Coming here asking for help is the hardest step. The rest is just a matter of time and patience. That said, I'll reiterate what others have said, and offer some additional build guidance that should help you in the long run.
First of all, as a TAC captain, your goal is DPS, with enough survivability that you can continue to do DPS. Unfortunately, due to the rather flawed aggro mechanics in this game, the more DPS you do, the more aggro you'll get. Dead men do no DPS, as they say, but this doesn't really matter until you start doing Advanced or Elite TFOs. So everything I suggest to you will be with that focus in mind.
Here are your basic build guidelines, some of which has already been mentioned, but I'm including it again to be thorough. While there's always exceptions to everything I'm going to explain to you, I recommend keeping your build simple and straightforward until you have a deeper understanding of the game mechanics and before making non-standard adjustments.
1. Choose a weapon type. Either beams, or cannons, but generally not both. While cannons are the current meta for end-game content, they also require more advanced/expensive builds and better piloting skill from the player to maintain ToT (time on target). Beams are a lot more forgiving when it comes to your piloting skill. When it comes to DPS thresholds for Advanced and Elite TFOs, you can absolutely meet these minimums with a beam build, but a proper cannon build will surpass it. FYI, the reason cannons are now the meta is because beam procs were nerfed, and power level maintenance for cannons is now much easier than it used to be. I'll touch on that again later.
2. Choose a firing mode for your weapons. Generally speaking, you're going to go with Fire at Will (FaW) for beams, and Scatter Volley (SV) for cannons. That also means that if you're running beam FaW, you typically don't run beam Overload. Similarly, if you're running cannon SV, you don't run cannon Rapid Fire. Keep in mind that FaW hits two targets per beam array, whereas SV only hits three targets within your cannon firing arc. It's worth mentioning that beam Overload is currently broken (in the player's benefit), but I suspect Cryptic will fix that sooner than later, and for several reasons I won't get into here, I'd still suggest beam FaW over Overload.
3. Choose an energy type. Rainbow boats are only really viable on SCI builds (and some ENG builds), because their primary mode of DPS is not based on their energy weapons (or in the case of some ENG builds, they aren't trying to do DPS). The general order of energy types from best to worst is as follows:
Disruptor
Phaser
Polaron / AP (with PEN)
Plasma
Tetryon
I realize someone already told you that AP is really good. It's not bad at all, and with PEN (armor penetration) it's certainly better than half the energy types out there and arguably as good as Polaron, but I don't agree that it's better than Disruptor or Phaser, and there's several reasons for that. First, most Disruptor weapons proc a damage resist (DR) debuff, so as the weapon hits a target and its damage resist is debuffed, the weapon effectively does more damage to that target. Yes, the proc chance for energy weapons was nerfed down to 2.5%, which was mentioned earlier, but with good firing cycle haste on a beam FaW build, you will proc those beam effects often. For Advanced and Elite TFOs where enemy ships have more health, the benefits of Disruptor energy weaponry begin to out-weigh anything else because TTK (time to kill) becomes longer, meaning you have more time and more chances to proc weapon effects. Second, there aren't really any (good) ordnance sets that support AP, unlike Phaser and Disruptor, which have quite a few very good ordnance sets that either offer cycle haste, bonus damage, bonus critical chance/severity, and so on. Pound for pound, you get more out of a console that is part of an ordnance set than an independent console that is not part of an ordnance set. Third, the inherent 20% critical severity that AP weapons get only really matters if you crit in the first place. We'll talk about CRIT (critical chance) vs CRITD (critical severity) more later. Fourth and perhaps the most definitive reason, the Terran Task Force Phaser and Disruptor weapons (which are part of a reputation ordnance set) are the most powerful weapons in the game, and easily set those energy types apart from the rest.
4. Choose a (T6) ship that supports your build goals. For you, you want a TAC ship, meaning, a ship that has more Tactical console slots than Science or Engineering. It's a common misconception in this game that a bigger ship equals bigger performance. That's absolutely not true, especially when it comes to TAC. But as was already stated by someone else, you need to get into a T6 ship. As with all things in this game, most of the better T6 ships are sitting behind a pay wall (the C-Store), but not all. There are quite a few really good T6 ships that you can get for Energy Credits on the Exchange, or through Lobi Crystals in the Lobi Store, or from Fleet provisions if you're in a more advanced Fleet. Generally speaking, Lobi ships are equivalent to Fleet ships, but other T6 ships you'll want to upgrade to Fleet T6. The difference between regular T6 ships and Fleet T6 ships is that regular T6 only has 10 console slots, whereas Fleet T6 have 11 console slots.
