This has been something that has troubled me for some time with the game. Bring back Multi-Vector-Assault-Mode for the Prometheus class. Allow it to actually be a useful and exciting ship to pilot. You've done it with the saucer seperation on the Galaxy ((Technically, the Soverign can seperate too)) but why not on the Prometheus class. I heard it was scrapped in the Beta for being "overpowered" well then nerf it but don't deny a vital part of that ships design!
This has been something that has troubled me for some time with the game. Bring back Multi-Vector-Assault-Mode for the Prometheus class. Allow it to actually be a useful and exciting ship to pilot. You've done it with the saucer seperation on the Galaxy ((Technically, the Soverign can seperate too)) but why not on the Prometheus class. I heard it was scrapped in the Beta for being "overpowered" well then nerf it but don't deny a vital part of that ships design!
For one I find the Prometheus the most exciting out of the Tier 5 ships, I wouldn't choose another for my main. Secondly the USS Prometheus was a prototype ship, the MVAM was a prototype. Clearly this function was left out of later production. In it's other canon appearance (during the Enterprise ep with the Enterprise J I believe) it was shown in combat as a single ship.
So while yes it would be brilliant to have, it does not require it to be canon or interesting.
For one I find the Prometheus the most exciting out of the Tier 5 ships, I wouldn't choose another for my main. Secondly the USS Prometheus was a prototype ship, the MVAM was a prototype. Clearly this function was left out of later production. In it's other canon appearance (during the Enterprise ep with the Enterprise J I believe) it was shown in combat as a single ship.
So while yes it would be brilliant to have, it does not require it to be canon or interesting.
No affence here but cannon has gone out of this game when your adding in the nx enterprise and clothing, tos ships and clothing, all good things galaxy class, possible enterprise J, so on and so forth. Reguarding the Prometheus ship. There is no confirmation nor credited sources that tell us that it was ever put into service nor telling us it wasnt. There is an episode in voyager, "End Game" where when voyager flys out from the sphere we see the federation armada and also a Prometheus class flying around. No its not in MVAM mode but its there, like you said its in enterprise as a single ship. Theres not alot of scenes with this ship to say it dosnt have the function. And again if there was...dosnt mean we can add it in this game seeing as this is soft cannon and so far anything goes
MVAM is a really bad idea for escorts, at least for escorts how they are implemented in game. With an Escort you are pretty much forced to concentrate your fire on one side to punch trough shields and hull to kill your enemy quickly because you don't have the capacity to outlast pretty much everything else in a fight. Your shields are weaker, your hull is weaker and you have mostly Tactical stations and Tactical stations can't be fitted with healing abilities like Science or Engineering ones can. Worst case scenario MVAM spreads your firepower out, which is pretty much the last thing you want to do while flying an Escort since you will not be able to alpha whatever you're shooting at and you can't outlast it so your enemy will mop the floor with you.
Now if your argument is along the lines of you don't need to use it if you don't like it all I have to say is: Yes, if it is introduced with the only new ship for a new tier I kind of do, or at least it takes up a slot for any other useful ability like a cloak as seen on the Defiant retrofit which gives you a damage buff, something that an Escort can actually use.
I don't care at all if it's canon or whatever, it has limited usefulness for a cruiser or even a science ship (it's still a nice gimmick for them at best) but for an escort it's actually really really useless.
It's a bad idea in general. What is so "brilliant" about turning a big ship into three smaller ones, each with 1/3 of the shield strength and weapon power of the original vessel? That'll just make them pop faster - where the big ship would just be suffering some damage, a smaller "shard" would simply blow up, instantly robbing you of 33% of your firepower. Just goes to show how much thought the writers of Voyager put into technology (although I have to say that I do love the episode storywise).
I for one am glad it's not in STO. I prefer my Prometheus without such shenanigans.
Opinions may vary, of course. But I've never understood the appeal of such a silly feature. :rolleyes:
Though, if they'd ever want to introduce this for a refit (technically possible since the introduction of the Galaxy separation), go ahead. Seeing that refits balance such features by loosing some general stats, people who don't like the idea of MVAM could simply retain their original ship instead of being forced to adapt, and they might even come out on top when it comes to general combat efficiency.
I really don't see how you could make this work, though. Escorts are already quite vulnerable right now - if you make a "split up" Prometheus even squishier you probably won't have much fun.
MVAM has never been in the game, back then it was coding and animation issues that kept them from doing it.
Correct, and while it may be 'possible' now I wouldn't necessarily want it. Escorts are generally squishy, and breaking the ship up would only make it more squishy. It would make sense in the show where the Prometheus was the size of a Sovereign, but the game has a different opinion of the mass-produced Prometheus. With this standardized version, I doubt it would work that well.
MVAM is a really bad idea for escorts, at least for escorts how they are implemented in game. With an Escort you are pretty much forced to concentrate your fire on one side to punch trough shields and hull to kill your enemy quickly because you don't have the capacity to outlast pretty much everything else in a fight. Your shields are weaker, your hull is weaker and you have mostly Tactical stations and Tactical stations can't be fitted with healing abilities like Science or Engineering ones can. Worst case scenario MVAM spreads your firepower out, which is pretty much the last thing you want to do while flying an Escort since you will not be able to alpha whatever you're shooting at and you can't outlast it so your enemy will mop the floor with you.
Now if your argument is along the lines of you don't need to use it if you don't like it all I have to say is: Yes, if it is introduced with the only new ship for a new tier I kind of do, or at least it takes up a slot for any other useful ability like a cloak as seen on the Defiant retrofit which gives you a damage buff, something that an Escort can actually use.
I don't care at all if it's canon or whatever, it has limited usefulness for a cruiser or even a science ship (it's still a nice gimmick for them at best) but for an escort it's actually really really useless.
Actually, I disagree. The Prometheus class Alpha Strike depends on speed, flying in and hitting the ship you're targeting at medium to close range in the first part of combat. Any "pets" that you have flying with you will be moving in from the same direction, and targeting the same shield facing.
When the Galaxy Retrofit separates, the Drive section still has all the same weapons as the full ship, it's the "pet" Saucer which loses abilities. A MVAM version of the Prometheus would give you all your same weapons in your primary hull section (the part you control), plus two pets (likely with sets of Phaser Dual Cannons) firing on the same shield facing during an Alpha Strike. The problem, as I see it, is the lowered hull durability of flying only 1/3 of a ship.
