Same with the other shield drain skills like tachyon beam and cpb. MAybe charged cpb shouldn?t be able to kill shields completely, cause it is an aoe, but tachyon beam should as a single target skill, that you need to keep on the target a while.
I agree on target subsystems, especially the versions in Sci ships with crazy long cooldowns.
I agree on Tachyon beam.
You already answered why CPB can't be a shield annihilating bomb in a 5km sphere that 3 ships could plausibly bring.
I'm a firm believer that if someone dedicated literally all of their abilities to doing a thing, like shield wrecking sci builds, that the build should function as advertised.
You'll get no disagreement from me there.
On the other hand, you should not be able to load up on heals, control effects and slot 1 or 2 super powerful shield stripping abilities and completely strip shields.
....Lets face it, sci can't be monetised unlike tac pew
Actually science could easily be monetised if it actually worked yo a reasonable standard I mean, look how much money the subspace integration circuit pulled in in the short time it was OP. Now imagine if science skills were buffed to a decent working state how many science ships would sell, there is actually a lot of money to be made in the long term out of science, just like escorts and cruisers if their powers were up to the standard of the tac and eng skills in the game.
I have always said that damage is a secondary component of science powers, the primary component being the actual effect of the power, buff that first and then balance the damage around that, for example, increasing the pull of a gravity well and maybe include a hold within 0.5 to 1km of the centre based on aux and grav gens, this would make the existing damage more effective, increasing the effect of particle gens to increase the damage a little maybe 0.25 to 0.5 of what it currently is which would make the ability generally more powerful. (A little tweaking on those figures and the base figures so that tactical buffing doesn't take the damage OTT and it would be great for use in pve and player resists would keep it in check in pvp.)
If we were to do something similar to all the other powers and their backing skills on the table and science captains would feel useful, tac/sci wouldn't be out of hand and Cryptic would make their science money, everybody wins!
I agree on target subsystems, especially the versions in Sci ships with crazy long cooldowns.
I agree on Tachyon beam.
You already answered why CPB can't be a shield annihilating bomb in a 5km sphere that 3 ships could plausibly bring.
I'm a firm believer that if someone dedicated literally all of their abilities to doing a thing, like shield wrecking sci builds, that the build should function as advertised.
You'll get no disagreement from me there.
On the other hand, you should not be able to load up on heals, control effects and slot 1 or 2 super powerful shield stripping abilities and completely strip shields.
I agree on the point that only the high lvl versions of it should be really doing the job like i stated before. The lower lvls still should just helping a bit.
Concerning the loadout, i don't think that you have a real problem here, cause you still would have to spec into it and the skills have quite a cooldown. In the best case you have 2x ltc slots and 1 commander slot. And with all the counters you have against the controlls it won?t be that big of a problem i guess, but that is something you would have to test.
So you could theoreticly load the highest Version of CpB and Tachyon beam and an ltc control or heal.
Reynolds/Thokal
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class/R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit TheWiseGuys
On the other hand, you should not be able to load up on heals, control effects and slot 1 or 2 super powerful shield stripping abilities and completely strip shields.
heres the thing,
since the science shield stripping got nerfed heres whats been added-
high resists to shields
high regen to shields (via passives)
super high shield caps
consoles that stack that add shield caps.
the most i ever got a shield drain build to do, and it took 10 seconds to max the drain-
vesta with 5 purple mk12 flow caps, maco deflector(not the best but its what i used) and aux at 125.
cpb-4.5k
tachyon beam 3- 5k
tractor beam 1- 2.5k
delta pets tachyon beam 2- no idea.... figure around 2-3k
the longest drain was the tractor beam- with the doff it takes 10 seconds for a tractor beam 1, i assume the longer the tractor the longer the drain.
now!
thats roughly 12-14k drains over 10 seconds, with the cpb being instant, the tachyon being over 5 seconds the tractor being over 10 or so seconds.
sounds awesome right?
wrong...
a single captain skill tree- power insulators instantly completely nullifies 50% of the shield drains/damage.
so that awesome 12-14k is now 6-7k
still sounds impressive you say?
well lets not forget that the tachyon beam is a 90 degree arc, you must maintain that arc form 5 seconds to get the full effect. sadly, that sensor assault and adaptive maco shield can compeltely ruin this as early as soon as you clicking the power, and lets not forget that more and more ships these days are becoming super agile types that you can keep in arc.
tractor beam! its 360 degree arc is awesome right? right, until you run into the same issues of the sensor assault and adaptive maco shield, and it can actually trigger the proc on that shield completely ruining its own chance to hurt the target.
the only upside to the tractor beam is i dont believe its reduced by the power insulators skill tree.
the whole point i was making here-
the costs of being a sci to fully spec into something is not worth it. but at the same time a "jack of all trades" sci is even more not worth it.
