On tribble the pandas were basically two-manning advanced delta rising queues with science ships. Please re-read salieri's post, he has great advice in there.
Exotic damage does normally ignore crit, but as salieri said if you get the crafting trait it gains crit. Unlike beam ships you can run 100% crit chance on science powers, though it needs 400 particle generator skill to pull off.
Got home a little while ago, played around with that temporal science vessel build, and I think I suck with repulsors. They draw enemies toward the rear of my ship, so I'm constantly slipping out of torpedo arc range. Probably not doing it right. Upping particle gens "felt" stronger, but without parsing I cannot tell if the investment was worth it or not.
Honestly thinking about throwing in the towel on this character, and starting over on a Fed. Seems like the feds get all the good stuff.
Add in feedback pulse and eject warp plasma, then mount the nukara mines and a rear-facing torpedo. Enemies behind you go boom.
If they are up front, use gravity well, torp spread 2 and either the gravimetric photon or the delta rep torpedo. Squish them coming and going.
unless your being a goof and just starting the 20hr when you log in.
By trying to maximize the progress in one school you actually slowing the overall R&D progress. (Of course, if you don't use the magic "Finish now" button ). So who is the goof here remains to be decided
Played around with it a little more. I still need to get 3 more fleet particle gen consoles, as well as various Delta rep things (god help me), but am really enjoying the Temporal Science Vessel build. I also need a fleet core, I'm assuming A->S is what I'm after?
Thanks to all the people who gave me advice in this thread. It's kinda thrown me through a loop, and I'm thinking about science in a whole new way.
PS: when isokinetic charge crits after a barrage of grav torpedoes just crit on a group of sensorscanned enemies, it's amazing. I nearly died from warp core explosions.
Sardak (Science Officer): Captain of a 23k DPS R'Mor Temporal Science Vessel, R.R.W. Vathos Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
Played around with it a little more. I still need to get 3 more fleet particle gen consoles, as well as various Delta rep things (god help me), but am really enjoying the Temporal Science Vessel build. I also need a fleet core, I'm assuming A->S is what I'm after?
Thanks to all the people who gave me advice in this thread. It's kinda thrown me through a loop, and I'm thinking about science in a whole new way.
PS: when isokinetic charge crits after a barrage of grav torpedoes just crit on a group of sensorscanned enemies, it's amazing. I nearly died from warp core explosions.
Welcome to the evil scientist club. Our popcorn is flavored with crystalized salt from the tears of our foes.
Sci definitely needs help, one of the problems is the fact of power needing to be stretched thin to exploit the current game meta, if torps were a thing or aux weapons being available to more ships this issue would be reduced, everything else can just go weapons and shields with spare into aux and dps like mad, sci need weapons and shields but they also need aux rather than it being a nice extra.
The other problem as has been noted is that they've made science skills buff-able by tactical captains which have stupid effects on it. This is a 'feature' that really doesn't help science powers in the hands of their natural users.
Short of making exotic it's own type again I'd like to reverse the current science buffing model so that damage itself has very little to do with it but that it benefits a LOT from skill points and even more from power aiming to give science around 3k per tick from GW3 with decent speccing into it, while tacs with similar spec should get around 5 to 6k from it.
Tykens rift likewise should give 1.5 to 2k for a sci and 3k for the similarly specced tac, this should also result in 500 to 750 per tic tractors about 1k in the hands of the tac.
I'd like bring the cooldowns on TR and GW brought down to 30 seconds while leaving the shared at 15 seconds.
I may have to reun the parsers on my Nova again, the last time I did I did it in CSE and scored 5k.
Either I am reading this wrong or what you meant to say is the reverse of this. Tac captains should do less damage with science abilities than a science captain.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Science shouldn't really even be about DPS and it sucks that the game is turning into a DPS race. Drains, disables, and placates need some love... sci captains should be able to use unique and powerful weapons that only sci captains can use (like a cannon that shoots comets or asteroids) something sciencey or what a mad scientist would dream up. I don't really care about space combat anymore honestly, the true power of science captains is on the ground
Either I am reading this wrong or what you meant to say is the reverse of this. Tac captains should do less damage with science abilities than a science captain.
Science captains only have two powers that influence damage:
Not only does the TAC get a stronger debuff, it two powerful buffs and all three last longer than the one sci power. All these work on things like gravity well, etc.
So tactical captains do more damage with science powers than science captains. Science captains out-tank tactical captains, but the game doesn't reward tanking like it does damage.
Science shouldn't really even be about DPS and it sucks that the game is turning into a DPS race. Drains, disables, and placates need some love... sci captains should be able to use unique and powerful weapons that only sci captains can use (like a cannon that shoots comets or asteroids) something sciencey or what a mad scientist would dream up. I don't really care about space combat anymore honestly, the true power of science captains is on the ground
It's hard to balance. It used to be easy to completely nullify a tac cube (or even Donatra) with Tyken's Rift, Plasmonic Leech, Aceton Assimilator and 2 hangars of Siphon Drones. That was pretty silly.
Not only does the TAC get a stronger debuff, it two powerful buffs and all three last longer than the one sci power. All these work on things like gravity well, etc.
They could start by making Sensor Analysis a captain power.
Science shouldn't really even be about DPS and it sucks that the game is turning into a DPS race. Drains, disables, and placates need some love... sci captains should be able to use unique and powerful weapons that only sci captains can use (like a cannon that shoots comets or asteroids) something sciencey or what a mad scientist would dream up. I don't really care about space combat anymore honestly, the true power of science captains is on the ground
No matter the power of control abilities, you need to blow up the enemy to get exp and complete mission objectives, that requires damage. Currently the best science ships do this with science powers, NOT with guns. To me, this is good.
