I don't care about the damage either. Good chunk of us use it as CC to buy some time; damage is nice, but not important.
Can someone that isn't focused on uber damage test if the thing actually pulls the enemy in? Large ships like Battle Cruisers and NOT little ships like Frigates. Thank you kindly.
I love science. But am I alone in not realy caring about how much damage gravity well does? I don't fly science to do damage and I don't use gravity well for it, I also don't care to use gravity well for damage.
What I want from gravity well is pull and lots of it. I want a **** tun of pull and I would be very happy to sacrifice damage entirely to get it. I want a Well that sucks up enemies over a space of 10k wether they have EP2E or not. I don't expect to get it. I think it would be horribly OP, but I still want it.
What I want to know is weather we can get the pull of a grav well to have any noticeable effect on people in pvp with these changes and weather I can increase its range enough to grab more enemies in PVE.
Nothing fills me with love for science more then a nice big group of enemies forced into a confined space with a couple of their friends who are about to suffer a catastrophic warp core failure.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure players will still be able to escape the GW the same easy way they do now. At least with the extra DPS, it would have hurt the few moment they were in there.
Here are her Gravity Well III stats based on the Tooltip:
Holodeck GWIII:
-0.57 Repel
1,156.9 Kinetic Damage per second (Ignores Shields) (increases closer to center)
Tribble GWIII:
-0.24 Repel
899.5 Kinetic Damage per second (Ignores Shields) (increases closer to center)
On both Tribble and Holodeck, when I removed/added-back consoles (I have 1xGravG and 2xPartG) and/or adujusted Aux power up/down the damage numbers changed accordingly, but Repel stayed the same.
It appears in both cases that either the Tooltip is broken and/or the supporting stats have no affect on Repel.
In either case (assuming this part of the Tooltip is functional), the build on Tribble is a NERF to my GWIII's damage.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
In either case (assuming this part of the Tooltip is functional), the build on Tribble is a NERF to my GWIII's damage.
I am guessing they fixed the ability on tribble but not the tool tip. Best way to test this would be to take a 5 science console slot ship into a dual with a willing test subject and ask them to report on the effect upon them when you do and do not use the consoles.
No need to repeat the test on holodeck. Doesn't matter how high your graviton generators skill is there is no noticeable effect on a player. So if its noticeable on tribble its better.
Best way to test would be to use GW on a ship with absolutely no kinetic damage protection (skill or console wise). Sucks they haven't put the changes up on Redshirt. Hope this doesn't make it to Holodeck on 9/26 without proper testing.
It's worth mentioning that the tooltip and what you actually get are completely different. I have yet to test on holodeck as there's too many numpties on holodeck in the area I do tests. All in all I could get 4k per tick from GW3 stacking various things on my sci/sci.
When I can compare GW3 tribble to my holodeck performance I can say whether it's a nerf or a buff but atm I'm inclined to say it's a buff, just not quite the buff some people wanted.
And good news, buffing a GW1 as much as you can in a tacscort should not result in higher damage per tick than a science ship that knows what they're doing. Will need to transfer over my tactical with a vesta (I Know ) and GW1/2/3 to really see how far I can push it but science and tactical captains look like they will get more or less the same out of it. Poor engies are left out.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
When I can compare GW3 tribble to my holodeck performance I can say whether it's a nerf or a buff but atm I'm inclined to say it's a buff, just not quite the buff some people wanted.
Would you be able to compare the DPS shown in Holodeck (since the actual DPS is junk there) for fully speced GW3 to the DPS you actually get in Tribble? I think the nerf comment comes from the fact they pulled back the DPS on the high end because it failed the now infamous 5 frigate test. Better yet, since GW1 wasn't bugged, compare the DPS in both under the same circumstances at the high end.
This has certainly been an eye opener of a thread.
For years I played only tac but recently I've placed heavy investment into sci. I'll admit I'm a bit of a pup and have not begun to truely reach the dedicated heights some of these players have been posting in regards to skill/console and additional augments through doffs.
I will say that I'm vastly underwhelmed. I have faced incredible sci opponents in PVP which inspired me to invest in my 2 sci captains and to that effect I aspired higher but I feel the all too common pain being shared in this thread.
