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Build Tips Request for Carriers running Direct Energy Weapons (DEW) and Science (Control+EPG)

thaedaristhaedaris Member Posts: 27 Arc User
edited March 2023 in The Shipyard
UPDATED as of Mar 23, 2023: Improved Consoles layout and Ship Traits based on current feedback. Recently updated to mirror current setup to share with Armada's Discord.

Hi! I have been having a lot of fun flying the Fleet Voquv Carrier (T6-X) on my new KDF Recruit (Science career). I'm looking for advice or tips on improving his build.

Thank you all!

Here's what he has right now:

Captain Science Skills:

Control Expertise (CtrlX): 410+
Exotic Particle Generator (EPG): 327+

Bridge Stations Layout:

Lt. Commander Universal/Command - Romulan (Superior Subterfuge)
  • Ensign - Kemocite Laced Weaponry 1
  • Lieutenant - Attack Pattern Beta 1
  • Lt. Commander - Call to Artillery 1

Lt. Commander Tactical (Klingon)
  • Ensign - Beam Overload 1
  • Lieutenant - Cannon Rapid Fire 1
  • Lt. Commander - Torpedo High Yield 3

Lt. Commander Engineer (Klingon - KDF Recruit)
  • Ensign - Engineering Team
  • Lieutenant - Auxiliary to Structural Integrity Field 1
  • Lt. Commander - Emergency Power to Weapons 3

Commander Science (Watcher Companion)
  • Ensign - Very Cold in Space 1
  • Lieutenant - Scramble Sensors 1
  • Lt. Commander - Photonic Officer 2
  • Commander - Gravity Well 3

Weapons Layout:
FORE:
  • Crafted Wide Arc Dual Heavy Cannons - Disruptor
  • Enhanced Bio-molecular Photon Torpedo
  • Crafted Dual Beam Banks w/ PEN modifier - Disruptor
AFT:
  • Heavy Bio-molecular Turret - Disruptor
  • Crafted Omni-Directional Beam Array - Disruptor
  • Martok Omni-Directonal Beam Arry - Disruptor

DECS: 4 pc. Revolutionary (Imperial Rift) Set for the massive radiation-based Superweapon clicky

Consoles:
UNIVERSAL:
  • Delphic Tear

ENGINEERING:
  • High Energy Communications Network
  • Sensor Suspension Burst
  • Retrofitted Assimilator
  • Hostile Acquisition

SCIENCE:
  • Exotic Particle Focuser [CtrlX] [EPG]
  • Exotic Particle Focuser [CtrlX] [EPG]
  • Restorative Particle Focuser [CtrlX] [EPG]
  • Restorative Particle Focuser [CtrlX] [EPG]

TACTICAL:
  • Lorca's Custom Fire Controls
  • Harmonic Yield Distribution via Rail Aperture (H.Y.D.R.A.)
  • Swarmer Matrix

Hangar Pets (I think I will keep the default ones for immersion):
  • 2 x Elite Ningtao Class Bird of Preys
  • 6 x Elite To'Duj Fighter Squadrons (visual count of 36 fighters)

Additional Personal Space Traits:
  • Maqius Tactics
  • Advanced Rapid Support
  • Friends in Unusual Places
  • Wing Commander
  • Fragment of AI Tech
  • Psychological Warfare
  • Unconventional Systems

Ship Mastery Traits:
  • Superior Command Frequency
  • It's Another Enterprise
  • She's a Predator
  • Coordinated Assault (No access to Superior Area of Denial, yet)
  • Strike Group Command Authority
  • Relaunch and Repair (mainly for Captain Abilities cooldown reduction)

Active Duty Officers (Space):
  • 3 x Flight Deck Officers (Hangar Bay recharge reduction)
  • 1 x Gravimetric Scientist (Gravity Wells)
  • 1 x Projectile Weapons Officer (Torpedo Launcher recharge reduction)
  • 1 x Energy Weapons Officer (KDF Recruit exclusive - 4% chance for stacking CritH buff when firing Energy Weapons)

Post edited by thaedaris on

Comments

  • szerontzurszerontzur Member Posts: 2,724 Arc User
    Your build is a bit all over the place without focusing on a singular theme. What are you wanting to improve towards?

