"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid." -- Q, TNG: "Q-Who?"
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
None and all. It's loosely based on your skills. There are cores and engines that boost impulse speed and/or sector speed and/or slipstream speed. There is simply no 'best' anything in STO.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
None and all. It's loosely based on your skills. There are cores and engines that boost impulse speed and/or sector speed and/or slipstream speed. There is simply no 'best' anything in STO.
It's obvious what the OP is asking. There are two fastest impulse engines in the game for combat - the Omega and the Counter-Command.
Well, there are two answers to your question. The absolutely fastest engines in STO are the so called Hyper-Impulse engines. They have the highest scaling to engine power when you fulfill their "efficient at high power levels". Even if you fulfill the requirements of "efficient at low" and "medium" power of Combat Engines and normal Impulse engines you will not encounter the same level of scaling.
The second answer to your question is simply based on what engine is most optimize for your average engine power levels in actual combat. If it is high then you go with Hyper-Impulse engines. If it is medium then you are better off with normal Impulse engines. If it is low then you are better off with Combat Engines.
As for the absolute fastest engine(s) for each type or category I cannot say. I do reckon that the Counter Command, Iconian and Aegis engines are all quite fast and offer similar traits like 5% defense. However, out of the three I would personally say that the Iconian engine is ahead because if its +5 engine power. Though it is worth noting that the Counter Command engine comes with +5 inertia as well which helps with acceleration and less drifting during turning if your ship happen to have high innate turn rate.
Here is a video example of speeds possible with the Hyper Impulse engine. I had the Iconian engine equipped. Do note that ships have different impulse modifiers but that the engine category scaling is still the same if the identical engine is used across different ships. Speeds may vary from ~20 speed depending on if you are in an escort or a much slower ship (carriet etc.).
Observe the cursor moving down to the throttle control. I kept it there to display the speed. https://youtu.be/ia94kCpQWKw
I use is it borg or omega impluse (forget which one) for sector space... yeah I know it should be warp core but nope... it's impluse. They should fix that and swap it out, Cores effect Sector Space warp speed and Impulse affect system maps impulse speeds.
Driver Coils and/or one of those options you can select on the new skill tree also effect sector space speeds. (other option is slipstream speed)
Comments
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
It's obvious what the OP is asking. There are two fastest impulse engines in the game for combat - the Omega and the Counter-Command.
The second answer to your question is simply based on what engine is most optimize for your average engine power levels in actual combat. If it is high then you go with Hyper-Impulse engines. If it is medium then you are better off with normal Impulse engines. If it is low then you are better off with Combat Engines.
As for the absolute fastest engine(s) for each type or category I cannot say. I do reckon that the Counter Command, Iconian and Aegis engines are all quite fast and offer similar traits like 5% defense. However, out of the three I would personally say that the Iconian engine is ahead because if its +5 engine power. Though it is worth noting that the Counter Command engine comes with +5 inertia as well which helps with acceleration and less drifting during turning if your ship happen to have high innate turn rate.
Here is a video example of speeds possible with the Hyper Impulse engine. I had the Iconian engine equipped. Do note that ships have different impulse modifiers but that the engine category scaling is still the same if the identical engine is used across different ships. Speeds may vary from ~20 speed depending on if you are in an escort or a much slower ship (carriet etc.).
Observe the cursor moving down to the throttle control. I kept it there to display the speed.
Driver Coils and/or one of those options you can select on the new skill tree also effect sector space speeds. (other option is slipstream speed)