New DR Klink needs ship help

polecat42

Okay, let me preface this by saying I started playing again only a little before Delta Recruitment happened (I was in the Beta way back when, but didn't care for the state of the game at launch, so left it then). I'm enjoying the game immensely now, but I'm running into a bit of a snag. Y'see, I made a Sci Klink, and leveled her up as part of the Delta Recruit stuff. My early picks were all Birds of Prey, and I loved the totally different feel they give the game, making it feel more like a dogfighting/light fighter type game from the broadsides & beamboat battles of the larger ships. That was until I stumbled over to Vo'Quv carrier, which I've been stomping around with ever since. Sure, it's a flying brick, but I adore the blasted thing, and with the Plasmonic Leech console (yeah, I bought it) and all 6 weapon slots filled with beam arrays, it's been wrecking face.

Okay, now for the question and what I really need help with. Y'see, I dinged 50 with her a few weeks back, and I promised myself I'd get her a new ship when she did, knowing full well I'd have to go to the zen store for it (I'd have asked sooner, but apparently the forum has a new user lockout). I'm not in a fleet, so I don't have access to any of the fleet variant ships. So I needed some opinions and a couple of questions answered:

1) What ship is recommended generally? I restate I'm a relative newbie to this, only having been playing a month or so. I considered the B'rel Retrofit, the Kar'fi carrier, and even the Command Science Battleship, but I wasn't certain enough about any of them to make the leap to buy one.

2) About fleet ships. As a newbie, I genuinely don't "get" the fleet stuff yet. What is required to get a fleet ship, both in my personal investment and for the fleet in question? Further, if I ever left the fleet (for whatever reason) would I lose access to the ship, would it be behind a wall I can't access until another feet, or can I use it freely? I've been hunting for this info, but all the answers I get seem to assume I know a lot more than I do...

3) Are there any suggested loadouts for a ship of that nature, keeping in mind limited funds and no fleet resources at this time? Please don't use a lot of abbreviations, I've been trying to read other forum posts about this sort of thing, and it all sounds like code to me. I can't make heads or tails of it, and I've yet to find a glossary to translate.

Thank you in advance for the answers.

stofsk

1) I would hold off on buying T5 ships and instead consider T6, especially if you're a new player. Tier 5 ships are a dead end, the upgrade system is IMO a noob trap that Cryptic cooked up. The Tier 6 Intrepid and last month the Tier 6 Iconic Ship pack proved that Cryptic are going to double-dip when it comes to rereleasing old T5 ships into T6 quality. So say you want that T5 B'rel bird-of-prey? I got it three years ago when I first started playing. But now? You're better off waiting for the inevitable T6 version, unless you absolutely have to spend the $20 now. I mean... I know that sounds absurd, but unfortunately the way they implemented the level cap raise and the whole T6 ship releases thus far, I just don't think it's wise for any new player to invest money into T5 ships.

2) Fleet ships cost 20000 fleet credits (NOT energy credits) and 1-5 fleet ship modules (or FSM), the 1-5 means the discount you get for buying the c-store version of the ship if applicable, you only pay 1 FSM. FSMs are availabled from the c-store for 500 zen or from the exchange for ~10 million EC. Fleet credits are what you get when you donate resources to a KDF fleet starbase project.

Fleet ships are per character unlocks, you can buy them and their yours for as long as you have that character. You can leave the fleet if you wish or you can stay, it makes no difference to your purchases. All fleet equipment works in this fashion. Once you buy it and assuming you don't discard it it's yours forever. You can discard a Fleet ship, but you really shouldn't because you cannot reclaim it afterwards. But assuming you wanna buy the fleet ship I can't imagine why you'd want to discard later, but some people are ship collectors so there's that. The only thing you lose if you leave a fleet is access to their store and provisions.

3) Not sure what you're asking, depends on the ship you want and what your playstyle is.

polecat42

Thanks for the responses. So a quick follow up:

1) While I can agree it might be better to pick up a T6 from how you define it, is there one that would really suit a sci klink? Should I just suck it up and get a Mat'ha raptor or the Command Sci vessel? Not like they have a T6 carrier or BoP in the store...

2) Thank you. I've been trying to figure out where one even gets a "Fleet Credit", so that answered that question as well. As for the unlocks, I figured it was a character by character basis, but the rest I appreciate. I assume then the fact that it requires both FSM and Fleet Credits to buy a fleet ship is to prevent someone from inviting a buddy into a fleet so they can buy a ship, and then bailing right away...

3) This would have made more sense if you'd recommended a specific ship, basically I was asking for advice on how to set up the ship recommended in question one.

rakija879

I would go with the Kar'fi carrier because it offers alot of things.
Geko said that adding new sci ships is a very low priority, so you cant exspent anything like t6 soon .

You can try my drain build here: http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=sci8_2414

stofsk

1) A science captain doesn't need to fly a science vessel. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but for example you could fly the Mat'ha raptor and be successful no matter what career your character is. 5 forward weapons and 5 tac consoles is hard to mess up.

On the other hand, the T5 B'rel can be really good for a science focused character, because of the enhanced battlecloak it comes with. Load up with mostly torpedo weapons, universal boffs can be flexible enough to give you a variety of science abilities, and hit cloak and go to town. I just hesitate to recommend it because... well, I just know Cryptic are gonna release a Tier 6 version. When? Who knows. But probably the day after you buy the T5 version :V

2) Actually I think it's just to promote people being in a fleet an helping kick along projects. The only purchase restriction is fleet ships really, for every other piece of fleet gear you can be invited to another fleet without leaving your current one, buy from their stores with your fleet's provisions. Useful for say the Spire tac consoles or the Dilithium Mine's warp cores and engineering consoles.

