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Ship Type Balance... Hangars.
icegavel
Member Posts: 991 Arc User
For quite a long time now, DPS has been the effective King of Games, at least in STO. May the STF Fairies have mercy on your soul if you're not a Tactical officer specced into a DP-Escort. This is partially due to the fact that, really, no other ship is quite as effective. Even done PROPERLY, tanks have the equivalent firepower of a pellet rifle, and science vessels aren't much better off. They don't have the damage to be really effective, and their niche rolls are far too niche (tanks can't even really tank, an Elite Cube will still eat you alive and spit out the redshirts, and science vessels with stopping power are only useful for half of each STF). Overall, if you don't mind exploding a little (Escorts can even avoid this much of the time; but, if they don't it means nothing, there's no really threatening death penalty in this game), you go for a DP-Escort.
I don't like that. Not that DP-Escorts aren't fun, but there needs to be VARIETY in play styles. Other ships and builds need an edge, a buff. The Vesta is the perfect example of what that buff is, and it's not hard to conceive... it has a hangar.
So, what I have is really quite simple: If a ship is not a small craft, an Escort, or a Bird-of-Prey, it gets a hangar. Science Vessels/Raptors get one, Cruisers get two, and existing carriers get double what they have (except the Armitage - It only gets one more slot. It always felt like a half-cruiser half-Escort, especially since it has a Lt. Cmdr. Engineering slot and 4 Tac/3 Eng for consoles). This means that ships with a decent turn rate and damage potential get a smaller damage/control boosts, and those ships with horrible turn rates and all the damage of throwing bologna at an M1-A1 Abrams get more support craft. Meanwhile, existing carriers can make up for their utter lack of damage with small armies of fighters (up to 24). This means ships without damage get damage, and those ships WITH damage don't dominate the field like a Snorlax sitting in the middle of a road. This would be explained very easily: Science Vessels have only ever had one shuttlebay, whereas cruisers have several.
And, for those of you that are reading this and screaming "The Vesta Hangar is supposed to be SPECIAL," the simple fact of the matter is, the Vesta is special already. It has the fastest Slipstream, DHCs that don't use weapon power, AoE heals, super-phasers, Torpedo Feedback Pulse, 10 Console Slots each, and a mother-loving PERFECT SHIELD. That little runt of a Sovereign is special enough without being the only Science Vessel with a hangar. This is the best way, short of nerfing DPS to hell and creation, of balancing ship types.
I don't like that. Not that DP-Escorts aren't fun, but there needs to be VARIETY in play styles. Other ships and builds need an edge, a buff. The Vesta is the perfect example of what that buff is, and it's not hard to conceive... it has a hangar.
So, what I have is really quite simple: If a ship is not a small craft, an Escort, or a Bird-of-Prey, it gets a hangar. Science Vessels/Raptors get one, Cruisers get two, and existing carriers get double what they have (except the Armitage - It only gets one more slot. It always felt like a half-cruiser half-Escort, especially since it has a Lt. Cmdr. Engineering slot and 4 Tac/3 Eng for consoles). This means that ships with a decent turn rate and damage potential get a smaller damage/control boosts, and those ships with horrible turn rates and all the damage of throwing bologna at an M1-A1 Abrams get more support craft. Meanwhile, existing carriers can make up for their utter lack of damage with small armies of fighters (up to 24). This means ships without damage get damage, and those ships WITH damage don't dominate the field like a Snorlax sitting in the middle of a road. This would be explained very easily: Science Vessels have only ever had one shuttlebay, whereas cruisers have several.
And, for those of you that are reading this and screaming "The Vesta Hangar is supposed to be SPECIAL," the simple fact of the matter is, the Vesta is special already. It has the fastest Slipstream, DHCs that don't use weapon power, AoE heals, super-phasers, Torpedo Feedback Pulse, 10 Console Slots each, and a mother-loving PERFECT SHIELD. That little runt of a Sovereign is special enough without being the only Science Vessel with a hangar. This is the best way, short of nerfing DPS to hell and creation, of balancing ship types.
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I support this idea.
Surprised you there didnt I?
Unfortunately there is nowhere on this forum for sensible suggestions on ways to improve this game. Case in point this thread will soon be relegated, as mine are, to the third page behind rage threads or people complaining about game mechanics they dont understand.
Sensible feedback = handful of responses.
Whine the borg one shot you = dozens of pages of responses.
Just the way people who use the forums are.
