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Piloting an escort: need help!
birzark
Member Posts: 634 Arc User
I have tried so many different builds for my new Phantom escort but i think my problem is in piloting. I have the starship traits Reprocity and Pedal to the metal so it makes sense to keep flying at full impulse to avoid getting hit to proc reprocity and to keep the 10% damage boost to weapons. But i seem to not be getting enough dps out if it, even with using the space bar macro. Any tricks or tips i should know to piloting an escort cause I can't seem to get the hang of it, especially with cannons with such a narrow firing arc how you stay on target to kill it and maximize dps?
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My Ship Builds: USS Conqueror, HMS Victorious, HMS Concord, ISS Queen Elizabeth, Black Widow III
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Well as for my Turn rate I do have 52 degrees turn rate and it jumps to 90+ without evasive while in combat so i can turn really fast, but then if i do an attack run on an enemy how far past him do i need to fly before i turn around and attack again?
With low firing arc weapons like dual heavy cannons, you don't usually want to fly past your target. Flying past means not shooting the best weapons, which means lower DPS and more time for them to shoot you. Fly by's aren't usually very effective. They can be hilariously fun at times, but quickly fly towards, then past, then turn around and repeat, over and over, can get boring and maybe make some folks dizzy.
If you have beam arrays installed, then it's time to circle the target, moving to a point where the target has weakened shields, stop there and focus fire.
Wow i never really thought of that before, sounds like a really cool idea, Thanks.
Well a couple of things with that, having me constantly on the move gets my abilities to reduce cool down drastically cause of reprocity and the pedal to the medal trait gives me a nice damage boost which is why i wanted to see if i can effectively use that to my advantage. What about that ability the subspace beacon where you can set it and basically do 2 attack runs on a target back to back? I never liked parking and shooting, i did that before DR but the enemies never hit me hard enough that it mattered now standing still isn't really an optimal set up,i tend to be very squishy in this ship if i don't constantly move, i barely even have to heal because of that.
When running a DHC setup, you want to be in very close. DHC's dramatically drop in DPS as you get farther from the target. That's why folks do the park n shoot thing with them. If you want to stay constantly moving, beam arrays are the better choice because of their large firing arc, DPS potential, and broadsiding capability means all weapons can be firing while circling the target. I have seen several beamscort's (contortrix, patrol escort, risian corvette, qin raptor to name a few) doing crazy damage before, so don't discount it as a viable setup and playstyle.
That is a pro-tip. I will try that as well. Was just getting used to handling my JHAS, and that was my biggest issue, throttle control !
Thanks for sharing.
As a side note, it's a spacebar keybind, unless you're cheating with a 3rd party program.
A macro executes multiple commands with one key press. Here it's one command per key press.
Reverse turning is my friend. Helps me keep things in my arc a lot more, and the new specializations give me more speed and defense in reverse than I had pre-DR. Obviously it's not good to stay in reverse too long due to the power drain though.
Like i said in earlier posts I've done several setups and one of them is the beam boat, I was using phasers cause i had the phaser lance and wanted to utilize it. I also was using Surgical Strikes which is a very awesome ability i just don't know how the dps compares to say FAW? I do like how surgical strikes is basically a beam overload for all your weapons.
Also as a side note the crafted beams have the over mod which turns out doesn't work with FAW or surgical strikes, cant do both at the same time only spike damage in between the cycles.
I also use the Spacebar macro but have a hard time deciding on what order to put everything in.
They're not abilities that you can just swap and expect equal effectiveness, you need to build around SS if you intend to use it efficiently.
Your Spacebar Keybind should only activate Tac Team and EPtX abilities. I also like having Aux2SIF in there. Attack abilities like FAW/SS/OSS and attack patterns should be manually activated and timed properly.
I am very, very seriously considering dropping engine power to 15 with no boosts (will require a respec) and using the slowest engine I can find etc when I unlock those traits. That may mean giving up my attack pattern engines but so be it...
The way I fly now in a cannon ship involves a lot of slowing to 1/4 impulse or even reverse -- I keep the target in my sights until it dies, period.
As far as arc goes, its not that hard. Cannons have to be UP CLOSE to actually do dps. That is 3 km max from target. If you get much past that you may as well be using DBBs. ( I think the damage break even is approx 5km but why sit at 5 with cannons doing equal damage with less arc?). If you are close enough for cannons, it should be pretty easy to keep NPCs in your arc, its a big target at that range for anything that is not a shuttle. The trouble, again, is trying to do that while moving too fast.
Many folks fly DBB escorts. I have one ... I moved my BOP to beams because I have upgraded account bound beams that are better than my old cannons. Bonus lol, the beams are all [over] and flanked consistent free overloads are... nice ... can't wait for flanking intel skills to open....
DBB build lets you get farther away to dps, hit easier with the arc, and all that, but it DOES NOT solve the problem of going faster than the target at full speed. The only answer I have is to find ways to reduce your speed as much as possible.... if someone has another fix, keep the ideas coming.
