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dykerasdykeras Member Posts: 326 Arc User
edited May 2014 in The Academy
I am new to the game (Lev 20) and have a few questions that I hope you can answer for me :-)

1. Bridge officer skills1 - If I have a bridge officer with Torpedo 1 and Torpedo 2a nd max them both, can I switch out Torpedo 1 for a different skill, or do they work separate and both give bonuses?

2. Bridge officer skills 2- If I have 2 bridge officers both with Torpedo 2 I get 2 (high yield) markers on my ship panel... when I select one of them, they both act as used, so can I remove one of them from my ship panel? (less clutter on my ship panel).

3. I know the level cap is 50, but I see many people with 50 + 2 (or something similar) using better weapons and equipment that you can use at 50?
Or are all the weapons available at 50, but you just need to acquire them?

- when I reach 50 and open a box giving (levelled) equipment, would I only get lev 50 or would I get 50+2 (or whatever the term is used for advanced weapons)

Sorry if the questions seem very (noobish) but I do have a lot to learn :-)
Post edited by dykeras on

Comments

  • factoreightfactoreight Member Posts: 6 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    1, they are the same skill but at a different level.


    2, the skill on both will show as used , one will have a shorter wait time / cooldown.
  • kamiyama317kamiyama317 Member Posts: 1,295 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    It seems that you are having a hard time understanding the skill cooldowns. There are several types of cooldowns:

    1. Self-cooldown. This is when you activate a skill, it takes a certain amount of time before you can use that same skill again. A rank 9 torpedo skill can be used every 30 seconds, for instance.

    2. Duplicate cooldown. This is when you activate one skill, say emergency power to shields. It puts itself on a 45 second self-cooldown, but it also puts any other copies of emergency power to shields on a 30 second duplicate cooldown. This is to prevent you from using two copies of that ability at the same time. Torpedo high yield puts a 15 second duplicate cooldown on other torpedo skills, so you aren't launching multiple high yield torps in one attack.

    3. Shared cooldown. This is when you activate a skill, say emergency power to shields. It will also put other emergency power abilities, like emergency power to auxiliary on a 15 second shared cooldown. This is a minor penalty to prevent you from running all 4 emergency power abilities at the same time. You can still run 2 different emergency power abilities at the same time though - you just have to activate one, then activate the next 15 seconds later. They each last 30 seconds so there is some overlap.

    There are also abilities in the game that can speed up skill cooldowns, like photonic officer or tactical initiative. There are also abilities that can slow down enemy cooldowns, like subnucleonic beam.

    To answer your question - there is a benefit to having two torpedo skills. With one torpedo skill you can only use it once every 30 seconds, but with two torpedo skills you can use one every 15 seconds. Using one puts the other on a 15 second duplicate cooldown.

    If you don't want a specific skill, you can train your bridge officer in a different skill by going to the skill trainer on earth space dock (near admirial quinn's office) or on Qo'nos (room in the north-east corner of the city, I think).
  • baelogventurebaelogventure Member Posts: 1,002 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    1. They do work separately, but activating a Torpedo skill will cause the others to go on Global cooldown. Same with Beam, Cannon, Emergency Power, and a few other skills

    2. Yeah, as stated above, you can use 2 copies of powers, but you have to stagger their use.

    3. I have no idea what you mean by 50+2
  • kapla1755kapla1755 Member Posts: 1,249
    edited May 2014
    Ok... Bridge officer abilities chart for reference

    1. Assuming you mean TS-1[ Torpedo Spread-1 ]or THY-1 [ Torpedo Hi-yield-1 ] you can spend 9 skill points to max them out which reduces the time it takes your BOFF [ Bridge Officer ] ability to recharge. Torpedo spread can be used to attack multiple or single targets and never misses, torpedo Hi-yield is for single target hi-Damage but can miss, so I always use TS-1 especially when leveling. Since they both affect torpedos slotting multiple TS-1 or THY-1 will start a 15sec CD [cooldown] timer on the unused skill the skill buff stays active for 30secs or till you fire whichever occurs 1st.