Science is not about damage, but science still needs to do damage. Or the whole game has to be replaced from the ground up which will never happen and arguining about that is a waste of time.
Currently the best science ship builds are comparable in damage to the best beam boat builds. This is also good.
Doing something like that might work better if you find your dragging things behind you all the time. (I have run pve builds both ways... for pvp I always run the ejw)
It was late earlier and I sort of forgot to mention eject in all the other stuff I was doing.
Also if you find you are pulling them behind you all the time (which ya does happen alot) its also not a bad idea to put a few more torps in the back. I know the scryer I posted I put the 2 360 beams on and the kinetic cutter... mostly I post it that way so people aren't to freaked out. (you really really don't need energy on a science ship... one beam for target sub systems is enough) throwing something like the bio enhanced rep torp in the back works really well... it slows targets down on every hit. So dragging things behind you and bathing them in Warp plasma and hitting them with bio torps is always nice.
A mine in the back is nice as well... some of the pandas throw a Nukura mine in the back. Its not going to hit to much that often to be honest but there nice when they land.... again the main source of dmg is the exotic. Dmg.
One other thing you will notice I put the Emission Plasma torp in the front. The clouds from that torp are also boosted by the particle manipulator trait... so using your spread patterns on that torp will rack up lots of bonus exotic dmg.
The link to Nazs post also has some good info... the new delta set. I didn't put it on in that planner but ya the 60s cool down on the ISO cannon is crazy.... the cannon is also boosted by PM trait. On something like the wells seeing as someone mentioned they thought it might be obsolete. The canon is cooled down by both backstep, and TIF.
For the person that mentioned that they feel the R&D stuff is important to not only work on one school to do it all.... by getting one school to 15 you in fact open up a 5th mission slot. So to complete more then one school it is in fact faster to focus on one first and get it to 15. This way you can run one more schools 20hr if you want to level them all.
To mention it again one more time as well... in a science ship right now Science captains do more dmg. YES its true Alpha sort of sucks on a science ship. Exotic dmg is NOT boosted by your normal Critical chance or CrtD. So alpha doesn't really do much accept boost the dmg for 30s. Science captains are the only class that has access to the trait conversion of energy. That trait will boost your exotic dmg by 30% ALL the time not just for a fraction of the time like alpha. So when you compare the 2 captain types for Science Exotic dmg the tac can boost the dmg a small bit more for a fraction of the time. That can be nice for pvp where you can "spike" a bit more... (although in PvP having subnuke wins that argument all the time anyway in pvp sci >>>> then tac)... in the new PvE where all the NPCS have a lot more HP the sci in fact wins by being able to keep its dmg buff up all the time.
Sensor scan is also a much much better debuff then fire on my mark... and it will hit multiple targets. So with gravity wells and Pulling tbrs rounding up NPCs its not hard to sensor scan entire groups. Which again for pve is much better. (just need to play smarter... which sums sci up in general). Go down fighting is a great buff if you can manage to surf low hull on a tac no doubt there... but really damp field and Sci fleet both allow you to do a better job of staying up and continuing to provide dmg. In general tac sci is very squishy.... in pve that mostly doesn't matter to much, still you will find tacs in scis tend to get one shotted here and there by npc torps and its easier to handle that as a sci.
To mention it again one more time as well... in a science ship right now Science captains do more dmg. YES its true Alpha sort of sucks on a science ship. Exotic dmg is NOT boosted by your normal Critical chance or CrtD. So alpha doesn't really do much accept boost the dmg for 30s. Science captains are the only class that has access to the trait conversion of energy. That trait will boost your exotic dmg by 30% ALL the time not just for a fraction of the time like alpha. So when you compare the 2 captain types for Science Exotic dmg the tac can boost the dmg a small bit more for a fraction of the time. That can be nice for pvp where you can "spike" a bit more... (although in PvP having subnuke wins that argument all the time anyway in pvp sci >>>> then tac)... in the new PvE where all the NPCS have a lot more HP the sci in fact wins by being able to keep its dmg buff up all the time.
I didnt even know bout that trait, so thank you for that. OFC I dont read wiki or the forum too much (until lately), and never cared for being 'smart' in the game. Its just a matter of fun and I am guilty of not having much ambition but just wanting flashing lights, boom booms, and shiny ships. yay :sigh:. I do still think reaching lvl 15 crafting sci is not that simple for many casual or relaxed players, so to speak. Most of that grinding stuff is boring and I am not a fan of boring.
I didnt even know bout that trait, so thank you for that. OFC I dont read wiki or the forum too much (until lately), and never cared for being 'smart' in the game. Its just a matter of fun and I am guilty of not having much ambition but just wanting flashing lights, boom booms, and shiny ships. yay :sigh:. I do still think reaching lvl 15 crafting sci is not that simple for many casual or relaxed players, so to speak. Most of that grinding stuff is boring and I am not a fan of boring.
Hard to argue that its boring as heck. Cryptic has went that way with everything. In the case of the R&D its almost as if it s on purpose (cause it is). The idea is you get annoyed and start burning purple rocks to make it end.
Really though at least if you resist the urge to get it over with by paying to speed it up... it isn't super time consuming. Just starting the 20hr is pretty painless. Honestly if you been starting the 20hr 3-5 times a week since crafting started your already 15. Working on it seriously doesn't take to much more work really... if you have some ec just buy a few stacks of green components and every hour or so start building 3 consoles... and vend that last 3. Its not that expensive to do that a few times in an evening while you play.
