I just started collecting and buying some of the more advanced traits and I'm already noticing a HUGE different just from traits, some of them are very OP. Restoring hull to max, adding more hull and damage when under attack. Things like tactical retreat that makes you immune, all of these are big.. Big players, lol.
I have looked over the thread so far and some people have given some good advice. But, as it was mentioned. "Just get this and that then it'll help" does not explain a terrible amount.
So, I'll try and add what I can to help improve without needing to swap weapons and hopefully giving a reason why to change it.
We'll start with your bridge officer abilities, and all of this is just advice.
As a engineer your power levels will be very high due to having eps manifold (Engineer space trait). Which adds 10 power to all sub systems when using batteries or emergency power to shields/weapons/auxiliary/engines.
I'd personally choose to get Emergency power to weapons 3, and emergency power to shields 1. Then use two blue or purple Damage control engineers (Duty officers) to increase the recharge of these two abilities. This will help you chain those two abilities and increase power. I say emergency power to weapons 3, due to the big boost to weapon power and that it adds a damage to all energy weapons while it is active.
It is worth swapping engineering team 2 for engineering team 1 as it's a nice heal to have when you need it, and it also repairs shut down systems if they go offline, like when you are fighting Tholians or Terrans. I would swap, Auxiliary to structural integrity 2 to Auxiliary to structural integrity 1*. So that you have a spot for emergency power to weapons 3.
*Now, using two Auxiliary to structural integrity powers will not help you. As the global cool down overlaps each other, and the power itself takes 15 seconds to recharge. So it is only worth using one of those.
It is worth keeping reverse shield polarity, where it is, and perhaps swapping eject warp plasma 3 to directed energy modulation 3. As directed energy modulation makes your beam weapons go through the shields of the target in question. If you have room, try get two directed energy modulation at whichever level possible.
I would personally swap tractor beam for science team 2, as it is handy for some of the content in the game. Like Hirogen and the subnuke beam, or some of the science stuff like jam sensors and so on. As using science team will remove those debuffs.
Putting a tactical team in place of your beam overload would be a good choice, as tactical team distributes your shield facings to where you are taking damage. And if possible, putting in two purple Conn officers (Duty officers) to reduce the cool down of tactical teams recharge. Two blue ones can work, as they are very expensive.
Beam fire at will 1 works lovely where it is, and perhaps getting beam fire at will 2 in place of high yield will help, as you have far more beam weapons than torpedo weapons. And it is worth keeping spread three because it packs a nice punch.
As for tactical consoles.
People have said it is worth getting vulnerability locators from the fleet spire store. Due to them adding damage to the beam weapon in question (Phasers in your case) and adding a chance of critical hit chance. These are well worth getting, and although they cost 50,000 fleet credit each and some dilithium (I forget how much) they are much better than the standard consoles.
For science consoles.
I would get to the fleet embassy store, and buy the flow plasma proc consoles. These add plasma explosions to all of your energy weapons. (2,5% chance to apply it per pulse) and this will increase your damage overall. The flow ones are really worth getting, due to you having the leech now. If you like being the tank, get the Increases threat ones (Means stuff shoots you more) or if you prefer to not being shot much, get the decreases Threat ones (Stuff shoots you less).
Worth buying the Mk 10 ones then upgrading, as you have higher chance of getting them to epic sooner.
Engineering consoles.
Now, not many people use armour consoles, because...they aren't as useful as it seems. As a engineer you have plenty of heals to keep you going.
The zero point console was mentioned by someone above, this console adds to crit chance and adds power to all sub systems.
The Bio neural gel pack (Delta reputation) is rather handy to, as it reduces the cool down of bridge officer abilities by 7% and adds power to all sub systems. Though it sounds useless, every little helps in some cases and it works well with the Neutronic quantum torpedo from the same rep.
The borg console is handy from the Omega reputation, but. You'd need the cutting beam to make it worthwhile using it. And you'd have to drop a weapon of that you already own.
All in all you do not have to change weapons, everything does damage as it is. And a few tweaks of bridge officers abilities, and consoles can improve your ship quite a bit. No idea if anything I put here helps and I am pretty sure some people will offer different advice on what to do.
As far as PvP goes, I have not played PvP since season 9, due to how bad it has become power creep wise. Some people enjoy it, but I cannot really offer any insight on what to do to improve in that part of the game.
