I posted on this in a separate thread, but the more I thought about it, the more problems I found. The argument normally thrown at Feds is we have superior ships (ie. better hulls and shields). After countless pvp battles, a lot of them 1v1, I noticed that it didn't appear to be adding up. So I did some research. Here's the actual numbers. Comparing a fed Star Cruiser with a KDF Battlecruiser.
Hull: Fed=39000 KDF=36000 Winner= Fed by 3000, which translates into about one second of extra life.
Weapon slots: A tie. Four forward four backward.
BO abilities: Another tie. Fed has one more ensign science, and KDF has one more ensign engineer.
Crew: Fed=1000 KDF=2400 Winner= KDF by 140%. Translates into over twice as much hull regen.
Turn rate: Fed=6 KDF=9 Winner=KDF by 50%.
Device slots: Fed=4 KDF=3 Winner= Fed. We don't need to discuss how useless devices are right now.
Consoles: Fed=9 KDF=8 Winner= Fed. A very slight advantage here....very slight.
Weapons: No comparison here, KDF wins with the option of having cannons.
Cloak: KDF wins again.
Shields: I'm not sure on this one, if someone has the numbers, fill me in. But lets say Fed wins with a thousand more shield points. Which translates to about one second of combat.
Now lets add these together in a fictional one vs. one battle. KDF decloaks behind Fed. Alpha strike. Fed ship can do maybe half the damage of KDF while firing to the rear. On top of that, KDF ship can use Aceton Field to reduce damage by 50%, fed ship has to somehow out turn the KDF in order to do that. The odds of Fed ship out maneuvering the KDF ship are slim to none if player skills are equal since KDF has better turn rate. When RSPs run out, fed ship dies. Oh, our extra devices? It would be equal because odds are, we'll only be able to pop one each since it has a 5 minute cooldown. The bottom line is, for all the extra hull and shield strength ( a total of about 4000 points), in a game where DPS is anywhere from 2000 to 6000, it only extends a fed ships life by 1 to 3 seconds. Hardly sounds like technological superiority to me.
Now lets use a different analogy. No other mmo allows a class to have stealth capabilities with hardly any limitations on it. They almost always have to move at half speed. An even better question is how can a klingon ship divert all power to engines to fly at full impulse and still maintain a cloak?
Even better, can you imagine a battleground in WoW that allowed everyone on the opposing team to have stealth, run at full speed...stealthed, and have their tanks being able to do high DPS, and the only thing the other team gets is a 1 to 3 second boost in life expectancy? Nobody would play in it.
I'm not saying take away cloak or give cloak to the feds, this is star trek. I'm saying give the feds something unique that actually reflects their tech superiority. This new shield boost will be nice, but the klingons will get that too. In fact, klingons get every tech, and BO skills that feds get, plus they somehow figured out how to mount cannons on all their ships, something fed scientists seem to be utterly baffled by.
Ok, that's it, I'm done. If you're going to counter my argument, please try to use some actual statistics or numbers to back it up.
Its been like this since beta, and I've been saying the same thing since then. Klingon battle cruisers do have an advantage over cruisers, its one reason I've wanted the cruiser turn rate upped. Not enough that its insurmountable, at least pre-season 1, but its always been there.
Of course now heavy cannons are pretty massive damage dealers so the KDF gets a big advantage there until they fix the overall damage issues.
Its been like this since beta, and I've been saying the same thing since then. Klingon battle cruisers do have an advantage over cruisers, its one reason I've wanted the cruiser turn rate upped. Not enough that its insurmountable, at least pre-season 1, but its always been there.
Of course now heavy cannons are pretty massive damage dealers so the KDF gets a big advantage there until they fix the overall damage issues.
Whatever the solution will be, I don't want to fly a Fed Cruiser with Cannons. Doesn't fit my aesthetical demands for a Cruiser.
Have you done a similar comparison on the other ship classes before you declare that because cruisers match up this way it's true for all classes? I haven't looked so I don't know.
"One second" (this varies widely based on the encounter) could end up meaning a lot more than one second in a fight. That's another second for you or your teammate to get a heal off, to jam the attacker's sensors, pop RSP, or any number of abilities that might get you out of that situation.
Cannons are more damage than beams, for sure, but things like TSS and Beam Overload are also skills that we don't have access to with cannons. I'm glad they fixed FBP so that it will reflect cannons but for some play styles, beams are better. It's not really a defensible statement to say one type is better than the other and offer no support.
The cloak is really highly overrated. I'd trade it for that extra 3000 hull and 1000 shields. Those numbers are modified by any damage resist abilities you might have going at any time. A cloak doesn't help with that.
A lot of what you said makes sense, but really just when you're comparing cruisers. Do Escorts compare with Raptors/BoPs in a similar way?
Whatever the solution will be, I don't want to fly a Fed Cruiser with Cannons. Doesn't fit my aesthetical demands for a Cruiser.
