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Tactical Odyssey=Bad?
arcanis161
Member Posts: 55 Arc User
I've been hearing this a lot on the forums and in game. Why?
I have heard bad things about the Aquarius escort, but is that really the only reason why the Tac Odyssey is bad?
Why would the Sci Odyssey be better? I've heard it's work bees are meh, and I don't know what anyone would use for the extra Sci console.
I know the Engineering Odyssey probably tanks better, and has saucer separation, but would I be seriously better off with that if I can't get the full tankiness out of it?
And, back to the Tac Odyssey, why wouldn't a Dragon Flagship build be able to save it?
I have heard bad things about the Aquarius escort, but is that really the only reason why the Tac Odyssey is bad?
Why would the Sci Odyssey be better? I've heard it's work bees are meh, and I don't know what anyone would use for the extra Sci console.
I know the Engineering Odyssey probably tanks better, and has saucer separation, but would I be seriously better off with that if I can't get the full tankiness out of it?
And, back to the Tac Odyssey, why wouldn't a Dragon Flagship build be able to save it?
Formerly Traven158
Post edited by arcanis161 on
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I do not subscribe to this viewpoint.
I have a Tac Ody myself (from the Ody three-pack). Personally I like it, and I think I've gravitated towards it as my main ship on my tac, with the caveat that I always keep saucer sep at the ready. I wish that I had a +1 Assault Cruiser, and sometimes I use an Excel-R, but the Ody is still sound and very versatile. IMO, in terms of the ship itself, it's the best version of the Odyssey for general-purpose stuff. Why is this?
Well, let's look at the Ops Ody. +5 to all power. +5 to engines isn't going to do a whole lot for the Ody, in my experience, and the effect on the turn rate is marginal at best. The fifth engineering console seems like it's not going to do you a lot of good, either, considering how armor has diminshing returns, although I suppose you could put power consoles in. The real saving grace for the Ops Ody is, IMO, the saucer sep - putting the best console on the weakest hull, I suppose.
The Science Ody is a VERY different beast, but is meant for different things. It's halfway to a science ship. While there is value in putting so much extra power in shields and aux, it's just not as good for general-purpose fighting.
But the most controversial ability of the science Ody is the Sensor Analysis. The thing about SA, though, is that it requires you to keep a lock on the target for a long while. A LOT of fights are already settled by the time SA ramps up to surpass the tactical consoles, and it doesn't do that by much when it caps. Combine that with the fact that the science Ody does not boost the weapon power like the tac Ody does and I'm pretty sure that the sci Ody's firepower is not quite what it's cracked up to be. That said it's probably a slight boon when fighting large stationary structures in, say, the space STFs. It also bears mentioning that to keep the target lock on the enemy, you can't do a whole lot of healing/buffing, because when you drop the lock you risk losing the SA bonus, which pretty much commits you to a single target until the end.
The tactical Odyssey has a flying coffin in terms of the Aquarius. Some people seem to have great luck with it, but mine usually goes down fast in any serious fight and doesn't do a whole lot of DPS to major targets in the first place. However, the hull itself has the third tactical console slot - badly needed to bring it up to AC/Excel-R base firepower - and puts the +5 engines from the Ops Ody into the weapons, giving you a +10 bonus. As such it hits a lot harder. IMO, if you exclude the consoles (I don't usually), the tac Ody is the best for general purpose fighting/starship ops, the science Ody is good for certain roles against large, stationary targets and for science captains relying a great deal on aux-related skills and shield tanking, and the ops Ody is mostly useful for hyper-hull-tanking, which is a fairly narrow role. That said, if I were to pick only one it would be the ops Ody for the saucer sep.
I think the main stigma for the Ody, aside from the "heal barge" mindset (and contempt for those who do not follow it), is that a lot of newer players may see it as the most expensive and most famous ship (it's on a LOT of the STO ads these days, and it IS the Enterprise now), and assume that it's the most powerful ship possible, so they get it, and they're still lousy in it because all the extra boosts in the world can only help so far in the face of someone who just doesn't know what they're doing, especially if they're unwilling to learn.
Mind, I have my own issues with the Ody, namely its turn rate and inertia and the number of BOff power slots you'd need to sacrifice to keep it corrected most of the time. However, it's served me well for what it is thus far - slow, bloated, and tough, with a good bit of versatility and the ability to occasionally become an Assault Cruiser for a little while.
