Well, Self destruct is sort of pointless. 5k extra damage is barely nothing in this game. On the flip side a neghvars normal breach is like 40k in PvE. Raptors explode for that same amount in all STFs. Why should my ship explode for less than that. It should be something along the lines of damage = hull points at activation x 500%. Damage should also scale to a larger distance.
I always found Photonic Officer (the sci boff ability) to be really useless.
Yeah, because on the shows and movies, Warp Core breaches were like setting off a nuke. The only thing better than that was the explosion from the Genisis Device.
Yeah, the HP of the enemies by the time you have self destruct is so much higher than your own vessel that a fixed 5K damage won't mean anything.
You mean the 1.9 million health points on some Borg ships? They must laugh at us humans/ klinks.
Here is another rework suggestion, Target ship gets large initial damage (insert formula here), and a -75 damage resistance for 15 seconds due to warp core plasma on it's hull.
1). The entire point of Self Destruct is meaningless in a game where you respawn, if ships where captureable than Scuttling it to prevent the enemy getting it would have a purpose.
Perhaps it detonates bigger, I don't know. Weird I actually agree with you on something. Perhaps it's just there for the Role players to blow their ship up before they get a new one.
That would be pretty darn rare.
Most RPers I know of pretty much ignore the exploding ships mechanic and/or attempt to tie it into some kind of 'barely survived' situation, e.g. emergency short warp, with the death timer being the amount of time it took to recover systems to survivable levels. That's what I try to do, but it's kind of hard to "sell" myself on that with the whole explodes-in-your-face thing about the ships (which takes a LOT of fun out of things).
Self-destruct, all things considered, would need to be usable a LOT earlier in battle to even be of any real advantage. In my experience, by the time you can use it you're either spamming repair/escape powers so fast you don't even think about it, spamming attacks so fast you don't have time to think about it, or probably already dead.
For what it's worth there have been two times I've used self-destruct. The first was just to see what it did, and the second was an accidental trigger during a Red Alert - which really sucked because I had the Cube on the ropes, but was low on HP, so hitting the wrong key there cost me the fight. It has not been on my tray since, suffice it to say.
You could always use the Self destruct near a enemy vessel to try and destroy it and take them down with you never tried it myself but maybe worth a try
By the time you get close enough to use it you're probably either a) scrapped yourself, or b) managed to defeat them in the presumed shoot-out you've been with them, or c) they manage to escape in the interval between activating it and the actual detonation.
Abandon Ship is kind of blah, yeah, but don't knock nadion inversion! :P
To be fair, Nadion Inversion is a power where it is hard to see its upside unless you've actually used it. It took me a long time (and a lot better understanding of the game mechanics) to actually see where it comes in handy.
IMO it's hard to appreciate it unless you've either run a beam boat or played an engineer - preferably both at once.
Regarding Abandon Ship, I think they ought to tweak it so the effects occur weather it happens "in time" or not. Because let's face it, if it's dire enough to require that measure, you're going bang rather soon.
Ramming Speed however is fantastic. I've soured many people's grapes with that. It's also surprisingly survivable if you pop the right buffs between activation and impact. Heals (especially miracle worker), brace for impact, aux to dampers, subspace field modulator... ramp up your kinetic resists, restore hit points, and watch the enemy spear over the front of your saucer/head thingy while you survive like a boss. I've also found clipping those using it as a second evasives to insta-pop them hilarious before.
Nadeon Inversion mitigates power drain. I'd have thought with the prevalence of siphon pods and aceton assimilators out there we wouldn't even need to touch on things like drain from broadsiding or throwing beam overloads around.
One power that's getting slightly unreliable, if not really useles, is Attack Pattern Omega. Not that it isn't awesome in theory, or was awesome before, but the reality is that there are more exceptions to the "ignore all movement debuffs" than inclusions. So far, multiple tractors, chroniton procs, and that "you can't turn anymore" beam from the Omega Set all ignore it. That's There's also a similar console in the C-store to the Omega set beam thing. It's a bit ridiculous when the damage was nerfed in light of the other bonuses it provided.