I think it should be just like it was in Message in a Bottle, a quick combat maneuver; a separation, a few seconds of fire, and a reformation of the ship. The separate sections of the ship will not have staying power, so it shouldn't last long, maybe 10-15 seconds at most. EDIT: It's cool-down should be somewhere around the two minute mark.
Hit MVAM ability > Separation > All fire on your target > Reformation. Just that fast, no option to keep the "pets" separated.
The main challenge I see in implementing this is that the current tech for separation stops the bloody ship during separation sequences, and MVAM needs to be done on the fly if it's to be useful.
I feel almost dirty agreeing with Diamond, but still..
I think TOS ships are a bad idea, does it hurt the game in having them no.
MVAM should be a refit idea in my opinion. Allow those who just want the single ship keep the current model but have a new refit with the ability to allow those that want the ability to use it. I wouldnt use it for PVP id mostly use it for pve content, like my agt galaxy.
May have less hull or what have yah but Id fly it. I would say allow it to seperate into 3, similar to the galaxy retrofit saucer sep, and once your ready to "reform" up then bam back to full ship. Only thing that would really have to figure out is what abilities do the other "pet" parts have. Cannons, torps ect. I think now that the galaxy retrofit has been added to the game, its a good problably that it could happen. Just problably take the ship guys some time to make it happen.
But first of all, before this gets added... MORE KLINGON SHIPS.
IMVAM should be a refit idea in my opinion. Allow those who just want the single ship keep the current model but have a new refit with the ability to allow those that want the ability to use it. I wouldnt use it for PVP id mostly use it for pve content, like my agt galaxy.
Or.. It could be added to the existing T5 version, and those who don't like it, don't have to use it, the stats for the whole ship should remain the same, the drop in survivability while using the MVAM is plenty trade-off for the MVAM if you ask me.
Saucer Seperation was implemented, turning the Galaxy into an Escort-like ship with all the drawbacks and benefits.
The multivector assault mode doesn't have to be implemented the same way - it coulst just spawn some pets without changing your stats and so be a temporary damage buff.
A more comlex take with all bells and whistles of drawbacks and advantages:
Prometheus MVAD Retrofit:
o 4 Front, 3 Aft Weapon Slots (Cannot carry cannons. The original one didn't either)
o 4 Tactical Slots, 2 Engineering Slots, 2 Science Slots
o Commander Tactical, Lt.Cmdr Tactical, Lt.Engineering, Ensign Science
o MVAM mode (Cooldown 2 minutes)
- Lose 10 % Hull and Shields
- Gain +2 turn rate
- Lose 15 Weapon Power
- Gain 2 Prometheus Pets, each with 50 % Hull and 50 % shields of the Prometheus base ship.
-- Pet 1 is armed with front and aft Phaser Beam Array and a Photon Torpedo Launcher. As powers it has Attack Pattern Delta (uses it on you) and Beam Fire At-Will.
-- Pet 2 is armed with a front and aft Phaser Beam Array and a front Quantum Torpeod Launcher. As Powers it has Attack Pattern Beta and Torpedo Scatter Volley.
Actually, I disagree. The Prometheus class Alpha Strike depends on speed, flying in and hitting the ship you're targeting at medium to close range in the first part of combat. Any "pets" that you have flying with you will be moving in from the same direction, and targeting the same shield facing.
When the Galaxy Retrofit separates, the Drive section still has all the same weapons as the full ship, it's the "pet" Saucer which loses abilities. A MVAM version of the Prometheus would give you all your same weapons in your primary hull section (the part you control), plus two pets (likely with sets of Phaser Dual Cannons) firing on the same shield facing during an Alpha Strike. The problem, as I see it, is the lowered hull durability of flying only 1/3 of a ship.
I think it should be just like it was in Message in a Bottle, a quick combat maneuver; a separation, a few seconds of fire, and a reformation of the ship. The separate sections of the ship will not have staying power, so it shouldn't last long, maybe 10-15 seconds at most. EDIT: It's cool-down should be somewhere around the two minute mark.
Hit MVAM ability > Separation > All fire on your target > Reformation. Just that fast, no option to keep the "pets" separated.
The main challenge I see in implementing this is that the current tech for separation stops the bloody ship during separation sequences, and MVAM needs to be done on the fly if it's to be useful.
I feel almost dirty agreeing with Diamond, but still..
Still makes no sense. Its a gimmick to impress viewers, make them go Ahhhh.
Simply install more forward weapons prodeces the same result firepower wise and without weakening your ship overall.
I see some people here don't fully understand the concept of the MVAM and end up thinking its worthless.
But let me clue you in on a few facts.
Each section has its own Warp Core, which results in no power loss when the ship seperates.
Seperating the ship actually makes it an entirely new animal as it actually does not diminish firepower, but allows one to bring even greater firepower to bear in form of "more" weapons.
The dorsal section can bring its weapons to bear, the middle section reveals completely new phaser arrays and the ventral section can move freely to an elevated position where it can make use of its ventral phasers effectively.
In short, the idea with MVAM is to fully optimize the use of the ships weapons.
Not to mention it creates more than one target to deal with.
Still makes no sense. Its a gimmick to impress viewers, make them go Ahhhh.
Simply install more forward weapons prodeces the same result firepower wise and without weakening your ship overall.
Heh its not that simple, and as i explained the ship is not weakened at all.
To install more weapons would take up more external and internal space as you would need to install proper power conduits to the extra weapons, leaving less room for other systems.
