Glad you like it @thunderfoot006
I need to stick the build into a STO academy link for you guys first. Need to find some time to do that then I'll post it up with the extra changes I've made and reasonings.
I came across a handy converter tool that lets you input a stoa build and it spits it out in a fairly clean text format (plus the link) so it can do lot of the prepwork and set things up for a line by line explanation, course I just have to remember where I found it.
A little more tactical/drain oriented version of the pirate. Someone mentioned the Terran Set so I went ahead and knocked one out. No problems in Argala Elite, didn't even have to hit a heal. Drew the kazon and they pretty much came to a halt once i targeted them. Their shields would drop fairly regularly, weapons went offline. Found that 50% throttle works very well on a Nebula for a tight orbit.
**Slot** | **Component** | **Rarity**
:--|:--|:--
**Fore Weapon**
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare Well duh
| Experimental Proton Weapon Mk XII | Very Rare Allows for use of native Subsys target and low power use
| |
**Aft Weapon**
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare Well Duh
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare "
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare "
| |
**Deflector**
| Terran Task Force Deflector Array Mk XIV | Ultra Rare Drainx
| |
**Secondary Deflector**
| Inhibiting Secondary Deflector Mk XIV [CtrlX] [DrainX] [EPG/ShdHeal] [EPG] [SA +Dmg] | Epic More eveyrthing plus extra rad dmg on tractor
| |
**Impulse Engine**
| Terran Task Force Impulse Engines Mk XIV | Very Rare More drain
| |
**Warp Core**
| Iconian Resistance Hyper Injection Warp Core Mk XIV [AMP] | Ultra Rare Only one I have that has AMP
| |
**Shield Array**
| Iconian Resistance Resilient Shield Array Mk XIV | Ultra Rare Might as well make it a set
| |
**Engineering Console**
| Console - Engineering - Conductive RCS Accelerator Mk XIV [+Flow] | Ultra Rare More drain
| Console - Universal - Rule 62 Multipurpose Combat Mk XIV | Epic "
| Console - Universal - Bounty Hunter's Friend Mk XIV | Very Rare Reduced weapons power need, some +res
| |
**Science Console**
| Console - Science - Exotic Particle Field Exciter Mk XIV [DrainX] | Epic More drain
| Console - Science - Flow Capacitor Mk XIV | Epic "
| Console - Science - Shield Refrequencer Mk XIV [DrainX] | Ultra Rare " plus chance of proton damage
| Console - Science - Temporal Disentanglement Suite Mk XIV | Very Rare More Aux, shields and crit stuff
| Console - Universal - Quantum Phase Converter Mk XIV | Ultra Rare More aux more drain
| |
**Tactical Console**
| Console - Universal - Bioneural Infusion Circuits Mk XIV | Ultra Rare Some extra hull
| Console - Universal - Plasmonic Leech infin | Epic Auto drain
---
##Officers and Crew
**Bridge Officers** | **Power**
:--|:--
**Lieutenant Universal (Tactical)**
| Kemocite-Laced Weaponry I -res
| Cannon: Scatter Volley I
|
**Lieutenant Tactical**
| Tactical Team I
| Cannon: Rapid Fire I
|
**Lt. Commander Engineering**
| Structural Integrity Collapse I -res
| Engineering Team II
| Boarding Party II Yarrgghh
|
**Commander Science**
| Science Team I
| Tractor Beam II Grapple and drain
| Tractor Beam III "
| Viral Matrix III Chaos
|
**Ensign Science**
| Hazard Emitters I
**Duty Officers**
| **Power**
:--|:--
Very Rare Assault Squad Officer | Chance for Boarding Party shuttles to be armed. Extra oomph
Very Rare Tractor Beam Officer | Drains target shields with Tractor Beam More drain
Very Rare Ebergy Weps Officer x2 | Chance to remove buffs on cannon fire Makes life more unpleasant
Very Rare Flight Deck Officer | Chance to double number of shuttle launched More
---
##Character, Reputation, and Starship Traits
**Personal Space Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Ablative Shell | After taking a moderate amount of damage, automatically trigger a large Heal-Over-Time and Damage Resistance effect.
Astrophysicist | Improves Starship Particle Generators, Flow Capacitors, and Sensors stats.
Efficient Captain | Provides a bonus to Warp Core Efficiency skill, improving all power levels.
Invasive Control Programming | When you activate a Control effect on a foe (such as Jam Sensors), add a random Subsystem Offline effect.
Accurate | Improves the accuracy of space weapons.
Pattern Recognition | While in combat, your ability to defend against enemy starships will gradually improve, reperesnted by an increase in defense and shield hardness. Can be stacked up to 4 times.
Operative | Increases Critical Chance and Critical Severity.
Psychological Warfare | Improves the effectiveness of your Control abilities. This includes the following effects: Confuse, Disable, Hold, Knock, Placate, Repel, Root and Slow
Warp Theorist | Improves Warp Core Potential and Electro-Plasma Systems skills.
Innocuous | Slightly increases Critical Severity, and makes enemies less likely to attack you over other targets.
**Space Reputation Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Chrono-Capacitor Array | Reduce the recharge time of your Bridge Officer abilities.
Energy Refrequencer | Your directed energy attacks heal you for a portion of the damage dealt.
Radiant Detonation Matrix | Directed energy weapons have a chance to deal additional radiation damage and remove buffs in a small area around the target.
Aux to Offense | More ACC
**Active Reputation Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Anti-Time Entanglement Singularity | Anti-Time Entanglement Singularity creates an Anti-Time anomaly in the target's immediate vicinity. The singularity causes severe Physical damage to foes caught within while slowing and potentially locking them in place as normal space-time violently interacts with the anomaly. This singularity rapidly shrinks in size until it fully dissipates.
Deploy Sensor Interference Platform | Deploy a Sensor Interference Platform which redirects most weapons fire to itself. The platform generates an inhibiting feedback pulse around nearby allied vessels, reducing the damage of enemies who attack targets other than the platform.
Refracting Tetryon Cascade | Release a cascading burst of Tetryon energy from your Deflector Dish at foes within 3km. It will refract to two nearby targets dealing less damage with each jump. The charge can only jump 5km to the next target.
Bio-Molecular Shield Generator | Creates a fixed position shield generator, in space combat, that regenerates starship shields and reduces the damage taken by starship shields for allies in the immediate area.
**Starship Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
All Hands on Deck | Activating a Tactical or Command Bridge Officer ability will reduce the recharge time of Science Bridge Officer and Captain abilities. This may only occur once every few seconds.
Demolition Teams | While within a short distance of your foe, you will periodically beam over commando squads trained in demolition, to plant charges aboard the enemy vessel. After sufficient charges have been placed, they will be detonated to deal shield-ignoring kinetic damage.
Energy Web | Activation of Beam: Overload, Surgical Strikes or Cannon: Rapid Fire will empower your next attack, causing your foe to be trapped in an Energy Web. Enemies trapped in the Energy Web will suffer heavy shield penetrating physical damage over time and be held briefly. This ability's damage is improved by Auxiliary power and Starship Particle Generators skill. Energy Web can be triggered once every 45 seconds.
Particle Feedback | Using an Exotic Damage ability will provide a small bonus to Armor Penetration. This bonus stacks up to 3 times.
Sensor analysis is good but more importantly you get a the secodary deflector.
Using the inhibiting kind, it adds (for me) 10k radiation damage to control abilities, so tractor beam, grav well and photonic shockwave amongst others, but those I am using.
Stack that with Delphic Shockwave trait and shockwave alone piles on over 30K of radiation damage by itself over 5 seconds!!
Once I get my secondary deflector to epic rarity it'll be even more. VR to Ultra, the radiation went up some 4K, so epic could even be near 20K?!
Paradox is slow speed and turn rate so APO is needed, and Aux Injection Assembly for a speed/turn boost when needed plus cat2 exotics boost.
Construction anchor for another Cat2 boost plus another clickable control ability.
Particle exciter I use for it's big Kinetics resist mod in combination with Bounty Hunters console for energy resists. Too squishy for my liking otherwise without either.
Torpedo I'm of 2 minds about. Feels better with it. The other thing to do is all cannons and replace TS with Kemo2 for more radiation dishing uptime.
It's a really nice build. Claimed 1st in CCA a few times. Thinking about it, the Paradox seems the best ship platform for my Radiation dice throwing concept. Although the Annorax is probably just as good, just not as accessible. The secondary deflector seems to really make a big difference as a major source of radiation output.
Endothermic I chose for it's radiation, but really Structural Integrity Collapse will probably work better. Something I'll try later.
Will fly this for a bit, it's quite fun. Then I might try moving this concept over to the Nandi and or Klinzai. Without that Fed ship trait though it's not going to be anywhere near as good.
Over the weekend, with the participation of a member of The Science Channel in a "friendly" PvP match, I was able to confirm that the [Snare] mod for crafted weapons has indeed been fixed at some point. It applies a -5% speed debuff to the $Target only and not to the shooter. This means that use of [Snare] on weapons will synergize rather effectively with the Controlled Countermeasures Trait which offers +7% bonus weapon damage (Cat2), which I will note is NOT an All Damage bonus, according to the tooltip for the Trait.
The weapon used for this testing was a crafted omni-directional beam array. The duration of the [Snare] effect extended for only the duration of the firing cycle. This meant that [Snare] showed up as a Debuff on my screen for 4 seconds during the beam firing cycle, with 1 second of not being present during the weapon's cooldown. The icon showed up with an orange border and looked like a Starfleet "A" symbol.
The only weapon that got tested was a beam array. I don't know what kind of uptime [Snare] would have on a Torpedo (I'm presuming 5 seconds?), so that's something that someone might want to go test at some point. Paging @darkknightucf for mention of possible (Cat2) bonus being available to Torpedoes that would seem to merit testing ...
Under most circumstances, a single [Snare] mod is going to be nearly worthless ... and it certainly has been until this discovery involving synergizing it with Controlled Countermeasures. But this then begs the question ... what about stacking it up? Would stacking 6-8 [Snare] mods for -30% to -40% speed and turn rate yield a useful result that could be exploited by something else?
Well ... there is Gravity Well (and similar) sitting over there, doing more damage closer to the center, so spraying a Cannon Scatter Volley of [Snare]x6 could potentially improve the damage throughput. Same deal for Tyken's Rift if using Temporal Spec so the Rift can "chase" the target and keep them drained more effectively. Same idea applies to use of Singularity Jump for being able to prevent Target(s) from escaping the pull. So basically any Hazard where you want to "pin" a hostile in place would seem to offer a bit of synergy for a [Snare] mod to amplify the effects of. Likewise, I'd imagine that it would be relevant to both Tractor Beam and Repulsors, for what should be obvious reasons.
And that's before considering the (meager?) effects of Accuracy Overflow. However, since you can't get [Snare] mods on Protonic Polarons, this becomes less of a consideration, but could potentially be useful for some of the less common flavors of energy damage. To be more specific (and less Cryptic?) I'm now wondering about the potential of a crafted collection of Plasma [Snare] weapons backed by Embassy Plasma consoles which are in turn being augmented by Controlled Countermeasures (+7% damage bonus) and by Temporal Specialization to bring Atrophied Defenses II (2.5% chance: When activating a DOT effect on Foe: to target: -10 All Damage Resistance Rating for 10sec) and Entropic Amplification II (+20% All Damage for all Space Damage-Over-Time effects) into play via Plasma Burn DoT. Do it with 6 Turrets for maximum "dice chucking" and ...
Clarified the interaction between MACO shields and Plasmonic Leech.
Updated the MACO Shields proc to require the player to not have any stacks of Plasmonic Leech to apply.