Attack Pattern Beta is a skill that's only useful in PVE now. If your target pops tactical team, or has done within the last ten seconds, you may as well have not bothered.
Aceton Beam is similar, great in PVE (especially STF), useless in PVP because one hazards and it's buisness as usual for the target.
For what it's worth there have been two times I've used self-destruct. The first was just to see what it did, and the second was an accidental trigger during a Red Alert - which really sucked because I had the Cube on the ropes, but was low on HP, so hitting the wrong key there cost me the fight. It has not been on my tray since, suffice it to say.
Been there done that. I've accidently blown myself up at least once.
@ Ebeneezergoode you raise some good points, but I've never had an issue with Multiple Tractor Beams stopping my Omega pattern, I'm not sure how Chronitons get around it but I don't think I've encountered enough people using them against me to care. And I love using the Graviton Anchor to lock my foe onto a heading and simply doing a U turn to get away from him.
I'm also quite fine with having abilities that are only Useful in PVE but not in PVP and vice versa.
Been there done that. I've accidently blown myself up at least once.
@ Ebeneezergoode you raise some good points, but I've never had an issue with Multiple Tractor Beams stopping my Omega pattern, I'm not sure how Chronitons get around it but I don't think I've encountered enough people using them against me to care. And I love using the Graviton Anchor to lock my foe onto a heading and simply doing a U turn to get away from him.
I'm also quite fine with having abilities that are only Useful in PVE but not in PVP and vice versa.
Chronitons get nightmarish when advanced danubes are spaffing them all over the place. B'rel stuck with cruiser turn rate is bad times to say the least.:D I've also used them on my D'kora, and it's made the difference between being totally outmaneuvered and a kill before.
I really like the idea of replacing the self destruction with tractor beam, i mean, in Star Trek EVERY ship from the runabouts up have it, yet here it is a sort of "special" ability.
Personally, I consider it more of a 'boff smart enough to use it in an unconventional way in combat' rather than a 'ship doesn't have it' ability. You can take into account the fact that tractors aren't a combat weapon by design, and as such, not all officers would consider using it that way. Just like how not all officers would be able to effectively execute an attack pattern or be willing to risk overloading a torpedo.
Personally, I consider it more of a 'boff smart enough to use it in an unconventional way in combat' rather than a 'ship doesn't have it' ability. You can take into account the fact that tractors aren't a combat weapon by design, and as such, not all officers would consider using it that way. Just like how not all officers would be able to effectively execute an attack pattern or be willing to risk overloading a torpedo.
Name any bridge officer in any Star Trek series (other than Enterrpise, since they didn't have tractor beams yet) that couldn't handle it. Again, there are non bridge officers that can handle such tasks.
Name any bridge officer in any Star Trek series (other than Enterrpise, since they didn't have tractor beams yet) that couldn't handle it. Again, there are non bridge officers that can handle such tasks.
Because the Enterprise, the pride and joy, the FLAGSHIP of Starfleet, certainly is indicative of the average quality of officers and personnel on starships.
Because the Enterprise, the pride and joy, the FLAGSHIP of Starfleet, certainly is indicative of the average quality of officers and personnel on starships.
I said any series other than Enterprise. Neither DS9 nor Voyager were 'the flagship of the fleet.' Not to mention the numerous times tractor beams have locked on to the Enterprise, or a shuttle, or the Defiant, or Voyager, or whatever they happen to be driving at the time...
Even Vader's stormtroopers knew how to use tractor beams in combat, and they aren't even Trek, nor particularly bright.
I said any series other than Enterprise. Neither DS9 nor Voyager were 'the flagship of the fleet.' Not to mention the numerous times tractor beams have locked on to the Enterprise, or a shuttle, or the Defiant, or Voyager, or whatever they happen to be driving at the time...
Even Vader's stormtroopers knew how to use tractor beams in combat, and they aren't even Trek, nor particularly bright.
Everyone in a Star Wars Imperial uniform is not a stormtrooper. People handling tractor beams on Imperial ships would be Imperial Naval personel, not stormtroopers.
