Admiralty Missions w/ High Science Requirements: KDF & Roms Screwed

warmaker001b

Toying around with Admiralty Missions with KDF, Fed, KDF/Rom, Fed/Rom aligned characters. The numerous missions with very high science requirements are a definite challenge to fill with the KDF & Roms for the simple fact that the best ships/cards for science are exceedingly rare. Once again, the limited ship choices for Non-Feds comes into play to adversely affect them.

For T5 and up:
KDF:
Veranus
Vo'Quv (high science)
Mirror Vo'Quv (high science)
Kar'Fi (high science)
DSDx4

Roms:
Ha'nom
Mirror Ha'nom
DSDx4

Cross Faction (expensive alternates):
Palisade
Temporal Science
Annorax
Orb Weaver
Sarr Theln (high science)

Feds:
... Draws deep breath... Here we go...
DSSV
Mirror DSSV
Recon Sci Vessel
Mirror Recon Sci Vessel
Nebula
D'Kyr
Nova
Mirror Nova
DSDx4
T5 Intrepid
T6 Intrepid
Research Science Vessel
Atrox (high science)
Scryer
Dauntless

I'm not bothering to count the standard, C-Store, fleet versions because it's going to get even more ridiculously stupid in favor of the Feds.

Those high Science Admiralty requirements are a big PITA for the KDF & Roms unless you've blown some serious resources on those Cross Faction ships with Cmdr Science or the freebie Sarr Theln from last year's Winter Event.

jexsamx

There's an optimistic part of me that hopes they did this specifically to try to justify to the bean counters why they should make more Science ships. Even looked at cynically, the Admiralty System is nothing more than an incentive to buy ships, right? Well, if Sci is demanded for the Admiralty system and freebie/cross-faction ships don't meet that demand, then there's suddenly this additional point to make in favor of making and selling more Sci ships.

Then again, some missions do reward limited use ship cards, so it's possible the intent was to try to pad the lack of Sci in the other two factions this way. Hence why the arguing point for making and selling new Sci ships is, to me anyway, the optimistic position.

We know a new Vesta is coming sometime and they've been fairly good about releasing multi-faction ship packs in threes or nines, so there's a possibility we'll see new KDF and RR Sci ships come out with that. Even better if the Vesta is the poster boy for a new spec - that all but guarantees a nine-pack, and since we've already had Escort and Cruiser nine-packs, Science is the only one left...

So lots of potential avenues to take to fill the need, the only real obstacle being cold hard metrics. If the numbers don't please the bean counters, it's a no-go.

canis36

@Jexsamx I think you're being a bit too optimistic, much as I hate to be that way. Like as not we'll only get one T6 Vesta variant though we are almost certain to have a science three pack sometime in the (hopefully) near future. The .5 release for New Dawn most likely.

Still you do make a good argument that the Vesta probably would be the Fed ship they'd use if they went with a Science 9-pack.

Personally I think they're going to let it run as is for a few weeks, maybe a month or two at the outside, and then adjust the Science requirements in some manner. Either giving KDF and Romulan ships bonuses, or just plain slashing science requirements.

centaurianalpha

A bit much gloom here for the actual situation. Two of my 6 'toons (one FED, one KDF) do not have a science ship, but they have fared just fine with the science requirements of AS missions. Don't forget, the crit chance is a composite of all 3 disciplines, and as long as your crit total exceeds the minimum value shown, there is a reasonable chance that you'll crit even if you fall short of the Sci point target. The Nandi is one ship with high sci stats, even though it's an escort, as well as the Varanus. Granted, I'm still only filling 3 mission slots at one time, but even my newest 'toon has 9 ships available, allowing for a 3-ship group on each mission...

warmaker001b

centaurianalpha wrote: »

A bit much gloom here for the actual situation. Two of my 6 'toons (one FED, one KDF) do not have a science ship, but they have fared just fine with the science requirements of AS missions. Don't forget, the crit chance is a composite of all 3 disciplines, and as long as your crit total exceeds the minimum value shown, there is a reasonable chance that you'll crit even if you fall short of the Sci point target. The Nandi is one ship with high sci stats, even though it's an escort, as well as the Varanus. Granted, I'm still only filling 3 mission slots at one time, but even my newest 'toon has 9 ships available, allowing for a 3-ship group on each mission...

The requirements for high science values will come into play soon enough. When you see you need 150+ Science and you have no ship with Cmdr Science (with hi sci stats for Admiralty) or you only have 1, 2 ships that have 40 or 50 science... Yes, you're very screwed for trying that mission.

seriousdave

The should adjust some of those requirements across the board, not only sci. Like those assignments which need like 170-200 in a stat are quite ridiculous regardless of the faction.

narthais

To top it off I'm seeing more and more missions popping up that have high science requirements, more so that missions with high tac or engi, on the couple of characters I'm really pushing the system on the majority of missions coming up are high science.

talonxv

Hell even with my Vesta, Dyson DD, and Intrepids, I'm having a hard time keeping up with the high Sci missions. Yes I'm a whale of sorts, though many were bought LONG ago.

valenn1

Not only the lack of T5 science is a problem, but also the lack of lower tier sci ships.
KDF/Rom additionally have the problem that their handfull of sci vessels are on continuous maintenance (12h +).
Possible solution: Subtract a fixed amount of sci for KDF/Rom players and add it to tac.

talonxv

valenn1 wrote: »

Not only the lack of T5 science is a problem, but also the lack of lower tier sci ships.
KDF/Rom additionally have the problem that their handfull of sci vessels are on continuous maintenance (12h +).
Possible solution: Subtract a fixed amount of sci for KDF/Rom players and add it to tac.

