Ive been arguing that point ever since people were complaining about the galaxies layout. Sadly I dont see engie skills getting a boost with the new skill classes coming out
Changing up eng powers would be an ideal solution, but I think it's too unrealistic. It's easier for Cryptic to change one ship (or release a new one) to fit the rest of the game as it is now than it is for them to try redo eng skills. That's why I've continued to argue for a revamped Galaxy layout. If they did go back and rebalance eng powers, I certainly wouldn't complain though.
Ive been arguing that point ever since people were complaining about the galaxies layout. Sadly I dont see engie skills getting a boost with the new skill classes coming out
This would also be easily solved, layout wise, with one of the current engineering BOFF stations being universal.
Which, if it follows the Pathfinder route, it will.
Well, in fairness, it's easy to jump to that conclusion when we have cruisers such as the Excelsor and Ambassador (to name but two), which are considerably older, but nonetheless superior, to the Galaxy.
I understand where the notion comes from, but people stop using rational thought when talking about the matter. In your case you have to ask yourself why those ships are so superior. And it's not really because Geko thinks the Excelsior is cooler - he did sa that, but that's not the real reason and people know that, at least I hope so.
The two ships are canonically older, that's true. But they are significantly newer in STO as in they were implemented later into the game. What that means is when the Galaxy Retrofit was around there were no hybrid ships in-game. All cruisers had CMDR Eng and LTC Eng, the only thing varying is one ensign. The Galaxy was designed to work within these limitations and the Retrofit as one of the possible "upgrades" a ship can get got the Eng part of the trinity. When the Excelsior and the Ambassador (which came much, much later) were brought into the game they abandoned strict classes and allowed LTC secondary specializations on ships. The Excelsior was T3 and got a Retrofit at T5 and got the Tac secondary. The Ambassador Retrofit got the sci. The Galaxy Retrofit already existed and was just left behind by advancing game mechanics. And the sole reason it is worse is that Eng abilities are not as well thought out than the others, this is a very obvious and urgent flaw the game has - but that has nothing to do with dislike towards the Galaxy, it was just bitten in the aft launcher by outdated gamedesign. But they never changed, to this day, ships that were already finalized and implemented into the game with two exceptions. And the Dreadnaught cruiser change required much hassle and was only pulled because the ship essentially was a duplicate of another ship (Sovy) which is due to the fact that it originally never was concieved as a "regular" starship, it was a vanity item.
This is the amount of reason people need to bring to the table. Then, I am sure, the devs would even willing to discuss the issue - well, if they would discuss. PWE ended that, but in theory they would :P XD
The Galaxy's biggest weakness isn't her layout - it's the fact that there are fewer engineering powers then tac/sci - and fewer 'effective' engineering powers at that. A power that is never used because it's always on cooldown from other powers being used is a horrible choice - and with the Galaxy's ens and lt stations - you can't avoid something ALWAYS being on cooldown.
That's bad design. I'm not saying it was intended to hurt the Galaxy - but it is. Of the trinity - the Intrepid and Defiant were both effective with their layouts because there are LOTS of powers, and a great deal of them are effective. Have a spare Science station? Polarize hull - even at rank 1 is amazing. Spare tac station? Who doesn't cycle two tac teams in an escort (if you aren't doffed into it).
This is true and I will never argue with that point. Engineering abilities are badly designed, they are fewer and trip over each other and the high tier special abilities for eng-heavy ships have no effect in the current metagame - this is an embarassing oversight by Cryptic. But tailoring each ship to somehow avoid that trap cannot be the solution.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
This would also be easily solved, layout wise, with one of the current engineering BOFF stations being universal.
Which, if it follows the Pathfinder route, it will.
It could, but then there will still be ballyhooing that the ship "doesnt do anything better than any other cruiser." Trust me, been on this flight, seen the in-flight movie, the peanuts are stale. I honestly had hoped T6 would walk away from canon ships, just to avoid people getting upset at personal derived expectations of thier Hero ship not being met.
Changing up eng powers would be an ideal solution, but I think it's too unrealistic. It's easier for Cryptic to change one ship (or release a new one) to fit the rest of the game as it is now than it is for them to try redo eng skills. That's why I've continued to argue for a revamped Galaxy layout. If they did go back and rebalance eng powers, I certainly wouldn't complain though.
As I have suggested in the past, they could make a skin available for the Guardian. No fuss, muss.
As I have suggested in the past, they could make a skin available for the Guardian. No fuss, muss.
It's good suggestion. One that several of us made back when the Guardian was released. Sadly, Cryptic doesn't seem interested in doing that. So since overhauling eng skills isn't realistic and putting a Galaxy skin on the Guardian seems to be a no go, we end up circling back around to changing the Galaxy's boff layout once again. 'Round and 'round we go.
The Exploration cruiser/ the Galaxy is just one ship in this game which already got special treatment due to it being a hero ship.
if you mean being the least effective tier 5 ship in the game, yes indeed, it got a VERY special treatement for sure.if not i don't known what special treatement you are refering too, can you point it out to me?
Yes, engineering abilities don't produce a lot of dps, but that doesn't mean that they "hate" this ship
who speak about hate? can you stop interpreting the things i wrote? just for a second?
i speak about intention and potential sell on the hypothetical futur galaxy.
you seems to bielieve that this galaxy will follow the ancient trinity ( 3 pack hero ship ) model that was used in the beguining of the game with the defiant and intrepid.
althought that would somehow make sense in term of continuity, and that i would not be surprised if that happened to be the case after all, there is nothing officially state by crypting that allow us to bielieve that it will, that it is written in stone.
this trinity model is a bad marketing idea in my opinion, no need to explain why concerning the galaxy but people seem to forget that it was not the best option for the defiant too, 3 tactical ensign even without doff was not very efficient at that time. the problem was less important and could be completely ignore because overhaul the ship was very good.
some would even said that it serve as a limitaion to not make it too good ( aka the best escort in the game at that time ).
so do cryptic want to reproduce this pattern? i hope not.
yes, the engi power are not very effective and that what gimped the galaxy on top of others stats.
so if you want it to just have a lt hybrid/pilot/command or whatever, you forced it to stay with ( for the most part ) these engie power that we known now that they never be change.
these new power that cryptic introduce are here for that, give us new choice, new gameplay and something to slot on these type of ship.
why would you want the galaxy to have a limited acces to these ALTERNATIVE power?
why would you want it to stay in the old meta of this game? we are speaking about a tier 6 ship or are we not?
It's good suggestion. One that several of us made back when the Guardian was released. Sadly, Cryptic doesn't seem interested in doing that. So since overhauling eng skills isn't realistic and putting a Galaxy skin on the Guardian seems to be a no go, we end up circling back around to changing the Galaxy's boff layout once again. 'Round and 'round we go.
A vicious circle that will be broken soon, when the Tier 6 Exploration Cruiser is released we will know for better or for worse the new Bridge officer layout they have decided, regardless of which I will be buying it, that is if it can equip the original Galaxy Costume
As far as needing more engineering powers every time the subject is brought up I get more pissed that Override Subsystem Safeties somehow became an intelligence power instead of Engineering.
I partially agree with you. While it does make sense to remove the neck portion for the reasons you stated, not all of the ship was logically designed. In fact, parts of the Sovereign were designed intentionally to look like the Connie. John Eaves mentioned two cases in particular:
Back then it wasn't really known that those two triangles were supposed to be landing pads. He was rightfully attempting to add the history of the vessel to the design.
I agree that parts of the ship were intentionally designed to overcome weaknesses in previous ships. However, it's obvious that not all of the design elements used in making the Sovereign were developed with logic in mind. The two main phaser strips on the underside of the saucer have no justification for being separate pieces. The TNGTM firmly establishes that one long phaser strip is more effective than two smaller ones. Therefore, it was an aesthetic choice, not a "logical" one.
Not necessarily. From the Watsonian perspective that design approach is not duplicated on any smaller ship. Perhaps it's only practical on a titan like the Galaxy.
From the Doylist perspective, I have no idea. John Eaves' hadn't updated his blog last I checked so can't ask him.
John Eaves mostly mentioned the Constitution-class Enterprise when talking about the weakness of its neck; the problem with his reasoning is that he then goes and sticks two huge warp nacelles on two equally weak looking and vulnerable warp pylons. In the TNG era it's those parts of the ship that caused more problems in combat than not.
By that logic every Starfleet vessel made after 2370 should've had integrated nacelles like the Defiant.
Ironically the Nacelle pylons have never been shown to be as big a liability as the nacelles themselves. In going on 50 years of Star Trek, the only times we've seen a Nacelle blown off completely was the Battle of the Mutara Nebula and the Battle of Wolf 359.
Looking compared to the Galaxy the wing shaped nacelles don't seem all that flimsy. Remember that the nacelle pylons are designed to be able to eject the nacelles themselves in an emergency, now THAT is a design feature that was never used.
the more or less accepted figures for mk 10 and mk 12 emitters is an output of 5.1 and 7.2 mw, not a substantial difference.
You don't think a 30% increase in power is substantial????
the galaxy's largest has 200 emitters, so an output of 1020 potentially. being generous to the sovereign, lets say its largest has 90 emitters, still that tops out at 648. upgrade the galaxy and it outputs 1440. if anything, it looked like the galaxy has more then enough capacity to keep those arrays fireing at an incredible rate. with EPS upgrades to go with emitter upgrades, it should be able to run them just fine.
