Serious question, as I don't run a parser, if I do pretty much everything on the OP's list (and I do, have done so for a long time) can I assume I run in the 8-12k DPS range?
You can estimate solo, just fight a battleship or dreadnaught somewhere, say the dysonsphere contested zone. Check its HP and watch how long it takes you to kill him. Won't be terribly accurate, but you'll know if you're over or under 8k.
It's very sad that a game that was fun for anybody who wanted to play, has now become a game where only the best apparently, should be allowed to participate.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
It's very sad that a game that was fun for anybody who wanted to play, has now become a game where only the best apparently, should be allowed to participate.
As for OP, below 8k is very low? Honestly, ISA can be completed with optional if the average team DPS is 5k. I know, because I've been there. I'd say that 5k is a better border.
And remember, the average you'll find is about 3k.
Maybe you are talking about the old ISE ... the magic number for ISA is , if I remember well, an average 13k per player.
there's also a difference in "DPS" styles to consider.
means you're spending a lot more time flying and a lot less time shooting.
A bop is supposed to have the turn rate to spend more time shooting than other ships. This simple phrase demonstrates that you simply do not understand how to dps. You need to maximize weapons on target firing.
Step 1. Buy and upgrade as many Plasma DOT Embassy consoles that will fit on your ship.
Step 2. Buy and upgrade as many +Beam Vulnerability Locators that will fit on your ship.
Step 3. FAW all the things.
I'll leave it to others to debate if your suggestion is valid, but I will point out that you did not, apparently, read the title of this thread, as your steps certainly don't fit the definition of Cheaply.
"Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell BAD." - Spock
I would love it if more people would look at stuff like this.
I have been in ISA recently with 3 people under 500 dps! That was a failure obviously.
I have recently been playing around with a torpedo boat and it is FAR FAR from done and it still manages 8K dps.
What I would like to see is some guides in the game. Something to help new players with basic builds. I have seen cannons on a voquuv carrier .... Thankfully the person was helped and their DPS went WAY WAY up.
Maybe new ships should come with green or blue level equipment and the default weapon setup should be something that will work well for the ship. Same with having it come with tac, sci and eng consoles. They would of course be items you could not sell or trade to prevent exploits.
Most newbies just need some basic help and a ship that was decent by default would go a LONG ways.
Just look at the junk in the slots of ships people get for promotions. If they use that as a guide... I'm not talking the quality. I am talking the layout of the items and the types of items there. It's scary to think people see that as a default layout.
What I would like to see is some guides in the game. Something to help new players with basic builds.
^^This!
When you first start playing you basically have no clue how to set up your ship and when you level up you get a constant flow of new ships with messed up load outs. No matter the type of ship you pick you end up with beams, dual beams, cannons, turrets, etc... all mixed together. They basically set up players for failure giving them ships with junk like that on them. I realized Cryptic Devs have no idea how to play their own game when they released that mission where you need to fly the Dyson Destroyer. That ships weapon load out is completely rubbish...and obviously that mission is end game so seriously wtf?
I realized Cryptic Devs have no idea how to play their own game when they released that mission where you need to fly the Dyson Destroyer. That ships weapon load out is completely rubbish...and obviously that mission is end game so seriously wtf?
This x 1000!!
I couldn't believe the way that ship was set up, every time I play that mission, all I can think the entire times is 'who would ever set up a ship this way?'
I guess that explains why most of the missions seem so easy.. if they're all set up assuming you build ships like Cryptic, no wonder most of us jack stop all the content.
I couldn't believe the way that ship was set up, every time I play that mission, all I can think the entire times is 'who would ever set up a ship this way?'
I guess that explains why most of the missions seem so easy.. if they're all set up assuming you build ships like Cryptic, no wonder most of us jack stop all the content.
Once, I did the mission a bit late (around midnight) and felt asleep on my keyboard. I wake up a few minutes later.
I would say this ship have a low DPS, but DPS is not the proper word for it. I don't think it helped sell this ship anyway.
I would say this ship have a low DPS, but DPS is not the proper word for it. I don't think it helped sell this ship anyway.
It was very strange that they set up a ship like that with the intent to sell it.
Most players probably came away from that mission thinking the Dyson Destroyers are the worst ships in the game just based on the way it performs in that mission.
It does further the argument that the people that wrote the mission don't know how to play the game. No Dev that wanted to sell that ship would have set it up that way. It was as if the ship layout was done by someone that had never touched the game in their lives.
