Hangar Pet Advice

steaen

I've just treated myself to the Vesta bundle, and so now for the first time in my STO career I have a ship with the capability to use hangar pets. At present I have the Danube runabouts as supplied, but I would be interested to know from someone with more experience in this area if there is another kind of pet I should aim to get.

Thanks in advance.

jagdhippies

I still prefer runabouts even after trying the rep fighters. For me, none of them live very long anyway, and I llike the runabout's tractor beams.

dahminus

Elite scorpians are your toy. Be sure to get the wing commander trait

coffeemike

Elite Scorpions are good for stationary things like Borg Gates.

I use Elite Swarmers on my tac Vesta since it matches my ship's AP Beam layout

desertjets

I've use/used the advanced Danubes, advances Deltas and elite Scorpions.

The runabouts are the most durable -- but I never really found the tractor beams that useful. Seems like the cool down is really long.

The elite scrops are much harder hitting, especially on fixed targets and their HY plasma torps come in handy. But they are fragile and require a lot of babysitting or constant respawning.

Currently using advanced Deltas and liking them the most. Not as durable as the Danubes, but I do actually find the tachyon beam to be useful. Plus I think the transphasics > chroniton torpedos when comparing the Deltas to the Danube.

lianthelia

dahminus wrote: »

Elite scorpians are your toy. Be sure to get the wing commander trait

Is the wing commander trait really much good anymore? I mean with all of the great traits they have been releasing in lock boxes and a good r&d trait here or there...

Plus what about Swarmers? They got a dps boost with the BO buff...are Scorpions still better?

qweeble

I actually swap out hangar pets regularly on my carrier, depending on the mission, if I'm alone, or on a team.

I feel runabouts are a good all-round choice, though. Can't really go wrong with them.

darkjeff

For STFs, the Scorpions remain the highest DPS pets. For Voth/Undine, you'll want something tougher, like Deltas. For general use (where you don't have big stationary targets, nor enemies that obliterate fighters with AoEs), you'll probably get higher DPS from Swarmers. For Crystalline Catastrophe, you'll want Deltas because their beam will strip off the crystal buffs.

I parsed the post-BO-buff Swarmers, it doesn't really increase their damage by much. Noticeable amounts, but nothing that changes their ranking against other hangers. If the Widows had BO3 with their DBBs, that might have greater impact, but BO3 on a fighter array is not very impressive.

If I were to only have one hanger (instead of swapping depending on content), I'd use Delta Flyers.

dahminus

lianthelia wrote: »

Is the wing commander trait really much good anymore? I mean with all of the great traits they have been releasing in lock boxes and a good r&d trait here or there...

Plus what about Swarmers? They got a dps boost with the BO buff...are Scorpions still better?

Of course wing commander is still good. Halves the time it takes to ding lvl 5. With the poor a.i. of pets. It's a needed trait

futurepastnow

I feel Elite Swarmers are the best all-around attack pet, though maybe not the best for ISE with all its unshielded targets. I keep a Yellowstone (elite runabout) hangar for things like Starbase Defense and a cheap blue Delta Flyer hangar for CCE.

warmaker001b

dahminus wrote: »

Of course wing commander is still good. Halves the time it takes to ding lvl 5. With the poor a.i. of pets. It's a needed trait

Wing Commander probably isn't as big a deal for single-hangar ships, but IMO, a must have for full-fledged 2 hangar ones. If flying such a ship, Wing Commander for me is a requirement.

As far as Fed hangar unit selection, it all depends on what you want to do.

The Peregrines are great in numbers and steady, steady firepower that you know is going to get to the target.

The Danubes/Yellowstones are great for CC and something that has some staying power. But IMO, their firepower is subpar per unit, which is worsened by the fact that you can't have many spawned at all. They suffer from mediocre firepower per ship and mediocre firepower even when fully deployed but you'll only find 1 other unit in the game that can challenge their CC... KDF Orion Interceptors. And that's it.

Elite Scorpions are great against stationary, very slow moving objects that don't do AOE. If the NPCs like to do AOE such as the Voth, Tholians, etc, then you're going to find their use negated greatly.

Not sure about Delta Flyers or Type 10 Shuttles. I haven't used them yet. Same with the Stalkers.

dalolorn

I'd say Swarmers are more 'burst' than 'DPS' in their damage output - that initial BO volley will deal a handsome amount of damage to hostiles, but the Scorpion's heavy plasma would dominate against unshielded, (more or less) defenseless targets like the ones in the first stages in most of the Borg STFs.

Mind you, anything smaller than a Mesh Weaver is useless against Voth, Undine or similar species due to lack of endurance. Rapidly launching Swarmers could work, but only if you build your entire ship around relaunching squadrons every 5 seconds or so. In that case, the Swarmers would actually be more effective against AoE species than the less threatnening species.

pazuzu6667

im fairly new to the game, got a fleet dreadnought not too long ago and haven't decided what fleet hanger pets to get for the ship... im still running the ones that came with the ship. to be honest im not even sure what pets I can use with the dreadnought. right now im using the advanced fleet ap beam arrays and I was kind of waiting to get the hanger pets till I knew what ones woud be best for my ship...