If you wanted to build a tanking ship, which ship would you use?

saumerez

I am just looking for discussion, tips, thoughts etc. I do not expect a definitive answer.

Mostly just looking for your thoughts on the subject.

sqwished

I've had great success using the Fleet Deridex, Bortasque and I think the Samsar would make for a fairly decent tanking set up. Also I think the Galaxy X would fit that roll as well, considering the over abundance of engineering slots it has, and I'm thinking of the the T5/U not the new T6 version, I've not looked at it yet,​​

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officerbatman81

Whats aggro?

jbmaverick

Mostly you'll want a ship with a high capacity for both Engineering and Tactical abilities. Engineering abilities are a good source of survivability, especially EPtS, while Tactical abilities give you improved damage and weapon functionality to cause enemies to see you as a threat. Tactical-heavy Cruisers/Battlecruisers tend to be among the better choices in this role, in particular a Cruiser/Battlecruiser with the Attract Fire comm array ability to act as a threat multiplier, although some Destroyers and Escorts can work as well. The Command Battlecruisers, especially the Presidio and Ty'Gokor variants, are a good fit.

noroblad

I would argue that a lot of sci & eng, and think a lot about any specialty seating you might like to beef up your toughness more. Then you just want a ship with a lot of health ... a carrier or some sort of heavy ship. Big shields help too, so watch the shield multiplier. You will also want to think about how you do damage carefully... some of the big tough ships with lots of healing seating ... lack dps output due to lack of tac consoles and officer skills etc. The nearly indestructible supertank setups are challenging to do any damage with. However, a dps boat with the right setup can tank an amazing amount of damage...

like anything its a choice. Ships exist that are tough with good damage output. Ships exist that are even tougher with low damage output. The good damage tough guys are going to lack either eng or sci seats or consoles or something. The super tough ones will lack damage. You can "hybrid" just about any 2 things (sci/tac, eng/tac, sci/eng) but no ship really supports all 3 (ok, stuff like a norgh bop sorta, kinda, can, but it won't really do anything well). My personal opinion is to get an engineer captain (makes you that much tougher) and fly at least a 4 tac console something (pick your best fit for your wants and needs). Set up right, that can tank anything and dish out solid damage too. You could be tougher, but its not worth it. I don't have any megatanks. The toughest dps/tank I have is the benthan lockbox ship.

theraven2378

The T6 Excelsior, with it's cmd engineering, lt cmd engineering and ensign engineering slot it's one tough ship with a very nice turn rate and lt cmd tac as an added bonus.

Perfect ship for a tanking set up

cbrjwrr

Do you want to tank, or do you just not want to blow up? There is a difference...

officerbatman81 wrote: »

Whats aggro?

When NPCs attack, it is aggro. NPCs decide who to attack based on aggro; essentially, it is the damage you do multiplied by your threat - the system is based somewhat on Neverwinters, so a fair bit carries over. Tanking in proper terms is when you spec yourself in such a way as to cause NPC's to ignore other people and go for you; as opposed to just not getting blown up.

Obviously, this is easier if you have high damage and high threat - a tank does not have to be low damage, and in real terms it is very much counter-effective to be low damage.

A tank also doesn't need to be Engineering focused; speed-tanking is perfectly viable if not superior for some ships - Keeping in mind that a shot which lands and is resisted does less damage, while a shot that misses does no damage. This works by having you move so quickly no one gets to land a hit because of how high your defence stat is relative to their accuracy. They tend to be less common though, because when your normal speed is twice most people's full impulse it gets a little difficult to pilot correctly in combat.

As for practicalities of what ship is best, gear and abilities to use and so on, I'm not the best person to ask about that, I just know the theory...


Of course, it does remains up for debate at all whether tanks are valuable outside of player desire; STO PvE content is essentially just lots of repetitive blowing stuff up, and for the purpose of the daily grind, which logically we want to get over with as fast as possible, lends itself to a high DPS build.