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Federation Maximum Drain Build
iskandus
Member Posts: 1,062 Arc User
The relationship between Flow Capacitors and various drain abilities & resists have not been thoroughly studied nor tested in quite some time. Some of the most commonly used charts that compiled the various effects of skill points in various captain skills contain outdated information and results regarding Flow Capacitor skills. It is also unclear whether Science skills suffer from significant diminished returns as they go above 100, like hull damage resist and many other skills do. To tackle these issues, I am using a variation to the Pure Science build to test the effects of Flow Capacitors in both PvE and PvP.
To begin, here is the prototype : Flow Capacitors skill = 286 The 4 Flow Capacitor Consoles are Embassy Mk XII : 2 X Plasma Infused, 1 X Hull Repair, 1 X Shield Emitter, each providing +31.9 Flow Capacitors skill. It is possible for the FC skill to exceed 300 on this vessel when the Inspirational Leader trait proc, and we are going to see that Flow Capacitors skill does not suffer from diminished returns.
Skills & Abilities tested : Energy Siphon III (ES III) , Innate Ship Subsystem Targeting (SST), Plasomonic Leech (PL), Tetryon proc (Tet), Tachyon Beam II (Tach II), Tractor Beam shield drain (TB)
Here are the results, from 0 consoles used up to 4 consoles :
1) Flow Capacitors console used = 0 ; FC = 159
ES III = 38.8 SST = 43.1 PL = 2.6 Tet = 632.8 X 4 Tach II = 510 X 4 TB = 188.7 X 4
2) Flow Capacitors console used = 1 ; FC = 191
ES III = 43.6 SST = 46.9 PL = 2.9 Tet = 689.1 X 4 Tach II = 572.7 X 4 TB = 212 X 4
3) Flow Capacitors console used = 2 ; FC = 223
ES III = 48.4 SST = 50.7 PL = 3.2 Tet = 745.3 X 4 Tach II = 635.4 X 4 TB = 235.2 X 4
4) Flow Capacitors console used = 3 ; FC = 255
ES III = 53.2 SST = 54.5 PL = 3.5 Tet = 801.5 X 4 Tach II = 698.2 X 4 TB = 258.4 X 4
5) Flow Capacitors console used = 4 ; FC = 286
ES III = 58.0 SST = 58.4 PL = 3.9 Tet = 857.7 X 4 Tach II = 761 X 4 TB = 281.7 X 4
6) Flow Capacitors console used = 4 + Quantum Manipulation ; FC = 386
ES III = 73.0 SST = 70.4 PL = 4.9 Tet = 1034 X 4 Tach II = 957.8 X 4 TB = 354.5 X 4
As you can see, Flow Capacitors skill does not suffer any diminished returns. With Quantum Manipulation and Inspirational Leader trait proc X 3, it possible to have total Flow Capacitors skill exceeding 416%. :eek: Under this scenario, the combination of ES III + Subsystem Targeting + Plasmonic Leech can drain greater than 200 power per subsystem!!! No amount of Power Insulation can protect against that kind of massive drain. And this is achieved without the use of any Klingon cheats such as Aceton Assimilators or Siphon Drones.
In practice however, Quantum Manipulation can only be used once every 10 minutes and the Inspirational Leader trait is unpredictable. So we will stick with 5) Flow Capacitor Skill = 286% and see how that goes.
PvE Field Test Subject : Borg Tactical Cube boss in Infected Conduit (Elite) STF
View I : Tactical Cube Hull = 91%, Shields are almost all gone
Notice how the entire team approacheed the Tactical Cube from east, as you can see weapons fire focusing on the east side of the Borg. Yet, the only shield facing standing is its north side, even though the fight was early and the Tactical Cube still had over 91% of its hull intact. At this point, the Tactical Cube still carried quite a punch, as you can see, Everlast is trying to hang on.
View II : Tactical Cube Hull = 64%
The Tactical Cube is being drained down to a halt, losing all its fighting capabilities. Pretty much the entire Team's hull is at 100% and only 1 person out of 5 had shield damages, the other 4 including myself are just shooting at a disabled junk in space.
