So i've been grinding hard, only picking skills I would think would be good for a carrier. I play an engineer and was planning on fitting it for beam boat, with as much tank and fleet support I could grab...
Needless to say my t4 BoP out-performs my carrier in every way managable.
Now there's a lot of hate on the carrier and the "exploit" about multiple pets. I have 3 things to say about that.
1. There are so many counters to the mobs of critters it's not funny, any aoe will drop them all in one volley.
2. I would be glad if the exploit was fixed so that we had some meaningful choice of which to pick, which only will work in conjunction with #3.
3. These deployable ships need to actually be useful, they have about 3k armor and maybe 1k shields, they drop in one volley to any ship, and they don't produce enough damage to really even compare to an extra weapon slot on the carrier(keep in mind I'm talking a single wave not the exploited all waves).
Carriers I would imagine have the role of support, right now that role is only fulfilled in groups in pve. Irregardless of the various bugs that come with the carrier its grosely under-powered. Sure you get 3 of em together using extend shields and whatnot they stay alive forever, guess what so does any ship who carries extend shields can keep each other alive...its irrelevant to carriers. The rate of turn on carriers is so bad you can't use any cone shaped weapons so the carrier having only 6 slots (3fwd 3aft) the dps is low. Now since this is the only "true" science ship for carriers you would think that its advantage would be science.
However the BoP out-performs the science the carrier can do any day of the week? why because its a big very slow turning hulk of metal, short of attempting a hull tank it really just doesn't do anything for the field that any other klingon ship can't do better, short of lag and make feds think its godly with its spam of fighters that do really nothing more then tickle, or kill the feds that don't realize that any aoe can wipe them out.
My suggestions(not necessairly all of them need to apply but are more of a list of ideas):
1. Fix the hanger bug
2. Increase the survivability and potency of the various fighter wings, give them more meaningful choices between the 4 types.
3. It's supposed to be a science ship so focus on it more, give the 2nd science BO a 3rd slot.
4. The ship's advantage is a massive hull, give it something worthwhile to do with that hull, since armor tanking is not really feasible give the carrier a native 15% resists acrossed the board, not any higher.
5. It would be nice if the turn rate stayed the same, but as an adjustment to science ships(and maybe do this to fed science ships too) automatically increase the cones by 50% when flying a science ship in t5.
All honesty I was very dissapointed overall. All the hype on the forums about nerfing carriers they are overpowered in groups blah blah blah. Soon as I get into one and fit it up with blue gear right off the bat i've never seen anything die so quickly, and be so useless in a pvp match. It has no offensive capabilities that any other ship can't do better, its science is useless due to turn rate, and the hangers, even not-fixed don't really provide any additional bonus other then time wasted killing them instead, any aoe torp spread or rift 3 or shockwave will just demolish them like nothing happened. Any smart fed player cleans house with em before they can even begin to become remotly effective.
I've seen posts about gee you can fire 9 torps at once, yeah those torps are about 1/4th the damage of a regular torpedo, my beams do more damage then those torps off the fighters(for argument sake my photons hit for 3500 to a player the torps off those ships against hull are only about 900...do the math).
Anyway just sharing in my frustrations. Not trying to make the carrier overpowered but it has no true effective role, its just there for flash and dance.
I came to the similar conclusion after trying out a carrier. Pets are useless, and do hardly any damage. It has absolutely horrific turning rate, I mean just unbearable. 6 weapon slots make it far inferior to our cruiser. People who fly them rely on FPB as their offensive weapon. I refused to just sit there and let the FPB do the damage. Our top cruiser looks better, turns better, has better FP and can survive just as long.
Yer.. Cos doing top damage every match and rarely ever dying is something i really hate.....
You have to play a carrier differently. Mine is a proper science vessel firing off electronic jiggery-pokery left right and centre.
I'm guessing you played around in your carrier for about 2-3 matches and threw your toys out of the pram about it being hard to fly.
It isn't hard. It is stupid. Abilities you use on carrier are out of line. VM+FP is not how I want to win or PvP. If you enjoy them, good for you. I prefer an in-your-face ship with lots of guns.