It seems that PVP is better with what traits you got than equipment. lol. Even a lower level in a shuttle with enough traits could kick my TRIBBLE eventually.
But out from that judgement, that makes my build really good if you don't count PVP in the picture. As I have never been "defeated" while on any mission. Even with a shitlo** of Iconian ships, dreadnoughts I'm never "defeated" of course there's sometimes it's close.. Down to 25% hull but I just heal myself, repair my shields and transfer the rest of my power to the weapons..
So in that case my build is.. Very good? lol. If I ignore PVP.
You are correct. Don't forget that the HP and resistances of NPC's is vastly superior to players. All our ships are geared to fight against that, not against other players. If you are handling Episodes with no issues, then don't worry, because in this game that is all that matters to one person!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
While we're on it, could someone explain what AUX power really.. Does? Or is this just the surplus power that can be dumped into weapons, shields, engines like in the TV series. lol.
Aux power affects Sci abilities, Hull HP and resistances (this is basically like NX-01 polarizing it's hull) and turn rate.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
Aux power affects Sci abilities, Hull HP and resistances (this is basically like NX-01 polarizing it's hull) and turn rate.
I don't think Aux affects turn rate, if anything that would be engine power. However, it does also affect the cloaking device a bit.
But back to kate370, everything else leemwatson said is true. Aux, is mainly important for sci. In fact, if you ever roll a sci, you would need to ignore much of what we said earlier about power levels. They are the one case where you want Aux to be highest and not weapons, especially if you want an effective exotic damage build such as those using Grav Well or Tyken's Rift.
As Zephram Cochrane once said, "That'll do, pig. That'll do." - April 1st 2015.
While we're on it, could someone explain what AUX power really.. Does? Or is this just the surplus power that can be dumped into weapons, shields, engines like in the TV series. lol.
Some abilities scale based on aux power, such as Grav Well, and TBR, or Hazard Emitters... but not that many really and you can do builds that ignore Aux completely.
Why are you using the Emitter Array console? Why not the embassy consoles for the plasma proc or the "The temporal disentanglement suite" from Butterfly for more shields/shield res and some crtd/crth?
I think someone mentioned it before already, but as you are using phasers and torpedos you might take a look at this set as well.
What about my current console setup? How is that working out for me? lol
Well, as I've said before this would just be based on my own preferences, but when I use a covarient shield of any type I think field generators (They add to overall capacity) are better than emitter arrays as covarient shields have poor regen. In particular I like that one sci console that is a mission reward for "Butterfly" which acts as a field generator but also includes a bonus to power, a bonus damage reduction to shields, and a crit chance/crit severity bonus. (And of course its free. ) But, if you use the right boff powers an emitter array is good too.
The only other question I would have is; do you plan on using any exotic damage abilities? I didn't see any on your second screenshot but that was a while ago. If you do then the particle exciter is great. (I have one with an (Auxpwr) mod on my sci captain's vesta right now and with the ship optimized for exotic damage its grav wells simply shred npc mobs in story missions and PvE) However, if you don't do any exotic damage then another console would probably be better. Perhaps, in time, you might replace it with one of the rep consoles others have suggested; the borg one in particular.
As Zephram Cochrane once said, "That'll do, pig. That'll do." - April 1st 2015.
I tried to use the nullifier I got with the ship but it does... Nothing, of course it's good against NPC's but in PVP it was like using a stick against a starship. It really.. Did nothing, I've replaced one neutronium with the leech console. So now I only have 1 neutronium alloy left. But my resistance is still up in the 50% area because of my new gold science console.
The saucer sepperation takes up 1 slot and that sucks but I like it and it's very cannon. It also turns the Galaxy into more of a Escort style ship because I can actually perform u-turns without taking up 4 blocks in sector space. lol.
I miss the old days when saucer sepperation was built into the Galaxy Class, not a console.. But oh well.
But my build is not bad? I guess.. I win over all the NPC's.. But it's not ultra good either.
But at first I thought you guys was like.. It's the worst build I've ever seen.
I have all the Galaxy cons on my Yamato currently with no armor. Im currently hitting between 20 and 30k DPS and my resists are in the high 40s Its not the smartest way to build a ship but it is fun and that level of performance is about what you want out of a Galaxy cruiser in PVE. I dont blow up and I do decent DPS so my team never complain.
