The relationship of players and the individual player's ability to play Star Trek Online is complex. I will try to break my explanation down and hope that it is understood.
My Historical Experience in Star Trek Online.
I have been playing since the game launched. I have twenty-six characters currently. These are spread across the Federation, Klingon Empire, and Romulan Alliance. Also, these characters are spread across Holodeck, Tribble, and Holodeck Foundry.
On the Federation side of the game, I have many science captains, a couple of engineer captains, and two tactical captains. On the Klingon side, I have many engineer captains, 2 science captains, and one tactical captain. On the Romulan Alliance, I have one science captain.
I think that the problem you experienced in the scenario you described occurred because many players do not understand how to allocate their skill points for the captain in the ship they are commanding. And because they are not properly skilled in the ship, then the equipment they use is not effective. Then, the powers they have for their bridge officers are ineffective.
The ships I favor currently as a science captain on the Federation side of the game are the Intrepid, the Nebula, and Science Variant Odyssey. As a engineer captain, I favor the retrofit Excelsior, and science variant Odyssey. I have recently moved my main engineering captain to a Sovereign class cruiser. However, it was mainly for a cosmetic look. Her ship's name is "Godzilla" and the Sovereign class with Mirror Universe style options fit the name better.
As a tactical captain, I put my main character in the Chimera destroyer. She was in a Defiant class, but I felt that a escort was too small of a ship for a Flag Officer. The only larger ship that is a Vice Admiral size ship would be the Galaxy X. However, for a tactical captain to command it, I would have to get rid of all my advanced skills as a tactical officer and respec to a engineer skill set for that ship. So, this is why I gave her the destroyer.
However, I find with the destroyer, it is best to have the character skilled out as a engineer officer for the space skills.
To tie up my talking point with your talking point.
Many captains do not take the necessary time when they are developing their characters to understand the complex relationship of the Space skills, the ship's abilities, captain trait's, reputation abilities, and equipment statistics. Then, to make matters worse, they do not understand how to use the ship in the situation from a team oriented situation.
Star Trek Online space combat is a complex system. With many factors based on the situation you are experiencing at the moment. However, the set up is not very complex to do.
I have a Tac/Escort, Tac/Raptor, Tac/Warbird, Eng/Escort, Tac/Sci, Eng/Cruiser (fed & kdf), Eng/Warbird, and I've just started (so I can't comment too heavily on their qualities) a Sci/Escort and Sci/Warbird. Generally I like to fly something with a better turn rate than the Empire State Building, so my cruiser toons aren't my favourites. However, just because you're in a cruiser doesn't mean you can't one-shot a target, and just because you're in an escort doesn't mean you can't last more than a few seconds in a firefight. All my Tac captains have cruisers available for exploration, and if you're playing the Crystalline Entity scenario, a cruiser is probably the best bet.
A prestige ship is pointless if the captain flying it doesn't have the right skill balance. A base energy-only dps of 1700-1800 (somewhere in the 11k-13k range after engine power, captain-power bonuses and BOff skills are taken into account) isn't much use if you can't dodge, re-inforce your shields or repair your hull. Likewise, a base hull strength of 40k isn't going to help much if you can't coup-de-grace a weakened enemy before he and two others whittle away the last of your hull.
Some ships are designed as glass cannons, some are designed as flying bricks. If you're in a glass cannon you can spec for survivability by eliminating everything before it can shoot you, or you can spec for survivability by increasing healing/repair skills and damage resistance. If you're in a flying brick, you can spec for kill-power by running EPtW, DEM, A2B etc, or you could spec for kill-power by being so damn tough that for an enemy the only choice is die or spontaneously turn into a tac cube.
A well-built glass cannon can solo a borg cube on elite, but the captain must know what they are doing, how to best use their powers and weapons, and how to inflict every last possible point of damage. A well-built flying brick can do the same, but it will take much longer. A poorly-built ship/captain combo will not survive solo-ing a cube at elite unless they are lucky, and sooner or later everybody's luck runs out. The incautious dps-seeker will eventually realise they can't cause damage while waiting to respawn, so they should maybe reconfigure to try and spend less time dead.
Of course, there is a school of thought that says sacrificing yourself for the team is a good strategy, which might explain the Leeroy Jenkins-style occasionally seen. Unfortunately, that only really works if Mr Jenkins can draw all the aggro of all the enemies and lead them away from their teammates while they go blow up the nanite transformers, and not if he rather quickly gets acquainted with a volley of plasma torpedos that mean he spends the next 15 seconds as smouldering wreckage.
