Question to the PvP Community and Cryptic
I raise this in a new thread because previous threads on this topic seem derailed by less-than-objective complaints and flames, and I'd rather keep this as objective as possible.
Has anyone (Federation or Klingon) had success against a full carrier spawning group, which spawns fully out-of-combat, in arena deathmatch? If so, how often have you had success?
To be clear, this means 5 carriers x 24 spawns (8 fighters + 8 shield drones + 6 power siphons + 2 birds-of-prey), or 125 ships in total (120 NPCs + 5 players). In other words, this is the min/max extreme of carriers.
If you have faced a full carrier spawning group (5 carriers, 24 spawns each), or you have played as part of such a carrier spawning group, please post any win:loss ratios, even approximations, here.
Be honest, guys.

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Observations
Personally, I have never won a match against a full carrier spawning group (i.e., 24 spawns per carrier) in 5v5 arena deathmatch. At best, we manage a score of 5/15. This does not necessarily mean that my team was playing optimally, but I will qualify these subjective circumstances below, and offer some more objective observations.
Objective:
- Carriers can spawn up to 24 fighters or power siphons each, while out-of-combat. This is due to the shared cooldowns being (currently) limited to actively equipped hangar loads; swap loads and you can ignore the cooldown.
- A single fighter deals pitiful DPS, but 50 photon torpedo volleys (+ the additional cannon damage of 10 birds-of-prey) add up to quite a bit. Even if not concurrent burst, the damage over time is significant.
- Similarly, a single power siphon drains very little (~10 power max), but, even if they only drained 2 power, 30 x 2 power is a significant drain, let alone 30 x 10.
- Carriers are also science vessels, and capable of slotting Rank III science abilities. This means access in particular to Tyken's Rift III, Viral Matrix III, Feedback Pulse III, Photonic Officer III. They also gain the innate Beam Target Subsystems I ability, which is fairly weak until combined with Energy Siphon, Tyken's Rift, and/or their power siphon spawns.
- Scramble Sensors affects a maximum of 15 targets within a 3km AOE sphere, for ~30 sec max (varies with spec/loadout). This means Scramble Sensors affects 3/5 (15/25 -- 24 spawns + 1 carrier) or 60% of a 1 carrier spawn group. Assuming 1x Scramble Sensors per team member, and absolutely no AOE sphere overlap -- which is almost impossible to achieve -- this will concurrently affect 75/125 ships at most at any given time.
When slotted with multiple ranks and Photonic Officer (i.e., > 5x Scramble Sensors active), it is possible to have a 1-10 sec overlap of multiple Scramble Sensors. In a group of 5x science vessels, this means 10x Scramble Sensors concurrently active for 1-10 sec, which means theoretical 150 targets affected (i.e., > 100%) before long cooldowns. Otherwise, it means 75 targets affected continuously (i.e., 60%).
- Jam Sensors only works on a single target.
Subjective:
I followed
Sam_Charette's guide, although to date I have only managed to face carrier spawning groups with 3 other Fleet members (instead of a full premade group), which automatically reduced our chances of success. (FYI, this problematic scheduling is why I have not had the opportunity to arrange 5v5 premade vs. premade with Sam_Charette.)
- Some of us had AOE damage, while others (including myself) had Scramble Sensors. Targeting wasn't much of an issue with key binds (i.e., primary assist has binds to target names, everyone else has binds to assist). Even with dedicated healing, we still could not inflict more damage than the carrier spawning group could deal, much less absorb it all.
- Even if we loaded a full science vessel group with Scramble Sensors or AOE + Photonic Officer, we would not have the healing needed to withstand the incoming DPS of players (+ spawns not caught in the AOE spheres). (I have not tested this, but I assume the carrier players would not be fooled by Scramble, and they would continue to focus fire on us.)
Also remember that we all still face the usual problems with FBP and SNB (+ VM), which both sides have. Photonic Fleet is also not accounted for in this discussion, since both sides have it.