Similarly, the only two incidents I specifically recall from the original Trilogy involving tractor beams were the capture of Leia's ship at the beginning, and the capture of the Falcon upon discovering Alderaan's desctruction. In the first case, Leia's ship was already dsabled from fire from the pursuing star destroyer. The tractor beam was simply used to pull the disabled ship into the much larger ship's hold. In the second case, the Falcon was grabbed by a tractor beam from a ship "the size of a small moon." The Falcon was nowhere near the size of a typical Star Trek vessel, and the Death Star was many, many times larger than even a Borg ship.
In either case, there really is no comparison. The first instance was not a use of a tractor beam as weapon, and it was being used by a much, much larger ship than the one being tractored. That is even more significant when you consider the ships involved in the second incident. The amount of power the Death Star could generate, and therefore the effectiveness of its tractor beam, is of little value in comparison to this game.
Besides those two incidents, I cannot think of any other uses of a Tractor beam in the movies and there is certainly no indication that they were being routinely being used as a weapon as would be the case in this game's use of them. Either way, your analysis that they were being operated by some "not particularly bright" Stormtrooper is both extraodinarily unlikely and completely unsupported by any facts. In fact, it is almost certain that, on a ship the size of a Star or Super Star Destroyer, let alone the Death Star itself, that there would be specialists specifically trained for and devoted to a specific system, proving the exact opposite of what you want to prove here.
Everyone in a Star Wars Imperial uniform is not a stormtrooper. People handling tractor beams on Imperial ships would be Imperial Naval personel, not stormtroopers.
Similarly, the only two incidents I specifically recall from the original Trilogy involving tractor beams were the capture of Leia's ship at the beginning, and the capture of the Falcon upon discovering Alderaan's desctruction. In the first case, Leia's ship was already dsabled from fire from the pursuing star destroyer. The tractor beam was simply used to pull the disabled ship into the much larger ship's hold. In the second case, the Falcon was grabbed by a tractor beam from a ship "the size of a small moon." The Falcon was nowhere near the size of a typical Star Trek vessel, and the Death Star was many, many times larger than even a Borg ship.
In either case, there really is no comparison. The first instance was not a use of a tractor beam as weapon, and it was being used by a much, much larger ship than the one being tractored. That is even more significant when you consider the ships involved in the second incident. The amount of power the Death Star could generate, and therefore the effectiveness of its tractor beam, is of little value in comparison to this game.
Besides those two incidents, I cannot think of any other uses of a Tractor beam in the movies and there is certainly no indication that they were being routinely being used as a weapon as would be the case in this game's use of them. Either way, your analysis that they were being operated by some "not particularly bright" Stormtrooper is both extraodinarily unlikely and completely unsupported by any facts. In fact, it is almost certain that, on a ship the size of a Star or Super Star Destroyer, let alone the Death Star itself, that there would be specialists specifically trained for and devoted to a specific system, proving the exact opposite of what you want to prove here.
Relative mass of target to tractor ship is irrelevant other than that the Death Star has a lot of energy to put into a tractor beam.... but that doesn't make pulling a ship in intact easier. Argubly it makes it harder.
There is no evidence that the crew of the death star were particularly well trained. The accuracy of their turrets didn't seem that much better than the accuracy of the average Storm Trooper, hence Darth having to handle the situation himself.
A larger ship should, in theory, mean higher quality crew but it can also lead to complacency too.
While I do agree with you in regards to Self Destruct, Ramming Speed is actually quite useful and fun (even after the adjustment that requires a certain amount of damage. It does make me sad to see people using Ramming Speed to run though. In that situation it should cause an automatic self destruct, lol.
I often use Ramming speed to run away & live to fight another day. Such a change to Ramming speed would be hilarious, yet cruel imo.
How about Neural Neutralizer? That is rather worthless... It is supposed to stop folks from attacking you who are up close and that you are not damaging. The number of occasions I have found that to actually mean anything: 0
I find that it works in the Borg Invasion where you have to activate a console and you are ****ing off the collective. Neural Neutralizer distracts them long enough to activate the console and go back to punching them at leisure.
