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What do the weapon types do? And how do you effectively protect against them?
malazancommander
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Sorry for the tittle, this is to make sure anyone looking for this in a search can find it.
I can't seem to find the answer I am looking for - usually they are only tiny bits, not enough for me to get the whole picture. Right now, I am acquiring weapons and consoles for a future ship. I have a specific personal build in mind.
Anyhow, it will be a very quick ship but will involve a heavy defence (in terms of consoles) and I need to know something about that. I will also need to know something about the offensive nature of the types of weapons I will be choosing for my ship.
Below is what my question will be about. The question itself will be located after this, which I will be asking a question on:
Tetraburnium Hull Armour consists of these Damage Resistance Ratings:
Plasma
Tetryon
Polaron
Antiproton
Ablative Hul Armour consists of these Damage Resistance Ratings:
Phaser
Disruptor
Plasma
Tetryon
Engineering Console - Neutronium Alloy consists of these Damage Resistance Ratings:
Kinetic
All Energy
I understand the first two armours correctly. As for Kinetic, I understand that it has its own type - Kinetic. Now, this is my question which is twofold:
F I R S T L Y,
Plasma, Tetryon, Polaron, Antiproton, Phaser and Disruptor
S E C O N D L Y,
I am looking for FULL answers that will help me and other STO gamers who don't understand those things just yet, as the wiki explains nothing at all in this regard. And I mean, nothing. Nor could I find anything on this forum.
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I can't seem to find the answer I am looking for - usually they are only tiny bits, not enough for me to get the whole picture. Right now, I am acquiring weapons and consoles for a future ship. I have a specific personal build in mind.
Anyhow, it will be a very quick ship but will involve a heavy defence (in terms of consoles) and I need to know something about that. I will also need to know something about the offensive nature of the types of weapons I will be choosing for my ship.
Below is what my question will be about. The question itself will be located after this, which I will be asking a question on:
Tetraburnium Hull Armour consists of these Damage Resistance Ratings:
Plasma
Tetryon
Polaron
Antiproton
Ablative Hul Armour consists of these Damage Resistance Ratings:
Phaser
Disruptor
Plasma
Tetryon
Engineering Console - Neutronium Alloy consists of these Damage Resistance Ratings:
Kinetic
All Energy
I understand the first two armours correctly. As for Kinetic, I understand that it has its own type - Kinetic. Now, this is my question which is twofold:
F I R S T L Y,
Plasma, Tetryon, Polaron, Antiproton, Phaser and Disruptor
- Are the aforementioned known as what is called: "Energy Damage"?
- If SO, are there any more type of "Energy Damage" types not listed here?
- If NOT, then what is "Energy Damage"?
Also, - What is Kinetic Damage?
- What type of weapons are we talking about?
- Are we ONLY speaking about Torpedoes?
S E C O N D L Y,
- What are the distinct advantages AND disadvantages for these types of weapons. Including both PvP and PvE.
I am looking for FULL answers that will help me and other STO gamers who don't understand those things just yet, as the wiki explains nothing at all in this regard. And I mean, nothing. Nor could I find anything on this forum.
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Post edited by malazancommander on
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Comments
It explains the Damage Types
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Kinetic_Damage#Kinetic
Those are the ship weapons
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ship_weapon
In both charts you see what energy and what kinetic is. I don't know where you have neen looking.
Although the Wiki may be not 100% correct in some pages! the Basic stuff is very much detailed.
You and all the other players should read through both Basic pages, and if you or the other players have questions, just ask.
I'm talking about the strengths, the weaknesses of each weapons - which could even include loading times as well. ACTUAL strengths and weaknesses. From PvP scenarios to PvE ones.
The links explain nothing. Fine, they crunch numbers, nothing more. On a reaslitic level, a -2.5% of something says little about the capacity of the weapon, nor about what they actually do in the long run of a battle. This is the information people are looking for. Not number crunching.
Also, what about this:
""""""Plasma, Tetryon, Polaron, Antiproton, Phaser and Disruptor
Are the aforementioned known as what is called: "Energy Damage"?