    Also, what specializations does this captain have?
    (If you're going for a pet-based carrier theme, the starship trait from Full Command Spec can give you more faction-specific battlefield pets to play with.)

    Otherwise, I'd swap completely over to cannons, to'duj squadrons(yes, both frigates types are fun, but focusing on fighters is more effective than trying to enhance support frigates' beam overload), and run Aux2Damp instead of Aux2SIF to help with turn rate.

    Then, clean out the engineering console clutter, move the sci universals over and use actual science consoles to try to get your Control closer to 400. (Not having a SecDef means you're down 2~ science consoles worth of stats.)
  • thaedaristhaedaris Member Posts: 27 Arc User
    Hi! Thank you for the response.
    szerontzur wrote: »
    Your build is a bit all over the place without focusing on a singular theme. What are you wanting to improve towards?

    Hmm, you're correct. The build is all over the place.

    It's inspired by the STO Canon Lore of the Vo'Devwl according to Cryptic Studios as shown in the Spacedock YouTube channel. But I've designed the ship to be more of an actual mothership that very slowly positions itself in the battlefield, just like Chancellor's J'mpok's Flagship in the STO's Klingon Civil War episode. It would protect itself with its weapons and embarked crafts if required but it's primary purpose is to control the battlefield with Gravity Wells and destroy everything caught in it with its Superweapons.

    The consoles shown in the OP thread are mainly filler consoles so I really appreciate your input on that matter.
    szerontzur wrote: »
    Also, what specializations does this captain have?
    (If you're going for a pet-based carrier theme, the starship trait from Full Command Spec can give you more faction-specific battlefield pets to play with.)

    I'm glad you mentioned this. The KDF Recruit captain has recently fully trained in Command Specialization and he's currently training on the Temporal Operative for the bonus to Kit Performance and EPG.

    I'm trying to decide which Ship Mastery Trait to drop in place for the faction-specific battlefield pets. I think I'll drop the EWC trait since the total cost of activating the ship's weapons are already covered by the bonus provided by EptW3. Although, the ship trait, Unified Engineering, seems a bit more palatable to the pet-based carrier theme. But then, I guess that I could also take both lol :smiley:

    Are there other Ship Mastery Traits that would be better?

    szerontzur wrote: »
    Then, clean out the engineering console clutter, move the sci universals over and use actual science consoles to try to get your Control closer to 400. (Not having a SecDef means you're down 2~ science consoles worth of stats.)

    Thank you! Finally got him reassigned to a Fleet Voquv (T6-X). I also got his brand new Science Consoles from the Fleet Research Base. He's got a little over 400 Control Expertise, plus some extra Control Expertise from the Revolutionary Deflector's proc. Now, I notice that his Gravity Wells is most definitely ... really rocking!

    Thank you! :smiley:

  • pottsey5gpottsey5g Member Posts: 4,252 Arc User
    If you want to use Frigates get Wingmate off the exchange as it the no1 best carrier trait for boosting damage to Frigates. Wingmate scales very well with Coordinated Assault you might want to consider Dominion Coordination trait.

    Personally I am a fan of mixed bays, Fighters in Bay 1, Frigate in Bay 2 with Wingmate buff. That's the optimal choice for maxing out pet damage.
  • pottsey5gpottsey5g Member Posts: 4,252 Arc User
    edited March 2023
    szerontzur wrote: »
    Otherwise, I'd swap completely over to cannons, to'duj squadrons(yes, both frigates types are fun, but focusing on fighters is more effective than trying to enhance support frigates' beam overload), and run Aux2Damp instead of Aux2SIF to help with turn rate.
    From what I remember in my testing Ningtao with Beam Overload boosted by Wingmate and Coordinated Assault will beat base To'duj squadrons. Heading out shortly so I don't have time to dig into the data to double check.

    In this case I would recommend sticking to Ningtao Frigates and looking at boosting them further.