Some other things to consider are the weapon slots. If you're using beams, 4/3 will work fine. If you're using cannons, 5/2 are better. Also, if you're using beams, you can afford to use a ship with a slightly lower (worse) turn rate, but if you're using cannons, you need a more agile ship with a higher (better) turn rate in order to keep enemies within your limited firing arc (which I alluded to earlier as time on target).
Lastly, the seating arrangement for your Bridge Officers is also important. You'll want a ship where you can seat a Commander (CDR) TAC BOFF and a Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) TAC BOFF. I'll go into more detail on this later in point #7. Engineering and Science BOFF seating isn't as critical, but they do become more important as your builds become more advanced. I personally prefer a larger Engineering BOFF seat than a Science BOFF seat, but others prefer the opposite. Additionally, there is hybrid BOFF seating where you can use Intel, Command, Miracle Worker, and other specialization skills through your BOFFs. I consider this to fall under advanced builds, so I won't touch on that here, but I wanted you to be aware of it at least.
5. Next is consoles themselves. From your weapons, to your engines, to the other consoles in your Tactical/Science/Engineering slots. As I explained earlier, weapons should be both the same energy type and weapon type. For a beam build, you'll typically use beam arrays in your fore weapon slots, and omni arrays in your aft weapon slots. Be aware that the game restricts omnis heavily, and you cannot equip a reputation omni with a mission omni on the same ship. So choose wisely. For a cannon build, you'll have heavy dual-cannons in the front and turrets in the back. As a reminder, ordnance sets are key. There are of course exceptions to this, such as Spiral Wave Disruptors, but that's for more advanced builds.
If you decide to use a torpedo (which is completely fine), only use one, and again it should be something that is part of an ordnance set. Such as the Terran Task Force torpedo (which supports both Phaser and Disruptor builds), or the Nausicaan torpedo for Disruptor builds, or the Delphic or Crystalline torpedo for AP builds, and so on.
Engine sets can vary depending on the energy type you're using, but for general purpose DPS with good survivability, the Iconian four-piece set is really good. The 33% damage buff you can activate with that set is also team wide. More advanced sets might be the two-piece Bajor set with Fleet Warpcore and Colony Deflector if you're running a Disruptor or Phaser build.
For the consoles themselves, that could easily turn into a much longer conversation, but can't emphasize enough that real estate is a premium on your ship, so wherever possible, you should use consoles that are part of an ordnance set which gives you relevant set bonuses. I usually slot for the 2-piece set bonus from each ordnance set I run, and I therefore advise that you do the same by matching one weapon with one console for the 2-piece set bonus. The rest will either come from Fleet holdings or the Lobi store, so I'll just list some of the major stuff so that you know what you need to be working toward.*
Tactical consoles: Fleet Locators x5 (Fleet Spire). The energy type needs to match the energy type of your weapons. You can also use the Protomatter TAC consoles (Fleet Colony), but I don't recommend running any if you're not using a torpedo, and if you are, I wouldn't use more than 1 or 2 because you're sacrificing critical chance when you slot those in place of a Locator.
Engineering consoles: Enhanced Neutronium (Fleet Dilithium Mine) with EPS, Reinforced Armaments (Beyond the Nexus mission) if you're running Phasers, Martok Defensive Configuration (Brushfire mission) if you're running Disruptors, and more...
Science consoles: Nausicaan Siphon Capacitor (Echoes of Light mission) if you're running Disruptors
Universal consoles (they can be placed anywhere, but should go in either a Science or Engineering slot, wherever you have room): Tachyokinetic Converter (Lobi store), Quantum Phase Converter (Sunrise mission) if you're running Phasers
*This list is not all-inclusive. I only gave you some of the more widely used examples.
6. It could be argued that Starship Traits are the most important aspect of any good build. They can literally take a good build and make it awesome, or they can make a bad build worse. That said, you should become familiar with the top tier (aka Category A) Starship Traits for TAC builds. Bear in mind, some Starship Traits are more effective when used with certain builds. For example, Supremacy is far more effective with a beam FaW build than a cannon SV build. But for the sake of brevity, I'll list some of the more common Category A Starship Traits for TAC FaW builds here:
Emergency Weapon Cycle (T6 Arbiter Battlecruiser in C-Store)
Promise of Ferocity (TAC pilot escorts in C-Store)
Supremacy (Vaadwaur Astika in Lobi store)*
Calm Before the Storm (Cardassian Intel Cruiser in C-Store)
The Ruin of our Enemies (Miracle Worker Cruiser in Lobi store)
Supercharged Weapons (if running a torpedo) (TAC Star Cruiser in C-Store)
*If you're running a cannon SV build, it's generally accepted that you absolutely need Withering Barrage (T6 Tactical Escort in C-Store) in place of Supremacy.