View III : Tactical cube Hull = 16%, Shields completely gone
The Borg has no shields at all and can't seem to regenerate any. All 5 teams members have full shields and intact hull but one who has very minor hull loss likely due to plasma dot. Never seen the Tactical Cube in Infected Conduit (Elite) so passive before. At this point, the Tactical Cube is near total disabled. Throughout the whole minute, the Tactical Cube was unable to take any shots at me even though I was parked at less than 5 KM from it and actively tractoring it.
In Kerrat, the regular Cubes have their shields drained completely on all sides within 10 seconds. The effect on Klingons were quite crippling but less obvious and require more testing since many of them have become master runners and hiders - run at first sign of trouble. Against Romulans, the drain is especially effective due to their lower power level from Singularity Core. The combination of ES III + SST drains 116 in Power. Romulans usually allocate most of their power to Weapons, leaving the average power level in Shields, Engines and Auxiliary around 50 - 60. Even assuming they have 9 points in Power Insulation, therefore 50% resist to drain, the ES III + SST combo drains about 50 - 60 in the targeted subsystem, say Auxiliary, which will knock out their battlecloaks. Once you factor in the effect of Plasomonic Leech, that's another -40 power to each of the subsystem, discounted at 50% = -20 power to each subsystem. In order not to be knock out, the Romulans will need to have at least 70-80 power in Shields, Engines or Auxiliary. Even when their shields have EPtS in effect, the added power from EPtS averaged around 20 or so, which means their shield power level should be about 75 +/-, their shields run great risk of being knocked out completely despite having EPtS.
There are ways to play around with this build and perhaps using a different Science vessel. I welcome any feedback, comments or questions.
To begin, here is the prototype : Flow Capacitors skill = 286 The 4 Flow Capacitor Consoles are Embassy Mk XII : 2 X Plasma Infused, 1 X Hull Repair, 1 X Shield Emitter, each providing +31.9 Flow Capacitors skill. It is possible for the FC skill to exceed 300 on this vessel when the Inspirational Leader trait proc, and we are going to see that Flow Capacitors skill does not suffer from diminished returns.
Skills & Abilities tested : Energy Siphon III (ES III) , Innate Ship Subsystem Targeting (SST), Plasomonic Leech (PL), Tetryon proc (Tet), Tachyon Beam II (Tach II), Tractor Beam shield drain (TB)
Here are the results, from 0 consoles used up to 4 consoles :
1) Flow Capacitors console used = 0 ; FC = 159
ES III = 38.8 SST = 43.1 PL = 2.6 Tet = 632.8 X 4 Tach II = 510 X 4 TB = 188.7 X 4
2) Flow Capacitors console used = 1 ; FC = 191
ES III = 43.6 SST = 46.9 PL = 2.9 Tet = 689.1 X 4 Tach II = 572.7 X 4 TB = 212 X 4
3) Flow Capacitors console used = 2 ; FC = 223
ES III = 48.4 SST = 50.7 PL = 3.2 Tet = 745.3 X 4 Tach II = 635.4 X 4 TB = 235.2 X 4
4) Flow Capacitors console used = 3 ; FC = 255
ES III = 53.2 SST = 54.5 PL = 3.5 Tet = 801.5 X 4 Tach II = 698.2 X 4 TB = 258.4 X 4
5) Flow Capacitors console used = 4 ; FC = 286
ES III = 58.0 SST = 58.4 PL = 3.9 Tet = 857.7 X 4 Tach II = 761 X 4 TB = 281.7 X 4
6) Flow Capacitors console used = 4 + Quantum Manipulation ; FC = 386
ES III = 73.0 SST = 70.4 PL = 4.9 Tet = 1034 X 4 Tach II = 957.8 X 4 TB = 354.5 X 4
As you can see, Flow Capacitors skill does not suffer any diminished returns. With Quantum Manipulation and Inspirational Leader trait proc X 3, it possible to have total Flow Capacitors skill exceeding 416%. :eek: Under this scenario, the combination of ES III + Subsystem Targeting + Plasmonic Leech can drain greater than 200 power per subsystem!!! No amount of Power Insulation can protect against that kind of massive drain. And this is achieved without the use of any Klingon cheats such as Aceton Assimilators or Siphon Drones.
In practice however, Quantum Manipulation can only be used once every 10 minutes and the Inspirational Leader trait is unpredictable. So we will stick with 5) Flow Capacitor Skill = 286% and see how that goes.