And DP-Escorts aren't? 3 DHCs, a pair of turrets and fore/aft torpedoes. Give it about 5 seconds with the right buffs, and the only question you'll be asking is "What enemies?" Tell me... How much firepower does your carrier have with NO advanced frigates? Not much, probably. The Kar'Fi has probably the worst turn rate in the game. You could pop Evasive Maneuvers and barely get to Cruiser turn rate. Yes, the Kar'Fi can have DHCs. But, what's the point if you can't USE them? Beam Spam isn't as powerful as you may have been led to believe. Scatter Volley and Torp Spread 3 on any escort and any enemies in front of you are either dust or about to be. Beam Spam... Congratulations, you have all of the aggro and none of the damage to take anything out. Hope you fixed up your escape pods, you're gonna need them. Even the best tanks die eventually. I would know, I've got a tank. He can suck up a TRIBBLE ton of damage, but he still dies. So does my Chimera.
Believe it or not, no. Very little surprises me these days. Good to have the support, though. Who knows? If this DOES pass, you might actually end up flying a different ship once in a while.
Now Now I think he has a point. Escorts can do their cycle and go "What enemies?" but Carriers and the like have a bit more survivability than Escorts do.
That said I do like the expanded hanger slots.
Though I would say Existing Carriers expand to one more slot(for a total of 3 not 4). All else gets a hanger that can equip shuttles or To'Duj fighters(Klingons.) I cant see science or cruisers on the fed side carrying fighters as much as that would make sense gameplay wise. Shuttles are already pretty strong in their own right.
The extra Carrier slot would also only be able to equip small craft(Shuttles/Fighters). My B'rel and B'rolth already chew up enemies adding 4 more to that would just make it a virtually unstoppable juggernaut.
How to balance that with the Atrox's 2(3 with the proposed change) bays I would know. You already habve 12 stalkers. Adding another bay you'll have 18 fighters. They dont do much damage but its a death by a thousand cuts(that plus the thoron does about 2-3k at least thats what I see on teh Nanite generators)
And just as an aside not so serious suggestion:
Do you think FEDs should get a frigate equivalent to launch? Klinks get BoPs and Karfi Frigates. Should Feds get something like that? What would even be? Whats the equivalent?
A defiant?(Lol say hello to 4 defiants coming at you.)
Maybe just Sabers.
I dunno.
My preferred solutions revolve around some combination of:
* Increase maneuverability of all cruisers into the 8-10 deg/s range. This enables them to maneuver more proficiently, which means better use of more powerful weapons with smaller arcs.
* Give cruisers (and ONLY cruisers) an inherent 50% immunity to power drains, including from firing weapons. This would allow their beam arrays to function at a higher level of performance than would be available on other ships, and make these insanely power-hungry weapons more practical.
* Give cruisers a built in ability, somewhat similar to Sensor Analysis, but instead of only generating bonus damage it also gives bonus defense and bonus threat generation: the longer a cruiser fights a given target, the more damage they do, the less they take, and the more focused the enemy will be on them to the exclusion of other team mates.
* Modify Beam Overload to be a rapid-fire single-target DPS boost (like Rapid Fire) instead of a low-efficiency/high-spike modifier that provides no additional damage. Further incentivizing beams, being that beams currently suffer from an extremely specialized and 'balanced' set of tactical abilities while cannon abilities are easy to apply and entirely bonus without the drawbacks.
* Increase shield and hull values for cruisers significantly. The 10% stronger shield and hull that they get is laughable considering escorts evade more than 10% of incoming fire thanks to their high movement speed.
Cruisers and science need a Dps buff badly
I think a radiation proc that really worked could
Do this
A device that would increase radiation damage
By 50% of rated beam array damage
Pvp would not be affected , they have enough balance
Issues without adding more
Adjust the % of radiatition damage until the 3 classes are
More balanced I'n Dps
Something like this could work
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Revert science powers back to their former glory and make ANY sci power's damage exotic and tacs can't make them OP and that's the other ship class sorted.
I would however like to see all the EPtX powers perform as per EPtS though (buff lasts 30 seconds, as oppose to the 5 they do now)
Yea, about that... before I even FINISHED my build, before we even knew the Chimera existed... with only APO3, APA, TT, C:RF2 and T:HY2, I was getting 22k. Without those, I'm STILL getting over 10k. Fully buffed, I can probably get near 30k now (especially now that I have the Chimera, with its Spinal Lance FAW).