I've reached incredible DPS standards on my tac and although I felt the lack of DPS in a SCI build, I'm finding little that compensates for its gross lacking in most other fields. To be honest it's rather disconcerting.
I was about to place my sci on a back burner and hope that a live update might invigorate my wanton efforts again until I read this thread.
I'll say this though, if I am to sacrifice DPS I expect returns in SCI skills that are meaningfully entertaining at least. This is coming from someone who can put down a tac cube by himself in a tier III tactical escort retrofit WITH tanking survivability sufficient to get the job done.
My SCI toon for all of my creative augmenting would have to run away from said cube numerous times while incessantly trying to lick shielding, drain its power AND popping GWIII.
...AND coming from said tac captain...
It isn't fair for SCI captains to be swept so far under the rug. I've never even touched or created ENGI so I can only imagine the horror.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
This has certainly been an eye opener of a thread.
For years I played only tac but recently I've placed heavy investment into sci. I'll admit I'm a bit of a pup and have not begun to truely reach the dedicated heights some of these players have been posting in regards to skill/console and additional augments through doffs.
I will say that I'm vastly underwhelmed. I have faced incredible sci opponents in PVP which inspired me to invest in my 2 sci captains and to that effect I aspired higher but I feel the all too common pain being shared in this thread.
I've reached incredible DPS standards on my tac and although I felt the lack of DPS in a SCI build, I'm finding little that compensates for its gross lacking in most other fields. To be honest it's rather disconcerting.
I was about to place my sci on a back burner and hope that a live update might invigorate my wanton efforts again until I read this thread.
I'll say this though, if I am to sacrifice DPS I expect returns in SCI skills that are meaningfully entertaining at least. This is coming from someone who can put down a tac cube by himself in a tier III tactical escort retrofit WITH tanking survivability sufficient to get the job done.
My SCI toon for all of my creative augmenting would have to run away from said cube numerous times while incessantly trying to lick shielding, drain its power AND popping GWIII.
...AND coming from said tac captain...
It isn't fair for SCI captains to be swept so far under the rug. I've never even touched or created ENGI so I can only imagine the horror.
I think it's worth mentioning that if you want CC on your escorts you can either use something like the Fleet Advanced Escort (FAE), mobius or some other concoction. If you don't fancy giving up the Lt.Commander tactical you can always fit a chronitron torp with torp spread. Too much effort?
Well we have just the consoles for you! Gravitron pulse, theta radiation and if you get in a hairy spot we even have scrambl...I mean Antimatter Spread.
You want MES, PSW and a way to enhance stealth sight on the fly without investment or to give up much? Well we got those consoles too, have at them with Photonic Displacement, *New and improved!* Nadeon detonater and Tachyon detection field!
We even made the bridge officer versions underperform so you don't feel like you're not the best thing in the universe. EVER!
Alright *switches sarcasm off* it's slightly exaggerated but not by much. When you do compare what an escort gives up for that CC you see that it's an even trade off. So what do I get for switching from my commander and Lt.Comm tactical to science?
I can get a GW that will do 4k per tick if I buff it...but my CSV from one cannon does more with the same buffing than that over the duration of the GW and then some as it has higher uptime. Ah but it's about the CC. True enough but CC is irrelevant when you can either travel as fast as the enemies, hunt them down and kill them faster.
What about PSW? That can do respectable damage to hull. Yes it can...but er, how are you to get TO the hull first? You need to use at least 2 drains to get to the hull of even the lowliest of probes in KASE. CPB3 does 2600 shield damage in an AoE which is also not enough. I could pew pew them with my energy weapons on 70 power because I keep full aux most of the time. Then why not just start pumping energy weapons and finish it off with a torp as a torp spread does more damage than a PSW. Also doesn't scatter them. What's that a 4s disable? Sure, nice, but if you can't capitalise on that 4s it might as well not exist.
Just about the only thing doing well at the moment is energy syphon. Everything else is underperforming when you compare it to tactical abilities and engineering. (I would argue some of their more offensive abilities need a look at too.)
Considering the ludicrously high levels you can buff damage in this game isn't it time science had the collar removed and be allowed to rip ships in two if they're dumb enough to stay in a GW or not pack the 1001 counters to every sci ability we have?