I agree, there is no need to give them cannons, but for balance reasons they still need some more something. More hull, shields perhaps. What cruisers get over battle cruisers isn't really enough, especially not in the current state of the game.
As for escorts v. raptor, they are virtually identical. Raptors get cloak and an ensign tac officer. Escorts get a specialty console slot and an ensign in their specialty. Other than that they are identical last I checked.
The cloak is really highly overrated. I'd trade it for that extra 3000 hull and 1000 shields. Those numbers are modified by any damage resist abilities you might have going at any time. A cloak doesn't help with that.
Im sorry but thats just funny,
Cloaks are a 2000% times more useful then 3000 hull and 1000 shield. A good dpser can go through 4000 shield and hull in less then a second.
I have a Negh'Var and Sovereign, both captains are max ranked, klingon is tact and fed is science.
I will do crew first.
Unless you run boff with a tactical team your crew in PvP will mostly consist splatter, messy remains. You do not respawn with a fresh crew and all the biofunction and IDS consoles will not help you much.
It's a tie, ship of the dead vs ship of the dead.
Turn rate
in pvp speed = defense, not to be confused with full throttle inertia spinning you can do with a Negh'Var since it is actual speed that counts. Still, with some cannon and butt spinning as i fondly call it, the Negh'Var can dish out a lot more damage then the Sovereign, which can't butt spin or mount heavy cannon.
I think the t5 fed cruisers should have inertia reduced.
Hull
Dose it really matter, hull tanking in this game is like a person playing chicken with a freight train. Once your shields are gone, your gone. Stacking armor consoles is like putting on body armor made of tissue paper. The Negh'Var, being able to turn tighter to get a fresh shield in position has the advantage.
Cloak
By itself cloak mean nothing but a first strike. With update one that first strike can be a lot more painful but if your quick you can recover. Cloak with long duration crowd control is broken. If your only balancing the game at the fleet(group) level why bring a cruiser with you in the first place. All it can offer is extend shields 3 which puts RSP on cooldown, another science ship or escort brings much more to the table.
Cannon vs Beams
Since update one, cannon is the ultimate power, but on a cruiser not so much. Lacking the high level tactical skills to really juice up those cannons makes them on cruiser about par with beams. Til you factor in FBP. I won't bother making colorful commentary about FBP.
Summery
In a pure 1 vs 1 encounter between a sovereign and a negh'var, both captains and skill loadout being the same, the turn rate of the klingon cruiser would likely win it the battle as long as the klingon captain keeps putting his best shield to the sovereign.
I stopped reading here. I have to assume you know little about BoFF abilities and even less about overall balance if you're making this comparison.
Thanks for your completely useless response and utter lack of rational argument. The classic "You don't know what you're talking about!" counter works so well here.
I do have to agree that most fed cruiser captains wouldn't put cannons on their ships, simply because they have to provide decent fire support in a 360 radius. Since they have a slow turn rate, it would be difficult to bring forward mounted cannons to bear on the focus fire target.
Had an excellent chance to test out combat between my cruiser and a klingon battlecruiser today. We did a head on flyby. I cranked up auxillary power to max, reduced engine speed to half, and he wasl firing cannons at me by the time I was only half way through my turn. Luckily an escort showed up to finish him off.
Im sorry but thats just funny,
Cloaks are a 2000% times more useful then 3000 hull and 1000 shield. A good dpser can go through 4000 shield and hull in less then a second.
You must not have read what else I posted very closely. Of course 4000 isn't going to keep you alive for more than about a second, as the OP wrote. A lot can happen in that second, and I find that for most encounters, I don't need to start cloaked. If it's 1v1, I'm just going to jam your sensors and if it's two groups, I'm just not going to be the closest one to the fedballl. If a Klingon player is relying solely on his cloak to provide advantage, he's doing it wrong.
A lot of posts I read complain about how the cloak, especially the battle cloak isn't balanced when really, it's a red herring. Damage is what's out of balance with survivability. If they get that in check, things will be a lot better.
I posted on this in a separate thread, but the more I thought about it, the more problems I found. The argument normally thrown at Feds is we have superior ships (ie. better hulls and shields). After countless pvp battles, a lot of them 1v1, I noticed that it didn't appear to be adding up. So I did some research. Here's the actual numbers. Comparing a fed Star Cruiser with a KDF Battlecruiser.
Hull: Fed=39000 KDF=36000 Winner= Fed by 3000, which translates into about one second of extra life.
Weapon slots: A tie. Four forward four backward.
BO abilities: Another tie. Fed has one more ensign science, and KDF has one more ensign engineer.
Crew: Fed=1000 KDF=2400 Winner= KDF by 140%. Translates into over twice as much hull regen.
Turn rate: Fed=6 KDF=9 Winner=KDF by 50%.
Device slots: Fed=4 KDF=3 Winner= Fed. We don't need to discuss how useless devices are right now.
Consoles: Fed=9 KDF=8 Winner= Fed. A very slight advantage here....very slight.
Weapons: No comparison here, KDF wins with the option of having cannons.
Cloak: KDF wins again.
