSV2. Replace the CRF 1 with TS2, And fix your typo, TS1 is suppoused to say TS2.

AND::: Remove DEM, replace with RSP. DEM is a useless skill on its Cooldown.

And finaly... Replace ALL Gear recommendations with Jem Hadar, Its Infinitly better, Breen is the worst set in STO. And Remove the Monotonium Consoles, If PvP, Use 2 RCS. if PvE use THREE Neutroniums. Never Overspecialize, you will get blown up by something that isn't kinetic if you do that.

Add Warp Core: Say its the One that Buffs ENGINE power, and converts Weapons to anything. I don't have names ATM.

If you make those changes, you wont be challenged in STFs, you would faceroll STFs. a Cube would crumble, And you would even be viable for PvP.


Junkyard Sovereign

Fore Weapons= 3 Beam Banks, 1 Quantum/Transphasic Torpedo
Aft Weapons= 3 Beam Banks, 1 Mine launcher of Selected Torp Type.
Consoles:
Eng=Neutronium x2, RCS, EPS
Sci=Field Genx2 OR Shield Emmiter (+Shield Heal Stat) x2
Tactical= 2 Selected Energytype, 1 Selected Torpedotype.
BOFFs:
Tactical= Tactical Team 1, BFAW 1 (Or BOL 1), Torpedo Spread 2
Science= Hazzard Emmiters 1 (Or Polarize Hull), Transfer Shield Strength 2
Engineering= EPTW 1x2 (This will be REALLY strong after Roms come out), Aux to Battery 1 (You don't need superdoffs to get the buff from this), RSP 1, EPTS 3, Eject Warp Plasma 1 and 3.
Shield= MACO Resilient if Possible, Paratronic if not.
Deflector=Borg if possible, Jem Hadar if not.
Impulse= Borg if Possible, Jem Hadar if not.
Warp Core= One that adds SHIELD POWER, and Converts Shield to Engine Power.


Your not inclined to make the changes to your Escort. But if you try it, ull notice its better. MUCH more Speedily ready, and much Faster/Stronger

hyouki

Hmmm...Interesting challenge, I can submit my "Junkyard Science Vessel" (once I remember all the details of what I had), but I should mention up front that it relied on my being an engineer to supplement its defenses so the BOffs could focus more on offense. Still interested?

royalsovereign

Nice idea. As a new VA myself this article is right up my alley. I picked up a MU Adv Escort and had already taken the regular Advanced Escort at RA, and am considering doing builds on both based on different weapon sets. I'll be closely following this thread. :thumbup:

thunderfoot

Here is my Junkyard loadout for a Vor'cha Refit. My primary Klink toon is a TAC and the Vor'cha has been my favorite Klink ship since the first time I saw one in a TNG episode. My love for this ship was only increased by playing hours of SFC III back in the day. I think the Vor'cha translated quite well into STO. Mine may not be 'official' Junkyard status according to the criteria specified by the OP. I did spend some money on the Exchange(for the Deflector Array) and for crafting the things(Neutronium Alloy, Field Generator, Disruptor Induction Coil) I could not purchase or acquire as loot from a mission. She's good in any PvE mission and contributes materially as well as successfully to any ESTF I use her in. The few times I've used her in PvP, she has survived to the end. Not as good as I'd like but that is my fault, not hers.

I.K.S. Qul Chonnaq(Flame Lance) - Vor'cha Refit Battlecruiser

LT TAC: TT1, APB1
ENS TAC: TT1
CDR ENG: ET1, EPtW1, BP2, RSP3
LT CDR ENG: EPtE1, EPtS2, Aux2Batt2
LT SCI: PH1, HE2

Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Dual Heavy Cannons mk XI (x4)
Positron Deflector Array Mk XI [InC] [Em]
Efficient Impulse Engines Mk XI
Paratrinic Shield Array Mk XI
Disruptor Turret mk XI [CrtD] [Dmg] (x3), Plasma Mine Launcher Mk XI [CrtD] [Dmg]
Subspace Field Modulator, Shield Battery (x20), Weapons Battery (x20)
RCS Accelerator Mk XI (x2), Neutronium Alloy Mk XI (x2)
Field Generator Mk XI (x2)
Disruptor Induction Coil Mk XI (x3)

I use a similar loadout for my MU Star Cruiser, Empress Hoshi, swapping out the DHCs for the Beam Arrays of the same weapon type. Hoshi is not quite as nimble as Qul Chonnaq, but with a beam loadout she's not required to be.