Or maybe we should be reigning in the damage buffs. I'm not even talking about sci abilities either, look at EWP, DEM and did you know aceton beam is supposed to punish people for using energy weapons when affected by it? No? Well it's supposed to. Every single one of these performs better with 1 specific captain. Another captain can buff some of it (but only if the damage is done to hull and bypasses shield) and another can...er....tank something that can't fight back.
Oh I went on for a bit there. I'll be seeing how my tactical does with the GW3.
Yeah PSW is something I tried to capitalize on at first. I figured it'd clear out spam and hopefully have an impact to disable the larger ships but that flat faced quick as a build. I've had success triggering it in proximity and watching all the fun aftershocks occur but I was gimping myself because its virtually useless.
Then I saw one of the prior comments that said something like go all out sci so I dropped all my tac slots spare the only console that remained with two and went tac team and csv. I've tried some variations but you're right. ES was really the only thing that put a pep in my build's step. I rather enjoy seeing all my power levels skyrocket and that was on ES II so now I'm thinking ES III, ES II on opposing stations, TB II/1 as main an throwing nothing but flow capacitor into those console layouts and see if I can't augment a better result.
Painful woes of trial and error with gimped skills is just not fun
Oh.. And I'd like to add that shield repair units are bugged. They do not behave correctly at all. My danube runabouts can score 5 stars of service 200% faster and don't melt like snow balls in the heat of battle. Their benefits are extremely negligible at best and even when they do manage to make it to a fifth star they barely have any impact on shield health. Please fix these too @ dev.
Yeah PSW is something I tried to capitalize on at first. I figured it'd clear out spam and hopefully have an impact to disable the larger ships but that flat faced quick as a build. I've had success triggering it in proximity and watching all the fun aftershocks occur but I was gimping myself because its virtually useless.
Then I saw one of the prior comments that said something like go all out sci so I dropped all my tac slots spare the only console that remained with two and went tac team and csv. I've tried some variations but you're right. ES was really the only thing that put a pep in my build's step. I rather enjoy seeing all my power levels skyrocket and that was on ES II so now I'm thinking ES III, ES II on opposing stations, TB II/1 as main an throwing nothing but flow capacitor into those console layouts and see if I can't augment a better result.
Painful woes of trial and error with gimped skills is just not fun
Oh.. And I'd like to add that shield repair units are bugged. They do not behave correctly at all. My danube runabouts can score 5 stars of service 200% faster and don't melt like snow balls in the heat of battle. Their benefits are extremely negligible at best and even when they do manage to make it to a fifth star they barely have any impact on shield health. Please fix these too @ dev.
ESII AND ESIII are great. If GW's fix is a semi nerf, I'll stick with Tyken's Rift which I've read from some people that have used it in Tribble that it's deadly.
ESII AND ESIII are great. If GW's fix is a semi nerf, I'll stick with Tyken's Rift which I've read from some people that have used it in Tribble that it's deadly.
I'm seeing via proxy that the high end results are coming out negligible. TR does sound rather exciting though.
I'm sure it bugs you too but one thing I was really hoping for was gearing my ship with some versatility. I don't want to exactly over spec something just to make it effective. So perhaps TR will be nice to use.
Then again I don't want a PVP session filled with TR like curtains in a movie theatre.
Which is why I would recommend we do away with current science consoles and have performance based purely on hard skill points invested.
Then replace the current ones that instead increase duration of all science abilities by X% or magnitude of effect by X% or speeds up it's cooldown by X%.
This way you can either stack for higher power but longer CD and shorter duration (better for burst), longer duration (better for CC) or with higher uptime on varied abilities (more variety).
Well to be honest that's not a great idea but the current system where 1 ability is buffed by 2 skills and you really need to pump one of them to get more out of it is rediculous. Instead of getting varied science boats which can handle a number of situations we're getting one dimensional ships that always make us ask:
"Am I really helping to get this mission completed faster or am I holding them back by not being in an escort/A2B cruiser?"
Oh and I would stop any + %dmg from buffing science abilities. Only minus damage resistance would buff them, the idea being to normalize the performance of all captains in science ships and make sure escorts with a Lt'comm science could not outperform science ships at science.