The Problem with drain powers is that they are totally useless atm, that includes the target subsystem skills. On my tooltip for the sci ships inate target sub it says i get 35 drain if i hit an oponent, in reality it is more something like 15... if i am lucky.
They are useless cause most of the sci captians are still stacking field gens. They want to have 4 field gens, and be able of drain everyone with a single shipon.
Full energy-drain dedicated builds are still efective, you have ships with 5 sci consoles slots, fill them with embassy flow capacitors, polaron, plasmoniich and energy shipon and u will see how is still efective.
since the science shield stripping got nerfed heres whats been added-
high resists to shields
high regen to shields (via passives)
super high shield caps
consoles that stack that add shield caps.
the most i ever got a shield drain build to do, and it took 10 seconds to max the drain-
vesta with 5 purple mk12 flow caps, maco deflector(not the best but its what i used) and aux at 125.
cpb-4.5k
tachyon beam 3- 5k
tractor beam 1- 2.5k
delta pets tachyon beam 2- no idea.... figure around 2-3k
the longest drain was the tractor beam- with the doff it takes 10 seconds for a tractor beam 1, i assume the longer the tractor the longer the drain.
now!
thats roughly 12-14k drains over 10 seconds, with the cpb being instant, the tachyon being over 5 seconds the tractor being over 10 or so seconds.
sounds awesome right?
wrong...
a single captain skill tree- power insulators instantly completely nullifies 50% of the shield drains/damage.
so that awesome 12-14k is now 6-7k
still sounds impressive you say?
well lets not forget that the tachyon beam is a 90 degree arc, you must maintain that arc form 5 seconds to get the full effect. sadly, that sensor assault and adaptive maco shield can compeltely ruin this as early as soon as you clicking the power, and lets not forget that more and more ships these days are becoming super agile types that you can keep in arc.
tractor beam! its 360 degree arc is awesome right? right, until you run into the same issues of the sensor assault and adaptive maco shield, and it can actually trigger the proc on that shield completely ruining its own chance to hurt the target.
the only upside to the tractor beam is i dont believe its reduced by the power insulators skill tree.
the whole point i was making here-
the costs of being a sci to fully spec into something is not worth it. but at the same time a "jack of all trades" sci is even more not worth it.
I agree that what you lay out above demonstrates some issues, but for a moment step back and think about what resists damage.
Basically everything.
Most of it is gear based, true, and not any single skill that provides "50% resistance".
On the other hand...
Starship Manuevers
Structural Integrity
Threat Control
Hull Plating
Armor Reinforcements
Shield Performance
Hull Repair
Shield Emitters
Sheild Systems
All layer to combat damage.
So do...
EPTS
EPTE
+DEF Bonus
MACO/Elite Shields
HE
TSS
ES
Aux to SIF
RSP
TT
ST
ET
PH
BFI
EM
etc, etc.
So yes, "1 skill" resists about 50% of the drains.
Nearly everything above resists or mitigates or heals damage to an extent.
Sci powers aren't cut and dry, they need to be there to set up kills not guarantee them.
They are useless cause most of the sci captians are still stacking field gens. They want to have 4 field gens, and be able of drain everyone with a single shipon.
Full energy-drain dedicated builds are still efective, you have ships with 5 sci consoles slots, fill them with embassy flow capacitors, polaron, plasmoniich and energy shipon and u will see how is still efective.
A boff skill that can easy be negated by a t2 skill in the captain skilltree is pointless. And the plasmonic leech console doesn?t count if it comes to boff skill effectiveness. Also a sci drain build should work without having to load specific weapons alone for the fact that there are ppl including myself that prefer phaser on fed ships cause of the look.
So if you take away those to things your build will be way less effective. Not to mention that no one should have to use 5 Consoles to get a halfway decent effect on a skill.