It's all in how the players play. I've worked with plenty of pure dps escorts and totally dominated with them. That is, if they were smart enough to let my tank oriented cruiser charge the line first and take up all the aggro.
Then there are the dips who go flying in guns blazing and are space debris by the time I open fire. Escorts aren't the only one's at fault either, there are plenty of cruisers and science ships that are blown out of the sky for foolishness.
Comments
My Historical Experience in Star Trek Online.
I have been playing since the game launched. I have twenty-six characters currently. These are spread across the Federation, Klingon Empire, and Romulan Alliance. Also, these characters are spread across Holodeck, Tribble, and Holodeck Foundry.
On the Federation side of the game, I have many science captains, a couple of engineer captains, and two tactical captains. On the Klingon side, I have many engineer captains, 2 science captains, and one tactical captain. On the Romulan Alliance, I have one science captain.
I think that the problem you experienced in the scenario you described occurred because many players do not understand how to allocate their skill points for the captain in the ship they are commanding. And because they are not properly skilled in the ship, then the equipment they use is not effective. Then, the powers they have for their bridge officers are ineffective.
The ships I favor currently as a science captain on the Federation side of the game are the Intrepid, the Nebula, and Science Variant Odyssey. As a engineer captain, I favor the retrofit Excelsior, and science variant Odyssey. I have recently moved my main engineering captain to a Sovereign class cruiser. However, it was mainly for a cosmetic look. Her ship's name is "Godzilla" and the Sovereign class with Mirror Universe style options fit the name better.
As a tactical captain, I put my main character in the Chimera destroyer. She was in a Defiant class, but I felt that a escort was too small of a ship for a Flag Officer. The only larger ship that is a Vice Admiral size ship would be the Galaxy X. However, for a tactical captain to command it, I would have to get rid of all my advanced skills as a tactical officer and respec to a engineer skill set for that ship. So, this is why I gave her the destroyer.
However, I find with the destroyer, it is best to have the character skilled out as a engineer officer for the space skills.
To tie up my talking point with your talking point.
Many captains do not take the necessary time when they are developing their characters to understand the complex relationship of the Space skills, the ship's abilities, captain trait's, reputation abilities, and equipment statistics. Then, to make matters worse, they do not understand how to use the ship in the situation from a team oriented situation.
Star Trek Online space combat is a complex system. With many factors based on the situation you are experiencing at the moment. However, the set up is not very complex to do.
A prestige ship is pointless if the captain flying it doesn't have the right skill balance. A base energy-only dps of 1700-1800 (somewhere in the 11k-13k range after engine power, captain-power bonuses and BOff skills are taken into account) isn't much use if you can't dodge, re-inforce your shields or repair your hull. Likewise, a base hull strength of 40k isn't going to help much if you can't coup-de-grace a weakened enemy before he and two others whittle away the last of your hull.
Some ships are designed as glass cannons, some are designed as flying bricks. If you're in a glass cannon you can spec for survivability by eliminating everything before it can shoot you, or you can spec for survivability by increasing healing/repair skills and damage resistance. If you're in a flying brick, you can spec for kill-power by running EPtW, DEM, A2B etc, or you could spec for kill-power by being so damn tough that for an enemy the only choice is die or spontaneously turn into a tac cube.
A well-built glass cannon can solo a borg cube on elite, but the captain must know what they are doing, how to best use their powers and weapons, and how to inflict every last possible point of damage. A well-built flying brick can do the same, but it will take much longer. A poorly-built ship/captain combo will not survive solo-ing a cube at elite unless they are lucky, and sooner or later everybody's luck runs out. The incautious dps-seeker will eventually realise they can't cause damage while waiting to respawn, so they should maybe reconfigure to try and spend less time dead.
Of course, there is a school of thought that says sacrificing yourself for the team is a good strategy, which might explain the Leeroy Jenkins-style occasionally seen. Unfortunately, that only really works if Mr Jenkins can draw all the aggro of all the enemies and lead them away from their teammates while they go blow up the nanite transformers, and not if he rather quickly gets acquainted with a volley of plasma torpedos that mean he spends the next 15 seconds as smouldering wreckage.
Then there are the dips who go flying in guns blazing and are space debris by the time I open fire. Escorts aren't the only one's at fault either, there are plenty of cruisers and science ships that are blown out of the sky for foolishness.