The major annoyance is all the time gating. Which as I say they obviously planned to annoy you into spending $. It is pretty terrible game design in general. Is what it is though.
If you are sucking at science, and are jealous of the BFAW boats, simple fix is to build a sci/BFAW boat yourself. I took off the AUX cannons from my Vesta, and made it into a BFAW boat, and I do quite well with my science powers.
They make a wondrous mess of things. Brave amateurs, they do their part.
I have stated it before, the weapons need to be tired to aux. why should i use all my sci slot for particle generator(PG's), before i can make an effective damage. :mad:
"You ask why we give our ships computer normal emotions. Do you really want a warship incapable of loyalty?"
Science toon in a Fed sci ship or a wells right now is the second highest possible combo you can have in PvE.
Shim / heavy beam boat style being the highest if you have it setup right.
Here is what you need to know to do high DPS in a science ship.
1) Exotic dmg is boosted by Particle Generators... your science consoles slots NEED to be filled with P Gen consoles. Just like DPS energy ships need to fill there tac slots with tac dmg consoles. Also like High dps energy builds you need to load all the +pgen items you can just like they have to grind out things like Undine 2 pieces to boost dis/phaser dmg ect.
Yes this means things like 60+ G gen boosting crafted sci consoles... and Crafted RCS consoles that boost Pgen... and running Pgen boost deflectors ect.
2) You MUST unlock Science R&D crafting trait "Particle Manipulator" This skill will give you 25% crit chance for every 100 Pgen skill points you have. (with a fully geared 5 console science ship this will mean 100% critical chance on all exotic dmg)
3) Tractor Beam repulsors is "Science Faw" you will need a Tractor Beam Repulsors reversal doff.
4) Trait properly... science toons gain Bonus exotic dmg by taking fire. Yes I know crazy right... really set you sci ship up to tank somewhat and spec into threat. -threat is NOT your friend. If you do this you will have +30% exotic dmg ALWAYS on. Also slot some of the newer lockbox traits like Feedback loop that will boost your exotic further. If you are a fed buy the Scryer science ship even if you plan to run a wells so you can unlock its bonus Exotic dmg mastary as it will give you another 22.5% always on exotic dmg boost. (also unlock the phantom scort trait for a very very huge boost to your tac skill reload and intel skills if you fly a t6)
5) DROP your energy weapons you are sci dmg you will not need energy dmg... run torps for the procs and expect to dmg things with your Exotic dmg skills.
Here is a PVE Scryer build for you... this WILL = all but the very best of the energy builds out there.
In that build you want to set you energy to 15 wepaons... and 100 in aux... with the rest split shields and engines. (set it up so you can get a 3 system always on bonus from a Fleet AMP mod core)
Ideally you want to unlock the following mastaries.
1) Scryer + Exotic
2) Eclipse + defense
3) Phantom +recharge time on tac and intel skills with you are missed (you will have LOTS of threat if you load all +threat consoles and lots of defense from traits so the npcs will miss a lot and keep your intel and tac skills at global)
4) T6 lockbox Bethan cruiser trait... VM torpedo.
Trait wise... only ones you will want to get to fully min max would be feedback loop and the sci captain trait conversion of energy.
Doffs you want to run;
2 Dmg control - 1 Anti matter (aux to damp resistance and uptime doff)
for the final 3... any combo of Projectile and/or Deflector doffs
That's about it... work toward that and you will watch NPCs take 20k crits from your TBRs... and 10k+ ticks from your GW... throw in the debuffs and disables and proper timing on sensor scans ect and you will see up to double that.
PS cause someone is going to stupidly say it NO this will not do more DPS with a tac in it... not by a LONG shot. Conversion of energy is your friend take fire if you have -threat consoles vendor them right now. +30% exotic dmg ALWAYS on is > then attack pattern alpha. Sensor scan in the current meta is > go down fighting or Fire on my mark. Tactical boosts are more burst bent and with NPCS with 1mil+ HP being a better pressure dmg ship is far better... use GW and the TBR pull proper and sensor scan 5-6 enemies at once get them in an Ionic dance cloud and Sci Faw them to death pretty fast.... still the always on buffs and extended multi mob hitting sensor scans will win out in a parser if you care about that.
I dont know if anyone else has responded to this... But all of this is extremely expensive. If someone wants to create an effective science build, they need all of those special crafted consoles with the particle generator mod on them, with the particle gen consoles, special traits...
That's the point. It isn't nearly as resource intensive to build an effective tactical captain. But its astronomical for science.
Engies are easy, just fill it with fleet neutroniums. Done.
OP - I am afraid you are doing it wrong. DR and 9.5 have made science AWESOME.
My sci toon (in wells - but just as easily could be scryer build) does 30k dps in pve.
And it is by far the most fun build I have to fly.
Secret is LOTS of part gens.
Part gens on ur sci consoles, part gens on ur deflector (hint UR solanae is like 2x console as it gets [PrtG] mod), part gens on ur uni consoles...
Also. get Science crafting up to lvl 15 then 1/4 of ur part gen skill = +critH%. Get up to 400 PrtG and all ur exotic dmg abilities will crit 100% of the time.
Also. Get the solanae warp core - it allows ur max aux power to get to 135. Getit there with lots of emergency to aux (doffed for 10% chance at bonus exotic dmg).
Also. Get a voth TBR doff that turns push into pull.
Also. Make a torp boat with the new parti emissions torps (the particle could ticks for alot of dmg when u are maxed PrtG) and the dyson gravi torps.
