I would like it if Science abilities worked against NPC ships like they do again players. Tractor Beam and Gravity Well should stop Donatra's ship from cloaking. NPC ships should not be immune to any effects.
I wish they would take a look at all abilities. Like the red headed stepchild of Cryptic that is pvp, boff abilities have remained unchanged since time began
now wait just a frack'n minute! What's that "red headed stepchild" remark supposed to mean?? Hmmmmm?
Science Abilities are going to stay out of whack in my opinion until they can find a way to correct the ?oops? they made when they gave the KDF the most powerful Science ship without knowing it.
Fed Science ships were only given 3 forward and 3 aft weapons and beams only to help balance out the fact that they had access to( back in the day) very powerful science abilities and the stacking sensor analysis( which is never used to its full potential due to the fact of all the target placate which resets the stack back to zero or they just maneuver out of weapons range). They were given low turn rates and weak hulls to give other ships a chance to maneuver their ships away from their forward firing arc to avoid the powerful science abilities (WAY back in the day)
The one oops the devs made was the BoP. The only ship in the game back then that could mount not 1 but 4 forward Dual Heavy Cannons and could out maneuver any ship in the game (back then) and was the only ship that had access to all the most powerful Science abilities in the game. The BoP was the most powerful Science Ship in all the game.
The BoP had no problem moving into position to cast any and all science abilities and with the use of cannons it had no problem taking down shields and with its speed it had no problem making a fast get away and re-cloaking when the job was done.
See without knowing it they made an overpowered science ship and the only thing to do was to nerf the Science abilities to help correct the ?oops? they made.
Back in the day all science ships turn rate were lower than they are today.
My solution to this problem would be to add a built-in Science buff that boosts the overall power of all science ability to all science ships.
The buff would include damage, duration, and environmental effect
This would need some testing to make sure that the ships don?t become overpowered.
Science Abilities are going to stay out of whack in my opinion until they can find a way to correct the ?oops? they made when they gave the KDF the most powerful Science ship without knowing it.
Fed Science ships were only given 3 forward and 3 aft weapons and beams only to help balance out the fact that they had access to( back in the day) very powerful science abilities and the stacking sensor analysis( which is never used to its full potential due to the fact of all the target placate which resets the stack back to zero or they just maneuver out of weapons range). They were given low turn rates and weak hulls to give other ships a chance to maneuver their ships away from their forward firing arc to avoid the powerful science abilities (WAY back in the day)
The one oops the devs made was the BoP. The only ship in the game back then that could mount not 1 but 4 forward Dual Heavy Cannons and could out maneuver any ship in the game (back then) and was the only ship that had access to all the most powerful Science abilities in the game. The BoP was the most powerful Science Ship in all the game.
The BoP had no problem moving into position to cast any and all science abilities and with the use of cannons it had no problem taking down shields and with its speed it had no problem making a fast get away and re-cloaking when the job was done.
See without knowing it they made an overpowered science ship and the only thing to do was to nerf the Science abilities to help correct the ?oops? they made.
Back in the day all science ships turn rate were lower than they are today.
My solution to this problem would be to add a built-in Science buff that boosts the overall power of all science ability to all science ships.
The buff would include damage, duration, and environmental effect
This would need some testing to make sure that the ships don?t become overpowered.
KDF BOPs were never the preferred mount for SCI heavy builds for the KDF, even at STO's release. For one, they did not have the staying power that SCI ships need to have. The Hegh'ta, long the only T5 BOP, has a 0.8 shield mod, ensuring that sitting in a fight applying SCI abilites is not the preferred thing to do.
But the KDF had to use them. The Veranus did not come in until much, much, much later. Even now, the Veranus is the only true SCI ship of the KDF. So the BOPs filled the role if no Vo'Quv users weren't around, and the very slow turning carriers aren't the best mounts for them (certain SCI abilities are arc focused).
Also, no KDF BOP then as they do now, has 4 or more SCI slots to make it more potent in SCI applications. KDF BOPs, if running more than the usual SCI, were more TAC with a dash of SCI. Kind of like how the Prometheus is (oh, yes, I can play that game also, it has TAC Cmdr, SCI LtCdr, and actually has the staying power to be in a fight and the speed and maneuverability to make it a menace). If the BOP user is going heavy SCI like Cmdr & LtCdr BOFF stations dedicated to it, make no mistake, his hitting power and survivability isn't going to be greater. He's still sporting weak shields. But do take a look at the BOP's BOFF arrangement and tell me how OP it's going to be with 2 lines left, both Lt, if the LtCdr & Cmdr are going to be SCI. Then, after that, come to the realization that it only has 3 SCI Console slots, not 4 or later 5.
I also recall back then at STO's release, Fed SCI ships had no problems taking care of business. When I was flying my BOP, the last thing I wanted to see was an Intrepid. The Intrepid ruled the roost back then as Science Ships go, but that was before Cryptic nerfed the hell out of Science abilities.