It would certainly be nice to have some more options to work around the science ability cool downs.
Personally I would quite like it if certain single target science abilities worked in a similar way to attack pattern beta.
Right now if I use my tractor beam on a ship that is immediately destroyed that's a waist of a tractor beam until the ability recharges. However if the tractor beam worked like APB then when I switched to a new target (provided it was within 5km or came into 5km while within the duration of the ability) Hurrah, the new target has a tractor beam on it.
Also while we are on the subject of science ability cool downs. I believe giving science ships two deflector dishes was mentioned as a possible future update. Well elite fleet deflectors give a 10% reduction. I am hoping that will stack.
It gives a 10% speeding up of cooldowns, not a reduction of 10%.
In mimeys excellent PO thread he shows how it's calculated which is CD/(1 + cooldown reducion decimal)
So that 10% on a 100s CD is 100/1.1 = 90.9s not bang on 90s. It's not so bad with smaller numbers but as your reductions increase you get less back.
2 deflectors on a 100s CD would speed it up to 83.3s CD.
Why is this important? Well it wouldn't be if technicians didn't work in the opposite way. They just lump 30% of the original CD straight off what is left on the CD on each use. So on a 100s ability, first activation of A2B would take it down to 70s. 10s later you activate it again and it takes it down from 60s to 30s.
If technicians could be stacked to 100% CD reduction your abilities would be ready straight away as soon as you hit A2B. With PO and all other passives if you stacked it to 100% you would get 100/(1+1) = 50s. Only halving of the cooldown.
Also with a 2nd deflector unless it's a special deflector with special mods etc then I don't think it's going to add much to mix up science ships enough to make them worth slotting different abilities that will synergise well. It will at most be able to add +24 to 3 skills (assuming you use abilities affected by all of those skills) which might help a bit but is not going to make a sci be more useful in PvE. It would arguably be nice for PvP but then again will +24 points be that noticable?
I mean when I first thought of piloting a science ship I thought: I'll use GW1 to bundle enemies up, sensor scan to debuff damage resistance, fly in with CPB2 to drain their shields, use a PSW3 to do hull damage and then drop some mines with DPB2 in the middle to help kill anything left as a few beams take potshots at the enemy.
What did I get? Well I'm too embarrassed to say how pathetic it was but needless to say to have 1 of those abilities perform how I would have needed it to I would need 4-5 specific science consoles. Unfortunately I needed all that multiplied by 4 and unfortunately we haven't got a 20 science console ship yet.
Which is why I would recommend we do away with current science consoles and have performance based purely on hard skill points invested.
Then replace the current ones that instead increase duration of all science abilities by X% or magnitude of effect by X% or speeds up it's cooldown by X%.
This way you can either stack for higher power but longer CD and shorter duration (better for burst), longer duration (better for CC) or with higher uptime on varied abilities (more variety).
Well to be honest that's not a great idea but the current system where 1 ability is buffed by 2 skills and you really need to pump one of them to get more out of it is rediculous. Instead of getting varied science boats which can handle a number of situations we're getting one dimensional ships that always make us ask:
"Am I really helping to get this mission completed faster or am I holding them back by not being in an escort/A2B cruiser?"
Oh and I would stop any + %dmg from buffing science abilities. Only minus damage resistance would buff them, the idea being to normalize the performance of all captains in science ships and make sure escorts with a Lt'comm science could not outperform science ships at science.
I like this ^^^^^.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
I just hopped on tribble to test the current implementation of gravity well. Specifically I was interested in the pull. I already posted my findings in the tribble feedback thread but those of you monitoring this one may be interested as well.
For this test I went to the Japori system. (waves of nausican ships warp in to fight you and some new romulans.) I took my wells as it helps me reuse the ability a little more often. This helped me compare gravity wells with more or less graviton generator skill in quicker succession and form a more accurate assessment.
First I would like to say that the pull of a gravity well III is certainly much better on tribble then holodeck. I am very happy to see that gravity wells will be useful again. I was also very happy with how the pull scaled with aux power so that it wasn't completely useless at lower levels but noticeably better when aux was high.
However I am very disappointed in the effect of the graviton generators skill. For my testing I used 4 very rare mk XII graviton generator consoles. Without those I had 110 graviton generator skill, with them I had 230.