I disagree. The alpha strike of the pets is actually pretty good. The BOPs are relatively hard to kill since they will battle cloak, though their DPS is pretty random. The fighters are kind of crappy but they make a nice distraction. I've been doing top chart DPS as a carrier, most of it coming from the pets.
Not sure it'll be worth much once they nerf it (if they nerf it). The spam they send out by swapping modules isn't all that overpowered in my opinion -- as long as you keep the carrier in combat he can't switch modules so he's stuck with whatever 2 he had loaded, so 1 on 1, kill his stuff, then kill him. (Normally the philosophy of the MMORPG is to "kill the pet owner and ignore the pets" but in this case if you kill the pets, the owner can't resummon most of them and he's easy pickings).
I loaded my carrier up with Jam Sensors and Viral Matrix -- basically things to force people to stop shooting me -- and focus on debuffing people and getting my minions to kill them.
Incidentally, a real problem with the carrier is the inability to see minion health.
Even if I'm playing it "straight" and launching, say, 2 BOPs, when one blows up I have no way of knowing which one that was and it blows my cooldown to try and launch another one whether it works or not.
It is however an extremely different playstyle to get used to after playing the other Klingon ships. It is an effective ship, but take it from me, you have to pretty much forget everything you think you know about space combat, and start over.
As for the 'bug' with the support ships, it is debatable. It is not good enough to just fix the obvious bug of being able to deploy them all at once. The reality is most of them are not very good at all.
Syphons: All these guys do is lower the power levels of your enemy. While that may sound handy, these pets have two critical problems. Firstly, they are always the first to die. You will use them on one enemy, and they will be gone. With a 1 minute recast, these pets are simply not worth using on their own. Currently, they are just nice to throw in with the rest of your swarm
These also suffer from some kind of pathing problem. I often see these guys just stop. For no apparent reason, they will just stop in transit, and just sit there in their little clump, with no way to get them moving again.
Repair Drones: Another pet not very useful on their own. The reality of these pets is that they only repair you, never your allies. They only repair your shields, not your hull. And lastly, their repair effect is very small. You really need all of them out to really notice a difference. Even then, at T5, enemy players can eat through your shields absurdly fast. Again, these pets are nice to throw out with the rest of the swarm, but really not very good on their own.
Bird of Prey: These two are great damage dealers. However, they are slow as mud. They are similar to the newbie Bird of Prey, with a front dual cannon, a turret, and a photon torpedo launcher. However, they never use full impulse or cloak for getting around. Although they have more health than the other support ships, they are still very fragile and die quickly, often killed by the exploding enemy. On top of all this, they have a very long 3 or 4 minute cooldown. So once they are dead, they are gone for a long time. Once again, I would not want to use these pets exclusively. They are just nice to throw into the swarm and hope they do some damage, assuming they even get to the fight before it is over.
Fighters:These in my experience are the best pets. The only ones that are not broken on some level. Their damage is weak individually, but 4 fighters is about the same damage as 1 BoP. Except these guys move a lot faster, turn a lot faster, and have a 1 minute cooldown. If I can only use one pet type, it is these guys.
This is how I see it after about 2 - 3 weeks playing my carrier. Most of the pets are just not worth using on their own, and are only good for adding to the swarm. If they fix the bug that lets us use all of them at once, they also need to improve upon the pets themselves to make them worth using on an individual basis.
getting use to a BoP style after playing a Cruiser is one thing... learning to Vo 'Quv after flying a BoP 3 or 4 tiers, that takes even more getting use to. even going from a Ktinga and a VOr'Cha is a steep learning curve.
use the fact that you're slower than other vessels as an advantage. show up fashionably late to the party, and be the part of the group that turns the tides in your favor. this allows you to stock up on pets, and yes, they're only worth a TRIBBLE if you have around 2 or 3 squads of each out.
personally, i love being Sci in a carrier, i think it was made for it. but at the same time, i've seen all classes tear it up in one. depends on your skills and the makeup of the group. know your role.
Yeah, after extensive Klingon PvP (BG5 Science, Captain 4 Science, Commander 5 Tactical), I think the carrier is often massively overrated. On my premades, I much prefer another BoP (the best ship in the game).
Biggest thing that will get you killed is crew loss. I find that if I keep my crew up with tactical team, I can repair my hull well enough that I can be turning around to dfiferent shield facings and keep 3 opponents shooting at me indefinitely.