1) get a set of AP weapons. You can farm some from a mission, if nothing else, or craft them, or get some rejects off the exchange. This will be your ONLY major expense, if you do not use the mission reward ones.
2) get the set. That means doing sphere of influence 2 times for beam and warp core.
3) craft, buy, or loot AP consoles for your tac slots. This could cost you a little if you buy them.
4) set up your bridge officers for damage. 2 copies of power to weapons. 2 copies of your weapon attacks (faw, for example). 2 copies of pattern beta (attack pattern) if you can fit it. A variety of healing/defense skills ... tac team 1, hazard emitters, sci team/TSS, maybe a polarize hull if you have room, maybe an eng heal if you have room, depends on the ship's seats.
5) use a tactical themed ship to get started. Later, when you have stuffs, you can learn to play other types of ships with high dps.
6) be sure to max weapon power.
7) if you use cannons, get 3k or less from targets, 5 at an absolute max. It is easier to use beams.
This is just the bare bones of a build but its cheap and will get you started.
It was very strange that they set up a ship like that with the intent to sell it.
Most players probably came away from that mission thinking the Dyson Destroyers are the worst ships in the game just based on the way it performs in that mission.
It does further the argument that the people that wrote the mission don't know how to play the game. No Dev that wanted to sell that ship would have set it up that way. It was as if the ship layout was done by someone that had never touched the game in their lives.
They did try to sell that ship though, if you looked at the gear it came with, it was all ultra high end stuff that was locked into the slot on the ship. All the gear was way better than you could get at the time, to give the player a false impression of how overpowered it was, but I really don't think they know how badly set up the ship was other than that.
Plus the way your hotkeys get randomized whenever you jump into a new ship is pretty disturbing, they still can't get that right after these years.
What I would like to see is some guides in the game. Something to help new players with basic builds.
Having the basics be more intuitive would be great. However, I personally can't think of any game that relies on in-game guides - if for no other reason than that you can't get player-driven guides in, and in basically every game the players are the ones that know or figure out how to get the most out of the current state of the game given any one focus. For anyone looking for such guides, though, I'd refer new users to /r/stobuilds.
Having the basics be more intuitive would be great. However, I personally can't think of any game that relies on in-game guides - if for no other reason than that you can't get player-driven guides in, and in basically every game the players are the ones that know or figure out how to get the most out of the current state of the game given any one focus. For anyone looking for such guides, though, I'd refer new users to /r/stobuilds.
I found anytime I was thinking of a new ship, or I'd buy a new ship to play around with I'd do a google search like "STO Reddit JHDC" or 'STO Builds Guardian" etc. Was an easy way to see what others not only do with a ship, but reading peoples replies on the build.
Also helps that Reddit isn't blocked at work so free to read up there. lol
Thanks for the positive responses to this post. Sorry if I should have posted this in a different category, it's just that the debate about dps was happening here so I put it here. A mod should move it if they think that's necessary.
And, yes, I do see people parsing 3000-6000 in ISA frequently, even people from the public elite stf channel. I also see people parsing below 1000 in other missions where dps is 1/2 to 1/3 of what it is in ISA... that basically means everyone else is doing the work.
And people, when we're teaming up for KSA, say that they can't do probes because their build isn't set up for DPS. It's 2 probes in 60 seconds - any build should be able to handle that *as well as* doing whatever cool thing (tanking, CC, whatever) it's set up to do.
I'm just not seeing it. I follow these threads. I copy the builds. I copy the skillsets. I keep my nose on the target and not waste shots. I see numbers scrolling everywhere and I get to the end and look... 9k dps.
I have spent a ton of dilithium upgrading this console and that weapon because they do this, that, or something else and will let you get 20k dps mashing buttons with your nose. I have spent millions upon millions of EC on gear to upgrade to get to epic and pray for the stat lottery gods to smile upon me - all the while dumping truckloads of Dil into the system. Then I go out and I see 480 dps gained. 480!
I guess I am not using the right ship and need to spend $1000 on lockboxes to get that perfect Lobi setup. Well, not happening. The world is just going to have to deal with my 9k dps. I am done chasing that rat in the unending rat race.
Mad? No. Clueless? I guess so. It seems so. The numbers say so. Determined? Not any more. Paint me in scrub paint. I'm done throwing time and resources at it.
Mad? No. Clueless? I guess so. It seems so. The numbers say so. Determined? Not any more. Paint me in scrub paint. I'm done throwing time and resources at it.