Our user-attributed problems are three-fold:
- We cannot kill the spawns fast enough before the carrier players take us out and/or spawn more. We are forced to ignore most of the spawns and simply heal through the damage and power drain. Furthermore, loading tactical AOE sacrifices single-target burst and subsystem warfare (Beam Target Subsystem) needed to penetrate RSP (+ Photonic Officer stacking).
- We cannot keep all carriers engaged in combat at all times (to prevent them from spawning out-of-combat), unless we sacrifice focus fire. Sacrificing focus fire against carriers tends not to yield any kills, due to carrier Photonic Officer + healing loadouts.
- If we spec completely for Scramble Sensors and/or science AOE, we sacrifice healing. If we spec completely for healing, we sacrifice crowd control. If we compromise, it seems not to be enough against 125 targets. No matter how we slice it, we cannot manage the incoming damage.
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Conclusions
Even if we assume that it is possible for a non-carrier group to win against a full carrier spawning group (5 carriers, 24 spawns each), given the above facts (from the Objective Observations section) it is much more difficult even for the most coordinated teams. Possible, but very unlikely.
Do we consider this balanced?
I like the concept of the carrier, but without a dedicated spawn-killer type of ship (e.g., a point-defense or anti-fighter destroyer), we simply cannot manage against 120 NPCs + 5 players.
Either give us a better way to manage the crowd, or please enforce the hangar load cooldowns globally (i.e., affect Inventory as well as currently equipped).
Thank you for your consideration.
Comments
But personally I have never seen 5 carriers, and certainly don't play enough against carriers to figure out what works.
Otherwise, I hope the DEVs can make this a priority, since FvK is almost completely unmanageable against a full carrier spawning group.
I'd relate some anecdotes about how our 5-carrier group got wiped out by a good group of feds, except I've never been in a 5-carrier group (every group I've been in has always included 1 or 2 non-carrier ships). and even if I had ever been, we probably wouldn't have had all our deployables out anyway (see above).
-ken
I agree about the relative utility (or lack thereof) of certain deployables, but I left it in the description to be completely accurate.
Regarding your second comment, as you say, I am looking for win:loss ratios against 5-carrier groups with full spawns, or the min/max extreme of carriers. It is under this circumstance that I have never seen success, and I posit that there can be no (or very, very rare) success against it.
Again, if anyone has seen success against a full 5-carrier group with full spawns (24 x 5), please post how often you have seen this success.
Thanks
My biggest problem with carriers is targeting the main ship, or even any ship, amidst all the support craft. This frustrates me to no end as I try to cycle through nearest enemy targets or rotate my screen and attempt to click through the mess and find a reasonable ship to fight.
Spawning many support craft seems to be the most effective form of shielding, as I have almost no ability to target any enemy craft within.
1) You cannot have 24 power siphons. You can have 6. The max you can have if you spawn everything is:
8 To'Duj fighters
8 Shield drones (worthless)
6 Siphon Pods
2 BoPs
2) This is NOT a bug. Everything clear said so far has been that it is working as designed. The quote that Matt brings up is (I think) not from a dev, and doesn't mention it to be a bug. Just that they will look into it (likely to modify it because of complaints)
3) My take on carriers...
One or two carriers isn't bad. A single player can take down a carrier REALLY fast with the right setup. I know, it's happened to me many times.
That said, once you get three or more in a group things start to get silly. Three is the middle ground, but four and five is just wrong. There are SO many little ships flying around that it becomes next to impossible to find us through the swarm, and that many ships on a single target will take it down rally fast, with it usually having no opportunity to defend itself. It's pretty obvious that Cryptic didn't playtest against a full group of carriers.
Luckily, at least from what I've seen AS a Klingon, groups of only carriers are rare. If my friend and I had been playing our carriers we would have had at most three in the group, which is a huge hassle as it is, but not as bad as four or five.
A carrier itself is not overpowered. It's balanced pretty well I'd say. A group of carriers, though, isn't balanced at all. I've never lost a game when we had four or more carriers. With three carriers, only the really good feds win, and it's hard for them (though the REALLY good ones can win pretty easily). Two or one and it's no different than with any other group mixture.