Shields: I'm not sure on this one, if someone has the numbers, fill me in. But lets say Fed wins with a thousand more shield points. Which translates to about one second of combat.
Now lets add these together in a fictional one vs. one battle. KDF decloaks behind Fed. Alpha strike. Fed ship can do maybe half the damage of KDF while firing to the rear. On top of that, KDF ship can use Aceton Field to reduce damage by 50%, fed ship has to somehow out turn the KDF in order to do that. The odds of Fed ship out maneuvering the KDF ship are slim to none if player skills are equal since KDF has better turn rate. When RSPs run out, fed ship dies. Oh, our extra devices? It would be equal because odds are, we'll only be able to pop one each since it has a 5 minute cooldown. The bottom line is, for all the extra hull and shield strength ( a total of about 4000 points), in a game where DPS is anywhere from 2000 to 6000, it only extends a fed ships life by 1 to 3 seconds. Hardly sounds like technological superiority to me.
Now lets use a different analogy. No other mmo allows a class to have stealth capabilities with hardly any limitations on it. They almost always have to move at half speed. An even better question is how can a klingon ship divert all power to engines to fly at full impulse and still maintain a cloak?
Even better, can you imagine a battleground in WoW that allowed everyone on the opposing team to have stealth, run at full speed...stealthed, and have their tanks being able to do high DPS, and the only thing the other team gets is a 1 to 3 second boost in life expectancy? Nobody would play in it.
I'm not saying take away cloak or give cloak to the feds, this is star trek. I'm saying give the feds something unique that actually reflects their tech superiority. This new shield boost will be nice, but the klingons will get that too. In fact, klingons get every tech, and BO skills that feds get, plus they somehow figured out how to mount cannons on all their ships, something fed scientists seem to be utterly baffled by.
Ok, that's it, I'm done. If you're going to counter my argument, please try to use some actual statistics or numbers to back it up.
Another whiny fed, notice when the fed parts are better he makes out to be so slight and useless. Ships are balanced. get some skill for pete sake
agreed, u hardly wrote it as a neutrale bystander.
All the Fed advantages u deem "hardly the effort" while Klingon pro's are One Button Wins.
Consider this; most Neg'Vars use Cannons, with only once a Rapid Fire I option. They put turrets on the back to keep the line of sight AND kill incoming Tricobalts from other vantage points.
An Engineer on a Cruiser is a hard case which only Rapors can neutralize succesfully in one strike.
Cruiser vs. Cruiser is well, boring.
Don't gripe about mismatches, change ur strat, start experimenting with ur loadout, and, MOST important, PICK UR TARGET!
Each class has its pro's and con's relative to the other, when flying a Fed Cruiser, go for the BoP's and Raptors. If ur a Neg'Var, go for the Science if equipped with cannons, otherwise he will Feedback pulse ur overloaded beams upon u.
Find weaknesses in other people strategy or playing style, don't hammer "unbalance".
Tip for u; if u like to be a DPS dealer, take an Escort. Cruisers are for support, not One on One warfare.
The measurable differences that really matter are the crew and the turn rate. On turn rate alone, independent of all the other minor things, a Negh'var has a huge advantage over either flavor of Fed Cruiser. Turn rates aren't really linear, due to the way that other multipliers are more effective with a higher base, which ultimately means that 9 is a whole lot more than 6. It makes all the difference in the world. More than double the crew means faster hull repairs, especially early in engagements when it really matters.
All the rest, the devices and consoles and Sci vs Eng is really beside the point. The Klingon variant is clearly a superior ship by virtue of the turn rate alone. Adding in the gigantic crew complement and the Cloak is just insult to injury.
Now, all that said, it's important to remember that they serve very different functions. Battlecruisers are more numerous for the Klingons than Cruisers for the Feds (due primarily to the fact that many more people play Sci Vessels than Raptors), and they are more central to fleet engagements. BoPs and Raptors cannot take fire the way Sci Vessels can, which puts the purden of absorbing damage on Battlecruisers and nobody else. Because of the way Klingon fleets fight, which is typically a lot of hit and run, short engagements, they desperately need turn rate to keep up with BoPs. Even as is it's difficult. For Fed fleets this tends generally not to be an issue because of the tendency to stay together and move slowly.
One sec of shields is all you need to neutralize first strike advantage of the cloak. One sec of hull is one second more staying power after the cloak has already been neutralized.
Klingons may have more crew, but supposedly(Im not sure this perk was actually added for all Feds...or if its just for science ships) Fed onboard medical facilities means your crew regen faster...KDF crew regen is very slow. So we have better hull healing initially, but for sustained battles, you may find the Feds are able to keep the ship togther just as well or better(you'd have to check the numbers to see)...so KDF may be more susceptible to torpedo strikes early in the fight.
Lastly, devices are so fricken useful...they get me out of binds all the time. shield and engines batteries are a must for saving the day...weapon batteries are just handy to keep me pouring the DPS on.
agreed, u hardly wrote it as a neutrale bystander.