If SO, are there any more type of "Energy Damage" types not listed here?
If NOT, then what is "Energy Damage"? """"""
And the strengh of your weapons depends on the Tactical consoles you out on your ship.
And the strengh depends also on temporary buffs you receive from abilities etc.
There are no weaknesses in the weapons. Every weapon has its own ability. Tetryon, polaren etc. Are energy weapons. And everywhere there is Projectile or Torpedo in it, is kinetic Damage.
This is also explained in the links.
Energy weapons are good against shields, kinetic weapons rather on an exposed hull.
Like it is described in the links.
All the top players here are playing this game for years, spending money and time in PVP, pve, story and reputations. They also had to learn everything from the scratch by themselves and later supported other players.
All beam and cannon weapons are "energy damage", torpedoes are "kinetic". Energy weapons do equal damage to shields and hull while kinetic weapons do less damage to shields but more to the hull of a ship.
Cannons are stronger than beams but have a narrower firing arc and more damage dropoff with range. In general cannons are better on maneuverable ships (like Escorts) that can keep their foreward arc on the enemy while beams are better on slower turning ships that can't always manage that (like Cruisers).
The only real difference between the various energy types is their special proc ability which, at a 2.5% per "shot" rate really doesn't come up but so often and is more of an issue for the min-maxers. As I understand it you can slightly increase the shield drain proc from Tetryon weapons and the subsystem power drain of Polaron weapons by increasing your Flow Capacitors skill, either in the skill tree or through the use of various pieces of gear.
Disruptors have a chance to reduce an enemy's resistance, increasing damage over a long fight.
Plasma weapons have a chance to cause a damage over time plasma burn effect, also good for long fights.
Antiproton is a bit different, however, in that it doesn't have a proc but instead had increased critical severity inherently which makes it the weapon of choice for Captains with a high critical hit rate.
Whatever energy type you choose, though, it's typically a good idea to pick one and buff it up with tactical consoles specific to that type rather than go with a "rainbow" build of several different energy types and using the slightly less efficient "all energy" or "all cannon" consoles.
In short, thank you guys for your input.
edgecrysger, yes I was looking for that. I couldn't have found it anywhere but here, thanks!
organicmanfred, if you read shurato2099's text, you will see this is exactly what I was asking. Instead of number crunching, actual tips on the types of energies and so forth. But thank you for trying.
shurato2099, what does proc mean? Btw, thank you so much for the paragraphs you wrote. This is precisely what I was trying to tell organicmanfred about.
As for what this means to a player? Well it's comes down to how you play really. If you are a Solo PvP player then certain damage types will be better for you, for instance Anti-Proton has a higher Critical chance than other weapons, so for a Solo player doing more damage on each single target is beneficial. If you play more PvE in teams, then a weapon type that has the ability to "debuff" the target for a length of time is preferred, such as the "Disruptor" which lowers the enemies damage resistance for ALL team members, so everyone does more damage.
All weapons have the same basic "strengths" In fact the Wiki even includes a table which quite clearly lists the amount of base damage each weapon does at each level, again if you bother to look.
These number do not and cannot, however, take into account things such as your player class, any consoles or equipment you have on our ship which boost damage, your characters skills, your characters race, nor any boosts you get from Bridge Officer abilities or boosts from various devices.
Again this is common sense ... There is no "rule" for what a weapon does in this regard, because each situation is different, it's up to you to decide if the effect is worthwhile or not. For the rest, see my replies above. Energy damage is exactly that an "energy type"" such as Polaron, Disruptor etc. in other words the glowy beams, bullets and rays your ship shoots out.
Kinetic damage is pretty much anything that has a physical shell such as a Torpedo, but really it's just all "damage".
And as far as I know, there are no "hidden" damage types in STO, they are all listed on the Wiki.