Having Plasmonic Leech stacks prevents additional stacks of the MACO shield from applying.
Updating the text on some of the shields to say they don't stack.
Now WAY BACK in the day, I'd built myself some MACO sets for my Starfleet captains, and I still had them lying around (Mk XII Very Rare), so it was easy for me to take them out of mothballs and take them for a test drive against the Borg Red Alert and the Tholian Red Alert and a KSA and ISA run.
And you know what? It works.
In this case, I was using the Terran Deflector and Terran Warp Core and combining it with the M.A.C.O. Impulse Engine and the M.A.C.O. Shield. The reason for this specific combination was what happens with the combined Terran and M.A.C.O. 2-piece set bonuses, respectively.
Set 2: Secondary Discharge Capacitors
+17.8 Shield Capacity
(Improves Shield Hit Points)
+17.8 Drain Expertise
(Improves Energy & Shields Drain / Resistance to Same)
Terran Task Force Shield Discharge deals double damage
Set 2: Magnetoplasma Relays
Passive
+5% Power Recharge Speed
+17.8 Starship Drain Expertise
Since I've unlocked on my AoY captain "permission" to build new Reputation gear at Mk XIII Ultra Rare, all I needed to do was spend ECs, Widgets, Dilithium and Reputation Marks to upgrade my gear for my captain using the Terran set. The combined result yields:
Around +90-ish [DrainX] modifier just from Deflector, Impulse, Core and Shields and counting both set bonuses
A [SciCD] mod on the Deflector which yields +50 Starship Scientific Readiness
Warp 20.11 cruising speed in sector space when choosing Sector Speed over Transwarp Cooldown in your Space Skills unlocks
Power Levels can ultimately reach 130/130/130/130 in sustained combat, thanks to the Terran Core
But the REAL kicker is the +5% Power Recharge Speed modifier. It affects * EVERYTHING *. And when I say that, I mean it affects everything(!) that's a Skill/Power with a cooldown speed (it doesn't affect Weapon Cooldown timers though because Neutronic plus Gel Pack doesn't go below 12.5s).
Anti-Time Entanglement Field, an Active Reputation Skill, drops from 5m to 4m45s.
Grant Diplomatic Immunity, a Diplomacy Rank Skill, drops from 15s to 14s.
Captain Skills have their cooldown times drop.
Bridge Officer Skills have their cooldown times drop.
Just to test out the proposition of building for a maximal cooldown reduction by putting the Bio-Neural Gel Pack (and Neutronic Torpedo Launcher) to see what would happen when combining all that with the [SciCD] from the Terran Deflector ... because at that point I was looking at +32.5% combined cooldown reduction on my BOff Science Skills. And sure enough, there was Gravity Well and Tyken's Rift showing cooldown times of 45.45s ... and Science Team is down to 22.72s.
I then decided to buy myself a complete new Protonic Arsenal set at MK XIII Ultra Rare, although I wound up ultimately keeping only the Torpedo and the Console in my build, just to raise the [CrtH] of my entire build and bring more Proton Burn procs to bear. In this specific case, I deemed the [CrtD] bonus of adding the Experimental Proton Weapon a net minus overall.
Fore:
Gravimetric Torpedo Mk XIII Ultra Rare [CrtH]
Neutronic Torpedo Mk XIII Ultra Rare [CrtH]
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Aft:
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Terran Task Force Deflector Array Mk XIII Ultra Rare [SciCD]
M.A.C.O Impulse Engines Mk XIII Ultra Rare [Turn]
Terran Task Force Quantum Capacitor Warp Core Mk XIII Ultra Rare [AMP]
M.A.C.O. Resilient Shield Array Mk XIII Ultra Rare [Reg]
Conductive RCS Accelerator Mk XII Ultra Rare [DrainX]
Plasmonic Leech Epic
Proton Particle Stabilizer Mk XIII Ultra Rare
Bio-Neural Gel Pack Mk XIII Ultra Rare
Restorative Particle Focuser Mk XII [DrainX]x2
Restorative Particle Focuser Mk XII [DrainX]x2
Restorative Particle Focuser Mk XII [DrainX]x2
Restorative Particle Focuser Mk XII [DrainX]x2
Vulnerability Locator Mk XII [+Pol]
Vulnerability Locator Mk XII [+Pol]
Vulnerability Locator Mk XII [+Pol]
My loadout for BOff Skills and Duty Officers remains substantially unchanged from previous posts. Sitting quietly in orbit, with my Balance Budget Build for Space Skills I have no problem keeping all of my Power Levels over 75 at all times, meaning an extra +13.2% bonus damage (Cat2) which makes a really big difference in damage throughput with this setup.
Needless to say, at the moment I'm laying in a stockpile of Superior Upgrades in anticipation of the next Upgrade Weekend to finally take this build to Mk XIV Epic, which ought to push this whole experiment "over the top" in terms of throughput performance.
The thing is, now I'm looking at this and wondering about perhaps dropping the Protonic Arsenal set (Torpedo and Console) and seeing if I can shoehorn this whole thing into a Solanae Dyson Science Destroyer for my AoY Science captain ... and if I can, what might that mean for a Romulan Tactical captain who can put Romulan BOffs with Superior Romulan Operative onto every station and REALLY crank up the [CrtH] mods for the entire build in the Aves Dyson Science Destroyer, which incidentally has a Romulan Battle Cloak ... which would get powered up even more by all those BOffs with Superior Romulan Operative ...
autumnturning - fascinating stuff, though I confess I do not fully understand about how Temporal Spec can make a Rift "chase" the target.
Honestly, I strongly discommend the DSD. Granted, I was working with the Klingon version, rather than the Rommie, but for me it was a huge disappointment.
Honestly, I strongly discommend the DSD. Granted, I was working with the Klingon version, rather than the Rommie, but for me it was a huge disappointment.
I was also trying the DSD out for my Romulan Engineer (was using a non-budget version with all the bells and whistles) and it just felt lacking, of course I work without fleet gear so that may make the diff for someone else.
Another non budget version I am starting to work on for my romulan is a Kara build
Anomalies will slowly move to your current target (Anomalies: Gravity Well, Tykens Rift, Subspace Vortex, Ionic Turbulence, Chronometric Inversion Field, Timeline Collapse)
Anomalies gain a Flight Speed of 10
Anomalies will slowly move to your current target (Anomalies: Gravity Well, Tykens Rift, Subspace Vortex, Ionic Turbulence, Chronometric Inversion Field, Timeline Collapse)
Anomalies gain a Flight Speed of 20
Honestly, I strongly discommend the DSD. Granted, I was working with the Klingon version, rather than the Rommie, but for me it was a huge disappointment.
Oh trust me, I know the disadvantages! I tried it (briefly) with one of my Starfleet captains and was ... underwhelmed ... by the differences. For a Kool-Aid build, the loss of 2 weapon slots is huge ... especially in exchange for Sensor Analysis which only grants +30% Drain effectiveness after 18 seconds ... which is basically 6 firing cycles for Turrets (a minor eternity). And that's before even getting to the differences in Power distribution, making getting to 75+ All Power as a baseline yet another challenge to overcome.
To be honest, with a Romulan Aves DSD, I'd be strongly tempted to abandon the "Down The Drain" aspect of what I've been doing here in favor of a Romulan Plasma setup that relies on Plasma Burn from both Weapons and Science Consoles ... because ... Romulan Captain ... but then that would wind up being a remarkably Power Level "poor" build if I abandoned the [DrainX] side of things, so it would be an entirely different challenge of sorts. Doesn't stop me noodling with the notion, because there's always that nagging feeling in the back of my head that DSDs "ought to" make useful Protonic Polaron platforms, even if in actual practice they're kind of lacking in practice.
Heck, with a Romulan Aves DSD, I can easily see a complete revision of preferred tactics towards a Hit&Fade type of fighting style where Spike rather than Pressure is the name of the game, meaning switching from a Cruiser/360 build orientation towards something more like a Science/Forward orientation where to uncloak with Cannons blazing and then 10 seconds later re-cloak so as to swing around and re-engage from another vector. Probably want to work with Dual (non-heavy) Cannons forward and Turrets aft in that case so as to orient around a more "intermittent" fighting style suitable for Romulans.
And guess what ... something like that seems like it would really be advantaged by either going Protonic Polarons or crafted Polarons with either [Snare] and/or [Rapid] for quick Hit&Fade engagements. I'm not expecting it to be The New Hotness(tm), but I'd like to find out if it is, well ... viable. I'm wondering if it'll be "successful" as opposed to be "overwhelming" ... so that I can do something cool and clever that's outside the usual range of what people do.
you weren't expecting these builds to become The New Hotness™ when you posted the initial one over a year ago either...but for a lot of players, it did
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Not yet. I haven't quite got enough Rep or Elite Marks to try out the Temporal Ship Set. The Weapons Set is verrah verrah kewel, however. Working straight through until Thanksgiving(Why didn't one of you warn me about how much it sucks to be really good at my job? lol) so I'll only be on infrequently.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
I'm using the Temporal Defense Set on my Temporal Sci-Kor EBC Torpedo Bomber.
As advertised, the damage increase is "blink and you'll miss it" because it is (using r/stobuilds terminology) classified as a (Cat1) damage modifier. This means that it ADDS +25% damage to the BASE quantity of damage, rather than MULTIPLYING the total yield by x1.25. It's basically the same thing as adding a Tactical Console, in that respect, except that instead of powering up weapons, the set bonus powers up DoTs and Hazards, like Gravity Well and Tyken's Rift (and so on and so forth). Don't expect it to make a tremendous amount of difference for you on the damage bonus.
The one thing that I have been using it for is that the set offers a uniquely intermittent buff that applies when using Team Skills on your BOffs when you've got 3 pieces of the set.
Set 3: Timeline Expertise
Using Engineering Team, Science Team, or Tactical Team gives you:
+20 Starship Control Expertise (Improves Control Effects / Resistance to Same) for 10 sec
+20 Starship Drain Expertise (Improves Energy & Shield Drain / Resistance to Same) for 10 sec
I'll hit Tactical, Science and Engineering Team when crossing the 12 km range while at 100% throttle in PvE so that all three Team skills have time to resolve just as I'm crossing the 10 km range to target and can then unload Gravity Well and Scramble Sensors before the buff expires. The combination gives me +60 Control and +60 Drain.
My Sci-Kor really appreciates having the Impulse Engine since it cleanses 1 debuff upon heal, which can dispose of a single plasma fire burn proc without needing to resort to Hazard Emitters. I like the Warp Core because it offers fast sector space travel speed.
However, in a lot of ways, the set does leave a number of things to be desired, particularly in comparison to the Iconian Set.
think i'd rather they dropped the 25% down to 5% and change it to cat2, because that bonus isn't worth jack at the moment, especially since it doeasn't even boost TBR's or DRB's damage at all, despite those both being DoTs
i don't even wanna know how little it boosts plasma burn, because that's already pathetically low as it is
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
SO after all of these posts - was there a Protonic Polaron build that was worth the effort? Because it seems like it may work in like 1 or two builds *fairly*.
SO after all of these posts - was there a Protonic Polaron build that was worth the effort? Because it seems like it may work in like one or two builds *fairly*.
I dunno, maybe you should read first, then troll. I realize some of those really big words might be complicated for you. (Note: Hooked on Phonics is your friend!) I also realize without lots of pictures of scantily clad women, your interest level quickly wanes. (DOOOOOD!!! LOOK!!! TRIBBLE!!! snicker-snicker-giggle-snort) However if you put down the Cheetos and the Diet Mountain Dew and actually read the posts, you might acquire some knowledge. (GASP! How dare you make me learn something! The nerve!)