And I have used Ramming speed, combo with EPtS Tac Team and Hazard Emitters, to either run the hell away, or give my target the middle finger. As a Sci officer, I face my target most of the time so it either a massive attack or a massive retreat. I actually outran a heavy plasma torpedo fired from a fleet mate ****ed him off :cool:
I have yet to use Abandon ship successfully. Either everyone was too far away or was too shielded from my blast
Ramming Speed I've used to escape. But I find both self destruct and fleet support to both be useless. I've never once used Fleet Support, I think it could be a useful if the 50% hull requirement was removed.
Relative mass of target to tractor ship is irrelevant other than that the Death Star has a lot of energy to put into a tractor beam.... but that doesn't make pulling a ship in intact easier. Arguably it makes it harder.
The mass of the ship is actually the most important factor. A Cooper Mini can chain itself to a bus, but I guarantee you that when the bus decides to leave, it is the Cooper Mini that is going where the bus goes, not the other way around. The strength of the tractor beam only equates to a stronger chain.
Using a tractor beam as a weapon means you have to route power, coordinate engine power, override shielding, and so on. These are not skills that the average crewman who knows how to pull a friendly shuttle safely into the shuttle bay would know how to do.
There is no evidence that the crew of the death star were particularly well trained. The accuracy of their turrets didn't seem that much better than the accuracy of the average Storm Trooper, hence Darth having to handle the situation himself.
A larger ship should, in theory, mean higher quality crew but it can also lead to complacency too.
Other than your need to denigrate the crew for the sake of your argument, there is no reason to presume otherwise. The Death Star was the most powerful ship in the galaxy. It was the Emperor's special project. "Complacency" in the Empire, especially when under the watchful eye of either the Emperor or Vader, resulted in "Apology accepted" endings. The likelihood that the Death Star was manned by run of the mill personnel is highly unlikely. It is almost certain that the Death Star was manned by the cream of the Empire, and complacency is death at such a post, so, no, they were not complacent.
As to the argument that their turrets were not very accurate, the whole point of using single seat fighters for the attack was that the Death Star defenses were designed for a large scale attack from capital ships. They considered small fighters no threat. As such, the reason the turrets could not easily target and destroy small fighters was that they were not designed to do so. The competency of the crews manning them was not the problem.
The bottom line is that a tractor beam is not a weapon. It can be used as such, but to be used as a weapon effectively, you need someone who is specially trained or who has special talents.
As I believe I pointed out earlier, the transporter crew in the last movie couldn't lock onto Kirk and Sulu as they fell from the drill. Chekov ran from the bridge to the transporter room yelling "I can do this." He rushed in, pushed the average transporter crew person with average skills out of the way, switched to manual, and beamed them aboard.
That is the picture here. Yes, there are tractor beams on most ships. Yes, there would be crew who knew how to use them. However, to use such equipment effectively as a weapon, you would need crew with special training or special skills. Not just any TRIBBLE could use it as such.
Either way, Tractor Beam I is an Ensign level science skill. Every ship in the fleet has at least one science Ensign level BOff slot. That means that any ship in the fleet has the ability to use Tractor Beam as weapon, making the whole argument that "every ship" should be able to use it moot. Continuing the argument means that you think that it should be free for everyone. Taking that argument, then, every ship should be able to use any BOff skill for free because all ships can have beams, cannons, torpedoes, and so forth. So any crewman should be able to fire high yield, rapid fire, fire at will, or any other special tactical skill. All ships have shield, so anyone should be able to heal them. All ships have hull repair systems, so anyone should be able to repair hull damage.
The bottom line is that you need to make a choice. If you want to use Tractor Beam, train a Science Officer in the skill and slot him. If you don't want to do that, then get the Borg set, which comes with a free Tractor Beam. Arguing that you can throw any TRIBBLE on a tractor beam control and expect him to disable any ship regardless of how powerful and how well its crew is trained just because you want the skill for free simply doesn't fly.
The only uses I've ever seen for Ramming speed and abandon ship were a loooong time ago.