And btw, we weren?t only speaking about energydrain builds, but also about shield drain builds. As you see in the nice example a post before, the resists you now have against it makes them pointless.
Reynolds/Thokal
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class/R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit TheWiseGuys
Or did you already factor the damage in x4 for that?
Should be per facing, cause the dmg of Tachyon beam and Cpb goes to all facings.
But the point he didn't take in account that the target, if it is a player, also can use heals menawhile to work against it, plus the normal shield regen.
But ok, taht is sometihng a normal atk has also to deal with, jsut with the difference that a drain like in the example has way less burst dmg.
Reynolds/Thokal
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class/R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit TheWiseGuys
Mass seems to be optional. I've probably missed some key episodes, but the Trek I've seen had tractor beams being used by large ships to manipulate small masses. If mass was a factor in STO then a Defiant using tractor beam repulsors would have a heck of a recoil against a carrier.
Lol, STO using real science facts? The way drains and power insulators work, it breaks the law of conservation of energy. Why? When PI are high or the target's power level in a given system is zero, you're still getting power from thin air.
I would tend to agree, except for three things.
#1 Gravity wells are not tractor beams. Whatever tractor beams are and do, does not seem to involve a purely gravitational effect. We could debate that point.
#2 While we can't state any scientific basis for being able to artificially generate a gravity well or drain energy from a distance, basic concepts like gravity, velocity, acceleration, etc. are well understood scientifically. It is entirely possible to calculate both vector and velocity if the forces acting on the object are known.
See below for further discussion about INERTIA.
#3 The reason why I am making this point at all is because from what I know GW seems to have a disproportionate effect on larger vessels (cruisers) while having a lesser effect on smaller, faster vessels (escorts). (See INERTIA below for a discussion about why I think this is off.) If I'm wrong about this, tell me and I'll cheerfully shut up.
This being the case, GW should apply its force in a way that's consistent with physics and then the actual degree of force can be fairly balanced in a way that applies to both large and small ships. Large ships should be able to leverage their inertia to escape (or not) and small ships should be able to leverage their ability to change vector and apply counter acceleration more quickly. It's not clear to me exactly what is happening.
### INERTIA DISCUSSION
We know that mass in motion has inertia, that it takes more force to accelerate larger mass, and we know that inertia affects any force which tries to alter an object's velocity and vector. In other words, inertia counteracts any change in either velocity or vector.
Therefore, it should be much harder to alter the course of a large ship moving at full engine power and full throttle than it is to do the same to a much smaller ship.
If the math is purely based on velocity and inertia, a larger ship moving at speed should be less affected by the push exerted by GW than a smaller ship would be if it were travelling at the same speed.
A large ship headed directly for the center of a gravity well is going to hit it and more-or-less keep going. Inertia (and turn rate) will prevent it from doing anything else. A large ship headed away from a gravity well at full engine power, in any direction, is simply going to be slowed down and/or thrown off-course -- the push shouldn't be sufficient to shove it too far to the center.
If the gravity well is strong enough to pull (accelerate) the ship into its center no matter what its speed and bearing, then it should be strong enough to grab anything no matter how fast it's going.
Gravity well isn't creating a singularity on the order of a black hole -- not even light escapes! -- but it should have a reasonably Newtonian effect. If real-world physics were involved, stuff falling (accelerating) into it would be slung back out if its moving fast enough to achieve escape velocity. The faster you're moving, the greater your inertia, the faster you leave it. The only advantage that an escort should have over a cruiser is the ability to turn (change vector) faster and apply that engine power to opposing the push/pull of the gravity well.
GW shouldn't actually hold ships in motion... it should actually "slide" them toward the center of the well with a given degree of force and all that's necessary to escape the well is to exceed that force somehow. Anybody who's ever tried to turn an Odyssey at full throttle knows exactly what kind of slide I'm talking about.
Bottom line, I agree with the idea that it's not a hold, and the whole point of it should be to force ships off course, keep them within the radius of the well's force longer, and damage them while they're inside it. Given enough time and speed, anything ought to be able to escape it. The real question should be, how long does it take them to escape damage?
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
They are useless cause most of the sci captians are still stacking field gens. They want to have 4 field gens, and be able of drain everyone with a single shipon.
Full energy-drain dedicated builds are still efective, you have ships with 5 sci consoles slots, fill them with embassy flow capacitors, polaron, plasmoniich and energy shipon and u will see how is still efective.