There is one other thing you could do... TBR push them away, or get undine push weapons, or other tricks to push the target along as you fly at full speed behind it.
chew on this 'fact' ... (there are exceptions to it but it is probably true for 99% of situations) ...
the time for even a hotrod escort with boosted turn rate ... to pull a 5km looping "run" at the target then pass it, turn around, get behind it, pass it again, etc... is still AT LEAST 25% of your dps time with your weapons off target. And that is flying nearly a line instead of a loop, that is virtually instant 180, go 4km or so, do another 180, and so on. That is a significant loss of dps. Is pedal to the metal really offetting that if you were to slow and never stop shooting?
You can't quite circle strafe in this game with frontal weapons. That is you can't quite keep say DBBs on target 100% uptime without slowing. You might do it with 180 arc weapons. A beam array escort could circle strafe the target. This may ALSO be a very valid answer. (If unfamiliar with the term, in FPS games you can circle the target always facing/shooting it while orbiting it -- that is a circle strafe).
That's pretty much why all my escorts have just been beamboats. The last time I flew a cannon/turret escort was a JHEC, which was tough enough to just sit in front of targets in eSTFs.
I also have been playing with my build and it seems that a beam boat escort allows me to stay at full impulse to gain my 10% damage boost and keep my attacking my target with everything.
I made a few tweeks to my ship and it seems reduce cool down doffs for beams and cannons both work with reducing surgical strikes cool down. So I can run just one copy of that and with the reprocity trait, i can get the lowest CD on it to keep it up almost constantly.
using cannons it's very difficult flying at full impulse and fire targets using all of your weapons. To have your target into the 45° firing arc of your cannons, often you should fly at a lower speed and sometime stop for a while (ex. the time to deliver you alpha strike and/or until you can tank). Ideally, if you use CSV you should try to have always several targets in front of you.
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
On Phatom, and other Intel escorts, you can use Intel skills like Viral Impulse Burst and Subspace beacon to keep your target in the front arc when using cannons. With the first you force your target too move and if you are in its rear arc you can fire at it for more time. The second allows you to teleport at a marked location, so pop the beacon at ~10km away from target, come towards target with guns blazing and when you pass it teleport and do a second attack run. It works well tho with stationary targets or slow moving ones.
...that's brilliant. The former would work on immobile structures in STFs, too. Kudos to you, sir! Most of us thought Subspace Beacon was useless.
well with arrays it HAS the capability. The question is if the lower damage weapons boosted with your full speed buff is more damage than sitting behind it with DHC or DBB.
To add on the OP: check your defence stat in space at different speeds. Normally you should already have 80% or more of your defence bonus at half impulse. That gives you additional firering time. A short reverse after that and back to half impulse forward. Throttle control with mouse wheel is very helpful for that (was already mentioned).
I would need to run tests of that but its a 10% buff to ALL damage output. Is that enough of a difference? I don't know.
Yeah but its not about the defense, the Pedal to the metal trait ONLY works at full impulse otherwise you don't get the damage buff.
I do not either. It also depends on the ship. A bop flanking with beam arrays (circle behind the target for flanks..) is moronic -- you convert a 4/2 weapon ship to a 3/3 ship immediately if you do that (in terms of effective firepower). I doubt it could gain dps this way. Same for a 5/2 ship, that would convert to a 4/3 with arrays. I am pretty sure that a 4/2 and 5/2 ships lose dps by going P2M beam array strafe builds.
An escort that was already a 4/3 though would not lose so much by going all beam arrays. The crits would be lower, so a pure AP crit build would lose some. This is where it gets grey... you will have to test it. A rom with AP would probably lose going to beam arrays (assuming SROs). Others... it could go either way.
You have to know when to use it. Fighting mobs, i fly from target to target at full impulse spiking each. While if you have a hard target like a gate/transformer stop and shoot offers higher sustained damage.
When fighting cubes, run full impulse strait at it... dont ever lower speed. Act like your ramming it and hit it with everything you have. Your ship will get the bonus while never really moving as you just stick to the side of the cube.
Best thing is to not stick to 1 target. Even with CRF, i will do flybys hitting 3 or 4 ships before i turn around for another pass.
Use evasive, EP2E, APO for fast retreat and turnarounds after attack runs.
Attack run, full speed
hit ship 1, re target as passing.
hit ship 2 re target
hit ship 3 re target
hit APO/evasive/EP2E and fly at least 7-8 KM past targets.
watch them miss you like crazy as you do a big loop to get another angle. reciprocity procs like mad.
Repeat.
If the target will not go down in 2 passes you need better spike damage.
I use CRF3, BO2 almost global cooldown. Dual APO for the above to work more often.
Doff for EP2E to reset evasive
This is a very FAST setup... and not all can play at this speed, as it is very much speed tanking, not much can hit you when your flying this fast. Turn rate is more important than armour, so make sure you can do a full circle in 2-3 seconds.
DO NOT turn in circles around your target... hit and run away, one full alpha from you is better then trying to quickly turn for another shot. Get away and come in full tilt again. This gives reciprocity a much better chance to proc.