PvE Field Test Subject : Borg Tactical Cube boss in Infected Conduit (Elite) STF
View I : Tactical Cube Hull = 91%, Shields are almost all gone
Notice how the entire team approacheed the Tactical Cube from east, as you can see weapons fire focusing on the east side of the Borg. Yet, the only shield facing standing is its north side, even though the fight was early and the Tactical Cube still had over 91% of its hull intact. At this point, the Tactical Cube still carried quite a punch, as you can see, Everlast is trying to hang on.
View II : Tactical Cube Hull = 64%
The Tactical Cube is being drained down to a halt, losing all its fighting capabilities. Pretty much the entire Team's hull is at 100% and only 1 person out of 5 had shield damages, the other 4 including myself are just shooting at a disabled junk in space.
View III : Tactical cube Hull = 16%, Shields completely gone
The Borg has no shields at all and can't seem to regenerate any. All 5 teams members have full shields and intact hull but one who has very minor hull loss likely due to plasma dot. Never seen the Tactical Cube in Infected Conduit (Elite) so passive before. At this point, the Tactical Cube is near total disabled. Throughout the whole minute, the Tactical Cube was unable to take any shots at me even though I was parked at less than 5 KM from it and actively tractoring it.
In Kerrat, the regular Cubes have their shields drained completely on all sides within 10 seconds. The effect on Klingons were quite crippling but less obvious and require more testing since many of them have become master runners and hiders - run at first sign of trouble. Against Romulans, the drain is especially effective due to their lower power level from Singularity Core. The combination of ES III + SST drains 116 in Power. Romulans usually allocate most of their power to Weapons, leaving the average power level in Shields, Engines and Auxiliary around 50 - 60. Even assuming they have 9 points in Power Insulation, therefore 50% resist to drain, the ES III + SST combo drains about 50 - 60 in the targeted subsystem, say Auxiliary, which will knock out their battlecloaks. Once you factor in the effect of Plasomonic Leech, that's another -40 power to each of the subsystem, discounted at 50% = -20 power to each subsystem. In order not to be knock out, the Romulans will need to have at least 70-80 power in Shields, Engines or Auxiliary. Even when their shields have EPtS in effect, the added power from EPtS averaged around 20 or so, which means their shield power level should be about 75 +/-, their shields run great risk of being knocked out completely despite having EPtS.
There are ways to play around with this build and perhaps using a different Science vessel. I welcome any feedback, comments or questions.
Post edited by iskandus on
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Comments
The problem with this statement is that it assumes that people think about anything other than high dps and key survivability skills - and most people don't because frankly you don't need to for any of the content.
I came up against a guy in Ker'rat yesterday running a drain-heavy tetryon loadout, and the first encounter I got pummeled (and I've got a very durable build). After that I adjusted my strategy and it was more of a stand-off, but the guy was shield-stripping & power-draining me faster and harder than a frustrated middle-aged housewife tears the clothes off and bangs the hot young pool-boy.
I felt kind of violated..... :eek:
(Also, don't discount the Orion Interceptors on the KDF side. I've had a single interceptor wing stop Cure Space birds of prey in their tracks by themselves with just their weapon/engine drain beam. It's a lot more powerful than I think most people realize.)
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I am a visual guy and totally interested.
Your borg test is not particularly useful--I see the same kind of results with a set of phased polarons with far less skill points, and since we are unable to monitor enemy power levels then we have no way to see the practical difference if any. I assume there is one, but no way to measure so no way to know.
There are a couple of problems with it in PVP. First is that the 2.5% chance to drain requires you to hit the target, and sometimes they wont let you do it (eg, group focus-fire, spike alpha, staying in your aft quadrant, etc). Also, 100 points in Power Insulators will cut the drain rate in half, which means that if you run across somebody with 6 bars of PI and a couple of consoles, your drain build loses half of its potential, and more PI reduces the effect further. This is why a lot of people just dont mess with it. In practical terms its a very good thing for a sci to carry, but it has to be considered that you are only going to be cutting some of the enemy's power some of the time. Its good to have, but it should not be the primary attack mechanism.
That said, I'm sure meimito (i totally butchered her name, sorry), her sig is "Keira, the girl who kept through time," is the forum expert on drain builds. I'm sure she'll have much insight into this
Grats on the destroyer
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
One thing though, I believe the leech console is capped in how much power it can drain from a target due to a lot of whining when a full KDF team were using it and shutting down entire teams down. You can get more power but that seems to come out of thin air/space as the person only experiences -15(?) all subsystems while you can get +15 and upwards.
