Career Paths Choosing Different Ships

raj011

Hello everyone,

What are the positives and negatives now of officers choosing different ships to their career paths? For example tactical officer choosing a science ship. I know some of the positives and negatives of this example. One negative is that the tactical officer will not be able to use sensor analysis, which science officers can with science ships.

jaguarskx

It's not really about positives and negatives. It's more about what you want to have fun with. Sensor Analysis is not a captain ability, it is a starship ability that only science vessels have. Perhaps you are mixing it up with Sensor Scan which is an ability science captain has. You get it at about level 10 I think.

Most of my captains fly ships that are aligned with their class, but some don't For example, my Fed Tactical captain is currently flying the Guardian Cruiser for it's ship trait Desperate Repair for better tanking. Prior to that it was the Phantom Intel Escort. When I am done I will be switching over to the Arbiter Battlecruiser.

While the Arbiter is not an Escort it has a really useful ship trait called Emergency Power Cycle which makes energy weapons use less energy and increases the firing speed for 30 seconds. Plus a lot of people have very high praise for that ship.

I plan on purchasing the T6 Flagship Bundle which has the Tactical Star Cruiser with the Super Charged Weapons trait where energy weapons get damage, critcal chance and critical severity bonuses for 20 seconds after launching a torpedo. It is a pretty useful trait to have. After that I will probably fly the T6 Heavy Escort I got from the Risa Summer Event so that I can fly a "proper" ship for that captain's class which might not happen until early next year.

Sure cruisers are not as maneuverable as escorts and nothing can beat the maneuverability of Bird of Prey a couple of my KDF captain fly, but cruisers are pretty sturdy. The Guardian has a Lt. Cmdr Science Boff station which allows my tactical captain to have some fun with space magic.

mustrumridcully0

theshrouded wrote: »

you also got to realize if you use a ship that is not made for your career for example tactical and you use a science ship you will not get the commander seating for your tact which limits your tactical powers.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here, but it sounds wrong.

Your character's career has no influence on how bridge officer powers perform, regardless of whether they are of your career or not. Your ship determines what kind of bridge officer powers you slot, your career determines what career powers you gain.
Your Captain's skill picks (and later your specialiations) determine how effective bridge officer powers are. So if you want to play a Tactical Captain flying Science Vessels, you can do that, you should just make sure that you pick a lot of skills in the science skill tree so the powers in your science vessel ship are optimized.

The biggest challenge is switching ship types. If you fly Escorts all the time and have picked your skills to focus on that, switching to a science vessel or cruiser might mean you have not the ideal skill pick. And of course, it takes time to get adjusted to the new ship type - they tend to need different play styles.

antonine3258

Just to add to @mustrumridcully0 - the 'skills' breakdown for bonuses to powers in the skills tab is the same for all captains. The training unlocked is different, and different paths use different ground kits, and kit powers, and have different captain abilities.

The captain abilities are not affected by the bridge officer seating on your ship.

jaguarskx

Captain skills can be used with any ship.

Tactical captains have Attack Pattern Alpha. You can use that ability on any ship even on a garbage scow... assuming it has weapons.

breadandcircuses

raj011 wrote: »

jaguarskx wrote: »

It's not really about positives and negatives. It's more about what you want to have fun with. Sensor Analysis is not a captain ability, it is a starship ability that only science vessels have. Perhaps you are mixing it up with Sensor Scan which is an ability science captain has. You get it at about level 10 I think.

Most of my captains fly ships that are aligned with their class, but some don't For example, my Fed Tactical captain is currently flying the Guardian Cruiser for it's ship trait Desperate Repair for better tanking. Prior to that it was the Phantom Intel Escort. When I am done I will be switching over to the Arbiter Battlecruiser.

While the Arbiter is not an Escort it has a really useful ship trait called Emergency Power Cycle which makes energy weapons use less energy and increases the firing speed for 30 seconds. Plus a lot of people have very high praise for that ship.

I plan on purchasing the T6 Flagship Bundle which has the Tactical Star Cruiser with the Super Charged Weapons trait where energy weapons get damage, critcal chance and critical severity bonuses for 20 seconds after launching a torpedo. It is a pretty useful trait to have. After that I will probably fly the T6 Heavy Escort I got from the Risa Summer Event so that I can fly a "proper" ship for that captain's class which might not happen until early next year.

