But if you sit on top of them, you're out of their torp firing arc. I may be nuts, but I'm not stupid lol... The only things that can hit you when you are directly above or below them are the plasma and tetryon mk (some ridiculously high number, cuz honey, it ain't XII) beam arrays.
No torps means no death peas, and since they don't have the heavy plasma cannons that the gateways do, you're pretty safe. I do the same thing with my escort and raptor. Fly in high and fast, sit on top, and blast em point blank from well outside their torp range. Works on tac cubes and regular cubes.
Of course, the best of times are when your oh-so-helpful teammates bring in the tac cube before even touching the gate. Of course you COULD all run to the other side of the gate but who does that? Would Sisko do that? I don't think so! So like a Boss you park your space whale derriere on top of the Tac Cube and tank both the cube and the gate... a little bit of FAW+APB and things go swimingly.
EDIT: I also should have stated that this thread is made by an Engineering captain, so that's a little more DPS down the tube. XD
My cruiser capt is an engi. It works out perfectly tbh, you can use your high end Engi boff skils for Aceton Beams and EPTW3, while relaying on your innate engi abilities to pull off desperate heals.... every engi has a little Mr. Scott inside (gotta love that Miracle Worker!).
But again, I use either the free Ody (Univ Lt. Cmdr and Lt. Tac means 5 tac powers) and before that the AC (Lt and Ens. Tac for 3 Tac power slots), so I'm not drowning in redundant ultra healing powers like the Galaxy. The more I think about it the more badly designed the Galaxy seems. I was never a fan of the ship but it is kinda sad to see it be so relatively unfun to fly for much of the playerbase.
Of course, the best of times are when your oh-so-helpful teammates bring in the tac cube before even touching the gate. Of course you COULD all run to the other side of the gate but who does that? Would Sisko do that? I don't think so! So like a Boss you park your space whale derriere on top of the Tac Cube and tank both the cube and the gate... a little bit of FAW+APB and things go swimingly.
Alas, I would be more than happy to do that, but no space whale, just a sovy XD and a shovel. And hell no am I getting closer than 9k to that fkin gate while tanking a tac cube. Heavy plasma cannon anyone? Not I XD. I am happy to tank, but not so keen on dying, and unfortunately the sovy is just squishy enough and my cds are just long enough that tanking both cube and gate is a no no (even with neutronium and field generators).
Only real reason behind that is I have to divert most of my power to weapons to maintain aggro so I can be the tank (since I have zilch threat control).
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Second: It was Clearly stated that the Lakota held back much of it's firepower (torpedoes) and if it would have been a "real" fight for the death, thing would have gone very different. Captain Benteen clearly states that they only tried to disable the defiant, not to destroy it (2:22). On the other hand the Defiant DID use it's torpedoes (1:44).
Oh I agree, but in a game where spamming the space bar is the way to win a fight, there is very little ability to have a game that caters to real Trekkers who'd learn all the features of the ships, and at the same time be good for the shoot them up players.
There is no way to disable a ship in STO, as there is no way to do it in just about any combat game unless its part of the missions mechanics.
Mind you disabling ships and raiding them might be pretty neat. :cool:
Oh I agree, but in a game where spamming the space bar is the way to win a fight, there is very little ability to have a game that caters to real Trekkers who'd learn all the features of the ships, and at the same time be good for the shoot them up players.
There is no way to disable a ship in STO, as there is no way to do it in just about any combat game unless its part of the missions mechanics.
Mind you disabling ships and raiding them might be pretty neat. :cool:
Jim
I miss playing Bridge Commander They should make a second one.
While the cruiser can be a backseat healer it is not set in stone to do so. It can tank and hold aggro and with a tactical captain or an efficient player can dish out a respectable amount of dps.
While flying my cruiser with a tac and 6 beams and 2 torps I can definitely dps consistently BETTER then an escort.....I can hold my own against negh vars and cubes without having to run away. this means sustained DPS on the target as opposed to the escorts rear guns or NO GUNS as they flee to 10+km.
Cruisers are multi role ships...they do best as a tank and worst as a sci vessel and mediocre to good as a dps platform.
With the range of weapons effecting the dps potential i like to sit at the sweet spot...3k and pound away...also because my cruiser is versatile and fast...much was commited to maneuverability and my defense score is very high.... just move around in crcles hitting as i please and balancing shields as need be.
Tis is an age old debate and it is not with much merit...as with all ships it is about the player and how she builds the ships and uses it effectively.
Ships are not intended to be balanced...each class has its strengths and trying to make a cruiser on par with TAC/escorts is just a lil too much for me to swallow. There have been modest forays into making CRUISERS more tactical and they have worked well....AS LONG as you realize that cruisers are not escorts....
As far as I know the CRUISER is the backbone of the fleet....the ODDy is the best and grandest ship of the fleet..a powerful cruiser with much versatility and potential.
There has been much love to cruisers and i am sure there will be more....but I will counter anyone who says there has not been enough.....Thdey are superb tanks...great damage dealers and generally good healers........there is not much more u can ask for.
Then the escorts you fly, or fly with flat out suck. The ONLY cruiser that can DPS as well as an escort is the bortas, fleet vorcha, or maybe another DHC tac boff heavy cruiser I forgot to mention.