Anyway, my $.02, YMMV.
A tank that isn't being attacked is virtual paperweight
I have to agree. If Tanking(ie getting threat and holding it)is your intention the Tac Oddy is a better choice-be sure to put points into threat control, I max mine.
If healing is your primary goal, the Sci Oddy is your Disneyland. Don't worry about stacking up SA. Do worry about Crytpic making healing a stronger requirement in group content. To be fair to them it appears they are with new missions like No Win Scenario.
Doing the Doffs mini-jobs/missions will help increase the skill bonus (temporary) of the Space skills on whatever being used.
My vocation is Tact, as the firepower is brought, my second strongest ability is Heal, with three hits *from Healing*, I can bring back almost any ship to near full opertional status.
As for the Turn rate 'issue', let's put it this way---an earth aircraft carrier is not a nimble as a PT boat, dingy or a Seal insertion craft. The Big Os are a big ship, without certain Boffs' skills and some flight consoles, doing the turns without any assistance will be a real pain in the buttocks.
Honestly, if anyone wants the nimble and the quick---Escorts are the cat's meow.:D
Sensor Analysis is hugely underestimated, a 33% damage buff is basically like having 2 more Weapon slots, free of energy drain.
A fourth Field Gen.
The Field Generator update really broke Console slots balance, Science went from being the dump slot for non-SVs to the most useful slot for survivability.
The Tac Odyssey isn't bad per se; but the Science Odyssey is better at everything, including damage which is where the Tac one should have the edge.
The tactical Odyssey isn't bad, it just isn't good in comparison to the other two.
Tactical Odyssey can be set up as an assault cruiser, but with less turnrate... Which kind of nerfs it and defeats the point. The Aquarius escort is squishy and doesn't do enough damage to make it worth launching only to have it killed soon after.
You can fit 4x field generators in the sci console stations, which will mean it'll have the most tankiest shields a cruiser can have.
Also the science Odyssey has the passive science ship ability sensor analysis, which when maxed out buffs your damage more then an extra tactical console. That alone makes it a great cruiser for STFs when fighting cubes, gates and bosses. That is, if you MUST take a cruiser into an STF.
Edit: wow, almost a copy of the above post :P
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
I'm sorry but this is simply incorrect.
The main difference is a single Tactical Console, and the truth is that SA is significantly stronger.
I've tested this personally, and the difference is quite frankly so huge that I'm left scratching my head as to why this was put on a Cruiser.
1 Tactical console won't be doing this in PvE.
In PvE this will be decided by ranks in threat control, and the player's ability to play.
I've tanked, and held aggro, on teams with top end Escorts using an Engineer in the Free ody, much less the Sci or Tac Ody. This means I generally have aggro 90% of the time or more.
9 Ranks in threat control, and getting to the fight fast are the primary requirements to holding NPC aggro.
The second is having a build that makes sense, generally a minimum of 6 beam arrays and at least one solid Tac power to draw attention (like BFAW).
This.
And this.
And lastly, this.
How does it behave exactly in combat? Out-of-combat?
Overall damage output? Abilities?
How long does it last, in general?
Things like that. I'm not asking if it sucks or if it's awesome, but exactly what the Aquarius can do.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
when i run my oddy i use the sci oddy with all three consoles. always have workbees out and then using 1 of either the saucer sep or aquarius. it works pretty well for me.
Can you confirm this in game on your ships?
The Cstore lists the Tac and Ops variants as 1.15 Shield Modifiers and the Sci Variant as the lowest at 1.1, most likely due to the extra Sci Console slot.
Shipyard requisitions on ESD lists all 3 as 1.15, Sci included.
1) Is a Tactical officer like myself better off in it than any of the others (including the "Tac" Odyssey)?
2) It's better than even the Engineering Odyssey?
3) Can I still do a Dragon Flagship build with it, or do I need to do another build? (Why Dragon? Looks pretty good.)
4) ...Or, if the Sci Odyssey is not for Tactical Officers, then is there a better ship? Say, the Atrox or the Dreadnought? (or even the Assault Cruiser (+1)?) (I know about the Armitage, so it's an option as well, but Escort+Carrier looks daunting to try. Too many commands?)