Well, you will fill up your power levels and you'll do great in PvE, but in PvP, just because you're seeing a huge power spike, it doesn't mean your target is feeling it.
This thread is on Gravity Well and it's effectiveness, please let's get back to that topic. If you'd like to discuss power drain builds please make a new thread.
Well, you will fill up your power levels and you'll do great in PvE, but in PvP, just because you're seeing a huge power spike, it doesn't mean your target is feeling it.
combined with the proper doffs u can drain and/or shutdown most of their systems, and he will feel it, trust me.
More good news, thanks for looking into this Cryptic.
i wonder if it also effected its power drain, and if so if itll recieve a similar "mainstreaming" of use like grav well. ie- less effected by science and more flat across the board.
i wonder if it also effected its power drain, and if so if itll recieve a similar "mainstreaming" of use like grav well. ie- less effected by science and more flat across the board.
I'm waiting for the Tribble Patch before making a final opinion on the new Gravity Well. It may be a very decent damage dealing ability, and particle generators may still provide a decent boost. If not I will post feedback on the Tribble Patch notes thread, as I am sure many of you will as well.
Since you guys are under the Science Hood, tinkering... Maybe you could fix the Photonic Capacitor trait? It's broken.
How very interesting, it appears that all abilities that can be knocked out with photonic shockwave aren't triggering the photonic capacitor. Though with Science fleet, that's a team buff, so I think it's supposed to have no effect on photonic capacitor. I've noticed that my tractor beam had no effect on photonic capacitor, but I haven't paid it much concern.
...How very interesting, it appears that all abilities that can be knocked out with photonic shockwave aren't triggering the photonic capacitor. Though with Science fleet, that's a team buff, so I think it's supposed to have no effect on photonic capacitor. I've noticed that my tractor beam had no effect on photonic capacitor, but I haven't paid it much concern.
Yeah, I can't say for sure if Science Fleet is supposed to trigger Photonic Capacitor or not.
Some Captain Powers do (Sensor Scan and Subnuc, for instance), some don't (Scattering Field), and there's no official list or Dev Feedback on it.
That being said, can't think of any reason why Tachyon Beam, Tractor Beam, or Repulsors don't work.
I have never gone through and tested every Science power, only the ones my Scis with this Trait have used and those reported in that thread.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
You are mixing up a ship inate power and boff/captain powers. Which would basically mean if you use a tac heavy sci ship the dmg would be increased by both. Which is a bit to much imo.
.
I know the difference between science ship and captain abilities. I probably did not explain my self good enough. ApO and ApA should not buff a gravity well. Since sensor analyst is a ship ability it should since any captain that uses the ship will get the advantage. This will give high end damage dealing abilities to the ship not the class.
As far as your other comments you could apply the buff from sensor analyst to all sience abilities (BOFFs only) to increase damage for tractor beam, tractor beam repulsors, tyken's rift, charged particle burst, and photonics shock wave. This might give some spunk back to science.
It also will not be over powering because of the time it takes to charge sensor analyst. The longer a science ship stays in combat the stronger they get.
I know the difference between science ship and captain abilities. I probably did not explain my self good enough. ApO and ApA should not buff a gravity well. Since sensor analyst is a ship ability it should since any captain that uses the ship will get the advantage. This will give high end damage dealing abilities to the ship not the class.
As far as your other comments you could apply the buff from sensor analyst to all sience abilities (BOFFs only) to increase damage for tractor beam, tractor beam repulsors, tyken's rift, charged particle burst, and photonics shock wave. This might give some spunk back to science.
It also will not be over powering because of the time it takes to charge sensor analyst. The longer a science ship stays in combat the stronger they get.
The current form with Tactical buffs improving exotic damage (kinetic) is perfectly fine. Tactical officers are the damage dealers, it's perfectly reasonable to expect Attack Pattern Alpha to buff Gravity Well, Tractor Beam, or Photonic Shockwave. Things already balance out anyway, Science officers have the conservation of energy trait.
The current form with Tactical buffs improving exotic damage (kinetic) is perfectly fine. Tactical officers are the damage dealers, it's perfectly reasonable to expect Attack Pattern Alpha to buff Gravity Well, Tractor Beam, or Photonic Shockwave. Things already balance out anyway, Science officers have the conservation of energy trait.
