When I hit 50 I intend to put my Tactical Captain in an Odessy cruiser and go all beam weapons.
I do like that play style of all beams.
So I was wondering what with the different beam types (Phaser, disruptor etc), which is the best to go for?
Also, which consoles do you recommend for the different types of beam weapon?
As always thanks for your time in any replies
Comments
Fleet Antiprotons (with omni beam)
Romulan Plasmas (with experimental beam and console)
Elachi and Nanite Disruptors
Spiral Waves
For consoles, obviously get tac consoles for the energy type you use, the best would be locators. Each energy type has at least one console or gear set which gives a damage boost too.
For price, you want Tetryons, or possibly Polarons, I'm not sure which is cheapest right now.
I especially like the Disruptors on my Klingons, since they now have the Mogh, and disruptor consoles have increased the damage of my special console on it.
The Polarons have a really awesome proc. They will drain the enemy's subsystems by 25 when they proc. It is cool to see some enemies just come to a complete stop when it hits them. Also, it weakens their weapons, and shields at the same time.
I enjoy the Plasma weapons more with my Romulans, mainly just because they are the weapons they use. With the right build, they can be really powerful, and the DOT can help with killing enemies that regenerate shield facings.
I like Antiproton because of their color, and they do slightly more damage than the others due to the fact that they do more damage with crits. If you use BFAW, then you can get the beams to proc fairly quick. This will allow some of them to do more total damage sometimes than the Antiproton. However, if you are just wanting to do good damage, and not worry about trying to get them to proc, then the Antiproton are easier. You just shoot away.
For consoles, I recommend that whichever weapon you choose, you stick with that energy type. Then, use the tac consoles for that energy type, not beam tac consoles. This will give you more damage than the beam consoles will give.
I do recommend playing around with the different ones, and find which ones you like the best. What I like, and the reasons I like them might not be the same for someone else.
About the Omnidirectional AP beam, I don't use it because it only does a little more damage than the weapons I use. Also, I use beam overload, so I don't want it to use that attack instead of one of my more powerful weapons.
Well, "popular" is a tricky word. If you mean the beams that are used for most people you will need to include phasers, polaron and almost everything except tetryon. Since A LOT of people uses phasers and polaron as well. Phasers are worst than almost any weapon (except for tetryon again lol) but that doesnt mean people dont use em a lot. We need to remember a lot of people dont play this game to have the best ship, items and performance, they play just for having fun. And a lot of em (me included in my fed character) mount phasers in their ships cuz they look cool on a federation ship and they are just fine. lol.
I honestly saw less people with elachi and nanite disruptors / spiral waves than people with phasers and polaron.
Time will only tell!
Many of the various "base" weapon types have "variants" e.g. ...
Polaron = Power Drain Proc.
Phased Polaron = Power Drain + Subsystem Offline Proc's
Protonic Polaron = Polaron & Proton Direct to Hull Damage Proc's
Dominion Polaron = Polaron + Bonus Shield Damage (only available as a Beam Array or Dual Cannon though)
All of those use Polaron as the Base Damage type, so you can still use a single TAC Console type or Item Set (the Jem-H set for instance) plus you also get several "bonus" Procs ...
Disruptors have several options for instance ...
As do Tetryon's (though these do require a pretty specific build to be really useful) ...
The only one that is left out (amusingly, and to the chagrin of many FED players) is the Phaser, which only recently got one extra variant from the Undine Rep.
Actually this is what im doing in my haakona lol. I have a mixed polaron - plasma torp ship xD. And i use a mix of those beams... lol. Since i use the hyper plasma as a torp, i just put 3 polaron tac consoles and thats it. And i am really loving it. Polaron beams fits really great in the haakona (well, in the hapax or the guardian fits great as well, of course).
Yeah I have a KDF Tac who has a Polar-Skittle Neggy Beam Boat and combined with the Rapid Reload TF Torp and the Jem-H Space Set, it's froicken awesome!
It melts enemies in seconds, and I haven't even got any Fleet Consoles for her yet, just running XI Blues in most slots, Once I get some Crit-H Tac Spire consoles, and some Neut+Turn Dil Mine consoles, it'll be even better.
After that: http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ship_Weapon
Opinions will vary - yours is all that should matter to you
(FWIW - I use and *love* Spiral Waves ... but I had to get a Galor to get them first, and that was a tremendous, yet worthwhile, hurdle.)
Good luck!