They really need to fix the crew loss **** because its annoying, especial spawning with 0 crew.
Biggest thing that will get you killed is crew loss. I find that if I keep my crew up with tactical team, I can repair my hull well enough that I can be turning around to dfiferent shield facings and keep 3 opponents shooting at me indefinitely.
They really need to fix the crew loss **** because its annoying, especial spawning with 0 crew.
imho, any "death penalty" regardless of how mundane needs to stay out of pvp.
Yeah, it's an interesting love hate. I'm flying one now, learning the ropes, before I most likely switch into the BoP or Negh'Var for the long, scientific haul.
-I was under the impression, which was supported by GMs (like they know or have a uniform opinion on the matter), that releasing a full complement of critters was intended. Replacing them in battle is the only part that is locked to two critters. This means a carrier decreases in utility in a prolonged battle.
-The damage potential is fairly high. I was generally at, or around, the leading damage dealer in our premade (a negh'var). If he was 290k I was 270k, etc. They're constant dps though, only super helpful in focus fires.
-The inertia on the ship is stupid. I'm literally a whale repeating what it saw on Tokyo Drift. That is if I don't Full Impulse reverse before initiating combat. If I think I'm gonna get pegged I stop at 20km prior to initiation, turn on regular reverse, and will begin to regain control at around 10-8km to the targets.
PS: Rare video of a Vo'Quv being pursued by an Escort. Check out how he Ejects Warp Plasma to deter the attacker.
I've actually done about 10-15 matches and I've not been able to get my dps over 100k legitly let alone with swapping all of em out. I also spent about 2 hours pve and it was even slower, now granted the carrier may have a specific role toplay and thats all its good for but when I'm usually the only one in my queue its rather pointless to not be able to kill anyone 1 on1....
But didn't say I was giving up on it. that being said to you carrier pilots, whats your BO loadouts on your carriers?
I thought I should chip in here with my experiance of using a carrier due to all the hate and definetly the last post here regarding not climbing over 100K of damage.
My Klingon char is a BG5 Tactical officer with it's usual perks towards firepower. I'm rolling a Klingon Science officer atm to see which one I prefer in the long run.
However, as everyone else here I found myself in a 4 vs 1 situation in the cracked planetoid. I thought I should wait a while to see if I had some more Klingons joining up, but sadly that was a lost cause. Just for the **** & giggles I stayed in the arena and took them on. I'm not a PVP guru, but I have done my homework.
I actually managed to kill two of them in a fierce battle four versus me within the first minute. I went down in flames a while after that, but I stayed and had some fun and I were really surprised how I could annihilate a few of them considering the armament on my carrier. A few minutes or so before it ended a few more Klingons finally joined up to my relief.
When the scoreboard came up I had 561K damage done by my single carrier. I weren't the only one surprised, but that shows it CAN do some heavy damage even if I personally believe it's there for a supporting role and nothing more. It's not a DPS-machine as the BoPs, for instance, nor should it be.
Besides the obvious advantage of 'Attack pattern alpha' as a TO etc, I will list all and every aspect of my setup here. Mainly because I want to see more carriers out there and I myself is standing on the shoulders of others who have done a great job putting two and two together giving me a good view of what can be done when it comes to loadouts and the bridge officers.
I'm fully specialized in Disruptors and I use 6 Disruptor turrets on the carrier. This to get sustained firepower where it's needed. This alone is not much, but coupled with Rapidfire 1 & 2 (chained) it's raining hellfire.
Bridge Officer skills I use:
Rapidfire 1 & 2, Jam sensors 1 & 2, Science Team 1 & 2, Feedback Pulse 2, Viral Matrix 3, Engineering Team 1, Reverse Shield Polarity 1 & 2
I'm sure I have forgotten one or two here, but these are the major ones I use continously throughout a fight.
Again, I'm not a PVP guru but standing on the shoulders of others so I don't take credit for coming up with this loadout in any way. I can only say it works for me at my skill level.
If someone has some suggestions for loadout alterations, they are all appreciated.