No affence here but cannon has gone out of this game when your adding in the nx enterprise and clothing, tos ships and clothing, all good things galaxy class, possible enterprise J, so on and so forth. Reguarding the Prometheus ship. There is no confirmation nor credited sources that tell us that it was ever put into service nor telling us it wasnt. There is an episode in voyager, "End Game" where when voyager flys out from the sphere we see the federation armada and also a Prometheus class flying around. No its not in MVAM mode but its there, like you said its in enterprise as a single ship. Theres not alot of scenes with this ship to say it dosnt have the function. And again if there was...dosnt mean we can add it in this game seeing as this is soft cannon and so far anything goes
BRING IN MVAM to prometheus please
How, exactly, is bringing the Dreadnaught into the time period where it existed in AGT against canon? Actually, it'd be a couple years old by this point. The STO Timeline stops at 2409, but the stardates in-game come out to be 2410. In "All Good Things" when Picard asks the date in the "current" timeline, Worf tells him the Stardate is 47899, which is December 27, 2370. The "Future" timeline where the Dreadnaught is present is 25 years later, which would be 2395-96.
That means by the time of STO, the Galaxy-X Dreadnaught is 14 or 15 years old. By that time, it certainly should have all the bugs worked out and be in mass-production, and be widely used in the same way the original Galaxy Class was.
Now, as for the NX Class, the TOS Costumes and Constitution, etc... How does their existence break Canon? Did it ever occur to you in a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game that perhaps people actually Roleplay? Not every character is from the present, and there are some fleets out there that actually Roleplay being in a completely different era entirely.
Star Trek Online is a chance for every player to enjoy themselves, to sit in the Captain's Chair of iconic Starships from their favorite series of the Star Trek Universe. Who are you to deny them that?
Because the NX-01 will be added as a ship a player can use does not mean that the missions will suddenly include them without a time-travel storyline. The Missions are what STO's 'Canon' are made of, and those do not deviate from actual Trek canon often, if at all. If you find a mission that does deviate greatly from canon, and you don't like it; drop the mission. No one is forcing you to play through content that doesn't fit with your version of canon.
Face it: Canon is subjective. Every player has a different perspective on what Star Trek is to them. Some enjoy the ENT Era of truly unexplored territories, first contacts, etc. Some enjoy the TNG style of every episode having a major crisis, but ending on a high-note happy ending. Some enjoy the Borg/Post-Borg TNG where everything is not all happy endings, where people make sacrifices for the greater good.
Your canon, my canon, and everyone else's canon is going to differ, but STO's Episodes themselves to do stray terribly far from the storylines established in the various Star Trek series. Just because players have the option to don TOS-Era Uniforms and gather on the Bridge of a TOS-Era Constitution and roleplay being on missions of exploration and first contact in uncharted deep space, does not mean that STO itself and it's official Episodes would even acknowledge the existence of those missions.
Oh, and by the way... the Enterprise J is not going to be added. CBS said no, so instead Cryptic has decided to start making their own ships that show we got from where we are now, to the Enterprise J. We can look forward to new ship classes that take some design cues from the J, but will not be the J itself.
I see some people here don't fully understand the concept of the MVAM and end up thinking its worthless. But let me clue you in on a few facts.
Your "facts" don't make MVAM seem less idiotic.
1. When each section has its own warp core, why would the ship not have MORE power when it stays connected?
2. If it gives you more weapons, why is the ship incapable of bringing them to bear when it stays connected? The vessel's overall hull has more than enough room to house everything the individual parts may "reveal".
It's just illogical. All the additional weapons of the individual "shards" could as well be fielded on a single hull, powered by the same three warp cores (or just a single bigger one). MVAM's single advantage is the ability to strike from multiple directions at once (hence multi vector), which is off-set by each part losing 66% of the potential energy when all three cores combine their power, directly affecting the ship's shield efficiency and thus survivability.
Think about it. If the three individual parts are so awesome, why would Starfleet not simply continue building and operating them separately all the time in the first place, instead of inventing some weird mechanism that makes them stick together as one big (apparently less efficient) ship 99% of the time? :rolleyes:
To install more weapons would take up more external and internal space as you would need to install proper power conduits to the extra weapons, leaving less room for other systems.
Which applies just as much when you install the very same weapons in the three individual parts ...
Now, as for the NX Class, the TOS Costumes and Constitution, etc... How does their existence break Canon? Did it ever occur to you in a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game that perhaps people actually Roleplay? Not every character is from the present, and there are some fleets out there that actually Roleplay being in a completely different era entirely.
Which does break the continuity of the game, as it is clearly set in the year 2409.
There are also players openly RPing Romulan Tal'Shiar agents on Qo'noS. That doesn't mean it's right. By all means, let them play (in their own little sphere of incompatibility), but do not demand that the game should cater to their needs and ignore those who stick to the setting the game is originally set in. Else I want my Imperial Star Destroyer, too.
1. When each section has its own warp core, why would the ship not have MORE power when it stays connected?
2. If it gives you more weapons, why is the ship incapable of bringing them to bear when it stays connected? The vessel's overall hull has more than enough room to house everything the individual parts may "reveal".
It's just illogical. All the additional weapons of the individual "shards" could as well be fielded on a single hull, powered by the same three warp cores (or just a single bigger one). MVAM's single advantage is the ability to strike from multiple directions at once (hence multi vector), which is off-set by each part losing 66% of the potential energy when all three cores combine their power, directly affecting the ship's shield efficiency and thus survivability.
Think about it. If the three individual parts are so awesome, why would Starfleet not simply continue building and operating them separately all the time in the first place, instead of inventing some weird mechanism that makes them stick together as one big (apparently less efficient) ship 99% of the time? :rolleyes:
Which applies just as much when you install the very same weapons in the three individual parts ...
Which does break the continuity of the game, as it is clearly set in the year 2409.
There are also players openly RPing Romulan Tal'Shiar agents on Qo'noS. That doesn't mean it's right. By all means, let them play (in their own little sphere of incompatibility), but do not demand that the game should cater to their needs and ignore those who stick to the setting the game is originally set in. Else I want my Imperial Star Destroyer, too.
Actually Canon speaking ALL Prometheus class ships are capable of seperating. That is what the ship was actually designed for. Just because the second time you see a Prometheus it doesn't split in battle does not really mean anything.
As a game mechanic, it can have good tactical implications that allow your three parts to be fast and powerful as a result of the ship having three warp cores. (A fact that Cyptic convientantly edited). Considering that you control one of the three parts, like the galaxy and have your full weapons compliment with the other two parts having normal generic phasers or even cannons considering its an escort. It has the potential to be a really powerful ability.
However this also would make the Prometheus harder to hit and a lot easier to get "misses" on enemy weapons.