For PvP, when you factor in the drains from 5) you get (-58+-58.4+-15)/2 = -36.1 energy drain if the player has 9 points in insulators. 6 points give you a 42% resistance which is -42 energy drain all systems, which alone is not too shabby but with everyone essentially having a leech console and more ways to boost power in the forms of warp cores and singularity cores it is not as crippling as it really should be.
For shield drains again a decent PvPer will have at least 6 in insulators which sees a 42% reduction in the shield drains which gives 441x4 for tachyon beam 2 (if target didn't zip wildly out of firing arc) and 163.4 for tractor beam with doff for your heavy investment of 4 consoles, 9 points in flow caps and huge skill investment at the cost of most or all your firepower.
You might think I'm having a go at your build now and that's not what I want you to think, what I want to highlight is just how much it is resisted in PvP by putting 6-9 points in a rank 2 skill which is fairly cheap. I think the way resists work should be changed for science abilities as you just can't keep up with resists from skill points. Perhaps insulators should be like damage resists are now where skill points bring a moderate amount but more resistance is brought through consoles upto the 50% hardcap (so maybe 2 consoles needed to reach the hard cap) which makes the resists have a bigger disadvantage and won't penalise a very specialised and highly specced player.
Finally and this is most important so it gets it's own line below:
Thank you for doing this test and providing us with numbers and a clue about caps and how drains are currently working.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
Btw no charged particle burst?
I guess my original post was really not clear so let me clarify. In all calculations, I assume the target has a 50% resist to drain with 100 points into Power Insulation. Secondly, the Tetryon Proc was not used in any of the calculation for effect on target because it is far from a sure thing. The only abilities used to calculate the impact on target are those that happen with certainty, namely : Energy Siphon III, innate Subsystem Targeting, Plasmonic Leech None of these 3 abilities can be dodged although you could stop ES with HE temporarily.
Know that most ships in PvP have 50%+ resist to drain, then it stands to reason in order for the drains to be effective, the total drains on the subsystem will have to be 2X greater than the power level of that subsystem. Let's use a Fleet Mogai (Valdore) as an example and call it IRW Sela.
Here is IRW Sela's Power Levels :
Weapons : 125 / 100
Shields : 54 / 35
Engines : 62 / 30
Auxiliary : 55 / 35
IRW Sela also has 100 points into Power Insulation.
What happens when IRW Sela is being drained?
At Flow Capacitors = 286 :
1) Energy Siphon III : Stated drain = 58 Actual drain = 58 / 2 = 29 Results :
Weapons : 125 / 100 => 125 - 29 = 96 / 100
Shields : 54 / 35 => 54 - 29 = 25 / 100
Engines : 62 / 30 => 62 - 29 = 33 / 100
Auxiliary : 55 / 35 => 55 - 29 = 26 / 100
2) innate Subsystem Targeting : Stated drain = 58.4 Actual drain = 58.4 / 2 = 29 Results :
Weapons : 96 / 100 => 96 - 29 = 67 / 100
Shields : 25 / 35 => 25 - 29 = -4 / 100
Engines : 33 / 30 => 33 - 29 = 4 / 100
Auxiliary : 26 / 35 => 26 - 29 = -3 / 100
3) Plasmonic Leech : Stated drain = 3.9 X 10 Actual drain = 3.9 X 10 / 2 = 19 Results :
Weapons : 67 / 100 => 67 - 19 = 48 / 100
Shields : -4 / 35 => -4 - 19 = -23 / 100
Engines : 4 / 30 => 4 - 19 = -15 / 100
Auxiliary : -3 / 35 => -3 - 19 = -22 / 100
Note that Subsystem Targeting does not affect all 4 subsystems simultaneously, unlike ES III and Plasmonic Leech. They can however be bunched up and fire 2 back to back shots on two selected subsystems. The advantages of the above abilities are the sureness and speed of delivery. Unlike Klingon's Elite Interceptors, Siphon Drones and Aceton Assimilators, which can all be destroyed or otherwise avoided by moving away - none of the above can be dodged or "destroyed" and their effect is instantaneous. In this sense, this is vastly different from the Klingon's "drain carrier".