All the Fed advantages u deem "hardly the effort" while Klingon pro's are One Button Wins.
Consider this; most Neg'Vars use Cannons, with only once a Rapid Fire I option. They put turrets on the back to keep the line of sight AND kill incoming Tricobalts from other vantage points.
An Engineer on a Cruiser is a hard case which only Rapors can neutralize succesfully in one strike.
Cruiser vs. Cruiser is well, boring.
Don't gripe about mismatches, change ur strat, start experimenting with ur loadout, and, MOST important, PICK UR TARGET!
Each class has its pro's and con's relative to the other, when flying a Fed Cruiser, go for the BoP's and Raptors. If ur a Neg'Var, go for the Science if equipped with cannons, otherwise he will Feedback pulse ur overloaded beams upon u.
Find weaknesses in other people strategy or playing style, don't hammer "unbalance".
Tip for u; if u like to be a DPS dealer, take an Escort. Cruisers are for support, not One on One warfare.
The things you say about cruisers highlight the major flaws with this game. A game that will have so few subscribers in 6months you can crew an escort and have room to spare.
"Cruisers are for support." "Cruiser vs Cruiser is boring." Star Trek has never been so assaulted.
Shields: I'm not sure on this one, if someone has the numbers, fill me in. But lets say Fed wins with a thousand more shield points. Which translates to about one second of combat.
My Tier 5 Klink and my fleet mate with his tier 5 fed on the same class of ships compared the Covarant Mk X capx3 (the marks of Honor one) He see's over 10k max cap. I saw 6k max cap. our trained skills are almost the exact same. and we aren't bugged (runabout bug) so for feds thats around 4k extra points for the shields. only thing we can figure is he is a sci captain and i'm tact. my shields go down so fast if i did'nt have RSP i'd be dead in seconds.
A lot of posts I read complain about how the cloak, especially the battle cloak isn't balanced when really, it's a red herring. Damage is what's out of balance with survivability. If they get that in check, things will be a lot better.
I agree that the biggest problem in pvp right now is DPS is through the roof. Shields and hull are a joke, which is the whole point of my post. The extra shields and hull on a fed ship do not make up for all the advantages Klingon ships get.
Another whiny fed, notice when the fed parts are better he makes out to be so slight and useless. Ships are balanced. get some skill for pete sake
Typical response from a klingon that knows I'm right, but is desperate to preserve his superior tactical advantage in pvp.
You say I downplay the power of our ship advantages? I'm curious which ones? Surely you're not going to argue that our extra device slot is overpowered? Or maybe the one extra science console turns a tractor beam or jam sensors into a super powerful ability? Or maybe the 1 to 4 seconds of ship endurance will somehow turn the tide of a battle?
So please tell me which one you're talking about that's so powerful that it counters cloak, first strike and cannons?
agreed, u hardly wrote it as a neutrale bystander.
All the Fed advantages u deem "hardly the effort" while Klingon pro's are One Button Wins.
Consider this; most Neg'Vars use Cannons, with only once a Rapid Fire I option. They put turrets on the back to keep the line of sight AND kill incoming Tricobalts from other vantage points.
An Engineer on a Cruiser is a hard case which only Rapors can neutralize succesfully in one strike.
Cruiser vs. Cruiser is well, boring.
Don't gripe about mismatches, change ur strat, start experimenting with ur loadout, and, MOST important, PICK UR TARGET!
Each class has its pro's and con's relative to the other, when flying a Fed Cruiser, go for the BoP's and Raptors. If ur a Neg'Var, go for the Science if equipped with cannons, otherwise he will Feedback pulse ur overloaded beams upon u.
Find weaknesses in other people strategy or playing style, don't hammer "unbalance".
Tip for u; if u like to be a DPS dealer, take an Escort. Cruisers are for support, not One on One warfare.
You obviously missed the whole point of my post. I like playing a cruiser. I do kill klingons 1v1 regularly. But it's because I'm so much better than them that I make up for the inferior fed ship I'm in. If I'm not in an inferior ship, then please make your case, until then, your wasting my time. This was simply a side by side comparison of the same ship class. They should measure up equally.
Shields: I'm not sure on this one, if someone has the numbers, fill me in. But lets say Fed wins with a thousand more shield points. Which translates to about one second of combat.
My Tier 5 Klink and my fleet mate with his tier 5 fed on the same class of ships compared the Covarant Mk X capx3 (the marks of Honor one) He see's over 10k max cap. I saw 6k max cap. our trained skills are almost the exact same. and we aren't bugged (runabout bug) so for feds thats around 4k extra points for the shields. only thing we can figure is he is a sci captain and i'm tact. my shields go down so fast if i did'nt have RSP i'd be dead in seconds.
The different classes determine the strength of shields. I'm a tac officer, and have never seen a shield over 8000, even the purple ones. Now if you can get two of the same class together to compare numbers, that would be awesome.