Thing is, even off the bat, I've not seen a lower tier mission I can send off a tier 2 Nova on and do well unless it's the final few points I need after using my tier 5 and 6s.

markhawkman

you left out the Kar'fi. It's technically a red card, but it's science stat is 50+.

also.... most of those "options" you listed for the Feds stink. also... you listed Mirror Fed ships but left out the Mirror KDF and Rom ships? lame.

gulberat

For your Rom...I've encountered the same trouble but there is one more less expensive option to consider: the Obelisk. I think Roms should either have access to it from the limited time reward or be able to pick it up from the fleet base for less expensive than a normal fleet ship.

Still, that doesn't take away from it being a difficult requirement to meet on the Romulan side.

therealanvilman

you talk like you think cryptic gives a **** about anybody but the feds

warmaker001b

markhawkman wrote: »

you left out the Kar'fi. It's technically a red card, but it's science stat is 50+.

also.... most of those "options" you listed for the Feds stink. also... you listed Mirror Fed ships but left out the Mirror KDF and Rom ships? lame.

Correct, I forgot about that one. Will fix the OP.

The numbers are still quite skewed even with the addition of the ones I forgot.

markhawkman

warmaker001b wrote: »

markhawkman wrote: »

you left out the Kar'fi. It's technically a red card, but it's science stat is 50+.

also.... most of those "options" you listed for the Feds stink. also... you listed Mirror Fed ships but left out the Mirror KDF and Rom ships? lame.

Correct, I forgot about that one. Will fix the OP.

The numbers are still quite skewed even with the addition of the ones I forgot.

YEah, it's not balanced, but... what is?

thetanine

warmaker001b wrote: »

Toying around with Admiralty Missions with KDF, Fed, KDF/Rom, Fed/Rom aligned characters. The numerous missions with very high science requirements are a definite challenge to fill with the KDF & Roms for the simple fact that the best ships/cards for science are exceedingly rare. Once again, the limited ship choices for Non-Feds comes into play to adversely affect them.

WarMaker001B : I too was wondering about this very same thing today while starting Adm.Doff missions up on my main character...on the Holodeck INSTEAD of on Tribble.

It occurred to me quite quickly that those admdoff asking for prereq's like Eng 100 / Tac 100 / Sci 100 are probably going to be outside the range that my Main Toon: ROM TAC is NEVER going to be able to do those missions in a straightforward manner, relying only on the numbers that my ships can give me.

I can do pretty high ENG and TAC, too; SCI though, is Right Out. I will never be able to field those missions until 'we' (KDF's and ROM's) receive a better balance of ship types from the current iteration of STO.

Whatever can be done to move this along would be FAN-tastic!

I'm behind you Dev's. Please put in place a corrective measure for this game-changing situation.

Best regards,

T9​​

bergins

Wow... Just go look at the wiki:
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Playable_starship

The difference is striking. Thing is, even for Fed players, while there are plenty of Sci ships available, unless you are a Sci Captain, how many Sci ships do you have? I have the event DSD, the Nebula they gave away, the Sarr Theln, a Mirror Science ship I got when they announced how this would work, and... Well, that's about it. One of the missions that has high Sci requirements will eat up 3/4 of my Sci Fleet, learning me with... A mess. I have a bunch of Sci-heavy missions in my lists of Available Missions right now. I ran a couple just to get through them, but my hopes of success are not high.

I guess I just need to start finding those missions I can Crit on and start collecting (and using) more Skip Tokens.

centaurianalpha

I repeat: "...the crit chance is a composite of all 3 disciplines, and as long as your crit total exceeds the minimum value shown, there is a reasonable chance that you'll crit even if you fall short of the Sci point target."

If your crit point total exceeds that of the planner crit score, you don't have to max out the Sci category to crit the mission. An excess of 20-30 points in Tac & Eng will still carry the day. Missing a single category is only a problem for the most severe cases of OCD... And I have a total of 2 Rommies, and 2 other KDF toons, none of which are having the crisis you are describing.

Unknown

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sisteric

There is also the pass option. Booting the High SCI mission to lower SCI runs is always an option. But So far, none of my toons have failed on their missions. And I have made sure the mission have reached at least 85% before I sent them.

kiralyn

bergins wrote: »

I guess I just need to start finding those missions I can Crit on and start collecting (and using) more Skip Tokens.