And if your escort can't 'stay on target' and keep the enemy in their foward arc they need more tank. TT, EPTS, BoI Doffs, and one more thrown in and nothing will kill that escort in a standard elite STF before it itself is dead. Aside from an ill timed invis-a-gate-torp or dono torp spead which ironically will kill the majority of cruisers as well.
My standard cube kill tactic? In an escort? Fly in point blank on a facing blasting away and wait for the HY torp to hit me and finish off the cube with its own splash damage from the torp. Yes, that is just how tanky a well built escort can be while still dealing the best DPS.
As I read on in this thread there are a lot of terrible cruiser captains.
I combat log all my fleet alerts (its pretty consistent, STFs have too large distance gaps)
As a tac in an escort I used to average 6500 dps.
After one patch that dropped to 5500 dps, I thought I was messed up, obviously they devs changed something.
I bought fleet weapons and my numbers are back to 6500 dps, except against Tholians, they are wicked.
Now when I log fleet mates that I've coached to do damage an eng escort does 4500 dps in a non P2W ship.
A sci cruiser does 3500-4000 dps in excellsior
Normal pug cruisers 1500 dps
So is the problem cruisers or is it that people have no clue what they are doing? You'd be amazed how many tac escorts are running 800 dps.. seriously. The best pug cruiser I've ever seen is 2200 dps outside of our fleet.
Cruisers are more than fine, even 3500 dps as a sci cruiser is very capable, less than 1k difference between an escort.
So a 2,000 DPS gap is perfectly fine to you??
Using your peak at 6,500 dps in an Escort as a Tac Captain that is almost a 44.5% dps increase over the next closest number you posted....
Lets say his numbers jump to 5,000 in a P2W escort, that is still a 27.28% difference....
I notice that there are no Eng Cruiser numbers, so lets go with Science in the Excelsior numbers since those will be very close to what an Eng will be putting out as well.
So your 6,500 DPS compared to the Eng in an Excelsior Cruiser at 3,500 dps.
At this point the Engineer needs to cover a 3,000 DPS gap to reach your numbers. That is an insane 85.72% DPS difference. You've almost doubled his numbers! And that's not even touching peak DPS figures.
Let us say that it is the 4,000 dps number and not the 3,500 one.
62.5% difference.
Yeah, the way the game is at this point. If I was to talk a friend into playing it I'd tell them TAC is all that matters.
If you want to fly a cruiser you should be a Tac officer.
If you want to fly an escort either a Tac or Engie would be fine.
Don;t be an Engie in a cruiser....On Fed side at least.
As it is I wish I could reroll my Klink Engie to a Tac. IMO Engie carrer isnt needed. It's tanking overkill in my eyes.
I wouldnt tell anyone to try Sci, all my friends that got into the game with Sci in mind all left the game. Takes too focused a build to make a Sci truly work.
Yeah, the way the game is at this point. If I was to talk a friend into playing it I'd tell them TAC is all that matters.
If you want to fly a cruiser you should be a Tac officer.
If you want to fly an escort either a Tac or Engie would be fine.
Don;t be an Engie in a cruiser....On Fed side at least.
As it is I wish I could reroll my Klink Engie to a Tac. IMO Engie carrer isnt needed. It's tanking overkill in my eyes.
I wouldnt tell anyone to try Sci, all my friends that got into the game with Sci in mind all left the game. Takes too focused a build to make a Sci truly work.
I hate to say it. I really do. But synth is right. This game went from being an all class friendly game to a tac only game. And engis in cruisers are obsolete. We aren't needed anymore. Which kinda sucks, I put a lot of time and effort and zen into my engi. And now he's useless. Ish. Ok, who am I kidding, his kind is not needed anymore.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
As it is I wish I could reroll my Klink Engie to a Tac. IMO Engie carrer isnt needed. It's tanking overkill in my eyes.
If it is tanking overkill, change its boffs around and switch some of that unnecessary tankyness into debuffing and CCs. Carriers have lots of sci powers so the change should be relatively easy? Wish I could offer better advice, but my one big carrier toon is my KDF tac in a Vo'Quv, and she only flyes it once in a while.
So a 2,000 DPS gap is perfectly fine to you??
Using your peak at 6,500 dps in an Escort as a Tac Captain that is almost a 44.5% dps increase over the next closest number you posted....
Lets say his numbers jump to 5,000 in a P2W escort, that is still a 27.28% difference....
I notice that there are no Eng Cruiser numbers, so lets go with Science in the Excelsior numbers since those will be very close to what an Eng will be putting out as well.
So your 6,500 DPS compared to the Eng in an Excelsior Cruiser at 3,500 dps.
At this point the Engineer needs to cover a 3,000 DPS gap to reach your numbers. That is an insane 85.72% DPS difference. You've almost doubled his numbers! And that's not even touching peak DPS figures.
Let us say that it is the 4,000 dps number and not the 3,500 one.
62.5% difference.
Totally fair...
It isn't fair? You put a tactical in that same cruiser and what kind of damage are they doing?
Compare, 3500 dps in a sci cruiser vs 4500 dps in a eng escort. Is that fair? Totally.
You are trying to compare 3500 dps sci cruiser vs 6500 tac escort. That isn't even close to an even comparison.
A Cruiser MUST have lower DPS than an escort, it shouldn't be the same. They tank and are multi-role, that is going to cost you sometimes. An escort has damage and some can take damage (they don't tank,) as well, they have no secondary roles.