Agreed. The Carrier is surprisingly flimsy despite its looks. It's no where near as tanky as Federation cruisers. DPS ranges from poor to mediocre. It makes a decent support/tank with the correct BO skills, but as people have already pointed out, different ships with the same BO skills can tank just as well, if not, even better than the Carrier.
There is no bug with the hangars. You can only choose one type of hangar and summon one type of ship because it is locked in combat and you cannot equip anything new. Once you're out of combat, you can change equipment. As of now it's a normal STO game mechanic that is seen throughout all aspects of the game. Just like how bridge officers can be switched out of combat to have access to other skills (which stay, even when the BO is unequipped), or how Science classes can switch personal kits to buff themselves out of combat and stack near 100% damage immunity in ground combat, or how Engineer classes can create a variety of mass fabrications. It's simply a game mechanic - not a bug. Of course, game mechanics are always subject to change and be modified in the future.
Besides, all of the hangars are useless except for power siphons, which are easily handled.
It's not an exploit. The official word (the only one we have is from a GM) is that it's working as intended. For people who haven't tried it, here's what happens:
You launch both BoPs. They have a cooldown of 3 minutes. You switch to your fighters and launch them. If you switch back to the BoPs their cooldown is still ticking. That right there should tell people that it's working as intended.
The cruiser is intended to use all of the pets at the same time. The limitation is that you can't switch during combat. If you had enough bays for all of them at the same time then you could relaunch them all during combat, which is why there are only two hangar bays. Launch as many as you want prior to combat, but during you're stuck with what you have already in there.
I suggest that anyone who disagrees to level up a Klingon and fly one. You may as well be piloting a caterpillar
so yea carriers are great but they need either other carriers or negvar with them to help them tank
a carrier has a really big sign on it that says shoot me now you have to play this ship like s smart fed will play there cruiser
you go slow almost never usinge full impulse and you stay togther
if you get 5 guys in carriers or optomily 4 carreris and 1 negvar the carrers sit ina ball within 5km of eachother and heal eachother while using there pets to kill the feds now if the feds are dumb and leave the carriers outa combat and just engage the pets ither ridcously esay for the carrier blob to win
but if the fedsare good and know what aoe skills are they can make the carrier ball a deathtrap ive had games where ive had my premade teams we where all ina ball and the feds came in and every one of them used a orp spread and the sci vessle also used a grav well on us between all the aoe dmg + the deaths of all the pets exploding on top of us it set of a chain reactoin that blew us all up now the odds of coming across a fed team that 1 knows what its doing b is aculaly fit to counter carriers is rare
but as i siad the key to doing well as a carrier is to think like a fed and ball up with your buddies for mutual healing
I've been meaning to mess around with it, but I currently run with leftovers from my T4 BoP setup:
Fore:
1x Beam Array
1x Turret
1x Torpedo
Aft:
3x Turret
Tac:
HYT I
Beam Target: Shields II
Rapid Fire II
Eng:
Engineer Team I
Extend Shields II
Auxiliary to Structural
Sci:
Science Team I
Polarize Hull I
Hazard Emitters II
Transfer Shield Strength II
Scamble Sensors
Tyken's Rift III
General synergy is to use the shield disable paired with a Tykens to disable RSP on a focus fire target--or the stock Aux + Tykens for FBP. Grabbed the torp because "why not". Doesn't add to my considerable weapons drain and on the rare occasion a quantum HYT + Ramming Speed really lays the hurt on--can break 40k burst with it. 5 support skills, 3 self tanking skills (paired with Damp field). And then Rapid fire for basic dps. Nothing too fancy, nothing stacked. Plus keeping my nose pointed in the right direction is a real challenge. Keeps me on my toes!
While not typical, I saw someone else had an imbalanced start of a game which inflated their scores. So why not.
i dont tank in my VOQuv. that's crazy talk, unless you have 3 or 4 groups of every pet spawned (Energy Syphons, Hull repairers, BoP's and To duj's) you're really not at optimal performance.
agreed, it's not as tough as it looks. i think best way to use it is for shock-and-awe type of effect, more of a support role. show up fashionably late to the party (to get a good nymber of pets spawned) and turn the tide. also, show up on the other side than the group goes in on.