And the reason the Prometheus does not have MORE power then a typical escort is because Cryptic made it that way. It certainly does not reflect the true nature of the fantastic escort.
No affence here but cannon has gone out of this game when your adding in the nx enterprise and clothing, tos ships and clothing, all good things galaxy class, possible enterprise J, so on and so forth.
No offence taken, I just mentioned canon because people think that the prometheus should absolutely have one.
I like the idea of it, however I don't think I like the idea of piloting the "saucer" section. I think each individual piece too ugly to really want to fly them around by themselves. Kinda like the way I don't like the engine section of the Galaxy without its saucer.
Though if it was the Tier 6 ship and the only escort, then I probably would upgrade to it.
Actually Canon speaking ALL Prometheus class ships are capable of seperating.
Canon-speaking, there was only one Prometheus that we know of.
I don't consider the ships in that 27th century battle to be "classic" designs, especially given that they included the "Fantasy" Dauntless. It's just laziness and/or budget limitations preventing the creators from doing new models just for those few seconds, so they recycled stuff in their archives. We've seen this a lot of times in TNG, too (even locations).
And the reason the Prometheus does not have MORE power then a typical escort is because Cryptic made it that way. It certainly does not reflect the true nature of the fantastic escort.
I was not referring to in-game mechanics, but to common sense - or rather deductions from what we know of the Prometheus as seen in Voyager. When the ship has three warp cores, it has more power when combined, which means it looses potential shield strength and weapon power when splitting up, in turn making the individual parts easier to pop.
There's only two possibilities here:
A) Following conventional logic and ship design, the vessel will perform better when combined, as it has more power and stronger shields at its disposal. For some strange reason, the ship IS performing better when separated, which means that there is no reason why it should ever combine.
Regardless of how you twist it, it simply doesn't make sense.
I was not referring to in-game mechanics, but to common sense - or rather deductions from what we know of the Prometheus as seen in Voyager. When the ship has three warp cores, it has more power when combined, which means it looses potential shield strength and weapon power when splitting up, in turn making the individual parts easier to pop.
This is all speaking relative to itself. Yes it would be easier to pop, but in relation to whatever the original was. We don't have any power-output numbers, so we can never be sure.
This is all speaking relative to itself. Yes it would be easier to pop, but in relation to whatever the original was. We don't have any power-output numbers, so we can never be sure.
Well, if the entire ship has 3 warp cores, separation would bring your power levels to 33%.
We don't need to compare this to other ships of its time to see that there's a definite loss of efficiency here. But even if this would not be the case, there would still be the question as to why bother making it combine to a big ship in the first place. It's circular logic (see my edit above - sorry for not adding it right away).
1. When each section has its own warp core, why would the ship not have MORE power when it stays connected?
2. If it gives you more weapons, why is the ship incapable of bringing them to bear when it stays connected? The vessel's overall hull has more than enough room to house everything the individual parts may "reveal".
It's just illogical. All the additional weapons of the individual "shards" could as well be fielded on a single hull, powered by the same three warp cores (or just a single bigger one). MVAM's single advantage is the ability to strike from multiple directions at once (hence multi vector), which is off-set by each part losing 66% of the potential energy when all three cores combine their power, directly affecting the ship's shield efficiency and thus survivability.
Think about it. If the three individual parts are so awesome, why would Starfleet not simply continue building and operating them separately all the time in the first place, instead of inventing some weird mechanism that makes them stick together as one big (apparently less efficient) ship 99% of the time? :rolleyes:
Which applies just as much when you install the very same weapons in the three individual parts ...
Which does break the continuity of the game, as it is clearly set in the year 2409.
There are also players openly RPing Romulan Tal'Shiar agents on Qo'noS. That doesn't mean it's right. By all means, let them play (in their own little sphere of incompatibility), but do not demand that the game should cater to their needs and ignore those who stick to the setting the game is originally set in. Else I want my Imperial Star Destroyer, too.
First thing we need to remember, and the reason why there are three warp cores to begin with, is that the Warp Core's primary purpose is propulsion, being the heart of the warp drive.
While shields do benefit from the presence of a warp core, weapons can operate at full power without one.
The reduction in shield strenght is probally one of the few disadvantages with decoupling the ship along with an obvious reduction in warp speed, but which is most likely why the Prometheus has regenerative shields in order to compensate for the lack of capacity as well as having Ablative hull armor.
Oh and do not forget you are not only dividing the power, but dividing all the systems on the ship as well.
So its not like you get the effects of three halfs trying to draw one third of the power.
Its all proportionate.
Why is the ship incapable of bringing them to bear when it stays connected?
Well i thought that would be rather obvious, physics my friend.
You cant possibly fire from all angles of your ship at a singular target, that is physically impossible.
By seperating however you give both ventral and dorsal mounted weapons the ability to fire simultaneously as well as the parts being able to stay on target.
Why have single ship at all?
Well for one thing we already covered is that smaller warp cores would undeniably reduce the ships top speed.
Since it was at the time the fastest ship in the federation fleet its pretty logical to assume it was designed to deploy a lot of firepower on any battlefield as quickly as possible.
It's a bad idea in general. What is so "brilliant" about turning a big ship into three smaller ones, each with 1/3 of the shield strength and weapon power of the original vessel? That'll just make them pop faster - where the big ship would just be suffering some damage, a smaller "shard" would simply blow up, instantly robbing you of 33% of your firepower. Just goes to show how much thought the writers of Voyager put into technology (although I have to say that I do love the episode storywise).
I for one am glad it's not in STO. I prefer my Prometheus without such shenanigans.
Opinions may vary, of course. But I've never understood the appeal of such a silly feature. :rolleyes:
Though, if they'd ever want to introduce this for a refit (technically possible since the introduction of the Galaxy separation), go ahead. Seeing that refits balance such features by loosing some general stats, people who don't like the idea of MVAM could simply retain their original ship instead of being forced to adapt, and they might even come out on top when it comes to general combat efficiency.
I really don't see how you could make this work, though. Escorts are already quite vulnerable right now - if you make a "split up" Prometheus even squishier you probably won't have much fun.
Well it did kinda kick *ss in the Voyager episode... it totally p00ned them Romulans at least.