If one sacrifices 4 console slots on consoles that represent the largest EC investment in a skill it is not unreasonable to expect a performance difference with and without that is noticeable.
Sadly I could not tell the difference between the pull of the Gravity Wells with or without these consoles. So I used the wife test. The wife test is very scientific. The wife is a good arbiter because she knows nothing about graviton generators, gravity wells or STO and has no investment in it one way or the other.
I showed my wife the effect of 6 gravity wells on 6 groups of enemies. (that was as many as I could hold her attention for) And switched the consoles so that 3 times I was using them and 3 times I was not. Between each demonstration I had the wife look away while I changed or pretended to change the consoles.
Each time I asked my wife if she thought the pull of the gravity well was greater, smaller or about the same. Every time her answer was about the same.
Wife test result: Total graviton generator Failure.
If science ships could use 2 deflectors it would also mean 2 set bonus possibilities. On the flip side, this feature added to the Wells ship would make it the ultimate tac ship.
If science ships could use 2 deflectors it would also mean 2 set bonus possibilities. On the flip side, this feature added to the Wells ship would make it the ultimate tac ship.
Heh, the Wells as the ultimate Tactical ship? You do know that a deflector only provides a few minor boosts to science skills, it would have hardly any impact on Tactical officers.
Heh, the Wells as the ultimate Tactical ship? You do know that a deflector only provides a few minor boosts to science skills, it would have hardly any impact on Tactical officers.
Think about this one. Most gear sets have bonuses with 2 pieces. So if you can slot two delfectors you could have two of the following by mixing and matching shields and engines. Magnetoplasma Relays
Passive
+5% Power Recharge Speed
+15.2 Starship Power Insulators Tactical Readiness
Passive
+25% Bonus to Torpedo Damage
+7 Auxiliary Power Setting
Slowly returns missing crew to disable status (works during combat)
+7 crew recovery rate
+70% resistance to crewman loss Dominion Synergy
Passive
+13.1% Polaron Damage
+26.2 Starship Power Insulators Tetryon Glider
ENHANCEMENT
Adds -1.2 Shield Drain to all energy weapon attacks
Affected by: Starship Flow Capacitors Superconducting Phase Channels
Passive
+30.5 Transphasic Projectile Damage
+30.5 Starship Electro-Plasma System Prototype Plasma Projectile
Passive
+17.5 Starship Particle Generator
Enchances your High Yield Plasma torpedos:
Increased Flight Speed
Increased Defense
yeah having 2 deflectors would be nice on a science ship and having 2 set bonuses would be neat. I'm just wondering if two elite fleet deflectors would stack. That would be a lot of cool down reduction on science skills. So, two elite fleet deflectors and 2 piece maco would be a constant 25% reduction of all science (and science captain) powers. That would be really powerful.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Comments
Can someone that isn't focused on uber damage test if the thing actually pulls the enemy in? Large ships like Battle Cruisers and NOT little ships like Frigates. Thank you kindly.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure players will still be able to escape the GW the same easy way they do now. At least with the extra DPS, it would have hurt the few moment they were in there.
Starship Particle Generator: 186
Aux: 92
Here are her Gravity Well III stats based on the Tooltip:
-0.57 Repel
1,156.9 Kinetic Damage per second (Ignores Shields) (increases closer to center)
Tribble GWIII:
-0.24 Repel
899.5 Kinetic Damage per second (Ignores Shields) (increases closer to center)
On both Tribble and Holodeck, when I removed/added-back consoles (I have 1xGravG and 2xPartG) and/or adujusted Aux power up/down the damage numbers changed accordingly, but Repel stayed the same.
It appears in both cases that either the Tooltip is broken and/or the supporting stats have no affect on Repel.
In either case (assuming this part of the Tooltip is functional), the build on Tribble is a NERF to my GWIII's damage.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
I am guessing they fixed the ability on tribble but not the tool tip. Best way to test this would be to take a 5 science console slot ship into a dual with a willing test subject and ask them to report on the effect upon them when you do and do not use the consoles.
No need to repeat the test on holodeck. Doesn't matter how high your graviton generators skill is there is no noticeable effect on a player. So if its noticeable on tribble its better.
