One more thing that impacted the Pilot ship's adoption is that they were released inside a long string of ship releases. Most people in ship buying moods had already picked up new shiny ships during the preceding months, which made a costly 3-per-faction or 9-pack-cross-faction ship set a bit hard to swallow unless you were a dedicated escort player that didn't pick up much/any of the preceding ships (and/or being a whale spender).
On top of that, Pilot doesn't really have any standout abilities, nothing seems to rise to surface like Override Subsystem Safeties in Intel, or even Rally Point and Suppression Barrage in Command. A fair bit of Pilot is stuff that's Tac-like which doesn't give much utility on a ship where the biggest Pilot Hybrid is on the Comm Tac...
I thnk a lot of it is people who bought them have no clue how to use the pilot ship features and end up fighting them like a "normal" cruiser type ship. Which in a pilot ship is a fastw ay to get nowhere. I feel this is why so mnay are hangered and no used. Right now mine are on reserve while I finish bringing the event ship up to full levle thatn it's back to my pilot raptors. I love using the built in features to dodge incoming fire or get into a advantagous position quickly thne being able to get out of dodge fast when things start going south.
To answer your question OP, I prefer destroyers and battle cruisers over light escorts, which is the category I would use to classify the pilot ships. I prefer these larger ships over the smaller ones mainly because aesthetically a larger ship is more imposing than a small one. Larger ships also tend to be more well armed in sci fi games.
Second of all while I do find pilot manuevers attractive, the expensive price of the bundles dissuaded me from buying them.
Third of all, pilot ships are glass cannons, meaning, they are quite powerful but have very low hull hp. Yes, they are zippy but should they take on any significant damage, they tend to die in a matter of seconds.
I personally think Deploy Countermeasures is one of the better Pilot boff abilities, since it has saved me from getting wrecked by those ungodly powerful torpedo alpha strikes in the Badlands battlezone, and Hold Her Together allows you to skimp on bringing Hazard Emitters along.
I just want to see older lock box grand prize ships outfitted with Specialist seating. Pilot seat would be idea for several of them.
Part of the problem is they're a closed loop - you have to have one before you can get a real sense of what they offer. And constantly insisting they be built only as escort + pilot-ness drives the way out to one end of the spectrum when few players tend to follow.
I have one character that flies a mercury and manticore, but he is currently unlocking skills on other ships so not flying the mercury. I have a Rommie who alternates between a sci-pilot raptor and the red-ball-o-doom ship, but again he is unlocking other traits just now. I am trying to find the right Klingon for one, so haven't even really started them red side. Other characters have tried them from time to time, but it didn't stick.
So the last time I was commonly in the pilot ships was during the breech event. Man, I gotta back into them soon, that was a while ago.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
I recently recomissioned a Tec Pilot ship on my main. Slapped some Chroniton beams on her, painted her cyan...
USS Rainbow Dash ready to make you taste the rainbow!
Honestly... I couldn't resist. It just had to be done when the Chroniton beams were added.
I just want to see older lock box grand prize ships outfitted with Specialist seating. Pilot seat would be idea for several of them.
Part of the problem is they're a closed loop - you have to have one before you can get a real sense of what they offer. And constantly insisting they be built only as escort + pilot-ness drives the way out to one end of the spectrum when few players tend to follow.
pilot bugship?
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
I just want to see older lock box grand prize ships outfitted with Specialist seating. Pilot seat would be idea for several of them.
Part of the problem is they're a closed loop - you have to have one before you can get a real sense of what they offer. And constantly insisting they be built only as escort + pilot-ness drives the way out to one end of the spectrum when few players tend to follow.
pilot bugship?
Would be cool and since it is is a promo-ship a fair addition.
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Was just wondering,why do i see so few pilot ships around?
i own some of the c-store ships,pathfinder,presidio(which i regretted getting,to slow and clunky for my taste),couple more i cant remember at the moment and the pilot bundle.
I love them pilot ships so much,pilot manouvers is so much fun,so i was curious why arent people using them? is it because people prefer cruisers and FAW or maybe escorts just arent liked in the game?
cheers
the answer is they are ugly looking as eff. Even the producer Maria said they are ugly looking
I mostly didn't like the looks of them. They looked horrible. However IF they did one in the looks of the Peregrine Attack Fighter. I would be all over it.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I liked the Pilot ships gameplay. I still have one Romulan character that intends to use its hummingbird of prey forever, but I haven't played her in a while.
I also have a Klingon that got the D4X. He'll use it as primary ship, too.
I currently have no Fed one, though I like the Federation Pilot Escorts best visually. But I love the Defiant on my Half-Bajoran Alien too much and all other candidates for the ship already have a different ship to take.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Back in my day, all we flew were escorts and cries were constant. Then one day, parses discovered that _cruisers_ did more DPS. We've haven't been back since.
Tying fragility to speed makes the builds niche. Add that cruisers have always been more popular, that the current set of movies are hyping up cruisers, and that BFAW is retardedly effective for less effort and not to mention is more lag friendly...