Again, this list isn't exhaustive, and as I said, some Traits are more effective with certain builds. If you want to look at a more inclusive list that also shows Category A Starship Traits for other builds, DPS League is a good source for that, and they recently updated their list in September of last year.
7. What a lot of newer players don't realize is that BOFFs are an integral part of your build, and therefore play an important role in applying all the equipment you have in combat. As such, I'll explain a few build basics you should follow as TAC.
First, the two most important aspects of both your build and your BOFFs/DOFFs that make it all work is GCD (global cooldown) and CRIT/CRITD. Your primary weapon attack mode, be it FaW or SV, needs to always be at GCD. What this means is that you want that ability to be up and activate as often as possible, and the fastest you can do that is by reaching GCD, which is 15 seconds for most things that fall under this category. There are many ways to accomplish this, such as via Photonic Officer, AUX to Battery DOFFs, Starship Traits that reduce TAC GCD, and so on, but the easiest and simplest way to accomplish this is to run two copies of your primary attack mode skill for your TAC BOFFs. You also want to run the highest version of that skill. So if you're running beam FaW III, which requires a LCDR (Lieutenant Commander) skill slot, you'll not only want both TAC BOFFs to be running this skill, but you also need to be in a ship that offers two Tactical BOFF seats of at least LCDR or higher. For illustration purposes, I'll include one of the more common TAC BOFF seating assignments and skill loadout for reference:
Some ships may offer three TAC BOFF seats, others may offer one TAC BOFF and a Universal BOFF seat(s). It doesn't really matter as long as you are able to at least slot two of your highest weapon attack modes, which in this example was FaW 3. The point is to bring that skill ability to GCD. As I said earlier, there are multiple ways to accomplish this in more advanced builds, but for the sake of keeping it simple, this is the easiest and most straightforward.
Second, you want to use BOFFs who have space traits that will actually be useful to you in space, in particular, ones that offer bonuses to damage, critical chance, and/or critical severity. CRIT/CRITD are literally the bread and butter of TAC builds, so the more you can stack, the better. Some examples of this are the Romulan TAC BOFFs you can get from the Fleet Embassy who have the Superior Romulan Operative trait. Or the Vanguard Jem-Hadar BOFFs who have the Engineered Soldier (Space). Some other extremely good BOFF choices for Science and Engineering BOFF seats are the Lukari and Kentari BOFFs from the Fleet Colony. Until you're able to get those, the Science/Intel Heirarchy BOFF from the "Alliances" mission in the Delta Quadrant is a good choice for his Pirate trait. When possible, don't use BOFFs who only have ground traits - those Bridge Officers are intended as Away Team candidates.
8. DOFFs also play a role in filling gaps in your build, whether it's to help bring you to GCD on other skill abilities such as Tactical Team or Torpedo skills, or to give you straight bonus damage, or even to extend the duration of some skill abilities such as Reverse Shield Polarity. There are simply too many to list here, but I suggest you either do some online research on those as it pertains to TAC builds, or get with someone in chat who can explain how they work and which ones are more valuable to your build. I will warn you that the better DOFFs can get very expensive on the Exchange, so it's likely to be one of the last things you work on.
9. Finally, there's your spec. How are your points allocated for your space skills? I don't believe in copy/paste building because it doesn't teach you anything. It's the whole parable about teaching a man how to fish and he'll be able to feed himself for life versus just giving him a fish and only feeding him for a day. What I will say here though is that it's my opinion that better TAC builds have some survivability built in, without sacrificing too much DPS. Your spec is one of the places you can do this, especially considering that the TAC ultimate ability (Focus Frenzy) is not very good, and those points are better spent elsewhere, usually in the Science tree to improve your shields. I'd suggest that you get with someone who understands this so that they can explain to you why you should put points in specific places. That way, if you decide to respec later, you'll know where to put the points and you'll understand why you're putting them there.
So that's everything in a nutshell. Obviously, there's a great deal of nuance and things can quickly get more complicated in more advanced builds, but these are the basics. If you follow this, you'll find your performance and enjoyment in the game will increase dramatically. I hope it helps.
Energy Type is an argument not worth having. A lot of it is personal preference and even if you're going by the statistical 'best' you're talking fractions of percents that are only noticeable in parses.
By all means, take the advice given.. nothing said has been wrong, but don't stress on Energy Type. Pick what you like and don't worry about it. Yes, Phaser and Disruptor have the most available boosts, followed by Polaron. But Antiproton would not be noticeably 'better' or 'worse' then any of them. The built in Critical Severity is always nice and they're all excellent choices.