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
SO after all of these posts - was there a Protonic Polaron build that was worth the effort? Because it seems like it may work in like 1 or two builds *fairly*.
I would first like to apologize for the unnecessary rudeness that @thunderfoot006 just displayed. I sincerely feel that those words were uncalled for.
/em bow
With respect to your question ... it really depends on what you're trying to get out of Protonic Polarons. They are by no means an "IWIN!" button by any stretch of the imagination. I can also understand the viewpoint that they are more trouble than they're worth in comparison to the options.
In terms of Space Barbie, I personally feel that they are worth the effort, because they have this lovely indigo coloring to them which you really don't see from anything else. This makes them special and unique to see in action when watching Cannon bolts fly towards your target. Beams are a different matter, and I honestly think that the Beam shots are NOT that beautiful, while the Cannon shots DO look beautiful to my eye. But that's a personal artistic preference, nothing more.
As far as options for mods go, it really comes down to a question of [TheUsualSuspects] or [Rapid] or [Snare] or ... in relation to this question, what amounts to [Proton].
The Proton Burn will basically do as much extra damage (roughly) as you would have gotten from a complete firing cycle of the weapon when it procs, and it does this damage directly to Hull and ignores Shields. Additionally, the Proton Burn proc uses a damage type that is barely Resisted, making it relatively effective in comparison to something like Plasma Burn procs. For simplicity, it's probably best to think of the Proton Burn proc as being an "instant" Plasma Burn proc that doesn't require a duration to inflict it's damage. So in that respect, it's probably best to compare Protonic Polarons with Plasma energy weapons, as far as the proc damage is concerned, except that since there's no DoT with Protonics there's nothing to Cleanse and so you get the full damage amount.
A second factor is that the Protonics technically aren't proccing their damage only 25% of the time on Critical Hits. If I'm reading the tooltips right (and assuming the Tooltips are reporting accurately), the Protonic Polarons actually feature a PAIR of 25% chances to proc for Proton Burn damage on Critical Hits ... which adds up to around roughly(ish) a 50% chance(ish) to proc some Proton Burn damage on every Critical Hit.
Now almost every other weapon out there has a fixed 2.5% chance to "do its thing" with very rare exceptions. Protonics are one of those exceptions. Since they are Proc On Crit weapons, this basically means that if you've got a Critical Hit chance of 5-10% or better, you're going to be proccing the Proton Burn more frequently than you would anything else in the 2.5% chance categories. Now whether that's "better" for your build overall than a Disruptor Debuff or a Phaser Disable or whatever else proc you might have had happening instead is something you'll have to decide for yourself based on the remainder of your build. All I'm saying is that all else being equal, it's ballpark comparable when looking at the baseline numbers in the tooltip.
The problem is ... it's very nearly self defeating to try and boost your Proton Burn damage throughput, since there's basically only two sources of bonus Proton damage ... the Protonic Arsenal console and the Auto Target Locator consoles you buy from Dyson Reputation. Unfortunately, even when you make an effort to stack bonus Proton Damage, the stacking factors don't add up all that well.
To give you an example of the disparity, just sitting in orbit with all Power levels around 75-80(ish), my Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV [Acc]x2 Very Rare will dish out around 400-ish DPS. But with Power up around 125 all, the DPS of my Turrets very nearly DOUBLES because of the effects of Weapon Power and EPtW3 and Auxiliary Power: Offense Trait and so on and so forth. But the Proton damage on proc barely moves from like 380 up to 400 or so. So the Proton Burn damage gains very little, while the straight up Polaron damage goes through the roof (metaphorically speaking), and it only takes 2 firing cycles to get it to top out, which is basically 5 seconds (or one Beam firing cycle).
Curiously enough, you might see some halfway decent results out of a Beam Overload build using Protonic Polarons, because the Beam Overload automatically Critical Hits ... but that's a different discussion.
The alternatives are, of course ... [Pen] ... for which nothing more need be said ... or [Rapid] or [Snare] ... or Phased Polarons (phaser disable) or Polarized Disruptors (disruptor debuff).
[Rapid] applies CRF1 for 2 seconds ... which amounts to a single firing cycle ... for all of your Cannons on a 2.5% proc chance. It turns a 2+1=3 second firing cycle into a 1.2+1=2.2 second firing cycle ... for one firing cycle. With a horde of Turrets, it's hard to notice/feel the difference in tempo when the rate of fire changes, but it is there. Basically it makes all your Cannons shoot 0.8 seconds faster ... ONCE ... which doesn't sound all that impressive. It's a +36% increase in DPS (Damage Per Second) from your Cannons (3/2.2=1.36), but it only happens on 2.5% of the firing cycles when you're shooting. The thing is, the more Cannons you've got, the more often this will proc.
6 Cannons with [Rapid] = 14.1% chance to proc per firing cycle
7 Cannons with [Rapid] = 16.2% chance to proc per firing cycle
8 Cannons with [Rapid] = 18.3% chance to proc per firing cycle
7 cannons gets really close to "roll a 1 on 1d6" odds of 16.7% chance with every firing cycle. Basically when you put the DPS increase from [Rapid] together with the proc chance, you get effectively this:
6 Cannons with [Rapid] = +5.076% DPS from [Rapid] on each Cannon while autofiring over infinite time
7 Cannons with [Rapid] = +5.832% DPS from [Rapid] on each Cannon while autofiring over infinite time
8 Cannons with [Rapid] = +6.588% DPS from [Rapid] on each Cannon while autofiring over infinite time
So that's [Rapid] for you. The main thing is, it's powering up the DPS of whatever energy type you're using, rather than relying on a bonus damage proc to do that for you.
Now [Snare] as we've now discovered can be something of an odd beast that no one gives a second thought to these days. BUT ... it can be synergized RELIABLY with Controlled Countermeasures. The [Snare] effect will last as long as the firing cycle (2 seconds, normally, for Cannons) and is applied EVERY TIME the weapon hits, and ends when the weapon goes into Cooldown. It'll cost you a Space Reputation Trait slot to make use of this combination, but it will apply +7% bonus weapon damage on EVERY SHOT you make while the [Snare] effect is active on your target. And that's not even including the "knock on" effects of stacking [Snare] up 6, 7 or even 8 times on a target, giving you -30% to -40% Impulse Speed and Turn Rate in addition to the effects of Plasmonic Leech Drain to Engine Power, slowing your target down even more. And with that slowed speed (assuming you don't get a "turn the lights off" proc of Polaron Power Drain) you increase your Accuracy Overflow potential even more, resulting in shots that hit harder and for more damage than they otherwise would.
This means that [Snare] on Polarons would actually make a "better fit" for achieving extra damage in a Pressure styled build than use of [Rapid], since [Rapid] will tend to deliver performance more in line with opportunistic "spikes" of DPS. Something I neglected to test when I had the opportunity is to determine if [Snare] triggers Control Amplification (I'm presuming it doesn't because [Snare] isn't an activated Skill). So the [Snare] plus Controlled Countermeasures option is "easier" to do consistently, but has a higher "cost" to doing it because it consumes an extra Space Reputation slot, which depending on your build might be A Bridge Too Far. Furthermore, the tooltip for Controlled Countermeasures specifies that it applies bonus WEAPON damage, as opposed to being an All Damage Bonus, so near as I can tell it won't augment your Exotic Damage Skills. That said, being able to apply a strong [Snare] to targets trying to escape from a Gravity Well (particularly strong ones) will aid the "pull" of the hazard and thereby increase the damage throughput via another channel/means. So there are synergistic opportunities to be had with [Snare] above and beyond "mere DPS" modifiers.
As for which is "best" ... near as I can tell, all of the options are relatively close to each other in terms of effectiveness, generally. Depending on a the rest of your build, and your playstyle, certain edge cases can emerge as being more favorable for you based on your own personal preferences.
So the best answer I can give you is that Protonic Polarons are "viable" weapons, particularly on a build using a Science Ultimate (for what should be obvious reasons), but they aren't going to be Total Game Changers™ for most builds. Being able to get "the most" out of them requires building your equipment layout with some slight differences in mind from the usual, but it's not so far fetched as to resemble "go to dark side of moon!" instructions. Still, there is enough lingering misunderstanding about Protonic Polarons, and enough people are set in their ways, that for many the Conventional Wisdom still holds that Protonic Polarons are "trash" and shouldn't be considered by anyone for anything.
Then again, so are Drain Builds in general, since they don't insta-vape on demand, and on top of that they need "ramp up time" before they really get (face) rolling ... and even then it's more of a Death Of A Thousand Cuts as opposed to being more of a BOOM! HEADSHOT! kind of gameplay that puts Absurdly Big Numbers™ on your screen.
Which basically comes back around to the point that if you're going to use Protonic Polarons, you better be ready to guzzle some Kool-Aid so as to start to Think Different™ ... otherwise you'll never "believe" in their potential enough to even try them, let alone commit to supporting them the way they need to be supported. I look at them as being "direct to Hull bonus damage" proc weapons that also let me Drain Power. In a Drain Build (like I'm using), that's useful (to me). Go figure.
SO after all of these posts - was there a Protonic Polaron build that was worth the effort? Because it seems like it may work in like 1 or two builds *fairly*.
While @autumnturning has given you the specifics, I'd like to add that if the person building a ProtPol build is having fun and people playing with those flying ProtPol are having fun as well - yes, absolutely. The thread is here to give people new ideas and show that something other than BFAW-FBP-Plasma exploder combo is also possible, even if not that efficient.
Having personally talked, done queues and tested with OP and other active people in this thread, I have never been disappointed.
While @autumnturning has given you the specifics, I'd like to add that if the person building a ProtPol build is having fun and people playing with those flying ProtPol are having fun as well - yes, absolutely. The thread is here to give people new ideas and show that something other than BFAW-FBP-Plasma exploder combo is also possible, even if not that efficient.
If your idea of "efficient" means causing warp core breaches in the minimum amount of time, then a Drain oriented Pressure Build simply isn't going to be your cup of tea. Causing warp core breaches in the minimum amount of time is a Spike Build specialty, after all.
If your idea of "efficient" means being able to "reliably" cripple your target(s) and Pressure them to destruction over time, then the Protonic Polarons perform quite adequately/beautifully and can get the job done. In order for Drain to apply Pressure there has to be Time Spent attacking, so there's a Delayed Gratification aspect to it all. So like I've said all throughout this thread, you kinda sorta have to drink the Kool-Aid in order to "believe" that the strategy is any good, let alone worth pursuing. It may not be the "fastest" at pushing targets to destruction in mere seconds, but it is a Fun™ build to play ... as you can see from all the testimonials in this thread (and the fact that it's still here and going strong 6 months after I posted the OP for it).
Having personally talked, done queues and tested with OP and other active people in this thread, I have never been disappointed.
@tunebreaker was kind enough to engage in the friendly PvP match that tested the [Snare] modifier for me, and also consented to being shot at by my "softer" Kool-Aid build where I was running the DJCT 4-piece set so as to get a feel for what it was like to be on the receiving end of all that Drain Pressure. We then had a wonderful discussion about "stuff" before we needed to part ways.
Thank you for taking that time out to help me explore yet more aspects with testing those hypotheses, tunebreaker.
/em bow
So to address @welcome2earf and the question posed of whether it was worth the effort (again) ... it was certainly worth it TO ME ... to the point where I felt compelled "this is too good to keep to myself, I have to share this ..."