Eh, tac captains already deal plenty of damage just with weapons+5 TAC consoles+universal extras. Things DO NOT balance out.
Tyken's Rift had a similar bug and Borticus is looking into it.
ah good. a fix should proboly include drain stacks lasting longer then then the intervals new stacks are placed. as soon as one is placed now, another expires, casing power to fluctuate 1 or 2 points, basically doing nothing at all.
Eh, tac captains already deal plenty of damage just with weapons+5 TAC consoles+universal extras. Things DO NOT balance out.
And how many Science Vessels have 5 tactical consoles with Dual Heavy Cannons? (None) There are exactly three science heavy escorts that can run Lt. Commander Science: the Fleet Advanced Escort, the Chel Grett escort, and the Elachi escort. Even if they choose to run gravity well I, they are hurting their survivability because they must run graviton generator and particle generator consoles to make the ability worthwhile. If they also ran 4-5 tactical consoles they wouldn't have any room for armor. Granted they don't need to go over the top with it, the damage will still be decent, but it won't be anywhere near as good as a real science vessel with a science captain. Escorts don't have half the defensive abilities a science vessel can use with a science captain.
And how many Science Vessels have 5 tactical consoles with Dual Heavy Cannons? (None) There are exactly three science heavy escorts that can run Lt. Commander Science: the Fleet Advanced Escort, the Chel Grett escort, and the Elachi escort. Even if they choose to run gravity well I, they are hurting their survivability because they must run graviton generator and particle generator consoles to make the ability worthwhile. If they also ran 4-5 tactical consoles they wouldn't have any room for armor. Granted they don't need to go over the top with it, the damage will still be decent, but it won't be anywhere near as good as a real science vessel with a science captain. Escorts don't have half the defensive abilities a science vessel can use with a science captain.
And how many Science Vessels have 5 tactical consoles with Dual Heavy Cannons? (None) There are exactly three science heavy escorts that can run Lt. Commander Science: the Fleet Advanced Escort, the Chel Grett escort, and the Elachi escort. Even if they choose to run gravity well I, they are hurting their survivability because they must run graviton generator and particle generator consoles to make the ability worthwhile. If they also ran 4-5 tactical consoles they wouldn't have any room for armor. Granted they don't need to go over the top with it, the damage will still be decent, but it won't be anywhere near as good as a real science vessel with a science captain. Escorts don't have half the defensive abilities a science vessel can use with a science captain.
I use GW1 for NWS. I trap all the South spawning ships and destroy them in seconds. I have no associated skill or sci consoles and fleet shields keep me alive fine. This is with a tac captain.
I use GW1 for NWS. I trap all the South spawning ships and destroy them in seconds. I have no associated skill or sci consoles and fleet shields keep me alive fine. This is with a tac captain.
Just a guess here, but there is a 75% chance you are using the Universal - Assimilated Module for NWS, which is a buffed up graviton generator console. The gravity well won't make up 5% of your total damage to those ships, your escort's damage comes straight from your dual heavy cannons, turrets, and (sometimes) quantum torpedoes. I was speaking strictly about PvP when I was referring to survivability, with all of the passives and whatnot, death is fairly uncommon in PvE. Whereas in PvP a tac/escort has a lot fewer defensive options compared to a sci/science vessel.
Comments
I agree on target subsystems, especially the versions in Sci ships with crazy long cooldowns.
I agree on Tachyon beam.
You already answered why CPB can't be a shield annihilating bomb in a 5km sphere that 3 ships could plausibly bring.
I'm a firm believer that if someone dedicated literally all of their abilities to doing a thing, like shield wrecking sci builds, that the build should function as advertised.
You'll get no disagreement from me there.
On the other hand, you should not be able to load up on heals, control effects and slot 1 or 2 super powerful shield stripping abilities and completely strip shields.
Actually science could easily be monetised if it actually worked yo a reasonable standard I mean, look how much money the subspace integration circuit pulled in in the short time it was OP. Now imagine if science skills were buffed to a decent working state how many science ships would sell, there is actually a lot of money to be made in the long term out of science, just like escorts and cruisers if their powers were up to the standard of the tac and eng skills in the game.