Sure cruisers are not as maneuverable as escorts and nothing can beat the maneuverability of Bird of Prey a couple of my KDF captain fly, but cruisers are pretty sturdy. The Guardian has a Lt. Cmdr Science Boff station which allows my tactical captain to have some fun with space magic.

It is sensor analysis I am talking about. Most of the things you have mentioned I know already. But for example the command abilities you get on cruisers can be used be any career path but like you have typed and I do know about sensor analysis can only be used on science ships but sensor analysis can only be used by science officers, which I have seen. This is one of the negatives I was talking about.

You are confusing Sensor Analysis (the single-target toggled debuff) available on Science Vessels (and a couple other ships) with Sensor Scan (the AoE activated debuff) available as a Science Captain Ability. The only differences between the Professions are:

• The Captain Abilities available (which are usable regardless of the ship you're commanding)
• The Profession Traits available (which has no effect on your innate Species or available Reward Pack Traits)
• The Training Manuals your captain can make (which doesn't preclude simply buying them from someone else and using those)
• The Profession Kit Modules you can equip (which doesn't preclude using whatever Universal or Specialization Kit Modules you like)

As far as effectiveness and choosing a ship type, basically:

• A Tactical captain can make any ship do more damage due to stackable Captain Ability buffs/debuffs. Since blowing stuff up generally solves every problem in STO, this shouldn't require any additional commentary.
• A Science Captain can make any ship more "space magical" by adding a variety of special abilities. The ability to strip a target of buffs using Subnuc has long been one of the best PvP abilities, while Sensor Scan can provide a solid debuff to multiple targets... but PvP has become less and less relevant to general gameplay and a debuff only matters as long as a target is alive to be debuffed. Photonic Fleet can be interesting as well, though they generally just fly about doing whatever they feel like.
• An Engineering Captain can make any ship more durable due to heals and durability/power buffs. The two heals are the main benefit of an Engineer, with Miracle Worker offering a powerful hull/shield heal and Rotate Shield Frequency granting an effective shield HoT/resist. Engineering Fleet specifically is a poor performer because it grants DRM (which is subject to diminishing returns), while increased availability of the Plasmonic Leech and Starship Traits like Supremacy have reduced the comparative value of the power buffs (and EPS Manifold Efficiency had its maximum duration reduced during the Skill Revamp.)

jaguarskx wrote: »

Captain skills can be used with any ship.

Tactical captains have Attack Pattern Alpha. You can use that ability on any ship even on a garbage scow... assuming it has weapons.

It doesn't even require weapons, since Attack Pattern Alpha improves all types of damage. FOR (Tactical ) SCIENCE!

antonine3258

Should note the captain abilities are tried to keep separate from bridge officer seating - attack pattern expertise, for instance from the pilot skills specifically does not trigger the tactical captain ability attack pattern alpha.

lordsteve1

Tactical captain will always do more damage in any type of ship, simply because all their buffs are designed to increase damage output.
So even flying a science ship they will probably do more than a sci captain can with all the special bells & whistles.
That said, you don't need to go any particular route to be good at the game. Just pick what you like to do and go with it. The beauty of the new skill system is that you can be quite flexible now, go all tac or all sci, or mix it up and have a balanced build. There's no limits really as you can mix up any skills to suit your needs, way better than the old system.

Currently my AOY toon is a sci in a sci boat, it's great fun. But I've got a main as a tac in a sci boat and a rommie tac in an escort. They are all fun and I play how I want without worrying too much. All the mission content can be done in the worst build you can imagine, so don't worry about being effective just have fun.

jaguarskx

As I have previous stated in my above post, Sensor Scan is a Science Captain ability.

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Sensor_Scan


Sensor Analysis is a ship ability that is available to any captain that flies a ship with that ability.

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Sensor_Analysis

When in space, press the "P" key to bring up a list of all abilities available that can be dragged to the abilities bar. The abilities includes career specific abilities, ship specific abilities and console abilities.