Oh and i feel i should also mention, that with Three smaller parts, the shield bubble does not need to be as large, hence when seperating the power requirements for the shields of each part would be much lower than it would be for the whole integrated ship.
And even when seperated the prometheus could still combine power if they wanted to by merging the shields of the three sections if they dont venture too far apart.
While shields do benefit from the presence of a warp core, weapons can operate at full power without one.
That just means that the Prometheus would have another three energy generators. The basic issue remains unchanged - it will have more power when connected. The energy has to come from somewhere, and a bigger pool will allow more efficient distribution.
The reduction in shield strenght is probally one of the few disadvantages with decoupling the ship along with an obvious reduction in warp speed, but which is most likely why the Prometheus has regenerative shields in order to compensate for the lack of capacity as well as having Ablative hull armor.
And you don't think this would work better when the ship stays combined? 100% Regenerative Shields > 33% Regenerative Shields.
Why is the ship incapable of bringing them to bear when it stays connected?
Well i thought that would be rather obvious, physics my friend. You cant possibly fire from all angles of your ship at a singular target, that is physically impossible. By seperating however you give both ventral and dorsal mounted weapons the ability to fire simultaneously as well as the parts being able to stay on target.
The Prometheus is large enough to house all weapons that are "hidden" when combined on its outer hull. Additionally, there would be other options to increase the number of weapon mounts facing forward, such as retractable turrets like the ones we have seen in DS9. Making three ships stick together, on the other hand, wastes a lot of internal space as well as keeping half of your weapons useless until separation.
Why have single ship at all? Well for one thing we already covered is that smaller warp cores would undeniably reduce the ships top speed.
The individual ship parts are long enough to house a large one, though. They share the same length, which is greater than the ship's height. So this can't be it.
Even more stupid: Should an enemy destroy the two warp-capable sections, how long will it take for the remaining part to limp back to a starbase? You don't even need to destroy all three parts - two are sufficient to remove this vessel from fight!
Oh and i feel i should also mention, that with Three smaller parts, the shield bubble does not need to be as large, hence when seperating the power requirements for the shields of each part would be much lower than it would be for the whole integrated ship.
And even when seperated the prometheus could still combine power if they wanted to by merging the shields of the three sections if they dont venture too far apart.
You're contradicting yourself. If they would merge their shields when separated, the bubble would need to be even larger, stretching the shield efficiency beyond the ability to efficiently intercept incoming weapons fire.
And three small bubbles will always be less protective than a single focused one. In fact, if the ship has emitters for three shield bubbles, why not use this to create a three-layered deflector around a single ship? That might be even more useful.
That just means that the Prometheus would have another three energy generators. The basic issue remains unchanged - it will have more power when connected. The energy has to come from somewhere, and a bigger pool will allow more efficient distribution.
And you don't think this would work better when the ship stays combined? 100% Regenerative Shields > 33% Regenerative Shields.
Smaller shield bubble = less energy consumption.
Not to mention that when you split the ship you also split the power consumption of all other systems.
So in the end its all proportionate.
The Prometheus is large enough to house all weapons that are "hidden" when combined on its outer hull. Additionally, there would be other options to increase the number of weapon mounts facing forward, such as retractable turrets like the ones we have seen in DS9. Making three ships stick together, on the other hand, wastes a lot of internal space as well as keeping half of your weapons useless until separation.
Oh sure its big enough, but plain adding more weapons is not an answer, that can be done to any ship.
No matter how many extra arrays and launchers you stick on your only going to be able to use a limited number of them at any one time.
What if the enemy ship is more maneuvrable and keeps staying above you? how are your 4-5 extra ventral phaser arrays going to help then?
And that is one of the things MVAM lets you do, to get both those ventral and dorsal weapons on a target, not to mention that it makes it 3 times harder for an attacker to evade being attacked.
The individual ship parts are long enough to house a large one, though. They share the same length, which is greater than the ship's height. So this can't be it.
Even more stupid: Should an enemy destroy the two warp-capable sections, how long will it take for the remaining part to limp back to a starbase? You don't even need to destroy all three parts - two are sufficient to remove this vessel from fight!
Thats the second time you take space for granted.
Don't forget you still have to have space for everything else.
Antimatter storage, crew quarters, shuttle bay, deflector arrays, cargo bays as well as everything else that needs to be in a Deep Space Tactical Vessel.
You're contradicting yourself. If they would merge their shields when separated, the bubble would need to be even larger, stretching the shield efficiency beyond the ability to efficiently intercept incoming weapons fire.
Your right, but all i am saying is that they "could", nothing saying that they "would"
And three small bubbles will always be less protective than a single focused one. In fact, if the ship has emitters for three shield bubbles, why not use this to create a three-layered deflector around a single ship? That might be even more useful.
How do you figure? Smaller shield bubbles would maintain the same strenght as one large one with much lower power requirements.
Its not the size of the shield that matters, is how much energy goes into it, and a smaller shield would require less energy to maintain it at the same strenght than a large shield would.
Smaller shield bubble = less energy consumption. [...] Smaller shield bubbles would maintain the same strenght as one large one with much lower power requirements.
Its not the size of the shield that matters, is how much energy goes into it, and a smaller shield would require less energy to maintain it at the same strenght than a large shield would
There's a truth to this, but it is not all. The energy that goes into a shield does not only affect the size, but also the strength of that shield. Else you would be suggesting that a shuttle can have shields as strong as a Galaxy-class cruiser because of the shield bubble size differences, and that simply doesn't work out.
Smaller ship = weaker shields. That's pretty much a golden rule in Trek.
Also it is worth mentioning that the three individual parts of a Prometheus need shield bubbles almost as large as the combined ship, as the parts "fold into each other" when not separated: Image
Judging from this visual evidence, I'd say a single "separated" Prometheus shield bubble is about 80% as big as the bubble of the entire ship when combined. This accumulates to 240% overall energy consumption as opposed to a single bubble.
Not to mention that when you split the ship you also split the power consumption of all other systems.
Yes, suddenly you need to power three sets of impulse engines instead of just one, which further raises the amount of wasted energy. And three sets of sensor arrays. And who knows what else. Redundancy has its price.