That being said PVP is a completly different animal. In PVP nothing but the absolute best will do because you can be sure thats what your opponent will be using. Its why I stay out of PVP
Is the tractor beam considered a exotic damage? Will the particle exciter improve the DPS the tractor causes?
Its been a while since I used a tractor beam, so I decided to check. And yes, in fact, it is improved by exotic particle generators. However, for the most part, when you see people talking about partGen builds (where the exciter would come in the most handy) they are reffering to exotic damage builds using heavy hitters like Grav Well, Tyken's Rift, and Subspace Vortex as their primary source of damage; hence why weapon power is not as important to a sci as Aux power. (I would also mention that the latter of those powers, Subspace Vortex, came from a lockbox and is both expensive and a bit wonky)
As Zephram Cochrane once said, "That'll do, pig. That'll do." - April 1st 2015.
What about my current console setup? How is that working out for me? lol
Consoles are ok but could be better. That sci con pumps up exotic damage but you dont really do much exotic damage in a cruiser. It would be worth swapping it for something else. You really want those embassy plasma consols but Im not sure what else you could use. Also im not sure how useful that EPS console is. I dont have any points in power transfer but I do just fine Mostly because I get some monster power out of my core especially when the leech is doing its thing
People said that the EPS console was THE MOST important thing ever? Because it apparently reduced the time it takes after a phaser for example has discharged, the power returned back into the system much faster.
I thought it was just the rate if I changed power setting, should I replace it?
Lets talk about aux power for a bit. Depending on your build AUX can be the most important thing in the world or completly pointless. In my case it is fairly important.
Aux does a lot of things. primarily it buffs your sci powers but with the right traits aux canalso buff your critical rate, critical damage, your defence, resists and even your weapon damage. traits that work with aux power are generally very useful so its worth considering
People said that the EPS console was THE MOST important thing ever? Because it apparently reduced the time it takes after a phaser for example has discharged, the power returned back into the system much faster.
I thought it was just the rate if I changed power setting, should I replace it?
If your weapon power stays high even when your usin FAW then you dont need it. otherwise keep it
While I can't give you as info as maybe I'd like to on EPS, I did write up a page (http://www.kaysvaultofstuff.com/overcapping.html) on it back along outlining my understanding of it. Which also gives a litte info on overcapping which is important for beamboats.
People said that the EPS console was THE MOST important thing ever? Because it apparently reduced the time it takes after a phaser for example has discharged, the power returned back into the system much faster.
I thought it was just the rate if I changed power setting, should I replace it?
Your weapon damage is based on your current weapon power level,(weapon power/50)*damage. At the beginning of a firing cycle, your weapons drain power from your weapon power. This power cycles back based on your power transfer rate, which is based on your EPS(EPS/20), each time your weapon fires during the cycle. There are many ways to mitigate your power drain which lessens the need for EPS. All the people who disagree with this just have to watch their power levels(numbers not bars) to see this. The overcapping mechanic is drained first and don't ask me how it is calculated.
simply put if you can keep your weapon power high even during a firing cycle you dont need eps
Even if you weapon power is high initially, it will drop after firing. If you fire 8 beam arrays, that is -70 weapon power. If you look at that without overcap, then you are losing 1.4x of your damage for the first set of fires in the cycle. The next cycle, you will gain back 5 of the power if you have no EPS besides maximizing the skill. This results in your next set of attacks doing 1.3x less damage from maximum. If you have an EPS console that gives 100% eps, then you gain back 10 power instead of 5, this leads to 1.2x less maximum damage. You gain 10% damage increase just from that one console, if you lack other sources of EPS or mitigating weapon power drain.
The reason why some people debate this is because they had power mitigation sources on their ships and tried increasing their EPS to very high numbers, this lead to less dps. This is why the Arbiter is such a popular ship, it's trait - Emergency Weapon Cycle is a huge mitigation to weapon power drain, along with your weapons firing faster.
If you don't mind the colour, use the quantum phaser three piece set from the last FE. The console alone gives something like 28% phaser damage, almost as much as a spire tactical console (30%).
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
If you don't mind the colour, use the quantum phaser three piece set from the last FE. The console alone gives something like 28% phaser damage, almost as much as a spire tactical console (30%).
If you don't mind the color and don't mind the sound. It still sounds like someone did somethnig awful to angrytarg.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Comments
So, I'll try and add what I can to help improve without needing to swap weapons and hopefully giving a reason why to change it.