3) Ah I see. Well, there's the aforementioned T5 B'rel torpboat with science magic. There's also the Mat'ha which is a really straight forward gunboat. I'm sure a lot of guys will come in and give you their recommendations. You seem to enjoy birds-of-prey, which is cool because IMO they're what makes the KDF unique. There are a couple of Fleet BoPs that are worth looking at: the Norgh and the B'rel, both will cost 4 fleet ship modules though the B'rel has a discount if you buy the c-store version. Another limitation is the B'Rel requires a highly developed Fleet to buy, the Norgh requires a moderately developed Fleet. My fleet has the latter available, but it will be far into the future before we get the B'rel, if ever.

The Norgh is great for a gunboat style play. You can play the B'rel that way too but you give up the advantage the enhanced battlecloak gives you (I forgot to mention it lets you fire while cloaked, but only torpedoes and mines).

jaguarskx

I have a science KDF captain. While any captain can fly any ship, I want my KDF science captain to fly a KDF science ship. The point is to be able to use a Commander level Boff ability like Gravity Well 3, as well as having a ship with Sensor Scan which debuffs your target so that you can more damage via bypassing some defenses.

Sadly there are not many science vessels to choose from. There is the T5 Varanus which is a Gorn ship. It's okay, but nothing spectacular. If it was a ship for the Federation faction, it would mostly be ignored. I flew it for a while; leveling from 40 to 50. There is the T5 Dyson Science Destroyer (DSD) which you actually get to fly in the mission A Step Between Stars which is in the Solanae story arc introduced with the release of Season 9 last year. You fly the Federation version.

The DSD is an okay ship. It is can transform between tactical mode and science mode. This ship is available to all factions and can be purchased from the C-Store and they are more or less the same but the Federation version does not have a cloak. The DSD does not seem to be a popular ship for the Federation because there are so many better science vessels that the Fed DSD gets overlooked / ignored. However, for the KDF (and Romulan) faction, the DSD is a good science vessel because... ummm... the only other ship to compare it to is the T5 Varanus....

Getting back to my KDF science captain, I use the T5u B'rel BoP Retrofit because it is a very versatile ship due to the universal consoles. I originally purchased it for my KDF tactical captain. However, it is not a science ship so it does not have Sensor Scan. But a least I can put a science Boff into the commander station.



As far as payload, I use Plasma Dual Heavy Cannons (DHC) and Plasma Turrets. I also use particle generators to do more damage with Gravity Well 3 and Tyken's Rift 3.

tehbubbaloo

if you are into sci and are flying the voquv, i have to wonder if you have looked at the mirror voquv? its cheap on the exchange and while it lacks sensor analysis, it does have commander sci boff seating.

for my sci i use the brel. the enhanced battlecloak allows me to use my space-magic from cloak, which is pretty useful. gravwell3 and trop spread from cloak is pretty fun!

as far as fleet holdings go, you dont actually need to grind your fleet to t5 to get a fleet brel or whatnot. there are many fleets that will let you use their shipyard for free, no strings attached.
see the link in my sig for more about that.

polecat42

Thanks for the opinions and answers. To those who recommended the torp and cannon boats, wouldn't I lose the effectiveness of the Plasmonic Leech console? I thought that only worked with beams? I'll have to recheck the description...

And as a note, I do understand that just because I'm a sci officer doesn't mean I MUST have a sci-ship, which is one of the reasons I asked. If a cross typing ship works better, I thought it might behoove me to find out if there was something I'd overlooked. I confess that the Mat'ha raptor is just a beautiful looking ship IMHO (I'm probably in a minority, but I really do love the lines on that thing) but I hesitated because I wasn't sure how well it would play, or if there was a synergy I was missing to it or another ship. I'm sure dropping a Photonic Fleet with some monster Dreadnaught would make any enemy captain thing twice about messing with you, but I wanted to ask.

And to answer about the Vo'Quv, I asked about the fleets because of that. A Fleet Vo'Quv can be upgraded, and seemed like it would be a worthwhile effort in the long run, but not having any access to a fleet, or any fleet resources, put a bit of a crimp in that idea. All I know is it requires a T5 shipyard to make.

As for the DSD ships... I've tried one of them on my fed toon (thanks to that one mission) and was less than impressed with it. Further, the complaint posts about how the DSDs are messing up and not working properly makes me want to stay back and away from them until at least that's sorted out. Plus, I'll admit, I think they're just ugly.

The B'rel hidden magic and torp boat I saw mentioned in another thread, and was one of the reasons I asked about it. I'm not sure I'd have the skill or patience to pull that off in the general game (it seems more of a PVP build to me, and I'm not a PVPer), but if it was a clear winner, I figured it would be wise to at least ask about it. Doesn't sound like an overwhelming winner tho.

orion0029

About your Vo'quv, you could probably keep using it, having flown most of the KDF T6's (I haven't yet tried the command ships), and most other T6's for Feds I can say that while the T6's do offer higher stats, some handy traits, and Starship Mastery, most everything in the game (save Advanced/Elite STF missions) can be done witha T5 (your Vo'quv), I have a Mirror Vo'quv on my main KDF and I love that thing it's a beastie even with the basic B'rel hangars on it.

Most of your performance in space combat will be from your skills, bridge officer abilities, and equipment. So a T6, while an improvement, isn't a requirement to stomp NPC's.

Alternatively my Delta Recruit, also a KDF Sci, is flying a T6 Negh'Tev and I can say that's a beautiful ship, no hangars, but it can take a good pounding and dish it out too, while still maintaining a decent degree of manuverability; it's arguably my favorite of the KDF T6's at the moment.