Fine. I thought I already said that you could equip a Galaxy with the same array and get stronger performance.
phasers are not going to get substantially better in less then a decade, they just aren't. phaser tech is like 200 years old by then, and arrays configurations about 50. this is a mature tech, like the internal combustion engine. it evolves slowly and constantly, but there's no quantum leaps to be had. and even if there was, you could just upgrade the galaxy. in fact, the enterprise probably got mk12 emitter in the 7th season, they mentioned a major phaser upgrade in one of the episodes. by then, the NX sovereign prototype would have been out running trials in the last stages of development, mk12 would have existed in 2370.
It's not just the Phaser itself though. The major focus in weapons design in that time period was in weapon and shield modulation. Deeper penetration through the shield bubble, improved sensors. I recall that the Voyager had adaptive shields, reading the weapon modulation of enemy weapons and adjusting the shields to increase effectiveness.
I honestly have no way to comment about the Galaxy getting upgraded to Mk XII. One has to wonder what happened to MkXI.
That said, you can't say that quantum leaps in the technology don't happen in the same time that the Defiant and her Pulse Phaser Cannons were released. The technology was still evolving. We have no clue if Phasers have reached their technological ceiling.
i wasn't trying to imply you called the saucer bulky, people thinking its too big is common though.
It's perfect for what it's designed for.
and warp cores and power, im convinced are pretty much a non factor. given how tiny warp cores are in relation to the rest of the ship, when they could be made much bigger if they weren't generating enough power to run everything easily, given how during the nemesis battle the enterprise's warp core was out of action the whole time, and the amount of energy that must be needed to accelerate a ship to warp, let alone got thousands of times faster then light, that must make running the rest of the ship like powering a light bulb. warp cores size and output is likely tied only to top warp speed, running the rest of the ship must only take a fraction of any core's output.
Indeed and 30% of the power on the ships goes to crew maintenance. Pretty amazing when you think about it.
I would think though that a close second to warp drive is actually shields. I mean it's a localized controlled spatial distortion, that's not exactly cheap. Phasers themselves push things out of space time continuity. But yeah generally speaking as long as it isn't a huge generational jump. For instance the idea that an NX-class warp core would be able to power the same systems as a Galaxy class core doesn't hold water.
But like I said, you could always just shove a class 8 core into the Galaxy and call it good.
in nemesis, you see the enterprise at full combat speed, dumping phaser shots constantly, holding shields up, recharging them, fighting at its potential, wile only running on the impulse reactors, and any other auxiliary fusion cores. if i was starfleet, i'd make sure the backups to the warp core could carry the ship through a battle without loss of performance, and that looks exactly like what happened. only problem with that though, is those fusion cores running at maximum output? burned through all the ship's deuterium, that would have taken years for the more efficient warp core M/AM reaction to burn through, wile producing orders of magnitude more energy at the same time. the ship just up and ran out of gas there at the end, it wasn't even heavily damaged, the scimitar wasn't armed with any really heavy guns.
Did I NOT JUST SAY THAT????
Honestly if main power had been online the Enterprise wouldn't have ran out of power to begin with and it might've been a much more fair fight.
As for the Scimitar there are three thoughts on that. First, for the majority of the fight Shinzon was trying to take Picard alive so he was going easy on the Enterprise. If you look at what he did to the Norexans on hand the Scimitar had no reason to hold back and murderdeathkilled them. There's a strategic question of either the Warbirds are substantially weaker than a Sovereign, or if Shinzon was just intentionally not crushing the Enterprise.
I'm actually inclined to believe the former as crippling the Enterprise like he crippled the Valdore would've been a far simpler move. There is also the fact that he had the schematics for the warbirds and Data likely screwed with his Data while he was there. Romulans can afford to build comparatively fragile ships, as they aren't there to stand and fight anyway.
Second even though there's information sharing about enemy threat forces like the Dominion and the Borg between the Federation and the Star Empire, there's no reason to believe that the Romulans would come up with the same solutions. Starfleet vessels that can't cloak and hide, focus on tougher shields and stronger weapons. We've been arguing about how much power can be brought to bear in phaser strips and all that. Apply that logic to why the hell the Scimitar needs 52 disruptor banks? Of course the answer could be easily that rather than the banks being weak, she's just designed to engage 50 targets at a time, an actually logical thought after the swarm fighting of the Dominion War.
Third, even then it wasn't completely out of juice still being able to use engines to ram her. It likely would've taken a LOT longer to recharge the weapons banks off of auxiliary power than they figured they had.
so, lack of power isn't really a thing on these ships. for systems like shields and weapons, the only limitation could be the EPS conduit flow volume to them, and how much power they could actually use.
Well yes , agreed.
"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"
It could, but then there will still be ballyhooing that the ship "doesnt do anything better than any other cruiser." Trust me, been on this flight, seen the in-flight movie, the peanuts are stale. I honestly had hoped T6 would walk away from canon ships, just to avoid people getting upset at personal derived expectations of thier Hero ship not being met.
The Galaxy does not need to be better, "on equal footing" is entirely enough.
Engineering powers are lame. That is a fact.
Bringing more engineering heavy ships will always instantly throw these ships onto the scrap heap.
The eclipse is a decent t6 ships. Because it enables the player to use the high level engineering slots that yield NO useful tool with very useful intel powers.
That saved the ship from the scrap heap. The guardian got a very good boff seating in basically being an beefed up excelsior, crossed with a super tanky ambassador.
Its an excellent boff setup (the same that was given to the D'deridex - also saving that ship from the scrappy heap.) that offers great gameplay. Its excellent.
Would have instantly bought it, i f it weren't for the fact that it looks like a shovel. Had they allowed the galaxy skins on this ship, no more complains would have been made.
The Command cruisers also have good seatings, the option for 2 lt tacs offer pattern beta, a spread or hy, bfaw and tac team. Combined with the massive tank, its a good ship with quite some utility.
So whats weird about asking for a redo of the eclipse boff seating here? just redone for command or piloting?
Or why not copy the Guardian?
Or add the Galaxy to the family of command ships.
Or simply allow the galaxy skins for the guardian.
The only wrong option here is to make another heavy engineering cruiser that noone asked for, wants, or needs.
And thinking that they ever would redo engineering powers to be a competitive power set? please....
You don't think a 30% increase in power is substantial????
that is fairly big improvement, but i don't think mkX emitters were necessarily brand new when the galaxy launched. and then there's the borg threat, if there was ever a time phaser development was going to be hyper accelerated, it would have been the 2360s.
but substantial, in this case that would mean the mkXII emitter were so much more powerful, that with them the sovereign not only could match the much larger arrays on the galaxy class, but exceed them.
It's not just the Phaser itself though. The major focus in weapons design in that time period was in weapon and shield modulation. Deeper penetration through the shield bubble, improved sensors. I recall that the Voyager had adaptive shields, reading the weapon modulation of enemy weapons and adjusting the shields to increase effectiveness.
i think the total lack of shield effects during the dominion war is confusing you. and voyager just had a crew smart enough to adjust modulation. the crew of the enterprise forgot that was a thing, even after they had done it a whole bunch in BoBW.
I honestly have no way to comment about the Galaxy getting upgraded to Mk XII. One has to wonder what happened to MkXI.
i know right? part of why i think mkX wasn't all that new. my guess is it was an attempt to improve mkX without a clean sheet redesign, that didn't really go anywhere. and mkXII was more of a clean slate development. sorta like the difference between an automaker doing a mid cycle refreshing on a model, and creating a new generation.
That said, you can't say that quantum leaps in the technology don't happen in the same time that the Defiant and her Pulse Phaser Cannons were released. The technology was still evolving. We have no clue if Phasers have reached their technological ceiling.
everyone always assumes every feature on the defiant is amazing and revolutionary, i just don't see it. and those cannons may have been fairly powerful, certainly for a ship that size, but they hardly out DPS some of the larger arrays. the cannons on the defiant seem only about a match for a brel's output. pulse phaser tech from banks is a throwback to the late 23rd century, used because the ships was so maneuverable that fireing arcs weren't as big a priority, and the ships simply wasn't big enough to mount an actually threatening array.
Indeed and 30% of the power on the ships goes to crew maintenance. Pretty amazing when you think about it.
I would think though that a close second to warp drive is actually shields. I mean it's a localized controlled spatial distortion, that's not exactly cheap. Phasers themselves push things out of space time continuity. But yeah generally speaking as long as it isn't a huge generational jump. For instance the idea that an NX-class warp core would be able to power the same systems as a Galaxy class core doesn't hold water.
But like I said, you could always just shove a class 8 core into the Galaxy and call it good.
30%? where was that said exactly? they probably weren't talking about when the ship was at warp. there was warp drive before there was M/AM reactors, even one of the original warp cores would be better then even the most modern fusion reactors in output and fuel efficiency. i bet most modern ships could get up to about warp 3 or so just on fusion reactors, but at that speed wouldn't get anywhere before they ran out of gas.
Honestly if main power had been online the Enterprise wouldn't have ran out of power to begin with and it might've been a much more fair fight.
As for the Scimitar there are three thoughts on that. First, for the majority of the fight Shinzon was trying to take Picard alive so he was going easy on the Enterprise. If you look at what he did to the Norexans on hand the Scimitar had no reason to hold back and murderdeathkilled them. There's a strategic question of either the Warbirds are substantially weaker than a Sovereign, or if Shinzon was just intentionally not crushing the Enterprise.
I'm actually inclined to believe the former as crippling the Enterprise like he crippled the Valdore would've been a far simpler move. There is also the fact that he had the schematics for the warbirds and Data likely screwed with his Data while he was there. Romulans can afford to build comparatively fragile ships, as they aren't there to stand and fight anyway.