    I agree with you adding in Superior Command Frequency with all the captain cooldown in this build will = multiple extra battleships and Frigates. If we stick to Ningtao that's 6 Frigates and 2 Battleships at least as pets.
  • thaedaristhaedaris Member Posts: 27 Arc User
    pottsey5g wrote: »
    If you want to use Frigates get Wingmate off the exchange as it the no1 best carrier trait for boosting damage to Frigates. Wingmate scales very well with Coordinated Assault you might want to consider Dominion Coordination trait.

    Personally I am a fan of mixed bays, Fighters in Bay 1, Frigate in Bay 2 with Wingmate buff. That's the optimal choice for maxing out pet damage.

    Cool! Thank you! :smile:

    No wonder the Wingman trait is expensive in the exchange. I'll definitely save up for it.

    I didn't know about the Dominion Coordination ship mastery trait. That's really expensive ship but the trait looks really good. That's going on my STO bucket list, for sure.

    I personally enjoy the mixed hangar bays too.

    As it currently stands, I've seen my Rare hangar pets solo everything up to a regular Borg Cube in Advanced TFOs: the Ningtao Bird of Preys tank the Borg Cube while the To'Duj fighter squadrons go for the kill. I can imagine that upgrading both of them to their Elite variants will just make them much better at what they do.

    Huh, that's interesting. Does the placements of the hangar bay pets on which hangar bay matter?

    Thinking that Bay 1 launch hangar pets first, I've switched my Frigates to launch from Bay 1 so they can get aggro first then the To'Duj fighter squadrons in Bay 2 launch soon after to provide firepower support to the Bird of Prey frigates.
  • pottsey5gpottsey5g Member Posts: 4,252 Arc User
    thaedaris wrote: »
    pottsey5g wrote: »
    If you want to use Frigates get Wingmate off the exchange as it the no1 best carrier trait for boosting damage to Frigates. Wingmate scales very well with Coordinated Assault you might want to consider Dominion Coordination trait.

    Personally I am a fan of mixed bays, Fighters in Bay 1, Frigate in Bay 2 with Wingmate buff. That's the optimal choice for maxing out pet damage.

    Cool! Thank you! :smile:

    No wonder the Wingman trait is expensive in the exchange. I'll definitely save up for it.

    I didn't know about the Dominion Coordination ship mastery trait. That's really expensive ship but the trait looks really good. That's going on my STO bucket list, for sure.

    I personally enjoy the mixed hangar bays too.

    As it currently stands, I've seen my Rare hangar pets solo everything up to a regular Borg Cube in Advanced TFOs: the Ningtao Bird of Preys tank the Borg Cube while the To'Duj fighter squadrons go for the kill. I can imagine that upgrading both of them to their Elite variants will just make them much better at what they do.

    Huh, that's interesting. Does the placements of the hangar bay pets on which hangar bay matter?

    Thinking that Bay 1 launch hangar pets first, I've switched my Frigates to launch from Bay 1 so they can get aggro first then the To'Duj fighter squadrons in Bay 2 launch soon after to provide firepower support to the Bird of Prey frigates.
    Placement of hangar pets only matters if you use Wingmate and auto launch. I found that reasonably consistently with a Fighter in Bay 1, and Frigate in Bay 2. The fighter will launch first then the Frigate 2nd then Wingmate applies to the Frigate. Dominion Coordination isn't that great, its more a nice to have more then being worth while. Scramble Fighters is expensive and will have a bigger impact.

    Without SAD To'Duj fighter squadrons I believe are worth taking to Elite. With SAD which I know you do not currently have stick with Rare To'Duj fighter squadrons.
  • thaedaristhaedaris Member Posts: 27 Arc User
    pottsey5g wrote: »
    Placement of hangar pets only matters if you use Wingmate and auto launch. I found that reasonably consistently with a Fighter in Bay 1, and Frigate in Bay 2. The fighter will launch first then the Frigate 2nd then Wingmate applies to the Frigate. Dominion Coordination isn't that great, its more a nice to have more then being worth while. Scramble Fighters is expensive and will have a bigger impact.