We'll start with your bridge officer abilities, and all of this is just advice.
As a engineer your power levels will be very high due to having eps manifold (Engineer space trait). Which adds 10 power to all sub systems when using batteries or emergency power to shields/weapons/auxiliary/engines.
I'd personally choose to get Emergency power to weapons 3, and emergency power to shields 1. Then use two blue or purple Damage control engineers (Duty officers) to increase the recharge of these two abilities. This will help you chain those two abilities and increase power. I say emergency power to weapons 3, due to the big boost to weapon power and that it adds a damage to all energy weapons while it is active.
It is worth swapping engineering team 2 for engineering team 1 as it's a nice heal to have when you need it, and it also repairs shut down systems if they go offline, like when you are fighting Tholians or Terrans. I would swap, Auxiliary to structural integrity 2 to Auxiliary to structural integrity 1*. So that you have a spot for emergency power to weapons 3.
*Now, using two Auxiliary to structural integrity powers will not help you. As the global cool down overlaps each other, and the power itself takes 15 seconds to recharge. So it is only worth using one of those.
It is worth keeping reverse shield polarity, where it is, and perhaps swapping eject warp plasma 3 to directed energy modulation 3. As directed energy modulation makes your beam weapons go through the shields of the target in question. If you have room, try get two directed energy modulation at whichever level possible.
I would personally swap tractor beam for science team 2, as it is handy for some of the content in the game. Like Hirogen and the subnuke beam, or some of the science stuff like jam sensors and so on. As using science team will remove those debuffs.
Putting a tactical team in place of your beam overload would be a good choice, as tactical team distributes your shield facings to where you are taking damage. And if possible, putting in two purple Conn officers (Duty officers) to reduce the cool down of tactical teams recharge. Two blue ones can work, as they are very expensive.
Beam fire at will 1 works lovely where it is, and perhaps getting beam fire at will 2 in place of high yield will help, as you have far more beam weapons than torpedo weapons. And it is worth keeping spread three because it packs a nice punch.
As for tactical consoles.
People have said it is worth getting vulnerability locators from the fleet spire store. Due to them adding damage to the beam weapon in question (Phasers in your case) and adding a chance of critical hit chance. These are well worth getting, and although they cost 50,000 fleet credit each and some dilithium (I forget how much) they are much better than the standard consoles.
For science consoles.
I would get to the fleet embassy store, and buy the flow plasma proc consoles. These add plasma explosions to all of your energy weapons. (2,5% chance to apply it per pulse) and this will increase your damage overall. The flow ones are really worth getting, due to you having the leech now. If you like being the tank, get the Increases threat ones (Means stuff shoots you more) or if you prefer to not being shot much, get the decreases Threat ones (Stuff shoots you less).
Worth buying the Mk 10 ones then upgrading, as you have higher chance of getting them to epic sooner.
Engineering consoles.
Now, not many people use armour consoles, because...they aren't as useful as it seems. As a engineer you have plenty of heals to keep you going.
The zero point console was mentioned by someone above, this console adds to crit chance and adds power to all sub systems.
The Bio neural gel pack (Delta reputation) is rather handy to, as it reduces the cool down of bridge officer abilities by 7% and adds power to all sub systems. Though it sounds useless, every little helps in some cases and it works well with the Neutronic quantum torpedo from the same rep.
The borg console is handy from the Omega reputation, but. You'd need the cutting beam to make it worthwhile using it. And you'd have to drop a weapon of that you already own.
All in all you do not have to change weapons, everything does damage as it is. And a few tweaks of bridge officers abilities, and consoles can improve your ship quite a bit. No idea if anything I put here helps and I am pretty sure some people will offer different advice on what to do.
As far as PvP goes, I have not played PvP since season 9, due to how bad it has become power creep wise. Some people enjoy it, but I cannot really offer any insight on what to do to improve in that part of the game.
Gosh that was a long post, hope it helps!
You are correct. Don't forget that the HP and resistances of NPC's is vastly superior to players. All our ships are geared to fight against that, not against other players. If you are handling Episodes with no issues, then don't worry, because in this game that is all that matters to one person!
Closer look at the other consoles
I don't think Aux affects turn rate, if anything that would be engine power. However, it does also affect the cloaking device a bit.