Second even though there's information sharing about enemy threat forces like the Dominion and the Borg between the Federation and the Star Empire, there's no reason to believe that the Romulans would come up with the same solutions. Starfleet vessels that can't cloak and hide, focus on tougher shields and stronger weapons. We've been arguing about how much power can be brought to bear in phaser strips and all that. Apply that logic to why the hell the Scimitar needs 52 disruptor banks? Of course the answer could be easily that rather than the banks being weak, she's just designed to engage 50 targets at a time, an actually logical thought after the swarm fighting of the Dominion War.
Third, even then it wasn't completely out of juice still being able to use engines to ram her. It likely would've taken a LOT longer to recharge the weapons banks off of auxiliary power than they figured they had.
Well yes , agreed.
umm, if you mentioned that i didn't catch it. i only sited it as more proof that ships have unlimited energy at sublight, and the only limitation is how much energy any system can even use.
the enterprise E was a long ways away from being as shot up as the enterprise C was, the scimitars many guns didn't look like they were even fully breaching the hull when shields failed. though the mogai was pretty large, romulan ships are notorious for being lightly armored, so its not too surprising that they could be disabled the way they were. but the scimitar wasn't firing anything that could strip 10% shields every shot, like the big guns of the d'deridex could. the scimitar is most certainly designed to engage a ton of smaller ships wile it attempts to deliver its super weapon. its not an anti capital ship, capital ship. those 52 banks are split between like 6 fireing arcs too, at most it has 13 or so guns up front.
damage from the battle didn't disable the enterprise, running out of gas did. but, even if it had a functioning core, it still eventually would have lost, the scimitar's shields were just too strong. if a 2379 spec galaxy had been there instead, that would have really been an interesting fight. i think the ram was caused by the RCS thrusters, that i believe are actually some sort of chemical propellent, and not tiny impulse coils drawing power the ship no longer had.
another thing to watch for on tribble, besides an updated galaxy model, is a new eng power or tac power to go along with the new sci power that showed up.
The Galaxy does not need to be better, "on equal footing" is entirely enough.
Engineering powers are lame. That is a fact.
Bringing more engineering heavy ships will always instantly throw these ships onto the scrap heap.
The eclipse is a decent t6 ships. Because it enables the player to use the high level engineering slots that yield NO useful tool with very useful intel powers.
That saved the ship from the scrap heap. The guardian got a very good boff seating in basically being an beefed up excelsior, crossed with a super tanky ambassador.
Its an excellent boff setup (the same that was given to the D'deridex - also saving that ship from the scrappy heap.) that offers great gameplay. Its excellent.
Would have instantly bought it, i f it weren't for the fact that it looks like a shovel. Had they allowed the galaxy skins on this ship, no more complains would have been made.
The Command cruisers also have good seatings, the option for 2 lt tacs offer pattern beta, a spread or hy, bfaw and tac team. Combined with the massive tank, its a good ship with quite some utility.
So whats weird about asking for a redo of the eclipse boff seating here? just redone for command or piloting?
Or why not copy the Guardian?
Or add the Galaxy to the family of command ships.
Or simply allow the galaxy skins for the guardian.
The only wrong option here is to make another heavy engineering cruiser that noone asked for, wants, or needs.
And thinking that they ever would redo engineering powers to be a competitive power set? please....
Now, how many times have people complained in these thread that the every thing that a Galaxy can do, another cruiser does better? A ton. for many here, it is about the Galaxy being better at something.
You also havent seen that a have said, on several occasions, to add the Galaxy skin to the Guardian.
another thing to watch for on tribble, besides an updated galaxy model, is a new eng power or tac power to go along with the new sci power that showed up.
something that might fix the lame status of eng a bit
I am about a day or two from being able to log on, so let me get clarification. Are you saying that, on Tribble, there currently is a new engie and a new sci boff skill?
Just saw the screen shot, do you have a pic of the engie skill?
In chain of command part 1and 2 TNG didn't Jellico raised phaser power of the Enterprise D by 30% ? by just modificatations done with the crew in a few days ?
with just the resources on the ship on patrol
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
30%? where was that said exactly? they probably weren't talking about when the ship was at warp. there was warp drive before there was M/AM reactors, even one of the original warp cores would be better then even the most modern fusion reactors in output and fuel efficiency. i bet most modern ships could get up to about warp 3 or so just on fusion reactors, but at that speed wouldn't get anywhere before they ran out of gas.
So how exactly are the M/AM reactors suppose to create a warp bubble?
Regarding your view on the Scimitar....After the tactical analysis of Worf, Picard says shes a predator. Granted it may have had all those disruptor to engage multiple targets. Do you really think a ship that could fire while cloaked would go light on armaments?
The Enterprise was on its way to the fleet. Picard gave the order for red alert/battle stations. So, prior to the battle, its shields were up and the ship was ready for battle.
Granted Shinzon didn't want the Enterprise destroyed, but he was able to disable the warp drive with his first shot(according to Geordi). Do you really think some ragtag ship could to that to the most advanced starfleet vessel of the time?
He just wanted Picards blood so he could live. He had no interest in the "quaint little vessel". He wasn't trying to destroy her, but he sure disabled her main power very quickly.
Ultimately, the ship was built for one purpose...to enact the revenge of Shinzon on the federation...namely Earth. It was going to use its Thaloron Radiation weapon to kill the inhabitants. It would take a beast of a ship to even get close to Earth. The Borg cube was destroyed at Earth two movies prior after all.
In chain of command part 1and 2 TNG didn't Jellico raised phaser power of the Enterprise D by 30% ? by just modificatations done with the crew in a few days ?
with just the resources on the ship on patrol
Yeah, but Jellico was the Chuck Norris of his time. He probably increased it by having security teams standing on the hull with compression rifles, while in reasing power to weapons by pluggong into his sheer willpower ([Phaser Beam Array Mk X [Acc]x2 [CrtH]x2 [WilP] .
I actually liked the Jellico character, very much a straight shooter.
Yeah, but Jellico was the Chuck Norris of his time. He probably increased it by having security teams standing on the hull with compression rifles, while in reasing power to weapons by pluggong into his sheer willpower ([Phaser Beam Array Mk X [Acc]x2 [CrtH]x2 [WilP] .
I actually liked the Jellico character, very much a straight shooter.
That's worth a good chuckle :P
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I am about a day or two from being able to log on, so let me get clarification. Are you saying that, on Tribble, there currently is a new engie and a new sci boff skill?
Just saw the screen shot, do you have a pic of the engie skill?
there is a new sci skill on tribble, im saying watch for new eng skills and tac skills too.
this might be an isolated thing though, to help sci ships be less unoptimized for pve, and generate sales from a wider number of players.
In chain of command part 1and 2 TNG didn't Jellico raised phaser power of the Enterprise D by 30% ? by just modificatations done with the crew in a few days ?
with just the resources on the ship on patrol
the enterprise was not optimized for combat, all its science labs and non combat features dragged on it's ability to fight. he took steps to take a lot of that stuff offline or bypass it so it could operate closer to its potential. its because of this that the big D is not that great of a benchmark for galaxy class combat performance.
So how exactly are the M/AM reactors suppose to create a warp bubble?
Regarding your view on the Scimitar....After the tactical analysis of Worf, Picard says shes a predator. Granted it may have had all those disruptor to engage multiple targets. Do you really think a ship that could fire while cloaked would go light on armaments?
The Enterprise was on its way to the fleet. Picard gave the order for red alert/battle stations. So, prior to the battle, its shields were up and the ship was ready for battle.
Granted Shinzon didn't want the Enterprise destroyed, but he was able to disable the warp drive with his first shot(according to Geordi). Do you really think some ragtag ship could to that to the most advanced starfleet vessel of the time?
He just wanted Picards blood so he could live. He had no interest in the "quaint little vessel". He wasn't trying to destroy her, but he sure disabled her main power very quickly.
Ultimately, the ship was built for one purpose...to enact the revenge of Shinzon on the federation...namely Earth. It was going to use its Thaloron Radiation weapon to kill the inhabitants. It would take a beast of a ship to even get close to Earth. The Borg cube was destroyed at Earth two movies prior after all.
the warp core doesn't have anything to do with creating the warp bubble, thats the nacelles. it just the best way to create plasma that the warp drive and every other system on the ship uses.
the scimitar is plenty dangerous, it just has a lot of smaller guns rather then a few big ones, this is ideal for engaging a large number of smaller ships. against 1 or a small number of larger opponents though, a smaller number of big guns would be more effective. it was about twice as powerful as a sovereign class i'd say, im not saying it was a POS. but it was hardly a god ship, especially if it had to fight true capital ships like the negvar, d'deridex or galaxy, its not necessarily optimized for that.
the enterprise was at maximum warp, it was using 100% of the power the warp core was capable of generating. its shields were probably not at maximum, and main engineering and the nacelles were taking direct hits when core got knocked offline. cores seem especially delicate when a ship takes damage wile they are running at max.
go ahead and reread the part about phasers, and point out this picture you mentioned. im quite familiar with the section and have defended my position with it often. it backs up the way i described it works, i can hardly make sense of your interpretation.
"Groups of emitters are supplied by redundant sets of energy feeds from the primary trunks of the electro plasma system"
thats the opposite of implying an array is only hooked to the ship's power at ether end of the array. every single emitter has its own pipe running to it, from multiple main trunk lines depending on how large the array is, and every emitter has its own capacitor to store energy and contribute to shots .