Also. GW and TBR. Lots of it - 2x each ability if u can fit it in. Enjoy flying in the faces of the NPC pulling all together and crushing them fast.
Also. Other trait like positive feedback loop and other doffs like extra GW or CD reduction on deflector abilities.
Also. Intel spec points that give all ships bonus flanking. Get them - all of them. Then watch as ur TBR flanks for 8-9k per tick.
Finally. Isometric charge is also nice as are aceton assimilators... In fact anything that draws off ur PrtG and does aoe works a treat.
I dont know if anyone else has responded to this... But all of this is extremely expensive. If someone wants to create an effective science build, they need all of those special crafted consoles with the particle generator mod on them, with the particle gen consoles, special traits...
That's the point. It isn't nearly as resource intensive to build an effective tactical captain. But its astronomical for science.
Engies are easy, just fill it with fleet neutroniums. Done.
It *IS* expensive to get a high performance Science build. But you can say the same with a high performance DPS build also.
Just as a high TAC build has to splurge on various things like weapons with favorable mods, universal consoles, spire TAC consoles, embassy boffs with SRO (KDF/Fed), Romulan Republic BOFFs with SRO and maybe Sup.Infiltrator, traits, etc, Science has to do the same with their own version of super specialization.
And for the record, you may load up your ENG heavy ship with tons of neutroniums. But you're not killing things that fast, aren't you? Compared to the same ship sacrificing some armor to put in things that will grant the ship more killing power and still survive just as well?
Ah, DPS can be achieved, but as another forum poster pointed out, this shizz can be brushed off with some crappy low-tier counteractions by the enemy.
Viral Matrix III needs to really do what it's supposed to, as currently, it just makes the enemy ships go pink for a short while.
As for Jam Sensors, I fired this at an NPC frigate during Mirror invasion (for a test of it's potency) and the damn frigate just kept on firing without a femtosecond of a pause.
Sci ships are supposed to be there to heal/placate/confuse, but for all the good our powers give us, we may as well be flying around, heavily armed with harnessed poodles.
Ah, DPS can be achieved, but as another forum poster pointed out, this shizz can be brushed off with some crappy low-tier counteractions by the enemy.
Viral Matrix III needs to really do what it's supposed to, as currently, it just makes the enemy ships go pink for a short while.
As for Jam Sensors, I fired this at an NPC frigate during Mirror invasion (for a test of it's potency) and the damn frigate just kept on firing without a femtosecond of a pause.
Sci ships are supposed to be there to heal/placate/confuse, but for all the good our powers give us, we may as well be flying around, heavily armed with harnessed poodles.
Disables are TERRIBLE in STO. It wasn't long, long ago, but they're pretty terrible now.
Jam Sensors is a bit useful. But you must remember the Jam Sensor debuff breaks if you go past a damage threshold on the target, which is very easy to do if you keep up with autofire / smash SPACE / or a cycle of weapons fire is still going. I've used Jam Sensors plenty of times on my Warbird / KDF BOP to give me just enough time to escape.
Science ships can do good damage. Not as spectacular as those high TAC valued ships, but they can hold their own well enough. But like a good high TAC build, you need to super specialize.
Disables are TERRIBLE in STO. It wasn't long, long ago, but they're pretty terrible now.
Jam Sensors is a bit useful. But you must remember the Jam Sensor debuff breaks if you go past a damage threshold on the target, which is very easy to do if you keep up with autofire / smash SPACE / or a cycle of weapons fire is still going. I've used Jam Sensors plenty of times on my Warbird / KDF BOP to give me just enough time to escape.
Science ships can do good damage. Not as spectacular as those high TAC valued ships, but they can hold their own well enough. But like a good high TAC build, you need to super specialize.
I just wish we could do a little more. For instance, on the ground I have my Reman sci set up in a similar fashion, not to heal but to hold/confuse/placate/damage, and its such a different story. I can root a group of enemy NPC's in place whilst I hit them with nanites, set them on fire, add plasma on top of that and watch them burn. If any are still standing, then I finish them with the wonderful mind-drain.
It would be nice to see a similar result in space.
I suppose this is why most queues I go for are ground rather than space....
I have stated it before, the weapons need to be tired to aux. why should i use all my sci slot for particle generator(PG's), before i can make an effective damage. :mad:
Why should energy weapons be junk unless you only load Same dmg type tactical consoles ?
Why would you be annoyed about having to you know load the proper consoles to boost the skills your using to deal the same level of Dmg ?
I dont know if anyone else has responded to this... But all of this is extremely expensive. If someone wants to create an effective science build, they need all of those special crafted consoles with the particle generator mod on them, with the particle gen consoles, special traits...
That's the point. It isn't nearly as resource intensive to build an effective tactical captain. But its astronomical for science.
Engies are easy, just fill it with fleet neutroniums. Done.
This isn't true at all though.
1) Fleet spire dmg consoles... cost MORE then Embassy consoles. (you can buy mk x and upgrade them far cheaper then the 50k in fleet cred + purple rocks the dmg consoels go for)
2) Yes in order to do crazy top of the game dps in a science ship you have to grab a ton of the best stuff. Contrast the costs.
Now lets compare some costs for "TOP" of the line ships and assume you paid EC for all of it;
Schimitar Beam Array build.