The bonus power levels you are referring are specific to the ship itself. The Science Star Cruiser has +10 shield and +10 auxiliary power. However, if you are referring to captain skills like defensive and offensive subsystem tuning that grants a flat bonus to power levels, then whatever ship you fly you will get the appropriate bonus power... unless there is a game bug. Bonuses from Captain / Player skills follow you around from ship to ship.

Captains to not loose captain abilities nor do they loose bonuses from Captain / Player skills when switching ships.

theshrouded

you also got to realize if you use a ship that is not made for your career for example tactical and you use a science ship you will not get the commander seating for your tact which limits your tactical powers.

raj011

The abilities you get with your chosen career path, can they be used still with ships that do not go with your career type?

raj011

jaguarskx wrote: »

It's not really about positives and negatives. It's more about what you want to have fun with. Sensor Analysis is not a captain ability, it is a starship ability that only science vessels have. Perhaps you are mixing it up with Sensor Scan which is an ability science captain has. You get it at about level 10 I think.

Most of my captains fly ships that are aligned with their class, but some don't For example, my Fed Tactical captain is currently flying the Guardian Cruiser for it's ship trait Desperate Repair for better tanking. Prior to that it was the Phantom Intel Escort. When I am done I will be switching over to the Arbiter Battlecruiser.

While the Arbiter is not an Escort it has a really useful ship trait called Emergency Power Cycle which makes energy weapons use less energy and increases the firing speed for 30 seconds. Plus a lot of people have very high praise for that ship.

I plan on purchasing the T6 Flagship Bundle which has the Tactical Star Cruiser with the Super Charged Weapons trait where energy weapons get damage, critcal chance and critical severity bonuses for 20 seconds after launching a torpedo. It is a pretty useful trait to have. After that I will probably fly the T6 Heavy Escort I got from the Risa Summer Event so that I can fly a "proper" ship for that captain's class which might not happen until early next year.

Sure cruisers are not as maneuverable as escorts and nothing can beat the maneuverability of Bird of Prey a couple of my KDF captain fly, but cruisers are pretty sturdy. The Guardian has a Lt. Cmdr Science Boff station which allows my tactical captain to have some fun with space magic.

It is sensor scan I am talking about. Most of the things you have mentioned I know already. But for example the command abilities you get on cruisers can be used be any career path but like you have typed and I do know about sensor analysis can only be used on science ships but sensor analysis can only be used by science officers, which I have seen. This is one of the negatives I was talking about.

raj011

So if any of the 3 career paths choose a different ship, they will not lose anything, is this correct? What other benefits do you get, if any? Also how much would a tactical officer boost damage output? Is there any point in tanking now?

antonine3258

Sensor analysis is completely different from sensor scan. You'll see sensor analysis on any full science ship - the wiki has the list of what has it. Captain career also determines what skill manuals for bridge officers become trainable with skill allocation - this is visible on hover-over in the 'tracks' for all three skill types.

raj011

If an engineer officer or tactical officer piloted a science or cruiser ships. What will they lose? Like how science officers lose sensor scan i not in a science ship. While I mention that, how come I do not have sensor scan on m T6 Yorktown Class? It is a science star cruiser so it should have it. The benefits you get with the engineering officer, which is +5 power levels and other things and tactical is +15 weapons and other things, will they still be used on other ships that do not match their career path? What do you lose?

raj011

jaguarskx wrote: »

As I have previous stated in my above post, Sensor Scan is a Science Captain ability.

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Sensor_Scan


Sensor Analysis is a ship ability that is available to any captain that flies a ship with that ability.

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Sensor_Analysis

When in space, press the "P" key to bring up a list of all abilities available that can be dragged to the abilities bar. The abilities includes career specific abilities, ship specific abilities and console abilities.


The bonus power levels you are referring are specific to the ship itself. The Science Star Cruiser has +10 shield and +10 auxiliary power. However, if you are referring to captain skills like defensive and offensive subsystem tuning that grants a flat bonus to power levels, then whatever ship you fly you will get the appropriate bonus power... unless there is a game bug. Bonuses from Captain / Player skills follow you around from ship to ship.

Captains to not loose captain abilities nor do they loose bonuses from Captain / Player skills when switching ships.

Thank you for telling me again what I mostly already know. You eventually got to the answer I was looking for in your last paragraph and sentence. Thank you everyone for you answers, they are all very helpful.