11.1 it states they are in groups of emitters. that would mean/imply emitters are ganged together and pass the energy as needed between each other. I specifically allowed for the possibility that there are additional feeds besides the given visuals of energy entering the extreme ends of the array ant travelling to the firing point(s)..
the picture I referenced is 11.1.3, though tis been a long time. it is stated that "groups of emitters" by redundant sets of energy feeds". this is open to some interpretation as they don't go into how the "groups" are actually laid out. one interpretation is that the "group" is the phaser array and its fed at various points but all of the modules in that specific array are one emitter array.
another way to go is that the arrays, big or small, are laid out in batches with the blocks of emitters having no discernible demarcation.
personally, I can see both sides as valid. the extra bit I use is the visual items in the firing sequence seen in the shows. its been seen in both primary arrays, and the occasional times they have use others. its also supported on voy with that ship's arrays.
So whats weird about asking for a redo of the eclipse boff seating here? just redone for command or piloting?
Because Cmdr Hybrid seats are exclusive domain to Original Specialized ships. Not a single unspecialized ship in-game has a Cmdr Hybrid seat, and not likely to happen for a long time as they continue to release new Specializations and Specialized originals to help sell them, while re-releasing older ships with lower rank Specialist seats.
About the only exception that could be made is if they added Cmdr Hybrid seating to the Odyssey/Bortasqu's Cmdr Eng seat and to the Scimitar's Cmdr Tac seat, since they are the current flagships for the foreseeable future.
The only wrong option here is to make another heavy engineering cruiser that noone asked for, wants, or needs.
If it follows the Pathfinder setup, it'll still be Eng heavy, but at least it'll have a bit more flexibility with a Hybrid Lt. Tac seat and a Lt. Universal Seat. Can actually double up on Tac or Sci skills to fit the mission profile as needed.
And thinking that they ever would redo engineering powers to be a competitive power set? please....
They might not redo it, but they can add to it. They already added a new Sci skill on Tribble. Wouldn't be surprising if they added to Eng as well, at least. Though I'd expect a new healing ability (to sit between Engineering Team and Aux2S.Integrity) before another limited offensive ability (such as Aceton Beam, EWP, or Boarding Party).
that is fairly big improvement, but i don't think mkX emitters were necessarily brand new when the galaxy launched. and then there's the borg threat, if there was ever a time phaser development was going to be hyper accelerated, it would have been the 2360s.
but substantial, in this case that would mean the mkXII emitter were so much more powerful, that with them the sovereign not only could match the much larger arrays on the galaxy class, but exceed them.
Our beloved manual states that she was given the largest emitters available, with the MkX+, likely MkXI or XII stated as being large dedicated planetary defense arrays.
A case of technology the next generation of Phaser arrays were finally able to be miniaturized enough to field on a ship.
i think the total lack of shield effects during the dominion war is confusing you. and voyager just had a crew smart enough to adjust modulation. the crew of the enterprise forgot that was a thing, even after they had done it a whole bunch in BoBW.
I'm mildly offended by that, as that never once crossed my mind.
Every crew would presumably do that.
I could just spend too much time at DITL, you read so much over the years that it's impossible to remember where you got everything from, on the other hand it's just the logical direction. Most things of modulation would be handled by computer just because of the speeds necessary.
i know right? part of why i think mkX wasn't all that new. my guess is it was an attempt to improve mkX without a clean sheet redesign, that didn't really go anywhere. and mkXII was more of a clean slate development. sorta like the difference between an automaker doing a mid cycle refreshing on a model, and creating a new generation.
Indeed, either that or that's what Voyager's are. A higher power phaser for smaller vessels. Or that's the official designation for the phaser cannons.
everyone always assumes every feature on the defiant is amazing and revolutionary, i just don't see it. and those cannons may have been fairly powerful, certainly for a ship that size, but they hardly out DPS some of the larger arrays. the cannons on the defiant seem only about a match for a brel's output. pulse phaser tech from banks is a throwback to the late 23rd century, used because the ships was so maneuverable that fireing arcs weren't as big a priority, and the ships simply wasn't big enough to mount an actually threatening array.
Alright look, I know I'm gonna catch hell for this, I know how unreliable it's seen as, but it was said to be a new tech only possible because of new high grade focusing crystals in....the DS9 technical manual...yeah. There's no real contradiction of that though. A high power phaser that fires in bursts is a great weapon to use against the Borg.
30%? where was that said exactly? they probably weren't talking about when the ship was at warp. there was warp drive before there was M/AM reactors, even one of the original warp cores would be better then even the most modern fusion reactors in output and fuel efficiency. i bet most modern ships could get up to about warp 3 or so just on fusion reactors, but at that speed wouldn't get anywhere before they ran out of gas.
It was a Voyager episode so take it with a grain of salt. An alien was amazed that the ship had so many resources dedicated just to the crew.
I'd say Fusion could get you just over warp 1...I suppose 3 is reasonable but you'd be killing it. And in that case you'd have to have it specifically set up so your fusion power plant had access to your warp core like in a Klingon Bird of Prey. But the writers usually seemed to go with no warp core no warp drive at all.
But the way I see it, the Phoenix was definitely a fusion core.
The T'Liss in Balance of Terror was described a "simple impulse". I agree with the theory that she used a Fusion drive for warp. You couldn't do it on any ship with size.
umm, if you mentioned that i didn't catch it. i only sited it as more proof that ships have unlimited energy at sublight, and the only limitation is how much energy any system can even use.
the enterprise E was a long ways away from being as shot up as the enterprise C was, the scimitars many guns didn't look like they were even fully breaching the hull when shields failed. though the mogai was pretty large, romulan ships are notorious for being lightly armored, so its not too surprising that they could be disabled the way they were. but the scimitar wasn't firing anything that could strip 10% shields every shot, like the big guns of the d'deridex could. the scimitar is most certainly designed to engage a ton of smaller ships wile it attempts to deliver its super weapon. its not an anti capital ship, capital ship. those 52 banks are split between like 6 fireing arcs too, at most it has 13 or so guns up front.
damage from the battle didn't disable the enterprise, running out of gas did. but, even if it had a functioning core, it still eventually would have lost, the scimitar's shields were just too strong. if a 2379 spec galaxy had been there instead, that would have really been an interesting fight. i think the ram was caused by the RCS thrusters, that i believe are actually some sort of chemical propellent, and not tiny impulse coils drawing power the ship no longer had.
I agree with you on everything except the RCS thing. Picard specifically told her full impulse not ahead thrusters.
I don't think she had expended her WHOLE deuterium supply, but she couldn't replenish her weapons power reserves.
I take this as my logic. Before the refit the Constitution had to charge her weapons banks ahead of time. That was shown consistent in Enterprise, and with the Constellation in the Doomsday Machine when they said she had expended everything. After the Refit, the Constitution had her weapons hooked up to the warp core, so BAM unlimited weapons power. Unless the core is knocked offline like in the lead up to the Battle of the Mutara nebula. So they went to the fallback, charge the weapons banks. There's no reason that's changed in 90 years.
So if the Warp Core is offline and you've expended the weapons charge, then you have to wait for your impulse engines to recharge them until them you're shooting blanks.
Also note that they didn't drop into low power lighting or talk about losing life support. They lost transporters clearly because of weapons damage, with enough power in the EPS of the transporter room for one more transport.
On a side note I appreciate that they fired ALL torpedoes, I mean, how often does that happen?
another thing to watch for on tribble, besides an updated galaxy model, is a new eng power or tac power to go along with the new sci power that showed up.
In chain of command part 1and 2 TNG didn't Jellico raised phaser power of the Enterprise D by 30% ? by just modificatations done with the crew in a few days ?
with just the resources on the ship on patrol
Well if he can do that on the Galaxy he can also do it with the Sovereign as well.
I think the point is made that Starfleet engineers can do many things to their ships and gear to increase effectiveness.
That said as Drunk said, the Enterprise was likely underperforming tactically due to being focused on her primary mission. She may not have been regularly hitting that 5.1 MW output.
"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"
Our beloved manual states that she was given the largest emitters available, with the MkX+, likely MkXI or XII stated as being large dedicated planetary defense arrays.
A case of technology the next generation of Phaser arrays were finally able to be miniaturized enough to field on a ship.
mk X was the best they could put on a starship at the time, but not necessarily brand new. hardly mattered that much though, with arrays that size, it had at least twice the firepower of the second best.
Alright look, I know I'm gonna catch hell for this, I know how unreliable it's seen as, but it was said to be a new tech only possible because of new high grade focusing crystals in....the DS9 technical manual...yeah. There's no real contradiction of that though. A high power phaser that fires in bursts is a great weapon to use against the Borg.
thats right, i do recall the defiant cannons being sort of break through in a way. each pulse was basically an onion, with layers of different modulations, so shields couldn't block them as effectively, and borg couldn't adapt to them fully. it explains why in the first episode with the defiant, it was able to harm dominion ships at all, when the odyssey couldn't in the previous episode. thanks to changeling spys, the dominoin could shoot through fed shields, and were basically impervious to phasers. the defiant's ablative armor and pulse cannons were the only functioning counter, at the time.
that doesn't mean the cannons are the most powerful weapons, and the odyssey managed to hull tank just fine with its standard armor, but the defiant's tech was the only thing that wasn't totally compromised.
It was a Voyager episode so take it with a grain of salt. An alien was amazed that the ship had so many resources dedicated just to the crew.
I'd say Fusion could get you just over warp 1...I suppose 3 is reasonable but you'd be killing it. And in that case you'd have to have it specifically set up so your fusion power plant had access to your warp core like in a Klingon Bird of Prey. But the writers usually seemed to go with no warp core no warp drive at all.