Scramble Sensors + Gravity Well + Sensor Scan + Photonic Fleet + Dampening Field
confuse them + keep them Fedballed and start Kinetic damage (shields are gonna be getting eaten on if you're getting there late) + increase the damage taken + pop more 'decoys' so when SS comes off em the have a harder time Tab-targetting you + then throw up the DField to buff your Photonic Fleet.
then i go to my damage / repair rotations, depending on how the battle is going.
but i'm Sci, this would be diff for Eng /Tac. but that's how i roll.
i dont tank in my VOQuv. that's crazy talk, unless you have 3 or 4 groups of every pet spawned (Energy Syphons, Hull repairers, BoP's and To duj's) you're really not at optimal performance.
agreed, it's not as tough as it looks. i think best way to use it is for shock-and-awe type of effect, more of a support role. show up fashionably late to the party (to get a good nymber of pets spawned) and turn the tide. also, show up on the other side than the group goes in on.
Scramble Sensors + Gravity Well + Sensor Scan + Photonic Fleet + Dampening Field
confuse them + keep them Fedballed and start Kinetic damage (shields are gonna be getting eaten on if you're getting there late) + increase the damage taken + pop more 'decoys' so when SS comes off em the have a harder time Tab-targetting you + then throw up the DField to buff your Photonic Fleet.
then i go to my damage / repair rotations, depending on how the battle is going.
but i'm Sci, this would be diff for Eng /Tac. but that's how i roll.
That's an interesting take on Carriers. In almost all of my matches, instead of arriving late, the Carrier (piloted by me) is usually the first to approach the fedball. The rest of the team, usually BoPs, are cloaked around them. As soon as the fedball targets and encircles me, the rest of my team uncloaks and breaks apart the fedball.
Here's a little compilation of Carrier PVP footage. It's nothing special or flashy; simply just footage of Carriers that YouTube seems to be lacking. I thought it'd be relevant.
Surg, checked out your vids, like the way you and the other carrier face each other to cover your fields of fire. smart move.
also, i usually keep my throttle at 0 to increase ability to pivot as well. good tip for someone new to carriers and more use to BoP's.
Carrier pets do incredible damage for their size, which is why I'm forced to pick them off 1by1 every time I encounter carriers..
I love it when people try this. For those that don't know: CPB and PSW are in the game for a reason, and with inertia PSW turns into a rather beefy disable on Vo'quvs since it blocks out access to abilities while you're being "knocked back". There's also Tykens, Eject Warp Plasma, Gravity Well, Scramble Sensors and some really crappy AoE attack abilities.
Here's a little compilation of Carrier PVP footage. It's nothing special or flashy; simply just footage of Carriers that YouTube seems to be lacking. I thought it'd be relevant.
Thanks for posting this. I got a carrier last week and I love it. I have grouped and used this strategy and its very very good. I just wish I could get a respec because I am lacking extend shields and need all the other sci stuff I got as well.
I have tried to explain this to people. Its not standard play to play like this as klingon and probably a reason why so many people say this ship sucks.
p.s. I also saved the link for people wanting to know if they should get this ship in my guild for pvp matches in space.
But yeah, the carrier is really no where near overpowered. I have no idea how people could get that idea. In theory, yes it sounds like a massively good ship because it's classified as Science and Dred'Naught (sp), meaning an extra boost in shields and shield/hull capacity. But in practice, the carrier does not match Fed cruisers in terms of tanking.
Here's a little compilation of Carrier PVP footage. It's nothing special or flashy; simply just footage of Carriers that YouTube seems to be lacking. I thought it'd be relevant.
I loved the conversation going on during the fight calling you guys exploiters. Hmm... you JUST made RA and have to fight something like you've never encountered before in PvP, and you lose. Yup, must be an exploit. It couldn't POSSIBLY be how the carrier was intended to be used.
And then there was the one comment "Guys like you who use exploits ruin pve". PvE? Really?
Comments
You have to play a carrier differently. Mine is a proper science vessel firing off electronic jiggery-pokery left right and centre.
I'm guessing you played around in your carrier for about 2-3 matches and threw your toys out of the pram about it being hard to fly.
It isn't hard. It is stupid. Abilities you use on carrier are out of line. VM+FP is not how I want to win or PvP. If you enjoy them, good for you. I prefer an in-your-face ship with lots of guns.
