Getting a big, slow ship for the first time. Please help.

gchewitt

My two main and favorite ships are a fleet strike wing escort and a terran miracle worker carrier. Both are quick and agile (the escort more so). In LOTRO, I always played a hunter, so quick and agile is what I was used to and I carried that over to STO. With the event campaign premium starship choice I've decided to try something different - a dreadnought. My choices are narrowed to four:

Terran Acheron dreadnought carrier
Section 31 Intel dreadnought cruiser
Dauntless command science dreadnought
Jem Hadar dreadnought carrier

Your thoughts.

And with the two zen store ships, which of the might come with useful traits and consoles that I can strip out and add to upgrade any of my ships?

Thank you.

darkbladejk

So a few obligatory disclaimer/statements. ANY t5u, t6, or even some t4s are viable choices for a ship. There is no such thing as a bad ship in this game despite what some people may tell you. All ships are viable, it's just how you load them and fly them that matters. There are some ships that lend more advantages to certain builds than others but that's where what is "best" ends. What's good for me as a tank may not be good for a fleetmate that flies pure sci ships and vice versa.

Now the bigger question I should ask is what your goals are and what you want to do. You looking for pure damage? You wanting to survive? You wanting something in the middle of that? What do you want to do? Because the answer as to what ship I would recommend is going to change based off what you say.

inferiority

darkbladejk wrote: »

...even some t4s are viable choices for a ship.

Given that folks get a T5 ship when they reach level 40, I'm not sure there'd be logic sticking to the T4 you got at level 30.

But I agree completely with the sentiment. Too many times I see people saying (typing?) that you must have a T6 ship, and it must be upgraded to T6-X2, but that just isn't the case.

All ships are viable, it's just how you load them and fly them that matters.

Damn right!

darkbladejk

inferiority wrote: »

darkbladejk wrote: »

...even some t4s are viable choices for a ship.

Given that folks get a T5 ship when they reach level 40, I'm not sure there'd be logic sticking to the T4 you got at level 30.

For the record I'm not saying people should stick to a t4, because that very reason you named of being able to grab a t5 is exactly why. Merely illustrating the point of what's possible.

Hopefully in time we'll know a little more to help the OP out far as their goals.

gchewitt

My post has two parts. The first involves only the four ships listed. They are all t6 choices from the event campaign. What I'm asking is for players who have used these ships to give me their opinions, pro and con, about them to help me choose. So the discussion about t3,4,5 doesn't have relevance here, though it may in the second half of my post. I should add that I play 95% solo, usually only joining teams when needed for an endeavor or an event requirement.

The Terran carrier is the ship I would like to upgrade a bit, and if taking a lower tier ship with the two zen 100% off coupons will help then I would do that. The ship is now using four Ba'ul antiproton beams (3 fore and 1 aft) and two omni-directional beams aft. I like the way the Ba'uls look when fired, so I'll want to keep those. Also I'm using the gamma synergistic set mainly because of its perks to team stats. I'm assuming "team" includes hangar pets, for which the carrier has two slots. Sometimes I think my pets do more damage that do myself. Assume that I have the major consoles and traits equipped to increase the strength of both weapons and pets -- are there any lesser ones that are available in ships I can get with two zen coupons, or with the 1500 lobi. And. since I mentioned the gamma set, if you think I should replace it for this ship, what would you suggest.

I hope this gives a bit more detail.

inferiority

gchewitt#2784 wrote: »

My choices are narrowed to four:

Terran Acheron dreadnought carrier
Section 31 Intel dreadnought cruiser
Dauntless command science dreadnought
Jem Hadar dreadnought carrier

I do not have access to any of these specific ships but I have flown similar.
Their lack of manoeuvrability suggests Beams will be your preferred weapons?
The question then exists what type of attack you'll opt for - Fire At Will, or Beam Overload.

For Fire-At-Will, the trait from the Gagarin Miracle Worker Battlecruiser in the Z-Store will be extremely beneficial.
For Beam Overload, the trait from the Xindi-Primate Ateleth Dreadnought Cruiser will most certainly be useful. You can find it in the Lobi store.

Of course, you may have completely different plans for how you'd build those ships.

protoneous

gchewitt#2784 wrote: »

With the event campaign premium starship choice I've decided to try something different - a dreadnought. My choices are narrowed to four:

Terran Acheron dreadnought carrier
Section 31 Intel dreadnought cruiser
Dauntless command science dreadnought
Jem Hadar dreadnought carrier

The list of ships is very diverse and encompasses a wide gamut of build types including energy, pet, and science.

The only thing these ships have in common is the word Dreadnought in them

I think you're correct in first having a closer look at each ship and the playstyle each of them would entail in order to narrow things down to something you'd enjoy.

Terran Acheron Dreadnought Carrier

Section 31 Intel Dreadnought Cruiser

Dauntless II Command Science Dreadnought

Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carrier (T6)

gchewitt

inferiority wrote: »

gchewitt#2784 wrote: »

My choices are narrowed to four:

Terran Acheron dreadnought carrier
Section 31 Intel dreadnought cruiser
Dauntless command science dreadnought
Jem Hadar dreadnought carrier

I do not have access to any of these specific ships but I have flown similar.
Their lack of manoeuvrability suggests Beams will be your preferred weapons?
The question then exists what type of attack you'll opt for - Fire At Will, or Beam Overload.