It used to be great fun to grief ESD in the spawn area. (ramming to activate red alert, then abandon). One breach alone, didn't do much, but get some friends together and coordinate them... lol. Good times. :rolleyes:
The other, was back when you could inflict MASSIVE damage to the crystalline entity with Ramming Speed in a cruiser. Used to be the general strategy to coordinate all the cruisers to do ramming runs
Not much fun anymore.
Some others I find on the lower end of the useful list (I'm talking PvE):
Jam Sensors seems pretty useless to me nowadays, since inflicting a certain amount of damage to the afflicted enemy, cancels it. Used to be extremely useful tho.
Same with Energy Siphon, back when one could rotate them. Now, especially with everything seeming to having moderate resist to energy drain, it's just so-so.
Scramble sensors and Feedback pulse too. Just lack any real utility.
And dispersal patterns. Heck, mines in general, lol
It's me, Chrome. [Join Date: May 2009]
"Oh, I may be captain by rank... but I never wanted to be anything else but an engineer." ~Montgomery Scott~
Comments
Yeah, because on the shows and movies, Warp Core breaches were like setting off a nuke. The only thing better than that was the explosion from the Genisis Device.
You mean the 1.9 million health points on some Borg ships? They must laugh at us humans/ klinks.
Here is another rework suggestion, Target ship gets large initial damage (insert formula here), and a -75 damage resistance for 15 seconds due to warp core plasma on it's hull.
wow, where did you dream that up?
Oh, wait...it's you again...don't mind!
That would be pretty darn rare.
Most RPers I know of pretty much ignore the exploding ships mechanic and/or attempt to tie it into some kind of 'barely survived' situation, e.g. emergency short warp, with the death timer being the amount of time it took to recover systems to survivable levels. That's what I try to do, but it's kind of hard to "sell" myself on that with the whole explodes-in-your-face thing about the ships (which takes a LOT of fun out of things).
Self-destruct, all things considered, would need to be usable a LOT earlier in battle to even be of any real advantage. In my experience, by the time you can use it you're either spamming repair/escape powers so fast you don't even think about it, spamming attacks so fast you don't have time to think about it, or probably already dead.
For what it's worth there have been two times I've used self-destruct. The first was just to see what it did, and the second was an accidental trigger during a Red Alert - which really sucked because I had the Cube on the ropes, but was low on HP, so hitting the wrong key there cost me the fight. It has not been on my tray since, suffice it to say.
By the time you get close enough to use it you're probably either a) scrapped yourself, or b) managed to defeat them in the presumed shoot-out you've been with them, or c) they manage to escape in the interval between activating it and the actual detonation.
To be fair, Nadion Inversion is a power where it is hard to see its upside unless you've actually used it. It took me a long time (and a lot better understanding of the game mechanics) to actually see where it comes in handy.
IMO it's hard to appreciate it unless you've either run a beam boat or played an engineer - preferably both at once.
Ramming Speed however is fantastic. I've soured many people's grapes with that. It's also surprisingly survivable if you pop the right buffs between activation and impact. Heals (especially miracle worker), brace for impact, aux to dampers, subspace field modulator... ramp up your kinetic resists, restore hit points, and watch the enemy spear over the front of your saucer/head thingy while you survive like a boss. I've also found clipping those using it as a second evasives to insta-pop them hilarious before.
Nadeon Inversion mitigates power drain. I'd have thought with the prevalence of siphon pods and aceton assimilators out there we wouldn't even need to touch on things like drain from broadsiding or throwing beam overloads around.
One power that's getting slightly unreliable, if not really useles, is Attack Pattern Omega. Not that it isn't awesome in theory, or was awesome before, but the reality is that there are more exceptions to the "ignore all movement debuffs" than inclusions. So far, multiple tractors, chroniton procs, and that "you can't turn anymore" beam from the Omega Set all ignore it. That's There's also a similar console in the C-store to the Omega set beam thing. It's a bit ridiculous when the damage was nerfed in light of the other bonuses it provided.
Attack Pattern Beta is a skill that's only useful in PVE now. If your target pops tactical team, or has done within the last ten seconds, you may as well have not bothered.