I have been a science player for a long time i've seen the age of escorts greatest foe being the science ship the the science ship feared the cruiser.
now cruisers and science ships could battle for ever against each other but only zombie cruisers can survive a escort for long periods.
as to the person saying science ships weapons are part of the math well sure they are but as we have the least weapons thus least damage.our skills used to offset that true but now our skills damage is laughed off our skills effects overall are just shrugged away.
the main offender of having too many immunities APO.heck even some tac skills such as beta make more since as science skills so you rethink your argument that oh science ships have weapons thus should stop whining...
even cruisers can barley get good damage out of beams they have to rely on Aux2Bat builds to get the numbers they now get.and through all the nerfs ive not seen escorts damage droped by 50% in one patch but this has happend to cruisers and science many times...
Easily broken or avoidable...no to mention if you want to do one thing decent you need to completely forgo anything else. Resistances are so high one has to stack Flow Capacitors to be able to drain a nice amount of power which means no damage at all from the damaging abilities.
If I want to do some damage that means I will have to stack Particle Generators...oh but look...they can easily break free from my GW and my TR doesn't drain enough power to keep anyone from escaping after a tic or two.
If you max spec in sci abilities with proper consoles, use phased polaron weapons, subsyst attacks, cycle borg and regular tractors, energy siphon, viral matrix, subspace intergration circuit, a mix of tricobalt device and nadeon detonator, boarding party, plasmonic leech....a whole list of things to use, and I find enemies are constantly stuck repairing subsysts and/or stuck from moving also. Sci ships aren't all about doing high dps, they are about debuffing the living TRIBBLE out of enemies along with bringing the uber heals.
....so can anyone tell me EXACTLY what was nerfed to science abilities since launch?
The only ones I know of were the Viral Matrix shield nerf, the Feedback Pulse damage nerf, and the buffing of science resistance skills.
If you max spec in sci abilities with proper consoles, use phased polaron weapons, subsyst attacks, cycle borg and regular tractors, energy siphon, viral matrix, subspace intergration circuit, a mix of tricobalt device and nadeon detonator, boarding party, plasmonic leech....a whole list of things to use, and I find enemies are constantly stuck repairing subsysts and/or stuck from moving also. Sci ships aren't all about doing high dps, they are about debuffing the living TRIBBLE out of enemies along with bringing the uber heals.
Is that useful for PvE? Does it take you twice as long to finish the same encounter? Has there even been an encounter you won only through the use of science abilities?
Is that useful for PvE? Does it take you twice as long to finish the same encounter? Has there even been an encounter you won only through the use of science abilities?
Yes quite often as I do easily kill ESTF enemies all the time even with the few weapons a sci ship carries granted my dps is nowhere near king, but I do it mostly for the fun of aiding the team without them sometimes even knowing it
....so can anyone tell me EXACTLY what was nerfed to science abilities since launch?
The only ones I know of were the Viral Matrix shield nerf, the Feedback Pulse damage nerf, and the buffing of science resistance skills.
all the science consoles, all the powers damage output/duration were decreased at some point, and the biggest nerf to science wasnt a direct nerf to any of the powers but instead an instand 50% resist from just sticking points into a tier 2 captain skill.
thats right!
power insulators a teir 2 captain skill effectively ruined all shield drain and power drain damage caused by science powers....
50% resists to over 75% of the science powers.
also, stuns from shockwaves were heavly reduced, THEN a resistance was added further reducing the stun.
and lets not forget the whole incident with shockwave 3's damage and grav well 3's pull being useless, then too much then fairly useless...
sure, my 5k charged partical burst 3 sounds awesome on paper, until you realize that instaly 50% of it is reduced from just a skill tree spec, then add to that resisting gear like deflectors and consoles... and it gets even more useless...
so yeah...
science has been hit hard by the nerf bat several times.
and its still being complained about a lot, mainly when consoles that dont do damage (ams, grav pulse come to mind) because theyre "control powers" theyre instant grouped into the sci catagory, even though ANYONE can use them on ANY SHIP.
all the science consoles, all the powers damage output/duration were decreased at some point, and the biggest nerf to science wasnt a direct nerf to any of the powers but instead an instand 50% resist from just sticking points into a tier 2 captain skill.
thats right!
power insulators a teir 2 captain skill effectively ruined all shield drain and power drain damage caused by science powers....
50% resists to over 75% of the science powers.
also, stuns from shockwaves were heavly reduced, THEN a resistance was added further reducing the stun.
and lets not forget the whole incident with shockwave 3's damage and grav well 3's pull being useless, then too much then fairly useless...
sure, my 5k charged partical burst 3 sounds awesome on paper, until you realize that instaly 50% of it is reduced from just a skill tree spec, then add to that resisting gear like deflectors and consoles... and it gets even more useless...
so yeah...
science has been hit hard by the nerf bat several times.
and its still being complained about a lot, mainly when consoles that dont do damage (ams, grav pulse come to mind) because theyre "control powers" theyre instant grouped into the sci catagory, even though ANYONE can use them on ANY SHIP.