But the way I see it, the Phoenix was definitely a fusion core.
The T'Liss in Balance of Terror was described a "simple impulse". I agree with the theory that she used a Fusion drive for warp. You couldn't do it on any ship with size.
I agree with you on everything except the RCS thing. Picard specifically told her full impulse not ahead thrusters.
I don't think she had expended her WHOLE deuterium supply, but she couldn't replenish her weapons power reserves.
I take this as my logic. Before the refit the Constitution had to charge her weapons banks ahead of time. That was shown consistent in Enterprise, and with the Constellation in the Doomsday Machine when they said she had expended everything. After the Refit, the Constitution had her weapons hooked up to the warp core, so BAM unlimited weapons power. Unless the core is knocked offline like in the lead up to the Battle of the Mutara nebula. So they went to the fallback, charge the weapons banks. There's no reason that's changed in 90 years.
So if the Warp Core is offline and you've expended the weapons charge, then you have to wait for your impulse engines to recharge them until them you're shooting blanks.
Also note that they didn't drop into low power lighting or talk about losing life support. They lost transporters clearly because of weapons damage, with enough power in the EPS of the transporter room for one more transport.
On a side note I appreciate that they fired ALL torpedoes, I mean, how often does that happen?
at least on 24th century ships, the whole EPS grid is basically connected, any source of plasma could do anything. the constitution refit is probably the first ship with a single EPS network, before it warp cores were probably only hooked to the warp engines, and the rest of the ship ran on fusion reactors. thats kinda the only way that phasers are powered by the warp core thing makes sense when you think about it.
mk X was the best they could put on a starship at the time, but not necessarily brand new. hardly mattered that much though, with arrays that size, it had at least twice the firepower of the second best.
Yeah.
thats right, i do recall the defiant cannons being sort of break through in a way. each pulse was basically an onion, with layers of different modulations, so shields couldn't block them as effectively, and borg couldn't adapt to them fully. it explains why in the first episode with the defiant, it was able to harm dominion ships at all, when the odyssey couldn't in the previous episode. thanks to changeling spys, the dominoin could shoot through fed shields, and were basically impervious to phasers. the defiant's ablative armor and pulse cannons were the only functioning counter, at the time.
Yep.
You know it's interesting that I've only recently been hipped to the Founder spying angle on that. I originally thought it was just a property of Phased Polaron Weaponry that it bypassed Federation shields.
It must've been a hell of a job. I mean Keogh said they ran through the whole spectrum of shield frequencies and couldn't stop them. Ironically if he hadn't dropped the shields she likely would've survived the kamikaze at the end. That's the Jem'Hadar for ya.
that doesn't mean the cannons are the most powerful weapons, and the odyssey managed to hull tank just fine with its standard armor, but the defiant's tech was the only thing that wasn't totally compromised.
I didn't say, that I just meant that they were a revolutionary new way of doing things. And they solved a new problem...I gotta say though it was quite gratifying seeing the Defiant Murk Jem'Hadar ships like that. :cool:
at least on 24th century ships, the whole EPS grid is basically connected, any source of plasma could do anything. the constitution refit is probably the first ship with a single EPS network, before it warp cores were probably only hooked to the warp engines, and the rest of the ship ran on fusion reactors. thats kinda the only way that phasers are powered by the warp core thing makes sense when you think about it.
Yep. That does provide a measure of isolation. If you have an engine crisis then you still have the rest of the system. Shown in TMP when the core went into imbalance, they lost phasers.
On the other hand the advantages were plainly shown later. Whereas the Klingon ships were vaporized by V'Ger, the Enterprise's new shields powered by her new warp core and EPS configuration was able to survive what's likely the most powerful weapon in the 23rd century not looking for whales.
"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"
theg alaxy was, when it left, the most modern, most powerful, most advanced starship build. it was the flagship design. and it still held its place as extraordinary resilient ship (due to shields and power for structural integrity fields) and after its dominion war refits it still held its place as resilient fleet leading ship.
but the galaxy never was a tactical heavy ship. it was meant to withstand, not to "kill and shoot"
thats why the galaxy is heavily eng focussed.
this is perfectly canon.
the problem is, likem any mentioned: the game is designed around killing only, and eng is completely useless to whatsoever buff damage at all. basically it should be possible with engineering to modify engery weapons more, so we have and engineering techniques modifiing them. somehow that sneaked into intel and command (life supp and override safeties)
the problem everyone cries for tac slots is just the game environment "encouraging" or highly suggesting damge over strategy (eject plasma) and science and movement enhancements.
would tehre be a viable benefit of having "tanks" in the game, it would be a major seller.
but so far tanks are only "as good as tac, but it takes longer" cause theres no balance in dmg taking and damage giving.
(so having 5 tacs is still as good as having 1eng, 3tac and 1sci, because 5 tacs are so much faster, tactic and grouping (gravwells9 dont matter anymore and dmg income is simply reduced by killing things faster, BETTER than having someone "tanking" it)
11.1 it states they are in groups of emitters. that would mean/imply emitters are ganged together and pass the energy as needed between each other. I specifically allowed for the possibility that there are additional feeds besides the given visuals of energy entering the extreme ends of the array ant travelling to the firing point(s)..
the picture I referenced is 11.1.3, though tis been a long time. it is stated that "groups of emitters" by redundant sets of energy feeds". this is open to some interpretation as they don't go into how the "groups" are actually laid out. one interpretation is that the "group" is the phaser array and its fed at various points but all of the modules in that specific array are one emitter array.
another way to go is that the arrays, big or small, are laid out in batches with the blocks of emitters having no discernible demarcation.
personally, I can see both sides as valid. the extra bit I use is the visual items in the firing sequence seen in the shows. its been seen in both primary arrays, and the occasional times they have use others. its also supported on voy with that ship's arrays.
Whichever way you choose to interpret, on-screen evidence shows that the phaser charge-up can have both start points not be at the end of the phaser strip. DS9: "Sacrifice of Angels" is the first one to come to mind, as well as TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise". The groups you refer to may change depending on the position and movement of the starship and its target.
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theg alaxy was, when it left, the most modern, most powerful, most advanced starship build. it was the flagship design. and it still held its place as extraordinary resilient ship (due to shields and power for structural integrity fields) and after its dominion war refits it still held its place as resilient fleet leading ship.
but the galaxy never was a tactical heavy ship. it was meant to withstand, not to "kill and shoot"
thats why the galaxy is heavily eng focussed.
this is perfectly canon.
the problem is, likem any mentioned: the game is designed around killing only, and eng is completely useless to whatsoever buff damage at all. basically it should be possible with engineering to modify engery weapons more, so we have and engineering techniques modifiing them. somehow that sneaked into intel and command (life supp and override safeties)
the problem everyone cries for tac slots is just the game environment "encouraging" or highly suggesting damge over strategy (eject plasma) and science and movement enhancements.
would tehre be a viable benefit of having "tanks" in the game, it would be a major seller.
but so far tanks are only "as good as tac, but it takes longer" cause theres no balance in dmg taking and damage giving.
(so having 5 tacs is still as good as having 1eng, 3tac and 1sci, because 5 tacs are so much faster, tactic and grouping (gravwells9 dont matter anymore and dmg income is simply reduced by killing things faster, BETTER than having someone "tanking" it)
There are so many issues with this post, I'm not sure where to begin.
The Galaxy was never the most advanced starship (that honour belonged to the Sovereign). It was the largest ship, the most powerful ship, but not advanced.
The Galaxy, while designed for the purposes of space exploration, was no mere tank. It was a battleship but classified as an explorer. This fits with Starfleet's image of being an organization dedicated to space exploration and diplomatic relations, but also being the primary defense force for the Federation. Part of being a Starfleet ship includes switching roles from being a flag-bearing, science oriented ship, to a ship that can and did protect the Federation in times of crisis. It was capable to "kill and shoot", as you so eloquently phrased it, and both on-screen evidence and the TNGTM support this. It's a peacemaking vessel that can vaporize Klingon cruisers in a few shots, while holding its own.
STO's Galaxy suffers from the trinity system. Originally when the game was released, the trinity (sci/tac/eng) was dominant, and the Galaxy, Defiant, and Intrepid were the three spokes of the triangle that segregated starship classes. Cryptic had the opportunity to update the Galaxy in light of the changing game environment, but chose to do a Gal-X revamp instead.
The problem is with the way PvE events reward players. Currently, in all PvEs except Crystalline, you get the highest DPS/damage/reward by doing the most damage points. This makes it difficult for even science vessels to compete on par with escorts and Scimis.
And in regards to a 5 tac boff seat setup, you might want to look up what a global cooldown is. This is why the Defiant suffers from tac redundancy, just like the Galaxy does from eng redundancy. Global cooldowns prevent hyper-focusing on one area to the complete neglect of the other two areas.
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if you mean being the least effective tier 5 ship in the game, yes indeed, it got a VERY special treatement for sure.if not i don't known what special treatement you are refering too, can you point it out to me?