You obviously missed the whole point of my post. I like playing a cruiser. I do kill klingons 1v1 regularly. But it's because I'm so much better than them that I make up for the inferior fed ship I'm in. If I'm not in an inferior ship, then please make your case, until then, your wasting my time. This was simply a side by side comparison of the same ship class. They should measure up equally.
LOL at your modesty, however, could it be that the bonuses which you are so keen to ignore on the fed side actually do make a difference and the ships balance out so that it allows you to be successful in those 1 v 1's because i doubt you are even half as good as you think
I agree that the biggest problem in pvp right now is DPS is through the roof. Shields and hull are a joke, which is the whole point of my post. The extra shields and hull on a fed ship do not make up for all the advantages Klingon ships get.
The DPS "issue" is also something that causes imbalances in ships. The balance of ships is dependent on the damage outputs that can be achieved.
If you can destroy an enemy ship in 4 seconds, Cloak is very powerful (but battle cloak might be entirely useless). If it takes longer Cloak is an advantage that can be compensated (balanced) by the existing hull and shield differences. (And Battle Cloak will be fine, as you actually have time to use it and survive the last torpedos and phaser shots following you into cloak.)
Another balance issue can arise with class powers. If one class / BO type has the best powers, a ship of that class is the best choice, and the BoP has even a higher advantage, since he can load up all slots with these powers, not just those slots dedicated to one class. Also notable - some powers don't actually have to be "the absolute best". Some powers can be absolutely balanced if you can have them only in one or two slots. If you can have them in 3-4, they might turn out broken, as you can keep them "on" most of the time. This seems mostly an issue with defensive abilities, and since currently offense is clearly better than defense, it might not be so apparant. (But some offensive powers like Viral Matrix might be problematic already.)
Cannons are also a big advantage due to the way you can improve damage output with your energy settings. If the differences were less pronounced, not being to load or effectively use (turn rate limits usefulness of dual cannons for cruisers) them will be a drawback. Maybe if repair and healing rates were quicker and better effected by energy settings, this could also be compensated. (But there might be a dnager that _only_ Cannons work against Cruisers and Science ships, for example. Which would be bad, too.)
Cannons on cruisers are by far the biggest advantage you could possibly have right now. A few more hitpoints don't mean jack when your opponents kill speed is twice yours.
Cannons on cruisers are by far the biggest advantage you could possibly have right now. A few more hitpoints don't mean jack when your opponents kill speed is twice yours.
This definitely is what it boils down to. Klingon cruisers are better because they can mount heavy cannons, and they can keep them trained on a Fed cruiser easily. The advantages a Fed cruiser has simply aren't enough to counter this advantage.
Personally I always leave cruisers for last, unless they throw out extend shields or something, because then they become very big targets who can't RSP. Cruisers are not a significant threat to a battle cruiser, 1 on 1. They can sometimes fight each other to a standstill, but that has more to do with RSP than any innate cruiser ability. Try doing 1 on 1 without either ship using RSP and see how it goes, my money is on the battle cruiser.
The battle cruiser has more maneuverability and more firepower. Because of a cruiser's lousy maneuverability, the KDF captain can fly circles around them, and because of the sliding a Negh'var does, you can keep your forward cannons on them pretty much 100% of the time while flying circles around them. A cruiser simply can't expect to be able to broadside 100% of the time though.
Right now, the game favors the biggest DPS, but even before season 1, the battle cruiser was still better because the Fed cruisers just don't have a large enough of a survivability advantage. Fed cruisers need a buff.
The heavy cannon thing is highly overrated. Very few Battlecruisers will mount more than one, and the ones that do are sitting ducks for Escorts and Sci Vessels. A turn rate of 9 does not make you an Escort, and that 45-degree arc is still very punishing to a BC. A BC using nothing but DHCs and a torp up front is deadly as hell at long to medium range, but as soon as the engagement becomes a furball (which nearly all engagements do, rapidly) that Cruiser becomes mostly ineffective. Given that most support abilities require you to be within 5km of your allies, this is a big deal.
Cannons matter, but not as much as most people posting in this thread seem to think. A Negh'var might win a 1v1 with a Fed Cruiser thanks to those cannons, but 1v1 doesn't really matter in STO. In a proper fleet fight, mounting only cannons on a BC is a hugely obvious and exploitable weakness.
because of the sliding a Negh'var does, you can keep your forward cannons on them pretty much 100% of the time while flying circles around them. A cruiser simply can't expect to be able to broadside 100% of the time though.
Have you ever actually flown a Negh'var? This statement suggests otherwise. You cannot circle a ship and keep your forward guns pointed at it, no matter what you're flying. By definition, if you can shoot dual cannons at it you're flying towards it. The 'sliding' you're talking about only happens when you're moving much faster than you normally would; exiting full impulse or evasive maneuvers, for example - it's not a combat piloting technique that lets you do special things.
And really, you think a Negh'var can keep its forward, 45 degree arc weapons on a Cruiser full-time, but that Cruiser can't keep its 250 arc beams on the Cruiser at least as often? Bunk. What a pointlessly biased and incorrect statement.