Pretty much every thing you have said I find relates to a pvp match, but against normal pve mobs (bosses are excluded in most cases) they don't spam resistances to sci abilities often enough to make a difference. I still render them 50-90% almost useless!!!!
i can survive just as well as either an engy or tac.
saying its only "one semi-useful ability" is like saying that tacs should be pissed because they can only deal damage really well.
being a science captain to me is about finding new/interesting combos to set up kills.
and where did i say i dont get the kills as well?
i've killed many a players with my lowly sci captain.
Then please tell me... how?
And I don't get what you mean with your tac analogy, this is completely different...
I stay with my assessment, SubNuke is the only semi-useful ability and only when you time it right (when your enemy just activated the buffs and your teams tac and eng are nearby and actually targeting that enemy).
I hate repeating myself but how can you find "new/interesting combos to set up kills" when about everything you/we can do is countered instantly or completely useless from the start?
And still, even you don't say that Science is useful...
Don't just come here, say we're wrong and leave... if you know why we are wrong tell us your secrets.
Tell us what are you doing? Do you swoop in subnuke and hope that some engi and tac left you a mangled little carcass to pick clean? Do you just sit there and heal occassionaly before getting blown to smithereens?
I only want to be useful, with useful, unique skills, that actually matter and not just something that everyone else can do far better... how can I be wrong with that?
all the science consoles, all the powers damage output/duration were decreased at some point, and the biggest nerf to science wasnt a direct nerf to any of the powers but instead an instand 50% resist from just sticking points into a tier 2 captain skill.
thats right!
power insulators a teir 2 captain skill effectively ruined all shield drain and power drain damage caused by science powers....
50% resists to over 75% of the science powers.
also, stuns from shockwaves were heavly reduced, THEN a resistance was added further reducing the stun.
and lets not forget the whole incident with shockwave 3's damage and grav well 3's pull being useless, then too much then fairly useless...
sure, my 5k charged partical burst 3 sounds awesome on paper, until you realize that instaly 50% of it is reduced from just a skill tree spec, then add to that resisting gear like deflectors and consoles... and it gets even more useless...
so yeah...
science has been hit hard by the nerf bat several times.
and its still being complained about a lot, mainly when consoles that dont do damage (ams, grav pulse come to mind) because theyre "control powers" theyre instant grouped into the sci catagory, even though ANYONE can use them on ANY SHIP.
Don't forget that Sci damage abilities used to do exotic damage which wasn't completely negated by the smallest sliver of shields since all Sci damage abilities do Kinetic damage...just like torpedos.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
I hate repeating myself but how can you find "new/interesting combos to set up kills" when about everything you/we can do is countered instantly or completely useless from the start?
Don't just come here, say we're wrong and leave... if you know why we are wrong tell us your secrets.
Tell us what are you doing?
I only want to be useful, with useful, unique skills, that actually matter and not just something that everyone else can do far better... how can I be wrong with that?
He plays with a premade team and they use voice chat to coordinate.
This is not the PvP section, so relating everything here to PvP is a mistake. Most proclaiming science as okay are referring to PvP with a teamate or two Tac escort to provide the damage.
Everyone knows that to level up, compete for first place in fleet actions, or even No Win Scenario science captains in purely science vessels with only 6 weapon slots are at a huge disadvantage. To level up quicker fly an escort, the missions are all kill enemies. Fleet actions reward damage dealt. Gravity well may be useful in No Win Scenario, but put in on a Scimitar, because 8 weapons and a Commander Tac slot are better than 6 and a commander science slot.
For crowd control they are sub standard , We have so much DPS crowd control isnt needed
We have excellent tanks so healing the team is not needed if your in a proper tank
Sci ships on the Fed side are excellent its the Sci powers that are Bad and in no way equal Tac or
eng abilitys
Poor Sci powers make the Excellent Sci ships look bad
My Sci is in command of a fleet regent and is a excelent tank the team takes little to no damage and I soak it all up in any STF excluding the broken Hive Elite
Sci powers have been nerfed to balence PvP ,
and that has made those powers useless compared to tac and eng BOFF powers in PvE
Thats the problem as I see it
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
For crowd control they are sub standard , We have so much DPS crowd control isnt needed
We have excellent tanks so healing the team is not needed if your in a proper tank
Sci ships on the Fed side are excellent its the Sci powers that are Bad and in no way equal Tac or
eng abilitys
Poor Sci powers make the Excellent Sci ships look bad
My Sci is in command of a fleet regent and is a excelent tank the team takes little to no damage and I soak it all up in any STF excluding the broken Hive Elite
Sci powers have been nerfed to balence PvP ,
and that has made those powers useless compared to tac and eng BOFF powers in PvE
Thats the problem as I see it
IMO I find sci captains more useful in space missions than an eng captain. Besides the ability to alter subsyst pwr lvls and some other goodies which I my self like, their healing capacity as a boff is weak compaired to sci heals (oxymoron here since you would think an engineer would have all the uber heals while sci has the other eng skills in trade).