5 AP beam arrays (or dbb) MK 14 [acc/dmg] [crtd]x4 (80 mil each) 400 Million.
1 360 Gold AP mk 14 60 million
1 360 ancient AP beam... 20 Mil to upgrade to Gold mk 14 (assuming you got lucky)
{I'll skip what ever else you wanna put back there likey another 80mil for a beam but which ever)
Consoles... 5x MK 14 Gold Spire... (250k fleet marks... a bunch of purple rocks and another 50 mil EC or so for upgrade techs)
Rest of the consoles mix of which ever... not going to be major costs.
Total cost not counting boffs or any of that good stuff... Well north of 600 MILLION EC
Science Rep Torp Particle M build.
2 High end crafting consoles... 200 mil ec.
3 Reputation torpedos... (some time +54k in D rocks) Likely 30-50 mil Upgrading them to mk 14 (gold really don't matter on torps all that much... not nearly as much as energy)
1 360 ancient AP beam... 20 Mil to upgrade to Gold mk 14 (assuming you got lucky) (second note for the sci... no real need to even bother upgrdaing it you should be at 15 weapons power anyway its just for the disable )
2 What ever you likes in the back... honestly it really don't matter mines some beam... the Dyson experimental for the set bonus what ever... not major costs.
Embassy consoles... 4 mk x upgraded to mk 14... almost no fleet marks and D rocks to pick em up... 30-40 mil ec to upgrade them all.
Rest of the consoles what ever mix you like just like the shim.
Total cost on the sci.. 350 MILLION EC or so
Bottom line the costs will be aprox half what it costs you to put together a TOP of the line energy ship.
With both of course you don't have to go full out gold with all the crazies best of the best consoles right away. What I posted was what you want to work toward. The crafting trait is a non factor cause it costs nothing at all... accept time which yes its annoying that its all time gated unless you fall for Cryptics pay to speed it up trap... its still 100% free if thats what you wanna do. As I have said before if you where doing the 20hr mission a few times a week since crafting hit your done already...and you can go from level 0 in Science R&D to 15 in around 3 weeks if you keep crafting consoles every day, at that point sure it will cost you a small amount for the cheaper R&D mats (you don't have to craft mk 12s... same XP per hour as crafting mk 4s, which cost almost nothing to make, almost break even when you vender them)
Ah, DPS can be achieved, but as another forum poster pointed out, this shizz can be brushed off with some crappy low-tier counteractions by the enemy.
Viral Matrix III needs to really do what it's supposed to, as currently, it just makes the enemy ships go pink for a short while.
As for Jam Sensors, I fired this at an NPC frigate during Mirror invasion (for a test of it's potency) and the damn frigate just kept on firing without a femtosecond of a pause.
Sci ships are supposed to be there to heal/placate/confuse, but for all the good our powers give us, we may as well be flying around, heavily armed with harnessed poodles.
No one uses the skills anymore Cryptic expects you to abandon them clearly. (no more free options for skills that powerful lol)
If you want to disable NPCs you really want a T6 Ship. Emp Probe provides a full disable for 8-10s and it works on NPCs very well it is also AOE so if you combo it with GW you can shut down entire groups.
VM is a legacy just forget it exists.
Jam Sensors is also Legacy. It is a "Fragile" skill which means after you do X amount of dmg to the target it breaks. This makes it useless as the numbers on it are set pretty low when you look at how much HP we are chewing these days. It has been replaced by the intel skill Evade Target Lock This skill also starts at ensign. It disables for 1s on hit. (which will break tractor beams just like Jam will)... it won't stop things from shooting at you but it debuffs there acc by enough that 90% of there shots will miss. It is not fragile and will stick for the full duration.
If your in a sci ship you also HAVE to be running Torpedos. There is no other option. Science ships are NOT energy ships any more (not that they ever where). One beam for target subs that's it.
These are the traits you want to use to do what you are saying it is you want to do.
1) From the Hiogen lockbox... "intimidating strikes" This will make ALL the torps you launch confuse targets they hit. (yes the probes and spheres will start shooting each other... larger stuff is mostly immune to this type of stuff)
2) From the T6 Beathen Cruiser (Delta Lockbox) The Master trait for that ship is "viral torpedo" when you use any Team skill (Tac Sci Engi or intel) you will load a VM torp buff for 30s. Next normal torpedo you launch (not hy or spread) will disable the target for 5s... it has a 10s reload time... and you can't VM the same target again for 20s. (so when you reload switch to a second target)
3) Load the proper torpedos. Here are the best options;
These 2 are buffed by Particle Gen
Neutronic Quantum (Delta Tier 2 Rep - VERY high dmg quantum with massive rad dmg)
Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo (crafted fires EWP clouds)
These are solid proc torps.
Gravimetric Photon (Dyson Tier 2 Rep - Has a chance to proc Mini GWs)
Bio Enhanced Photon (Undine Tier 2 Rep - ALWAYS procs its slow/bonus dmg proc)
Harpang (Multiple ways to pick it up - High dmg fast travel AOE dmg when it hits grouped targets Rad dmg + boom)
Breen Cluster torpedo / Vaud Cluster - (Story Missions - both make effective longer duration high dmg spike weapons. Nice rear mount weapons... they also synergize well if you are running torp doffs as all your torps will reduce the longer cool downs on these as they proc)
Anyway... your point about VM and Jam being ineffective are 100% true... that isn't going to change though Cryptic has quite clearly replaced them with things that make them money... and to be fair neither of these skills have been effective since season 1 when they where both extremely overpowered (VM was super OP... and Jam had no fragile state so you could perma blind people lol)
Sounds a lot like playstyle problems. I don't like Sci either, but I know it just does stuff I have no interest in. My Tac is simple; get stick, hit face. Repeat. The Eng I now miss (ironically deleted for the Sci I have piled so much time into) was simple; get hit in face, ignore it. Repeat.