    Without SAD To'Duj fighter squadrons I believe are worth taking to Elite. With SAD which I know you do not currently have stick with Rare To'Duj fighter squadrons.

    Ah, good to know. Thank you!

    I saw Scramble Fighters in exchange once and thought that they're not worth it. I just think their price being higher than a full T6 promotional ship is just insane. But I guess that comes with Supply v.s. Demand sort of thing lol

    Interesting idea on the SAD trait working better with lower quality fighters. I would think that Higher quality hangar pets would always be better. I'll definitely keep that in mind.
  • szerontzurszerontzur Member Posts: 2,724 Arc User
    Sorry for the delay, this fell of my radar - glad to see pottsey stepped in.
    thaedaris wrote: »
    Are there other Ship Mastery Traits that would be better?

    "Checkmate" comes to mind. While you're not fully specced towards EPG, it will certainly give your clicky/epg-based attacks a little bit more bite and does synergize with the general playstyle you're going for. It comes from from the Science Flagships(Yorktown, Gorkon, Flambard), and there are also two legendary ships(Verity, Scimitar) you can get it from if you're willing to go that route.

    For thematic flavor, there is the Titan's Trait "It's Another Enterprise" which summons a dreadnought class pet that matches your faction. Unfortunately, the Klingon Flagships it calls in use blue coalition disruptors instead of traditional green ones for some bizarre reason. The console from the Titan is pretty amazing as well in a gravity well build(it basically disables everything within your forward arc for the duration of the clicky - ripping shields from bosses like this tends to result in them dying comically fast).

    pottsey5g wrote: »
    szerontzur wrote: »
    Otherwise, I'd swap completely over to cannons, to'duj squadrons(yes, both frigates types are fun, but focusing on fighters is more effective than trying to enhance support frigates' beam overload), and run Aux2Damp instead of Aux2SIF to help with turn rate.
    From what I remember in my testing Ningtao with Beam Overload boosted by Wingmate and Coordinated Assault will beat base To'duj squadrons. Heading out shortly so I don't have time to dig into the data to double check.

    In this case I would recommend sticking to Ningtao Frigates and looking at boosting them further.

    I agree with you adding in Superior Command Frequency with all the captain cooldown in this build will = multiple extra battleships and Frigates. If we stick to Ningtao that's 6 Frigates and 2 Battleships at least as pets.

    You're probably right. While I did experiment with both types of BoPs on my support Vo'devwl, I eventually settled on a CSV SAD setup because I had access to it. I probably didn't give a beam setup on the support frigates enough of a fair shake(I was already running BO coordinated assault on two other builds at that time and wanted a change of pace).
  • vetteguy904vetteguy904 Member Posts: 3,930 Arc User
    Ditch scramble sensors ( you are not procing a secdef), move photonic to the LT slot and in the LCDR slot add either subspace vortex or Very Cold In Space, which IMHO better and cheaper than SV
    sig.jpg
  • pottsey5gpottsey5g Member Posts: 4,252 Arc User
    Ditch scramble sensors ( you are not procing a secdef), move photonic to the LT slot and in the LCDR slot add either subspace vortex or Very Cold In Space, which IMHO better and cheaper than SV
    Scramble Sensors is used to trigger cooldown on all the carrier consoles which is the most effective way to play carriers at the moment. Not sure Subspace Vortex or Very Cold In Space do anything to help carrier consoles? Or do they trigger carrier console cooldowns?
  • vetteguy904vetteguy904 Member Posts: 3,930 Arc User
    i was suggesting EPG damage, but with the OP's design all over the map, I assumed the Scramble was picked from the EPG playbook, I.E. procing the secondary deflector however, VCIS is a huge DPS source and has good synergy with a grav well
    sig.jpg
  • thaedaristhaedaris Member Posts: 27 Arc User
    edited March 2023
    Pottsey is correct. The Scramble Sensors is mainly there to proc Unconventional Systems trait. It's also funny to see the bogeys to either attack themselves (if they have pets) or attack each other when confused.