If we take the assumption that my ship being captained by a tac adds 2000dps (compared to eng escort), then that cruiser will notch up 5500 dps... thats impressive. Even if it was 5000 that'd be more than enough for a cruiser who can tank, and throw heals, even some zone control.
There is nothing wrong with cruisers, as skyranger1414 mentioned there are very real problems with the captains flying them. If you want to sit out at 9-10k instead of 3k that is fine, but realize you are going to drop that cannon build cruiser from 3500 dps to 1500 dps, even a beam boat (which I don't seem to have any capable logs of ) is going to lose 33% of its damage.
Stop complaining on the forums and learn how to fly your ship. I pvped with those cruisers last night, 3500dps of a shield draining cruiser is pretty rough. These guys are still learning and they actually had my shields down.
If it is tanking overkill, change its boffs around and switch some of that unnecessary tankyness into debuffing and CCs. Carriers have lots of sci powers so the change should be relatively easy? Wish I could offer better advice, but my one big carrier toon is my KDF tac in a Vo'Quv, and she only flyes it once in a while.
I use a Tac Bortasqu with my klink Engie. 1 Comander Engie with Damage control doffs. Use every other ability for Damage, Uni slots are Tacs.
A cruiser simply doesnt need more then that 1 Comander slot. I can agro everything and tank it.
BUT, tanking isnt neccesary is the point. Does it help? sure. but It'd be more help if I was in a scort, or say the Garumba which I have. Thats the problem. When a class isnt needed in a game and it'd be best if everyone was DPS.
There is nothing wrong with cruisers, as skyranger1414 mentioned there are very real problems with the captains flying them. If you want to sit out at 9-10k instead of 3k that is fine, but realize you are going to drop that cannon build cruiser from 3500 dps to 1500 dps, even a beam boat (which I don't seem to have any capable logs of ) is going to lose 33% of its damage.
Indeed, that's a large problem with the playerbase.
They fly at 9km from their targets then complain that their damage is too low, their survivability tools extraneous and "the game is too DPS-based"... then form some nonsensical conclusion on Ship balance and ignore every evidence of the contrary; resulting in the "MAEK CRUZAR STRONGARRR" lobbying we see.
On the other hand, if you hug your targets, you'll do a lot more damage and take a lot more; at which point you'll realise how useful the Cruiser's (or the Eng Captain's) advantage in survivability is.
Did the Enterprise D ever rip through ships? The fights were long and drawn out, if you want to be a Picard than fly the cruiser, if you want to be a Sisko you take the escort. The Enterprise D balanced shields, use secondary weapons and engineering abilities. They defeated their opponents in a versatile way, rarely with just superior fire.
In DS9 the Defiant ripped through ships with efficient focused firepower, there was none of this target their weapons array TRIBBLE, it was close to within point blank range and rip a hole in their hull. They primarily evaded targets weapons fire but could still take a pounding, when their hull was breached that was the end of them, just like in the game now. They are combat vessels, in the game they have little ability otherwise.
We won't go into how bad science is, its far too magic and gimmicy that the show never displayed.
The game content may be too combat based, it doesn't mean the ships are wrong. My biggest gripe with the game is them making enemies too weak individually and supplementing quality with quantity, all the endless area attacks isn't very Trek at all.
Better and more diverse game content is how cruisers and science vessels will excel, in every STF we attack, that is an escort's job. In Blockade you defend and support and its very easy for a cruiser to excel here. If new missions are defense and utility related you'll see escorts drop off as they will be unable to cope with it. If fleet alert weren't so easy a cruiser's heals on the starbase would be useful, but as it is now even the DPS of 3 cruisers can finish it.
yes the Enterprise D has ripped through ships hull before look at the episode when they meet the borg the first time. Yes the escorts are pure combat ships, but in the game the healers are science ships so the cruiser are in between that they should be mostly DPS/tank or all three but not as powerful but still able do do some damage, escorts against a cruiser should not be able to rip through cruiser with easy sure they should give them trouble and a cruiser should be able to hit the shields and lower it. Maybe what they should do increase the escorts hull strength to?
...
Alright... so now that we have established that the player base is terrible are competent and that cruisers are indeed underpowered and perfectly fine at the same time while the ships are badly designed but perfect, why don't we just cut to the chase.
All you guys have done is taken my thread and turned it into a peanut galleria of argumentation and criticism.
I do not appreciate this. At all. Why don't you guys take your bull TRIBBLE and get off. Please.
This thread was made for one reason. I hate the fact that cruisers are kinda understated. They were the heart of the Federation. And now they have to take a backseat. I don't like this, it's just my opinion. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion after all.
So I left this thread so people can offer CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTIONS. I mean after all, I didn't write this thread to rant. I started it so ideas can be put on the table. Now some of them are ludicrous, I will agree, but that's no reason to bash them. You simply state that maybe there's something wrong, and state why, none of this just attack the players outright.
So please, for crying out loud, get back on the original purpose of this thread. I would enjoy suggestions and solutions, not more problems or arguments.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Of course these numbers are open for debate. But think about it. Cruisers deal less damage then escorts but since they have a large crew it would be hard for enemies to lower the damage modifier. Escorts are high damage dealers but would be pretty much useless after taking some hits. Having at least one tanking cruiser in STFs would thus be absolutely necessary.
Science ships could specialize in killing enemy crew as well as "healing" your own. Thus it would be highly beneficial having one of those in your group if you attack a tac cube for example. And especially escorts would depend on them.