To my surprise, other people started trying out the principles, mechanics and synergies that I'd discovered, and they also started enjoying their time playing the game again too. It then turned into a bit of a Voyage Of Shared Discovery for us all to try and puzzle out all the angles (and there are a LOT of them!) that switching from Beams to Cannons (in this case, Turrets) had to offer.
For me, the biggest joy was simply being able to "Fly Freely" because Turrets shoot omni-directionally by design, rather than needing to broadside everything all the time. It was uniquely liberating to be able to think more strategically about movement and where I wanted to go NEXT as opposed to being chained to hopping on and off the merry-go-round of always broadsiding. That ALONE was worth the "price of admission" to me.
In my case, the Protonic Polaron Turrets thing was that I loved the Space Barbie of their (to me) uniquely beautiful indigo blue/purple color and the fact that I could CHOOSE the mods that I wanted in the quantity that I wanted without needing to wait for the Exchange to cough up enough copies of what I wanted to be able to get going. In my case, that meant that I had better control over the "tailoring" of my ship's mechanics and could thus "trust the feel" of what I was seeing in game a lot more, simply because I was able to eliminate a lot of variable factors.
As for whether I would recommend Protonic Polarons over other options to anyone else wanting to try out a Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser build?
/em shrug
A lot of it depends on how patient you are at acquiring gear. If you're NOT patient at trying to acquire weapons through Crafting or through the Exchange, because you want "perfect" mods or whatever, then Protonic Polarons make for a compelling option, since you can get WHAT you want, WHEN you want it, and all you have to spend is Dilithium to get them at Mk XII Very Rare, so they're "useful" fresh out of the box. The alternative, of course, would be Advanced Fleet Polaron Turrets which give you a different set of mod choices than Protonic Polarons.
If you ARE patient at trying to acquire weapons through Crafting and/or the Exchange, because you want "perfect" mods or whatever, then you'll probably be happier with something Crafted. In many cases this will mean either [Pen] or [Rapid] or (now) [Snare] depending on your leanings.
So for me, it's more a matter of Protonic Polarons being VIABLE in the sense that they can "get the job done" than it is a matter of them being the Be All/End All clearly superior option. The thing is, people have assumed for so long that Protonic Polaron weapons are "just garbage" from beginning to end in ALL cases that it has hardened into being Conventional Wisdom and now you can't shake that assumption loose, because ... history. They may not be better in ALL cases for ALL builds, but there are certainly some edge cases and builds where Protonic Polarons can "shine" (if you'll let them), and I'd like to think I've found one (or at least, a few) of those cases. But you have to be willing to adjust your thinking to accept that they'll be worth a damn in the first place. Considering that both Drain AND Pressure Builds have been "out of favor" of the game's meta now for so long that I figured "what's one more transgression against the Conventional Wisdom going to hurt?" and ... here we are.
Those who dare ... win.
Anyway, enough blathering(s) from me. Somebody else take the floor for a while.
For me yes. While I haven't gone the full protonics route and thus drunk the kool-aid properly, it got me thinking about dice chucking in general, which gave rise to my Radiation Kool-Aid build concept. Which performs rather well now.
It's broken my mind free of the BFAW cast iron mould that is the current game meta and let me find something totally end game and DPS league worthy.
It could be I'm relying more on the sci skills for the DPS, but the energy weapons and general concept of rolling lots of dice quickly seems to match it perfectly. I'd probably need to switch out cannons for beams and to comparitive DPS runs to check if the dice chucking concept holds weight vs the raw DPS of BFAW beams though.
@autumnturning, have you tried this? Switching turrets/cannons out for beams, putting in BFAW and re-parsing for DPS? Just to see if the idea/concept holds up in practice? At the least if things proc more, and perhaps how DPS overall is affected.
@autumnturning, have you tried this? Switching turrets/cannons out for beams, putting in BFAW and re-parsing for DPS? Just to see if the idea/concept holds up in practice? At the least if things proc more, and perhaps how DPS overall is affected.
Not per se as an effort at comparative parsing and spreadsheet analysis. WAY BACK in March/April/May when I was doing my comparison testing between [Over] Arrays and [Rapid] Turrets, which Turrets won hands down in terms of finishing stuff off on Delta Missions that I was running at the time, I figured I had all the comparison info I really needed from the "feel" of how the differences played in practice.
The last time I got parsed on an ISA run, my build was generating like 8.1k DPS in a run that took less than 3 minutes to complete. Hardly enough time for me to generate the most impressive effects I could get out of my build. However, the parse did reveal that my weapons hit 100% of the time and that Proton Burn procced on approximately 4% of my weapon attacks, which was pretty "decent" for a proc rate (since most are 2.5% chance).
I am curious why you didn't go with the ProtPols that have [CritD] mods. Wouldn't those help boost the prot proc? Have you done an A/B test to check?
I'd expect [CrtH] to raise the number of procs happening, but [CrtD] would only affect the Polaron damage of the Turret's main attack, while doing nothing to the Proton Burn procs. Near as I can tell, the Proton Burn proc is not modified by [CrtD] at all, although I haven't done anywhere NEAR enough regression testing to validate the proposition.
Clearly Thunderfoot wasn't aware I waws in this thread from just about the get-go, so....
I am curious why you didn't go with the ProtPols that have [CritD] mods. Wouldn't those help boost the prot proc? Have you done an A/B test to check?
Well then, please accept my apologies. What I posted was rude and ill-mannered. I had a crappy day at work and took it out on you. This IS NOT an excuse. It is an explanation. I was wrong and I hope you will accept my apology. If you do not, I understand and I have no one to blame but myself, do I?
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
First of all, not a budget build . That being said the ship in question is highly adaptable so it can be used as sort of a template for other ships depending on the cmdr slot.
This particular variant is Sci/Drain heavy, but the universal cmdr slot can be used to employ a heavy engineering variant or a heavy tac variant. An engineering slot can bring it more in line with the original build or can allow for warp plasma 3 or boarding party 3. A Tac heavy slot can allow for use of APB 3 or APO 3, using CSV3 or CRF 3 and adding more TS.
In many ways its the same basic concept but in a hull that can change the nature of the combat to face any situation.
Ok the dreaded wall of text from the converter is next:
**Slot** | **Component** | **Rarity**
:--|:--|:--
**Fore Weapon**
| Quantum Phase Torpedo Launcher Mk XIV | Rare Heavy Shield Drain on Spread
| Thermionic Torpedo Launcher Mk XII | Rare More drains, dont really have anything else I care to put in
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| |
**Aft Weapon**
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| |
**Deflector**
| Terran Task Force Deflector Array Mk XIV | Very Rare More DrainX
| |
**Impulse Engine**
| Temporal Defense Initiative Combat Impulse Engines Mk XIII | Ultra Rare set 1/2 jump 25% Dot/Harard buff
| |
**Warp Core**
| Tal Shiar Adapted Borg Warp Core Mk XIV | Very Rare 1/3 Set
| |
**Shield Array**
| Temporal Defense Initiative Regenerative Shield Array Mk XIII | Ultra Rare More drainx set 2/2
| |
**Engineering Console**
| Console - Engineering - Conductive RCS Accelerator Mk XIV [+Flow] | Ultra Rare More Drain
| Console - Universal - Shrapnel Torpedo Launcher | Epic Set2/3
| Console - Universal - Indoctrination Nanite Dispersal System | Epic set3/3
| Console - Universal - Mining Drill Laser Emitter infin | Epic Dont really need, but a mining drill on this ship...
| |
**Science Console**
| Console - Science - Exotic Particle Field Exciter Mk XIV [+Flow] | Epic More drain
| Console - Science - Flow Capacitor Mk XIV | Epic More drain
| Console - Science - Flow Capacitor Mk XIV | Epic More drain
| Console - Science - Temporal Disentanglement Suite Mk XIV | Very Rare Auxpower/Crh/Crd
| |
**Tactical Console**
| Console - Universal - Plasmonic Leech infin | Epic Yet more drain
| Console - Universal - Rule 62 Multipurpose Combat Mk XIV | Epic Still more drain
| Console - Universal - Quantum Phase Converter Mk XIV | Ultra Rare set 2/2 and did I say drain?
---
##Officers and Crew
**Bridge Officers** | **Power**
:--|:--
**Commander Universal (Science)**
| Science Team I
| Tachyon Beam II With TS 3 piece Tach beams act as if a secondary deflector is installed
| Tachyon Beam III
| Tyken's Rift III
|
**Ensign Universal (Tactical)**
| Tactical Team I
|
**Lieutenant Tactical**
| Torpedo: Spread I
| Cannon: Scatter Volley I
|
**Lieutenant Engineering**
| Structural Integrity Collapse I
| Engineering Team II
|
**Lt. Commander Science**
| Hazard Emitters I
| Destabilizing Resonance Beam I Also works with 3 piece set
| Energy Siphon II
**Duty Officers** | **Power**
:--|:--
Very Rare Deflector Officer | Chance to reduce the recharge time for Deflector abilities
Very Rare Deflector Officer | Chance to reduce the recharge time for Deflector abilities
Very Rare Projectile Weapons Officer | Chance to reduce the time to recharge torpedoes.
VR Energy Weapons Officer | Chance to strip buff from target on cannon fire x2
---
##Character, Reputation, and Starship Traits
**Personal Space Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Astrophysicist | Improves Starship Particle Generators, Flow Capacitors, and Sensors stats.
Efficient Captain | Provides a bonus to Warp Core Efficiency skill, improving all power levels.
Innocuous | Slightly increases Critical Severity, and makes enemies less likely to attack you over other targets.
Operative | Increases Critical Chance and Critical Severity.
Accurate | Improves the accuracy of space weapons.
Deft Cannoneer | Gain Turn Rate and Inertia when activating Cannon skills.
Pattern Recognition | While in combat, your ability to defend against enemy starships will gradually improve, reperesnted by an increase in defense and shield hardness. Can be stacked up to 4 times.
Intense Focus | While in combat, your ability to penetrate enemy defenses will gradually improve, represented by an increase in accuracy and shield penetration. Can be stacked up to 4 times.
Momentum | While in combat, your ability to outmaneuver enemy vessels will gradually improve, represented by an increase in flight speed and turn rate. Can be stacked up to 4 times.
Warp Theorist | Improves Warp Core Potential and Electro-Plasma Systems skills.
**Space Reputation Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Chrono-Capacitor Array | Reduce the recharge time of your Bridge Officer abilities.
Energy Refrequencer | Your directed energy attacks heal you for a portion of the damage dealt.
Radiant Detonation Matrix | Directed energy weapons have a chance to deal additional radiation damage and remove buffs in a small area around the target.
Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense | In space combat you gain a damage and accuracy boost based on your Auxiliary Power Level
**Active Reputation Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Bio-Molecular Shield Generator | Creates a fixed position shield generator, in space combat, that regenerates starship shields and reduces the damage taken by starship shields for allies in the immediate area.
Deploy Sensor Interference Platform | Deploy a Sensor Interference Platform which redirects most weapons fire to itself. The platform generates an inhibiting feedback pulse around nearby allied vessels, reducing the damage of enemies who attack targets other than the platform.
Quantum Singularity Manipulation | Drastically increases all Science Stats for a short time. After a few seconds, your ship will also be cloaked for the remaining duration of the power. You may fire weapons and use abilities normally. Your shields will not go offline.
Refracting Tetryon Cascade | Release a cascading burst of Tetryon energy from your Deflector Dish at foes within 3km. It will refract to two nearby targets dealing less damage with each jump. The charge can only jump 5km to the next target.
**Starship Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
All Hands on Deck | Activating a Tactical or Command Bridge Officer ability will reduce the recharge time of Science Bridge Officer and Captain abilities. This may only occur once every few seconds.