Formerly Traven158
hmm, odd. unless i got the "free" odyssey's stats mixed in there at some point, i could have sworn that tac was 1.0, eng 1.1 and sci 1.15.... either that or they changed it at some point...
First is the included Universal console, and the Dragon build doesn't care about either the Aquarius Escort or the Work Bees, so it's irrelevant.
Second is the bonus power, and if you adjust the power settings to compensate you'll have 5 more Engine power on the Sci Oddy rather than elsewhere. A minor difference if you're cycling EPtW and EPtS anyway.
Third is the bonus console slot, a tactical vs science, so a damage console vs a shield console. The loss of the damage console is mitigated by the Sensor Analysis anyway.
So the two are similar, and I don't see any reason why the Dragon Flagship build would work for the Tac variant but not the Sci variant.
simple as that. The Sci oddysey outplay the tact oddysey in every aspect
Vin Naftero@playhard88 - FED Sciencie
K'tan@playhard88 - KDF Tactical
Argento@playhard88 - RRF Tactical (FED)
Sci Ody has a different Power Balance, and has Sensor Analysis.
That does not make it better than the Tac version, merely different.
For example, the Tac Ody can hit 125 Weapons power natively without bothering to run EPTW, using a minimal investment in skillpoints. The Sci cannot hit 125 power natively without sacrificing optimal endgame equipment, and therefore requires cycling EPTW to hit maximum damage output. You can thus technically drop EPTW on a Tac Ody and pickup EPTA instead for additional healing/buffing potential whilst maintaining high Damage output.
In terms of DPS, the third Tactical Console more than balances out Sensor Analysis, assuming that (i) you're using appropriate high level Energy Weapons and Damage boosting consoles and (ii) you're not keeping your target locked on one foe within 10km for longer than a few minutes. (longer than this and Sensor Analysis starts being better... however if your target dies, or you switch targets, or your target becomes more than 10km away from you, then you'll likely lose the Sensor Analysis buff)
More on Tac Odys here, here, here and (for the usefulness of Shield Capacity in PVE, 2nd half of post) here.
Though really, the console is a bit pants compared to Chevron Seperation or Worker Bees.
And if you've got a lot of healing going on in Arena, you've got plenty of time to ratchet up to that full-bore sensor analysis bonus IMHO. Even escorts stop being squishy when stuff like extend shields and APD are being passed around.
Assuming purely Energy Damage, and ignoring BOFF differences, I make it ~48 Seconds (assuming MkXI consoles) or ~54 Seconds (Assuming MkXII consoles) for shots fired from a Sci Ody to start being more damaging than shots fired from a Tac Ody. That doesn't seem too long, until you factor in that the Sci Ody must then make up for the extra cumulative damage done up until that point by the Tac Ody. I make the point at which the cumulative damage done by a Sci Ody overtakes a Tac Ody to be ~123 Seconds (for Mk XI consoles) or ~170 Seconds (for Mk XII consoles).
In practice it'll be closer than that if you're using projectiles at all, since Sensor Analysis will affect Kinetic damage as well as whatever energy type you're shooting.
The main problem is that if you're playing anything other than "Pure DPS" you'll probably want to heal or buff your teammates occasionally, and swapping targets to heal them tends to kill Sensor Analysis.
(The above may have changed, since I last tested it when the Ody variants first hit Holodeck).
However, BOFF slotting can be much different on a Tac Ody to a Sci if you're going for max DPS and sufficiently good survivability:
Consider a Tac Ody, without dropping its saucer section. Instead of needing both EPTSx2 and EPTWx2 to be highly effective in battle (the traditional "Dragon Flagship" build) it can afford to just run EPTSx2 and use its normal power settings to hit 125 weapons power. That means that it can use the Ensign Universal BOFF slot for an Engineer BOFF, and the LtCom Universal BOFF slot for a Tactical BOFF. This gives it a far more potent combination of Tactical BOFF abilities than a Sci Ody (which requires the LTCom Engineer for the same power setup, and is reduced to using a Universal Ensign Tac BOFF) at the expense of a little survivability (basically a LtCom Engineering Slot, since you no longer need two slots for EPTW).
Thanks for the clarification.
I found this not to be the case.
I've run tests on a friend's ship and in multiple ESTF combat parsings.
The Sci Ody always comes out extremely far ahead.