Then please tell me... how?
And I don't get what you mean with your tac analogy, this is completely different...
I stay with my assessment, SubNuke is the only semi-useful ability and only when you time it right (when your enemy just activated the buffs and your teams tac and eng are nearby and actually targeting that enemy).
my analogy with tacs was that sci are not designed to be the primary damage dealers, sci's are designed to heal/crowd control/debuff.
sci's do that job good.
tacs are designed to do max dps, they do that good.
and yes, i refer to pvp when i talk about sci's.
pve doesnt depend on player skill. you just point and click and shoot. thats it to 99% of pve.
IMO I find sci captains more useful in space missions than an eng captain. Besides the ability to alter subsyst pwr lvls and some other goodies which I my self like, their healing capacity as a boff is weak compaired to sci heals (oxymoron here since you would think an engineer would have all the uber heals while sci has the other eng skills in trade).
Engineer heals weak? Like Engineering team 3 healing 12,000+ hull every 30 seconds, Aux to Structural 3 healing 6,000+ every 15 seconds with a resistance buff, Extend Shields 3 the best way to keep a friend alive. Yes, Hazard Emitters 3 has the highest overall heal in a single ability, but...
Put an Engineer in an Odyssey with Hazard Emitters 3, Aux 2 Structural 3, Engineering Team 3, Transfer Shields 2 and Extend Shields 1. With 2 Captain self heals (Rotate Shield Fequency and Miracle Worker) the Engineer will have more heals and the best available to give to teammates. Maybe some of these can be switched around more effectively or a better ship, but just showing a quick example.
Engineer heals weak? Like Engineering team 3 healing 12,000+ hull every 30 seconds, Aux to Structural 3 healing 6,000+ every 15 seconds with a resistance buff, Extend Shields 3 the best way to keep a friend alive. Yes, Hazard Emitters 3 has the highest overall heal in a single ability, but...
Put an Engineer in an Odyssey with Hazard Emitters 3, Aux 2 Structural 3, Engineering Team 3, Transfer Shields 2 and Extend Shields 1. With 2 Captain self heals (Rotate Shield Fequency and Miracle Worker) the Engineer will have more heals and the best available to give to teammates. Maybe some of these can be switched around more effectively or a better ship, but just showing a quick example.
HE2 offers easy 12k hull repair which blows the others out by a long shot when needing a skill 3 set to match it, and sci team along with tss beat out eng epts by a long shot. Now don't get me wrong rsp is awesome, and miracle worker is ok for yourself only. I still say all subsystem power boosts, heals and resistances should be a eng job, while debuffs and buffs should goto sci leaving only the weapon speed altering to the tac. They IMO have a lot of the skills mixed up to much, but that's just MO.
HE2 offers easy 12k hull repair which blows the others out by a long shot when needing a skill 3 set to match it, and sci team along with tss beat out eng epts by a long shot. Now don't get me wrong rsp is awesome, and miracle worker is ok for yourself only. I still say all subsystem power boosts, heals and resistances should be a eng job, while debuffs and buffs should goto sci leaving only the weapon speed altering to the tac. They IMO have a lot of the skills mixed up to much, but that's just MO.
I never mentioned RSP or EPS, I see you are talking about self heals then to include those. Science Team provides no shield resistances and TSS offers very little resistance compared with EPS. As a self healer that would change the desired BO powers a lot.
I never mentioned RSP or EPS, I see you are talking about self heals then to include those. Science Team provides no shield resistances and TSS offers very little resistance compared with EPS. As a self healer that would change the desired BO powers a lot.
That's just it and eng is awesome ground wise, and can help support players yes thru heals and subsyst boosts. But in having to rely on them for boff's healing ability they are weak-mediocre. And eng can best heal himself or others as a captain well, but so to can a sci captain spamming sci heals and eng skills as well. Like I said IMO they have all the captain and boff skills mixed up so badly it isn't even funny.
I find the argument that Science gets no love because no one plays Science because Science gets no love very convincing. And disheartening as a Science Captain.
Also, Cryptic loves Science ships so much they are giving them away!
That's just it and eng is awesome ground wise, and can help support players yes thru heals and subsyst boosts. But in having to rely on them for boff's healing ability they are weak-mediocre. And eng can best heal himself or others as a captain well, but so to can a sci captain spamming sci heals and eng skills as well. Like I said IMO they have all the captain and boff skills mixed up so badly it isn't even funny.
Maybe they should put all the captain skills in a pool and let us choose the ones we want at each level.
I find the argument that Science gets no love because no one plays Science because Science gets no love very convincing. Also, disheartening as a Science Captain.
Also, Cryptic loves Science ships so much they are giving them away!
I actually play as Science all the time. My son is Engineer and we both find Tactical to be boring, everything is too easy as a Tactical. You should have seen Science before the ground revamp. None of our abilities did any damage, lol, even the volcano one(the radiation was 5 damage, the volcano was 24 IIRC. And we all had much more HP so 24 was less than pathetic, players got hurt worse by stubbing their toe.). And Orbital Strike did only 50 damage or so, it was called Orbital Tickle by the players.