I have always said that damage is a secondary component of science powers, the primary component being the actual effect of the power, buff that first and then balance the damage around that, for example, increasing the pull of a gravity well and maybe include a hold within 0.5 to 1km of the centre based on aux and grav gens, this would make the existing damage more effective, increasing the effect of particle gens to increase the damage a little maybe 0.25 to 0.5 of what it currently is which would make the ability generally more powerful. (A little tweaking on those figures and the base figures so that tactical buffing doesn't take the damage OTT and it would be great for use in pve and player resists would keep it in check in pvp.)
If we were to do something similar to all the other powers and their backing skills on the table and science captains would feel useful, tac/sci wouldn't be out of hand and Cryptic would make their science money, everybody wins!
I agree on the point that only the high lvl versions of it should be really doing the job like i stated before. The lower lvls still should just helping a bit.
Concerning the loadout, i don't think that you have a real problem here, cause you still would have to spec into it and the skills have quite a cooldown. In the best case you have 2x ltc slots and 1 commander slot. And with all the counters you have against the controlls it won?t be that big of a problem i guess, but that is something you would have to test.
So you could theoreticly load the highest Version of CpB and Tachyon beam and an ltc control or heal.
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class / R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer
U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit
TheWiseGuys
heres the thing,
since the science shield stripping got nerfed heres whats been added-
high resists to shields
high regen to shields (via passives)
super high shield caps
consoles that stack that add shield caps.
the most i ever got a shield drain build to do, and it took 10 seconds to max the drain-
vesta with 5 purple mk12 flow caps, maco deflector(not the best but its what i used) and aux at 125.
cpb-4.5k
tachyon beam 3- 5k
tractor beam 1- 2.5k
delta pets tachyon beam 2- no idea.... figure around 2-3k
the longest drain was the tractor beam- with the doff it takes 10 seconds for a tractor beam 1, i assume the longer the tractor the longer the drain.
now!
thats roughly 12-14k drains over 10 seconds, with the cpb being instant, the tachyon being over 5 seconds the tractor being over 10 or so seconds.
sounds awesome right?
wrong...
a single captain skill tree- power insulators instantly completely nullifies 50% of the shield drains/damage.
so that awesome 12-14k is now 6-7k
still sounds impressive you say?
well lets not forget that the tachyon beam is a 90 degree arc, you must maintain that arc form 5 seconds to get the full effect. sadly, that sensor assault and adaptive maco shield can compeltely ruin this as early as soon as you clicking the power, and lets not forget that more and more ships these days are becoming super agile types that you can keep in arc.
tractor beam! its 360 degree arc is awesome right? right, until you run into the same issues of the sensor assault and adaptive maco shield, and it can actually trigger the proc on that shield completely ruining its own chance to hurt the target.
the only upside to the tractor beam is i dont believe its reduced by the power insulators skill tree.
the whole point i was making here-
the costs of being a sci to fully spec into something is not worth it. but at the same time a "jack of all trades" sci is even more not worth it.
Do you even Science Bro?
They are useless cause most of the sci captians are still stacking field gens. They want to have 4 field gens, and be able of drain everyone with a single shipon.
Full energy-drain dedicated builds are still efective, you have ships with 5 sci consoles slots, fill them with embassy flow capacitors, polaron, plasmoniich and energy shipon and u will see how is still efective.
Vin Naftero@playhard88 - FED Sciencie
K'tan@playhard88 - KDF Tactical
Argento@playhard88 - RRF Tactical (FED)
I agree that what you lay out above demonstrates some issues, but for a moment step back and think about what resists damage.
Basically everything.
Most of it is gear based, true, and not any single skill that provides "50% resistance".
On the other hand...
Starship Manuevers
Structural Integrity
Threat Control
Hull Plating
Armor Reinforcements
Shield Performance
Hull Repair
Shield Emitters
Sheild Systems
All layer to combat damage.
So do...
EPTS
EPTE
+DEF Bonus
MACO/Elite Shields
HE
TSS
ES
Aux to SIF
RSP
TT
ST
ET
PH
BFI
EM
etc, etc.
So yes, "1 skill" resists about 50% of the drains.
Nearly everything above resists or mitigates or heals damage to an extent.
Sci powers aren't cut and dry, they need to be there to set up kills not guarantee them.
Could they use some tweaking? Sure.
Now, just to check:
Is that 12k to 14k per facing over 10s?
Or did you already factor the damage in x4 for that?
