Underrated ships you like or surprised you?

jkwrangler2010

What are some underrated ships you like or surprised you?

So I've held on to my fleet modules for a long time after reaching T6 on all of my reputations. I decided to spend a few on the T6 Fleet Recon Destroyer- New Orleans Class. It's been a surprisingly fun little ship. It has a 4/3 weapon layout with 5 tac consoles and an experimental weapons slot. Boff seating provides Commander Tactical, LT. Commander Science and Lt. Commander Universal/Intel, LT Engineering and Ensign Tactical. So it provides a little flexibility in set-ups.

"The Recon Destroyer provides a middle ground between the toughness of a cruiser and the maneuverability and firepower of an escort."
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Fleet_New_Orleans_Recon_Destroyer

tom61sto

T6 Fleet Recon Destroyer surprised me too when I got it. I was tired of the lackluster damage output of the T6 Galaxy (it's viable, but so many other of my ships I could get a fair bit more out of, and those cold even turn!), but still wanted the Galaxy look, so picked up the New Orleans class with the free Fleet Ship Modules from Tier 5 Reputations on my Engineer. I'm not sure if it's just the ship itself or in large part the Soliton Wave Impeller from the Risian Escort, but it surprised me in damage output. The Soliton Wave Impeller has a Haste boost that scales with Engine Power, which I can juice up bit as Engineer with a captain ability or with Override Subsystem Safeties III in it's Intel Universal BOff slot. Not had much issue with survive-ability, despite it's lack-luster hull modifier, but being an Engineer helps with that.

All in all a nice ship that looks like a tiny Galaxy class with markers glued on.

salazarraze

I wouldn't call it underrated per se. But the Mirror Engle definitely surprised me more than any other ship in this game ever has. I bought it thinking I only wanted the trait and I'd never use it again and boy was I wrong. I basically main the ship now. The experimental weapon that it comes with is excellent and I believe it's highly underrated. The weapon is very good for both damage and especially crowd control which really helps when I'm using CSV III to rain down death upon those poor NPCs.

I mean, how many ships have all the following benefits baked into a single package?

- Commander Tactical Station
- 5 Tac Consoles
- 5 Forward Firing Weapons
- Excellent Experimental Weapon
- META Ship Trait
- Intel Spec (still a very good spec, one downside is it isn't a full spec ship.)
- Great turn rate
- It even has a hangar bay (I use the Discoprise pets for this)

Overall I highly recommend it.

phoenixc

The Dewan Ikkabar is surprisingly good. At first I did not like the look at all, and on paper the stats look a bit iffy (though the trait is good) but it is one of those ships that kind of grows on you, and in combat it just all works better than expected.

The Europa class is another one that turned out to be surprisingly good. On paper it does not look that impressive, and I would not have gotten it myself (it was a third party promotion code offer) but it is good enough that I now have it as the main ship of one of my characters.

One ship that I kept hearing bad things about but I picked up anyway because it is very close to the ship of one of one of my old favorite characters from a tabletop Star Trek game, is the Faeht. I heard that the c-store version was weak and that I should get the fleet version instead (I still might get it eventually though), so I was expecting problems but it flies well and is not weak in combat.

paladinrja

None really, they all pretty much work as they are labelled. I think it just depends on the players; and whether they know the basic function of a picket (by type) vs a cruiser, or carrier, and then how displacement factors into each's role.

Watching everyone float about in Dreads as attack ships, then cringe when a new command vessel is offered; is:

Unknown

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questerius

There are several, but this one deserves a special mention:
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Cheyenne_Heavy_Cruiser_Retrofit

alcyoneserene

Not underrated and works as expected given the stats, but what was surprising is how much I enjoyed these, in this order, doing solo or group elite patrols. The warbird has no pets and with a singularity core less subsystem power especially before singularity charges, so you take the full force of incoming damage.

This means strategic careful planing, raising shields to max before incoming alpha strikes, using all abilities to stay alive, escaping with cloak to heal and allow the cool-downs to replenish, and dealing big damage at windows of opportunity which with the right setup leads to a lot of self-healing necessary to stay engaged and demolish millions of HP that chase you around your map were it not for cloak and singularity abilities.

I use them with particle-emissions plasma torp on rear and two low-level temporal-exotic abilities, which when possible build entropy to full then either scatter it or deal spike exotic damage powered by 4 sci exotic consoles, 3 of which also boost shields, overall powering the exotic torpedo consoles that come with the ships. Honored dead starship trait makes it possible to be super squishy at the start facing impossible odds, but work them right (spam all abilities, shift subsystem powers where needed, divert shield facings, etc.) to charge it, power the singularity core, and it reminds me why I still bother with this half-broken game cause of how much fun it can sometimes be.

They shield tank (with the right setup) against otherwise killer tops, they maneuver fast to dodge giant hits (defense), they hit hard to self-heal from damage out, and have pretty decent exotic alpha strikes, plus I really enjoy the way they look.

The Vanguard is different enough from the warbird that it tanks way more due to higher subsystem power - hard shields with high regeneration and self-healing from cannon output are impacted by shield power in a significant way and tank projectiles that would otherwise obliterate you - and wingmen which act to amplify defense rating by being targeted instead of you quite often, and help in combat greatly. It's definitely "we go into battle to reclaim our lives" since short of evasive maneuvers, rock and roll, temporal spec immunity, there is no easy escape like the warbird. Did I already mention the Vanguard looks epic?

Kholhr Temporal Warbird

Jem'Hadar Vanguard Temporal Warship

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

One ship that I kept hearing bad things about but I picked up anyway because it is very close to the ship of one of one of my old favorite characters from a tabletop Star Trek game, is the Faeht. I heard that the c-store version was weak and that I should get the fleet version instead (I still might get it eventually though), so I was expecting problems but it flies well and is not weak in combat.

Faeht is an awesome ship if you make use of what it offers: enhanced battle cloak, intel vulnerability scan, plasma beam that trips vulnerability instantly, high maneuverability, and singularity charge and abilities to stay alive with thin hull.

There's so much misinformation due to great variety of player skill, game knowledge, and equipment that it's best to test everything yourself and only put weight on those who have clearly proven to you to know what they're talking about at any particular iteration of game balance point.

I've learned this not from here but other PVP gaming forums where the 'experts' at game stats are clearly incapable of recognizing stats in themselves are meaningless if not accounting for how all the stats interact to produce an end result greatly modified by player experience and skill, networking, and strategic application. It is a lot of fun to prove them wrong in practice by account-wide stats only to see them whine their OP gear is somehow lacking, and then to also win repeatedly against them with inferior stuff on both the game-wide level and in 1vs1s.

nightken

my personal favorite "bad" ships are the dyson line, mostly the romulan ones. they are perfectly adequate t-5 science vessels that turn into somewhat terrible destroyer, that said even a proton based build in destroyer mode is good enough for most content.

garaffe

nightken wrote: »

my personal favorite "bad" ships are the dyson line, mostly the romulan ones. they are perfectly adequate t-5 science vessels that turn into somewhat terrible destroyer, that said even a proton based build in destroyer mode is good enough for most content.

I want to add my voice in support of the Romulan Dyson ships. If for no other reason than the fact that they are some darn good looking ships.

Also I love the Fleet Malem with the T'varo console set, Romulan shield and engine, and compeditive deflector and singularity core with a plasma THY build. So much fun.