Although, on a side note, Science holds actually worked back then, so you could use Stasis Field, Sensor Scan, Nanites, Tachyon Harmonic, Radiation, then attack with weapons because they were held.
I find the argument that Science gets no love because no one plays Science because Science gets no love very convincing. And disheartening as a Science Captain.
Also, Cryptic loves Science ships so much they are giving them away!
Science Players are there for these reasons, and in no particular order:
* If a longtime player, esp. from STO's release, they still have their SCI toon and refuse to give up on him/her. That is my case. My 2nd ever toon for STO (original is Fed TAC Vulcan) is a KDF Klingon SCI captain.
* Newer players that just like playing SCI, but have no idea on how much better the class and BOFF abilities used to be.
* PVP: SCI captains have some useful captain abilities for PVP. BUFF stripping via SubNuc, massive debuff and detection via Sensor Scan, for example.
In the end, which came in 2009 a few months after STO released, Science got no love because Tactical people complained about them. How dare Science be able to fight using only Science abilities! Only Tactical should do that with sticking to only Tactical abilities! Cryptic felt the same and nerfed in patch after patch the powerhouse Science abilities of long ago:
Tykien's Rift, Viral Matrix, Gravity Well, all abilities that had anything to do with Drains which is a whole damn lot, Photonic Shockwave, and of course Feedback Pulse. These were all nerfed within the first 5 months of the game. Nerfed HARD. And Cryptic has refused to do anything more positive with Science in general since.
There are a couple insulting things Cryptic has done though with SCI.
Feeback Pulse: TACs complained tremendously hard that Feedback Pulse was nasty. They couldn't unload with impunity on a SCI ship putting everything it had into FBP. Cryptic didn't like Science doing damage, because obviously the mantra of "Only Tac can do damage, Fk the rest of you" began to ran rampant (not as much as today though). So this began, FBP + SCI Capt BUFFs DEBUFFS + High Aux Power + High Particle Gen Skill = FAIL. However, if a TAC uses FBP now, you may be very astonished with the results :mad: For experimenting, I had my KDF TAC alien using the Vo'Quv. With TAC Captain BUFFs to include TAC BOFF abilities, FBP could kill an Alpha Striking PVPer outright if he does not read the target right.
Lastly, the new Subspace Integration Circuit comes to mind. Years after nerfing the hell out of Science, Cryptic decides to release this console which is a strong combination of a few Science abilities, and then some. It does a Grav Well like hold, it kills BOFF ability usage except ENG Team, just like SubNuc AND Viral Matrix. On top of that, it kills Perception as if you were hit by Vent Theta Radiation (a console). All this, from one console, from one click of a button, and it's actually effective and damaging, and sets up a target in a team environment. But the original SCI abilities have been nerfed hard years ago.
In short, long ago in STO, Science could rely on itself to do combat well, in the same way Tactical could do with their abilities and weapons, just done in a whole different style. But that is no longer the case since 2009.
Give all Captains a console that is more powerful than the pre-nerf Science = Insult
Then repeat the process with each new console so Escorts can do almost any Science trick with a console better than a Science Vessel with BO powers = Rediculous
Then allow Tactical Captains to buff Science BO powers but not allow Science Captains to = Absurd
Give all Captains a console that is more powerful than the pre-nerf Science = Insult
Then repeat the process with each new console so Escorts can do almost any Science trick with a console better than a Science Vessel with BO powers = Rediculous
To make it even better, you can have zero skills in any Science, and that console is still effective.
my analogy with tacs was that sci are not designed to be the primary damage dealers, sci's are designed to heal/crowd control/debuff.
sci's do that job good.
tacs are designed to do max dps, they do that good.
and yes, i refer to pvp when i talk about sci's.
pve doesnt depend on player skill. you just point and click and shoot. thats it to 99% of pve.
Umm no they don't...Sci might have a niche build that works okay but most Sci abilities...PvE or PvP just aren't effective.
Gravity Well doesn't stop anything but the AI that doesn't use EPTE, Energy Siphon has little effect unless you take 3 and load yourself with lots of Flow Capacitors, Tachyon Beam is pointless and Charged Particle Burst is only good for decloaking in pvp, and Tyken's Rift...don't get me started.
Sci is so pooched and there has been nothing towards fixing it unlike Engineering.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Comments
now wait just a frack'n minute! What's that "red headed stepchild" remark supposed to mean?? Hmmmmm?
[/SIGPIC]
I as a science player make it my job to set up the kill.
Many tacs don't realize how easy their kill was because of me.
Do you even Science Bro?