I actually considered just going with 3, not long after I posted this. Fact is, xsharpex's premise may be flawed, but he has a decent point. So many fighters MIGHT be a bit powerful.
As for Fed Frigate pets... I don't think so. Defiants (and even Mirandas) are a LITTLE big for hangar pets. I'd say, if you wanted something like that, launch Aquarius Destroyers. They're small enough to be more believable, and they've got good damage.
lol. you might be able to burst for 30k, but it doesn't mean you'll be able to sustain it. and if my "premise" is flawed, then tell me. would 8x heavy tricobalt torpedos not be considered stupidly overpowered? how about all the tricobalt mines they'll produce? let alone having them all fire at you with antiproton cannons. i know i can sustain stupid amounts of dps over any amount of time.
even if it weren't overpowered. think about the gamebreaking possibility. 5x carriers on a team, each equipped with 24 fighters, launching 24 torpedos. 120 fighters and 120 torpedos. or how about siphon drones? those suicide guys that ram your hull? imagine all the tractor beams. so tell me, how is my premise flawed?
Your premise is flawed very simply:
B:FAW. Scatter Volley. Torp Spread. Photonic Shockwave. Warp Plasma. If someone REALLY wanted to they could probably negate every torpedo, every mine, and probably kill MOST frigates. A team with a good coordination won't have any trouble with any of that (A smart Escort with Warp Plasma fools frigates into chasing, EWP. No torpedoes incoming, frigates are all but stopped and at the mersy of Scatter Volley/Torp Spread. GG). After that, all you have is five VERY slow vessels. I'm not saying it's not powerful, but it's not as strong as you think. Unless they made frigates, mines, and torpedoes permanently immune to all damage. Which they haven't. The frigates barely have phase shift.
Interesting suggestion. I believe the idea has definite potential.
LOL. you pugstar wannabee. you obviously have no idea what the hell you're talking about, so let me spell it out for you. in pve: it'll be incredibly gamebreaking because there are no enemies that use any combination of the skills you listed above. thus teams would steam roll through all pve content with no difficulty whatsoever. in pvp: most dedicated pvp'ers will till you that team play focuses on single target acquisiton and elimination. control, hold, debuff and focus fire for elimination.
and don't take my word for it. i hereby submit the following for review.
exhibit A
exhibit B
so, as my kar'fi is firing on you and draining your energy with my polaron weapons and plasmonic leech all the while dropping aceton assimilators and sucking your ship's power dry, opening you up to being held by either gw3 or energy siphon 3 or viral matrix 3. while currently 4 (or 8 as you propose) advanced frigates bombard your ship with tricobalt torpedos, dual antiproton cannons and other assorted goodies... tell me still how my premise is flawed?
you want real balance pass?
fix sci powers so pure sci ships aren't garbage. with inherent abilities like sensor analysis that can boost one's damage up to 30+% and target subsystems which can act like a huge nuisance if specced correctly, sci ships with their high shield modifier can be deadly. if the skills they relied on were fixed.
fix cruisers so beam arrays themselves weren't so damn useless. a tac in a cruiser, if built correctly, can hold their own. an engi or sci in a cruiser are there mainly as support. that's the bottom line. you're not going to be putting out massive dps like an escort. your job is to take the aggro, be able to tank like no tomorrow and put out continual dps over time.
tl;dr: your idea for hangers as a balance pass is asinine. please see the video for references as to how fighters/frigates/etc can easily be abused. carriers with hangers are big, slow and sluggish for a reason. i think it's time for you to go back to the drawing board to try to find another way to lazily boost your dps. i hope the next time, you'll take the hint and drop the issue before someone else completely rips your idea and drags it through the mud. but yeah, thanks for playing. it's been fun.
Although instead of ADDING more power it should replace something.
Maybe the commander station should always have been a universal First Officer station and the LC station the one to determine the ships flavour?
That way we could have DPS heavy cruisers and sci ships. Or tankable escorts and sci ships. Or debuffing escorts and cruisers. All with their pros and cons.
Actually, the B'rel used by the Klingon Carrier would actually be equal to a base fed escort (the LT COMM ones i.e. Saber, rapier, Ushaan) and the next step up would be the C-Store version (Gladius Class) with default weapons and special console.
they are SMALLER is size to the B'rel so adding a wing of 2 per bay is reasonable and, imo, If the devs are going to clone every thing that only the klingons had to the fed side, might as well do this too.
But if they can't get something like that, clearly they should get the Aquarius.