Put your efforts into your gear, traits and bridge officer powers. The argument over energy type is fairly pointless.. use what you want and don't stress over it.
Energy Type is an argument not worth having. A lot of it is personal preference and even if you're going by the statistical 'best' you're talking fractions of percents that are only noticeable in parses.
By all means, take the advice given.. nothing said has been wrong, but don't stress on Energy Type. Pick what you like and don't worry about it. Yes, Phaser and Disruptor have the most available boosts, followed by Polaron. But Antiproton would not be noticeably 'better' or 'worse' then any of them. The built in Critical Severity is always nice and they're all excellent choices.
Put your efforts into your gear, traits and bridge officer powers. The argument over energy type is fairly pointless.. use what you want and don't stress over it.
Actually, I don't think most AP set gear has the crit severity bonus on it, as they come with some other proc instead. There are plenty of other slots to fill with standard AP weapons, but it is one of my gripes of sets, they often don't have a standard proc, and the one they have may not be as useful as the default, though this is chiefly only an issue with Polaron and AP.
AP sets are also questionable, as you have the Obelisk set which requires you to use a specific warp core and the omni beam for a 10% bonus AP damage, and the Temporal rep set which only gives 9% energy damage and 5% crit severity. Temporal rep is probably worthwhile in most cases, though the Obelisk set is only good for beam boats if you can afford to use a lousy warp core. Iconian or Delta reps do basically nothing for damage.
Actually, I don't think most AP set gear has the crit severity bonus on it, as they come with some other proc instead.
The only AP I use are crafted weapons for the proc.
AP sets are also questionable, as you have the Obelisk set which requires you to use a specific warp core and the omni beam for a 10% bonus AP damage, and the Temporal rep set which only gives 9% energy damage and 5% crit severity. Temporal rep is probably worthwhile in most cases, though the Obelisk set is only good for beam boats if you can afford to use a lousy warp core. Iconian or Delta reps do basically nothing for damage.
Yeah, I don't use any of that garbage.
Just because it doesn't buff AP specifically though, doesn't mean you can't use other buffs. For AP buffs, I use the Crystaline Matrix, Polymorphic Probe, and the console from the Khitomer along with other general buffing consoles like the DPRM, D.O.M.I.N.O., Timeline Stabilizer, etc.
Again though, the empisis on Energy Type far less important then pretty much every single other aspect of the build. Most of the conversation here is being dominated by the least important aspect of the build overall.
Energy Type is an argument not worth having. A lot of it is personal preference and even if you're going by the statistical 'best' you're talking fractions of percents that are only noticeable in parses.
By all means, take the advice given.. nothing said has been wrong, but don't stress on Energy Type. Pick what you like and don't worry about it. Yes, Phaser and Disruptor have the most available boosts, followed by Polaron. But Antiproton would not be noticeably 'better' or 'worse' then any of them. The built in Critical Severity is always nice and they're all excellent choices.
Put your efforts into your gear, traits and bridge officer powers. The argument over energy type is fairly pointless.. use what you want and don't stress over it.
I agree with this, and for the record, it was not my intention to start a debate over energy type choices. It was only one point out of the nine build points that I offered. But for the sake of accuracy, I listed the energy types in order of potential DPS. I'll concede that ordering that list can be a bit subjective, especially when comparing AP to Polaron. And I intentionally didn't mention the two-piece set bonus with DPRM, or the DOMINO console, which become even better when paired with their respective energy types, because those consoles are so difficult and expensive to get. Build basics is already complicated enough, so I make a distinction between that and more advanced build options where different energy types truly start to distinguish themselves in a parser.
The underlying point is if someone is building (TAC) around one specific energy type, with ordnance sets to support it, their ship performance will be significantly improved. It's simply much easier to do that with Disruptor, Phaser, and even Polaron, and in the long run, the results will be slightly better. Yet if he doesn't have access to those sets yet (since many of them are reputation based), crafted AP (with PEN) would be easier and quicker to build around. This is also why I prefaced my post with how everything is a matter of time and patience. It takes two months to reach Terran Tier 6 reputation for the Terran Task Force Phaser, for instance. But we also all know that crafting AP with PEN can get very expensive, so that too is a consideration.