To summarize it again:
1. Cruisers tank and deal stable, medium to high damage
2. Escorts deal very high damage as long as as they are not shot upon
3. Science vessels kill or disable enemy crew as well as healing friedly one and deal medium damage
are you kidding me?? cruisers useless?? omfg, my cruiser (c-store excelsior) is awsome, 1000's of battles and hardly any deaths, depends on skill powers and gear if you ask me
Of course these numbers are open for debate. But think about it. Cruisers deal less damage then escorts but since they have a large crew it would be hard for enemies to lower the damage modifier. Escorts are high damage dealers but would be pretty much useless after taking some hits. Having at least one tanking cruiser in STFs would thus be absolutely necessary.
Science ships could specialize in killing enemy crew as well as "healing" your own. Thus it would be highly beneficial having one of those in your group if you attack a tac cube for example. And especially escorts would depend on them.
To summarize it again:
1. Cruisers tank and deal stable, medium to high damage
2. Escorts deal very high damage as long as as they are not shot upon
3. Science vessels kill or disable enemy crew as well as healing friedly one and deal medium damage
What do you think?
I like this idea however we do have to take into account that cruisers are not going to get up close and personal with a cube (unless of course they have a death wish) so it would still be worth boosting Beam arrays such that a cruiser can sit at 5km and still dish out the majority of its damage potential, this allows it to stay out of the way of any escorts, dish out same nice supporting damage, repair the escorts and not risk orbiting their targets.
Also I think with that system science would need either a "med team" or add such a property to "Sci Team" I think add it to sci team as there isn't all that much it really does:
Remove sci debuffs, small shield heal.
I think that's it... I think a crew heal would be a nice thing to add to that., on top of this I think that sickbay in general could use a buff, it doesn't make sense that sickbay would become as ineffective at red alert as the game suggests (Green alert crew recovery of something in the order of 25% per minute, red alert 1% per minute), I think that while sickbay would see a relative decrease in efficiency, with the extra people coming in I think crew recovery at red alert should be lets say 10% on cruisers, 20% on science ships and perhaps 5% on escorts due to the sickbay size and likely medical complement.
Feel free to play with these ideas and perhaps we can find a way of making science ships and cruisers more useful without breaking balance
Of course these numbers are open for debate. But think about it. Cruisers deal less damage then escorts but since they have a large crew it would be hard for enemies to lower the damage modifier. Escorts are high damage dealers but would be pretty much useless after taking some hits. Having at least one tanking cruiser in STFs would thus be absolutely necessary.
Science ships could specialize in killing enemy crew as well as "healing" your own. Thus it would be highly beneficial having one of those in your group if you attack a tac cube for example. And especially escorts would depend on them.
To summarize it again:
1. Cruisers tank and deal stable, medium to high damage
2. Escorts deal very high damage as long as as they are not shot upon
3. Science vessels kill or disable enemy crew as well as healing friedly one and deal medium damage
What do you think?
Well the ships with the most crew tend to lose crew the fastest. a carrier with 4k people on board gets hit with the torpedo death/disable proc and 500 people die, an escort gets hit with the proc and 2 people scrape their knee. Also, crewloss resistance works better with smaller crews, a bop with a jem shield's brace effect will practically never lose crew while a cruiser with the same shield won't have the same magic crew immunity. Also, it doesn't make much sense, it's not like a ship with 1k people does more damage than a ship with 100 people because those 900 extra people are all on generator bikes powering the weapons... lol.
Well the ships with the most crew tend to lose crew the fastest. a carrier with 4k people on board gets hit with the torpedo death/disable proc and 500 people die, an escort gets hit with the proc and 2 people scrape their knee. Also, crewloss resistance works better with smaller crews, a bop with a jem shield's brace effect will practically never lose crew while a cruiser with the same shield won't have the same magic crew immunity. Also, it doesn't make much sense, it's not like a ship with 1k people does more damage than a ship with 100 people because those 900 extra people are all on generator bikes powering the weapons... lol.
I'm not sure. I had plenty of situations with my Tactical Escort Retrofit in which I ended up having zero crew. But I never seem to lose more then a few hundred i.e. 20-30% with my Galor. If necessary a crew protection modifier could be introduced as well. High for cruisers, middle for science ships and low for escorts. This would make sense since on a big ship there's much better protected shelter deep inside the ship.
Making weapon damage dependant on percentage of crew alive does make sense indeed. A larger crew makes the ship systems more redundant. Imagine a hull breach on engineering deck. Let's say everybody got blown out into space before an emergency forcefield could be established. With a big crew you have plenty of experts to replace them while with a small crew you pretty much lost everybody who knows how an engine works. I know it's a silly example but valid nontheless.
If I can put my 2 ECs in here for a second. I wanted to post last night when I read this thread, however it was very late and I was in bed when I was formulating a post.
And I'm at work now so I couldn't read through each post on my phone so I apologize ahead of time if this was already stated.
While I agree with most of what I read and see that cruisers are not as intimidating as they are in canon, I do feel that a rebalance of ships isn't really necessary.
What does need to be balanced in my opinion is content. There is a high demand for doing thing quickly, especially at end-game and the fact of the matter is, tacs in escorts do it fastest. There should be a bigger emphasis on team work and team balance within the content. Sure things should be soloable too, however I think science vessel captains and cruiser captains would get more satisfaction if the true power of their ships was more of a necessity.