Though, my fed-side carrier is a Recluse and given their track record with frigates they'd make it tied to a specific ship so it wouldn't help me at all.
This post is "dated" three days ago. This is recent. I've also seen cruisers solo a Tac Cube. It's called Normal difficulty. With a good build in Normal, you need not lift so much as a finger.
And so the fun begins. Let me rip apart your argument, one half-witted case after another.
First off, let's start with your nearly-insulting quip about PvE and PvP. Have you ever been on a team with 5 Escorts in an STF? You're in and out in 5 minutes. DP-Escorts are ALREADY game-breaking. In PvP, it's ALMOST the same. "Target Acquisition and Elimination" is what DP-Escorts EXCEL at. Your own argument defeats itself.
Second is your NEXT self-defeating argument: Your videos. Exhibit A might as well be a point in MY favor. The idiot has mines and a dual beam, and NO AoE. He wasn't BUILT to fight carriers. Exhibit B is a premade vs a PUG. The enemy team was half-Cruiser, there wasn't NEARLY enough AoE against the fighters, and the enemy team ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. That video proves nothing, other than the fact that premades crush PUGs, which is already an established fact.
Third up is your bit on power drain. I've got bad news for you... half those abilities don't stack. It even says in the Energy Siphon tooltip that it doesn't stack with the others. Gravity Well 3 isn't a perma-stuck, either. As holds go, it's pretty weak, actually. Only really good in PvE for mass-killing frigates (OH wait, wasn't that what I was saying?). VM can be cleared by Science Team, Tractor beams can be resisted by Polarize Hull, etc. Most/all of those counters are pretty standard for any build. Well, the SHOULD be pretty standard, at any rate.
On the topic of cruisers, you'd be surprised what those Engineer Cruisers can do with the right buffs. But, you're right about their damage (not that it helps your case any, I suggested what I did to increase their damage output in the first place). A cruiser's damage, regardless of who's flying it, has all the damage of walking out the airlock and throwing deli meat at the enemy. Giving them fighters is designed to fix that VERY issue.
I'll give you kudos only on your Science Ship bit, but you're partially wrong even there: It's hard for anything with a 2 minute cooldown to be a nuisance (innate subsystem targeting).
Onto your tl;dr, when you say "tears your idea apart and drags it through the mud", do you mean like what I just did to your case? The only reason I didn't call your post out for flaming/trolling is because I didn't want a forum mod to be forced to read that TRIBBLE. I've been playing this game for a LONG time now, I'm pretty sure I'd know how it works by now.
Escort have cannons and dual heavy cannons
Cruisers and Science get torpedoes with 180 degree firing arc and -->heavy<-- beam arrays!
The heavy beam arrays would probably not solve the weapon power drop.
Wide Angle torps you say? Like the Assault Cruiser refit?
Zen please!
(1) since you are a "long time veteran" or so you claim, you will know then that STFs prior to what they are today were challenging and required teamwork and a variety of classes and ships. the revamp destroyed any balance it had and thus, made the three space stfs reliant on solely dps. that is a systems design flaw.
escorts are supposed to do damage, granted. but they're not supposed to be as tanky as a cruiser. that's another design flaw. one that was recently somewhat corrected with the break up of the 4-piece borg set. running a 3/1 set that gave you a shield heal and hull heal proc on damage taken while running a high capacity or high resistance shield is just dumb. running a 2/2 set that gave you a hull heal proc on damage taken and an additional passive ability is broken. because they fixed this exploit, escorts are not going to be as tanky as they were before and they will have to rely on support people for heals and such.
a standard escort generally has a lt engi and a lt sci. with maybe an ensign engi/sci. that's 5 powers for hull healing or shield repair. hazard emitters should be an absolute must, so you're down the 4 powers. rsp/auxtosif will take up the lt engi slot. down to 3 powers. epts will take up the final engi slot for the lt and should on decent builds take the ensign engi slot. thus, you are stuck with 1 last sci skill. you can use that for sci team, but it will interfere with you rolling tac team 24/7. it'd be nice to give it to another person when you're not being attacked, but under fire, tac team wins over sci team always, but you as a seasoned pvp and pve vet already knew that.
thus, a tac in an escort has very little options in terms of tanking massive spike damage or just lots of damage over time. that is the opportunity cost for flying a glass cannon. with the changes to the pve enemy ai and the new onslaught stf content, a team of 5 glass cannons should not be able to steam roll through that stf. that stf represents what stfs used to be prior to being split up and made into tac dps fests.