Not sure it'll be worth much once they nerf it (if they nerf it). The spam they send out by swapping modules isn't all that overpowered in my opinion -- as long as you keep the carrier in combat he can't switch modules so he's stuck with whatever 2 he had loaded, so 1 on 1, kill his stuff, then kill him. (Normally the philosophy of the MMORPG is to "kill the pet owner and ignore the pets" but in this case if you kill the pets, the owner can't resummon most of them and he's easy pickings).
I loaded my carrier up with Jam Sensors and Viral Matrix -- basically things to force people to stop shooting me -- and focus on debuffing people and getting my minions to kill them.
Even if I'm playing it "straight" and launching, say, 2 BOPs, when one blows up I have no way of knowing which one that was and it blows my cooldown to try and launch another one whether it works or not.
They'll have to fix that.
It is however an extremely different playstyle to get used to after playing the other Klingon ships. It is an effective ship, but take it from me, you have to pretty much forget everything you think you know about space combat, and start over.
As for the 'bug' with the support ships, it is debatable. It is not good enough to just fix the obvious bug of being able to deploy them all at once. The reality is most of them are not very good at all.
Syphons: All these guys do is lower the power levels of your enemy. While that may sound handy, these pets have two critical problems. Firstly, they are always the first to die. You will use them on one enemy, and they will be gone. With a 1 minute recast, these pets are simply not worth using on their own. Currently, they are just nice to throw in with the rest of your swarm
These also suffer from some kind of pathing problem. I often see these guys just stop. For no apparent reason, they will just stop in transit, and just sit there in their little clump, with no way to get them moving again.
Repair Drones: Another pet not very useful on their own. The reality of these pets is that they only repair you, never your allies. They only repair your shields, not your hull. And lastly, their repair effect is very small. You really need all of them out to really notice a difference. Even then, at T5, enemy players can eat through your shields absurdly fast. Again, these pets are nice to throw out with the rest of the swarm, but really not very good on their own.
Bird of Prey: These two are great damage dealers. However, they are slow as mud. They are similar to the newbie Bird of Prey, with a front dual cannon, a turret, and a photon torpedo launcher. However, they never use full impulse or cloak for getting around. Although they have more health than the other support ships, they are still very fragile and die quickly, often killed by the exploding enemy. On top of all this, they have a very long 3 or 4 minute cooldown. So once they are dead, they are gone for a long time. Once again, I would not want to use these pets exclusively. They are just nice to throw into the swarm and hope they do some damage, assuming they even get to the fight before it is over.
Fighters:These in my experience are the best pets. The only ones that are not broken on some level. Their damage is weak individually, but 4 fighters is about the same damage as 1 BoP. Except these guys move a lot faster, turn a lot faster, and have a 1 minute cooldown. If I can only use one pet type, it is these guys.
This is how I see it after about 2 - 3 weeks playing my carrier. Most of the pets are just not worth using on their own, and are only good for adding to the swarm. If they fix the bug that lets us use all of them at once, they also need to improve upon the pets themselves to make them worth using on an individual basis.
getting use to a BoP style after playing a Cruiser is one thing... learning to Vo 'Quv after flying a BoP 3 or 4 tiers, that takes even more getting use to. even going from a Ktinga and a VOr'Cha is a steep learning curve.
use the fact that you're slower than other vessels as an advantage. show up fashionably late to the party, and be the part of the group that turns the tides in your favor. this allows you to stock up on pets, and yes, they're only worth a TRIBBLE if you have around 2 or 3 squads of each out.
personally, i love being Sci in a carrier, i think it was made for it. but at the same time, i've seen all classes tear it up in one. depends on your skills and the makeup of the group. know your role.
They really need to fix the crew loss **** because its annoying, especial spawning with 0 crew.
imho, any "death penalty" regardless of how mundane needs to stay out of pvp.
-I was under the impression, which was supported by GMs (like they know or have a uniform opinion on the matter), that releasing a full complement of critters was intended. Replacing them in battle is the only part that is locked to two critters. This means a carrier decreases in utility in a prolonged battle.
-The damage potential is fairly high. I was generally at, or around, the leading damage dealer in our premade (a negh'var). If he was 290k I was 270k, etc. They're constant dps though, only super helpful in focus fires.