It gets a Tier 6 version. As far a we know this is unique to the hero ships at this point.
who speak about hate? can you stop interpreting the things i wrote? just for a second?
i speak about intention and potential sell on the hypothetical futur galaxy.
you seems to bielieve that this galaxy will follow the ancient trinity ( 3 pack hero ship ) model that was used in the beguining of the game with the defiant and intrepid.
althought that would somehow make sense in term of continuity, and that i would not be surprised if that happened to be the case after all, there is nothing officially state by crypting that allow us to bielieve that it will, that it is written in stone.
this trinity model is a bad marketing idea in my opinion, no need to explain why concerning the galaxy but people seem to forget that it was not the best option for the defiant too, 3 tactical ensign even without doff was not very efficient at that time. the problem was less important and could be completely ignore because overhaul the ship was very good.
some would even said that it serve as a limitaion to not make it too good ( aka the best escort in the game at that time ).
so do cryptic want to reproduce this pattern? i hope not.
yes, the engi power are not very effective and that what gimped the galaxy on top of others stats.
so if you want it to just have a lt hybrid/pilot/command or whatever, you forced it to stay with ( for the most part ) these engie power that we known now that they never be change.
these new power that cryptic introduce are here for that, give us new choice, new gameplay and something to slot on these type of ship.
why would you want the galaxy to have a limited acces to these ALTERNATIVE power?
why would you want it to stay in the old meta of this game? we are speaking about a tier 6 ship or are we not?
The Galaxy following the established pattern is the only logical assumption you can make. The Pathfinder set a precedent, this is how those ships will turn out. They get a hybrid, but they don't get the full specilization and stay true to their original configuration as they still fill a role in the overall setup of the game. Having this setup be the "least effective" is entirely a fault of the gamedesign and skill balance, this is the issue that needs to be adressed, not changing the layouts to something "less sucky".
It is entirely possible that the T6 Explorer and Negh'Var will get an entirely different layout, I will say that here and now. This is entirely possible, it is Cryptic after all. But the only *logical* projection we can make is that it will be a T6 Explorer following the Pathfinder with a command hybrid - there are virtually no clues pointing at anything else.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
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"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
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It is entirely possible that the T6 Explorer and Negh'Var will get an entirely different layout, I will say that here and now. This is entirely possible, it is Cryptic after all. But the only *logical* projection we can make is that it will be a T6 Explorer following the Pathfinder with a command hybrid - there are virtually no clues pointing at anything else.
There's a chance we'll get a better layout than an Eng heavy mirror of the Pathfinder if Cryptic are smart enough to realise they will make truckloads of dough by doing what every successful business does.
Was there any word from the devs they make a T6 GCS anyway?
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Comments
Changing up eng powers would be an ideal solution, but I think it's too unrealistic. It's easier for Cryptic to change one ship (or release a new one) to fit the rest of the game as it is now than it is for them to try redo eng skills. That's why I've continued to argue for a revamped Galaxy layout. If they did go back and rebalance eng powers, I certainly wouldn't complain though.
Mine Trap Supporter
Which, if it follows the Pathfinder route, it will.
I understand where the notion comes from, but people stop using rational thought when talking about the matter. In your case you have to ask yourself why those ships are so superior. And it's not really because Geko thinks the Excelsior is cooler - he did sa that, but that's not the real reason and people know that, at least I hope so.
The two ships are canonically older, that's true. But they are significantly newer in STO as in they were implemented later into the game. What that means is when the Galaxy Retrofit was around there were no hybrid ships in-game. All cruisers had CMDR Eng and LTC Eng, the only thing varying is one ensign. The Galaxy was designed to work within these limitations and the Retrofit as one of the possible "upgrades" a ship can get got the Eng part of the trinity. When the Excelsior and the Ambassador (which came much, much later) were brought into the game they abandoned strict classes and allowed LTC secondary specializations on ships. The Excelsior was T3 and got a Retrofit at T5 and got the Tac secondary. The Ambassador Retrofit got the sci. The Galaxy Retrofit already existed and was just left behind by advancing game mechanics. And the sole reason it is worse is that Eng abilities are not as well thought out than the others, this is a very obvious and urgent flaw the game has - but that has nothing to do with dislike towards the Galaxy, it was just bitten in the aft launcher by outdated gamedesign. But they never changed, to this day, ships that were already finalized and implemented into the game with two exceptions. And the Dreadnaught cruiser change required much hassle and was only pulled because the ship essentially was a duplicate of another ship (Sovy) which is due to the fact that it originally never was concieved as a "regular" starship, it was a vanity item.
This is the amount of reason people need to bring to the table. Then, I am sure, the devs would even willing to discuss the issue - well, if they would discuss. PWE ended that, but in theory they would :P XD
This is true and I will never argue with that point. Engineering abilities are badly designed, they are fewer and trip over each other and the high tier special abilities for eng-heavy ships have no effect in the current metagame - this is an embarassing oversight by Cryptic. But tailoring each ship to somehow avoid that trap cannot be the solution.
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It could, but then there will still be ballyhooing that the ship "doesnt do anything better than any other cruiser." Trust me, been on this flight, seen the in-flight movie, the peanuts are stale. I honestly had hoped T6 would walk away from canon ships, just to avoid people getting upset at personal derived expectations of thier Hero ship not being met.
As I have suggested in the past, they could make a skin available for the Guardian. No fuss, muss.
It's good suggestion. One that several of us made back when the Guardian was released. Sadly, Cryptic doesn't seem interested in doing that. So since overhauling eng skills isn't realistic and putting a Galaxy skin on the Guardian seems to be a no go, we end up circling back around to changing the Galaxy's boff layout once again. 'Round and 'round we go.
Mine Trap Supporter
if you mean being the least effective tier 5 ship in the game, yes indeed, it got a VERY special treatement for sure.if not i don't known what special treatement you are refering too, can you point it out to me?
who speak about hate? can you stop interpreting the things i wrote? just for a second?
i speak about intention and potential sell on the hypothetical futur galaxy.
you seems to bielieve that this galaxy will follow the ancient trinity ( 3 pack hero ship ) model that was used in the beguining of the game with the defiant and intrepid.
althought that would somehow make sense in term of continuity, and that i would not be surprised if that happened to be the case after all, there is nothing officially state by crypting that allow us to bielieve that it will, that it is written in stone.
this trinity model is a bad marketing idea in my opinion, no need to explain why concerning the galaxy but people seem to forget that it was not the best option for the defiant too, 3 tactical ensign even without doff was not very efficient at that time. the problem was less important and could be completely ignore because overhaul the ship was very good.
some would even said that it serve as a limitaion to not make it too good ( aka the best escort in the game at that time ).
so do cryptic want to reproduce this pattern? i hope not.
yes, the engi power are not very effective and that what gimped the galaxy on top of others stats.
so if you want it to just have a lt hybrid/pilot/command or whatever, you forced it to stay with ( for the most part ) these engie power that we known now that they never be change.
these new power that cryptic introduce are here for that, give us new choice, new gameplay and something to slot on these type of ship.
why would you want the galaxy to have a limited acces to these ALTERNATIVE power?
why would you want it to stay in the old meta of this game? we are speaking about a tier 6 ship or are we not?
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=528931&page=271
A vicious circle that will be broken soon, when the Tier 6 Exploration Cruiser is released we will know for better or for worse the new Bridge officer layout they have decided, regardless of which I will be buying it, that is if it can equip the original Galaxy Costume
Back then it wasn't really known that those two triangles were supposed to be landing pads. He was rightfully attempting to add the history of the vessel to the design.
Not necessarily. From the Watsonian perspective that design approach is not duplicated on any smaller ship. Perhaps it's only practical on a titan like the Galaxy.
From the Doylist perspective, I have no idea. John Eaves' hadn't updated his blog last I checked so can't ask him. By that logic every Starfleet vessel made after 2370 should've had integrated nacelles like the Defiant.
Ironically the Nacelle pylons have never been shown to be as big a liability as the nacelles themselves. In going on 50 years of Star Trek, the only times we've seen a Nacelle blown off completely was the Battle of the Mutara Nebula and the Battle of Wolf 359.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8792/3axissizecompare.jpg
Looking compared to the Galaxy the wing shaped nacelles don't seem all that flimsy. Remember that the nacelle pylons are designed to be able to eject the nacelles themselves in an emergency, now THAT is a design feature that was never used. You don't think a 30% increase in power is substantial????
Fine. I thought I already said that you could equip a Galaxy with the same array and get stronger performance.
It's not just the Phaser itself though. The major focus in weapons design in that time period was in weapon and shield modulation. Deeper penetration through the shield bubble, improved sensors. I recall that the Voyager had adaptive shields, reading the weapon modulation of enemy weapons and adjusting the shields to increase effectiveness.
I honestly have no way to comment about the Galaxy getting upgraded to Mk XII. One has to wonder what happened to MkXI.
That said, you can't say that quantum leaps in the technology don't happen in the same time that the Defiant and her Pulse Phaser Cannons were released. The technology was still evolving. We have no clue if Phasers have reached their technological ceiling.
It's perfect for what it's designed for.
Indeed and 30% of the power on the ships goes to crew maintenance. Pretty amazing when you think about it.
I would think though that a close second to warp drive is actually shields. I mean it's a localized controlled spatial distortion, that's not exactly cheap. Phasers themselves push things out of space time continuity. But yeah generally speaking as long as it isn't a huge generational jump. For instance the idea that an NX-class warp core would be able to power the same systems as a Galaxy class core doesn't hold water.
But like I said, you could always just shove a class 8 core into the Galaxy and call it good.
Did I NOT JUST SAY THAT????
Honestly if main power had been online the Enterprise wouldn't have ran out of power to begin with and it might've been a much more fair fight.
As for the Scimitar there are three thoughts on that. First, for the majority of the fight Shinzon was trying to take Picard alive so he was going easy on the Enterprise. If you look at what he did to the Norexans on hand the Scimitar had no reason to hold back and murderdeathkilled them. There's a strategic question of either the Warbirds are substantially weaker than a Sovereign, or if Shinzon was just intentionally not crushing the Enterprise.