No matter how many extra arrays and launchers you stick on your only going to be able to use a limited number of them at any one time.
Which goes for the individual Prometheus "shards" as well. Just as "my" 4-5 extra ventral phaser arrays won't help me with an enemy on top, so would "your" 3x2 extra ventral phaser arrays not help you. Regardless of how many times a ship splits, its parts will always have a side NOT facing the enemy.
Thats the second time you take space for granted. Don't forget you still have to have space for everything else. [...]
And in case of the Prometheus you need three sets of impulse engines, three warp cores, three shield emitter grids, three sensor suites, three deflectors, three computers ... not to mention the additional bulk heads, airlocks and armour, and of course the separation mechanism.
Again, redundancy has its price. In energy consumption AND in space.
Again it'll be as underpowered or overpowered as cryptic makes it, regardless of what we saw in the shows or what we think of trek science. Remember, this is a game and not a trek simulator. One would hope if it's overpowered it'll get a nerf and if it's underpowered it'll get a buff.
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But I would like to see MVAD added to the ship.
For one I find the Prometheus the most exciting out of the Tier 5 ships, I wouldn't choose another for my main. Secondly the USS Prometheus was a prototype ship, the MVAM was a prototype. Clearly this function was left out of later production. In it's other canon appearance (during the Enterprise ep with the Enterprise J I believe) it was shown in combat as a single ship.
So while yes it would be brilliant to have, it does not require it to be canon or interesting.
No affence here but cannon has gone out of this game when your adding in the nx enterprise and clothing, tos ships and clothing, all good things galaxy class, possible enterprise J, so on and so forth. Reguarding the Prometheus ship. There is no confirmation nor credited sources that tell us that it was ever put into service nor telling us it wasnt. There is an episode in voyager, "End Game" where when voyager flys out from the sphere we see the federation armada and also a Prometheus class flying around. No its not in MVAM mode but its there, like you said its in enterprise as a single ship. Theres not alot of scenes with this ship to say it dosnt have the function. And again if there was...dosnt mean we can add it in this game seeing as this is soft cannon and so far anything goes
BRING IN MVAM to prometheus please
Now if your argument is along the lines of you don't need to use it if you don't like it all I have to say is: Yes, if it is introduced with the only new ship for a new tier I kind of do, or at least it takes up a slot for any other useful ability like a cloak as seen on the Defiant retrofit which gives you a damage buff, something that an Escort can actually use.
I don't care at all if it's canon or whatever, it has limited usefulness for a cruiser or even a science ship (it's still a nice gimmick for them at best) but for an escort it's actually really really useless.
I for one am glad it's not in STO. I prefer my Prometheus without such shenanigans.
Opinions may vary, of course. But I've never understood the appeal of such a silly feature. :rolleyes:
Though, if they'd ever want to introduce this for a refit (technically possible since the introduction of the Galaxy separation), go ahead. Seeing that refits balance such features by loosing some general stats, people who don't like the idea of MVAM could simply retain their original ship instead of being forced to adapt, and they might even come out on top when it comes to general combat efficiency.
I really don't see how you could make this work, though. Escorts are already quite vulnerable right now - if you make a "split up" Prometheus even squishier you probably won't have much fun.
Correct, and while it may be 'possible' now I wouldn't necessarily want it. Escorts are generally squishy, and breaking the ship up would only make it more squishy. It would make sense in the show where the Prometheus was the size of a Sovereign, but the game has a different opinion of the mass-produced Prometheus. With this standardized version, I doubt it would work that well.
Actually, I disagree. The Prometheus class Alpha Strike depends on speed, flying in and hitting the ship you're targeting at medium to close range in the first part of combat. Any "pets" that you have flying with you will be moving in from the same direction, and targeting the same shield facing.
When the Galaxy Retrofit separates, the Drive section still has all the same weapons as the full ship, it's the "pet" Saucer which loses abilities. A MVAM version of the Prometheus would give you all your same weapons in your primary hull section (the part you control), plus two pets (likely with sets of Phaser Dual Cannons) firing on the same shield facing during an Alpha Strike. The problem, as I see it, is the lowered hull durability of flying only 1/3 of a ship.
I think it should be just like it was in Message in a Bottle, a quick combat maneuver; a separation, a few seconds of fire, and a reformation of the ship. The separate sections of the ship will not have staying power, so it shouldn't last long, maybe 10-15 seconds at most. EDIT: It's cool-down should be somewhere around the two minute mark.
Hit MVAM ability > Separation > All fire on your target > Reformation. Just that fast, no option to keep the "pets" separated.
The main challenge I see in implementing this is that the current tech for separation stops the bloody ship during separation sequences, and MVAM needs to be done on the fly if it's to be useful.
I feel almost dirty agreeing with Diamond, but still..
MVAM should be a refit idea in my opinion. Allow those who just want the single ship keep the current model but have a new refit with the ability to allow those that want the ability to use it. I wouldnt use it for PVP id mostly use it for pve content, like my agt galaxy.
May have less hull or what have yah but Id fly it. I would say allow it to seperate into 3, similar to the galaxy retrofit saucer sep, and once your ready to "reform" up then bam back to full ship. Only thing that would really have to figure out is what abilities do the other "pet" parts have. Cannons, torps ect. I think now that the galaxy retrofit has been added to the game, its a good problably that it could happen. Just problably take the ship guys some time to make it happen.
But first of all, before this gets added... MORE KLINGON SHIPS.
Or.. It could be added to the existing T5 version, and those who don't like it, don't have to use it, the stats for the whole ship should remain the same, the drop in survivability while using the MVAM is plenty trade-off for the MVAM if you ask me.
Interview Source
In the end we can only speculate on how good/bad it'd be as that would depend on how powerful/weak cryptic decided to make it.
The multivector assault mode doesn't have to be implemented the same way - it coulst just spawn some pets without changing your stats and so be a temporary damage buff.
A more comlex take with all bells and whistles of drawbacks and advantages:
Prometheus MVAD Retrofit:
o 4 Front, 3 Aft Weapon Slots (Cannot carry cannons. The original one didn't either)
o 4 Tactical Slots, 2 Engineering Slots, 2 Science Slots
o Commander Tactical, Lt.Cmdr Tactical, Lt.Engineering, Ensign Science
o MVAM mode (Cooldown 2 minutes)
- Lose 10 % Hull and Shields
- Gain +2 turn rate
- Lose 15 Weapon Power
- Gain 2 Prometheus Pets, each with 50 % Hull and 50 % shields of the Prometheus base ship.
