I'm having trouble deciding which ship(s) to buy. I can't choose between the Vesta line, the T6 Fleet Avenger, Kelvin timeline ships (which one?), the 26th century ships (which one or entire set?), or the 31st century ships. I have a Tactical Officer on the Federation side and am kind of a noob so I have no idea what terms such as EPtS or Drake builds mean.
Thanks in advance!
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Don't bother buying just 1 ship out of a set if you go for one. Each set usually has a console set with-in them that can be really useful for synergy.
However, there aren't many ships you can go wrong with anymore as pretty much everyone is BFAW build nowadays.
The 31st Century ships have the advantage that they are cross-faction, so you could use them with a Romulan or Klingon captain too, or even just get the admiralty card and ship mastery trait if you want to fly a real KDF / Rom faction ship instead.
Having fun with a ship is perhaps more important than having a ship that's powerful, but ultimately not to your liking. So perhaps it's good to know that you won't have to sacrifice looks for effectiveness in the end in this case
I'll also say the Paladin class Temporal Battlecruiser my AOY captain flies is awesome. Very fast, and temporal abilities are awesome.
I don't think you'd regret getting either of these ships.
Don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship, because while you're there... you can make a difference.
-Captain James T. Kirk
The vesta line is awesome if you like focusing on control abilities. I had my federation engineer on PC set up with a vesta (3-ship pack, you need all 3 consoles for the bonus). Each vesta comes with a set of aux phaser dual heavy cannons, so if you buy the pack you can have 3 of those things firing forward. They use auxilliary power instead of weapon power, which means you can go 100% aux to boost your science and engineering abilities while still having decent weapon damage. It's also the only science ship (as far as I know) that can equip dual heavy cannons.
I had my vesta set up with gravity well 1/3 and no torpedoes (just the aux phaser cannons forward, and then on the back a borg cutting beam, ancient omni-directional beam array, and phaser turret). I used gravity well as my 'heavy damage' attack in place of the usual torpedo attacks, along with cannon scatter volley for my tactical officers. This meant I could group together huge numbers of enemy ships with gravity well, tear their shields down with scatter volley, and the grav wells would inflict a lot of kinetic damage to take the hulls down.
The vesta can also field up to 6 shuttles/fighters, I used either stalker fighters, type 10 shuttles, or runabouts depending on what I needed at the time.
Essentially the vesta wound up being a jack of all trades ship for me: like a hybrid cruiser/science vessel/escort/carrier all in one. It's a shame I left it behind when I transferred to console play.
How can I test a ship out without owning it? And I like all these ships, both aesthetically and in terms of functionality. I just wanted to know which would be the best out of all that I listed. The only problem I'm facing right now is that I get destroyed really quickly (I have a Tactical Escort Retrofit and I don't have and don't know how to get all that shiny, powerful equipment). And I might like to have fights between some of my Fleet members.
This was one of the reasons why I mentioned the Vesta line in my list. An all rounder seems to be extremely powerful (still depending on your play style of course). The Arbiter was ultimately my decision between it and the Vesta line, which is why I bought the cloak. Now all these new and powerful ships came out and I just thought that I needed some help from the pros
That said, if you have any plans to create KDF or Romulan characters, the 31st century ship pack is a great bargain compared to other T6 bundles. Every toon gets 3 ships for the price of 1, though two of the three traits are tied to exotic damage and temporal operative abilities. If you aren't completely repelled by the rather aquatic looks, they're a solid set of ships that should have something to suit any approach to the game.
The Kelvan Timeline ships look good, and are especially attractive if you like the reboot movies. However, they are lockbox ships and that means they are single items. You get one ship for one toon, not an unlock that can be claimed by future toons and it's gone forever if you dismiss it.
Why? Versatility.
The ship can fill any role you want it to fill aside from being a Science heavy ship like a Drain Boat. The 5/3 Weapon setup means it's not only effective in a single beam build but it can also effectively handle Dual Beam Banks or Cannons. Console layout is near perfect, and the BoFF layout is incredibly versatile. You can turn it into an Engineering heavy beam boat, you can go full DPS with DBB's and 3 Tactical Superior Romulan Operatives, you can pretty much pick your style.