I also think that for there to be true tanking in this game, which I think cruisers were intended for, there needs to be a better system for threat generation. Maybe like one of the posters mentioned about a heavy beam, that could have an increased threat generation on it as well for example so the cruiser can pull aggro off of a squishy escort.
If you notice in other MMOs, tanks always do less damage than dps classes because their job is to survive. But they also should be able to hold aggro and take heat off the other classes while whittling down the targets. I'm almost always playing a tank in every other MMO, infact when I created my STO toon at launch, I created him with the thought that he could be a tank, which of course I was mostly wrong (tactical).
I go through phases of using different ships depending on my mood. But I do love being in a huge cruiser and absorbing all the damage. I get satisfaction out of that even knowing im not doing the dps I could be doing in an escort.
It also depends on the captain, and what they want out of their ship. I've flown glass cannons, escort evasive tanks, cruiser absorb tanks, cruiser heal boats, cruiser dps, sci control ships, and sci heal boats. Of course some ships and captain class are more effective at certain things, but that does not mean any captain can tailor any ship to do what they want by changing weapon load out, boffs, console set up, etc.
I'm a dork with 15 end-game toons, and literally every ship in the game, including c-store and lock box ships. I just dont have all the Fleet versions... yet. I've flown all efficient builds to experimental good and bad. My main tac has 24 RA-VA ships alone. I love theory crafting and talking "shop" about ship building so I apologize if I went a little long in this post.
THAT's the single most intelligent comment on this thread concerning Cruisers in PVE
For Cruisers to be more useful in current PVE they just need a inherent thread generation. Buffed by the skilltree.
And the STF's need a longer timer or enemys who must be tanked/pulling it away from the other targets.
THAT's the single most intelligent comment on this thread concerning Cruisers in PVE
For Cruisers to be more useful in current PVE they just need a inherent thread generation. Buffed by the skilltree.
And the STF's need a longer timer or enemys who must be tanked/pulling it away from the other targets.
Cruisers where not designed to tank content when the game first was launched several years ago but instead where designed to be able to absorb more damage than the other classes. The word tank was used due to people understanding that role as a terminology.
So my question would be this. If cruisers get a compulsory threat modifier inbuilt into them, would people support the idea of being able to re-spec out of their class of choice? Ive spent most of my time with 1 toon, and spent c-store points on that character, having to put that character aside isnt an option to me.
I hate to be repetitive but threats like this are full of demagogic content specially when you bring out some consistent clues about something relevant, and again here is, the shield modifier ratio between sci and cruisers is usually 0.33, while the shield modifier ratio between escorts/destroyers is 0,01, meaning that a escort/destroyer have almost the same shield regeneration and capacity of cruisers, while the science have almost a 30% more of both.
While this are decimal numbers in the practice gives a hig boost to survivality rate of escorts/destroyers if escorts are damage dealers so be it, but dont try to sell equality in terms of stats because is false, i can accept destroyers to have a 0.85 but escorts shouldnt go over 0.75 then things will go more balanced and healers role will come in need again making cruisers at least desirable to be in groups.
Now demagogic coments are going to pop out and tactics like divert attention or demoniztion, also will come handy arguments ad hominem.
I don't mean to be rude, but cruisers CAN do decent DPS. If your toon is specced properly to do damage, & your cruiser properly set up to do damage. My main is a Klingon Engi. ( & granted, its easier to DPS in a klingon cruiser, but not much. & only because of the slightly better turn rate. Run Aux 2ID to improve the turn rate on your fed cruisers) I run my fed engi with almost the exact same setup as i do my klingon & do great damage) I don't run cannons on my mirror Vor'cha. I get & hold agro in STF's without a single wasted skillpoint in threat generation. I max spec in energy weapons damage. And i run full power to weapons, with a pair of Beam overloads in my tac slots. Thats all you need to hold aggro right there. I also will pretty much always destroy an escort 1 on 1 in PVP, unless he gets a lucky crit, or is flying a bug. I can't catch a bug, so they can run away from me. I hate to throw the L2P thing around, but I am stating simple facts. I have well over 1000 hours on my main engi toon. I used to suck also. I couldn't do anything right. But through practice, & perseverance, I have become a cruiser pilot to be reckoned with. I can do damage while tanking, & i have not run a RSP on my cruisers since season 2. It's about how you build your toon , & your ship. My Engi isn't the best healer, because i don't build it that way. But i carry ES2, ET1, He1 & Tss2 which help me tank & can be used to help others. I use EWP3 to hold my opponents while i pummel them. ( escorts don't shield tank, they are hard to hit because of the speed they fly. Take that away with EWP or a properly timed TB & they explode very nicely). Cruisers can be excellent for almost any role in this game if the toon that flys it & the ship itself are properly set up. I can't get the burst damage as easily as an escort. But i can catch my opponent in plasma, TB him, Fire a BO2 & time a tricobalt torp to hit right after my BO. the end result is often a dead target. Don't just hang your head & say My Engineer sucks, ima go roll a tac. MAKE YOUR ENGI WORK. It can be done. There are great threads with build advice for cruisers on the PVP forum. The tactics you decide to use will determine how you want to spec your toon, & equip your Cruiser. Screaming that cruisers suck because you don't know how to use them is pointless, because there are some fantastic cruiser pilots in this game who prove you wrong every day.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] Time played in game. as of 9/12/12 (on my mains) Total 2907 hours.K'zoontite has been on active duty for 34 days, 3 hours, Bot Fly has been on active duty for 55 days, 4 hours, Poppa Capp has been on active duty for 4 days, 12 hours, B'zooka has been on active duty for 12 days, 22 hours,Tater(fed) has been on active duty for 14 days, 10 hours,
It sounds to me like the problem here is people thinking that any given ship should be tailored to their personal playing style, rather than being restricted by their play style to a certain class of ship.