When I can compare GW3 tribble to my holodeck performance I can say whether it's a nerf or a buff but atm I'm inclined to say it's a buff, just not quite the buff some people wanted.
And good news, buffing a GW1 as much as you can in a tacscort should not result in higher damage per tick than a science ship that knows what they're doing. Will need to transfer over my tactical with a vesta (I Know
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.
Engies are always left out. It's a fact of the game.
Would you be able to compare the DPS shown in Holodeck (since the actual DPS is junk there) for fully speced GW3 to the DPS you actually get in Tribble? I think the nerf comment comes from the fact they pulled back the DPS on the high end because it failed the now infamous 5 frigate test. Better yet, since GW1 wasn't bugged, compare the DPS in both under the same circumstances at the high end.
They're the only class with future C4s... :P
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Support the "Armored Unicorn" vehicle initiative today!
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For years I played only tac but recently I've placed heavy investment into sci. I'll admit I'm a bit of a pup and have not begun to truely reach the dedicated heights some of these players have been posting in regards to skill/console and additional augments through doffs.
I will say that I'm vastly underwhelmed. I have faced incredible sci opponents in PVP which inspired me to invest in my 2 sci captains and to that effect I aspired higher but I feel the all too common pain being shared in this thread.
I've reached incredible DPS standards on my tac and although I felt the lack of DPS in a SCI build, I'm finding little that compensates for its gross lacking in most other fields. To be honest it's rather disconcerting.
I was about to place my sci on a back burner and hope that a live update might invigorate my wanton efforts again until I read this thread.
I'll say this though, if I am to sacrifice DPS I expect returns in SCI skills that are meaningfully entertaining at least. This is coming from someone who can put down a tac cube by himself in a tier III tactical escort retrofit WITH tanking survivability sufficient to get the job done.
My SCI toon for all of my creative augmenting would have to run away from said cube numerous times while incessantly trying to lick shielding, drain its power AND popping GWIII.
...AND coming from said tac captain...
It isn't fair for SCI captains to be swept so far under the rug. I've never even touched or created ENGI so I can only imagine the horror.
I expect that to be put in a lockbox or DOFF soon (for tacs only of course). Can't be letting engies keep any purpose now, can we? :P
Engineers on the ground are absolutely beast with said bombs, too. Especially in ground ESTFs or Defera.
Hell, mine has even one shot the predator in the Elachi ground instance a couple of times. Mines are no joke when placed right.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
I think it's worth mentioning that if you want CC on your escorts you can either use something like the Fleet Advanced Escort (FAE), mobius or some other concoction. If you don't fancy giving up the Lt.Commander tactical you can always fit a chronitron torp with torp spread. Too much effort?
Well we have just the consoles for you! Gravitron pulse, theta radiation and if you get in a hairy spot we even have scrambl...I mean Antimatter Spread.
You want MES, PSW and a way to enhance stealth sight on the fly without investment or to give up much? Well we got those consoles too, have at them with Photonic Displacement, *New and improved!* Nadeon detonater and Tachyon detection field!
We even made the bridge officer versions underperform so you don't feel like you're not the best thing in the universe. EVER!
Alright *switches sarcasm off* it's slightly exaggerated but not by much. When you do compare what an escort gives up for that CC you see that it's an even trade off. So what do I get for switching from my commander and Lt.Comm tactical to science?
I can get a GW that will do 4k per tick if I buff it...but my CSV from one cannon does more with the same buffing than that over the duration of the GW and then some as it has higher uptime. Ah but it's about the CC. True enough but CC is irrelevant when you can either travel as fast as the enemies, hunt them down and kill them faster.
What about PSW? That can do respectable damage to hull. Yes it can...but er, how are you to get TO the hull first? You need to use at least 2 drains to get to the hull of even the lowliest of probes in KASE. CPB3 does 2600 shield damage in an AoE which is also not enough. I could pew pew them with my energy weapons on 70 power because I keep full aux most of the time. Then why not just start pumping energy weapons and finish it off with a torp as a torp spread does more damage than a PSW. Also doesn't scatter them. What's that a 4s disable? Sure, nice, but if you can't capitalise on that 4s it might as well not exist.