At times just knowing how to run the ship you are in well can make up for gear. Get the skill tray setup so you are comfortable popping the skills you need quickly, learn your ship(s) a ha'feh pilots way different than a bortas'qu and requires very different play styles. Also, like baelogventure sorta mentioned, hardware(yours and cryptic's) can play a major role and connection speeds. Considering you're over the 9k line I wouldn't say you have much to worry about tho really, you're ahead of a ton of people.
one last thing I think affects dps and gets forgotten too often, not everyone is some teenager hopped up on speed(sugar/whatever) mashin buttons like he's having a seizure at light speed. and not all of us want to bother tryin that ****.
To elaborate on this, use /combatlog 1 while in game to get STO to generate a combatlog.log file. Use /combatlog 0 to get STO to stop logging. Then you use CLR (linked above) to parse that log file into human-readable results.
I'm just not seeing it. I follow these threads. I copy the builds. I copy the skillsets. I keep my nose on the target and not waste shots. I see numbers scrolling everywhere and I get to the end and look... 9k dps.
I have spent a ton of dilithium upgrading this console and that weapon because they do this, that, or something else and will let you get 20k dps mashing buttons with your nose. I have spent millions upon millions of EC on gear to upgrade to get to epic and pray for the stat lottery gods to smile upon me - all the while dumping truckloads of Dil into the system. Then I go out and I see 480 dps gained. 480!
I guess I am not using the right ship and need to spend $1000 on lockboxes to get that perfect Lobi setup. Well, not happening. The world is just going to have to deal with my 9k dps. I am done chasing that rat in the unending rat race.
Anyone who tells you the sentence highlighted above is full of ****, and invariably have some stupid agenda they're trying to push. Like that guy who's everywhere talking about plasma doping right now, trying to get it nerfed so he'd have less competition on the epeen charts.
Presumably when you say you copied the build, those builds are at least 30k. If you're getting 9k out of them, then the problem is with piloting, and throwing thousands of dollars into the game won't do jack.
Are you flying aggressively, staying within 3km of all targets, minimizing time when you're not shooting? Are your controls properly set up? Are you spamming spacebar with everything firing instead of timing abilities? Are you using abilities (particularly long cooldown abilities) at the appropriate time, not just willy-nilly? If you're a Tac, are you getting your GDF? Are you familiar with the coat hanger?
Anyone who tells you the sentence highlighted above is full of ****, and invariably have some stupid agenda they're trying to push. Like that guy who's everywhere talking about plasma doping right now, trying to get it nerfed so he'd have less competition on the epeen charts.
Presumably when you say you copied the build, those builds are at least 30k. If you're getting 9k out of them, then the problem is with piloting, and throwing thousands of dollars into the game won't do jack.
Are you flying aggressively, staying within 3km of all targets, minimizing time when you're not shooting? Are your controls properly set up? Are you spamming spacebar with everything firing instead of timing abilities? Are you using abilities (particularly long cooldown abilities) at the appropriate time, not just willy-nilly? If you're a Tac, are you getting your GDF? Are you familiar with the coat hanger?
Yes, I know how to do ISA. I fly a science captain in a science ship. Those skills don't do well on faceroll mode. :P I have a plethora of science slots but not much for tactical slots - not much for tactical abilities. The Rhode Island Fleet T5-U is decent enough on tactical powers. A carrier gives more DPS because the pets are huge contributors. But they can't compete with a cruiser/scimitar bfaw. Those are the people I see doing 30k+ when I read the parses.
I guess I should have said I mimic the builds the best my ship can. Unless I am flying the exact same ship, I'm not going to get anywhere close to their 30k. But I did expect a bit better of show than 9k.
Use cruisers would be my advice for topping dps. I manage 18k-20k in my auxtbat sovereign beam boat in conduit but I'm really killing myself doing 10-12k in my prometheus. I keep two rapid fire cooldowns for most targets and even chain a gravity well with cannon volley when the spheres come out with attack pat alpha and omega up, but for some reason my escorts just can't match the sustained damage.
Dsiclaimer: I haven't read most of the thread, mostly just the first post, but i thought id share anyway.
Just as an example for anyone doubting the advise in the OP works.
