Cannons on a Battlecruiser?

dykeras

I'm used to flying my Morrigu with Disruptor or Plasma dhc's (depending on my mood) but fancied a change so decided to buy the new Son'a Battlecruiser but unsure what weapons to stick on it?

I could go DBB's but the Terran weapon and nausican are both Beam arrays which along with the nausican torp boesn't leave much room for DBB's/

I could go all Beam arrays, (with the nausican torp of course for the set) but would the damage be lacklustre?

And as a curve ball, I could put on an RSC turn and stick DHC's on it, but being used to faster turning ships, not sure if the Sona Battlecruiser would work with cannons...

All advice apreciated

seaofsorrows

Really, it's up to you.

Since you're already running a cannon build, you can test cannons on your new ship for free.. just throw your gear on and let 'er rip. If you're concerned that the turn rate of the new ship is too low to handle the style you're used to playing, you can do various things to increase it's turn rate such as RCS consoles and boosting Engine Power with Bridge Officer powers like Emergency Power to Engines.

Dual Beams are also a good way to go, they pack a heavy punch and have a pretty good firing arc. I like to do dual beam banks in the front and Omni Beams in the back.

Single Beam arrays all around would not be 'lackluster' at all, in fact it's still the highest overall damage build for most Captains. It's not true in all cases of course, but single beam arrays all around are so much easier to keep on target that people are able to stay locked onto targets through the entire fight. There are however, always people that are really good with canons that will dominate a battlefield, which one is 'better' really depends on the captain. Personally, I suck with canons so I rarely use them.. I'm pretty much trash with front facing builds in general, I need a lot more practice keeping on target without exploding because I just decided to completely stop moving. It's a balance I have not yet mastered.

In the end, I guess this is a long winded way of saying it depends on your play style. What I recommend is that you try different loadouts first. Go to the exchange, pick yourself up some Green or even Blue quality Mark XII weapons, outfit your ship and give it a try to see how it flies. I buy cheap gear all the time just to try out a new style, it's a good way to try something new without having to invest heavily in that option first.

szerontzur

Generally speaking, it depends on the battlecruiser. More specifically, how agile the battlecruiser is.

The Na'kuhl Acheros, for example, is on par with most of the heavier escorts as far as turning is concerned. The Son'a BC is slightly more sluggish than the Acheros, but it's still more nimble than most other (battle)cruisers. I'd probably recommend more of a standoff playstyle as opposed to hit and run, but it probably could still function as traditional strike ship with some additional RCS. The Subspace Jump console is probably worth considering if you want some additional positional flexibility(warps you 3km behind your target, with forward guns lined up to kill - you can pair it with Unstable Warp Bubble to immobilize your prey after warping to them).

The main drawbacks of cannons, as always, is their potential firing arcs and travel time. If you stay at a distance to keep things in your cones of fire, beams will simply apply their damage to the enemy faster; If you get in close enough for the distance to not matter(as much), you lack omni-directional coverage.

nightken

it should be fine for DHC if you want. if your worried about the maneuverity use the Counter-Command Hyper Impulse Engines and the Polaric Modulator console. actually the counter command sets are pretty solid for this kind of ship.

as far as beams... this is sto, all beam array is never a bad choice maybe not the best one, but never bad one.

for dbb, I'ld use the new house of martok set when it's all out with a crafted onimi in the aft slot, assuming you can, slot the nausicaan weapon in the fore fill the rest with dbb of your choice. probably not the best set up but should cover you tell you can figure out something better.

brian334

Keeping cannons on target can be a difficult skill to master. I'm still working on it myself.

If you have a Klingon, pick up a freebie Hegh'ta BoP and practice with a 4DHC setup. You learn to get your guns on target and make every strike a kill. You have to. Your other option is to respawn!

1) Roll back the throttle: most of the time a BoP is going full speed, but the sweet spot for a cannon kill is between 5 and 2 km. Once you are in line for a kill, you can get a second and third pulse from your guns simply by rolling back on the throttle, but you will want to get moving fast to escape the warp core breach.

2) Target your opportunities: I spent a great deal of time trying to finish off a wounded enemy until I learned to shoot the guy in front of me instead of chase the guy behind me. Chasing down a wounded ship is just like setting up a new attack anyway, so take the target of opportunity with every firing cycle, especially in team events where your teammates will finish cripples off before you can get back to it. You are a lion; once in a while the buffalo gets away. Pick the next easy target rather than mentally target-lock yourself.

3) Learn to use speed-boosting techniques with the throttle. My training tool was deuterium canisters from the Ferengi deuterium refinery. Just because you can go zippity-zip doesn't mean you have to go far from the battle. Speed boosts are also poor man's turn boosts. A flat spin is a fast way to get your cannons back on target, and with a speed boost your time to make a flat spin is halved.

3a) A Flat Spin is when you begin a turn, slam the throttle to full reverse, when your speed drops to almost zero slam the throttle back to full. This gets you pointed in another direction really fast in comparison to the circle you scribe in a normal or even console enhanced turn, but you do have to practice a lot to get it down to a reflex action.

4) Cannons are all about the kill. Every time you line up a shot it should be with the intent of creating a warp core breach. If you are not running high weapons power you probably should consider another weapon type; equipping cannons is a commitment to an aggressive playstyle. You can boost your weapons power with BOff powers, but you should be stacking attack patterns and cannon boosts to maximize your potential.

risian4

Cannons can work fine on any ship that can use them. Setting the Pilot spec tree as secondary tree, adding the console from the new episode and using one of the Delta reputation traits are just three things that can help you to increase the turn rate if needed.

fiberteksyfir

Get a conductive rcs accelerator too( this is a required item on all my builds) they're very useful and give a decent boost to turn rate. If the tub is big enough you might have some power sliding issues but you can work that out as you get accustomed to the new ship. I haven't gotten that ship yet but I've run avengers, arbiters, and kuraks with dhcs and they work just fine once.you get the feel for it.

goodscotch

I've had great success with cannons on a D7 Temporal Battlecruiser. I had to replace a couple of what I would consider stock damage booster consoles for a couple that increase turn rate though. Still...it runs like a blower and eats like a grinder. Not as easy to fly as when it's a beam boat, but it's much more deadly on single targets.

postinggum

Last time I looked the top dps run was disruptor beams( mixed) plus nausicaan set on a scimi, with the torp hits to crits trait that will work best on a 5:3 setup like the scimi or sona battlecruiser.

The Martok set with the current feature epsiode has a 2pc of extra crits and +15acc from a nice console plus disruptor omni, that should synergize well the nausicaan set for 2 free consoles and 3 free weapons on a disruptor build. The assimilated console-KCB 2 piece seems popular now, most vet toons will have those.

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redvenge

dykeras wrote: »

I'm used to flying my Morrigu with Disruptor or Plasma dhc's...

patrickngo wrote: »

Oh, wait, you're fed...nevermind.

Federation players can fly a Morrigu?
It seems @warpangel 's requests are coming true.

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