My only intention here was to provide a more comprehensive build guide for this player because I didn't have that information readily available when I first started playing this game four/five years ago and was trying to figure out how things worked. And of course, I didn't cover everything because it's simply too much information to digest in one sitting. Yet terrible players on terrible builds in TFOs has become commonplace. And by terrible I mean they are dying repeatedly on Normal TFOs; TAC players flying around in big Engineering ships who are dead in the first minute and then messaging me later to ask how I'm killing everything so fast and still staying alive on my little NX-Refit. (That's not to say that you can't make a viable TAC build on a dreadnaught, but these players don't even understand build basics, let alone more advanced builds that can make that aforementioned example possible.) You have to learn to walk before you can learn to run. Maybe it's different on PC, but it's been my experience that the overwhelming majority of players in this game, at least on console, don't seem to want to put in the time and effort to learn how to walk. So when I see a player like Phantom wanting to take that first big step to improve his game, I feel compelled to help him. Hopefully my contribution is accepted in the spirit in which it was given.
Comments
DPS League Budget/Starter Builds.
DPS League Ship Builds (including cross faction ships.)
Traits Guide.
DPS Guides, keybinds, skill tree, etc.
If you have any questions on any of it, feel free to ask.
Coming here asking for help is the hardest step. The rest is just a matter of time and patience. That said, I'll reiterate what others have said, and offer some additional build guidance that should help you in the long run.
First of all, as a TAC captain, your goal is DPS, with enough survivability that you can continue to do DPS. Unfortunately, due to the rather flawed aggro mechanics in this game, the more DPS you do, the more aggro you'll get. Dead men do no DPS, as they say, but this doesn't really matter until you start doing Advanced or Elite TFOs. So everything I suggest to you will be with that focus in mind.
Here are your basic build guidelines, some of which has already been mentioned, but I'm including it again to be thorough. While there's always exceptions to everything I'm going to explain to you, I recommend keeping your build simple and straightforward until you have a deeper understanding of the game mechanics and before making non-standard adjustments.
1. Choose a weapon type. Either beams, or cannons, but generally not both. While cannons are the current meta for end-game content, they also require more advanced/expensive builds and better piloting skill from the player to maintain ToT (time on target). Beams are a lot more forgiving when it comes to your piloting skill. When it comes to DPS thresholds for Advanced and Elite TFOs, you can absolutely meet these minimums with a beam build, but a proper cannon build will surpass it. FYI, the reason cannons are now the meta is because beam procs were nerfed, and power level maintenance for cannons is now much easier than it used to be. I'll touch on that again later.
2. Choose a firing mode for your weapons. Generally speaking, you're going to go with Fire at Will (FaW) for beams, and Scatter Volley (SV) for cannons. That also means that if you're running beam FaW, you typically don't run beam Overload. Similarly, if you're running cannon SV, you don't run cannon Rapid Fire. Keep in mind that FaW hits two targets per beam array, whereas SV only hits three targets within your cannon firing arc. It's worth mentioning that beam Overload is currently broken (in the player's benefit), but I suspect Cryptic will fix that sooner than later, and for several reasons I won't get into here, I'd still suggest beam FaW over Overload.
3. Choose an energy type. Rainbow boats are only really viable on SCI builds (and some ENG builds), because their primary mode of DPS is not based on their energy weapons (or in the case of some ENG builds, they aren't trying to do DPS). The general order of energy types from best to worst is as follows:
Disruptor
Phaser
Polaron / AP (with PEN)
Plasma
Tetryon
I realize someone already told you that AP is really good. It's not bad at all, and with PEN (armor penetration) it's certainly better than half the energy types out there and arguably as good as Polaron, but I don't agree that it's better than Disruptor or Phaser, and there's several reasons for that. First, most Disruptor weapons proc a damage resist (DR) debuff, so as the weapon hits a target and its damage resist is debuffed, the weapon effectively does more damage to that target. Yes, the proc chance for energy weapons was nerfed down to 2.5%, which was mentioned earlier, but with good firing cycle haste on a beam FaW build, you will proc those beam effects often. For Advanced and Elite TFOs where enemy ships have more health, the benefits of Disruptor energy weaponry begin to out-weigh anything else because TTK (time to kill) becomes longer, meaning you have more time and more chances to proc weapon effects. Second, there aren't really any (good) ordnance sets that support AP, unlike Phaser and Disruptor, which have quite a few very good ordnance sets that either offer cycle haste, bonus damage, bonus critical chance/severity, and so on. Pound for pound, you get more out of a console that is part of an ordnance set than an independent console that is not part of an ordnance set. Third, the inherent 20% critical severity that AP weapons get only really matters if you crit in the first place. We'll talk about CRIT (critical chance) vs CRITD (critical severity) more later. Fourth and perhaps the most definitive reason, the Terran Task Force Phaser and Disruptor weapons (which are part of a reputation ordnance set) are the most powerful weapons in the game, and easily set those energy types apart from the rest.