Add to that, the fact that the ship comes with one of the most desirable traits in the game, a console that's actually useful, and access to all costume parts from both the T6 as well as the T5 variant and the ship is just a home run. As coldnapalm said above, the 3 pack is a great value if you have characters from the KDF and/or Romulan faction. They're pretty much the best C-Store T6 ships for all 3 factions.
You just can't go wrong with the T6 Battle Cruisers. They have no weakness.
You need to buy the C-Store version first, for the mastery trait, console and account wide unlock. THEN buy the fleet version for 1 ship module.
Don't buy the fleet version!!!!
You mean the C-store Arbiter right? Sorry just making sure I don't TRIBBLE up.
/10chars
If you plan to make multiple characters in the furure and those other characters are either KDF or Rom/KDF, IMO, it would be more cost-effective to get the cross-faction temporal ships. At least with them, you have ships available to all your current and future characters.
If you only plan on having a single Fed character or plan on making more Fed characters only, then you could definitely go with the Arbiter (T6) Battlecruiser. As another poster stated, the C-store version only has a single Science console slot, but as your main is a Tac, that won't be an issue for now. But in the future, if you decide to make a Sci character, the Arbiter will not be a good choice as you won't be able to use a Sci toon to its potential with that particular craft.
If you have the finances to do it, you might even consider buying both the Arbiter and the Temporal Bundle. More ships = More Admiralty Cards.
For me, I look at ships as an investment for my account as I run multiple toons representing all 2.5 factions. I don't just look at ships for a single character anymore. If I can get a ship or bundle that more than 1 character can use, then I will seriously consider doing that as opposed to a single character ship unlock from a lockbox.
Granted, I have some characters with lockbox ships as well, but those characters are "theme" builds... and not the norm.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
T6 fleet versions of ships do NOT include consoles and do NOT give you the mastery trait. The console is nice (an emergency temp shield + heal) and the Emergency Weapon Cycle trait is great for a cruiser. Use 2 x Emergency Power to Weapons and you buff damage AND speed up the attack rate.
I actually have 3 Feds: two Tacs (I already had a Tac and then I made a set of three other toons) and one AoY Eng
I have a Sci Rom, and Eng Klingon (not really paying attention to the other toons because I want to finish up the leveling up)
So I guess I could take the Vestas out and put the Temporal ships back into my choices (Arbiter+Fleet Arbiter vs Battlecruiser Pack vs Temporal ships)
I also want different characters to fly different ships. If everyone is flying a Paladin then they will all play the same. That requires buying more than 3 ships of course, which you probably don't want to do yet.
Temporal: Pro: all of your characters in every faction can use every kind of ship (and these are the only T6 science ships for Rom and KDF), plus all of your characters get 3 x admiralty cards and 3 x ship mastery traits. Con: Everyone gets future ships, no one gets "real" faction ships.
Battlecruiser 3-pack: your 4 feds get one great "real Federation" ship, your Rom and KDF get real faction ships. Cons: only 1 mastery trait (though it's great), only 1 admiralty card, must buy everyone who wants the extra console and hull HP a fleet module and they all must earn fleet credits to use it.
The temporal wins if you care more about maximizing value than about flying ships that look like real faction ships.
You make excellent points and I fully understand the preference bit everyone is always stressing. I just want a second opinion based on the stats as well. I see where you're coming from with the value and such but I can easily grind that with the Arc points. It's going to take me time to level up my other chars anyway. And I never really understood the console abilities for the Temporals.
Sadly, there is no real way to 'try before you buy' with C-Store ships, but at least you can use this site to do the next best thing. Just in case it helps make your decision any easier.
Personally, picking the Temporal ships seems a little boring. I know that any character can use them, but as davefenestrator said, there is little point to me in putting all my characters in the exact same ship. It makes them all feel generic and really removes any feeling of playing a different character. I still think the Battlecruiser pack is the way to go if you're looking to equip characters from multiple factions but to each their own.
I had completely forgotten about STO Academy. Thanks for reminding me. I think the Battlecruiser Pack is the better choice. Would you mind telling me what the prices for both the packs are? Maybe I'll grind my way to the cheaper pack with Arc Points.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
No problem, hope you end up with something you enjoy.
Good luck to you!