Ok, so this is crazy...

sloniah

It doesn't take long for anyone to see the obvious and glaring problems with the Dreadnought Cruiser. With the turning radius of a stuck pig and an optimal firing arc as wide as a deck of cards it's pretty difficult to bring the kind of pain it has to bear on a very scared foe.

BUT! what if all you needed was 1 shot? that's right I'm talking ALPHA STRIKE! we loved that button in MechWarrior for the sheer burst it had to offer. This is no different. with the right setup and a stack of weapon batteries it's shouldn't be difficult to ram your weapon power back up after a crushing lance burst.

Here is a rough draft of what I'm thinking of for a PvE Dread:

Fore:
Spinal lance (duh)
Wide-Angle Quantum Torpedo Launcher (Assault Cruiser) OPTIONAL
OR
Omega Plasma Torpedo Mk XII [Dmg]x2 [CrtH]

Advanced Fleet Dual Phaser Beam Banks Mk XII x1
Advanced Fleet Dual Heavy Phaser Cannons Mk XII x2

Aft:
Advanced Fleet Phaser Turret x3
Kinetic Cutting Beam

Engineer Consoles:
Zero Point Energy Harness
Assimilated Module
Cloaking Device
RCS Controller Mk XII OR Sub Space Jumper (I got lucky with lock boxes)

Science Consoles: (Still not sure witch consoles to put in here.)
[+Th] [HuH] Biofunction Monitor
[+Th] [ShH] Shield Emiter Amplifier

Tactical Consoles:
+Phaser damage

Tactical Officers:

Torpedo High Yield II
Beam Overload I (Remember you have a stack of batteries for the drain)
Tactical Team I

Engineering Officers:

Directed Energy Modulation III
Emergency Power to Weapons III (I'm a bit leery of this)
Aux. to Battery I
Emergency Power to Shields I

Reverse Shield Polarity II
Aux. to Battery I
Engineering Team I

Science Officer:
Hazard Emitters II
Polarize Hull I

Tactics:
With this you WILL HAVE THREAT. Make no mistake, you will be public enemy number one. But that's OK since you have the tools to survive the onslaught while you are nuking the **** out of the poor fools attacking you. Mind you this intended to crush things like Cubes, Transwarp gates and Unimatrixi. For the smaller craft like Spheres and Probes you should let your smaller, quicker allies handle that.

Once you line up your shot on a hard target put that pig in reverse and unload your lance on them. Once the shields are down you Torpedo High Yield and Listen to the Borg cry out for their queen in agony.

Eventually your tank will start to break since no tank is perfect. That is when you pop Evasive Maneuvers and GTFO. Once E.M. is back up you come back in for another round (assuming they aren't already dead).

With Burst in mind and the only thing we are worried about can anyone think of anything I'm missing? I will never be able to pull off the pure DPS and burst that this thing should be capable of since I'm an Engineer with no plans to repent; however one of you Tac Captains Could give it a go and see what bad things you could do to some space zombies.

HELP!

I still need DOFF suggestions! I'm still pretty clueless about DOFFs.

Updated: Based on suggestions.

sloniah

Not even a comment telling me how it will never work? ouch.

Unknown

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mimey2

Let's see here...

Weapons: Your turrets are fine. But drop the Quad cannons. Even for PvE, they might be pretty cool looking, but drop em, they aren't worth it. Another DHC is a better option.

The torpedo is fine, but if you are looking for a forward-punch type of ship, you might want to look at a normal torpedo, like a good high CrtH or CrtD quantum.

Also, try and get the Kinetic Cutting Beam to go with the Borg console. If you want, you could also go with the Omega torp to get the three piece bonus off that set.

So basically:

Weapons: 2 DHCs, 1 DBB, 1 torp

Aft: 3 turrets, KCB



Consoles:

All those are fine as-is. Though with the LoR changes, you may wanna look at another RCS consoles, and speccing into Impulse Thrusters. Another option is to get a Subspace Jump console, which is perfect for simply ignoring your turn rate and teleporting you behind your opponent.


BOFFs:

Tactical: How are you able to get an EPTW on a tac slot? I'm guessing that was a mistake on your part. I recommend a HY 1 in whatever is probably in that slot.

Science: Polarize hull and HE. Good choices. Now, my recommendation is that you look at either being more defensive by keeping PH, or more offensive by slotting a tractor beam. Most things are small and quick, so snatching it with a tractor can be a good way to make sure your Lance doesn't miss as much.

Engineering:

Cmdr: Seems fine to me. I'll skip over the Aux to Bat for now. Now, keep in mind that Engineering team will always share a 15 second cooldown with other engineering teams AND Tactical team. So keep that in mind.

Lt. Cmdr: You'd be better off with EPTW here. I guess this is where you actually meant to put it. Aside from that, seems ok to me.



DOFFs: I see no mention of DOFFs anywhere in your post. I presume however that you are using Technician DOFFs? If so, good choice for it.