Furthermore, my quote is directly from dstahl, a Cryptic DEV. Thanks for that.
A part of me wants to say that "I told you so, abuse it and lose it", but thats not really constructive.
They never try to attack the Player BoP's around them raptors and battle cursers all that are weaker....still going take 5 feds shoot it to kill it , the trouble is the BoP's , raptors and so on will kill them way before they down the carrier.......maybe I dunno this might sound nuts , maybe shoot the weaker ships first??? naw that couldnt work.
if you would actually read the original post you would find that your arguement got shot out of the water in the first 2-3 points.
Those points are wrong , and I just explained to you why STOP shooting the big ship running 3 sci~teams.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=132715
Enjoy!:D
This thread is specifically about 5v125 PVP. That is, facing a full 5-carrier group that spawns 24 deployables each.
Furthermore, my original post is asking for win:loss ratios when PVPing in that circumstance.
Please confine your comments to these specifications.
Thanks
EDIT:
Also, if you read the original post, I have included everything relevant from your linked guide, and showed mathematical evidence that refutes the probability of success against a 125-enemy group.
I'm at 0:15 or so (win:loss). Would love to see larger sampling.
Under Investigation
Maps not zooming properly
Loading screens freezing the client
UI Latency
Sol System and Earth Space Dock loading times
Players not getting credit for completing Infected
Weapon powers getting stuck and unable to fire
Klingon Carriers
Critical Hits
Antiproton Procs
Items that cannot be equipped
Loot that cannot be picked up
Stores not selling items that players expect to be able to buy
Feedback Pulse
/Stuck Command
Option for players to turn off shield rings
PVP scoring updates to include shield healing
Bridge officer candidates stuck in bank
I would say 5 and 3 wins losses., we ended up stacking jam senor and sci~teams on 3 hmm migth have been 2 sci ships , what we ended up doing was running 5 sci ships cuz well thats what they are , the idea was to jam senor to force out thier sci teams so a Vm would land and stick......really wish i could go into more detail but I was the low man on the pole just tossing out the jam senors on the targets called out. best i went was 9 and 2 for K / D.
keep in mind this was also before FBP got hot.
Also, I am assuming that one of those two sides is a full 5-carrier group that was spawning 24 deployables each. Is this correct?
Ya sorry we were feds all sci ships two sci caps one eng and me tact at the time 5 wins 3 losses to this team was in the Opvp channel before it died out wish I could go into more detail but I kinda only got picked up cuz I had the right Bo's with jam senors , Im sure the real trick was in who was running the VM's when to time them.
haha with all those mobs and all that lag it sure the hell felt like it , you got to remember tho this was also a time you could shoot someone and not get a face full of FBP 3 in your teeth.
Even if you ran that set up , you are not going get phasers on those carriers in this day and age.
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So, even if we accept the 5:3 win:loss as legitimate for our purposes, let's compile this with existing posted ratios.
5:3 + 0:3 + 0:15 + 0:? (Sam_Charette, please give me a rough estimate of # of wins while in your 5-carrier group?)
Using raw cumulative adding, this is 5:18 (+ ?), or less than 25% success. (5 wins / 23 + ? total matches)
However, we are not certain if the 5:3 set is legitimate, as we don't know if it was against a full 5-carrier spawning group (5 x 24 spawns). If this is not a legitimate set, we're back to 0 success.
Behonest I would not count mine , unless you think the full turrent build with flows would be able to push the DPS of sci ships that really did not have to worry about FBP much if at all back then.
In which case we're back to 0:3 + 0:15 + 0:?, which gives us 0 success.