Just about the only thing doing well at the moment is energy syphon. Everything else is underperforming when you compare it to tactical abilities and engineering. (I would argue some of their more offensive abilities need a look at too.)
Considering the ludicrously high levels you can buff damage in this game isn't it time science had the collar removed and be allowed to rip ships in two if they're dumb enough to stay in a GW or not pack the 1001 counters to every sci ability we have?
Or maybe we should be reigning in the damage buffs. I'm not even talking about sci abilities either, look at EWP, DEM and did you know aceton beam is supposed to punish people for using energy weapons when affected by it? No? Well it's supposed to. Every single one of these performs better with 1 specific captain. Another captain can buff some of it (but only if the damage is done to hull and bypasses shield) and another can...er....tank something that can't fight back.
Oh I went on for a bit there. I'll be seeing how my tactical does with the GW3.
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.
They only increased GW3s damage by about 10 percent.
=/
I know im not all out specced into it at only 174 particle, but if its that low at 174, its not going to be outstanding at 250+ either.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
Then I saw one of the prior comments that said something like go all out sci so I dropped all my tac slots spare the only console that remained with two and went tac team and csv. I've tried some variations but you're right. ES was really the only thing that put a pep in my build's step. I rather enjoy seeing all my power levels skyrocket and that was on ES II so now I'm thinking ES III, ES II on opposing stations, TB II/1 as main an throwing nothing but flow capacitor into those console layouts and see if I can't augment a better result.
Painful woes of trial and error with gimped skills is just not fun
Oh.. And I'd like to add that shield repair units are bugged. They do not behave correctly at all. My danube runabouts can score 5 stars of service 200% faster and don't melt like snow balls in the heat of battle. Their benefits are extremely negligible at best and even when they do manage to make it to a fifth star they barely have any impact on shield health. Please fix these too @ dev.
ESII AND ESIII are great. If GW's fix is a semi nerf, I'll stick with Tyken's Rift which I've read from some people that have used it in Tribble that it's deadly.
I'm seeing via proxy that the high end results are coming out negligible. TR does sound rather exciting though.
I'm sure it bugs you too but one thing I was really hoping for was gearing my ship with some versatility. I don't want to exactly over spec something just to make it effective. So perhaps TR will be nice to use.
Then again I don't want a PVP session filled with TR like curtains in a movie theatre.
Then replace the current ones that instead increase duration of all science abilities by X% or magnitude of effect by X% or speeds up it's cooldown by X%.
This way you can either stack for higher power but longer CD and shorter duration (better for burst), longer duration (better for CC) or with higher uptime on varied abilities (more variety).
Well to be honest that's not a great idea but the current system where 1 ability is buffed by 2 skills and you really need to pump one of them to get more out of it is rediculous. Instead of getting varied science boats which can handle a number of situations we're getting one dimensional ships that always make us ask:
"Am I really helping to get this mission completed faster or am I holding them back by not being in an escort/A2B cruiser?"
Oh and I would stop any + %dmg from buffing science abilities. Only minus damage resistance would buff them, the idea being to normalize the performance of all captains in science ships and make sure escorts with a Lt'comm science could not outperform science ships at science.
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.
Personally I would quite like it if certain single target science abilities worked in a similar way to attack pattern beta.
Right now if I use my tractor beam on a ship that is immediately destroyed that's a waist of a tractor beam until the ability recharges. However if the tractor beam worked like APB then when I switched to a new target (provided it was within 5km or came into 5km while within the duration of the ability) Hurrah, the new target has a tractor beam on it.
Also while we are on the subject of science ability cool downs. I believe giving science ships two deflector dishes was mentioned as a possible future update. Well elite fleet deflectors give a 10% reduction. I am hoping that will stack.
In mimeys excellent PO thread he shows how it's calculated which is CD/(1 + cooldown reducion decimal)
So that 10% on a 100s CD is 100/1.1 = 90.9s not bang on 90s. It's not so bad with smaller numbers but as your reductions increase you get less back.
2 deflectors on a 100s CD would speed it up to 83.3s CD.