For Fire-At-Will, the trait from the Gagarin Miracle Worker Battlecruiser in the Z-Store will be extremely beneficial.
For Beam Overload, the trait from the Xindi-Primate Ateleth Dreadnought Cruiser will most certainly be useful. You can find it in the Lobi store.

Of course, you may have completely different plans for how you'd build those ships.

Thanks. I have the ship set with beams and have Fire-at-Will III so the Gagarin is a good choice for one of my free Zen ships. The trait from the Endeaver Tactical Cruiser looks good too, except that I don't normally use torpedoes. I don't suppose my hangar pet's torpedos will trigger it?

inferiority

gchewitt#2784 wrote: »

The trait from the Endeaver Tactical Cruiser looks good too, except that I don't normally use torpedoes. I don't suppose my hangar pet's torpedos will trigger it?

I do have the Endeavor myself but I've never really used the Trait so much as just enjoying the ship itself, so can't really comment. My guess would be that only torpedoes fired by your ship would trigger it - and that's a guess based on experience of playing the game since launch, basically.

Instead of the Endeavor, might I suggest the Lexington instead. The trait doesn't depend on Torpedoes, rather your Bridge Officer skills. It's also a really fun ship to fly, has a relatively good trait, and a fun console. As a MW ship, it starts with an extra Console slot too.

protoneous

gchewitt#2784 wrote: »

The trait from the Endeaver Tactical Cruiser looks good too, except that I don't normally use torpedoes. I don't suppose my hangar pet's torpedos will trigger it?

Entwined Tactical Matrices combined with Super Charged Weapons can be a very nice combination.

Apparently pets that fire torpedoes will trigger their own version of SCW for themselves but not for your ship.

The 3 piece set bonus from the Lorca's Ambition set should keep up full stacks of SCW for your ship.

I don't have much experience with carrier ships but have found some good reading here..

https://stobetter.com/new-f2p/carrier-basics

Any further thoughts as to what ship you're going to choose?

From what I can see your list contains two carrier ships, a cruiser, and a hybrid style science ship.

If you're playing on PC, consider transferring your character to the Tribble test server and trying out the various ships for yourself.

gchewitt

I chose the Acheron, mainly for the two hangar bays. Some of your suggestions I had already found while looking at ship builds on stobetter. Nice to see the affirming posts. And I'm working on getting the traits, but its slow. Each ship has to be played enough to get it to level 5 mastery and that's a drag. One build for a dreadnought (though not a carrier) included three parts of the Tilly set from the Discovery rep, all but the deflector. I've got two parts now am working on the third.

I've never tried the tribble. Maybe I'll take The Acheron and my other favorite ships.

Thanks all.

protoneous

gchewitt#2784 wrote: »

I chose the Acheron, mainly for the two hangar bays. Some of your suggestions I had already found while looking at ship builds on stobetter. Nice to see the affirming posts. And I'm working on getting the traits, but its slow. Each ship has to be played enough to get it to level 5 mastery and that's a drag. One build for a dreadnought (though not a carrier) included three parts of the Tilly set from the Discovery rep, all but the deflector. I've got two parts now am working on the third.

I've never tried the tribble. Maybe I'll take The Acheron and my other favorite ships.

Thanks all.

Two pieces of Stamets-Tilly set are all that's needed to get the extra hull regeneration. The 3 piece set bonus for Mycelial Lightning can work very well though so definitely worth checking out.

One nice thing about getting a ship with access to a Lieutenant Commander Science bridge officer (like the Acheron) is being able to use Photonic Officer 2 for cooldown reduction. It's all that's really needed and keeps your auxiliary power nice and high for pets and heals

With the Acheron having room for some Temporal Boff Abilities you might want to consider exploring some of them.. Recursive Shearing (usually highest rank possible) and Chronometric Inversion Field come to mind. These two seemed to work decently on a temporal warship I flew.

The idea behind using the Tribble Test Server is to transfer your character there, along with your unopened prize pack, so that you can test drive lockbox ships prior to making a committment on the real (Holodeck) server. Each "test" would involve transferring your character to the test server one time. You can usually have as many characters (or character copies) on the test server as you have on holodeck and it's possible to delete extras to make more room. Using the Tribble test server does require downloading a second copy of the game.

thunderfoot

Only pieces of advice I ever give about what ship to use are these:
- The only mandatory piece of gear any ship requires is a player willing to make mistakes while learning how to use it better.
- Use the ship which looks like it will be the most fun to fly.
- There is no, "One Ring to rule them all" ship or piece of gear in this game which places a player at the top of the DPS list, or any other list. There are around 50 or so items (counting the player) which interact with each other. Some of these have more than one function. Groups of these, like Space and Gear Sets can have additional functions as well.
- Lastly, try out the gear you want to try out. Don't copy/paste somebody else's build unless you already know how the pieces will interact. The STObetter website is good at explaining why the players made the choices they did. There is at least one Styx build on there which ought to get you started in the right direction.

Acheron is a bigger, better version of the Styx. Which I own. Got two builds for the Styx. One is a carrier/support build. The hangars are my primary weapons and this version has everything I can put on it to make those hangar pets perform really well. the other one is a tank. Sits in the middle of the enemy ships soaking up damage and drawing aggro. I'm a little bit envious of you having an Acheron. It is a fine choice you've made.