4. Choose a (T6) ship that supports your build goals. For you, you want a TAC ship, meaning, a ship that has more Tactical console slots than Science or Engineering. It's a common misconception in this game that a bigger ship equals bigger performance. That's absolutely not true, especially when it comes to TAC. But as was already stated by someone else, you need to get into a T6 ship. As with all things in this game, most of the better T6 ships are sitting behind a pay wall (the C-Store), but not all. There are quite a few really good T6 ships that you can get for Energy Credits on the Exchange, or through Lobi Crystals in the Lobi Store, or from Fleet provisions if you're in a more advanced Fleet. Generally speaking, Lobi ships are equivalent to Fleet ships, but other T6 ships you'll want to upgrade to Fleet T6. The difference between regular T6 ships and Fleet T6 ships is that regular T6 only has 10 console slots, whereas Fleet T6 have 11 console slots.
Some other things to consider are the weapon slots. If you're using beams, 4/3 will work fine. If you're using cannons, 5/2 are better. Also, if you're using beams, you can afford to use a ship with a slightly lower (worse) turn rate, but if you're using cannons, you need a more agile ship with a higher (better) turn rate in order to keep enemies within your limited firing arc (which I alluded to earlier as time on target).
Lastly, the seating arrangement for your Bridge Officers is also important. You'll want a ship where you can seat a Commander (CDR) TAC BOFF and a Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) TAC BOFF. I'll go into more detail on this later in point #7. Engineering and Science BOFF seating isn't as critical, but they do become more important as your builds become more advanced. I personally prefer a larger Engineering BOFF seat than a Science BOFF seat, but others prefer the opposite. Additionally, there is hybrid BOFF seating where you can use Intel, Command, Miracle Worker, and other specialization skills through your BOFFs. I consider this to fall under advanced builds, so I won't touch on that here, but I wanted you to be aware of it at least.
5. Next is consoles themselves. From your weapons, to your engines, to the other consoles in your Tactical/Science/Engineering slots. As I explained earlier, weapons should be both the same energy type and weapon type. For a beam build, you'll typically use beam arrays in your fore weapon slots, and omni arrays in your aft weapon slots. Be aware that the game restricts omnis heavily, and you cannot equip a reputation omni with a mission omni on the same ship. So choose wisely. For a cannon build, you'll have heavy dual-cannons in the front and turrets in the back. As a reminder, ordnance sets are key. There are of course exceptions to this, such as Spiral Wave Disruptors, but that's for more advanced builds.
If you decide to use a torpedo (which is completely fine), only use one, and again it should be something that is part of an ordnance set. Such as the Terran Task Force torpedo (which supports both Phaser and Disruptor builds), or the Nausicaan torpedo for Disruptor builds, or the Delphic or Crystalline torpedo for AP builds, and so on.
Engine sets can vary depending on the energy type you're using, but for general purpose DPS with good survivability, the Iconian four-piece set is really good. The 33% damage buff you can activate with that set is also team wide. More advanced sets might be the two-piece Bajor set with Fleet Warpcore and Colony Deflector if you're running a Disruptor or Phaser build.
For the consoles themselves, that could easily turn into a much longer conversation, but can't emphasize enough that real estate is a premium on your ship, so wherever possible, you should use consoles that are part of an ordnance set which gives you relevant set bonuses. I usually slot for the 2-piece set bonus from each ordnance set I run, and I therefore advise that you do the same by matching one weapon with one console for the 2-piece set bonus. The rest will either come from Fleet holdings or the Lobi store, so I'll just list some of the major stuff so that you know what you need to be working toward.*
Tactical consoles: Fleet Locators x5 (Fleet Spire). The energy type needs to match the energy type of your weapons. You can also use the Protomatter TAC consoles (Fleet Colony), but I don't recommend running any if you're not using a torpedo, and if you are, I wouldn't use more than 1 or 2 because you're sacrificing critical chance when you slot those in place of a Locator.
Engineering consoles: Enhanced Neutronium (Fleet Dilithium Mine) with EPS, Reinforced Armaments (Beyond the Nexus mission) if you're running Phasers, Martok Defensive Configuration (Brushfire mission) if you're running Disruptors, and more...
Science consoles: Nausicaan Siphon Capacitor (Echoes of Light mission) if you're running Disruptors
Universal consoles (they can be placed anywhere, but should go in either a Science or Engineering slot, wherever you have room): Tachyokinetic Converter (Lobi store), Quantum Phase Converter (Sunrise mission) if you're running Phasers
*This list is not all-inclusive. I only gave you some of the more widely used examples.
