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Ship Build Hierarchy
kyeto13
Member Posts: 3 Arc User
So, in an attempted to make discussing, brainstorming, and building ships easier, I propose that we as a community come up with a Hierarchy for Ship Builds that would tell someone what order to consider things and aspects of a ship. This would help people to make sure they have a good framework for a working ship before they start bedazzling it with gizmos and gadgets. Lay a good foundation and build up from there.
Below is my proposal, which I offer anyone to critique and modify as needed. I will be editing this post to contain a final draft of this Hierarchy as well.
1) Define your role What Role do you want to play in combat? Healer, Debuffer, DPS, Tank, Balanced? What do YOU want to do in combat?
2) Ship that suits Choose a ship that will fit your needs and you will enjoy to fly. If you want to DPS, pick something with alot of Tactical Console slots. Lots of Healing/Crowd Control, find one with Science slots. Tanking requires alot of Engineering slots.
Note that I did not say specific ships classes. You can do just about any role in any class of ship as long as you have the console/bridge officer set up to pull it off. There are obvious exceptions, but few obvious answers. A little common sense, and some good tactics will allow you to command any ship you want.
3) Weapons that suits What weapons will your ship use? Energy or Torpedo? Cannons or beams? Hybrid? If it is a fast turning ship, like an escort or a raider, you can easily put Dual Heavy Cannons on there and keep them on target. Or battlecruisers can cloak up and ambush targets. Slower turning cruisers will do better with several beam arrays and broadsiding. You can sole choose some active, offensive consoles to use here.
Whatever you do, Make sure you have all the same energy type. This will allow you to get the best boost from tactical consoles.
4) Boff Powers that suits You will need boff powers to compliment your weapons. So Cannon skills for cannons, beam skills for beams. You will also need some science and engineering skills set aside for tanking and healing on your own. If you are going for a Science heavy ship, this will be the time to look for a good Offensive heavy ship to go with your build. (I.E Polaron weapons with energy siphon)
5) Console that suits and passive boost that helps Now some passive boost consoles to pad out your final few skills. Tactical should get a boost in your damage output. Science should boost your shields and your exotic skills. Engineering should boost your hull resist and your turn rate as need.
6)Skill tree that helps Now finish up with your captains skills are aligned with your ship. Torpedo boats should have points in Projectiles, not Energy Weapons. If you do exotic damage, have some points in Particle Generators and Flow Capacitors. This will give your ship a good framework to work off from.
Any questions or concerns with this???
Below is my proposal, which I offer anyone to critique and modify as needed. I will be editing this post to contain a final draft of this Hierarchy as well.
Ship Build Hierarchy
1) Define your role What Role do you want to play in combat? Healer, Debuffer, DPS, Tank, Balanced? What do YOU want to do in combat?
2) Ship that suits Choose a ship that will fit your needs and you will enjoy to fly. If you want to DPS, pick something with alot of Tactical Console slots. Lots of Healing/Crowd Control, find one with Science slots. Tanking requires alot of Engineering slots.
Note that I did not say specific ships classes. You can do just about any role in any class of ship as long as you have the console/bridge officer set up to pull it off. There are obvious exceptions, but few obvious answers. A little common sense, and some good tactics will allow you to command any ship you want.
3) Weapons that suits What weapons will your ship use? Energy or Torpedo? Cannons or beams? Hybrid? If it is a fast turning ship, like an escort or a raider, you can easily put Dual Heavy Cannons on there and keep them on target. Or battlecruisers can cloak up and ambush targets. Slower turning cruisers will do better with several beam arrays and broadsiding. You can sole choose some active, offensive consoles to use here.
Whatever you do, Make sure you have all the same energy type. This will allow you to get the best boost from tactical consoles.
4) Boff Powers that suits You will need boff powers to compliment your weapons. So Cannon skills for cannons, beam skills for beams. You will also need some science and engineering skills set aside for tanking and healing on your own. If you are going for a Science heavy ship, this will be the time to look for a good Offensive heavy ship to go with your build. (I.E Polaron weapons with energy siphon)
5) Console that suits and passive boost that helps Now some passive boost consoles to pad out your final few skills. Tactical should get a boost in your damage output. Science should boost your shields and your exotic skills. Engineering should boost your hull resist and your turn rate as need.