Sci....eeeh. Nah. Stick. Trust in stick. Stick is simple. Stick is good.
Comments
Here is a build and some numbers:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=19418131&postcount=52
Exotic damage does normally ignore crit, but as salieri said if you get the crafting trait it gains crit. Unlike beam ships you can run 100% crit chance on science powers, though it needs 400 particle generator skill to pull off.
Add in feedback pulse and eject warp plasma, then mount the nukara mines and a rear-facing torpedo. Enemies behind you go boom.
If they are up front, use gravity well, torp spread 2 and either the gravimetric photon or the delta rep torpedo. Squish them coming and going.
By trying to maximize the progress in one school you actually slowing the overall R&D progress. (Of course, if you don't use the magic "Finish now" button
"It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain."- Tuvok
Thanks to all the people who gave me advice in this thread. It's kinda thrown me through a loop, and I'm thinking about science in a whole new way.
PS: when isokinetic charge crits after a barrage of grav torpedoes just crit on a group of sensorscanned enemies, it's amazing. I nearly died from warp core explosions.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
Welcome to the evil scientist club. Our popcorn is flavored with crystalized salt from the tears of our foes.
Also meth.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
I was going to post a long one about Science usage in Post-DR STO but you covered it quite well.
Either I am reading this wrong or what you meant to say is the reverse of this. Tac captains should do less damage with science abilities than a science captain.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Science captains only have two powers that influence damage:
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Photonic_Fleet
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Sensor_Scan
Sensor scan at best gives a 38% resist debuff for 20 seconds
Tactical captains get:
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Tactical_Fleet (37% damage buff)
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Fire_on_my_Mark_(Space) (50% resist rebuff for 30 seconds)
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Attack_Pattern_Alpha (32% damage buff, plus crit for 30 sec)
Not only does the TAC get a stronger debuff, it two powerful buffs and all three last longer than the one sci power. All these work on things like gravity well, etc.
So tactical captains do more damage with science powers than science captains. Science captains out-tank tactical captains, but the game doesn't reward tanking like it does damage.
It's hard to balance. It used to be easy to completely nullify a tac cube (or even Donatra) with Tyken's Rift, Plasmonic Leech, Aceton Assimilator and 2 hangars of Siphon Drones. That was pretty silly.
They could start by making Sensor Analysis a captain power.
No matter the power of control abilities, you need to blow up the enemy to get exp and complete mission objectives, that requires damage. Currently the best science ships do this with science powers, NOT with guns. To me, this is good.
Science is not about damage, but science still needs to do damage. Or the whole game has to be replaced from the ground up which will never happen and arguining about that is a waste of time.
Currently the best science ship builds are comparable in damage to the best beam boat builds. This is also good.
Eject warp plasma is also boosted by Particle Manipulator trait.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=scryerpveeject_0
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=rmorepveeject_0
Doing something like that might work better if you find your dragging things behind you all the time. (I have run pve builds both ways... for pvp I always run the ejw)
It was late earlier and I sort of forgot to mention eject in all the other stuff I was doing.
Also if you find you are pulling them behind you all the time (which ya does happen alot) its also not a bad idea to put a few more torps in the back. I know the scryer I posted I put the 2 360 beams on and the kinetic cutter... mostly I post it that way so people aren't to freaked out. (you really really don't need energy on a science ship... one beam for target sub systems is enough) throwing something like the bio enhanced rep torp in the back works really well... it slows targets down on every hit. So dragging things behind you and bathing them in Warp plasma and hitting them with bio torps is always nice.
A mine in the back is nice as well... some of the pandas throw a Nukura mine in the back. Its not going to hit to much that often to be honest but there nice when they land.... again the main source of dmg is the exotic. Dmg.
One other thing you will notice I put the Emission Plasma torp in the front. The clouds from that torp are also boosted by the particle manipulator trait... so using your spread patterns on that torp will rack up lots of bonus exotic dmg.
The link to Nazs post also has some good info... the new delta set. I didn't put it on in that planner but ya the 60s cool down on the ISO cannon is crazy.... the cannon is also boosted by PM trait. On something like the wells seeing as someone mentioned they thought it might be obsolete. The canon is cooled down by both backstep, and TIF.
For the person that mentioned that they feel the R&D stuff is important to not only work on one school to do it all.... by getting one school to 15 you in fact open up a 5th mission slot. So to complete more then one school it is in fact faster to focus on one first and get it to 15. This way you can run one more schools 20hr if you want to level them all.
To mention it again one more time as well... in a science ship right now Science captains do more dmg. YES its true Alpha sort of sucks on a science ship. Exotic dmg is NOT boosted by your normal Critical chance or CrtD. So alpha doesn't really do much accept boost the dmg for 30s. Science captains are the only class that has access to the trait conversion of energy. That trait will boost your exotic dmg by 30% ALL the time not just for a fraction of the time like alpha. So when you compare the 2 captain types for Science Exotic dmg the tac can boost the dmg a small bit more for a fraction of the time. That can be nice for pvp where you can "spike" a bit more... (although in PvP having subnuke wins that argument all the time anyway in pvp sci >>>> then tac)... in the new PvE where all the NPCS have a lot more HP the sci in fact wins by being able to keep its dmg buff up all the time.