Predictive Algorithms | Activating any Weapon Enhancement ability gives you crew a burst of focus, removing one negative effect from your vessel and improving your ability to hit enemies with your weapons for a short duration.
Particle Feedback Loop | Using an Exotic Damage ability will provide a small bonus to Armor Penetration. This bonus stacks up to 3 times.
Unstable Anomalies | Your Gravity Well and Tyken's Rift anomalies will cause heavy kinetic damage in a 5km area of effect when they expire. This damage is improved by Starship Particle Generator skill.
(BTW minor pet peeve, when I hear budget build Fleet gear in a fleet hull isn't what I'm thinking of)
---
Coruunas-
That's very interesting, but you've got a SIC I and a DRB I, both of which depend on EPG (aka Part Gens), and I don't see where you're getting enough EPG to really make those work. Obviously, the Active Rep Trait QSM gives you a brief +100 to all Sci skills, but that's very brief and has a long recharge.
That said, I grant you I'm coming from a Sci-heavy background, in which I have worshiped at the altar of "MOAR PART GENS!!!!1111oneoneone" for over a year now, so it's entirely possible that I am attaching more importance to this than it really deserves.
Comments
I came across a handy converter tool that lets you input a stoa build and it spits it out in a fairly clean text format (plus the link) so it can do lot of the prepwork and set things up for a line by line explanation, course I just have to remember where I found it.
Ah found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/comments/5466ul/automatic_sto_academy_build_converter/
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
#[Granuaile MK2](http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/bf4cd1317b8a49942ee44f7c43dbc450)
---
##Captain Info
**Category** | **Data**
:--|:--
*Captain Career* | Science
*Captain Faction* | Federation
*Primary Specialization* | Temporal Operative
*Secondary Specialization* | Strategist
---
---
##Build Description
Science Pirate, closeBoarding action
---
##Starship Info
**Category** | **Data**
:--|:--
*Ship Model* | Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit [T5-U]
---
##Starship Loadout
**Slot** | **Component** | **Rarity**
:--|:--|:--
**Fore Weapon**
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare Well duh
| Experimental Proton Weapon Mk XII | Very Rare Allows for use of native Subsys target and low power use
| |
**Aft Weapon**
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare Well Duh
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare "
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare "
| |
**Deflector**
| Terran Task Force Deflector Array Mk XIV | Ultra Rare Drainx
| |
**Secondary Deflector**
| Inhibiting Secondary Deflector Mk XIV [CtrlX] [DrainX] [EPG/ShdHeal] [EPG] [SA +Dmg] | Epic More eveyrthing plus extra rad dmg on tractor
| |
**Impulse Engine**
| Terran Task Force Impulse Engines Mk XIV | Very Rare More drain
| |
**Warp Core**
| Iconian Resistance Hyper Injection Warp Core Mk XIV [AMP] | Ultra Rare Only one I have that has AMP
| |
**Shield Array**
| Iconian Resistance Resilient Shield Array Mk XIV | Ultra Rare Might as well make it a set
| |
**Engineering Console**
| Console - Engineering - Conductive RCS Accelerator Mk XIV [+Flow] | Ultra Rare More drain
| Console - Universal - Rule 62 Multipurpose Combat Mk XIV | Epic "
| Console - Universal - Bounty Hunter's Friend Mk XIV | Very Rare Reduced weapons power need, some +res
| |
**Science Console**
| Console - Science - Exotic Particle Field Exciter Mk XIV [DrainX] | Epic More drain
| Console - Science - Flow Capacitor Mk XIV | Epic "
| Console - Science - Shield Refrequencer Mk XIV [DrainX] | Ultra Rare " plus chance of proton damage
| Console - Science - Temporal Disentanglement Suite Mk XIV | Very Rare More Aux, shields and crit stuff
| Console - Universal - Quantum Phase Converter Mk XIV | Ultra Rare More aux more drain
| |
**Tactical Console**
| Console - Universal - Bioneural Infusion Circuits Mk XIV | Ultra Rare Some extra hull
| Console - Universal - Plasmonic Leech infin | Epic Auto drain
---
##Officers and Crew
**Bridge Officers** | **Power**
:--|:--
**Lieutenant Universal (Tactical)**
| Kemocite-Laced Weaponry I -res
| Cannon: Scatter Volley I
|
**Lieutenant Tactical**
| Tactical Team I
| Cannon: Rapid Fire I
|
**Lt. Commander Engineering**
| Structural Integrity Collapse I -res
| Engineering Team II
| Boarding Party II Yarrgghh
|
**Commander Science**
| Science Team I
| Tractor Beam II Grapple and drain
| Tractor Beam III "
| Viral Matrix III Chaos
|
**Ensign Science**
| Hazard Emitters I
**Duty Officers**
| **Power**
:--|:--
Very Rare Assault Squad Officer | Chance for Boarding Party shuttles to be armed. Extra oomph
Very Rare Tractor Beam Officer | Drains target shields with Tractor Beam More drain
Very Rare Ebergy Weps Officer x2 | Chance to remove buffs on cannon fire Makes life more unpleasant
Very Rare Flight Deck Officer | Chance to double number of shuttle launched More
---
##Character, Reputation, and Starship Traits
**Personal Space Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Ablative Shell | After taking a moderate amount of damage, automatically trigger a large Heal-Over-Time and Damage Resistance effect.
Astrophysicist | Improves Starship Particle Generators, Flow Capacitors, and Sensors stats.
Efficient Captain | Provides a bonus to Warp Core Efficiency skill, improving all power levels.
Invasive Control Programming | When you activate a Control effect on a foe (such as Jam Sensors), add a random Subsystem Offline effect.
Accurate | Improves the accuracy of space weapons.
Pattern Recognition | While in combat, your ability to defend against enemy starships will gradually improve, reperesnted by an increase in defense and shield hardness. Can be stacked up to 4 times.
Operative | Increases Critical Chance and Critical Severity.
Psychological Warfare | Improves the effectiveness of your Control abilities. This includes the following effects: Confuse, Disable, Hold, Knock, Placate, Repel, Root and Slow
Warp Theorist | Improves Warp Core Potential and Electro-Plasma Systems skills.
Innocuous | Slightly increases Critical Severity, and makes enemies less likely to attack you over other targets.
**Space Reputation Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Chrono-Capacitor Array | Reduce the recharge time of your Bridge Officer abilities.
Energy Refrequencer | Your directed energy attacks heal you for a portion of the damage dealt.
Radiant Detonation Matrix | Directed energy weapons have a chance to deal additional radiation damage and remove buffs in a small area around the target.
Aux to Offense | More ACC
**Active Reputation Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Anti-Time Entanglement Singularity | Anti-Time Entanglement Singularity creates an Anti-Time anomaly in the target's immediate vicinity. The singularity causes severe Physical damage to foes caught within while slowing and potentially locking them in place as normal space-time violently interacts with the anomaly. This singularity rapidly shrinks in size until it fully dissipates.
Deploy Sensor Interference Platform | Deploy a Sensor Interference Platform which redirects most weapons fire to itself. The platform generates an inhibiting feedback pulse around nearby allied vessels, reducing the damage of enemies who attack targets other than the platform.
Refracting Tetryon Cascade | Release a cascading burst of Tetryon energy from your Deflector Dish at foes within 3km. It will refract to two nearby targets dealing less damage with each jump. The charge can only jump 5km to the next target.
Bio-Molecular Shield Generator | Creates a fixed position shield generator, in space combat, that regenerates starship shields and reduces the damage taken by starship shields for allies in the immediate area.
**Starship Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
All Hands on Deck | Activating a Tactical or Command Bridge Officer ability will reduce the recharge time of Science Bridge Officer and Captain abilities. This may only occur once every few seconds.
Demolition Teams | While within a short distance of your foe, you will periodically beam over commando squads trained in demolition, to plant charges aboard the enemy vessel. After sufficient charges have been placed, they will be detonated to deal shield-ignoring kinetic damage.
Energy Web | Activation of Beam: Overload, Surgical Strikes or Cannon: Rapid Fire will empower your next attack, causing your foe to be trapped in an Energy Web. Enemies trapped in the Energy Web will suffer heavy shield penetrating physical damage over time and be held briefly. This ability's damage is improved by Auxiliary power and Starship Particle Generators skill. Energy Web can be triggered once every 45 seconds.
Particle Feedback | Using an Exotic Damage ability will provide a small bonus to Armor Penetration. This bonus stacks up to 3 times.
---
*Above was translated automatically from http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/bf4cd1317b8a49942ee44f7c43dbc450 using [Automatic Build Converter](https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/comments/5466ul/automatic_sto_academy_build_converter/), version 2.1.3.0. Questions and problems related to output (but not the build) are to be directed at [Emzi0767](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=eMZi0767&subject=STO+Academy+Converter).*
Here's my Paradox Radiation Kool-Aid build.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/f7e6164f9514a28b2afecd9ab3c9f1e9
It definitely outperforms my first attempt thanks largely to it being a proper sci ship.
Sensor analysis is good but more importantly you get a the secodary deflector.
Using the inhibiting kind, it adds (for me) 10k radiation damage to control abilities, so tractor beam, grav well and photonic shockwave amongst others, but those I am using.
Stack that with Delphic Shockwave trait and shockwave alone piles on over 30K of radiation damage by itself over 5 seconds!!
Once I get my secondary deflector to epic rarity it'll be even more. VR to Ultra, the radiation went up some 4K, so epic could even be near 20K?!
Paradox is slow speed and turn rate so APO is needed, and Aux Injection Assembly for a speed/turn boost when needed plus cat2 exotics boost.
Construction anchor for another Cat2 boost plus another clickable control ability.
Particle exciter I use for it's big Kinetics resist mod in combination with Bounty Hunters console for energy resists. Too squishy for my liking otherwise without either.
Torpedo I'm of 2 minds about. Feels better with it. The other thing to do is all cannons and replace TS with Kemo2 for more radiation dishing uptime.
It's a really nice build. Claimed 1st in CCA a few times. Thinking about it, the Paradox seems the best ship platform for my Radiation dice throwing concept. Although the Annorax is probably just as good, just not as accessible. The secondary deflector seems to really make a big difference as a major source of radiation output.
Endothermic I chose for it's radiation, but really Structural Integrity Collapse will probably work better. Something I'll try later.
Will fly this for a bit, it's quite fun. Then I might try moving this concept over to the Nandi and or Klinzai. Without that Fed ship trait though it's not going to be anywhere near as good.
Over the weekend, with the participation of a member of The Science Channel in a "friendly" PvP match, I was able to confirm that the [Snare] mod for crafted weapons has indeed been fixed at some point. It applies a -5% speed debuff to the $Target only and not to the shooter. This means that use of [Snare] on weapons will synergize rather effectively with the Controlled Countermeasures Trait which offers +7% bonus weapon damage (Cat2), which I will note is NOT an All Damage bonus, according to the tooltip for the Trait.
The weapon used for this testing was a crafted omni-directional beam array. The duration of the [Snare] effect extended for only the duration of the firing cycle. This meant that [Snare] showed up as a Debuff on my screen for 4 seconds during the beam firing cycle, with 1 second of not being present during the weapon's cooldown. The icon showed up with an orange border and looked like a Starfleet "A" symbol.
The only weapon that got tested was a beam array. I don't know what kind of uptime [Snare] would have on a Torpedo (I'm presuming 5 seconds?), so that's something that someone might want to go test at some point. Paging @darkknightucf for mention of possible (Cat2) bonus being available to Torpedoes that would seem to merit testing ...