Well the ships with the most crew tend to lose crew the fastest. a carrier with 4k people on board gets hit with the torpedo death/disable proc and 500 people die, an escort gets hit with the proc and 2 people scrape their knee. Also, crewloss resistance works better with smaller crews, a bop with a jem shield's brace effect will practically never lose crew while a cruiser with the same shield won't have the same magic crew immunity. Also, it doesn't make much sense, it's not like a ship with 1k people does more damage than a ship with 100 people because those 900 extra people are all on generator bikes powering the weapons... lol.
It sounds to me like the problem here is people thinking that any given ship should be tailored to their personal playing style, rather than being restricted by their play style to a certain class of ship.
Outside of wanting to turn on a dime, most folks probably find that they can fly any ship to their personal style because the style of the ships means so little.
1-50...it doesn't matter at all - so why expect them to change at 50?
Need to travel half the known universe on a diplomatic mission carrying medical supplies out the wahzoo - don't need a cruiser, you can take the wee escort. It has as much cargo capacity - living spaces are as nice - etc, etc, etc.
Need to conduct some advanced analysis of various unknown objects out beyond the spatial horizon - don't need a sci, you can take the wee escort. It's got everything you need!
Need to tackle a group of pirates in small ships - don't need the escort, you can take the sci or cruiser.
Example after example of where folks are using the obviously wrong ship for any given task... and then it's a case of expecting them to realize that changes at 50?
There are fundamental flaws - it's going to cause folks at 50 to throw the random hissyfit. They've gone from doing everything to having to do...something. Something they perhaps do not want to do - something they never had to do.
Comments
Of course, the best of times are when your oh-so-helpful teammates bring in the tac cube before even touching the gate. Of course you COULD all run to the other side of the gate but who does that? Would Sisko do that? I don't think so! So like a Boss you park your space whale derriere on top of the Tac Cube and tank both the cube and the gate... a little bit of FAW+APB and things go swimingly.
My cruiser capt is an engi. It works out perfectly tbh, you can use your high end Engi boff skils for Aceton Beams and EPTW3, while relaying on your innate engi abilities to pull off desperate heals.... every engi has a little Mr. Scott inside (gotta love that Miracle Worker!).
But again, I use either the free Ody (Univ Lt. Cmdr and Lt. Tac means 5 tac powers) and before that the AC (Lt and Ens. Tac for 3 Tac power slots), so I'm not drowning in redundant ultra healing powers like the Galaxy. The more I think about it the more badly designed the Galaxy seems. I was never a fan of the ship but it is kinda sad to see it be so relatively unfun to fly for much of the playerbase.
Alas, I would be more than happy to do that, but no space whale, just a sovy XD and a shovel. And hell no am I getting closer than 9k to that fkin gate while tanking a tac cube. Heavy plasma cannon anyone? Not I XD. I am happy to tank, but not so keen on dying, and unfortunately the sovy is just squishy enough and my cds are just long enough that tanking both cube and gate is a no no (even with neutronium and field generators).
Only real reason behind that is I have to divert most of my power to weapons to maintain aggro so I can be the tank (since I have zilch threat control).
Oh I agree, but in a game where spamming the space bar is the way to win a fight, there is very little ability to have a game that caters to real Trekkers who'd learn all the features of the ships, and at the same time be good for the shoot them up players.
There is no way to disable a ship in STO, as there is no way to do it in just about any combat game unless its part of the missions mechanics.
Mind you disabling ships and raiding them might be pretty neat. :cool:
Jim
I miss playing Bridge Commander
Then the escorts you fly, or fly with flat out suck. The ONLY cruiser that can DPS as well as an escort is the bortas, fleet vorcha, or maybe another DHC tac boff heavy cruiser I forgot to mention.
And if your escort can't 'stay on target' and keep the enemy in their foward arc they need more tank. TT, EPTS, BoI Doffs, and one more thrown in and nothing will kill that escort in a standard elite STF before it itself is dead. Aside from an ill timed invis-a-gate-torp or dono torp spead which ironically will kill the majority of cruisers as well.
My standard cube kill tactic? In an escort? Fly in point blank on a facing blasting away and wait for the HY torp to hit me and finish off the cube with its own splash damage from the torp. Yes, that is just how tanky a well built escort can be while still dealing the best DPS.
So a 2,000 DPS gap is perfectly fine to you??
Using your peak at 6,500 dps in an Escort as a Tac Captain that is almost a 44.5% dps increase over the next closest number you posted....
Lets say his numbers jump to 5,000 in a P2W escort, that is still a 27.28% difference....
I notice that there are no Eng Cruiser numbers, so lets go with Science in the Excelsior numbers since those will be very close to what an Eng will be putting out as well.
So your 6,500 DPS compared to the Eng in an Excelsior Cruiser at 3,500 dps.
At this point the Engineer needs to cover a 3,000 DPS gap to reach your numbers.
That is an insane 85.72% DPS difference. You've almost doubled his numbers! And that's not even touching peak DPS figures.
Let us say that it is the 4,000 dps number and not the 3,500 one.