I was running a cannon build on a KDF vet destroyer until recently, now I have a little bit of fancy gear, full borg set, elite fleet core 2 fleet tac consoles and I was filled with advanced fleet cannons/turrets. I was pulling a lazy 8k dps without trying.
last week I swapped out the cannons for dual beams and grabbed a omni disruptor to put in the back with the KCB and a turret because I had nothing to replace the turret with at the time. the dual beams were just elachi MK XII off the exchange because they were cheap. swapped out the cannon skills for overload, mainly because I deliberately didn't want to go FaW. DPS jumped by 2k just because I had a little more time on target with the wider arc of the dual beams.
last night I threw the same gear into a Mat'ha raptor with minor variations and added a 4th DBB (MK XI only becuase its what I had on hand) and filled the two Intel officer slots with overload subsystem safties. Havent parsed the results yet but it sure felt like everything was dying faster and i haven't even unlocked all the masteries on the raptor yet.
Doffs are a mix of green and blue one that match the abilities I have but nothing hard to get.
So yes, it really is not hard to get 8k these days, you can do it without even touching the upgrade system.
Also for the record the captain in question is not even tactical, she's an engineer.
I guess I should have said I mimic the builds the best my ship can. Unless I am flying the exact same ship, I'm not going to get anywhere close to their 30k. But I did expect a bit better of show than 9k.
Well, you can't copy a non-science ship build and expect a science ship to perform as well when you're missing big bits and pieces.
I'd recommend looking over science ship builds, like this 35k (in PUGs!) Pathfinder. Play to the strengths of the ship, you know?
I couldn't believe the way that ship was set up, every time I play that mission, all I can think the entire times is 'who would ever set up a ship this way?'
I guess that explains why most of the missions seem so easy.. if they're all set up assuming you build ships like Cryptic, no wonder most of us jack stop all the content.
I keep wishing I could permanently save a loadout for Step Between Stars, Sphere of Influence, and Temporal Ambassador.
Beyond the gear, just the tray layout is the hottest of hot hot garbage.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I TRIBBLE 8k dps on alts which literally only have Rep Gear (XII with crappy random mods such Rom, protonic, etc because I got them for free while leveling reps) No KCB, no plasmatic Leach, no lockbox gear whatsoever, no Space Warfare Doffs......
A better question would be how can you fail to do 8k dps?
Actually it's rather simple if you don't understand the system. Poor ship choices is probably the first way you TRIBBLE it up, then add in poor BOff skills because they sound really good on paper... but suck in practice (Viral Matrix for example), and poor choices with Rep Gear, x2 if you add poor rep gear that doesn't help your role.
For example I take a Galaxy cruiser, with phaser beams, a forward and aft photon torps, and using your engineer skills layered on damage mitigation to form a tank. Heck add Tets instead of Phasers actually because that shield drain looks damn good on paper.
Or couple in the fact that you use beams that two patches ago were great but have been nerfed into oblivion (I remember when Antiprotons were the best... then the worst...)
So it's not hard to do less then 8k if no ones told you the in's and outs of STO. Once though you have the basics... sure you can do all kinds of damage with mediocre gear because you know how to build around that gears strengths.
Comments
You can estimate solo, just fight a battleship or dreadnaught somewhere, say the dysonsphere contested zone. Check its HP and watch how long it takes you to kill him. Won't be terribly accurate, but you'll know if you're over or under 8k.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Somebody already asked in the other thread why they aren't seeing 15k from it.
And that's been said where?
Maybe you are talking about the old ISE ... the magic number for ISA is , if I remember well, an average 13k per player.
They nerfed the Advanced some time back...it's around half that amount.
A bop is supposed to have the turn rate to spend more time shooting than other ships. This simple phrase demonstrates that you simply do not understand how to dps. You need to maximize weapons on target firing.
Just look at the junk in the slots of ships people get for promotions. If they use that as a guide... I'm not talking the quality. I am talking the layout of the items and the types of items there. It's scary to think people see that as a default layout.
isa 12K dps
^^This!
When you first start playing you basically have no clue how to set up your ship and when you level up you get a constant flow of new ships with messed up load outs. No matter the type of ship you pick you end up with beams, dual beams, cannons, turrets, etc... all mixed together. They basically set up players for failure giving them ships with junk like that on them. I realized Cryptic Devs have no idea how to play their own game when they released that mission where you need to fly the Dyson Destroyer. That ships weapon load out is completely rubbish...and obviously that mission is end game so seriously wtf?
This x 1000!!
I couldn't believe the way that ship was set up, every time I play that mission, all I can think the entire times is 'who would ever set up a ship this way?'