-The inertia on the ship is stupid. I'm literally a whale repeating what it saw on Tokyo Drift. That is if I don't Full Impulse reverse before initiating combat. If I think I'm gonna get pegged I stop at 20km prior to initiation, turn on regular reverse, and will begin to regain control at around 10-8km to the targets.
PS: Rare video of a Vo'Quv being pursued by an Escort. Check out how he Ejects Warp Plasma to deter the attacker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nNeZh6P0R4
But didn't say I was giving up on it. that being said to you carrier pilots, whats your BO loadouts on your carriers?
My Klingon char is a BG5 Tactical officer with it's usual perks towards firepower. I'm rolling a Klingon Science officer atm to see which one I prefer in the long run.
However, as everyone else here I found myself in a 4 vs 1 situation in the cracked planetoid. I thought I should wait a while to see if I had some more Klingons joining up, but sadly that was a lost cause. Just for the **** & giggles I stayed in the arena and took them on. I'm not a PVP guru, but I have done my homework.
I actually managed to kill two of them in a fierce battle four versus me within the first minute. I went down in flames a while after that, but I stayed and had some fun and I were really surprised how I could annihilate a few of them considering the armament on my carrier. A few minutes or so before it ended a few more Klingons finally joined up to my relief.
When the scoreboard came up I had 561K damage done by my single carrier. I weren't the only one surprised, but that shows it CAN do some heavy damage even if I personally believe it's there for a supporting role and nothing more. It's not a DPS-machine as the BoPs, for instance, nor should it be.
Besides the obvious advantage of 'Attack pattern alpha' as a TO etc, I will list all and every aspect of my setup here. Mainly because I want to see more carriers out there and I myself is standing on the shoulders of others who have done a great job putting two and two together giving me a good view of what can be done when it comes to loadouts and the bridge officers.
I'm fully specialized in Disruptors and I use 6 Disruptor turrets on the carrier. This to get sustained firepower where it's needed. This alone is not much, but coupled with Rapidfire 1 & 2 (chained) it's raining hellfire.
Bridge Officer skills I use:
Rapidfire 1 & 2, Jam sensors 1 & 2, Science Team 1 & 2, Feedback Pulse 2, Viral Matrix 3, Engineering Team 1, Reverse Shield Polarity 1 & 2
I'm sure I have forgotten one or two here, but these are the major ones I use continously throughout a fight.
Again, I'm not a PVP guru but standing on the shoulders of others so I don't take credit for coming up with this loadout in any way. I can only say it works for me at my skill level.
If someone has some suggestions for loadout alterations, they are all appreciated.
Regards,
/Tzu.
There is no bug with the hangars. You can only choose one type of hangar and summon one type of ship because it is locked in combat and you cannot equip anything new. Once you're out of combat, you can change equipment. As of now it's a normal STO game mechanic that is seen throughout all aspects of the game. Just like how bridge officers can be switched out of combat to have access to other skills (which stay, even when the BO is unequipped), or how Science classes can switch personal kits to buff themselves out of combat and stack near 100% damage immunity in ground combat, or how Engineer classes can create a variety of mass fabrications. It's simply a game mechanic - not a bug. Of course, game mechanics are always subject to change and be modified in the future.
Besides, all of the hangars are useless except for power siphons, which are easily handled.
You launch both BoPs. They have a cooldown of 3 minutes. You switch to your fighters and launch them. If you switch back to the BoPs their cooldown is still ticking. That right there should tell people that it's working as intended.
The cruiser is intended to use all of the pets at the same time. The limitation is that you can't switch during combat. If you had enough bays for all of them at the same time then you could relaunch them all during combat, which is why there are only two hangar bays. Launch as many as you want prior to combat, but during you're stuck with what you have already in there.