There are some ways of dealing Proton damage (the Experimental Proton Weapon, Protonic Polaron weapons, Proton Barrage, and the proc from Dyson reputation Science consoles), and at least one of them is involved in current "vape" builds (designed to destroy you in five seconds or less), so Neutronium is the best defense against everything. Kinetic Damage is dealt by torpedoes, mines, the Kinetic Cutting Beam (from Task Force Omega reputation), and most damaging Science powers. Because Antiproton, Disruptor, and Plasma are the most common damage types in PvP and against enemies in PvE, the most common Elite Fleet shield uses the [ResB] modifier, which covers those types. Dedicated PvP players will also carry a [ResA] shield to switch to if they need to defend against the remaining energy types, so playing the "What does my enemy resist?" game is pretty futile in both PvP and PvE (NPCs resist all damage equally). Thus, the only differences are the procs and special weapons.
Phasers and Polarons affect enemy power levels, but the effects of strong power drain/disable builds are less noticeable against NPCs than against players, and drain is countered by an enemy player's Power Insulators while the disable is countered by Subsystem Repair. The Polaron proc scales with your Flow Capacitors, but no skill improves your Phaser proc.
Tetryon drains shields, but some PvE missions involve opponents with no shields at all. It scales with Flow Capacitors, but is again resisted by Power Insulators.
Plasma can induce a damage over time effect, but is cleared by Hazard Emitters. Since that power's a very high-strength heal over time power and the Borg use Plasma as well (and their shield drain power is also cleared by Hazard Emitters), most players carry it, so it's less powerful in PvP. The shields from the Task Force Omega reputation are still popular for those without Elite Fleet shields, so Plasma is also the most-commonly resisted energy type since those shields carry an innate Plasma resistance.
Disruptors cause a hull damage resist debuff on the target. There is no downside to this, as it can only be cleared by a relatively rare/expensive duty officer.
Standard Antiproton weapons do not have a proc, but instead give +20% Critical Severity. Like Disruptors, there is no real disadvantage to this, particularly if you have a high critical hit rate.
All weapon types also have variants:
Elite Fleet Phasers have a proc that heals your shields. Compared to Advanced Fleet Phasers, they give up some damage for this, so Elite Phasers currently aren't favored. Season 9 will include Bio-Molecular Phasers, designed to combat Species 8472 (The "Undine"). These will have a chance to decrease enemy turn rate, and then deal an amount of extra damage once the turn rate debuff expires.
Dominion Polaron is only available in arrays and dual cannons, and has a Tetryon proc in addition to the normal proc, Phased Polaron adds the Phaser proc, and Protonic Polaron has a chance to deal extra Proton damage to the enemy on a critical hit.
Refracting Tetryon occasionally bounces a little extra damage to another target, but the damage and occurrence rate are so low it's not really worth it. Destabilizing Tetryon causes a shield damage over time effect rather than the single-shot drain that normal Tetryon has. Phased Tetryon adds a Phaser proc.
Romulan Plasma adds a Disruptor debuff. Caustic Plasma inflicts its damage over a shorter period of time.
Disruptor has the most variant procs: Nanite Disruptors can make more damage bypass enemy shields, Elachi Disruptors can occasionally ignore enemy shields outright, Elite Fleet Disruptors debuff both the enemy's hull and shield resistances, Polarized Disruptors have the Polaron proc, Spiral Wave Disruptors have the Phaser proc (but are available only as beam arrays, and only if you own the Galor). Plasma-Disruptor Hybrids are also available as beam arrays and dual heavy cannons, and add the Plasma proc. Nanite and Elachi disruptors completely replace the original proc. In Season 9, Bio-Molecular Disruptors will also be available, and will function similarly to the Bio-Molecular modifier on Phasers.
Currently, the only Antiproton variant is Voth Antiproton, which debuffs the target's energy weapons for a short time.
You haven't asked anything that has not been answered on STOwiki or in the forums.
Normally I have no problem repeating things - sharing information either from STOwiki or from folks, either reposting it, retyping it, or linking it.
But what you said there is the biggest load of garbage that I have read in quite some time...
...cause guess what, even the folks that have provided less rude replies - all they're doing is reposting/repeating information that has been posted countless times on the forums or is readily available from STOwiki.
I cannot see those base numbers you speak about o_O I would have seen them. I looked three times to make sure.