In this example, IRW Sela will likely see two of its key subsystems knocked offline, most likely Auxiliary and Shields. Here is what it may look like :
Starfleet Captain : "Activates ES III, Tactial, target their Shields and Auxiliary, fire!"
Tal Shiar Operations Officer : "Commander, our Shields are losing power. We are being drained!
Tal Shiar Commander : "Activate Hazard Emitters, Helm, Evasive Maneuvers and move us out of their firing range."
Tal Shiar Science Officer : "Commander, our Auxiliary system is offline! Hazard Emitters is inoperable, neither is our Battlecloak!"
Tal Shiar Helmsman : "Commander, our Engines are losing power rapidly as well. The enemy ship is closing in. We need to get away before we are totally dead in the water!"
Tal Shiar Commander : "Engineering, rerouting Emergency Power to Shields and bring the Shields back online!"
Starfleet Operations Officer : "Captain, the Tal Shiar Warbird's shields are back up, they are rerouting powers to their shields."
Starfleet Captain : "Get a tractor lock on them and activate tractor shield drain. Stand ready to fire Tachyon Beam on my mark"
Tal Shiar Operations Officer : "Commander, our Shields lost all power again. The Starfleet vessel is firing somekind of Plasmonic drain with their super charged Tetryon weapons, EPtS was unable to compensate!"
Tal Shiar Commander : "@#$^%&"
The bottom line is the drain is so great that even EPtS I can't compensate for the negative power loss resulting from the Triple combination of ES III + SST + PL despite having 100 points in Power Insulation. Most Romulan vessels do not carry EPtA given that EptE, EptW and EptS are overwhelmingly more popular, therefore, the Auxiliary system is always going to be the most vulnerable system on a Romulan Warbird, without it, it can't cloak nor cleanse. What about "Auxiliary Battery"? A smart a$$ cadet would definitely ask this question. The answer : Auxiliary Battery has a CD of 2 minutes and generally last only 10 seconds. All of the above power lasts far greater than 10 seconds and recycle much more rapidly as well. ES III can be fired back to back with merely 6 - 10 seconds of separation after the first one expires. At best, you can save your behind the 1st time but the 2nd time, you battery will be in CD and nothing to repair the disabled Auxiliary system.
Meanwhile, the attacking ship is capable of sustaining a constant DPS of 17K+ for 30 seconds, how long is this Valdore going to last under that kind of firepower without Shields and Heals?
Thanks for your comment, however, polarizd disruptor doesn't work with this build. Note that even without any FC console installed, the ship already has FC = 159 due to a very careful mix & selection of gear. The Tetryon based weapon is a necessity in order to maximize Flow Capacitor skill. In addition, the Polarized series of weapons have only 2 modifiers as opposed to Adv. Fleet Tetryon which have 4 modifiers, including 2 X Acc each.
Generally speaking, any of those specialized hybrid weapons is a bad idea having two proc modifiers mean much of their punch depends on chance. Note that in my calculations, I completely ignore the Tetryon proc as though it doesn't exist. The weapon also comes with a 5% plasma proc due to having 2 X Plasma Infuse Embassy Sci consoles, which I also ignore in my calculations. As it stands, the weapons of this prototype are really "Plasma Infused Tetryon". While that's nice to have, they are secondary at best.
I didn't say anything about Tetryon. The 2.5% chance applies to all energy weapon procs, including Polaron. You get pretty good chance of applying it in PVE since targets are slow and generally stupid but it is much less of a sure thing in PVP when the target is decloaking behind your ship, and you have a small window for your rear turrers to proc.
:rolleyes:
Let me highlight it for you so that you can't miss them again - it's there in plain sights. Now I wonder if you needed glasses.
There is nothing to indicate that your data shows any PI.
1) Jem'Hadar deflector just to add even more to the flow caps.
2) 2 piece omega set - Since it seems Tetryon Glider is better than the tetryon proc and is enhanced by flow capacitors. Switch over to polaron weapons.
3) Doff assignment crit = +25 more (You can accumulate crits of the same type. Deadly)
4) Quantum Singularity Manipulation = +100 for 8 seconds
5) I prefer the Sci Vesta
And like you said, inspirational leader adds 10-30, although getting x3 at least for me is extremely rare.
And they say sci captains suck. Well, they sure do, power that is.