Any thread that says it's a bug will have me respond as I did. ANY thread (not including one that has a dev SPECIFICALLY calling it a bug). I do not like the dissemination of falsities. I do apologize for having to speak up for this within this thread, and that wasn't in reference to your post but another one (my bad for making that confusing), but I won't sit idly by while people accuse carrier pilots of exploiting bugs. Ever. (really, I'll never stand by for anyone accusing anyone else of exploiting non-existent bugs)
Is he a dev? It doesn't say so on his profile, so I always thought that he was a moderator. Regardless, he doesn't call it a bug. He said he'd forward it on to the pvp testers. This is a playability issue, not a bug issue. At no point does he call this a bug. A dev would never need to pass a bug like this on to the pvp testers because it's exceptionally easy to reproduce.
No problem. I should also point out that with a full carrier setup the feds rarely get any points. This is in part due to the overall disorganization of the majority of feds, of course, but the majority of it in a 5 carrier group is because of the spawns. I've also seen groups (more than when facing non carriers) just give up when they see the carriers. That's kinda sad, because you should always try, but I really can't blame them. 120 tiny ships buzzing around the battle is very overwhelming. It's akin to someone trying to take on someone 2 ranks higher than themselves. Yeah, it's possible, if you're really good and they aren't, but after getting trashed in seconds the first time there is little interest in a second attempt.
I'd also like to point out that when in a full carrier group Klingon organization doesn't really seem necessary, no matter how organized the feds are.
Then why did you say it?
Regardless, you can say you told us so, but you'd be wrong. It's still not a bug. Something that is under investigation can just be a playability issue, and not a bug. That's what they are investigating for this particular item. This thread, actually, is exactly what they mean when they say that they are looking into it, which is why it's a great thread. There is a playability issue when you have that many carriers, and there really isn't much of an argument against that fact. (this coming FROM a carrier pilot)
But that doesn't, nor will it ever, make it a bug.
Now, let's get back to the analysis of the carrier group.
Sorry, Matt. I missed this.
I've only played a few in a 5 carrier group.... maybe 2 or 3, and we won those without a fight. Most of the time that it's a problem is when we have 4 carriers and something else. I've probably played about 10-15 (conservatively) like this and they were all complete victories over the feds, they getting a handful of points at best per game.
In a 3 carrier group with 2 others you can still kinda see the issue, but it's not as bad. Still, though, when we have 3 carriers it does take a higher grade of fed group to challenge us, and I've played plenty like that. No clue what the win/loss ratio would be, though it highly favours the carriers.
I remember one night last week where we were getting hit with VM's soooooooooo often (each of us hit with several VM's & SNB's per game) that the others decided to go with their carriers, and VM's. That night we had 4 carriers, each with 1-3 VMs (I had one, one had 3, the others had 1 or 2). Our 5th was a BoP.
Nothing gave us a challenge. Even when we saw some good organization and tactics with the feds, they still couldn't compete on an equal playing field.
With 3 carriers it's hard to tell how much of it is the carriers and how much is the organization and skill level of both teams. Above 3, though, and it's pretty clear that the fighters have definitely given a significant advantage that is next to impossible to get past.
One was sitting on a point in capture/hold.. I shot Scramble Sensor 3 in there... confused its repair drones.. and went right at the carrier and blew it up.
If there was 5 carriers and a cap/hold match don't fight them. Briar Patch one... Die on carriers. AoE Torpedoes?
Sorry I only faced one carrier...
Can you be more specific? Normally when I'm hit with scramble it's a nuisance (I don't use repair drones because of it), but even if I have to sit through the whole scramble I tend to be able to survive it. I'd love to hear what you did to blow it up so fast.
The problem isn't in C&H, but rather arenas. In C&H you can usually avoid a carrier, as they are slow and their pets are slower. In an arena, though, the goal IS to kill the enemy, so it makes this issue much worse.
And really, did you have to quote his entire block of text? :P
I wanted to point out that the highest rank on a carrier for Bofs is lt. Comander, though you can use 1 tac 1 eng and 1 scince Lt. comander and a science Lt.
this excludes the use of type 'III' comander bof skills like Viral matrix III on carrier
just to clarify...
A common mistake, and one that I've made before. The ship tier chart is wrong. You do get a commander science slot in the carrier.