Aceton Beam is similar, great in PVE (especially STF), useless in PVP because one hazards and it's buisness as usual for the target.
Been there done that. I've accidently blown myself up at least once.
@ Ebeneezergoode you raise some good points, but I've never had an issue with Multiple Tractor Beams stopping my Omega pattern, I'm not sure how Chronitons get around it but I don't think I've encountered enough people using them against me to care. And I love using the Graviton Anchor to lock my foe onto a heading and simply doing a U turn to get away from him.
I'm also quite fine with having abilities that are only Useful in PVE but not in PVP and vice versa.
Chronitons get nightmarish when advanced danubes are spaffing them all over the place. B'rel stuck with cruiser turn rate is bad times to say the least.:D I've also used them on my D'kora, and it's made the difference between being totally outmaneuvered and a kill before.
Name any bridge officer in any Star Trek series (other than Enterrpise, since they didn't have tractor beams yet) that couldn't handle it. Again, there are non bridge officers that can handle such tasks.
Because the Enterprise, the pride and joy, the FLAGSHIP of Starfleet, certainly is indicative of the average quality of officers and personnel on starships.
I said any series other than Enterprise. Neither DS9 nor Voyager were 'the flagship of the fleet.' Not to mention the numerous times tractor beams have locked on to the Enterprise, or a shuttle, or the Defiant, or Voyager, or whatever they happen to be driving at the time...
Even Vader's stormtroopers knew how to use tractor beams in combat, and they aren't even Trek, nor particularly bright.
Everyone in a Star Wars Imperial uniform is not a stormtrooper. People handling tractor beams on Imperial ships would be Imperial Naval personel, not stormtroopers.
Similarly, the only two incidents I specifically recall from the original Trilogy involving tractor beams were the capture of Leia's ship at the beginning, and the capture of the Falcon upon discovering Alderaan's desctruction. In the first case, Leia's ship was already dsabled from fire from the pursuing star destroyer. The tractor beam was simply used to pull the disabled ship into the much larger ship's hold. In the second case, the Falcon was grabbed by a tractor beam from a ship "the size of a small moon." The Falcon was nowhere near the size of a typical Star Trek vessel, and the Death Star was many, many times larger than even a Borg ship.
In either case, there really is no comparison. The first instance was not a use of a tractor beam as weapon, and it was being used by a much, much larger ship than the one being tractored. That is even more significant when you consider the ships involved in the second incident. The amount of power the Death Star could generate, and therefore the effectiveness of its tractor beam, is of little value in comparison to this game.
Besides those two incidents, I cannot think of any other uses of a Tractor beam in the movies and there is certainly no indication that they were being routinely being used as a weapon as would be the case in this game's use of them. Either way, your analysis that they were being operated by some "not particularly bright" Stormtrooper is both extraodinarily unlikely and completely unsupported by any facts. In fact, it is almost certain that, on a ship the size of a Star or Super Star Destroyer, let alone the Death Star itself, that there would be specialists specifically trained for and devoted to a specific system, proving the exact opposite of what you want to prove here.
Relative mass of target to tractor ship is irrelevant other than that the Death Star has a lot of energy to put into a tractor beam.... but that doesn't make pulling a ship in intact easier. Argubly it makes it harder.
There is no evidence that the crew of the death star were particularly well trained. The accuracy of their turrets didn't seem that much better than the accuracy of the average Storm Trooper, hence Darth having to handle the situation himself.
A larger ship should, in theory, mean higher quality crew but it can also lead to complacency too.
I often use Ramming speed to run away & live to fight another day. Such a change to Ramming speed would be hilarious, yet cruel imo.
I find that it works in the Borg Invasion where you have to activate a console and you are ****ing off the collective. Neural Neutralizer distracts them long enough to activate the console and go back to punching them at leisure.