The different classes determine the strength of shields. I'm a tac officer, and have never seen a shield over 8000, even the purple ones. Now if you can get two of the same class together to compare numbers, that would be awesome.
As I said in the other post where you originally placed this question. What you state here explains alot. Your survivability is hendered by your spec. You are running with a PVE setup wondering why you don't survive. Now before you think I am trying to belittle you, allow me to explain. Everyone knows a cruiser is a tank. No getting around that, however as a tac officer you are more geared towards DPS. There is one problem . If you planned on "tanking" you should have rolled Eng with 2 key traits. Elusive, and Techie. On the fed side the best tanks are Andorian. Now in pve, you can pretty much roll anything as it is just that - pve-. PVP however, as you have stated is based on skills and traits as well as taking other ships stats into play. So, if you are going to limit yourself from the onset by not classing yourself to maximize your tanking ability, why expect to survive long periods in PVP? The fact is the extra shield/hull numbers do matter, if done properly.
I said it before and I will say it again. A good Fed tank can handle 3 BoP's easy. A great tank can handle 3 BoP's, a Raptor, and a Kling Cruiser. I know, I have seen it happed. Try re-rolling with a pvp'd spec'd character first before complaining.
Comments
Of course now heavy cannons are pretty massive damage dealers so the KDF gets a big advantage there until they fix the overall damage issues.
Whatever the solution will be, I don't want to fly a Fed Cruiser with Cannons. Doesn't fit my aesthetical demands for a Cruiser.
"One second" (this varies widely based on the encounter) could end up meaning a lot more than one second in a fight. That's another second for you or your teammate to get a heal off, to jam the attacker's sensors, pop RSP, or any number of abilities that might get you out of that situation.
Cannons are more damage than beams, for sure, but things like TSS and Beam Overload are also skills that we don't have access to with cannons. I'm glad they fixed FBP so that it will reflect cannons but for some play styles, beams are better. It's not really a defensible statement to say one type is better than the other and offer no support.
The cloak is really highly overrated. I'd trade it for that extra 3000 hull and 1000 shields. Those numbers are modified by any damage resist abilities you might have going at any time. A cloak doesn't help with that.
A lot of what you said makes sense, but really just when you're comparing cruisers. Do Escorts compare with Raptors/BoPs in a similar way?
I agree, there is no need to give them cannons, but for balance reasons they still need some more something. More hull, shields perhaps. What cruisers get over battle cruisers isn't really enough, especially not in the current state of the game.
As for escorts v. raptor, they are virtually identical. Raptors get cloak and an ensign tac officer. Escorts get a specialty console slot and an ensign in their specialty. Other than that they are identical last I checked.
Im sorry but thats just funny,
Cloaks are a 2000% times more useful then 3000 hull and 1000 shield. A good dpser can go through 4000 shield and hull in less then a second.
I will do crew first.
Unless you run boff with a tactical team your crew in PvP will mostly consist splatter, messy remains. You do not respawn with a fresh crew and all the biofunction and IDS consoles will not help you much.
It's a tie, ship of the dead vs ship of the dead.
Turn rate
in pvp speed = defense, not to be confused with full throttle inertia spinning you can do with a Negh'Var since it is actual speed that counts. Still, with some cannon and butt spinning as i fondly call it, the Negh'Var can dish out a lot more damage then the Sovereign, which can't butt spin or mount heavy cannon.
I think the t5 fed cruisers should have inertia reduced.
Hull
Dose it really matter, hull tanking in this game is like a person playing chicken with a freight train. Once your shields are gone, your gone. Stacking armor consoles is like putting on body armor made of tissue paper. The Negh'Var, being able to turn tighter to get a fresh shield in position has the advantage.
Cloak
By itself cloak mean nothing but a first strike. With update one that first strike can be a lot more painful but if your quick you can recover. Cloak with long duration crowd control is broken. If your only balancing the game at the fleet(group) level why bring a cruiser with you in the first place. All it can offer is extend shields 3 which puts RSP on cooldown, another science ship or escort brings much more to the table.
Cannon vs Beams
Since update one, cannon is the ultimate power, but on a cruiser not so much. Lacking the high level tactical skills to really juice up those cannons makes them on cruiser about par with beams. Til you factor in FBP. I won't bother making colorful commentary about FBP.
Summery
In a pure 1 vs 1 encounter between a sovereign and a negh'var, both captains and skill loadout being the same, the turn rate of the klingon cruiser would likely win it the battle as long as the klingon captain keeps putting his best shield to the sovereign.
I stopped reading here. I have to assume you know little about BoFF abilities and even less about overall balance if you're making this comparison.
Thanks for your completely useless response and utter lack of rational argument. The classic "You don't know what you're talking about!" counter works so well here.
Had an excellent chance to test out combat between my cruiser and a klingon battlecruiser today. We did a head on flyby. I cranked up auxillary power to max, reduced engine speed to half, and he wasl firing cannons at me by the time I was only half way through my turn. Luckily an escort showed up to finish him off.