...and then we get to the issue of the pilot ships overall being pretty dang weird looking. The Phantom was the best pancakean, the Defiant still the most venerable, and the pilots look like misbred tribbles in comparison.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
I fly cruisers 9 times out of 10 dues to their excellent resiliency and size. What can I say, I love big ships and I cannot lie.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Since I got my D4x my interest in Pilot ships has been reinvigorated. It's crazy fun to fly. You may well see me zipping about in game if you can spot her as her tiny frame uncloaks, zips by, strikes and disappears under cloak - if you have keen vision.
I'm an escort flyer for the most part, but I favor the Manasa and new T6 Bug over the previous pilot ships.
Got the pilot Warbirds way back, but really dislike their designs and textures. They were clearly rushed, and had no inspiration other than drawing a bit from the Scimitar. If they were quality like the Vastam, Faeht, Aelahl, Morrigu, Valdore, or the modified old (T5) Scimitars, I'd fly them more. Couldn't care less for the looks of the inferior Fed ones, and the Raptors, well, look okay but aren't BoP, so never wasted zen on either.
Once equipped one for pure speed, and it was fun, felt invincible and dominated the space like no other ship could, not even the Risian Corvette (that I can't obtain cause they gave no true prior warning before removing it), but the PvE gameplay really doesn't cater to super speed, and it becomes even more of a solo 'multiplayer' experience, while other ships can at least stay in range and work with others somewhat.
The pilot ships are quite OP, and even on alts I'm finding less challenge against poor NPCs with their vacant AI. Without challenge, there's no learning, no creativity, no real strategy.
PvP is dead and would never be balanced.
I rarely do much these days other than log in and press the refine button, and the D4x is too rare of a drop and still to expensive (I'm not wasting 600M+ EC) until it hits the infinity box which is a long ways away still. So, there's some more reasons to why you're not seeing them out there.
But there's no faulting pilot ships themselves. They're amazing and I highly recommend them.
I also don't get the recent power creep of specialty ships in a box that are also shown on screen. The practice of making expensive super rare ships fall behind so very quickly like the bug lacking cmd pilot and thrusters doesn't inspire confidence in unboxing anything knowing something much better is always around the corner.
Their biggest 'flaw' has been referred to once or twice in this very thread: They're not cruisers.
That's how this game has gone for the most part. Zipping around in a fast escort isn't how many want to do things anymore. Most simply want to dump their cruiser in the centre of an NPC group and BFAW vape everything.
Feel free to disagree - but there is evidence in this; the fact that the majority of new ship releases of late have been cruisers.
I love it when people try to do that, then all of a sudden I unleash SCV and kill them all for them in either my Defiant or my Tac pilot ship.
And all of my pilot ships are kitbashes of the 3 since on their own each fed pilot ship is kinda fugly. I too wish they'd got a tad more defiant looking.
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I'm an escort flyer for the most part, but I favor the Manasa and new T6 Bug over the previous pilot ships.
Manesa, for some reason, has half the resists as my Pilot ships (like 22% vs 41%). And the Pilot ships, while we're at it, are no glass cannons, and come with built-in immunity! And they're nimble; and with a 5/2 layout, they really are probably among the best ships I own.
You are right, though, they be fugly. They look like something with mutilated chickens-wings. Especially the Science variant, with its 'childishly' bent wing-shapes, looks like a 5-year-old was trying to draw a bird.
I busted out my Icarus Pilot Escort earlier. I was just flying around and decided to do a Na'hkul Red Alert. The team was 3 Pilot ships, a Phantom and an Odyssey.
That was probably the most escorts I have seen on one screen in months. Funny how it happened right after seeing this thread.
Timber Wolf summed it up. Maybe it's because someone says they're only into cruisers and big ships or maybe it's because someone didn't like the aesthetics. There's a lot of variables to take into account.
This is just another symptom of a bigger problem and that is...there's too many ships. We need to start taking ships out of the game. If you have the ship, you get to keep it and use it...but it won't be offered anymore. Think of it as Chevrolet discontinuing the Vega, but offering the Chevette.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
This is just another symptom of a bigger problem and that is...there's too many ships. We need to start taking ships out of the game. If you have the ship, you get to keep it and use it...but it won't be offered anymore. Think of it as Chevrolet discontinuing the Vega, but offering the Chevette.
That doesn't make sense. While I still have a VINTAGE Fleet Patrol Escort (non refit) the idea of removing content is not well recieved on these forums. Many of the T6 ships are upgraded versions of T5s. We also have set bonuses with consoles between the T5s and T6s. So by removing a T5 or T6, you break those set bonuses, and probably something else in the game.
You know... like whenever Cryptic used to fix something somewhere, and the STF Borg would break?
Timber Wolf summed it up. Maybe it's because someone says they're only into cruisers and big ships or maybe it's because someone didn't like the aesthetics. There's a lot of variables to take into account.
I like their mechanics, but not the aesthetics... i hope they reléase a new ship with better looks..