It occurs to me that a way to avoid using too many Pass tokens (especially when you're going to be online playing for awhile) would be to send just your T1 ship on those super-hard 15min missions you want to get rid of. Sure, you fail it. But 15m + 30m maintenance, and you've got your ship back and a new mission.

sisteric

kiralyn wrote: »

bergins wrote: »

I guess I just need to start finding those missions I can Crit on and start collecting (and using) more Skip Tokens.

It occurs to me that a way to avoid using too many Pass tokens (especially when you're going to be online playing for awhile) would be to send just your T1 ship on those super-hard 15min missions you want to get rid of. Sure, you fail it. But 15m + 30m maintenance, and you've got your ship back and a new mission.

That is a very good point....hmmm.

xyquarze

As has been pointed out: you do not need to fill the requirements. You can always try it with less, either to get a cheap "push it away" like kiralyn suggested, or to just gamble on the "not 100% success" chance - which will probably not be sustainable anyway to all but the bluest of whales once we reach 6 slots.

And while I have four green and four red toons in addition to my four blue feddies: in regular doffing, KDF (and KDF Roms) outscore the Feddies by far and have had an advantage for years. So I see no reason to cry foul because of the admirality system. Fed Roms - yes, they are really the losers so far.

That being said, more red or green Sci ships would be welcome. Very welcome. Although not so much for the admirality system - I see that more as an add on than I think it will decide how I play and which ships I buy.

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kodachikuno

or cryptic could, you know, fork over a couple sci dominant ships for romulans :P Hell be lazy about it and give us "science retrofit" t5 versions of t1-4 ships, I dun care just give us something to balance the system out

divitus

I'm currently playing fed, and not even I can match the amount of Tac points I need to do some of these missions. The higher point requirement on some missions have insanely high Tac point requirements, but that was because I tended to focus on using Science Vessels throughout my playthrough of the game. I may have to spend some Dirithium to get a new ship to compensate... oh, wait, the good ones cost $30. Great...

lucho80

TIP - Leave the daily "bonus from assignments" for the tour of duty ones since those have the largest bonuses and the lowest requirements at low tiers.

I got a crit in a couple of those, and got 40K XP. I've seen people get 50K.

zulisvel

One thing that could help is to make cards for the various NPC ships. You know, the ones Cryptic doesn't want to turn into playable ships because their low quality models would require basically rebuilding the entire ship from scratch. Make them purchasable for Dil (far less than buying a full ship from the ship yards), EC, or GPL, as applicable:

KDF Shipyards, open to allied Roms:
Vishap Frigate (Gorn)
Tuatara Cruiser (Gorn)
Zilant Battleship (Gorn)
Balaur Dreadnought (Gorn)
Syphon Frigate (Nausicaan)
Destroyer Escort (Nausicaan)
Talon Battleship (Nausicaan)
Ravager Dreadnought (Nausicaan)
Corvette (Orion)
Brigand Cruiser (Orion)
Slavemaster Battleship (Orion)
Warbarge Dreadnought (Orion)
Drek'Hi Dreadnought (Fek'Ihri)

Deferi Social Zone, open to all factions:
Frigate
Cruiser
Battleship

GPL Store, open to all factions:
Alien Frigate
Alien Cruiser
Alien Escort
Alien Science Vessel
Alien Battleship

Earth Space Dock, open to allied Roms:
Typhoon Class Battleship
Jupiter Class Dreadnought

kodachikuno

not a bad idea that

mustrumridcully0

Just get some pass tokens and avoid the type of missions you can't beat.

While the Federation has lots of science vessels available, be realistic - you still need to buy them with Zen or Dilithium, and will really a majority of players using the Admirality system have a significant part of them? Especially since science is the least favored character and ship class across the game?

lamyrs

warmaker001b wrote: »

Toying around with Admiralty Missions with KDF, Fed, KDF/Rom, Fed/Rom aligned characters. The numerous missions with very high science requirements are a definite challenge to fill with the KDF & Roms for the simple fact that the best ships/cards for science are exceedingly rare. Once again, the limited ship choices for Non-Feds comes into play to adversely affect them.

For T5 and up:
KDF:
Veranus
Vo'Quv (high science)
Mirror Vo'Quv (high science)
Kar'Fi (high science)
DSDx4

Roms:
Ha'nom
Mirror Ha'nom
DSDx4

Cross Faction (expensive alternates):
Palisade
Temporal Science
Annorax
Orb Weaver
Sarr Theln (high science)

Feds:
... Draws deep breath... Here we go...
DSSV
Mirror DSSV
Recon Sci Vessel
Mirror Recon Sci Vessel
Nebula
D'Kyr
Nova
Mirror Nova
DSDx4
T5 Intrepid
T6 Intrepid
Research Science Vessel
Atrox (high science)
Scryer
Dauntless

I'm not bothering to count the standard, C-Store, fleet versions because it's going to get even more ridiculously stupid in favor of the Feds.

Those high Science Admiralty requirements are a big PITA for the KDF & Roms unless you've blown some serious resources on those Cross Faction ships with Cmdr Science or the freebie Sarr Theln from last year's Winter Event.

Only Kdf is screwed. Rom can use kdf or fed ships from t1 to t4, depending on their allegiance.