6)Skill tree that helps Now finish up with your captains skills are aligned with your ship. Torpedo boats should have points in Projectiles, not Energy Weapons. If you do exotic damage, have some points in Particle Generators and Flow Capacitors. This will give your ship a good framework to work off from.
Any questions or concerns with this???
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Post edited by kyeto13 on
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2) Use your favorite Star Trek ship
3) Pick your favorite color for weapons
4) Put a little thought into boff abilities
5) Use consoles that boost the things you use the most
6) Prioritize skills that boost the things you use the most
Wise words. (In my opinion, of course) -
In a game that's (relatively) easy, and as long as you stay at a distance from people who decide they should tell you how to have Fun, which is the point after all...
It's really not THAT important to make sure you are perfectly optimized for absolute 110% uberbestest performance. After playing for about 6 months now, as a (relatively) efficient 'semi-casual, barely serious' player, (sheesh, all the modifiers!), I may actually go back to the "Failaxy" (The Enterprise D) at some point, regardless of the scoffing and the jabber out there from the 'experts'. No sexier ship, imo, and as 'substandard' as its' performance is, I could probably do fine with it with good equipment. [I DO wish it was a little better...]
So the above advice is pretty great in the Fun scheme of things. When someone tells you 'you chose a stupid ship, your DPeen is tiny, etc.... just put them on ignore, and enjoy YOUR game.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
1) ok
2) sort of. As you progress, you will soon acquire more, and more, and even more consoles that can go anywhere. It may not matter much at all in the long run for many builds -- the exception being dps with a sackfull of tac consoles but any other role, does it really matter that much?
3) OK. Weapon placement matters too, whether its up front with 5 or 4/4 or 4/3 etc makes a difference. Maybe this is part of #2, but its an important consideration.
4) this is totally too high a priority. It is important, but its easy to get your BOs to a usable state, most folks have tons of training points piled up so you swap the skills out and max out the skills, done. The hard part is finding race passives that you want or the occasional aggravating to acquire skill like overload 3.
5) Yes, consoles are important -- they are the real customization of a ship, when it really comes down to it.
6) 2 schools of thought... build up your weakness, or build up your strengths. For example, an escort tac player might focus on defense, to counter innate weakness of a delicate ship and low survival, or focus on dps, to be top at his chosen task. Depends on what you want to do. Also, it can be of some importance to consider taking a skill JUST to train officers in something useful. For example, my tac character rarely uses grenade kits but has 6 points so my officers can throw stun grenades. Handy, that.
-- I would add one more. If buying a ship from the store, universal BO slots and ability to use the ship on more characters matters. For example, multiple rom ships can be used as both tactical ships or scientific-escorts.
-- and another: active duty officers. Some of these effects are awesome, esp cooldown reductions or special effects on commonly used skills.
I'm right there with you. I've been away for a while (since before the PW transition), but I'm back and looking forward to flying a Dreadnought Cruiser. I don't care about all the hardcore gamer minmaxing, I just want that sweet triple nacelle spinal lance action PEWPEW!
If you come up with Healer or Tank, try again. Reason for it: In the endgame the way to success is DPS: raw DPS, augmented DPS through debuffs, DSP through survival. Therefore your role should be either: DPS, Debuffer or (less desirable) Balanced
This step has to be done prior choosing your ship: Go into the forums, read guides/wikis and choose 1-3 Boff Powers which will be the core of your setup. Learn about their advantages/drawbacks and - most important - the required rank of the BO to use the Power. A Gravity Well-Setup will not work if your ship sports only Lt. Science or less.
Look into the Doff-section as well. Many setups rely on specific Doffs, which change the behaviour of the Boff Powers (e.g. Aux to Battery! (A2B))
You have the Boff Powers at this stage. This will help choosing the right skills from the skill tree. (You want to suck everybody + his dog into your black holes? go Graviton+Particle - You want to punch holes with your dual heavies? go weapons, energy weapons, targeting.)
Read the forums and take a look into the builds other people have posted/discussed. This will save you a lot of time/nerves and ZEN. In addition your setup will get more effective if skilled right.
Now you have your Skills and Boff Powers and can go tracking down the ship, which will support your setup. Especially the Lockbox/Lobi/Zen Store-ships have their specific sets which can additionally boost your favorite setup (Tal'Shiar Adapted Set for GravWell/Tykens-Science!)
three rules of thumb:
This step is only necessary if the main core of your setup is not tactical. Especially as Engineering/Science you should take those tactical Boff Powers which boost your most damaging weapons (if you sport 6 beam arrays (+consoles) and a torpedo launcher (without console), then your Boff Powers should be almost all beam-related!)
simple rules of thumb:
Couple of things.