But back to kate370, everything else leemwatson said is true. Aux, is mainly important for sci. In fact, if you ever roll a sci, you would need to ignore much of what we said earlier about power levels. They are the one case where you want Aux to be highest and not weapons, especially if you want an effective exotic damage build such as those using Grav Well or Tyken's Rift.
My character Tsin'xing
I think someone mentioned it before already, but as you are using phasers and torpedos you might take a look at this set as well.
Well, as I've said before this would just be based on my own preferences, but when I use a covarient shield of any type I think field generators (They add to overall capacity) are better than emitter arrays as covarient shields have poor regen. In particular I like that one sci console that is a mission reward for "Butterfly" which acts as a field generator but also includes a bonus to power, a bonus damage reduction to shields, and a crit chance/crit severity bonus. (And of course its free.
The only other question I would have is; do you plan on using any exotic damage abilities? I didn't see any on your second screenshot but that was a while ago. If you do then the particle exciter is great. (I have one with an (Auxpwr) mod on my sci captain's vesta right now and with the ship optimized for exotic damage its grav wells simply shred npc mobs in story missions and PvE) However, if you don't do any exotic damage then another console would probably be better. Perhaps, in time, you might replace it with one of the rep consoles others have suggested; the borg one in particular.
I have all the Galaxy cons on my Yamato currently with no armor. Im currently hitting between 20 and 30k DPS and my resists are in the high 40s Its not the smartest way to build a ship but it is fun and that level of performance is about what you want out of a Galaxy cruiser in PVE. I dont blow up and I do decent DPS so my team never complain.
That being said PVP is a completly different animal. In PVP nothing but the absolute best will do because you can be sure thats what your opponent will be using. Its why I stay out of PVP
Is the tractor beam considered a exotic damage? Will the particle exciter improve the DPS the tractor causes?
Its been a while since I used a tractor beam, so I decided to check. And yes, in fact, it is improved by exotic particle generators. However, for the most part, when you see people talking about partGen builds (where the exciter would come in the most handy) they are reffering to exotic damage builds using heavy hitters like Grav Well, Tyken's Rift, and Subspace Vortex as their primary source of damage; hence why weapon power is not as important to a sci as Aux power. (I would also mention that the latter of those powers, Subspace Vortex, came from a lockbox and is both expensive and a bit wonky)
Consoles are ok but could be better. That sci con pumps up exotic damage but you dont really do much exotic damage in a cruiser. It would be worth swapping it for something else. You really want those embassy plasma consols but Im not sure what else you could use. Also im not sure how useful that EPS console is. I dont have any points in power transfer but I do just fine Mostly because I get some monster power out of my core especially when the leech is doing its thing
I thought it was just the rate if I changed power setting, should I replace it?
Lets talk about aux power for a bit. Depending on your build AUX can be the most important thing in the world or completly pointless. In my case it is fairly important.
Aux does a lot of things. primarily it buffs your sci powers but with the right traits aux canalso buff your critical rate, critical damage, your defence, resists and even your weapon damage. traits that work with aux power are generally very useful so its worth considering
Your weapon damage is based on your current weapon power level,(weapon power/50)*damage. At the beginning of a firing cycle, your weapons drain power from your weapon power. This power cycles back based on your power transfer rate, which is based on your EPS(EPS/20), each time your weapon fires during the cycle. There are many ways to mitigate your power drain which lessens the need for EPS. All the people who disagree with this just have to watch their power levels(numbers not bars) to see this. The overcapping mechanic is drained first and don't ask me how it is calculated.
Even if you weapon power is high initially, it will drop after firing. If you fire 8 beam arrays, that is -70 weapon power. If you look at that without overcap, then you are losing 1.4x of your damage for the first set of fires in the cycle. The next cycle, you will gain back 5 of the power if you have no EPS besides maximizing the skill. This results in your next set of attacks doing 1.3x less damage from maximum. If you have an EPS console that gives 100% eps, then you gain back 10 power instead of 5, this leads to 1.2x less maximum damage. You gain 10% damage increase just from that one console, if you lack other sources of EPS or mitigating weapon power drain.
The reason why some people debate this is because they had power mitigation sources on their ships and tried increasing their EPS to very high numbers, this lead to less dps. This is why the Arbiter is such a popular ship, it's trait - Emergency Weapon Cycle is a huge mitigation to weapon power drain, along with your weapons firing faster.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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