I'm actually inclined to believe the former as crippling the Enterprise like he crippled the Valdore would've been a far simpler move. There is also the fact that he had the schematics for the warbirds and Data likely screwed with his Data while he was there. Romulans can afford to build comparatively fragile ships, as they aren't there to stand and fight anyway.
Second even though there's information sharing about enemy threat forces like the Dominion and the Borg between the Federation and the Star Empire, there's no reason to believe that the Romulans would come up with the same solutions. Starfleet vessels that can't cloak and hide, focus on tougher shields and stronger weapons. We've been arguing about how much power can be brought to bear in phaser strips and all that. Apply that logic to why the hell the Scimitar needs 52 disruptor banks? Of course the answer could be easily that rather than the banks being weak, she's just designed to engage 50 targets at a time, an actually logical thought after the swarm fighting of the Dominion War.
Third, even then it wasn't completely out of juice still being able to use engines to ram her. It likely would've taken a LOT longer to recharge the weapons banks off of auxiliary power than they figured they had.
Well yes , agreed.
The Galaxy does not need to be better, "on equal footing" is entirely enough.
Engineering powers are lame. That is a fact.
Bringing more engineering heavy ships will always instantly throw these ships onto the scrap heap.
The eclipse is a decent t6 ships. Because it enables the player to use the high level engineering slots that yield NO useful tool with very useful intel powers.
That saved the ship from the scrap heap. The guardian got a very good boff seating in basically being an beefed up excelsior, crossed with a super tanky ambassador.
Its an excellent boff setup (the same that was given to the D'deridex - also saving that ship from the scrappy heap.) that offers great gameplay. Its excellent.
Would have instantly bought it, i f it weren't for the fact that it looks like a shovel. Had they allowed the galaxy skins on this ship, no more complains would have been made.
The Command cruisers also have good seatings, the option for 2 lt tacs offer pattern beta, a spread or hy, bfaw and tac team. Combined with the massive tank, its a good ship with quite some utility.
So whats weird about asking for a redo of the eclipse boff seating here? just redone for command or piloting?
Or why not copy the Guardian?
Or add the Galaxy to the family of command ships.
Or simply allow the galaxy skins for the guardian.
The only wrong option here is to make another heavy engineering cruiser that noone asked for, wants, or needs.
And thinking that they ever would redo engineering powers to be a competitive power set? please....
that is fairly big improvement, but i don't think mkX emitters were necessarily brand new when the galaxy launched. and then there's the borg threat, if there was ever a time phaser development was going to be hyper accelerated, it would have been the 2360s.
but substantial, in this case that would mean the mkXII emitter were so much more powerful, that with them the sovereign not only could match the much larger arrays on the galaxy class, but exceed them.
i think the total lack of shield effects during the dominion war is confusing you. and voyager just had a crew smart enough to adjust modulation. the crew of the enterprise forgot that was a thing, even after they had done it a whole bunch in BoBW.
i know right? part of why i think mkX wasn't all that new. my guess is it was an attempt to improve mkX without a clean sheet redesign, that didn't really go anywhere. and mkXII was more of a clean slate development. sorta like the difference between an automaker doing a mid cycle refreshing on a model, and creating a new generation.
everyone always assumes every feature on the defiant is amazing and revolutionary, i just don't see it. and those cannons may have been fairly powerful, certainly for a ship that size, but they hardly out DPS some of the larger arrays. the cannons on the defiant seem only about a match for a brel's output. pulse phaser tech from banks is a throwback to the late 23rd century, used because the ships was so maneuverable that fireing arcs weren't as big a priority, and the ships simply wasn't big enough to mount an actually threatening array.
30%? where was that said exactly? they probably weren't talking about when the ship was at warp. there was warp drive before there was M/AM reactors, even one of the original warp cores would be better then even the most modern fusion reactors in output and fuel efficiency. i bet most modern ships could get up to about warp 3 or so just on fusion reactors, but at that speed wouldn't get anywhere before they ran out of gas.
umm, if you mentioned that i didn't catch it. i only sited it as more proof that ships have unlimited energy at sublight, and the only limitation is how much energy any system can even use.
the enterprise E was a long ways away from being as shot up as the enterprise C was, the scimitars many guns didn't look like they were even fully breaching the hull when shields failed. though the mogai was pretty large, romulan ships are notorious for being lightly armored, so its not too surprising that they could be disabled the way they were. but the scimitar wasn't firing anything that could strip 10% shields every shot, like the big guns of the d'deridex could. the scimitar is most certainly designed to engage a ton of smaller ships wile it attempts to deliver its super weapon. its not an anti capital ship, capital ship. those 52 banks are split between like 6 fireing arcs too, at most it has 13 or so guns up front.
damage from the battle didn't disable the enterprise, running out of gas did. but, even if it had a functioning core, it still eventually would have lost, the scimitar's shields were just too strong. if a 2379 spec galaxy had been there instead, that would have really been an interesting fight. i think the ram was caused by the RCS thrusters, that i believe are actually some sort of chemical propellent, and not tiny impulse coils drawing power the ship no longer had.
https://i.imgur.com/ExPPjde.jpg?1
something that might fix the lame status of eng a bit
Now, how many times have people complained in these thread that the every thing that a Galaxy can do, another cruiser does better? A ton. for many here, it is about the Galaxy being better at something.
You also havent seen that a have said, on several occasions, to add the Galaxy skin to the Guardian.
I am about a day or two from being able to log on, so let me get clarification. Are you saying that, on Tribble, there currently is a new engie and a new sci boff skill?
Just saw the screen shot, do you have a pic of the engie skill?
with just the resources on the ship on patrol
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
So how exactly are the M/AM reactors suppose to create a warp bubble?
Regarding your view on the Scimitar....After the tactical analysis of Worf, Picard says shes a predator. Granted it may have had all those disruptor to engage multiple targets. Do you really think a ship that could fire while cloaked would go light on armaments?
The Enterprise was on its way to the fleet. Picard gave the order for red alert/battle stations. So, prior to the battle, its shields were up and the ship was ready for battle.
Granted Shinzon didn't want the Enterprise destroyed, but he was able to disable the warp drive with his first shot(according to Geordi). Do you really think some ragtag ship could to that to the most advanced starfleet vessel of the time?
He just wanted Picards blood so he could live. He had no interest in the "quaint little vessel". He wasn't trying to destroy her, but he sure disabled her main power very quickly.
Ultimately, the ship was built for one purpose...to enact the revenge of Shinzon on the federation...namely Earth. It was going to use its Thaloron Radiation weapon to kill the inhabitants. It would take a beast of a ship to even get close to Earth. The Borg cube was destroyed at Earth two movies prior after all.
Yeah, but Jellico was the Chuck Norris of his time. He probably increased it by having security teams standing on the hull with compression rifles, while in reasing power to weapons by pluggong into his sheer willpower ([Phaser Beam Array Mk X [Acc]x2 [CrtH]x2 [WilP] .
I actually liked the Jellico character, very much a straight shooter.
That's worth a good chuckle :P
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
there is a new sci skill on tribble, im saying watch for new eng skills and tac skills too.
this might be an isolated thing though, to help sci ships be less unoptimized for pve, and generate sales from a wider number of players.
the enterprise was not optimized for combat, all its science labs and non combat features dragged on it's ability to fight. he took steps to take a lot of that stuff offline or bypass it so it could operate closer to its potential. its because of this that the big D is not that great of a benchmark for galaxy class combat performance.
the warp core doesn't have anything to do with creating the warp bubble, thats the nacelles. it just the best way to create plasma that the warp drive and every other system on the ship uses.
the scimitar is plenty dangerous, it just has a lot of smaller guns rather then a few big ones, this is ideal for engaging a large number of smaller ships. against 1 or a small number of larger opponents though, a smaller number of big guns would be more effective. it was about twice as powerful as a sovereign class i'd say, im not saying it was a POS. but it was hardly a god ship, especially if it had to fight true capital ships like the negvar, d'deridex or galaxy, its not necessarily optimized for that.
the enterprise was at maximum warp, it was using 100% of the power the warp core was capable of generating. its shields were probably not at maximum, and main engineering and the nacelles were taking direct hits when core got knocked offline. cores seem especially delicate when a ship takes damage wile they are running at max.
11.1 it states they are in groups of emitters. that would mean/imply emitters are ganged together and pass the energy as needed between each other. I specifically allowed for the possibility that there are additional feeds besides the given visuals of energy entering the extreme ends of the array ant travelling to the firing point(s)..
the picture I referenced is 11.1.3, though tis been a long time. it is stated that "groups of emitters" by redundant sets of energy feeds". this is open to some interpretation as they don't go into how the "groups" are actually laid out. one interpretation is that the "group" is the phaser array and its fed at various points but all of the modules in that specific array are one emitter array.
another way to go is that the arrays, big or small, are laid out in batches with the blocks of emitters having no discernible demarcation.
personally, I can see both sides as valid. the extra bit I use is the visual items in the firing sequence seen in the shows. its been seen in both primary arrays, and the occasional times they have use others. its also supported on voy with that ship's arrays.
About the only exception that could be made is if they added Cmdr Hybrid seating to the Odyssey/Bortasqu's Cmdr Eng seat and to the Scimitar's Cmdr Tac seat, since they are the current flagships for the foreseeable future.
Because it's a Cryptic Original and no reason to let it get Eclipse'd by a Galaxy.