I suggest that anyone who disagrees to level up a Klingon and fly one. You may as well be piloting a caterpillar
a carrier has a really big sign on it that says shoot me now you have to play this ship like s smart fed will play there cruiser
you go slow almost never usinge full impulse and you stay togther
if you get 5 guys in carriers or optomily 4 carreris and 1 negvar the carrers sit ina ball within 5km of eachother and heal eachother while using there pets to kill the feds now if the feds are dumb and leave the carriers outa combat and just engage the pets ither ridcously esay for the carrier blob to win
but if the fedsare good and know what aoe skills are they can make the carrier ball a deathtrap ive had games where ive had my premade teams we where all ina ball and the feds came in and every one of them used a orp spread and the sci vessle also used a grav well on us between all the aoe dmg + the deaths of all the pets exploding on top of us it set of a chain reactoin that blew us all up now the odds of coming across a fed team that 1 knows what its doing b is aculaly fit to counter carriers is rare
but as i siad the key to doing well as a carrier is to think like a fed and ball up with your buddies for mutual healing
Fore:
1x Beam Array
1x Turret
1x Torpedo
Aft:
3x Turret
Tac:
HYT I
Beam Target: Shields II
Rapid Fire II
Eng:
Engineer Team I
Extend Shields II
Auxiliary to Structural
Sci:
Science Team I
Polarize Hull I
Hazard Emitters II
Transfer Shield Strength II
Scamble Sensors
Tyken's Rift III
General synergy is to use the shield disable paired with a Tykens to disable RSP on a focus fire target--or the stock Aux + Tykens for FBP. Grabbed the torp because "why not". Doesn't add to my considerable weapons drain and on the rare occasion a quantum HYT + Ramming Speed really lays the hurt on--can break 40k burst with it. 5 support skills, 3 self tanking skills (paired with Damp field). And then Rapid fire for basic dps. Nothing too fancy, nothing stacked. Plus keeping my nose pointed in the right direction is a real challenge. Keeps me on my toes!
While not typical, I saw someone else had an imbalanced start of a game which inflated their scores. So why not.
agreed, it's not as tough as it looks. i think best way to use it is for shock-and-awe type of effect, more of a support role. show up fashionably late to the party (to get a good nymber of pets spawned) and turn the tide. also, show up on the other side than the group goes in on.
Scramble Sensors + Gravity Well + Sensor Scan + Photonic Fleet + Dampening Field
confuse them + keep them Fedballed and start Kinetic damage (shields are gonna be getting eaten on if you're getting there late) + increase the damage taken + pop more 'decoys' so when SS comes off em the have a harder time Tab-targetting you + then throw up the DField to buff your Photonic Fleet.
then i go to my damage / repair rotations, depending on how the battle is going.
but i'm Sci, this would be diff for Eng /Tac. but that's how i roll.
nah, that's too fancy. i just go into reverse + Evasive maneuvers + Ramming speed.
nothing makes Escorts facepalm like being ran over by something in reverse.
That's an interesting take on Carriers. In almost all of my matches, instead of arriving late, the Carrier (piloted by me) is usually the first to approach the fedball. The rest of the team, usually BoPs, are cloaked around them. As soon as the fedball targets and encircles me, the rest of my team uncloaks and breaks apart the fedball.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U18BTYuDXZE (1080P HD)
also, i usually keep my throttle at 0 to increase ability to pivot as well. good tip for someone new to carriers and more use to BoP's.
I love it when people try this. For those that don't know: CPB and PSW are in the game for a reason, and with inertia PSW turns into a rather beefy disable on Vo'quvs since it blocks out access to abilities while you're being "knocked back". There's also Tykens, Eject Warp Plasma, Gravity Well, Scramble Sensors and some really crappy AoE attack abilities.
Its TRIBBLE how fast one fed can snipe all the lil ships away, and you cant replenish all of them midfight.
Carrier needs all BO slots like in BoP. so it would be support mainly.
LOL omfg LOL This made my day.
Thanks for posting this. I got a carrier last week and I love it. I have grouped and used this strategy and its very very good. I just wish I could get a respec because I am lacking extend shields and need all the other sci stuff I got as well.
I have tried to explain this to people. Its not standard play to play like this as klingon and probably a reason why so many people say this ship sucks.
p.s. I also saved the link for people wanting to know if they should get this ship in my guild for pvp matches in space.
I loved the conversation going on during the fight calling you guys exploiters. Hmm... you JUST made RA and have to fight something like you've never encountered before in PvP, and you lose. Yup, must be an exploit. It couldn't POSSIBLY be how the carrier was intended to be used.
And then there was the one comment "Guys like you who use exploits ruin pve". PvE? Really?