Under most circumstances, a single [Snare] mod is going to be nearly worthless ... and it certainly has been until this discovery involving synergizing it with Controlled Countermeasures. But this then begs the question ... what about stacking it up? Would stacking 6-8 [Snare] mods for -30% to -40% speed and turn rate yield a useful result that could be exploited by something else?
Well ... there is Gravity Well (and similar) sitting over there, doing more damage closer to the center, so spraying a Cannon Scatter Volley of [Snare]x6 could potentially improve the damage throughput. Same deal for Tyken's Rift if using Temporal Spec so the Rift can "chase" the target and keep them drained more effectively. Same idea applies to use of Singularity Jump for being able to prevent Target(s) from escaping the pull. So basically any Hazard where you want to "pin" a hostile in place would seem to offer a bit of synergy for a [Snare] mod to amplify the effects of. Likewise, I'd imagine that it would be relevant to both Tractor Beam and Repulsors, for what should be obvious reasons.
And that's before considering the (meager?) effects of Accuracy Overflow. However, since you can't get [Snare] mods on Protonic Polarons, this becomes less of a consideration, but could potentially be useful for some of the less common flavors of energy damage. To be more specific (and less Cryptic?) I'm now wondering about the potential of a crafted collection of Plasma [Snare] weapons backed by Embassy Plasma consoles which are in turn being augmented by Controlled Countermeasures (+7% damage bonus) and by Temporal Specialization to bring Atrophied Defenses II (2.5% chance: When activating a DOT effect on Foe: to target: -10 All Damage Resistance Rating for 10sec) and Entropic Amplification II (+20% All Damage for all Space Damage-Over-Time effects) into play via Plasma Burn DoT. Do it with 6 Turrets for maximum "dice chucking" and ...
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
The 8 Sep 2016 Release Note had this little tidbit in it:
Now WAY BACK in the day, I'd built myself some MACO sets for my Starfleet captains, and I still had them lying around (Mk XII Very Rare), so it was easy for me to take them out of mothballs and take them for a test drive against the Borg Red Alert and the Tholian Red Alert and a KSA and ISA run.
And you know what? It works.
In this case, I was using the Terran Deflector and Terran Warp Core and combining it with the M.A.C.O. Impulse Engine and the M.A.C.O. Shield. The reason for this specific combination was what happens with the combined Terran and M.A.C.O. 2-piece set bonuses, respectively.
Since I've unlocked on my AoY captain "permission" to build new Reputation gear at Mk XIII Ultra Rare, all I needed to do was spend ECs, Widgets, Dilithium and Reputation Marks to upgrade my gear for my captain using the Terran set. The combined result yields:
Around +90-ish [DrainX] modifier just from Deflector, Impulse, Core and Shields and counting both set bonuses
A [SciCD] mod on the Deflector which yields +50 Starship Scientific Readiness
Warp 20.11 cruising speed in sector space when choosing Sector Speed over Transwarp Cooldown in your Space Skills unlocks
Power Levels can ultimately reach 130/130/130/130 in sustained combat, thanks to the Terran Core
But the REAL kicker is the +5% Power Recharge Speed modifier. It affects * EVERYTHING *. And when I say that, I mean it affects everything(!) that's a Skill/Power with a cooldown speed (it doesn't affect Weapon Cooldown timers though because Neutronic plus Gel Pack doesn't go below 12.5s).
Anti-Time Entanglement Field, an Active Reputation Skill, drops from 5m to 4m45s.
Grant Diplomatic Immunity, a Diplomacy Rank Skill, drops from 15s to 14s.
Captain Skills have their cooldown times drop.
Bridge Officer Skills have their cooldown times drop.
Just to test out the proposition of building for a maximal cooldown reduction by putting the Bio-Neural Gel Pack (and Neutronic Torpedo Launcher) to see what would happen when combining all that with the [SciCD] from the Terran Deflector ... because at that point I was looking at +32.5% combined cooldown reduction on my BOff Science Skills. And sure enough, there was Gravity Well and Tyken's Rift showing cooldown times of 45.45s ... and Science Team is down to 22.72s.
I then decided to buy myself a complete new Protonic Arsenal set at MK XIII Ultra Rare, although I wound up ultimately keeping only the Torpedo and the Console in my build, just to raise the [CrtH] of my entire build and bring more Proton Burn procs to bear. In this specific case, I deemed the [CrtD] bonus of adding the Experimental Proton Weapon a net minus overall.
So right now, I'm looking at using the following in my Fleet Support Cruiser Retrofit T5-U:
Fore:
Gravimetric Torpedo Mk XIII Ultra Rare [CrtH]
Neutronic Torpedo Mk XIII Ultra Rare [CrtH]
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Aft:
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV Very Rare [Acc]x2
Terran Task Force Deflector Array Mk XIII Ultra Rare [SciCD]
M.A.C.O Impulse Engines Mk XIII Ultra Rare [Turn]
Terran Task Force Quantum Capacitor Warp Core Mk XIII Ultra Rare [AMP]
M.A.C.O. Resilient Shield Array Mk XIII Ultra Rare [Reg]
Conductive RCS Accelerator Mk XII Ultra Rare [DrainX]
Plasmonic Leech Epic
Proton Particle Stabilizer Mk XIII Ultra Rare
Bio-Neural Gel Pack Mk XIII Ultra Rare
Restorative Particle Focuser Mk XII [DrainX]x2
Restorative Particle Focuser Mk XII [DrainX]x2
Restorative Particle Focuser Mk XII [DrainX]x2
Restorative Particle Focuser Mk XII [DrainX]x2
Vulnerability Locator Mk XII [+Pol]
Vulnerability Locator Mk XII [+Pol]
Vulnerability Locator Mk XII [+Pol]
My loadout for BOff Skills and Duty Officers remains substantially unchanged from previous posts. Sitting quietly in orbit, with my Balance Budget Build for Space Skills I have no problem keeping all of my Power Levels over 75 at all times, meaning an extra +13.2% bonus damage (Cat2) which makes a really big difference in damage throughput with this setup.
Needless to say, at the moment I'm laying in a stockpile of Superior Upgrades in anticipation of the next Upgrade Weekend to finally take this build to Mk XIV Epic, which ought to push this whole experiment "over the top" in terms of throughput performance.
The thing is, now I'm looking at this and wondering about perhaps dropping the Protonic Arsenal set (Torpedo and Console) and seeing if I can shoehorn this whole thing into a Solanae Dyson Science Destroyer for my AoY Science captain ... and if I can, what might that mean for a Romulan Tactical captain who can put Romulan BOffs with Superior Romulan Operative onto every station and REALLY crank up the [CrtH] mods for the entire build in the Aves Dyson Science Destroyer, which incidentally has a Romulan Battle Cloak ... which would get powered up even more by all those BOffs with Superior Romulan Operative ...
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
Honestly, I strongly discommend the DSD. Granted, I was working with the Klingon version, rather than the Rommie, but for me it was a huge disappointment.
I was also trying the DSD out for my Romulan Engineer (was using a non-budget version with all the bells and whistles) and it just felt lacking, of course I work without fleet gear so that may make the diff for someone else.
Another non budget version I am starting to work on for my romulan is a Kara build
To be honest, with a Romulan Aves DSD, I'd be strongly tempted to abandon the "Down The Drain" aspect of what I've been doing here in favor of a Romulan Plasma setup that relies on Plasma Burn from both Weapons and Science Consoles ... because ... Romulan Captain ... but then that would wind up being a remarkably Power Level "poor" build if I abandoned the [DrainX] side of things, so it would be an entirely different challenge of sorts. Doesn't stop me noodling with the notion, because there's always that nagging feeling in the back of my head that DSDs "ought to" make useful Protonic Polaron platforms, even if in actual practice they're kind of lacking in practice.
Heck, with a Romulan Aves DSD, I can easily see a complete revision of preferred tactics towards a Hit&Fade type of fighting style where Spike rather than Pressure is the name of the game, meaning switching from a Cruiser/360 build orientation towards something more like a Science/Forward orientation where to uncloak with Cannons blazing and then 10 seconds later re-cloak so as to swing around and re-engage from another vector. Probably want to work with Dual (non-heavy) Cannons forward and Turrets aft in that case so as to orient around a more "intermittent" fighting style suitable for Romulans.
And guess what ... something like that seems like it would really be advantaged by either going Protonic Polarons or crafted Polarons with either [Snare] and/or [Rapid] for quick Hit&Fade engagements. I'm not expecting it to be The New Hotness(tm), but I'd like to find out if it is, well ... viable. I'm wondering if it'll be "successful" as opposed to be "overwhelming" ... so that I can do something cool and clever that's outside the usual range of what people do.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
As for becoming The New Hotness™ (at all) ... I blame ... er ... um ...
Oops.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
My rom has both vadwaurr traits so I thought I'd use those
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Yup, see my build near top of this page.
I haven't checked to quantify how much it adds to damage before. Just did now for you.
Power _ dmg without 2-set _ dmg with 2-set
GW3 _ 2530 _ 2675
TBR1 _ 2692 _ 2692
SIC2 _ 1166 _ 1230
SV3 _ 4691 _ 4960
DRB3 _ 2372 _ 2372
Delphic Anomaly with Photonic Shockwave _ 1996 _ 2099
EWP1 _ 1113 _ 1168
Delphic and EWP gain laughably small amounts of extra damage. Broken on those?
As advertised, the damage increase is "blink and you'll miss it" because it is (using r/stobuilds terminology) classified as a (Cat1) damage modifier. This means that it ADDS +25% damage to the BASE quantity of damage, rather than MULTIPLYING the total yield by x1.25. It's basically the same thing as adding a Tactical Console, in that respect, except that instead of powering up weapons, the set bonus powers up DoTs and Hazards, like Gravity Well and Tyken's Rift (and so on and so forth). Don't expect it to make a tremendous amount of difference for you on the damage bonus.
The one thing that I have been using it for is that the set offers a uniquely intermittent buff that applies when using Team Skills on your BOffs when you've got 3 pieces of the set. I'll hit Tactical, Science and Engineering Team when crossing the 12 km range while at 100% throttle in PvE so that all three Team skills have time to resolve just as I'm crossing the 10 km range to target and can then unload Gravity Well and Scramble Sensors before the buff expires. The combination gives me +60 Control and +60 Drain.
My Sci-Kor really appreciates having the Impulse Engine since it cleanses 1 debuff upon heal, which can dispose of a single plasma fire burn proc without needing to resort to Hazard Emitters. I like the Warp Core because it offers fast sector space travel speed.
However, in a lot of ways, the set does leave a number of things to be desired, particularly in comparison to the Iconian Set.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
think i'd rather they dropped the 25% down to 5% and change it to cat2, because that bonus isn't worth jack at the moment, especially since it doeasn't even boost TBR's or DRB's damage at all, despite those both being DoTs
i don't even wanna know how little it boosts plasma burn, because that's already pathetically low as it is
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I dunno, maybe you should read first, then troll. I realize some of those really big words might be complicated for you. (Note: Hooked on Phonics is your friend!) I also realize without lots of pictures of scantily clad women, your interest level quickly wanes. (DOOOOOD!!! LOOK!!! TRIBBLE!!! snicker-snicker-giggle-snort) However if you put down the Cheetos and the Diet Mountain Dew and actually read the posts, you might acquire some knowledge. (GASP! How dare you make me learn something! The nerve!)
I would first like to apologize for the unnecessary rudeness that @thunderfoot006 just displayed. I sincerely feel that those words were uncalled for.
/em bow
With respect to your question ... it really depends on what you're trying to get out of Protonic Polarons. They are by no means an "IWIN!" button by any stretch of the imagination. I can also understand the viewpoint that they are more trouble than they're worth in comparison to the options.