-- Pet 1 is armed with front and aft Phaser Beam Array and a Photon Torpedo Launcher. As powers it has Attack Pattern Delta (uses it on you) and Beam Fire At-Will.
-- Pet 2 is armed with a front and aft Phaser Beam Array and a front Quantum Torpeod Launcher. As Powers it has Attack Pattern Beta and Torpedo Scatter Volley.
Still makes no sense. Its a gimmick to impress viewers, make them go Ahhhh.
Simply install more forward weapons prodeces the same result firepower wise and without weakening your ship overall.
But let me clue you in on a few facts.
Each section has its own Warp Core, which results in no power loss when the ship seperates.
Seperating the ship actually makes it an entirely new animal as it actually does not diminish firepower, but allows one to bring even greater firepower to bear in form of "more" weapons.
The dorsal section can bring its weapons to bear, the middle section reveals completely new phaser arrays and the ventral section can move freely to an elevated position where it can make use of its ventral phasers effectively.
In short, the idea with MVAM is to fully optimize the use of the ships weapons.
Not to mention it creates more than one target to deal with.
Edit:
Heh its not that simple, and as i explained the ship is not weakened at all.
To install more weapons would take up more external and internal space as you would need to install proper power conduits to the extra weapons, leaving less room for other systems.
How, exactly, is bringing the Dreadnaught into the time period where it existed in AGT against canon? Actually, it'd be a couple years old by this point. The STO Timeline stops at 2409, but the stardates in-game come out to be 2410. In "All Good Things" when Picard asks the date in the "current" timeline, Worf tells him the Stardate is 47899, which is December 27, 2370. The "Future" timeline where the Dreadnaught is present is 25 years later, which would be 2395-96.
That means by the time of STO, the Galaxy-X Dreadnaught is 14 or 15 years old. By that time, it certainly should have all the bugs worked out and be in mass-production, and be widely used in the same way the original Galaxy Class was.
Now, as for the NX Class, the TOS Costumes and Constitution, etc... How does their existence break Canon? Did it ever occur to you in a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game that perhaps people actually Roleplay? Not every character is from the present, and there are some fleets out there that actually Roleplay being in a completely different era entirely.
Star Trek Online is a chance for every player to enjoy themselves, to sit in the Captain's Chair of iconic Starships from their favorite series of the Star Trek Universe. Who are you to deny them that?
Because the NX-01 will be added as a ship a player can use does not mean that the missions will suddenly include them without a time-travel storyline. The Missions are what STO's 'Canon' are made of, and those do not deviate from actual Trek canon often, if at all. If you find a mission that does deviate greatly from canon, and you don't like it; drop the mission. No one is forcing you to play through content that doesn't fit with your version of canon.
Face it: Canon is subjective. Every player has a different perspective on what Star Trek is to them. Some enjoy the ENT Era of truly unexplored territories, first contacts, etc. Some enjoy the TNG style of every episode having a major crisis, but ending on a high-note happy ending. Some enjoy the Borg/Post-Borg TNG where everything is not all happy endings, where people make sacrifices for the greater good.
Your canon, my canon, and everyone else's canon is going to differ, but STO's Episodes themselves to do stray terribly far from the storylines established in the various Star Trek series. Just because players have the option to don TOS-Era Uniforms and gather on the Bridge of a TOS-Era Constitution and roleplay being on missions of exploration and first contact in uncharted deep space, does not mean that STO itself and it's official Episodes would even acknowledge the existence of those missions.
Oh, and by the way... the Enterprise J is not going to be added. CBS said no, so instead Cryptic has decided to start making their own ships that show we got from where we are now, to the Enterprise J. We can look forward to new ship classes that take some design cues from the J, but will not be the J itself.
[End Rant]
1. When each section has its own warp core, why would the ship not have MORE power when it stays connected?
2. If it gives you more weapons, why is the ship incapable of bringing them to bear when it stays connected? The vessel's overall hull has more than enough room to house everything the individual parts may "reveal".
It's just illogical. All the additional weapons of the individual "shards" could as well be fielded on a single hull, powered by the same three warp cores (or just a single bigger one). MVAM's single advantage is the ability to strike from multiple directions at once (hence multi vector), which is off-set by each part losing 66% of the potential energy when all three cores combine their power, directly affecting the ship's shield efficiency and thus survivability.
Think about it. If the three individual parts are so awesome, why would Starfleet not simply continue building and operating them separately all the time in the first place, instead of inventing some weird mechanism that makes them stick together as one big (apparently less efficient) ship 99% of the time? :rolleyes:
Which applies just as much when you install the very same weapons in the three individual parts ...
Which does break the continuity of the game, as it is clearly set in the year 2409.
There are also players openly RPing Romulan Tal'Shiar agents on Qo'noS. That doesn't mean it's right. By all means, let them play (in their own little sphere of incompatibility), but do not demand that the game should cater to their needs and ignore those who stick to the setting the game is originally set in. Else I want my Imperial Star Destroyer, too.
Actually Canon speaking ALL Prometheus class ships are capable of seperating. That is what the ship was actually designed for. Just because the second time you see a Prometheus it doesn't split in battle does not really mean anything.
As a game mechanic, it can have good tactical implications that allow your three parts to be fast and powerful as a result of the ship having three warp cores. (A fact that Cyptic convientantly edited). Considering that you control one of the three parts, like the galaxy and have your full weapons compliment with the other two parts having normal generic phasers or even cannons considering its an escort. It has the potential to be a really powerful ability.
However this also would make the Prometheus harder to hit and a lot easier to get "misses" on enemy weapons.
And the reason the Prometheus does not have MORE power then a typical escort is because Cryptic made it that way. It certainly does not reflect the true nature of the fantastic escort.
No offence taken, I just mentioned canon because people think that the prometheus should absolutely have one.