You must not have read what else I posted very closely. Of course 4000 isn't going to keep you alive for more than about a second, as the OP wrote. A lot can happen in that second, and I find that for most encounters, I don't need to start cloaked. If it's 1v1, I'm just going to jam your sensors and if it's two groups, I'm just not going to be the closest one to the fedballl. If a Klingon player is relying solely on his cloak to provide advantage, he's doing it wrong.
A lot of posts I read complain about how the cloak, especially the battle cloak isn't balanced when really, it's a red herring. Damage is what's out of balance with survivability. If they get that in check, things will be a lot better.
Another whiny fed, notice when the fed parts are better he makes out to be so slight and useless. Ships are balanced. get some skill for pete sake
All the Fed advantages u deem "hardly the effort" while Klingon pro's are One Button Wins.
Consider this; most Neg'Vars use Cannons, with only once a Rapid Fire I option. They put turrets on the back to keep the line of sight AND kill incoming Tricobalts from other vantage points.
An Engineer on a Cruiser is a hard case which only Rapors can neutralize succesfully in one strike.
Cruiser vs. Cruiser is well, boring.
Don't gripe about mismatches, change ur strat, start experimenting with ur loadout, and, MOST important, PICK UR TARGET!
Each class has its pro's and con's relative to the other, when flying a Fed Cruiser, go for the BoP's and Raptors. If ur a Neg'Var, go for the Science if equipped with cannons, otherwise he will Feedback pulse ur overloaded beams upon u.
Find weaknesses in other people strategy or playing style, don't hammer "unbalance".
Tip for u; if u like to be a DPS dealer, take an Escort. Cruisers are for support, not One on One warfare.
I prefer to do both
All the rest, the devices and consoles and Sci vs Eng is really beside the point. The Klingon variant is clearly a superior ship by virtue of the turn rate alone. Adding in the gigantic crew complement and the Cloak is just insult to injury.
Now, all that said, it's important to remember that they serve very different functions. Battlecruisers are more numerous for the Klingons than Cruisers for the Feds (due primarily to the fact that many more people play Sci Vessels than Raptors), and they are more central to fleet engagements. BoPs and Raptors cannot take fire the way Sci Vessels can, which puts the purden of absorbing damage on Battlecruisers and nobody else. Because of the way Klingon fleets fight, which is typically a lot of hit and run, short engagements, they desperately need turn rate to keep up with BoPs. Even as is it's difficult. For Fed fleets this tends generally not to be an issue because of the tendency to stay together and move slowly.
Klingons may have more crew, but supposedly(Im not sure this perk was actually added for all Feds...or if its just for science ships) Fed onboard medical facilities means your crew regen faster...KDF crew regen is very slow. So we have better hull healing initially, but for sustained battles, you may find the Feds are able to keep the ship togther just as well or better(you'd have to check the numbers to see)...so KDF may be more susceptible to torpedo strikes early in the fight.
Lastly, devices are so fricken useful...they get me out of binds all the time. shield and engines batteries are a must for saving the day...weapon batteries are just handy to keep me pouring the DPS on.
The things you say about cruisers highlight the major flaws with this game. A game that will have so few subscribers in 6months you can crew an escort and have room to spare.
"Cruisers are for support." "Cruiser vs Cruiser is boring." Star Trek has never been so assaulted.
My Tier 5 Klink and my fleet mate with his tier 5 fed on the same class of ships compared the Covarant Mk X capx3 (the marks of Honor one) He see's over 10k max cap. I saw 6k max cap. our trained skills are almost the exact same. and we aren't bugged (runabout bug) so for feds thats around 4k extra points for the shields. only thing we can figure is he is a sci captain and i'm tact. my shields go down so fast if i did'nt have RSP i'd be dead in seconds.
I agree that the biggest problem in pvp right now is DPS is through the roof. Shields and hull are a joke, which is the whole point of my post. The extra shields and hull on a fed ship do not make up for all the advantages Klingon ships get.
Typical response from a klingon that knows I'm right, but is desperate to preserve his superior tactical advantage in pvp.
You say I downplay the power of our ship advantages? I'm curious which ones? Surely you're not going to argue that our extra device slot is overpowered? Or maybe the one extra science console turns a tractor beam or jam sensors into a super powerful ability? Or maybe the 1 to 4 seconds of ship endurance will somehow turn the tide of a battle?
So please tell me which one you're talking about that's so powerful that it counters cloak, first strike and cannons?
You obviously missed the whole point of my post. I like playing a cruiser. I do kill klingons 1v1 regularly. But it's because I'm so much better than them that I make up for the inferior fed ship I'm in. If I'm not in an inferior ship, then please make your case, until then, your wasting my time. This was simply a side by side comparison of the same ship class. They should measure up equally.
The different classes determine the strength of shields. I'm a tac officer, and have never seen a shield over 8000, even the purple ones. Now if you can get two of the same class together to compare numbers, that would be awesome.