62.5% difference.
Totally fair...
If you want to fly a cruiser you should be a Tac officer.
If you want to fly an escort either a Tac or Engie would be fine.
Don;t be an Engie in a cruiser....On Fed side at least.
As it is I wish I could reroll my Klink Engie to a Tac. IMO Engie carrer isnt needed. It's tanking overkill in my eyes.
I wouldnt tell anyone to try Sci, all my friends that got into the game with Sci in mind all left the game. Takes too focused a build to make a Sci truly work.
I hate to say it. I really do. But synth is right. This game went from being an all class friendly game to a tac only game. And engis in cruisers are obsolete. We aren't needed anymore. Which kinda sucks, I put a lot of time and effort and zen into my engi. And now he's useless. Ish. Ok, who am I kidding, his kind is not needed anymore.
If it is tanking overkill, change its boffs around and switch some of that unnecessary tankyness into debuffing and CCs. Carriers have lots of sci powers so the change should be relatively easy? Wish I could offer better advice, but my one big carrier toon is my KDF tac in a Vo'Quv, and she only flyes it once in a while.
It isn't fair? You put a tactical in that same cruiser and what kind of damage are they doing?
Compare, 3500 dps in a sci cruiser vs 4500 dps in a eng escort. Is that fair? Totally.
You are trying to compare 3500 dps sci cruiser vs 6500 tac escort. That isn't even close to an even comparison.
A Cruiser MUST have lower DPS than an escort, it shouldn't be the same. They tank and are multi-role, that is going to cost you sometimes. An escort has damage and some can take damage (they don't tank,) as well, they have no secondary roles.
If we take the assumption that my ship being captained by a tac adds 2000dps (compared to eng escort), then that cruiser will notch up 5500 dps... thats impressive. Even if it was 5000 that'd be more than enough for a cruiser who can tank, and throw heals, even some zone control.
There is nothing wrong with cruisers, as skyranger1414 mentioned there are very real problems with the captains flying them. If you want to sit out at 9-10k instead of 3k that is fine, but realize you are going to drop that cannon build cruiser from 3500 dps to 1500 dps, even a beam boat (which I don't seem to have any capable logs of ) is going to lose 33% of its damage.
Stop complaining on the forums and learn how to fly your ship. I pvped with those cruisers last night, 3500dps of a shield draining cruiser is pretty rough. These guys are still learning and they actually had my shields down.
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I use a Tac Bortasqu with my klink Engie. 1 Comander Engie with Damage control doffs. Use every other ability for Damage, Uni slots are Tacs.
A cruiser simply doesnt need more then that 1 Comander slot. I can agro everything and tank it.
BUT, tanking isnt neccesary is the point. Does it help? sure. but It'd be more help if I was in a scort, or say the Garumba which I have. Thats the problem. When a class isnt needed in a game and it'd be best if everyone was DPS.
Indeed, that's a large problem with the playerbase.
They fly at 9km from their targets then complain that their damage is too low, their survivability tools extraneous and "the game is too DPS-based"... then form some nonsensical conclusion on Ship balance and ignore every evidence of the contrary; resulting in the "MAEK CRUZAR STRONGARRR" lobbying we see.
On the other hand, if you hug your targets, you'll do a lot more damage and take a lot more; at which point you'll realise how useful the Cruiser's (or the Eng Captain's) advantage in survivability is.
Did the Enterprise D ever rip through ships? The fights were long and drawn out, if you want to be a Picard than fly the cruiser, if you want to be a Sisko you take the escort. The Enterprise D balanced shields, use secondary weapons and engineering abilities. They defeated their opponents in a versatile way, rarely with just superior fire.
In DS9 the Defiant ripped through ships with efficient focused firepower, there was none of this target their weapons array TRIBBLE, it was close to within point blank range and rip a hole in their hull. They primarily evaded targets weapons fire but could still take a pounding, when their hull was breached that was the end of them, just like in the game now. They are combat vessels, in the game they have little ability otherwise.
We won't go into how bad science is, its far too magic and gimmicy that the show never displayed.
The game content may be too combat based, it doesn't mean the ships are wrong. My biggest gripe with the game is them making enemies too weak individually and supplementing quality with quantity, all the endless area attacks isn't very Trek at all.
Better and more diverse game content is how cruisers and science vessels will excel, in every STF we attack, that is an escort's job. In Blockade you defend and support and its very easy for a cruiser to excel here. If new missions are defense and utility related you'll see escorts drop off as they will be unable to cope with it. If fleet alert weren't so easy a cruiser's heals on the starbase would be useful, but as it is now even the DPS of 3 cruisers can finish it.
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USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
Alright... so now that we have established that the player base is terrible are competent and that cruisers are indeed underpowered and perfectly fine at the same time while the ships are badly designed but perfect, why don't we just cut to the chase.
All you guys have done is taken my thread and turned it into a peanut galleria of argumentation and criticism.
I do not appreciate this. At all. Why don't you guys take your bull TRIBBLE and get off. Please.
This thread was made for one reason. I hate the fact that cruisers are kinda understated. They were the heart of the Federation. And now they have to take a backseat. I don't like this, it's just my opinion. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion after all.
So I left this thread so people can offer CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTIONS. I mean after all, I didn't write this thread to rant. I started it so ideas can be put on the table. Now some of them are ludicrous, I will agree, but that's no reason to bash them. You simply state that maybe there's something wrong, and state why, none of this just attack the players outright.