Fed Science ships were only given 3 forward and 3 aft weapons and beams only to help balance out the fact that they had access to( back in the day) very powerful science abilities and the stacking sensor analysis( which is never used to its full potential due to the fact of all the target placate which resets the stack back to zero or they just maneuver out of weapons range). They were given low turn rates and weak hulls to give other ships a chance to maneuver their ships away from their forward firing arc to avoid the powerful science abilities (WAY back in the day)
The one oops the devs made was the BoP. The only ship in the game back then that could mount not 1 but 4 forward Dual Heavy Cannons and could out maneuver any ship in the game (back then) and was the only ship that had access to all the most powerful Science abilities in the game. The BoP was the most powerful Science Ship in all the game.
The BoP had no problem moving into position to cast any and all science abilities and with the use of cannons it had no problem taking down shields and with its speed it had no problem making a fast get away and re-cloaking when the job was done.
See without knowing it they made an overpowered science ship and the only thing to do was to nerf the Science abilities to help correct the ?oops? they made.
Back in the day all science ships turn rate were lower than they are today.
My solution to this problem would be to add a built-in Science buff that boosts the overall power of all science ability to all science ships.
The buff would include damage, duration, and environmental effect
This would need some testing to make sure that the ships don?t become overpowered.
You seem rather content with having only ONE semi-useful ability (as I pointed out in my previous post)... which in turn confuses me...
I mean how? 95% a Science Captain can do, an Eng or Tac can do better with either better survivability and/or more damage...
How's that not broken?
KDF BOPs were never the preferred mount for SCI heavy builds for the KDF, even at STO's release. For one, they did not have the staying power that SCI ships need to have. The Hegh'ta, long the only T5 BOP, has a 0.8 shield mod, ensuring that sitting in a fight applying SCI abilites is not the preferred thing to do.
But the KDF had to use them. The Veranus did not come in until much, much, much later. Even now, the Veranus is the only true SCI ship of the KDF. So the BOPs filled the role if no Vo'Quv users weren't around, and the very slow turning carriers aren't the best mounts for them (certain SCI abilities are arc focused).
Also, no KDF BOP then as they do now, has 4 or more SCI slots to make it more potent in SCI applications. KDF BOPs, if running more than the usual SCI, were more TAC with a dash of SCI. Kind of like how the Prometheus is (oh, yes, I can play that game also, it has TAC Cmdr, SCI LtCdr, and actually has the staying power to be in a fight and the speed and maneuverability to make it a menace). If the BOP user is going heavy SCI like Cmdr & LtCdr BOFF stations dedicated to it, make no mistake, his hitting power and survivability isn't going to be greater. He's still sporting weak shields. But do take a look at the BOP's BOFF arrangement and tell me how OP it's going to be with 2 lines left, both Lt, if the LtCdr & Cmdr are going to be SCI. Then, after that, come to the realization that it only has 3 SCI Console slots, not 4 or later 5.
I also recall back then at STO's release, Fed SCI ships had no problems taking care of business. When I was flying my BOP, the last thing I wanted to see was an Intrepid. The Intrepid ruled the roost back then as Science Ships go, but that was before Cryptic nerfed the hell out of Science abilities.
now cruisers and science ships could battle for ever against each other but only zombie cruisers can survive a escort for long periods.
as to the person saying science ships weapons are part of the math well sure they are but as we have the least weapons thus least damage.our skills used to offset that true but now our skills damage is laughed off our skills effects overall are just shrugged away.
the main offender of having too many immunities APO.heck even some tac skills such as beta make more since as science skills so you rethink your argument that oh science ships have weapons thus should stop whining...
even cruisers can barley get good damage out of beams they have to rely on Aux2Bat builds to get the numbers they now get.and through all the nerfs ive not seen escorts damage droped by 50% in one patch but this has happend to cruisers and science many times...
i can survive just as well as either an engy or tac.
saying its only "one semi-useful ability" is like saying that tacs should be pissed because they can only deal damage really well.
being a science captain to me is about finding new/interesting combos to set up kills.
and where did i say i dont get the kills as well?
i've killed many a players with my lowly sci captain.
Do you even Science Bro?
If you max spec in sci abilities with proper consoles, use phased polaron weapons, subsyst attacks, cycle borg and regular tractors, energy siphon, viral matrix, subspace intergration circuit, a mix of tricobalt device and nadeon detonator, boarding party, plasmonic leech....a whole list of things to use, and I find enemies are constantly stuck repairing subsysts and/or stuck from moving also. Sci ships aren't all about doing high dps, they are about debuffing the living TRIBBLE out of enemies along with bringing the uber heals.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
The only ones I know of were the Viral Matrix shield nerf, the Feedback Pulse damage nerf, and the buffing of science resistance skills.
Is that useful for PvE? Does it take you twice as long to finish the same encounter? Has there even been an encounter you won only through the use of science abilities?
Yes quite often as I do easily kill ESTF enemies all the time even with the few weapons a sci ship carries granted my dps is nowhere near king, but I do it mostly for the fun of aiding the team without them sometimes even knowing it
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
all the science consoles, all the powers damage output/duration were decreased at some point, and the biggest nerf to science wasnt a direct nerf to any of the powers but instead an instand 50% resist from just sticking points into a tier 2 captain skill.
thats right!
power insulators a teir 2 captain skill effectively ruined all shield drain and power drain damage caused by science powers....