I like the idea of it, however I don't think I like the idea of piloting the "saucer" section. I think each individual piece too ugly to really want to fly them around by themselves. Kinda like the way I don't like the engine section of the Galaxy without its saucer.
Though if it was the Tier 6 ship and the only escort, then I probably would upgrade to it.
I don't consider the ships in that 27th century battle to be "classic" designs, especially given that they included the "Fantasy" Dauntless. It's just laziness and/or budget limitations preventing the creators from doing new models just for those few seconds, so they recycled stuff in their archives. We've seen this a lot of times in TNG, too (even locations).
I was not referring to in-game mechanics, but to common sense - or rather deductions from what we know of the Prometheus as seen in Voyager. When the ship has three warp cores, it has more power when combined, which means it looses potential shield strength and weapon power when splitting up, in turn making the individual parts easier to pop.
There's only two possibilities here:
A) Following conventional logic and ship design, the vessel will perform better when combined, as it has more power and stronger shields at its disposal.
Regardless of how you twist it, it simply doesn't make sense.
This is all speaking relative to itself. Yes it would be easier to pop, but in relation to whatever the original was. We don't have any power-output numbers, so we can never be sure.
We don't need to compare this to other ships of its time to see that there's a definite loss of efficiency here. But even if this would not be the case, there would still be the question as to why bother making it combine to a big ship in the first place. It's circular logic (see my edit above - sorry for not adding it right away).
First thing we need to remember, and the reason why there are three warp cores to begin with, is that the Warp Core's primary purpose is propulsion, being the heart of the warp drive.
While shields do benefit from the presence of a warp core, weapons can operate at full power without one.
The reduction in shield strenght is probally one of the few disadvantages with decoupling the ship along with an obvious reduction in warp speed, but which is most likely why the Prometheus has regenerative shields in order to compensate for the lack of capacity as well as having Ablative hull armor.
Oh and do not forget you are not only dividing the power, but dividing all the systems on the ship as well.
So its not like you get the effects of three halfs trying to draw one third of the power.
Its all proportionate.
Why is the ship incapable of bringing them to bear when it stays connected?
Well i thought that would be rather obvious, physics my friend.
You cant possibly fire from all angles of your ship at a singular target, that is physically impossible.
By seperating however you give both ventral and dorsal mounted weapons the ability to fire simultaneously as well as the parts being able to stay on target.
Why have single ship at all?
Well for one thing we already covered is that smaller warp cores would undeniably reduce the ships top speed.
Since it was at the time the fastest ship in the federation fleet its pretty logical to assume it was designed to deploy a lot of firepower on any battlefield as quickly as possible.
Well it did kinda kick *ss in the Voyager episode... it totally p00ned them Romulans at least.
And even when seperated the prometheus could still combine power if they wanted to by merging the shields of the three sections if they dont venture too far apart.
And you don't think this would work better when the ship stays combined? 100% Regenerative Shields > 33% Regenerative Shields.
The Prometheus is large enough to house all weapons that are "hidden" when combined on its outer hull. Additionally, there would be other options to increase the number of weapon mounts facing forward, such as retractable turrets like the ones we have seen in DS9. Making three ships stick together, on the other hand, wastes a lot of internal space as well as keeping half of your weapons useless until separation.
The individual ship parts are long enough to house a large one, though. They share the same length, which is greater than the ship's height. So this can't be it.
Even more stupid: Should an enemy destroy the two warp-capable sections, how long will it take for the remaining part to limp back to a starbase? You don't even need to destroy all three parts - two are sufficient to remove this vessel from fight!
Yeah, because the writers said so. Doesn't make it less idiotic - only goes to show how much thought they put into this idea.
You're contradicting yourself. If they would merge their shields when separated, the bubble would need to be even larger, stretching the shield efficiency beyond the ability to efficiently intercept incoming weapons fire.
And three small bubbles will always be less protective than a single focused one. In fact, if the ship has emitters for three shield bubbles, why not use this to create a three-layered deflector around a single ship? That might be even more useful.
Smaller shield bubble = less energy consumption.
Not to mention that when you split the ship you also split the power consumption of all other systems.
So in the end its all proportionate.
Oh sure its big enough, but plain adding more weapons is not an answer, that can be done to any ship.
No matter how many extra arrays and launchers you stick on your only going to be able to use a limited number of them at any one time.
What if the enemy ship is more maneuvrable and keeps staying above you? how are your 4-5 extra ventral phaser arrays going to help then?
And that is one of the things MVAM lets you do, to get both those ventral and dorsal weapons on a target, not to mention that it makes it 3 times harder for an attacker to evade being attacked.
Thats the second time you take space for granted.
Don't forget you still have to have space for everything else.
Antimatter storage, crew quarters, shuttle bay, deflector arrays, cargo bays as well as everything else that needs to be in a Deep Space Tactical Vessel.
Your right, but all i am saying is that they "could", nothing saying that they "would"
How do you figure? Smaller shield bubbles would maintain the same strenght as one large one with much lower power requirements.
Its not the size of the shield that matters, is how much energy goes into it, and a smaller shield would require less energy to maintain it at the same strenght than a large shield would.
Smaller ship = weaker shields. That's pretty much a golden rule in Trek.
Also it is worth mentioning that the three individual parts of a Prometheus need shield bubbles almost as large as the combined ship, as the parts "fold into each other" when not separated: Image
Judging from this visual evidence, I'd say a single "separated" Prometheus shield bubble is about 80% as big as the bubble of the entire ship when combined. This accumulates to 240% overall energy consumption as opposed to a single bubble.
Yes, suddenly you need to power three sets of impulse engines instead of just one, which further raises the amount of wasted energy. And three sets of sensor arrays. And who knows what else. Redundancy has its price.
Which goes for the individual Prometheus "shards" as well. Just as "my" 4-5 extra ventral phaser arrays won't help me with an enemy on top, so would "your" 3x2 extra ventral phaser arrays not help you. Regardless of how many times a ship splits, its parts will always have a side NOT facing the enemy.
And in case of the Prometheus you need three sets of impulse engines, three warp cores, three shield emitter grids, three sensor suites, three deflectors, three computers ... not to mention the additional bulk heads, airlocks and armour, and of course the separation mechanism.
Again, redundancy has its price. In energy consumption AND in space.