So please, for crying out loud, get back on the original purpose of this thread. I would enjoy suggestions and solutions, not more problems or arguments.
100% alive = damage modifier 1
50% alive = damage modifier 0.7
0% alive = damage modifier 0.4
Of course these numbers are open for debate. But think about it. Cruisers deal less damage then escorts but since they have a large crew it would be hard for enemies to lower the damage modifier. Escorts are high damage dealers but would be pretty much useless after taking some hits. Having at least one tanking cruiser in STFs would thus be absolutely necessary.
Science ships could specialize in killing enemy crew as well as "healing" your own. Thus it would be highly beneficial having one of those in your group if you attack a tac cube for example. And especially escorts would depend on them.
To summarize it again:
1. Cruisers tank and deal stable, medium to high damage
2. Escorts deal very high damage as long as as they are not shot upon
3. Science vessels kill or disable enemy crew as well as healing friedly one and deal medium damage
What do you think?
I like this idea however we do have to take into account that cruisers are not going to get up close and personal with a cube (unless of course they have a death wish) so it would still be worth boosting Beam arrays such that a cruiser can sit at 5km and still dish out the majority of its damage potential, this allows it to stay out of the way of any escorts, dish out same nice supporting damage, repair the escorts and not risk orbiting their targets.
Also I think with that system science would need either a "med team" or add such a property to "Sci Team" I think add it to sci team as there isn't all that much it really does:
Remove sci debuffs, small shield heal.
I think that's it... I think a crew heal would be a nice thing to add to that., on top of this I think that sickbay in general could use a buff, it doesn't make sense that sickbay would become as ineffective at red alert as the game suggests (Green alert crew recovery of something in the order of 25% per minute, red alert 1% per minute), I think that while sickbay would see a relative decrease in efficiency, with the extra people coming in I think crew recovery at red alert should be lets say 10% on cruisers, 20% on science ships and perhaps 5% on escorts due to the sickbay size and likely medical complement.
Feel free to play with these ideas and perhaps we can find a way of making science ships and cruisers more useful without breaking balance
Well the ships with the most crew tend to lose crew the fastest. a carrier with 4k people on board gets hit with the torpedo death/disable proc and 500 people die, an escort gets hit with the proc and 2 people scrape their knee. Also, crewloss resistance works better with smaller crews, a bop with a jem shield's brace effect will practically never lose crew while a cruiser with the same shield won't have the same magic crew immunity. Also, it doesn't make much sense, it's not like a ship with 1k people does more damage than a ship with 100 people because those 900 extra people are all on generator bikes powering the weapons... lol.
I'm not sure. I had plenty of situations with my Tactical Escort Retrofit in which I ended up having zero crew. But I never seem to lose more then a few hundred i.e. 20-30% with my Galor. If necessary a crew protection modifier could be introduced as well. High for cruisers, middle for science ships and low for escorts. This would make sense since on a big ship there's much better protected shelter deep inside the ship.
Making weapon damage dependant on percentage of crew alive does make sense indeed. A larger crew makes the ship systems more redundant. Imagine a hull breach on engineering deck. Let's say everybody got blown out into space before an emergency forcefield could be established. With a big crew you have plenty of experts to replace them while with a small crew you pretty much lost everybody who knows how an engine works. I know it's a silly example but valid nontheless.
THAT's the single most intelligent comment on this thread concerning Cruisers in PVE
For Cruisers to be more useful in current PVE they just need a inherent thread generation. Buffed by the skilltree.
And the STF's need a longer timer or enemys who must be tanked/pulling it away from the other targets.
Cruisers where not designed to tank content when the game first was launched several years ago but instead where designed to be able to absorb more damage than the other classes. The word tank was used due to people understanding that role as a terminology.
So my question would be this. If cruisers get a compulsory threat modifier inbuilt into them, would people support the idea of being able to re-spec out of their class of choice? Ive spent most of my time with 1 toon, and spent c-store points on that character, having to put that character aside isnt an option to me.
While this are decimal numbers in the practice gives a hig boost to survivality rate of escorts/destroyers if escorts are damage dealers so be it, but dont try to sell equality in terms of stats because is false, i can accept destroyers to have a 0.85 but escorts shouldnt go over 0.75 then things will go more balanced and healers role will come in need again making cruisers at least desirable to be in groups.
Now demagogic coments are going to pop out and tactics like divert attention or demoniztion, also will come handy arguments ad hominem.
That literally made no sense...
Outside of wanting to turn on a dime, most folks probably find that they can fly any ship to their personal style because the style of the ships means so little.
1-50...it doesn't matter at all - so why expect them to change at 50?
Need to travel half the known universe on a diplomatic mission carrying medical supplies out the wahzoo - don't need a cruiser, you can take the wee escort. It has as much cargo capacity - living spaces are as nice - etc, etc, etc.
Need to conduct some advanced analysis of various unknown objects out beyond the spatial horizon - don't need a sci, you can take the wee escort. It's got everything you need!
Need to tackle a group of pirates in small ships - don't need the escort, you can take the sci or cruiser.
Example after example of where folks are using the obviously wrong ship for any given task... and then it's a case of expecting them to realize that changes at 50?
There are fundamental flaws - it's going to cause folks at 50 to throw the random hissyfit. They've gone from doing everything to having to do...something. Something they perhaps do not want to do - something they never had to do.