50% resists to over 75% of the science powers.
also, stuns from shockwaves were heavly reduced, THEN a resistance was added further reducing the stun.
and lets not forget the whole incident with shockwave 3's damage and grav well 3's pull being useless, then too much then fairly useless...
sure, my 5k charged partical burst 3 sounds awesome on paper, until you realize that instaly 50% of it is reduced from just a skill tree spec, then add to that resisting gear like deflectors and consoles... and it gets even more useless...
so yeah...
science has been hit hard by the nerf bat several times.
and its still being complained about a lot, mainly when consoles that dont do damage (ams, grav pulse come to mind) because theyre "control powers" theyre instant grouped into the sci catagory, even though ANYONE can use them on ANY SHIP.
Do you even Science Bro?
Pretty much every thing you have said I find relates to a pvp match, but against normal pve mobs (bosses are excluded in most cases) they don't spam resistances to sci abilities often enough to make a difference. I still render them 50-90% almost useless!!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Then please tell me... how?
And I don't get what you mean with your tac analogy, this is completely different...
I stay with my assessment, SubNuke is the only semi-useful ability and only when you time it right (when your enemy just activated the buffs and your teams tac and eng are nearby and actually targeting that enemy).
I hate repeating myself but how can you find "new/interesting combos to set up kills" when about everything you/we can do is countered instantly or completely useless from the start?
And still, even you don't say that Science is useful...
Don't just come here, say we're wrong and leave... if you know why we are wrong tell us your secrets.
Tell us what are you doing? Do you swoop in subnuke and hope that some engi and tac left you a mangled little carcass to pick clean? Do you just sit there and heal occassionaly before getting blown to smithereens?
I only want to be useful, with useful, unique skills, that actually matter and not just something that everyone else can do far better... how can I be wrong with that?
Don't forget that Sci damage abilities used to do exotic damage which wasn't completely negated by the smallest sliver of shields since all Sci damage abilities do Kinetic damage...just like torpedos.
He plays with a premade team and they use voice chat to coordinate.
This is not the PvP section, so relating everything here to PvP is a mistake. Most proclaiming science as okay are referring to PvP with a teamate or two Tac escort to provide the damage.
Everyone knows that to level up, compete for first place in fleet actions, or even No Win Scenario science captains in purely science vessels with only 6 weapon slots are at a huge disadvantage. To level up quicker fly an escort, the missions are all kill enemies. Fleet actions reward damage dealt. Gravity well may be useful in No Win Scenario, but put in on a Scimitar, because 8 weapons and a Commander Tac slot are better than 6 and a commander science slot.
For crowd control they are sub standard , We have so much DPS crowd control isnt needed
We have excellent tanks so healing the team is not needed if your in a proper tank
Sci ships on the Fed side are excellent its the Sci powers that are Bad and in no way equal Tac or
eng abilitys
Poor Sci powers make the Excellent Sci ships look bad
My Sci is in command of a fleet regent and is a excelent tank the team takes little to no damage and I soak it all up in any STF excluding the broken Hive Elite
Sci powers have been nerfed to balence PvP ,
and that has made those powers useless compared to tac and eng BOFF powers in PvE
Thats the problem as I see it
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
IMO I find sci captains more useful in space missions than an eng captain. Besides the ability to alter subsyst pwr lvls and some other goodies which I my self like, their healing capacity as a boff is weak compaired to sci heals (oxymoron here since you would think an engineer would have all the uber heals while sci has the other eng skills in trade).
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
my analogy with tacs was that sci are not designed to be the primary damage dealers, sci's are designed to heal/crowd control/debuff.
sci's do that job good.
tacs are designed to do max dps, they do that good.
and yes, i refer to pvp when i talk about sci's.
pve doesnt depend on player skill. you just point and click and shoot. thats it to 99% of pve.
Do you even Science Bro?
Engineer heals weak? Like Engineering team 3 healing 12,000+ hull every 30 seconds, Aux to Structural 3 healing 6,000+ every 15 seconds with a resistance buff, Extend Shields 3 the best way to keep a friend alive. Yes, Hazard Emitters 3 has the highest overall heal in a single ability, but...
Put an Engineer in an Odyssey with Hazard Emitters 3, Aux 2 Structural 3, Engineering Team 3, Transfer Shields 2 and Extend Shields 1. With 2 Captain self heals (Rotate Shield Fequency and Miracle Worker) the Engineer will have more heals and the best available to give to teammates. Maybe some of these can be switched around more effectively or a better ship, but just showing a quick example.