Yeah, I know. I never expect anything such as race, skills etc. when I speak about damage and so forth.
Thank you, I really wouldn't have known that, given all types of weaponry in the game. I am a Star Trek fan by all means, but not enough to know all the terminology or what they mean.
Cool, so you're pretty much covered with those consoles then, awesome! That clears up a lot of things
Damn, very grateful for that one, for sure. Thank you. VERY appreciated. Awesome! And the rest of your post, AMAZING! Kudos!!!
I will definitely mix all of these up and give credit where its due, and then post a new thread with the information. A lot of people are like me, and the info on the wiki don't explain TRIBBLE. But you guys really did help in being able to explain what a lot of gamers - new and somewhere between new and vet didn't understand!
^thanks VD
Mal: here are a lot of guys working on the Wiki. Saying that the Wiki is TRIBBLE and has no informations is a completely insult against everyone involved.
I surely have no problem explaining Basic things, hell, Virusdancer and other top players helped me with a lot of stuff I didn't understand at the first place.
But you sturdy refused to read anything written on the Wiki. The whole difference between energy and kinetic was explained, all energy and kinetic weapons are listed and what they can do.
You showed no interest in this and other players here wrote the same thing down here.
You can't know everything about the game and weapons and defence in a few days. Learn the basics, ask if you don't understand something about that and go on with your learning.
But never say something other players do is TRIBBLE or nothing.
HEY, it's not because YOU understand something in a certain way that it automatically means others will. Secondly, you REALLY think I didn't look in the wiki first? I DID. Get a grip on yourself man. It's not because you have an easier time understanding how something is written that it means I or anyone else will.
All I see everywhere on that wiki is TWO things - number crunching which means nothing to me (wow, 2.5% how does THAT help me???) and less than satisfactory answers. Also, you think I can search the forums and look through thousands of threads before posting? I looked through certain to be sure, but they offered either: a fraction of what I was looking for OR not at all what I was looking for. So, buzz off. You have beyond 8K posts, so you think someone with 2 months experience has YOUR experience? No, again, buzz off.
Your behaviour is just attacking because you don't understand something and are angry about that. But insulting in your first post isn't wise.
If I'm remembering correctly 'proc' is short for 'proccess', it's the extra effect of the various weapon types that only occur, or proccess, every so often.
Tetryon weapons proc for a minor shield drain effect, which is nice for enemies with shields but doesn't help once shields are down or against things that don't have shields like Borg gates or nanite transformers.
Polaron procs for a minor drain to subsystem power, this makes it popular for science ships with drain builds but the various Emergcy Power abilities and an Engineer's Nadion Inversion can offset or counter it.
Phasers proc for a chance to take a random subsystem offline for a few seconds, which is nice when it drops an enemy's shields, but the Emergency Power abilities can clear it entirely.
Disruptors proc for a short resistance debuff which a few abilities can offset, although I don't know of anything that completely clears it.
Plasma procs for a burning damage over time which Hazard Emitters can clear.
Antiproton and the new Protonic weapons have effects based on critical hits rather than the usual proc rate. Antiproton does more crit damage, Protonic have some shield bypassing damage. Right nowthere are only a few weapons that do Protonic damage, the Proton weapon from the Dyson Sphere reputation system, the Proton cannons on the new Dyson hybrid ships and the Protonic Polaron weapons also from the Dyson rep system.
Yes I'm angry at someone like him and even you for FALSELY stating I did not read the wiki. So yeah you are both pissing me off.
It's NOT because it was clearly explained in your eyes that it automatically means that everyone will understand. I didn't. Do YOU have a problem with the fact that I didn't understand??? Are you gonna troll me for NOT understanding? What's the next step? While both of you are it, might as well call me stupid.
You explain it in a way that allows for more in depth understanding of it. You literally fill in that missing link" in the wiki in your explanations. Thank you.
You're very welcome.
I've been where you are now, although for me it was the various space gear sets. It took me a while to connect what the wiki was saying to the actual behavior I was seeing in the game. Once I started getting it things just sort of started clicking into place but it took me a little while.