A boff skill that can easy be negated by a t2 skill in the captain skilltree is pointless. And the plasmonic leech console doesn?t count if it comes to boff skill effectiveness. Also a sci drain build should work without having to load specific weapons alone for the fact that there are ppl including myself that prefer phaser on fed ships cause of the look.
So if you take away those to things your build will be way less effective. Not to mention that no one should have to use 5 Consoles to get a halfway decent effect on a skill.
And btw, we weren?t only speaking about energydrain builds, but also about shield drain builds. As you see in the nice example a post before, the resists you now have against it makes them pointless.
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class / R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer
U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit
TheWiseGuys
Should be per facing, cause the dmg of Tachyon beam and Cpb goes to all facings.
But the point he didn't take in account that the target, if it is a player, also can use heals menawhile to work against it, plus the normal shield regen.
But ok, taht is sometihng a normal atk has also to deal with, jsut with the difference that a drain like in the example has way less burst dmg.
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class / R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer
U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit
TheWiseGuys
I would tend to agree, except for three things.
#1 Gravity wells are not tractor beams. Whatever tractor beams are and do, does not seem to involve a purely gravitational effect. We could debate that point.
#2 While we can't state any scientific basis for being able to artificially generate a gravity well or drain energy from a distance, basic concepts like gravity, velocity, acceleration, etc. are well understood scientifically. It is entirely possible to calculate both vector and velocity if the forces acting on the object are known.
See below for further discussion about INERTIA.
#3 The reason why I am making this point at all is because from what I know GW seems to have a disproportionate effect on larger vessels (cruisers) while having a lesser effect on smaller, faster vessels (escorts). (See INERTIA below for a discussion about why I think this is off.) If I'm wrong about this, tell me and I'll cheerfully shut up.
This being the case, GW should apply its force in a way that's consistent with physics and then the actual degree of force can be fairly balanced in a way that applies to both large and small ships. Large ships should be able to leverage their inertia to escape (or not) and small ships should be able to leverage their ability to change vector and apply counter acceleration more quickly. It's not clear to me exactly what is happening.
### INERTIA DISCUSSION
We know that mass in motion has inertia, that it takes more force to accelerate larger mass, and we know that inertia affects any force which tries to alter an object's velocity and vector. In other words, inertia counteracts any change in either velocity or vector.
Therefore, it should be much harder to alter the course of a large ship moving at full engine power and full throttle than it is to do the same to a much smaller ship.
If the math is purely based on velocity and inertia, a larger ship moving at speed should be less affected by the push exerted by GW than a smaller ship would be if it were travelling at the same speed.
A large ship headed directly for the center of a gravity well is going to hit it and more-or-less keep going. Inertia (and turn rate) will prevent it from doing anything else. A large ship headed away from a gravity well at full engine power, in any direction, is simply going to be slowed down and/or thrown off-course -- the push shouldn't be sufficient to shove it too far to the center.
If the gravity well is strong enough to pull (accelerate) the ship into its center no matter what its speed and bearing, then it should be strong enough to grab anything no matter how fast it's going.
Gravity well isn't creating a singularity on the order of a black hole -- not even light escapes! -- but it should have a reasonably Newtonian effect. If real-world physics were involved, stuff falling (accelerating) into it would be slung back out if its moving fast enough to achieve escape velocity. The faster you're moving, the greater your inertia, the faster you leave it. The only advantage that an escort should have over a cruiser is the ability to turn (change vector) faster and apply that engine power to opposing the push/pull of the gravity well.
GW shouldn't actually hold ships in motion... it should actually "slide" them toward the center of the well with a given degree of force and all that's necessary to escape the well is to exceed that force somehow. Anybody who's ever tried to turn an Odyssey at full throttle knows exactly what kind of slide I'm talking about.
Bottom line, I agree with the idea that it's not a hold, and the whole point of it should be to force ships off course, keep them within the radius of the well's force longer, and damage them while they're inside it. Given enough time and speed, anything ought to be able to escape it. The real question should be, how long does it take them to escape damage?
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Well, you will fill up your power levels and you'll do great in PvE, but in PvP, just because you're seeing a huge power spike, it doesn't mean your target is feeling it.
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combined with the proper doffs u can drain and/or shutdown most of their systems, and he will feel it, trust me.