LOL at your modesty, however, could it be that the bonuses which you are so keen to ignore on the fed side actually do make a difference and the ships balance out so that it allows you to be successful in those 1 v 1's because i doubt you are even half as good as you think
If you can destroy an enemy ship in 4 seconds, Cloak is very powerful (but battle cloak might be entirely useless). If it takes longer Cloak is an advantage that can be compensated (balanced) by the existing hull and shield differences. (And Battle Cloak will be fine, as you actually have time to use it and survive the last torpedos and phaser shots following you into cloak.)
Another balance issue can arise with class powers. If one class / BO type has the best powers, a ship of that class is the best choice, and the BoP has even a higher advantage, since he can load up all slots with these powers, not just those slots dedicated to one class. Also notable - some powers don't actually have to be "the absolute best". Some powers can be absolutely balanced if you can have them only in one or two slots. If you can have them in 3-4, they might turn out broken, as you can keep them "on" most of the time. This seems mostly an issue with defensive abilities, and since currently offense is clearly better than defense, it might not be so apparant. (But some offensive powers like Viral Matrix might be problematic already.)
Cannons are also a big advantage due to the way you can improve damage output with your energy settings. If the differences were less pronounced, not being to load or effectively use (turn rate limits usefulness of dual cannons for cruisers) them will be a drawback. Maybe if repair and healing rates were quicker and better effected by energy settings, this could also be compensated. (But there might be a dnager that _only_ Cannons work against Cruisers and Science ships, for example. Which would be bad, too.)
HAHAHAHA
please
Go overcompensate somewhere else, low-self-confidence people like u only embarras urselves, Buy a really fast car or something.
And if u truly feel this way, why u complaining? Ur "superiority" will rain u victorious against any foe right then?
It is nice of you btw that you try ti level the playing field for all ur so called "inferior" Fed brothers with this post by crying NERF,
I wonder if u will be the boy that cried "Nerf" once too many times in the long run...
This definitely is what it boils down to. Klingon cruisers are better because they can mount heavy cannons, and they can keep them trained on a Fed cruiser easily. The advantages a Fed cruiser has simply aren't enough to counter this advantage.
Personally I always leave cruisers for last, unless they throw out extend shields or something, because then they become very big targets who can't RSP. Cruisers are not a significant threat to a battle cruiser, 1 on 1. They can sometimes fight each other to a standstill, but that has more to do with RSP than any innate cruiser ability. Try doing 1 on 1 without either ship using RSP and see how it goes, my money is on the battle cruiser.
The battle cruiser has more maneuverability and more firepower. Because of a cruiser's lousy maneuverability, the KDF captain can fly circles around them, and because of the sliding a Negh'var does, you can keep your forward cannons on them pretty much 100% of the time while flying circles around them. A cruiser simply can't expect to be able to broadside 100% of the time though.
Right now, the game favors the biggest DPS, but even before season 1, the battle cruiser was still better because the Fed cruisers just don't have a large enough of a survivability advantage. Fed cruisers need a buff.
Cannons matter, but not as much as most people posting in this thread seem to think. A Negh'var might win a 1v1 with a Fed Cruiser thanks to those cannons, but 1v1 doesn't really matter in STO. In a proper fleet fight, mounting only cannons on a BC is a hugely obvious and exploitable weakness.
Have you ever actually flown a Negh'var? This statement suggests otherwise. You cannot circle a ship and keep your forward guns pointed at it, no matter what you're flying. By definition, if you can shoot dual cannons at it you're flying towards it. The 'sliding' you're talking about only happens when you're moving much faster than you normally would; exiting full impulse or evasive maneuvers, for example - it's not a combat piloting technique that lets you do special things.
And really, you think a Negh'var can keep its forward, 45 degree arc weapons on a Cruiser full-time, but that Cruiser can't keep its 250 arc beams on the Cruiser at least as often? Bunk. What a pointlessly biased and incorrect statement.
Man up, grow some and start adapting instead of whining!
As I said in the other post where you originally placed this question. What you state here explains alot. Your survivability is hendered by your spec. You are running with a PVE setup wondering why you don't survive. Now before you think I am trying to belittle you, allow me to explain. Everyone knows a cruiser is a tank. No getting around that, however as a tac officer you are more geared towards DPS. There is one problem . If you planned on "tanking" you should have rolled Eng with 2 key traits. Elusive, and Techie. On the fed side the best tanks are Andorian. Now in pve, you can pretty much roll anything as it is just that - pve-. PVP however, as you have stated is based on skills and traits as well as taking other ships stats into play. So, if you are going to limit yourself from the onset by not classing yourself to maximize your tanking ability, why expect to survive long periods in PVP? The fact is the extra shield/hull numbers do matter, if done properly.
I said it before and I will say it again. A good Fed tank can handle 3 BoP's easy. A great tank can handle 3 BoP's, a Raptor, and a Kling Cruiser. I know, I have seen it happed. Try re-rolling with a pvp'd spec'd character first before complaining.