Sensor scan is also a much much better debuff then fire on my mark... and it will hit multiple targets. So with gravity wells and Pulling tbrs rounding up NPCs its not hard to sensor scan entire groups. Which again for pve is much better. (just need to play smarter... which sums sci up in general). Go down fighting is a great buff if you can manage to surf low hull on a tac no doubt there... but really damp field and Sci fleet both allow you to do a better job of staying up and continuing to provide dmg. In general tac sci is very squishy.... in pve that mostly doesn't matter to much, still you will find tacs in scis tend to get one shotted here and there by npc torps and its easier to handle that as a sci.
/sorry end of the wall.
Hard to argue that its boring as heck. Cryptic has went that way with everything. In the case of the R&D its almost as if it s on purpose (cause it is). The idea is you get annoyed and start burning purple rocks to make it end.
Really though at least if you resist the urge to get it over with by paying to speed it up... it isn't super time consuming. Just starting the 20hr is pretty painless. Honestly if you been starting the 20hr 3-5 times a week since crafting started your already 15. Working on it seriously doesn't take to much more work really... if you have some ec just buy a few stacks of green components and every hour or so start building 3 consoles... and vend that last 3. Its not that expensive to do that a few times in an evening while you play.
The major annoyance is all the time gating. Which as I say they obviously planned to annoy you into spending $. It is pretty terrible game design in general. Is what it is though.
If you are sucking at science, and are jealous of the BFAW boats, simple fix is to build a sci/BFAW boat yourself. I took off the AUX cannons from my Vesta, and made it into a BFAW boat, and I do quite well with my science powers.
They make a wondrous mess of things. Brave amateurs, they do their part.
I dont know if anyone else has responded to this... But all of this is extremely expensive. If someone wants to create an effective science build, they need all of those special crafted consoles with the particle generator mod on them, with the particle gen consoles, special traits...
That's the point. It isn't nearly as resource intensive to build an effective tactical captain. But its astronomical for science.
Engies are easy, just fill it with fleet neutroniums. Done.
My sci toon (in wells - but just as easily could be scryer build) does 30k dps in pve.
And it is by far the most fun build I have to fly.
Secret is LOTS of part gens.
Part gens on ur sci consoles, part gens on ur deflector (hint UR solanae is like 2x console as it gets [PrtG] mod), part gens on ur uni consoles...
Also. get Science crafting up to lvl 15 then 1/4 of ur part gen skill = +critH%. Get up to 400 PrtG and all ur exotic dmg abilities will crit 100% of the time.
Also. Get the solanae warp core - it allows ur max aux power to get to 135. Getit there with lots of emergency to aux (doffed for 10% chance at bonus exotic dmg).
Also. Get a voth TBR doff that turns push into pull.
Also. Make a torp boat with the new parti emissions torps (the particle could ticks for alot of dmg when u are maxed PrtG) and the dyson gravi torps.
Also. GW and TBR. Lots of it - 2x each ability if u can fit it in. Enjoy flying in the faces of the NPC pulling all together and crushing them fast.
Also. Other trait like positive feedback loop and other doffs like extra GW or CD reduction on deflector abilities.
Also. Intel spec points that give all ships bonus flanking. Get them - all of them. Then watch as ur TBR flanks for 8-9k per tick.
Finally. Isometric charge is also nice as are aceton assimilators... In fact anything that draws off ur PrtG and does aoe works a treat.
Enjoy...
...#LLAP...
It *IS* expensive to get a high performance Science build. But you can say the same with a high performance DPS build also.
Just as a high TAC build has to splurge on various things like weapons with favorable mods, universal consoles, spire TAC consoles, embassy boffs with SRO (KDF/Fed), Romulan Republic BOFFs with SRO and maybe Sup.Infiltrator, traits, etc, Science has to do the same with their own version of super specialization.
And for the record, you may load up your ENG heavy ship with tons of neutroniums. But you're not killing things that fast, aren't you? Compared to the same ship sacrificing some armor to put in things that will grant the ship more killing power and still survive just as well?
Viral Matrix III needs to really do what it's supposed to, as currently, it just makes the enemy ships go pink for a short while.
As for Jam Sensors, I fired this at an NPC frigate during Mirror invasion (for a test of it's potency) and the damn frigate just kept on firing without a femtosecond of a pause.
Sci ships are supposed to be there to heal/placate/confuse, but for all the good our powers give us, we may as well be flying around, heavily armed with harnessed poodles.
Disables are TERRIBLE in STO. It wasn't long, long ago, but they're pretty terrible now.
Jam Sensors is a bit useful. But you must remember the Jam Sensor debuff breaks if you go past a damage threshold on the target, which is very easy to do if you keep up with autofire / smash SPACE / or a cycle of weapons fire is still going. I've used Jam Sensors plenty of times on my Warbird / KDF BOP to give me just enough time to escape.
Science ships can do good damage. Not as spectacular as those high TAC valued ships, but they can hold their own well enough. But like a good high TAC build, you need to super specialize.
I just wish we could do a little more. For instance, on the ground I have my Reman sci set up in a similar fashion, not to heal but to hold/confuse/placate/damage, and its such a different story. I can root a group of enemy NPC's in place whilst I hit them with nanites, set them on fire, add plasma on top of that and watch them burn. If any are still standing, then I finish them with the wonderful mind-drain.
It would be nice to see a similar result in space.
I suppose this is why most queues I go for are ground rather than space....
Why should energy weapons be junk unless you only load Same dmg type tactical consoles ?
Why would you be annoyed about having to you know load the proper consoles to boost the skills your using to deal the same level of Dmg ?
Not sure I'm following why your mad at all.
This isn't true at all though.