HE2 offers easy 12k hull repair which blows the others out by a long shot when needing a skill 3 set to match it, and sci team along with tss beat out eng epts by a long shot. Now don't get me wrong rsp is awesome, and miracle worker is ok for yourself only. I still say all subsystem power boosts, heals and resistances should be a eng job, while debuffs and buffs should goto sci leaving only the weapon speed altering to the tac. They IMO have a lot of the skills mixed up to much, but that's just MO.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I never mentioned RSP or EPS, I see you are talking about self heals then to include those. Science Team provides no shield resistances and TSS offers very little resistance compared with EPS. As a self healer that would change the desired BO powers a lot.
That's just it and eng is awesome ground wise, and can help support players yes thru heals and subsyst boosts. But in having to rely on them for boff's healing ability they are weak-mediocre. And eng can best heal himself or others as a captain well, but so to can a sci captain spamming sci heals and eng skills as well. Like I said IMO they have all the captain and boff skills mixed up so badly it isn't even funny.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Also, Cryptic loves Science ships so much they are giving them away!
Maybe they should put all the captain skills in a pool and let us choose the ones we want at each level.
I actually play as Science all the time. My son is Engineer and we both find Tactical to be boring, everything is too easy as a Tactical. You should have seen Science before the ground revamp. None of our abilities did any damage, lol, even the volcano one(the radiation was 5 damage, the volcano was 24 IIRC. And we all had much more HP so 24 was less than pathetic, players got hurt worse by stubbing their toe.). And Orbital Strike did only 50 damage or so, it was called Orbital Tickle by the players.
Although, on a side note, Science holds actually worked back then, so you could use Stasis Field, Sensor Scan, Nanites, Tachyon Harmonic, Radiation, then attack with weapons because they were held.
Science Players are there for these reasons, and in no particular order:
* If a longtime player, esp. from STO's release, they still have their SCI toon and refuse to give up on him/her. That is my case. My 2nd ever toon for STO (original is Fed TAC Vulcan) is a KDF Klingon SCI captain.
* Newer players that just like playing SCI, but have no idea on how much better the class and BOFF abilities used to be.
* PVP: SCI captains have some useful captain abilities for PVP. BUFF stripping via SubNuc, massive debuff and detection via Sensor Scan, for example.
In the end, which came in 2009 a few months after STO released, Science got no love because Tactical people complained about them. How dare Science be able to fight using only Science abilities! Only Tactical should do that with sticking to only Tactical abilities! Cryptic felt the same and nerfed in patch after patch the powerhouse Science abilities of long ago:
Tykien's Rift, Viral Matrix, Gravity Well, all abilities that had anything to do with Drains which is a whole damn lot, Photonic Shockwave, and of course Feedback Pulse. These were all nerfed within the first 5 months of the game. Nerfed HARD. And Cryptic has refused to do anything more positive with Science in general since.
There are a couple insulting things Cryptic has done though with SCI.
Feeback Pulse: TACs complained tremendously hard that Feedback Pulse was nasty. They couldn't unload with impunity on a SCI ship putting everything it had into FBP. Cryptic didn't like Science doing damage, because obviously the mantra of "Only Tac can do damage, Fk the rest of you" began to ran rampant (not as much as today though). So this began, FBP + SCI Capt BUFFs DEBUFFS + High Aux Power + High Particle Gen Skill = FAIL. However, if a TAC uses FBP now, you may be very astonished with the results :mad: For experimenting, I had my KDF TAC alien using the Vo'Quv. With TAC Captain BUFFs to include TAC BOFF abilities, FBP could kill an Alpha Striking PVPer outright if he does not read the target right.
Lastly, the new Subspace Integration Circuit comes to mind. Years after nerfing the hell out of Science, Cryptic decides to release this console which is a strong combination of a few Science abilities, and then some. It does a Grav Well like hold, it kills BOFF ability usage except ENG Team, just like SubNuc AND Viral Matrix. On top of that, it kills Perception as if you were hit by Vent Theta Radiation (a console). All this, from one console, from one click of a button, and it's actually effective and damaging, and sets up a target in a team environment. But the original SCI abilities have been nerfed hard years ago.
In short, long ago in STO, Science could rely on itself to do combat well, in the same way Tactical could do with their abilities and weapons, just done in a whole different style. But that is no longer the case since 2009.
Give all Captains a console that is more powerful than the pre-nerf Science = Insult
Then repeat the process with each new console so Escorts can do almost any Science trick with a console better than a Science Vessel with BO powers = Rediculous
Then allow Tactical Captains to buff Science BO powers but not allow Science Captains to = Absurd
Tactical Captains still complain about SNB = LoL
To make it even better, you can have zero skills in any Science, and that console is still effective.
Umm no they don't...Sci might have a niche build that works okay but most Sci abilities...PvE or PvP just aren't effective.
Gravity Well doesn't stop anything but the AI that doesn't use EPTE, Energy Siphon has little effect unless you take 3 and load yourself with lots of Flow Capacitors, Tachyon Beam is pointless and Charged Particle Burst is only good for decloaking in pvp, and Tyken's Rift...don't get me started.
Sci is so pooched and there has been nothing towards fixing it unlike Engineering.