I guess that explains why most of the missions seem so easy.. if they're all set up assuming you build ships like Cryptic, no wonder most of us jack stop all the content.
I would say this ship have a low DPS, but DPS is not the proper word for it. I don't think it helped sell this ship anyway.
It was very strange that they set up a ship like that with the intent to sell it.
Most players probably came away from that mission thinking the Dyson Destroyers are the worst ships in the game just based on the way it performs in that mission.
It does further the argument that the people that wrote the mission don't know how to play the game. No Dev that wanted to sell that ship would have set it up that way. It was as if the ship layout was done by someone that had never touched the game in their lives.
its much more simple.
1) get a set of AP weapons. You can farm some from a mission, if nothing else, or craft them, or get some rejects off the exchange. This will be your ONLY major expense, if you do not use the mission reward ones.
2) get the set. That means doing sphere of influence 2 times for beam and warp core.
3) craft, buy, or loot AP consoles for your tac slots. This could cost you a little if you buy them.
4) set up your bridge officers for damage. 2 copies of power to weapons. 2 copies of your weapon attacks (faw, for example). 2 copies of pattern beta (attack pattern) if you can fit it. A variety of healing/defense skills ... tac team 1, hazard emitters, sci team/TSS, maybe a polarize hull if you have room, maybe an eng heal if you have room, depends on the ship's seats.
5) use a tactical themed ship to get started. Later, when you have stuffs, you can learn to play other types of ships with high dps.
6) be sure to max weapon power.
7) if you use cannons, get 3k or less from targets, 5 at an absolute max. It is easier to use beams.
This is just the bare bones of a build but its cheap and will get you started.
They did try to sell that ship though, if you looked at the gear it came with, it was all ultra high end stuff that was locked into the slot on the ship. All the gear was way better than you could get at the time, to give the player a false impression of how overpowered it was, but I really don't think they know how badly set up the ship was other than that.
Plus the way your hotkeys get randomized whenever you jump into a new ship is pretty disturbing, they still can't get that right after these years.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
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Having the basics be more intuitive would be great. However, I personally can't think of any game that relies on in-game guides - if for no other reason than that you can't get player-driven guides in, and in basically every game the players are the ones that know or figure out how to get the most out of the current state of the game given any one focus. For anyone looking for such guides, though, I'd refer new users to /r/stobuilds.
The /r/stobuilds wiki has analysis on gear, starter ship builds, advanced builds, and much more.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
I found anytime I was thinking of a new ship, or I'd buy a new ship to play around with I'd do a google search like "STO Reddit JHDC" or 'STO Builds Guardian" etc. Was an easy way to see what others not only do with a ship, but reading peoples replies on the build.
Also helps that Reddit isn't blocked at work so free to read up there. lol
And, yes, I do see people parsing 3000-6000 in ISA frequently, even people from the public elite stf channel. I also see people parsing below 1000 in other missions where dps is 1/2 to 1/3 of what it is in ISA... that basically means everyone else is doing the work.
And people, when we're teaming up for KSA, say that they can't do probes because their build isn't set up for DPS. It's 2 probes in 60 seconds - any build should be able to handle that *as well as* doing whatever cool thing (tanking, CC, whatever) it's set up to do.
I have spent a ton of dilithium upgrading this console and that weapon because they do this, that, or something else and will let you get 20k dps mashing buttons with your nose. I have spent millions upon millions of EC on gear to upgrade to get to epic and pray for the stat lottery gods to smile upon me - all the while dumping truckloads of Dil into the system. Then I go out and I see 480 dps gained. 480!
I guess I am not using the right ship and need to spend $1000 on lockboxes to get that perfect Lobi setup. Well, not happening. The world is just going to have to deal with my 9k dps. I am done chasing that rat in the unending rat race.
Mad? No. Clueless? I guess so. It seems so. The numbers say so. Determined? Not any more. Paint me in scrub paint. I'm done throwing time and resources at it.
Skill Layout.
Ship Type.
Universal Consoles.
BOff Types.
DOff Types.
Reputation Space Traits.
Captain Space Traits.
Team Configuration.
Pilot Skill. (Which encompasses a lot of other variables)
Server Stability.
And even if you have STO running at 60fps (or more) vs 30fps.