Firstly discouraging people from tanking and healing is not productive. I have a half done CC/Heal/Beam boat that out performs quite a few people in the PUG's.
Secondly, Technicians do not change the way Aux2Batt works they add a secondary ability to Aux2Batt, a better example would be the Voth TBR Doff, it ACTUALLY cahnges the way the skill itself works, by turning your Push into a Pull.
Thirdly, for both you and the OP, you may also want to consiter hybrids, like CC/Healer, or Tank/Healer or many other wonderful hybrids. There are many enjoyable ways to play and for some that isnt a dedicated role but a multipurpose one, and for some that keeps the game more interesting than the humdrum of constantly doing only the one thing.
Fourth, the ship. For some this a ship they have mightily had their eye on. DO NOT let the hardcores tell you you picked a bad ship, if you like it and it suits your style it is a good ship. And a ghood place to research these before purchasing anything is the STO Wiki, where lots and lots of useful information is to be had, the guides section of the academy has lots of useful guides also.
Focusing on certain weapon types, like torpedoes vs energy, is simply silly unless you are solidly going for a torp boat. Mix and match and find what works for you (just dont test things by buying a bunch of expensive gear), Sure if you slot that DBB you might lose a little damage on a turn, but you will do a bit more on incoming.
I think what the OP was trying to do is help people get their idea sorted before coming to others for help. Many people asking for build help these days, have maybe a ship in mind and know what class their captain is, no clue on the role they want or anything, and what you always see in these situations is people shoving A2B and DPS builds down their throat. I know i for one, even though i have a solid build in mind and just need help perfecting it (usually stated right off the bat) STILL get A2B and DPS builds shoved at me like they are end all be all.
So i salute you OP for trying to be helpful, But i shame some of the others who cannot just agree or add useful information, he did note as he looked at more he would be altering his little hierachy chart, but i know i always pick a ship before i pick my powers, because simply put, powers are interchangeable and some ships you wouldnt think to look at because of their boff seating had you picked that power first. Im not saying your wrong but saying you have to pick powers first is just crazy talk.
Rage incoming.....5......4.......3.....2.....1......
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
In a game where you would actually need a tank or healer i would agree with you. STO is not such a game. I am quite sure, that if you had build a more DPS-focused ship you would even better perform in the PUGs.
nitpicking.
Each and every ship has enough resources to stay alive and almost every setup has some cross-healing skills in it. Therefore there is no need for a dedicated healer. If you stay around waiting for some health-bars to drop, you do not contribute much for the successful completition of an STF, which has a timed optional objective. Especially if asked to do some interception stuff, like in Kithomer or Cure you will need at least some DPS if you do not want to fail that task.
Therefore i cannot emphasize enough: more DPS/CC/Debuff is always better than tanking/(cross)healing.
Wrong. Go to the shipyard/flotilla-threads and check all QQ-Threads first to see which ships - despite of being "stylish" - have their disadvantages (Fed Dreadnough, Bortas'qu, D'deridex - just to name the ones with most QQ on them). Then read the guides and you will simply avoid picking a ship you would have trouble to do the more difficult stuff (elite-STFs)
wrong again. Mixing weapons means you have to put a lot of more skillpoints into your tactic-branch of your skill tree. This might be good for a pure DPS-tactician. But sitting in a Cruiser/Science setup you will lack a lot of points for your primary setup. In addition you either have to mix your tactical consoles (less bonus for those weapons which do have more DPS) or omit the consoles for one weapon type (then why do you put it in your ship?)
Check the buid/powers-threads again. You will almost always find either "pure energy"-setups or "torp boats" which do the most bang for the buck. Speaking of energy boats: never-ever mix beams and cannons. The only exception from this rule should be max. one weapon to get a set bonus.
sorry, and this is exactly the reason people fail the most PUGs. Yes, it is completely counterintuitive, but pick the BO-powers first and the ship later. This will save you a lot of time and money.
EDIT:
These "I do better than others in PUG" - statements do not tell anything. There is a sort of benchmark for the performance of your setup: Starbase 234. Just post the remaining time when you finish the mission.