6. It could be argued that Starship Traits are the most important aspect of any good build. They can literally take a good build and make it awesome, or they can make a bad build worse. That said, you should become familiar with the top tier (aka Category A) Starship Traits for TAC builds. Bear in mind, some Starship Traits are more effective when used with certain builds. For example, Supremacy is far more effective with a beam FaW build than a cannon SV build. But for the sake of brevity, I'll list some of the more common Category A Starship Traits for TAC FaW builds here:
Emergency Weapon Cycle (T6 Arbiter Battlecruiser in C-Store)
Promise of Ferocity (TAC pilot escorts in C-Store)
Supremacy (Vaadwaur Astika in Lobi store)*
Calm Before the Storm (Cardassian Intel Cruiser in C-Store)
The Ruin of our Enemies (Miracle Worker Cruiser in Lobi store)
Supercharged Weapons (if running a torpedo) (TAC Star Cruiser in C-Store)
*If you're running a cannon SV build, it's generally accepted that you absolutely need Withering Barrage (T6 Tactical Escort in C-Store) in place of Supremacy.
Again, this list isn't exhaustive, and as I said, some Traits are more effective with certain builds. If you want to look at a more inclusive list that also shows Category A Starship Traits for other builds, DPS League is a good source for that, and they recently updated their list in September of last year.
7. What a lot of newer players don't realize is that BOFFs are an integral part of your build, and therefore play an important role in applying all the equipment you have in combat. As such, I'll explain a few build basics you should follow as TAC.
First, the two most important aspects of both your build and your BOFFs/DOFFs that make it all work is GCD (global cooldown) and CRIT/CRITD. Your primary weapon attack mode, be it FaW or SV, needs to always be at GCD. What this means is that you want that ability to be up and activate as often as possible, and the fastest you can do that is by reaching GCD, which is 15 seconds for most things that fall under this category. There are many ways to accomplish this, such as via Photonic Officer, AUX to Battery DOFFs, Starship Traits that reduce TAC GCD, and so on, but the easiest and simplest way to accomplish this is to run two copies of your primary attack mode skill for your TAC BOFFs. You also want to run the highest version of that skill. So if you're running beam FaW III, which requires a LCDR (Lieutenant Commander) skill slot, you'll not only want both TAC BOFFs to be running this skill, but you also need to be in a ship that offers two Tactical BOFF seats of at least LCDR or higher. For illustration purposes, I'll include one of the more common TAC BOFF seating assignments and skill loadout for reference:
CDR TAC: Ensign skill = Tactical Team 1
Lieutenant skill = Attack Pattern Beta or Delta
LCDR skill = FaW 3
CDR skill = Attack Pattern Omega
LCDR TAC: Ensign skill = Kemocite Laced Weaponry 1
Lieutenant skill = Torpedo Spread 2 (or Torpedo High Yield 2)
LCDR skill = FaW 3
Some ships may offer three TAC BOFF seats, others may offer one TAC BOFF and a Universal BOFF seat(s). It doesn't really matter as long as you are able to at least slot two of your highest weapon attack modes, which in this example was FaW 3. The point is to bring that skill ability to GCD. As I said earlier, there are multiple ways to accomplish this in more advanced builds, but for the sake of keeping it simple, this is the easiest and most straightforward.
Second, you want to use BOFFs who have space traits that will actually be useful to you in space, in particular, ones that offer bonuses to damage, critical chance, and/or critical severity. CRIT/CRITD are literally the bread and butter of TAC builds, so the more you can stack, the better. Some examples of this are the Romulan TAC BOFFs you can get from the Fleet Embassy who have the Superior Romulan Operative trait. Or the Vanguard Jem-Hadar BOFFs who have the Engineered Soldier (Space). Some other extremely good BOFF choices for Science and Engineering BOFF seats are the Lukari and Kentari BOFFs from the Fleet Colony. Until you're able to get those, the Science/Intel Heirarchy BOFF from the "Alliances" mission in the Delta Quadrant is a good choice for his Pirate trait. When possible, don't use BOFFs who only have ground traits - those Bridge Officers are intended as Away Team candidates.
8. DOFFs also play a role in filling gaps in your build, whether it's to help bring you to GCD on other skill abilities such as Tactical Team or Torpedo skills, or to give you straight bonus damage, or even to extend the duration of some skill abilities such as Reverse Shield Polarity. There are simply too many to list here, but I suggest you either do some online research on those as it pertains to TAC builds, or get with someone in chat who can explain how they work and which ones are more valuable to your build. I will warn you that the better DOFFs can get very expensive on the Exchange, so it's likely to be one of the last things you work on.