And I have used Ramming speed, combo with EPtS Tac Team and Hazard Emitters, to either run the hell away, or give my target the middle finger. As a Sci officer, I face my target most of the time so it either a massive attack or a massive retreat. I actually outran a heavy plasma torpedo fired from a fleet mate
I have yet to use Abandon ship successfully. Either everyone was too far away or was too shielded from my blast
The mass of the ship is actually the most important factor. A Cooper Mini can chain itself to a bus, but I guarantee you that when the bus decides to leave, it is the Cooper Mini that is going where the bus goes, not the other way around. The strength of the tractor beam only equates to a stronger chain.
Using a tractor beam as a weapon means you have to route power, coordinate engine power, override shielding, and so on. These are not skills that the average crewman who knows how to pull a friendly shuttle safely into the shuttle bay would know how to do.
Other than your need to denigrate the crew for the sake of your argument, there is no reason to presume otherwise. The Death Star was the most powerful ship in the galaxy. It was the Emperor's special project. "Complacency" in the Empire, especially when under the watchful eye of either the Emperor or Vader, resulted in "Apology accepted" endings. The likelihood that the Death Star was manned by run of the mill personnel is highly unlikely. It is almost certain that the Death Star was manned by the cream of the Empire, and complacency is death at such a post, so, no, they were not complacent.
As to the argument that their turrets were not very accurate, the whole point of using single seat fighters for the attack was that the Death Star defenses were designed for a large scale attack from capital ships. They considered small fighters no threat. As such, the reason the turrets could not easily target and destroy small fighters was that they were not designed to do so. The competency of the crews manning them was not the problem.
The bottom line is that a tractor beam is not a weapon. It can be used as such, but to be used as a weapon effectively, you need someone who is specially trained or who has special talents.
As I believe I pointed out earlier, the transporter crew in the last movie couldn't lock onto Kirk and Sulu as they fell from the drill. Chekov ran from the bridge to the transporter room yelling "I can do this." He rushed in, pushed the average transporter crew person with average skills out of the way, switched to manual, and beamed them aboard.
That is the picture here. Yes, there are tractor beams on most ships. Yes, there would be crew who knew how to use them. However, to use such equipment effectively as a weapon, you would need crew with special training or special skills. Not just any TRIBBLE could use it as such.
Either way, Tractor Beam I is an Ensign level science skill. Every ship in the fleet has at least one science Ensign level BOff slot. That means that any ship in the fleet has the ability to use Tractor Beam as weapon, making the whole argument that "every ship" should be able to use it moot. Continuing the argument means that you think that it should be free for everyone. Taking that argument, then, every ship should be able to use any BOff skill for free because all ships can have beams, cannons, torpedoes, and so forth. So any crewman should be able to fire high yield, rapid fire, fire at will, or any other special tactical skill. All ships have shield, so anyone should be able to heal them. All ships have hull repair systems, so anyone should be able to repair hull damage.
The bottom line is that you need to make a choice. If you want to use Tractor Beam, train a Science Officer in the skill and slot him. If you don't want to do that, then get the Borg set, which comes with a free Tractor Beam. Arguing that you can throw any TRIBBLE on a tractor beam control and expect him to disable any ship regardless of how powerful and how well its crew is trained just because you want the skill for free simply doesn't fly.
It used to be great fun to grief ESD in the spawn area. (ramming to activate red alert, then abandon). One breach alone, didn't do much, but get some friends together and coordinate them... lol. Good times. :rolleyes:
The other, was back when you could inflict MASSIVE damage to the crystalline entity with Ramming Speed in a cruiser. Used to be the general strategy to coordinate all the cruisers to do ramming runs
Not much fun anymore.
Some others I find on the lower end of the useful list (I'm talking PvE):
Jam Sensors seems pretty useless to me nowadays, since inflicting a certain amount of damage to the afflicted enemy, cancels it. Used to be extremely useful tho.
Same with Energy Siphon, back when one could rotate them. Now, especially with everything seeming to having moderate resist to energy drain, it's just so-so.
Scramble sensors and Feedback pulse too. Just lack any real utility.
And dispersal patterns. Heck, mines in general, lol
It's me, Chrome. [Join Date: May 2009]
"Oh, I may be captain by rank... but I never wanted to be anything else but an engineer." ~Montgomery Scott~