Are you just obstinate or are just clueless as to how to use those data? The data in post #1 are my raw data, aka. what shows up on my tooltip. Any smart & intelligent person can take those raw numbers and apply any resistance assumptions they see fit. I just use a straight 50% resist, the target can in fact have more or less than 50% resistance, it's impossible to predict with certainty.
Clearly, this discussion is beyond your comprehension, these shall be my last words with you on this.
Easy man,
And I am having issues with how tetryon weapons improve your build over polaron. Polaron will drain all 4 subsystems, continuing to be useful for when the shields go down. I understand this is more emphasis on consistent drain effects but polaron is the more ideal weapon type.
Wasn't there a dev post that states plasmonic leech is capped off at -15 drain? The +X has a "skies the limit" mechanic, but could've sworn the drain was nerfed
You did mention the power insulator query in the original post but there wasn't mention as to the data being fired upon a target with said skill. Just wasn't clear and was left to assumptions that you could or couldn't be firing on a target with PI
Love the data, I still think the meimito needs to weigh in
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Nope, no limit. Stacks 8 times and enhanced by flow capacitors. Now if they capped off each individual proc then 15*8=120 which is pretty much max power anyway.
That's possible, if so, I am not aware of this information. Maybe someone else can confirm with certainty. In any event, the Plasmonic Leech only effect -19 after resist, so +/- 4 is not going to make a significant difference.
I believe you made some math errors in your calculation. Also, if there is any hard cap on how much the PL can drain, the -15 is likely a maximum number, therefore, you should not divide -15 by 2 again given it already came down from -40, doing so you would account for the resist twice. While we wait for confirmation on the mechanism of Plasmonic Leech, let's assume there is a hard cap on PL at 15, then the adjusted equation should be written as follows :
(-58 - 58.4) / 2 + (-15) = -73.2 of Energy Drain per subsystem
Against Klingons, this will likely be insufficient to cripple their Shields or Engines due to EPtS and EPtE. Still, they would be significantly slowed, shields would stop to regenerate when power < 25 and become very fragile.
Against Romulans, all except the Weapons subsystem is at risk of being knock out.
First, let me address Tachyon Beam and Tractor Beam. Those are supportive skills, not the primary drain weapons. Tachyon Beam is a rapidly recycling ability, with a CD of merely 30 seconds, which can be reduced to 15 via A2B and/or Photonic Officer. In case you didn't know, Tachyon Beam now has a firing arc of 135 degree = 3 times wider than that of a DHC and all its 10 pulses can be delivered in 4 seconds. In other words, one only need to maintain the 135 degree arc for 4 seconds for it to take full effect - piece of cake for most Science vessels. Both Tractor and Tachyon has cap of 10 pulses, so let's use your post-resist numbers and see what happens when both fire together : 441 + 163 = -614 per shield facing X 10
In other words, despite decent shield drain resistance, each facing of the target shield will lose 6140 shield strength in seconds when Tachyon Beam II and Tractor Beam II work together. Given that most Escorts have about 9000 - 10000 shields per facing when using Elite Fleet Shields, we are talking about between 60 ~ 70% of their total shields in one pass. To add insults to injury, this renders Tactical Team almost useless. TT is very ineffective when all shields facings are under assault. And if there is a big hole somewhere, it also greatly limits how much TT can reroute to repair that hole. Can't think of a better skill to make Escorts run for cover faster when their TT doesn't work.
As for the comment that this cost the ship most of its firepower. I am totally
Not at all, I welcome constructive feedback and comments, just make sure you don't make math errors in your calculations because as you can see, the math errors resulted in drastically different outcomes.
I believe Science skills in general can benefit from a boost. Though given what's trending now, it is more likely they will tone down Escort's burst damage, which is an acceptable outcome as well.
You are very welcome.
sigh...hence, I took the time to acknowledge & clarify in post #13 :
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12173431&postcount=13
Look, I welcome all feedback, comments and suggestions because I am here to discuss but please don't make me waste my time, I am not interested in obstination.
I realize I am taking a great risk of publishing my studies and finding and sharing my builds. The intention is and has always been to help fellow Starfleet to improve builds, hence this is made specifically at Federation Shipyards and no where else. My concern is not how this may affect the Exchange although someone told me in another thread I started cause a 400% price spike in a certain purple doff - not my intention, I have no control over it. What I am apprehensive about is all the Klingons & Kromulans lurking around here, wish there is a way to stop them from lurking.