Not an original ship; so hybrid Lt.Cmdr or lower only.
Repeatedly asked for and denied (and ignored).
If it follows the Pathfinder setup, it'll still be Eng heavy, but at least it'll have a bit more flexibility with a Hybrid Lt. Tac seat and a Lt. Universal Seat. Can actually double up on Tac or Sci skills to fit the mission profile as needed.
They might not redo it, but they can add to it. They already added a new Sci skill on Tribble. Wouldn't be surprising if they added to Eng as well, at least. Though I'd expect a new healing ability (to sit between Engineering Team and Aux2S.Integrity) before another limited offensive ability (such as Aceton Beam, EWP, or Boarding Party).
Our beloved manual states that she was given the largest emitters available, with the MkX+, likely MkXI or XII stated as being large dedicated planetary defense arrays.
A case of technology the next generation of Phaser arrays were finally able to be miniaturized enough to field on a ship.
I'm mildly offended by that, as that never once crossed my mind.
Every crew would presumably do that.
I could just spend too much time at DITL, you read so much over the years that it's impossible to remember where you got everything from, on the other hand it's just the logical direction. Most things of modulation would be handled by computer just because of the speeds necessary.
Indeed, either that or that's what Voyager's are. A higher power phaser for smaller vessels. Or that's the official designation for the phaser cannons.
Alright look, I know I'm gonna catch hell for this, I know how unreliable it's seen as, but it was said to be a new tech only possible because of new high grade focusing crystals in....the DS9 technical manual...yeah. There's no real contradiction of that though. A high power phaser that fires in bursts is a great weapon to use against the Borg.
It was a Voyager episode so take it with a grain of salt. An alien was amazed that the ship had so many resources dedicated just to the crew.
I'd say Fusion could get you just over warp 1...I suppose 3 is reasonable but you'd be killing it. And in that case you'd have to have it specifically set up so your fusion power plant had access to your warp core like in a Klingon Bird of Prey. But the writers usually seemed to go with no warp core no warp drive at all.
But the way I see it, the Phoenix was definitely a fusion core.
The T'Liss in Balance of Terror was described a "simple impulse". I agree with the theory that she used a Fusion drive for warp. You couldn't do it on any ship with size.
I agree with you on everything except the RCS thing. Picard specifically told her full impulse not ahead thrusters.
I don't think she had expended her WHOLE deuterium supply, but she couldn't replenish her weapons power reserves.
I take this as my logic. Before the refit the Constitution had to charge her weapons banks ahead of time. That was shown consistent in Enterprise, and with the Constellation in the Doomsday Machine when they said she had expended everything. After the Refit, the Constitution had her weapons hooked up to the warp core, so BAM unlimited weapons power. Unless the core is knocked offline like in the lead up to the Battle of the Mutara nebula. So they went to the fallback, charge the weapons banks. There's no reason that's changed in 90 years.
So if the Warp Core is offline and you've expended the weapons charge, then you have to wait for your impulse engines to recharge them until them you're shooting blanks.
Also note that they didn't drop into low power lighting or talk about losing life support. They lost transporters clearly because of weapons damage, with enough power in the EPS of the transporter room for one more transport.
On a side note I appreciate that they fired ALL torpedoes, I mean, how often does that happen?
Fingers crossed 'gief! Well if he can do that on the Galaxy he can also do it with the Sovereign as well.
I think the point is made that Starfleet engineers can do many things to their ships and gear to increase effectiveness.
That said as Drunk said, the Enterprise was likely underperforming tactically due to being focused on her primary mission. She may not have been regularly hitting that 5.1 MW output.
mk X was the best they could put on a starship at the time, but not necessarily brand new. hardly mattered that much though, with arrays that size, it had at least twice the firepower of the second best.
thats right, i do recall the defiant cannons being sort of break through in a way. each pulse was basically an onion, with layers of different modulations, so shields couldn't block them as effectively, and borg couldn't adapt to them fully. it explains why in the first episode with the defiant, it was able to harm dominion ships at all, when the odyssey couldn't in the previous episode. thanks to changeling spys, the dominoin could shoot through fed shields, and were basically impervious to phasers. the defiant's ablative armor and pulse cannons were the only functioning counter, at the time.
that doesn't mean the cannons are the most powerful weapons, and the odyssey managed to hull tank just fine with its standard armor, but the defiant's tech was the only thing that wasn't totally compromised.
at least on 24th century ships, the whole EPS grid is basically connected, any source of plasma could do anything. the constitution refit is probably the first ship with a single EPS network, before it warp cores were probably only hooked to the warp engines, and the rest of the ship ran on fusion reactors. thats kinda the only way that phasers are powered by the warp core thing makes sense when you think about it.
Yeah.
Yep.
You know it's interesting that I've only recently been hipped to the Founder spying angle on that. I originally thought it was just a property of Phased Polaron Weaponry that it bypassed Federation shields.
It must've been a hell of a job. I mean Keogh said they ran through the whole spectrum of shield frequencies and couldn't stop them. Ironically if he hadn't dropped the shields she likely would've survived the kamikaze at the end. That's the Jem'Hadar for ya.
I didn't say, that I just meant that they were a revolutionary new way of doing things. And they solved a new problem...I gotta say though it was quite gratifying seeing the Defiant Murk Jem'Hadar ships like that. :cool:
Yep. That does provide a measure of isolation. If you have an engine crisis then you still have the rest of the system. Shown in TMP when the core went into imbalance, they lost phasers.
On the other hand the advantages were plainly shown later. Whereas the Klingon ships were vaporized by V'Ger, the Enterprise's new shields powered by her new warp core and EPS configuration was able to survive what's likely the most powerful weapon in the 23rd century not looking for whales.
theg alaxy was, when it left, the most modern, most powerful, most advanced starship build. it was the flagship design. and it still held its place as extraordinary resilient ship (due to shields and power for structural integrity fields) and after its dominion war refits it still held its place as resilient fleet leading ship.
but the galaxy never was a tactical heavy ship. it was meant to withstand, not to "kill and shoot"
thats why the galaxy is heavily eng focussed.
this is perfectly canon.
the problem is, likem any mentioned: the game is designed around killing only, and eng is completely useless to whatsoever buff damage at all. basically it should be possible with engineering to modify engery weapons more, so we have and engineering techniques modifiing them. somehow that sneaked into intel and command (life supp and override safeties)
the problem everyone cries for tac slots is just the game environment "encouraging" or highly suggesting damge over strategy (eject plasma) and science and movement enhancements.
would tehre be a viable benefit of having "tanks" in the game, it would be a major seller.
but so far tanks are only "as good as tac, but it takes longer" cause theres no balance in dmg taking and damage giving.
(so having 5 tacs is still as good as having 1eng, 3tac and 1sci, because 5 tacs are so much faster, tactic and grouping (gravwells9 dont matter anymore and dmg income is simply reduced by killing things faster, BETTER than having someone "tanking" it)
Whichever way you choose to interpret, on-screen evidence shows that the phaser charge-up can have both start points not be at the end of the phaser strip. DS9: "Sacrifice of Angels" is the first one to come to mind, as well as TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise". The groups you refer to may change depending on the position and movement of the starship and its target.
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The Galaxy was never the most advanced starship (that honour belonged to the Sovereign). It was the largest ship, the most powerful ship, but not advanced.
The Galaxy, while designed for the purposes of space exploration, was no mere tank. It was a battleship but classified as an explorer. This fits with Starfleet's image of being an organization dedicated to space exploration and diplomatic relations, but also being the primary defense force for the Federation. Part of being a Starfleet ship includes switching roles from being a flag-bearing, science oriented ship, to a ship that can and did protect the Federation in times of crisis. It was capable to "kill and shoot", as you so eloquently phrased it, and both on-screen evidence and the TNGTM support this. It's a peacemaking vessel that can vaporize Klingon cruisers in a few shots, while holding its own.
STO's Galaxy suffers from the trinity system. Originally when the game was released, the trinity (sci/tac/eng) was dominant, and the Galaxy, Defiant, and Intrepid were the three spokes of the triangle that segregated starship classes. Cryptic had the opportunity to update the Galaxy in light of the changing game environment, but chose to do a Gal-X revamp instead.
The problem is with the way PvE events reward players. Currently, in all PvEs except Crystalline, you get the highest DPS/damage/reward by doing the most damage points. This makes it difficult for even science vessels to compete on par with escorts and Scimis.
And in regards to a 5 tac boff seat setup, you might want to look up what a global cooldown is. This is why the Defiant suffers from tac redundancy, just like the Galaxy does from eng redundancy. Global cooldowns prevent hyper-focusing on one area to the complete neglect of the other two areas.
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It gets a Tier 6 version. As far a we know this is unique to the hero ships at this point.
The Galaxy following the established pattern is the only logical assumption you can make. The Pathfinder set a precedent, this is how those ships will turn out. They get a hybrid, but they don't get the full specilization and stay true to their original configuration as they still fill a role in the overall setup of the game. Having this setup be the "least effective" is entirely a fault of the gamedesign and skill balance, this is the issue that needs to be adressed, not changing the layouts to something "less sucky".
It is entirely possible that the T6 Explorer and Negh'Var will get an entirely different layout, I will say that here and now. This is entirely possible, it is Cryptic after all. But the only *logical* projection we can make is that it will be a T6 Explorer following the Pathfinder with a command hybrid - there are virtually no clues pointing at anything else.
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There's a chance we'll get a better layout than an Eng heavy mirror of the Pathfinder if Cryptic are smart enough to realise they will make truckloads of dough by doing what every successful business does.