9. Finally, there's your spec. How are your points allocated for your space skills? I don't believe in copy/paste building because it doesn't teach you anything. It's the whole parable about teaching a man how to fish and he'll be able to feed himself for life versus just giving him a fish and only feeding him for a day. What I will say here though is that it's my opinion that better TAC builds have some survivability built in, without sacrificing too much DPS. Your spec is one of the places you can do this, especially considering that the TAC ultimate ability (Focus Frenzy) is not very good, and those points are better spent elsewhere, usually in the Science tree to improve your shields. I'd suggest that you get with someone who understands this so that they can explain to you why you should put points in specific places. That way, if you decide to respec later, you'll know where to put the points and you'll understand why you're putting them there.
So that's everything in a nutshell. Obviously, there's a great deal of nuance and things can quickly get more complicated in more advanced builds, but these are the basics. If you follow this, you'll find your performance and enjoyment in the game will increase dramatically. I hope it helps.
By all means, take the advice given.. nothing said has been wrong, but don't stress on Energy Type. Pick what you like and don't worry about it. Yes, Phaser and Disruptor have the most available boosts, followed by Polaron. But Antiproton would not be noticeably 'better' or 'worse' then any of them. The built in Critical Severity is always nice and they're all excellent choices.
Put your efforts into your gear, traits and bridge officer powers. The argument over energy type is fairly pointless.. use what you want and don't stress over it.
Actually, I don't think most AP set gear has the crit severity bonus on it, as they come with some other proc instead. There are plenty of other slots to fill with standard AP weapons, but it is one of my gripes of sets, they often don't have a standard proc, and the one they have may not be as useful as the default, though this is chiefly only an issue with Polaron and AP.
AP sets are also questionable, as you have the Obelisk set which requires you to use a specific warp core and the omni beam for a 10% bonus AP damage, and the Temporal rep set which only gives 9% energy damage and 5% crit severity. Temporal rep is probably worthwhile in most cases, though the Obelisk set is only good for beam boats if you can afford to use a lousy warp core. Iconian or Delta reps do basically nothing for damage.
The only AP I use are crafted weapons for the proc.
Yeah, I don't use any of that garbage.
Just because it doesn't buff AP specifically though, doesn't mean you can't use other buffs. For AP buffs, I use the Crystaline Matrix, Polymorphic Probe, and the console from the Khitomer along with other general buffing consoles like the DPRM, D.O.M.I.N.O., Timeline Stabilizer, etc.
Again though, the empisis on Energy Type far less important then pretty much every single other aspect of the build. Most of the conversation here is being dominated by the least important aspect of the build overall.
I agree with this, and for the record, it was not my intention to start a debate over energy type choices. It was only one point out of the nine build points that I offered. But for the sake of accuracy, I listed the energy types in order of potential DPS. I'll concede that ordering that list can be a bit subjective, especially when comparing AP to Polaron. And I intentionally didn't mention the two-piece set bonus with DPRM, or the DOMINO console, which become even better when paired with their respective energy types, because those consoles are so difficult and expensive to get. Build basics is already complicated enough, so I make a distinction between that and more advanced build options where different energy types truly start to distinguish themselves in a parser.
The underlying point is if someone is building (TAC) around one specific energy type, with ordnance sets to support it, their ship performance will be significantly improved. It's simply much easier to do that with Disruptor, Phaser, and even Polaron, and in the long run, the results will be slightly better. Yet if he doesn't have access to those sets yet (since many of them are reputation based), crafted AP (with PEN) would be easier and quicker to build around. This is also why I prefaced my post with how everything is a matter of time and patience. It takes two months to reach Terran Tier 6 reputation for the Terran Task Force Phaser, for instance. But we also all know that crafting AP with PEN can get very expensive, so that too is a consideration.
My only intention here was to provide a more comprehensive build guide for this player because I didn't have that information readily available when I first started playing this game four/five years ago and was trying to figure out how things worked. And of course, I didn't cover everything because it's simply too much information to digest in one sitting. Yet terrible players on terrible builds in TFOs has become commonplace. And by terrible I mean they are dying repeatedly on Normal TFOs; TAC players flying around in big Engineering ships who are dead in the first minute and then messaging me later to ask how I'm killing everything so fast and still staying alive on my little NX-Refit. (That's not to say that you can't make a viable TAC build on a dreadnaught, but these players don't even understand build basics, let alone more advanced builds that can make that aforementioned example possible.) You have to learn to walk before you can learn to run. Maybe it's different on PC, but it's been my experience that the overwhelming majority of players in this game, at least on console, don't seem to want to put in the time and effort to learn how to walk. So when I see a player like Phantom wanting to take that first big step to improve his game, I feel compelled to help him. Hopefully my contribution is accepted in the spirit in which it was given.