    2. They are separate skills in your power tray and if you remove 1 you will be unable to activate it unless using the BOFF crew overlay to manually mouse activate it. you can set up you power tray and screen UI to whatever is most comfortable to you and I personally have changed where my UI elements are from time to time because I find them more conveint in a new location.

    3. Level 50 is Vice Admiral so the best weapons you can currently aquire are Mk XII [mk 12], and you just need to aquire them provided your ship can use the weapon type you want. When opening item boxes at Level 50 you will receive either Mk XI or Mk XII the games random number generator determines what you get as you open the box.

    Hope that helps.. :D
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • dykerasdykeras Member Posts: 326 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Thanks for the replies, makes more sense now :-)


    **1. Assuming you mean TS-1[ Torpedo Spread-1 ]or THY-1 [ Torpedo Hi-yield-1 ] you can spend 9 skill points to max them out which reduces the time it takes your BOFF [ Bridge Officer ] ability to recharge. Torpedo spread can be used to attack multiple or single targets and never misses, torpedo Hi-yield is for single target hi-Damage but can miss, so I always use TS-1 especially when leveling. Since they both affect torpedos slotting multiple TS-1 or THY-1 will start a 15sec CD [cooldown] timer on the unused skill the skill buff stays active for 30secs or till you fire whichever occurs 1st**

    No, I mean my Tactical officer has High yield 1 and high yield 2 ... so does this make High yield 1 redundant? and maybe swap it out for a dfferent skill?
  • maelwy5maelwy5 Member Posts: 593 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    dykeras wrote: »
    No, I mean my Tactical officer has High yield 1 and high yield 2 ... so does this make High yield 1 redundant? and maybe swap it out for a dfferent skill?

    If you only want to use a High Yield every 30 seconds, yes.
    If you want to use a High Yield every 15 seconds, no.

    :D

    Generally speaking in every build you're going to want an ability that recharges your shields (Emergency Power to Shields, Transfer Shield Strength, Science Team), an ability that heals your hull (Auxiliary Power to Structural Integrity, Engineering Team, Hazard Emitters); an ability that allows you to "cleanse" harmful effects on you (Attack Pattern Omega, Polarize Hull, Hazard Emitters), and an ability that balances your shields constantly when in combat (Tactical Team - which also has the additional benefit of increasing your damage a little!).

    In general, you can double-up on each ability and get double the uptime. For certain things like "Emergency Power to X" you can technically take four copies (example: two EPTS, two EPTW)

    After that, it's a case of how you want to play: Do you want Support Others, Crowd Control enemies, tank, or have high damage output? There are a wide variety of useful abilities :)
    [ <<<--- @Maelwys --->>> ]
  • kapla1755kapla1755 Member Posts: 1,249
    edited May 2014
    dykeras wrote: »
    Thanks for the replies, makes more sense now :-)


    **1. Assuming you mean TS-1[ Torpedo Spread-1 ]or THY-1 [ Torpedo Hi-yield-1 ] you can spend 9 skill points to max them out which reduces the time it takes your BOFF [ Bridge Officer ] ability to recharge. Torpedo spread can be used to attack multiple or single targets and never misses, torpedo Hi-yield is for single target hi-Damage but can miss, so I always use TS-1 especially when leveling. Since they both affect torpedos slotting multiple TS-1 or THY-1 will start a 15sec CD [cooldown] timer on the unused skill the skill buff stays active for 30secs or till you fire whichever occurs 1st**

    No, I mean my Tactical officer has High yield 1 and high yield 2 ... so does this make High yield 1 redundant? and maybe swap it out for a dfferent skill?


    For your tactical officer skills it will depend largely on your ship type [science, escort, cruiser]

    THY-1 = 2 torpedoes, THY-2 = 3 torpedoes
    TS-1 = 3 clusters of 4 regular torpedoes, TS-2 = 4 clusters of 6 regular torpedoes

    As a general rule your 1st Tactical officer skill should be Tactical team as it does all of the following....