    I did consider having a 2nd Science Officer in the Lt. Cmdr Universal/Command BOFF station instead of a 2nd Tactical Officer for Shield Drain to help pets damage and have EPG damage abilities like the ones you suggested. It might also be fun to use the Subspace Vortex as a mobile teleporter device for the slow moving carrier, like what the "Portal Weapon device" that the Shrike ship uses in Picard Season 3.

    However, I'm preparing to use Kemocite Laced Weaponry instead when I get a SRO officer from the Fleet. I might even switch to Distributed Targeting over Attack Pattern Beta 1 when I get the SAD trait since the SAD trait does the same damage resistances debuff as Attack Pattern Beta. I think that those options would give me more AoE damage.

    Although, a second Science Officer with AoE EPG damage abilities might actually work better since the Build has more +EPG than +Direct Energy and Projectile bonuses to their damage.

    I'll try it out. Thank you!

    EDIT: As fun as it is having the 2nd Science Officer, I realize that I have a larger need for Attack Pattern Beta for the debuff and to proc She's a Predator trait. I'll likely switch the BOff station to Science though after I get Superior Area of Denial. Thank you! :smile:
    Post edited by thaedaris on
  • thaedaristhaedaris Member Posts: 27 Arc User
    szerontzur wrote: »
    Sorry for the delay, this fell of my radar - glad to see pottsey stepped in.
    thaedaris wrote: »
    Are there other Ship Mastery Traits that would be better?

    "Checkmate" comes to mind. While you're not fully specced towards EPG, it will certainly give your clicky/epg-based attacks a little bit more bite and does synergize with the general playstyle you're going for. It comes from from the Science Flagships(Yorktown, Gorkon, Flambard), and there are also two legendary ships(Verity, Scimitar) you can get it from if you're willing to go that route.

    For thematic flavor, there is the Titan's Trait "It's Another Enterprise" which summons a dreadnought class pet that matches your faction. Unfortunately, the Klingon Flagships it calls in use blue coalition disruptors instead of traditional green ones for some bizarre reason. The console from the Titan is pretty amazing as well in a gravity well build(it basically disables everything within your forward arc for the duration of the clicky - ripping shields from bosses like this tends to result in them dying comically fast).

    Ooooh, thank you!

    I honestly didn't consider Checkmate trait because it's cat1 damage. I guess every little bit helps and it's real easy to proc in the build.

    I totally forgot about the Titan's flagship summoning trait. That definitely fits the theme. It seems like I'll need to switch a Personal Trait to Advanced Rapid Support as well.

    I normally use the carrier's innate ability Target Subsystem: Shields on boss fights. That console does sound perfect for that role although I'm pretty happy with the synergy of the consoles my carrier has now. The Titan's console will I'll have to re-evaluate my options.

    Now, I need to decide which Ship Mastery traits get dropped. I really wish we have more Ship Mastery trait and console slots lol! :smiley:
  • thaedaristhaedaris Member Posts: 27 Arc User
    This might not be a known thing on how the HYDRA console works, but it appears to count your summoned allies from Fleet Support and It's another Enterprise as "pets" that fire the massive AoE damage.

    Is the console damage capped regardless how many "allies" you have active on the battlefield?

    I wonder if it works on summoned allies from your distress beacons as well. If so, the Hurq Swarm would do even more damage when using the clicky ability.
  • pottsey5gpottsey5g Member Posts: 4,252 Arc User
    thaedaris wrote: »
    This might not be a known thing on how the HYDRA console works, but it appears to count your summoned allies from Fleet Support and It's another Enterprise as "pets" that fire the massive AoE damage.

    Is the console damage capped regardless how many "allies" you have active on the battlefield?

    I wonder if it works on summoned allies from your distress beacons as well. If so, the Hurq Swarm would do even more damage when using the clicky ability.
    HYDRA works on almost anything with an engine and there is a cap of 8 pets/summons. Given a Fighter or Squadron counts as 6 its pretty easy to hit that cap
  • thaedaristhaedaris Member Posts: 27 Arc User
    Cool! Thank your for the clarification on the console ability. That's real good to know that it's capped for balance. :)
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