Comments
On top of that, Pilot doesn't really have any standout abilities, nothing seems to rise to surface like Override Subsystem Safeties in Intel, or even Rally Point and Suppression Barrage in Command. A fair bit of Pilot is stuff that's Tac-like which doesn't give much utility on a ship where the biggest Pilot Hybrid is on the Comm Tac...
Second of all while I do find pilot manuevers attractive, the expensive price of the bundles dissuaded me from buying them.
Third of all, pilot ships are glass cannons, meaning, they are quite powerful but have very low hull hp. Yes, they are zippy but should they take on any significant damage, they tend to die in a matter of seconds.
Hope that answers your question.
Part of the problem is they're a closed loop - you have to have one before you can get a real sense of what they offer. And constantly insisting they be built only as escort + pilot-ness drives the way out to one end of the spectrum when few players tend to follow.
So the last time I was commonly in the pilot ships was during the breech event. Man, I gotta back into them soon, that was a while ago.
USS Rainbow Dash ready to make you taste the rainbow!
Honestly... I couldn't resist. It just had to be done when the Chroniton beams were added.
pilot bugship?
Why thank you.
Would be cool and since it is is a promo-ship a fair addition.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
the answer is they are ugly looking as eff. Even the producer Maria said they are ugly looking
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I also have a Klingon that got the D4X. He'll use it as primary ship, too.
I currently have no Fed one, though I like the Federation Pilot Escorts best visually. But I love the Defiant on my Half-Bajoran Alien too much and all other candidates for the ship already have a different ship to take.
Tying fragility to speed makes the builds niche. Add that cruisers have always been more popular, that the current set of movies are hyping up cruisers, and that BFAW is retardedly effective for less effort and not to mention is more lag friendly...
...and then we get to the issue of the pilot ships overall being pretty dang weird looking. The Phantom was the best pancakean, the Defiant still the most venerable, and the pilots look like misbred tribbles in comparison.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
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Thanks for Harajuku. Now let's get a real "Magical Girl" costume!
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I'm an escort flyer for the most part, but I favor the Manasa and new T6 Bug over the previous pilot ships.
Cheers
Once equipped one for pure speed, and it was fun, felt invincible and dominated the space like no other ship could, not even the Risian Corvette (that I can't obtain cause they gave no true prior warning before removing it), but the PvE gameplay really doesn't cater to super speed, and it becomes even more of a solo 'multiplayer' experience, while other ships can at least stay in range and work with others somewhat.
The pilot ships are quite OP, and even on alts I'm finding less challenge against poor NPCs with their vacant AI. Without challenge, there's no learning, no creativity, no real strategy.
PvP is dead and would never be balanced.
I rarely do much these days other than log in and press the refine button, and the D4x is too rare of a drop and still to expensive (I'm not wasting 600M+ EC) until it hits the infinity box which is a long ways away still. So, there's some more reasons to why you're not seeing them out there.
But there's no faulting pilot ships themselves. They're amazing and I highly recommend them.
I also don't get the recent power creep of specialty ships in a box that are also shown on screen. The practice of making expensive super rare ships fall behind so very quickly like the bug lacking cmd pilot and thrusters doesn't inspire confidence in unboxing anything knowing something much better is always around the corner.
I love it when people try to do that, then all of a sudden I unleash SCV and kill them all for them in either my Defiant or my Tac pilot ship.
And all of my pilot ships are kitbashes of the 3 since on their own each fed pilot ship is kinda fugly. I too wish they'd got a tad more defiant looking.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Manesa, for some reason, has half the resists as my Pilot ships (like 22% vs 41%). And the Pilot ships, while we're at it, are no glass cannons, and come with built-in immunity! And they're nimble; and with a 5/2 layout, they really are probably among the best ships I own.
You are right, though, they be fugly. They look like something with mutilated chickens-wings. Especially the Science variant, with its 'childishly' bent wing-shapes, looks like a 5-year-old was trying to draw a bird.
I like carriers better.
I busted out my Icarus Pilot Escort earlier. I was just flying around and decided to do a Na'hkul Red Alert. The team was 3 Pilot ships, a Phantom and an Odyssey.
That was probably the most escorts I have seen on one screen in months. Funny how it happened right after seeing this thread.
I remember Maria saying they weren't selling like hotcakes. Though this was from about two months ago.
https://youtu.be/28oIi8eg0uY?t=47m55s
Timber Wolf summed it up. Maybe it's because someone says they're only into cruisers and big ships or maybe it's because someone didn't like the aesthetics. There's a lot of variables to take into account.
That doesn't make sense. While I still have a VINTAGE Fleet Patrol Escort (non refit) the idea of removing content is not well recieved on these forums. Many of the T6 ships are upgraded versions of T5s. We also have set bonuses with consoles between the T5s and T6s. So by removing a T5 or T6, you break those set bonuses, and probably something else in the game.
You know... like whenever Cryptic used to fix something somewhere, and the STF Borg would break?
I like their mechanics, but not the aesthetics... i hope they reléase a new ship with better looks..