In terms of Space Barbie, I personally feel that they are worth the effort, because they have this lovely indigo coloring to them which you really don't see from anything else. This makes them special and unique to see in action when watching Cannon bolts fly towards your target. Beams are a different matter, and I honestly think that the Beam shots are NOT that beautiful, while the Cannon shots DO look beautiful to my eye. But that's a personal artistic preference, nothing more.
As far as options for mods go, it really comes down to a question of [TheUsualSuspects] or [Rapid] or [Snare] or ... in relation to this question, what amounts to [Proton].
The Proton Burn will basically do as much extra damage (roughly) as you would have gotten from a complete firing cycle of the weapon when it procs, and it does this damage directly to Hull and ignores Shields. Additionally, the Proton Burn proc uses a damage type that is barely Resisted, making it relatively effective in comparison to something like Plasma Burn procs. For simplicity, it's probably best to think of the Proton Burn proc as being an "instant" Plasma Burn proc that doesn't require a duration to inflict it's damage. So in that respect, it's probably best to compare Protonic Polarons with Plasma energy weapons, as far as the proc damage is concerned, except that since there's no DoT with Protonics there's nothing to Cleanse and so you get the full damage amount.
A second factor is that the Protonics technically aren't proccing their damage only 25% of the time on Critical Hits. If I'm reading the tooltips right (and assuming the Tooltips are reporting accurately), the Protonic Polarons actually feature a PAIR of 25% chances to proc for Proton Burn damage on Critical Hits ... which adds up to around roughly(ish) a 50% chance(ish) to proc some Proton Burn damage on every Critical Hit.
Now almost every other weapon out there has a fixed 2.5% chance to "do its thing" with very rare exceptions. Protonics are one of those exceptions. Since they are Proc On Crit weapons, this basically means that if you've got a Critical Hit chance of 5-10% or better, you're going to be proccing the Proton Burn more frequently than you would anything else in the 2.5% chance categories. Now whether that's "better" for your build overall than a Disruptor Debuff or a Phaser Disable or whatever else proc you might have had happening instead is something you'll have to decide for yourself based on the remainder of your build. All I'm saying is that all else being equal, it's ballpark comparable when looking at the baseline numbers in the tooltip.
The problem is ... it's very nearly self defeating to try and boost your Proton Burn damage throughput, since there's basically only two sources of bonus Proton damage ... the Protonic Arsenal console and the Auto Target Locator consoles you buy from Dyson Reputation. Unfortunately, even when you make an effort to stack bonus Proton Damage, the stacking factors don't add up all that well.
To give you an example of the disparity, just sitting in orbit with all Power levels around 75-80(ish), my Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XIV [Acc]x2 Very Rare will dish out around 400-ish DPS. But with Power up around 125 all, the DPS of my Turrets very nearly DOUBLES because of the effects of Weapon Power and EPtW3 and Auxiliary Power: Offense Trait and so on and so forth. But the Proton damage on proc barely moves from like 380 up to 400 or so. So the Proton Burn damage gains very little, while the straight up Polaron damage goes through the roof (metaphorically speaking), and it only takes 2 firing cycles to get it to top out, which is basically 5 seconds (or one Beam firing cycle).
Curiously enough, you might see some halfway decent results out of a Beam Overload build using Protonic Polarons, because the Beam Overload automatically Critical Hits ... but that's a different discussion.
The alternatives are, of course ... [Pen] ... for which nothing more need be said ... or [Rapid] or [Snare] ... or Phased Polarons (phaser disable) or Polarized Disruptors (disruptor debuff).
[Rapid] applies CRF1 for 2 seconds ... which amounts to a single firing cycle ... for all of your Cannons on a 2.5% proc chance. It turns a 2+1=3 second firing cycle into a 1.2+1=2.2 second firing cycle ... for one firing cycle. With a horde of Turrets, it's hard to notice/feel the difference in tempo when the rate of fire changes, but it is there. Basically it makes all your Cannons shoot 0.8 seconds faster ... ONCE ... which doesn't sound all that impressive. It's a +36% increase in DPS (Damage Per Second) from your Cannons (3/2.2=1.36), but it only happens on 2.5% of the firing cycles when you're shooting. The thing is, the more Cannons you've got, the more often this will proc.
6 Cannons with [Rapid] = 14.1% chance to proc per firing cycle
7 Cannons with [Rapid] = 16.2% chance to proc per firing cycle
8 Cannons with [Rapid] = 18.3% chance to proc per firing cycle
7 cannons gets really close to "roll a 1 on 1d6" odds of 16.7% chance with every firing cycle. Basically when you put the DPS increase from [Rapid] together with the proc chance, you get effectively this:
6 Cannons with [Rapid] = +5.076% DPS from [Rapid] on each Cannon while autofiring over infinite time
7 Cannons with [Rapid] = +5.832% DPS from [Rapid] on each Cannon while autofiring over infinite time
8 Cannons with [Rapid] = +6.588% DPS from [Rapid] on each Cannon while autofiring over infinite time
So that's [Rapid] for you. The main thing is, it's powering up the DPS of whatever energy type you're using, rather than relying on a bonus damage proc to do that for you.
Now [Snare] as we've now discovered can be something of an odd beast that no one gives a second thought to these days. BUT ... it can be synergized RELIABLY with Controlled Countermeasures. The [Snare] effect will last as long as the firing cycle (2 seconds, normally, for Cannons) and is applied EVERY TIME the weapon hits, and ends when the weapon goes into Cooldown. It'll cost you a Space Reputation Trait slot to make use of this combination, but it will apply +7% bonus weapon damage on EVERY SHOT you make while the [Snare] effect is active on your target. And that's not even including the "knock on" effects of stacking [Snare] up 6, 7 or even 8 times on a target, giving you -30% to -40% Impulse Speed and Turn Rate in addition to the effects of Plasmonic Leech Drain to Engine Power, slowing your target down even more. And with that slowed speed (assuming you don't get a "turn the lights off" proc of Polaron Power Drain) you increase your Accuracy Overflow potential even more, resulting in shots that hit harder and for more damage than they otherwise would.
This means that [Snare] on Polarons would actually make a "better fit" for achieving extra damage in a Pressure styled build than use of [Rapid], since [Rapid] will tend to deliver performance more in line with opportunistic "spikes" of DPS. Something I neglected to test when I had the opportunity is to determine if [Snare] triggers Control Amplification (I'm presuming it doesn't because [Snare] isn't an activated Skill). So the [Snare] plus Controlled Countermeasures option is "easier" to do consistently, but has a higher "cost" to doing it because it consumes an extra Space Reputation slot, which depending on your build might be A Bridge Too Far. Furthermore, the tooltip for Controlled Countermeasures specifies that it applies bonus WEAPON damage, as opposed to being an All Damage Bonus, so near as I can tell it won't augment your Exotic Damage Skills. That said, being able to apply a strong [Snare] to targets trying to escape from a Gravity Well (particularly strong ones) will aid the "pull" of the hazard and thereby increase the damage throughput via another channel/means. So there are synergistic opportunities to be had with [Snare] above and beyond "mere DPS" modifiers.
As for which is "best" ... near as I can tell, all of the options are relatively close to each other in terms of effectiveness, generally. Depending on a the rest of your build, and your playstyle, certain edge cases can emerge as being more favorable for you based on your own personal preferences.
So the best answer I can give you is that Protonic Polarons are "viable" weapons, particularly on a build using a Science Ultimate (for what should be obvious reasons), but they aren't going to be Total Game Changers™ for most builds. Being able to get "the most" out of them requires building your equipment layout with some slight differences in mind from the usual, but it's not so far fetched as to resemble "go to dark side of moon!" instructions. Still, there is enough lingering misunderstanding about Protonic Polarons, and enough people are set in their ways, that for many the Conventional Wisdom still holds that Protonic Polarons are "trash" and shouldn't be considered by anyone for anything.
Then again, so are Drain Builds in general, since they don't insta-vape on demand, and on top of that they need "ramp up time" before they really get (face) rolling ... and even then it's more of a Death Of A Thousand Cuts as opposed to being more of a BOOM! HEADSHOT! kind of gameplay that puts Absurdly Big Numbers™ on your screen.
Which basically comes back around to the point that if you're going to use Protonic Polarons, you better be ready to guzzle some Kool-Aid so as to start to Think Different™ ... otherwise you'll never "believe" in their potential enough to even try them, let alone commit to supporting them the way they need to be supported. I look at them as being "direct to Hull bonus damage" proc weapons that also let me Drain Power. In a Drain Build (like I'm using), that's useful (to me). Go figure.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
While @autumnturning has given you the specifics, I'd like to add that if the person building a ProtPol build is having fun and people playing with those flying ProtPol are having fun as well - yes, absolutely. The thread is here to give people new ideas and show that something other than BFAW-FBP-Plasma exploder combo is also possible, even if not that efficient.
Having personally talked, done queues and tested with OP and other active people in this thread, I have never been disappointed.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
If your idea of "efficient" means being able to "reliably" cripple your target(s) and Pressure them to destruction over time, then the Protonic Polarons perform quite adequately/beautifully and can get the job done. In order for Drain to apply Pressure there has to be Time Spent attacking, so there's a Delayed Gratification aspect to it all. So like I've said all throughout this thread, you kinda sorta have to drink the Kool-Aid in order to "believe" that the strategy is any good, let alone worth pursuing. It may not be the "fastest" at pushing targets to destruction in mere seconds, but it is a Fun™ build to play ... as you can see from all the testimonials in this thread (and the fact that it's still here and going strong 6 months after I posted the OP for it).
@tunebreaker was kind enough to engage in the friendly PvP match that tested the [Snare] modifier for me, and also consented to being shot at by my "softer" Kool-Aid build where I was running the DJCT 4-piece set so as to get a feel for what it was like to be on the receiving end of all that Drain Pressure. We then had a wonderful discussion about "stuff" before we needed to part ways.
Thank you for taking that time out to help me explore yet more aspects with testing those hypotheses, tunebreaker.
/em bow
So to address @welcome2earf and the question posed of whether it was worth the effort (again) ... it was certainly worth it TO ME ... to the point where I felt compelled "this is too good to keep to myself, I have to share this ..."
To my surprise, other people started trying out the principles, mechanics and synergies that I'd discovered, and they also started enjoying their time playing the game again too. It then turned into a bit of a Voyage Of Shared Discovery for us all to try and puzzle out all the angles (and there are a LOT of them!) that switching from Beams to Cannons (in this case, Turrets) had to offer.
For me, the biggest joy was simply being able to "Fly Freely" because Turrets shoot omni-directionally by design, rather than needing to broadside everything all the time. It was uniquely liberating to be able to think more strategically about movement and where I wanted to go NEXT as opposed to being chained to hopping on and off the merry-go-round of always broadsiding. That ALONE was worth the "price of admission" to me.
In my case, the Protonic Polaron Turrets thing was that I loved the Space Barbie of their (to me) uniquely beautiful indigo blue/purple color and the fact that I could CHOOSE the mods that I wanted in the quantity that I wanted without needing to wait for the Exchange to cough up enough copies of what I wanted to be able to get going. In my case, that meant that I had better control over the "tailoring" of my ship's mechanics and could thus "trust the feel" of what I was seeing in game a lot more, simply because I was able to eliminate a lot of variable factors.
As for whether I would recommend Protonic Polarons over other options to anyone else wanting to try out a Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser build?