Vin Naftero@playhard88 - FED Sciencie
K'tan@playhard88 - KDF Tactical
Argento@playhard88 - RRF Tactical (FED)
More good news, thanks for looking into this Cryptic.
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i wonder if it also effected its power drain, and if so if itll recieve a similar "mainstreaming" of use like grav well. ie- less effected by science and more flat across the board.
Do you even Science Bro?
Since you guys are under the Science Hood, tinkering... Maybe you could fix the Photonic Capacitor trait? It's broken.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
I'm waiting for the Tribble Patch before making a final opinion on the new Gravity Well. It may be a very decent damage dealing ability, and particle generators may still provide a decent boost. If not I will post feedback on the Tribble Patch notes thread, as I am sure many of you will as well.
How very interesting, it appears that all abilities that can be knocked out with photonic shockwave aren't triggering the photonic capacitor. Though with Science fleet, that's a team buff, so I think it's supposed to have no effect on photonic capacitor. I've noticed that my tractor beam had no effect on photonic capacitor, but I haven't paid it much concern.
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Some Captain Powers do (Sensor Scan and Subnuc, for instance), some don't (Scattering Field), and there's no official list or Dev Feedback on it.
That being said, can't think of any reason why Tachyon Beam, Tractor Beam, or Repulsors don't work.
I have never gone through and tested every Science power, only the ones my Scis with this Trait have used and those reported in that thread.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
I know the difference between science ship and captain abilities. I probably did not explain my self good enough. ApO and ApA should not buff a gravity well. Since sensor analyst is a ship ability it should since any captain that uses the ship will get the advantage. This will give high end damage dealing abilities to the ship not the class.
As far as your other comments you could apply the buff from sensor analyst to all sience abilities (BOFFs only) to increase damage for tractor beam, tractor beam repulsors, tyken's rift, charged particle burst, and photonics shock wave. This might give some spunk back to science.
It also will not be over powering because of the time it takes to charge sensor analyst. The longer a science ship stays in combat the stronger they get.
additional nerf to follow
While you guys are on a sci fixing roll, please fix Energy Siphon 1. The energy drain/gain aren't equal like ES2 and ES3.
The current form with Tactical buffs improving exotic damage (kinetic) is perfectly fine. Tactical officers are the damage dealers, it's perfectly reasonable to expect Attack Pattern Alpha to buff Gravity Well, Tractor Beam, or Photonic Shockwave. Things already balance out anyway, Science officers have the conservation of energy trait.
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Eh, tac captains already deal plenty of damage just with weapons+5 TAC consoles+universal extras. Things DO NOT balance out.
ah good. a fix should proboly include drain stacks lasting longer then then the intervals new stacks are placed. as soon as one is placed now, another expires, casing power to fluctuate 1 or 2 points, basically doing nothing at all.
And how many Science Vessels have 5 tactical consoles with Dual Heavy Cannons? (None) There are exactly three science heavy escorts that can run Lt. Commander Science: the Fleet Advanced Escort, the Chel Grett escort, and the Elachi escort. Even if they choose to run gravity well I, they are hurting their survivability because they must run graviton generator and particle generator consoles to make the ability worthwhile. If they also ran 4-5 tactical consoles they wouldn't have any room for armor. Granted they don't need to go over the top with it, the damage will still be decent, but it won't be anywhere near as good as a real science vessel with a science captain. Escorts don't have half the defensive abilities a science vessel can use with a science captain.
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last power like this (im looking at you photonic shockwave) they nerfed the higher powers rather boost the lower powers...
be careful what you ask for.
Do you even Science Bro?
dont forget the mobius destroyer thingy
Do you even Science Bro?
I use GW1 for NWS. I trap all the South spawning ships and destroy them in seconds. I have no associated skill or sci consoles and fleet shields keep me alive fine. This is with a tac captain.
Care to comment on the pages of follow-up conversation where we all wonder why sci powers can't be more effective?
Just a guess here, but there is a 75% chance you are using the Universal - Assimilated Module for NWS, which is a buffed up graviton generator console. The gravity well won't make up 5% of your total damage to those ships, your escort's damage comes straight from your dual heavy cannons, turrets, and (sometimes) quantum torpedoes. I was speaking strictly about PvP when I was referring to survivability, with all of the passives and whatnot, death is fairly uncommon in PvE. Whereas in PvP a tac/escort has a lot fewer defensive options compared to a sci/science vessel.
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