Could you please calm down?
Can I assume that the amount of Information on the Wiki was to much for you? And i ask this in a normal way.o
You said you want to know all about weapon power, PVP, pve. Nice. No problem. But you can't learn everything about PVP and that stuff when you sont know the basics.
What the guys did was to Write the whole Wiki thing down. The Basic things again.
If you would have said you don't understand those things, thats a different way, but insulting the Wiki and falsely saying it is TRIBBLE and there are no informations, because YOU don't understand them is the completely wrong way.
Just say you don't understand this or that and its good and you get help. But stop insulting and complaining to the Wiki guys because YOU can't work with the informations.
There is no shame in not knowing something.
Yeah, and when we were new - did we walk into a place like that and expect everybody to sing kumbaya? No, we had our questions - we asked them - we thanked folks for the answers - and in turn we tried to answer questions we could...share the info we had gathered.
I'm still asking questions on things. It's an ongoing and evolving process...they're constantly adding new things to the game. Even in knowing something, there might be somebody out there that did something different with it - it's a grand adventure of knowledge...where things might feel stagnant in the game at times, there's still always going to be something new to learn.
This whole thread gives me a flasback to a few month ago. Not sure about the title but it worked out exactly the same way. With 1 new guy ranting and 2 mysteriously appearing angels of mercy who became the heroes and everyone else was just a bad Person.
It was literally just that last paragraph. I was doing my typical piece by piece reply...trying to answer, posing additional questions to get a better idea of some of the info being asked about, etc, etc, etc...then I got to the last paragraph, deleted everything else I had started to type...meh.
Angle of Mercy, that's me. Sometimes obtuse, occasionally acute, sometimes even right.
There is something not kosher . This happened before. Lets call it a day and go to sleep. At last here in my country. I will never respond to a newbi rant thread again.
There is a game I have been playing since the late 90's, and if you were new in that game and then I accused you of not reading the wiki, how would you feel? It's insulting. You assumed I did not read it - instead of assuming I might not have understood it.
Don't get me wrong, it's always nice having a wiki, but like anything else, if it's not created properly for EVERYONE to be able to understand it, then in my very, very, very personal opinion, why have a wiki that caters only to those who have been playing for a long time? Should a wiki not actually contain the answers of the questions of those who have much less experience. That's my opinion. You might agree or disagree, and that's fine.
I did not rant in my original post, it was genuinely a query. So, I do not understand why you call it a rant. If it was a rant, why would I have bothered to format the whole thing? People who rant, won't do that. I was genuinely trying to get more information which I could not find.
Lastly, I never called you a bad person. I just NEVER let anyone think they can walk on me. Never. It's not in my nature, I always fight back. Always. I also give credit when it's due, even when I'm having an argument with someone.
@virusdancer, that's a low behaviour in my very, very honest opinion. Like organicmanfred, you assumed I did not read the wiki. It is STILL my opinion that the wiki is improperly documented. So, the fact that YOU judged my perception is very low. I don't respect that at all, but I do respect the fact that you were actually honest about it. I honestly cannot believe that you would judge someone's perception of the wiki, merely because for you the wiki answers questions. For me, it really does not. Either I don't fully understand what is in the wiki in some instances, or there is missing a lot of information.
If you did contribute to the wiki, then I am sorry, but it is missing A LOT of elements. But even without your help, I have created a document which I will upload here when I have the time, in a new thread.
The fact that you deleted a whole post (before actually posting it), that's wrong in my book. I was really hurt when I saw those words. I will remember that, I promise you that much.
I'm not trying to TRIBBLE on you right now. I just want you to know how I honestly feel. I'm not angry at you, but rather extremely hurt by your comments. For me, it's important that you understand this.
@shurato2099 because of you and mandoknight89, I have a working copy of all the information newbs needs, which I will post in a new thread when I will have the time.
@everyone, goodnite all.
Joined January 2009
Yeah I was thinking of that too, but I don't want any bad blood in a thread supposed to be informative, that's all. And also, if I may be honest lol, in the vain hope that someone will sticky it. It's 4 pages long lol.