1) Fleet spire dmg consoles... cost MORE then Embassy consoles. (you can buy mk x and upgrade them far cheaper then the 50k in fleet cred + purple rocks the dmg consoels go for)
2) Yes in order to do crazy top of the game dps in a science ship you have to grab a ton of the best stuff. Contrast the costs.
Now lets compare some costs for "TOP" of the line ships and assume you paid EC for all of it;
Schimitar Beam Array build.
5 AP beam arrays (or dbb) MK 14 [acc/dmg] [crtd]x4 (80 mil each) 400 Million.
1 360 Gold AP mk 14 60 million
1 360 ancient AP beam... 20 Mil to upgrade to Gold mk 14 (assuming you got lucky)
{I'll skip what ever else you wanna put back there likey another 80mil for a beam but which ever)
Consoles... 5x MK 14 Gold Spire... (250k fleet marks... a bunch of purple rocks and another 50 mil EC or so for upgrade techs)
Rest of the consoles mix of which ever... not going to be major costs.
Total cost not counting boffs or any of that good stuff... Well north of 600 MILLION EC
Science Rep Torp Particle M build.
2 High end crafting consoles... 200 mil ec.
3 Reputation torpedos... (some time +54k in D rocks) Likely 30-50 mil Upgrading them to mk 14 (gold really don't matter on torps all that much... not nearly as much as energy)
1 360 ancient AP beam... 20 Mil to upgrade to Gold mk 14 (assuming you got lucky) (second note for the sci... no real need to even bother upgrdaing it you should be at 15 weapons power anyway its just for the disable
2 What ever you likes in the back... honestly it really don't matter mines some beam... the Dyson experimental for the set bonus what ever... not major costs.
Embassy consoles... 4 mk x upgraded to mk 14... almost no fleet marks and D rocks to pick em up... 30-40 mil ec to upgrade them all.
Rest of the consoles what ever mix you like just like the shim.
Total cost on the sci.. 350 MILLION EC or so
Bottom line the costs will be aprox half what it costs you to put together a TOP of the line energy ship.
With both of course you don't have to go full out gold with all the crazies best of the best consoles right away. What I posted was what you want to work toward. The crafting trait is a non factor cause it costs nothing at all... accept time which yes its annoying that its all time gated unless you fall for Cryptics pay to speed it up trap... its still 100% free if thats what you wanna do. As I have said before if you where doing the 20hr mission a few times a week since crafting hit your done already...and you can go from level 0 in Science R&D to 15 in around 3 weeks if you keep crafting consoles every day, at that point sure it will cost you a small amount for the cheaper R&D mats (you don't have to craft mk 12s... same XP per hour as crafting mk 4s, which cost almost nothing to make, almost break even when you vender them)
No one uses the skills anymore Cryptic expects you to abandon them clearly.
If you want to disable NPCs you really want a T6 Ship. Emp Probe provides a full disable for 8-10s and it works on NPCs very well it is also AOE so if you combo it with GW you can shut down entire groups.
VM is a legacy just forget it exists.
Jam Sensors is also Legacy. It is a "Fragile" skill which means after you do X amount of dmg to the target it breaks. This makes it useless as the numbers on it are set pretty low when you look at how much HP we are chewing these days. It has been replaced by the intel skill Evade Target Lock This skill also starts at ensign. It disables for 1s on hit. (which will break tractor beams just like Jam will)... it won't stop things from shooting at you but it debuffs there acc by enough that 90% of there shots will miss. It is not fragile and will stick for the full duration.
If your in a sci ship you also HAVE to be running Torpedos. There is no other option. Science ships are NOT energy ships any more (not that they ever where). One beam for target subs that's it.
These are the traits you want to use to do what you are saying it is you want to do.
1) From the Hiogen lockbox... "intimidating strikes" This will make ALL the torps you launch confuse targets they hit. (yes the probes and spheres will start shooting each other... larger stuff is mostly immune to this type of stuff)
2) From the T6 Beathen Cruiser (Delta Lockbox) The Master trait for that ship is "viral torpedo" when you use any Team skill (Tac Sci Engi or intel) you will load a VM torp buff for 30s. Next normal torpedo you launch (not hy or spread) will disable the target for 5s... it has a 10s reload time... and you can't VM the same target again for 20s. (so when you reload switch to a second target)
3) Load the proper torpedos. Here are the best options;
These 2 are buffed by Particle Gen
Neutronic Quantum (Delta Tier 2 Rep - VERY high dmg quantum with massive rad dmg)
Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo (crafted fires EWP clouds)
These are solid proc torps.
Gravimetric Photon (Dyson Tier 2 Rep - Has a chance to proc Mini GWs)
Bio Enhanced Photon (Undine Tier 2 Rep - ALWAYS procs its slow/bonus dmg proc)
Harpang (Multiple ways to pick it up - High dmg fast travel AOE dmg when it hits grouped targets Rad dmg + boom)
Breen Cluster torpedo / Vaud Cluster - (Story Missions - both make effective longer duration high dmg spike weapons. Nice rear mount weapons... they also synergize well if you are running torp doffs as all your torps will reduce the longer cool downs on these as they proc)
Anyway... your point about VM and Jam being ineffective are 100% true... that isn't going to change though Cryptic has quite clearly replaced them with things that make them money... and to be fair neither of these skills have been effective since season 1 when they where both extremely overpowered (VM was super OP... and Jam had no fragile state so you could perma blind people lol)
Sci....eeeh. Nah. Stick. Trust in stick. Stick is simple. Stick is good.
You mentioned it can be had from the Exchange, but that's boring.