What other DOFFs are you using though? I'd recommend Shield Distribution Officers personally.

reginamala78

Works fine so long as your target isn't much moving (Borg), and actually there are a number of similar builds floating around. Also if you're running Aux2Bat you don't need two Emergency To Shields since you're already at global with just one. Add Emergency To Weapons for extra firepower (since its an engineering skill, not a tactical one like you've listed), or Emergency To Aux to counter the A2B drain. And since the dual A2B gives you TT1 at global, you can use a torpedo skill instead of the second TT1, then use either the Overload 2 if you have DBBs, or a cannon skill if you use DHCs.

Next up, a Subspace Jump Console may help you on the maneuvering issues. Additionally a good set of Mk12 or Fleet DHCs will out-DPS the quad cannons, and have better accuracy and not drain your engine power besides. Also, swapping one of the rear turrets with a Kinetic Cutting Beam would give you the Omega Weapon 2-piece proc to help on drain. This means your total weapons layout is fore 3 DHC/DBB 1 torpedo, aft 3 turret 1 KCB.

Lastly, a little puzzled on the +Th consoles. If the idea is emphasis on alpha strikes, wouldn't drawing less attention be more useful in controlling where/when/how you pick your fights?

sloniah

Next up, a Subspace Jump Console may help you on the maneuvering issues.

Another option is to get a Subspace Jump console, which is perfect for simply ignoring your turn rate and teleporting you behind your opponent.

I totally agree! wait.. Those come from Tholian Lockboxes witch stopped being dropped last year, and since I'm a new kid with very little E.C. most of the time I doubt I could find one on the exchange.

So for me (and most of my fleet) Subspace Jumper (unfortunately) is out of the equation.

This is the part where I admit my ignorance on DOFFs. The most I know about is from Don'tDrunkI'mShoot's post on Aux2Batt. Before that I hadn't paid much attention to Duty Officers.

This admission being said I am open to any suggestions of DOFFs. My Knee-Jerk reaction is to try and snag x3 technicians for the 30% cool-down reduction and x2 tank related DOFFs.

Lastly, a little puzzled on the +Th consoles. If the idea is emphasis on alpha strikes, wouldn't drawing less attention be more useful in controlling where/when/how you pick your fights?

I'm GOING to have threat after that spike and with that much potential tank it would be a shame not to use it. Then again I'm an Engineer not a Tactical so...


If I have missed any glaring questions please remind me and I will try to keep my build updated.

hasukurobi

The problem here is that the Dready has too few Tactical BOFF stations to really dish out damage. DEM is pretty much worthless as anything can out heal that (even innate regen). The amount of spike here is moderate to alright if you have a Tactical Captain at the helm but still not enough to just erase an enemy Cube. I would say grab the Cutting Beam for the back for added hull damage and the Omega Torp for the front. Even unmodified the Omega's insane DPS and burn will make a huge impact if you have the enemy's shields down. Combined with the Borg Assimilated Module you will feel less weapons drain and just be more tanky all over.


Sadly though... I have the unpleasant task of informing you that the amount of damage a Dread can dish out is out done by the fleet Assault Cruisers, Odyssey Tactical, and ECLIPSED by the Vesta. Lance < Quantum Focus Beam...

lasonio

Why do people keep saying the borg don't move? That Tac Cube moves and she moves with some get up and go and so does the Borg Queen, she will run down the fastest escort without breaking stride and be on top of you before you can bring your guns to bear.

This is just one of those weird things that people either don't notice or don't care to notice i guess.

sloniah

lasonio wrote: »

Why do people keep saying the borg don't move? That Tac Cube moves and she moves with some get up and go and so does the Borg Queen, she will run down the fastest escort without breaking stride and be on top of you before you can bring your guns to bear.

This is just one of those weird things that people either don't notice or don't care to notice i guess.

I've fought (and outrun) the Queen, and I'm in a Heavy Cruiser Retrofit. Yes, the Borg move. No, they don't move quickly. This makes them ideal for targets since getting out of their range isn't terribly difficult. Also please note we are talking about Cubes and Unimatrixi that ether don't move or move slowly. Spheres and probes are best left to faster teammates.

sloniah

UPDATE:

One of my Fleet mates picked up this build and we have been tweeking it over the past few weeks. We moved to Fleet weapons and locked in the Aux2Batt build. He has been hitting some pretty TRIBBLE numbers on his Spinal lance and nothing else has been lasting thru the barrage that follows (except cubes and larger obviously). In my retrofit Heavy Cruiser, stationary, his Spinal Lance crushed my shields and took me below 10% out of 36-39k hull and around 4400 shields his cannons and beam overload does about the same in not much more time.

Why stationary? Because there will be someone with Eject Warp plasma or Tractor Beam around to pin targets when he brings that boss to play. Why the Cruiser? well I'm the only freaking cruiser pilot in the Fleet lol and I'm cheap...