    * Removes hostile boarding parties over 10 sec
    * Removes tactical debuffs over 10 sec
    * +18 Starship Energy Weapons Training for 10 sec
    * +18 Starship Projectile Weapons Training for 10 sec
    * Distributes shield strength to shields receiving damage for 10 sec

    so for example...


    Tactical boff ability powers = Tac Team-1, THY-2 or TS-2

    But if you are in a cruiser and using beam arrays primarily you might wish to go....

    Tac team-1, BFAW-2 [beam fire at will] to hit multiple targets around your ship which is easier than repositioning the ship to get the target into the torpedoes 90 degree firing arc.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • bendalekbendalek Member Posts: 1,781 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    *** 1 EXTREMELY important thing to be aware of, if you're considering retraining Bridge Officer powers, particularly while you are leveling up, is that it costs (along with a very small amount of EC) Experience Points to train skills.

    As with Captain Skills, the higher ranked abilities cost more points per "tick" ...

    If you "retrain" an Bridge officer, ALL POINTS SPENT will be lost for good!
    If you had increased a skill to level 9 before, as soon as you change that power it will go back to level 1

    This may not seem like a big issue to some players who have hundreds of thousands of XP points,but you may need those points later on, so it's a good idea to try and decide what powers you want your BoFF's to have before spending any XP points on their skills.
    Oh, hoho hohhhhh, Oh,, hoho, hohhhhh
    My%20STO%20Sig%20Clear_zps5etu86s1.png
  • ffttfftt Member Posts: 715 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    dykeras wrote: »
    3. I know the level cap is 50, but I see many people with 50 + 2 (or something similar) using better weapons and equipment that you can use at 50?
    Or are all the weapons available at 50, but you just need to acquire them?

    - when I reach 50 and open a box giving (levelled) equipment, would I only get lev 50 or would I get 50+2 (or whatever the term is used for advanced weapons)

    The +2 just indicates that level 50 is two ranks above you. Kind'a useless when looking at PCs, but when looking at NPCs that +/- can be used to determine their toughness. In particular, when fighting the crystaline entity on elite (you'll get there soon enough) the modifier displayed is +2, but the Tholian rifts will spawn weaker -2 mirror ships.

    Level 50 gear is level 50 gear. It'll all be MkX, XI, or MkXII.
  • shockwave85shockwave85 Member Posts: 1,040 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    bendalek wrote: »
    *** 1 EXTREMELY important thing to be aware of, if you're considering retraining Bridge Officer powers, particularly while you are leveling up, is that it costs (along with a very small amount of EC) Experience Points to train skills.

    To make an important distinction, Boff powers cost Expertise. This is separate from a captain's Skill Points, which are what determine your level. Once a captain hits 50 and can no longer gain Skill Points, any further Skill Points they acquire roll over into Expertise. Use of Expertise for any reason will never affect the captain's Skill Points or slow his leveling.

    That said, Expertise goes into a pool that can be used for several things. It can be used for training bridge officers, it's also needed for various Fleet and Reputation projects at endgame. Most Level 50 characters have no shortage of it because, like I said earlier, all the Skill Points they would be earning killing things and finishing missions now roll over into Expertise.

    When you are not yet max level, Expertise can become a problem if you waste it frivolously retraining Boffs. You may find yourself in a situation where you can't get a Boff trained enough to promote them, leaving you with a high level Boff station on your ship that you can't use. That shouldn't happen if you're careful though. What I suggest is:

    Plan out what you want early. Pick out four guys to be your away team, and retrain their skills to what you want. Don't waste any points on anybody else's ground skills besides your away team. Only put points into somebody's space skills if they are being seated on a ship where that skill is getting used. If you want to futz with the space skills, look at a ship you want to fly at 50. Figure out what Boff skills you will need for that, train your Boffs for those skills, and put your points into those as you go. If it doesn't quite fit the other ships you fly as you level, that's fine, you'll be in a different ship in 10 levels anyway.
    ssog-maco-sig.jpg
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