In the basic tests I tested for DPS results at 30s, 60s, and 120s - and the Sci Ody was ahead almost the exact same amount each time. This is against a stationary target who was healing themselves, the only powers used each time were EPTW 1x2 and BFAW 1/2.
On ESTFs, using ACT, the Sci Ody has consistently come out ahead by approximately 1k DPS.
I'm not sure why this is like this exactly, but after 1 week in the Tac Ody and 1 week in the Sci Ody - I see no reason of any kind to ever use the Tac Ody instead.
While I like your ideas on weapon power and how that would let you run something other than EPTW, Sensor Analysis is quite frankly so strong that it doesn't really seem to matter.
On top of this, the Sci Ody will also have an extra Sci Console for yet another Field Generator.
This may be a silly question, but you did remember to clear your targeting and let the buff go away prior to starting your tests, right? :P
Now that IS wierd.
I can accept that the damage buff itself might be too strong; but the underlying stacking mechanic should mean that regardless of how broken the buff itself is, the difference between a Sci and a Tac Ody should be less pronounced at the start (after the first 6 seconds) and far more pronounced after 60 seconds.
There'd be little point in testing ongoing DPS over more than 60 seconds though since after 60 seconds the maximum damage is achieved (+33.3% damage).
Given past experience, I'd not be surprised if it was currently doing multiplicative rather than additive damage (e.g. every 6 seconds you get an additional 3.33% TOTAL damage rather than BASE damage, so after 60 seconds you'd be doing a full third higher damage than at the start). If that's the case then it would act like a personal damage resistance debuff, which would make it far more powerful than the equivilant additive damage buff (from Tac Consoles or BOFF abilities or whatever).
Ever since I managed to grab a D'Kora I don't fly Odys much anymore, but I do fly a Nebula occasionally... Sensor Analysis on it doesn't show up as an icon on your power tray but on your foe. Usually whenever you use an ability and the icon for that ability shows up on your enemy rather than you, it's because that ability works by granting a temporary passive "power" to your foe (in this case, for example, it could be something like "take X% more damage from player Y"). These sort of foe-based powers don't have access to any of your ship's stats, only those of your foe... so any "damage buff" they grant would kick in against the current damage you're actually doing to your foe, instead of your base damage. Basically, it'd be like having your own personal always-on copy of Attack Pattern Beta, rather than Attack Pattern Alpha.
I'm not 100% sure that it's working like this, but it'd certainly help explain such a big difference in DPS.
Something else that adds to my suspicion that Sensor Analysis is working this way is that if you open up your power tray and look at the DPS value listing for a weapon (say a Disruptor Turret) the listed DPS value for that weapon will stay constant instead of rising whenever your Sensor Analysis buff kicks in (but the value will rise/fall for any other buffs e.g. Tac Team or Attack Pattern Alpha).
To the OP: The Tactical Odyssey is not bad in any way or shape, it and the Ops Odyssey are simply obsoleted by the Science Odyssey.
Not a silly question at all, yes I did.
It was extremely interesting in that both builds were extremely consistent in their DPS results.
That is to say both the Sci & Tac Ody 30s, 60s, and 120s results were all within about 50 to 200 DPS of their internal scores (ex: Sci 30s vs. 60s vs. 120s were all very close, with the longer durations being slightly higher but not as much as I expected).
This was me, selecting target, firing for 30s and then stopping and resetting for a new test.
That's what I was expecting.
I just wanted to be thorough, but yes there was no real point to it.
That's what I suspect is happening, that as you say the Tac console is affecting base damage but perhaps SA is affecting the overall final damage.
Whatever is going on, it's herculean in its output.
That's interesting, I hadn't looked at that during the testing.
If I get a chance, and a willing friend, I'll do another round of tests.
Did a quick test using a ship with 3 MkXII Tac Consoles and my usual allocation of 9/9 skillpoints to weapons-related skills.
Assuming that SA is acting on total damage not base, it looks like the cumulative damage cutoff point for a Tac to start being outdamaged by a Sci should be around 31 Seconds, with the "damage per shot" cutoff point being only 18 seconds. (Maybe very slightly more than that if you don't have as much skillpoint investment or any passive DPS buffs from accolades, in which case Tac Consoles would contribute a slightly higher % of your total damage).
It'd be good to get this corroborated by further testing...