At times just knowing how to run the ship you are in well can make up for gear. Get the skill tray setup so you are comfortable popping the skills you need quickly, learn your ship(s) a ha'feh pilots way different than a bortas'qu and requires very different play styles. Also, like baelogventure sorta mentioned, hardware(yours and cryptic's) can play a major role and connection speeds. Considering you're over the 9k line I wouldn't say you have much to worry about tho really, you're ahead of a ton of people.
one last thing I think affects dps and gets forgotten too often, not everyone is some teenager hopped up on speed(sugar/whatever) mashin buttons like he's having a seizure at light speed. and not all of us want to bother tryin that ****.
To elaborate on this, use /combatlog 1 while in game to get STO to generate a combatlog.log file. Use /combatlog 0 to get STO to stop logging. Then you use CLR (linked above) to parse that log file into human-readable results.
Anyone who tells you the sentence highlighted above is full of ****, and invariably have some stupid agenda they're trying to push. Like that guy who's everywhere talking about plasma doping right now, trying to get it nerfed so he'd have less competition on the epeen charts.
Presumably when you say you copied the build, those builds are at least 30k. If you're getting 9k out of them, then the problem is with piloting, and throwing thousands of dollars into the game won't do jack.
Are you flying aggressively, staying within 3km of all targets, minimizing time when you're not shooting? Are your controls properly set up? Are you spamming spacebar with everything firing instead of timing abilities? Are you using abilities (particularly long cooldown abilities) at the appropriate time, not just willy-nilly? If you're a Tac, are you getting your GDF? Are you familiar with the coat hanger?
Yes, I know how to do ISA. I fly a science captain in a science ship. Those skills don't do well on faceroll mode. :P I have a plethora of science slots but not much for tactical slots - not much for tactical abilities. The Rhode Island Fleet T5-U is decent enough on tactical powers. A carrier gives more DPS because the pets are huge contributors. But they can't compete with a cruiser/scimitar bfaw. Those are the people I see doing 30k+ when I read the parses.
I guess I should have said I mimic the builds the best my ship can. Unless I am flying the exact same ship, I'm not going to get anywhere close to their 30k. But I did expect a bit better of show than 9k.
Just as an example for anyone doubting the advise in the OP works.
I was running a cannon build on a KDF vet destroyer until recently, now I have a little bit of fancy gear, full borg set, elite fleet core 2 fleet tac consoles and I was filled with advanced fleet cannons/turrets. I was pulling a lazy 8k dps without trying.
last week I swapped out the cannons for dual beams and grabbed a omni disruptor to put in the back with the KCB and a turret because I had nothing to replace the turret with at the time. the dual beams were just elachi MK XII off the exchange because they were cheap. swapped out the cannon skills for overload, mainly because I deliberately didn't want to go FaW. DPS jumped by 2k just because I had a little more time on target with the wider arc of the dual beams.
last night I threw the same gear into a Mat'ha raptor with minor variations and added a 4th DBB (MK XI only becuase its what I had on hand) and filled the two Intel officer slots with overload subsystem safties. Havent parsed the results yet but it sure felt like everything was dying faster and i haven't even unlocked all the masteries on the raptor yet.
Doffs are a mix of green and blue one that match the abilities I have but nothing hard to get.
So yes, it really is not hard to get 8k these days, you can do it without even touching the upgrade system.
Also for the record the captain in question is not even tactical, she's an engineer.
Well, you can't copy a non-science ship build and expect a science ship to perform as well when you're missing big bits and pieces.
I'd recommend looking over science ship builds, like this 35k (in PUGs!) Pathfinder. Play to the strengths of the ship, you know?
I keep wishing I could permanently save a loadout for Step Between Stars, Sphere of Influence, and Temporal Ambassador.
Beyond the gear, just the tray layout is the hottest of hot hot garbage.
Actually it's rather simple if you don't understand the system. Poor ship choices is probably the first way you TRIBBLE it up, then add in poor BOff skills because they sound really good on paper... but suck in practice (Viral Matrix for example), and poor choices with Rep Gear, x2 if you add poor rep gear that doesn't help your role.
For example I take a Galaxy cruiser, with phaser beams, a forward and aft photon torps, and using your engineer skills layered on damage mitigation to form a tank. Heck add Tets instead of Phasers actually because that shield drain looks damn good on paper.
Or couple in the fact that you use beams that two patches ago were great but have been nerfed into oblivion (I remember when Antiprotons were the best... then the worst...)
So it's not hard to do less then 8k if no ones told you the in's and outs of STO. Once though you have the basics... sure you can do all kinds of damage with mediocre gear because you know how to build around that gears strengths.