I am aware of that, by roughly +8 in FC compared to the Adapted MACO Deflector. That said, the rest of the set and the other powers of the deflector do not fit a Science vessel very well. Everything considered, it is best to forego the +8 in FC to have a much better balanced ship.
The Tetryon Glider option has been considered, the problem is the Omega Deflector is much inferior to the Adapted MACO Deflector for a Science ship. The latter is by far the best deflector for a Science vessel. Omega Deflector has a lot of "wasted / useless" skills, for example +26 Starship Sensors, which is useless against Romulan Cloaks. Omega Engine is an acceptable alternative to Elite Fleet Hyper-Engines, the problem really is on the Deflector. Replacing the Shield is a non-starter. Polaron Weapons lose the Nukara 2 piece Tetryon bonus, the Refracting Tetryon DBB and -17 in FC skill, so no, your overall drain will drop by a lot as a result.
True, but to be conservative, I ignore those assignment bonus.
Yes, it was noted as the option 6) in post #1
I do not like any of the Vesta, slow & fragile (less hull and shields). Plus, you are forced to have Tactical stations on a Vesta, unlike the Wells and that's a major downside. You either go all Sci or fly an Escort with lots of Tact. The in-betweens are good at nothing.
Wiki says 8 stacks, but in my own testing, it shows it stacks up to 10 times. I will ask a fleet mate to test it with me and see what kind of numbers he is getting on his side.
Do tell o.O
And from a PvP standpoint, I just wonder how effective the role of a Sci drainer/holder is in a team setting. And if the contribution made to the team is worth it, as opposed to a Sci healer.
That's an excellent point. To clarify, no firepower has been given up vs. the Pure Science build. If anything, firepower has slightly increased due to the Plasma Infused aspect of all energy weapons. However, by removing the 4 Field Generator Mk XII (purple), I have to admit, I was apprehensive going into Kerrat to do the testing. To lose so much shielding that this prototype is dependent on is...unsettling.
What I can say though is this drain build is a very effective disabler. While some people have excellent power insulation, you'd be surprised how many people still don't get it. Even in the Shipyard forum, I see so many people with 0 points into Power Insulation. Incredible as it may seem, this is not a rare occurrence. But even those who do have power insulation, this build is designed to break through those power insulation via 300%-400% Flow Capacitors, especially as an anti-Kromulan Science vessel as it can quickly disable a Kromulan's Auxiliary system, knocking out their Battlecloak. A Romulan who is out of Battlecloak will start to panic and become easy picking.
In a team setting, the drain build will be excellent at tackling two things :
1) Main attacking Escort(s)
or
2) Take the Healer out of commission
Both SST and PL cannot be "healed" or "cured" by another teammate passing you a heal. For Escorts, to be sucked dry will make them very slow and little power to fire all those heavy weapons. Worst, no amount of APO will get them moving if their engines have no power. Tractor and Tachyon Beam being used as anti-Tactical Team tools will produce a similar effect to Borg Shield Neutralizer. But without speed and shields, the Escorts can't focus on attacking, instead, have to constantly try to run for his life. The Science vessel will be dependent on FBP to keep enemies fires at bay and of course, colleague support.
Another use is to tackle the healer, like a Recluse Carrier. Recluse is highly dependent on Aux to function and to pass out its heals. Focusing on its shields and aux will strip away its shields and abilities to heal. The strategy is to turn your Sci ship into one that can fire pseudo-Borg Shield Neutralizer. 99.9% of ships can't survive for more than 10 seconds without shields. Once the healer is destroyed, all those Escorts will be running around without support.
Frankly, not seeing any 'hard numbers.' I see extrapolations, but nothing solid. Could be totally wrong (still kinda new to ACT), but I don't think power drain can currently be parsed.
It has furthermore always been my understanding that there's little to be gained from having Flow Caps >200.
I'd love to see actual parsed data on this, please.
Math has never been my strong-suit; but where are you getting 300%-400% Flow Caps from!? Assuming one starts at 100, and add to that maybe 30-40 from Deflectors and such, then adding 5x Embassy Flow Caps consoles (on a Vesta, for instance) gets you a little over 300, maybe. I don't see 400, though.