/em shrug
A lot of it depends on how patient you are at acquiring gear. If you're NOT patient at trying to acquire weapons through Crafting or through the Exchange, because you want "perfect" mods or whatever, then Protonic Polarons make for a compelling option, since you can get WHAT you want, WHEN you want it, and all you have to spend is Dilithium to get them at Mk XII Very Rare, so they're "useful" fresh out of the box. The alternative, of course, would be Advanced Fleet Polaron Turrets which give you a different set of mod choices than Protonic Polarons.
If you ARE patient at trying to acquire weapons through Crafting and/or the Exchange, because you want "perfect" mods or whatever, then you'll probably be happier with something Crafted. In many cases this will mean either [Pen] or [Rapid] or (now) [Snare] depending on your leanings.
So for me, it's more a matter of Protonic Polarons being VIABLE in the sense that they can "get the job done" than it is a matter of them being the Be All/End All clearly superior option. The thing is, people have assumed for so long that Protonic Polaron weapons are "just garbage" from beginning to end in ALL cases that it has hardened into being Conventional Wisdom and now you can't shake that assumption loose, because ... history. They may not be better in ALL cases for ALL builds, but there are certainly some edge cases and builds where Protonic Polarons can "shine" (if you'll let them), and I'd like to think I've found one (or at least, a few) of those cases. But you have to be willing to adjust your thinking to accept that they'll be worth a damn in the first place. Considering that both Drain AND Pressure Builds have been "out of favor" of the game's meta now for so long that I figured "what's one more transgression against the Conventional Wisdom going to hurt?" and ... here we are.
Those who dare ... win.
Anyway, enough blathering(s) from me. Somebody else take the floor for a while.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
For me yes. While I haven't gone the full protonics route and thus drunk the kool-aid properly, it got me thinking about dice chucking in general, which gave rise to my Radiation Kool-Aid build concept. Which performs rather well now.
It's broken my mind free of the BFAW cast iron mould that is the current game meta and let me find something totally end game and DPS league worthy.
It could be I'm relying more on the sci skills for the DPS, but the energy weapons and general concept of rolling lots of dice quickly seems to match it perfectly. I'd probably need to switch out cannons for beams and to comparitive DPS runs to check if the dice chucking concept holds weight vs the raw DPS of BFAW beams though.
@autumnturning, have you tried this? Switching turrets/cannons out for beams, putting in BFAW and re-parsing for DPS? Just to see if the idea/concept holds up in practice? At the least if things proc more, and perhaps how DPS overall is affected.
I am curious why you didn't go with the ProtPols that have [CritD] mods. Wouldn't those help boost the prot proc? Have you done an A/B test to check?
The last time I got parsed on an ISA run, my build was generating like 8.1k DPS in a run that took less than 3 minutes to complete. Hardly enough time for me to generate the most impressive effects I could get out of my build. However, the parse did reveal that my weapons hit 100% of the time and that Proton Burn procced on approximately 4% of my weapon attacks, which was pretty "decent" for a proc rate (since most are 2.5% chance).
I'd expect [CrtH] to raise the number of procs happening, but [CrtD] would only affect the Polaron damage of the Turret's main attack, while doing nothing to the Proton Burn procs. Near as I can tell, the Proton Burn proc is not modified by [CrtD] at all, although I haven't done anywhere NEAR enough regression testing to validate the proposition.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
Well then, please accept my apologies. What I posted was rude and ill-mannered. I had a crappy day at work and took it out on you. This IS NOT an excuse. It is an explanation. I was wrong and I hope you will accept my apology. If you do not, I understand and I have no one to blame but myself, do I?
First of all, not a budget build . That being said the ship in question is highly adaptable so it can be used as sort of a template for other ships depending on the cmdr slot.
A Tal Shiar Adapted Battlecruiser
This particular variant is Sci/Drain heavy, but the universal cmdr slot can be used to employ a heavy engineering variant or a heavy tac variant. An engineering slot can bring it more in line with the original build or can allow for warp plasma 3 or boarding party 3. A Tac heavy slot can allow for use of APB 3 or APO 3, using CSV3 or CRF 3 and adding more TS.
In many ways its the same basic concept but in a hull that can change the nature of the combat to face any situation.
Ok the dreaded wall of text from the converter is next:
#[Granya-type3](http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/ac834bd0101e2b31eabf493c51aad28d)
---
##Captain Info
**Category** | **Data**
:--|:--
*Captain Career* | Science
*Captain Faction* | Federation
*Primary Specialization* | Intel
*Secondary Specialization* | Command
---
#
---
##Starship Info
**Category** | **Data**
:--|:--
*Ship Model* | Tal Shiar Adapted Battle Cruiser [T5-U]
---
##Starship Loadout
**Slot** | **Component** | **Rarity**
:--|:--|:--
**Fore Weapon**
| Quantum Phase Torpedo Launcher Mk XIV | Rare Heavy Shield Drain on Spread
| Thermionic Torpedo Launcher Mk XII | Rare More drains, dont really have anything else I care to put in
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| |
**Aft Weapon**
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| Protonic Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2 | Very Rare
| |
**Deflector**
| Terran Task Force Deflector Array Mk XIV | Very Rare More DrainX
| |
**Impulse Engine**
| Temporal Defense Initiative Combat Impulse Engines Mk XIII | Ultra Rare set 1/2 jump 25% Dot/Harard buff
| |
**Warp Core**
| Tal Shiar Adapted Borg Warp Core Mk XIV | Very Rare 1/3 Set
| |
**Shield Array**
| Temporal Defense Initiative Regenerative Shield Array Mk XIII | Ultra Rare More drainx set 2/2
| |
**Engineering Console**
| Console - Engineering - Conductive RCS Accelerator Mk XIV [+Flow] | Ultra Rare More Drain
| Console - Universal - Shrapnel Torpedo Launcher | Epic Set2/3
| Console - Universal - Indoctrination Nanite Dispersal System | Epic set3/3
| Console - Universal - Mining Drill Laser Emitter infin | Epic Dont really need, but a mining drill on this ship...
| |
**Science Console**
| Console - Science - Exotic Particle Field Exciter Mk XIV [+Flow] | Epic More drain
| Console - Science - Flow Capacitor Mk XIV | Epic More drain
| Console - Science - Flow Capacitor Mk XIV | Epic More drain
| Console - Science - Temporal Disentanglement Suite Mk XIV | Very Rare Auxpower/Crh/Crd
| |
**Tactical Console**
| Console - Universal - Plasmonic Leech infin | Epic Yet more drain
| Console - Universal - Rule 62 Multipurpose Combat Mk XIV | Epic Still more drain
| Console - Universal - Quantum Phase Converter Mk XIV | Ultra Rare set 2/2 and did I say drain?
---
##Officers and Crew
**Bridge Officers** | **Power**
:--|:--
**Commander Universal (Science)**
| Science Team I
| Tachyon Beam II With TS 3 piece Tach beams act as if a secondary deflector is installed
| Tachyon Beam III
| Tyken's Rift III
|
**Ensign Universal (Tactical)**
| Tactical Team I
|
**Lieutenant Tactical**
| Torpedo: Spread I
| Cannon: Scatter Volley I
|
**Lieutenant Engineering**
| Structural Integrity Collapse I
| Engineering Team II
|
**Lt. Commander Science**
| Hazard Emitters I
| Destabilizing Resonance Beam I Also works with 3 piece set
| Energy Siphon II
**Duty Officers** | **Power**
:--|:--
Very Rare Deflector Officer | Chance to reduce the recharge time for Deflector abilities
Very Rare Deflector Officer | Chance to reduce the recharge time for Deflector abilities
Very Rare Projectile Weapons Officer | Chance to reduce the time to recharge torpedoes.
VR Energy Weapons Officer | Chance to strip buff from target on cannon fire x2
---
##Character, Reputation, and Starship Traits
**Personal Space Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Astrophysicist | Improves Starship Particle Generators, Flow Capacitors, and Sensors stats.
Efficient Captain | Provides a bonus to Warp Core Efficiency skill, improving all power levels.
Innocuous | Slightly increases Critical Severity, and makes enemies less likely to attack you over other targets.
Operative | Increases Critical Chance and Critical Severity.
Accurate | Improves the accuracy of space weapons.
Deft Cannoneer | Gain Turn Rate and Inertia when activating Cannon skills.
Pattern Recognition | While in combat, your ability to defend against enemy starships will gradually improve, reperesnted by an increase in defense and shield hardness. Can be stacked up to 4 times.
Intense Focus | While in combat, your ability to penetrate enemy defenses will gradually improve, represented by an increase in accuracy and shield penetration. Can be stacked up to 4 times.
Momentum | While in combat, your ability to outmaneuver enemy vessels will gradually improve, represented by an increase in flight speed and turn rate. Can be stacked up to 4 times.
Warp Theorist | Improves Warp Core Potential and Electro-Plasma Systems skills.
**Space Reputation Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Chrono-Capacitor Array | Reduce the recharge time of your Bridge Officer abilities.
Energy Refrequencer | Your directed energy attacks heal you for a portion of the damage dealt.
Radiant Detonation Matrix | Directed energy weapons have a chance to deal additional radiation damage and remove buffs in a small area around the target.
Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense | In space combat you gain a damage and accuracy boost based on your Auxiliary Power Level
**Active Reputation Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
Bio-Molecular Shield Generator | Creates a fixed position shield generator, in space combat, that regenerates starship shields and reduces the damage taken by starship shields for allies in the immediate area.
Deploy Sensor Interference Platform | Deploy a Sensor Interference Platform which redirects most weapons fire to itself. The platform generates an inhibiting feedback pulse around nearby allied vessels, reducing the damage of enemies who attack targets other than the platform.
Quantum Singularity Manipulation | Drastically increases all Science Stats for a short time. After a few seconds, your ship will also be cloaked for the remaining duration of the power. You may fire weapons and use abilities normally. Your shields will not go offline.
Refracting Tetryon Cascade | Release a cascading burst of Tetryon energy from your Deflector Dish at foes within 3km. It will refract to two nearby targets dealing less damage with each jump. The charge can only jump 5km to the next target.
**Starship Traits** | **Description**
:--|:--
All Hands on Deck | Activating a Tactical or Command Bridge Officer ability will reduce the recharge time of Science Bridge Officer and Captain abilities. This may only occur once every few seconds.
Predictive Algorithms | Activating any Weapon Enhancement ability gives you crew a burst of focus, removing one negative effect from your vessel and improving your ability to hit enemies with your weapons for a short duration.
Particle Feedback Loop | Using an Exotic Damage ability will provide a small bonus to Armor Penetration. This bonus stacks up to 3 times.
Unstable Anomalies | Your Gravity Well and Tyken's Rift anomalies will cause heavy kinetic damage in a 5km area of effect when they expire. This damage is improved by Starship Particle Generator skill.
(BTW minor pet peeve, when I hear budget build Fleet gear in a fleet hull isn't what I'm thinking of)
---
*Above was translated automatically from http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/ac834bd0101e2b31eabf493c51aad28d using [Automatic Build Converter](https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/comments/5466ul/automatic_sto_academy_build_converter/), version 2.1.3.0. Questions and problems related to output (but not the build) are to be directed at [Emzi0767](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=eMZi0767&subject=STO+Academy+Converter).*
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
That's very interesting, but you've got a SIC I and a DRB I, both of which depend on EPG (aka Part Gens), and I don't see where you're getting enough EPG to really make those work. Obviously, the Active Rep Trait QSM gives you a brief +100 to all Sci skills, but that's very brief and has a long recharge.
That said, I grant you I'm coming from a Sci-heavy background, in which I have worshiped at the altar of "MOAR PART GENS!!!!1111oneoneone" for over a year now, so it's entirely possible that I am attaching more importance to this than it really deserves.