Why is this important? Well it wouldn't be if technicians didn't work in the opposite way. They just lump 30% of the original CD straight off what is left on the CD on each use. So on a 100s ability, first activation of A2B would take it down to 70s. 10s later you activate it again and it takes it down from 60s to 30s.
If technicians could be stacked to 100% CD reduction your abilities would be ready straight away as soon as you hit A2B. With PO and all other passives if you stacked it to 100% you would get 100/(1+1) = 50s. Only halving of the cooldown.
Also with a 2nd deflector unless it's a special deflector with special mods etc then I don't think it's going to add much to mix up science ships enough to make them worth slotting different abilities that will synergise well. It will at most be able to add +24 to 3 skills (assuming you use abilities affected by all of those skills) which might help a bit but is not going to make a sci be more useful in PvE. It would arguably be nice for PvP but then again will +24 points be that noticable?
I mean when I first thought of piloting a science ship I thought: I'll use GW1 to bundle enemies up, sensor scan to debuff damage resistance, fly in with CPB2 to drain their shields, use a PSW3 to do hull damage and then drop some mines with DPB2 in the middle to help kill anything left as a few beams take potshots at the enemy.
What did I get? Well I'm too embarrassed to say how pathetic it was but needless to say to have 1 of those abilities perform how I would have needed it to I would need 4-5 specific science consoles. Unfortunately I needed all that multiplied by 4 and unfortunately we haven't got a 20 science console ship yet.
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.
I like this ^^^^^.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE
For this test I went to the Japori system. (waves of nausican ships warp in to fight you and some new romulans.) I took my wells as it helps me reuse the ability a little more often. This helped me compare gravity wells with more or less graviton generator skill in quicker succession and form a more accurate assessment.
First I would like to say that the pull of a gravity well III is certainly much better on tribble then holodeck. I am very happy to see that gravity wells will be useful again. I was also very happy with how the pull scaled with aux power so that it wasn't completely useless at lower levels but noticeably better when aux was high.
However I am very disappointed in the effect of the graviton generators skill. For my testing I used 4 very rare mk XII graviton generator consoles. Without those I had 110 graviton generator skill, with them I had 230.
If one sacrifices 4 console slots on consoles that represent the largest EC investment in a skill it is not unreasonable to expect a performance difference with and without that is noticeable.
Sadly I could not tell the difference between the pull of the Gravity Wells with or without these consoles. So I used the wife test. The wife test is very scientific. The wife is a good arbiter because she knows nothing about graviton generators, gravity wells or STO and has no investment in it one way or the other.
I showed my wife the effect of 6 gravity wells on 6 groups of enemies. (that was as many as I could hold her attention for) And switched the consoles so that 3 times I was using them and 3 times I was not. Between each demonstration I had the wife look away while I changed or pretended to change the consoles.
Each time I asked my wife if she thought the pull of the gravity well was greater, smaller or about the same. Every time her answer was about the same.
Wife test result: Total graviton generator Failure.
Heh, the Wells as the ultimate Tactical ship? You do know that a deflector only provides a few minor boosts to science skills, it would have hardly any impact on Tactical officers.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
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.
Think about this one. Most gear sets have bonuses with 2 pieces. So if you can slot two delfectors you could have two of the following by mixing and matching shields and engines.
Magnetoplasma Relays
Passive
+5% Power Recharge Speed
+15.2 Starship Power Insulators
Tactical Readiness
Passive
+25% Bonus to Torpedo Damage
+7 Auxiliary Power Setting
Slowly returns missing crew to disable status (works during combat)
+7 crew recovery rate
+70% resistance to crewman loss
Dominion Synergy
Passive
+13.1% Polaron Damage
+26.2 Starship Power Insulators
Tetryon Glider
ENHANCEMENT
Adds -1.2 Shield Drain to all energy weapon attacks
Affected by: Starship Flow Capacitors
Superconducting Phase Channels
Passive
+30.5 Transphasic Projectile Damage
+30.5 Starship Electro-Plasma System
Prototype Plasma Projectile
Passive
+17.5 Starship Particle Generator
Enchances your High Yield Plasma torpedos:
Increased Flight Speed
Increased Defense
Why not have the deflector get it's stats doubled on a sci-ship?
Base stats only of course. Any other modifiers, unique bonuses, etc wouldn't count.