(2) that is a standard alpha strike pvp build. where you have a classic single target massive burst damage build. the kind of build that can put out the 22k spike dps that you claimed that you could. attack pattern omega, cannon rapid fire, high yield torpedos and a beam target shield. serious escort players in pvp have only one copy of cannon scatter volley 1 and that's merely to get rid of occasional spam. they are not rolling with multiple copies of aoe attack. look at any of the reputable guides in the pvp forums. they focus on single target attacks over aoe.
(3) prove it. all of my power drain abilities stack perfectly fine. i am not limited to using just 1. my polaron weapons + aceton assimilator + plamonic leech + energy siphon boff abilities stack just fine with each other. i've done multiple tests in pvp and it can easily shut down other players. so to this point, shut me up and prove me incorrect, because this is the build I fly every day and it is damn effective.
(4) gravity well 3 by itself is meh. combine it with proper doffs and speccing into the skills graviton generators and particle generators as well as other sci abilites and it can be pretty unforgiving. viral matrix can indeed be cleared by science team, but it should be granted to you by a person not taking fire. i guarantee that if you hit sci team to clear it yourself, there is no amount of manual shield distribution you can do that will mitigate the incoming damage you'll receive. this is where cross healing and team play come in. mind you, a good sci pilot will not unleash all their abilities on you at once. they will stagger their attacks and hit you when you are most vulnerable. all buffed up and you get snb'd? hit sci team. then we hit viral matrix. then you're open to be picked apart for the next 30 seconds while your sci team and tac team are on cooldown.
(5) i've got a couple of tac captains in cruisers that would beg to differ. they're not doing escort level damage, but their damage over time and survivability is amazing and that's where it comes down to. playing your role. learn to play your role correctly and leave it at that.
(6) you have 4 innate target subsystem abilities. target weapons is helpful for dropping your target's weapon power. target shields to decrease shield damage resistance and regen rate. target engines to slow your target down and decrease their overall defense bonus and target aux to limit their heals and sci related powers. yes, each one may have a 2 minute cooldown, but you have doffs for that and there are 4 separate powers that have a 30 second global cooldown. if used correctly and specced properly (flow capactiors and subspace decompiler) they can be very deadly and quite the nuisance.
(7) sorry if my tl;dr was a little harsh. but the fact of the matter remains that i have given logical and concrete evidence as to why everyone should not have hangars. the videos that i showed were mere examples of how these hangars could be exploited. i'm sorry if i disagree with your initial idea, but I have made subsequent attempts to logically explain my position.
final note: in accordance to your idea, a fleet tor'kaht is classified as a cruiser. under your guidelines, it would be awarded 2 hangar bays. with 8 weapon bays that can use dual heavy cannons, a ltc and lt tac boffs slots, almost 40k in hull, an innate 10 (unbuffed) turn rate and a 1.1 shield modifier, it already is being flown as a heavy escort. the addition of a pair of hangars would indeed make this ship stupidly overpowered.
[edit] a couple resources
Learn how to play your class properly
PVP ship help and a couple builds
More ship builds
Some Sci stuff
The hangar did not need a solid 1min (2min with shield drones) cooldown, they just need to adjust the minimum AUX level needed to reduce the cooldown, since it's a science vessel. They could just set the minimum level to 65-75 and it wouldn't matter all that much.
The Consoles? I wont be using all of them, as I said, my build is Crowd Control. If any, I'd probably use the Quantum Phaser just to give me a small bit of spike damage.
It's nay-sayers like you people that get ships like these nerfed so badly. Did you stop and think that Science has been NEEDING a ship like this for over 8 MONTHS.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
I say stick with the ideas of new BOff abilities, Weapons and other non-intrusive buffs and stop trying to change the game becuase the gun better at killing than the shield or staff is.
R.I.P
i seriously don't think that is working as intended. the issue will get ironed out in a couple week. till then, don't sweat it.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha
I've been in a few PUG elite STFs that have been carrier fests, and the poor NPCs just dont stand a chance if the builds are half decent - PvP with Danube and Siphon drone spam isn't what I would classify as fun.
Simply the OP's idea sucks, sorry to be blunt but there you go.
Sci ships and cruisers are not useless - but they are much harder to build and pilot effectively than escorts even if you understand the game mechanics, and accepting a role that isn't primary damage dealer is unacceptable to many players egos.
If you wanted to boost science ships and cruisers, what they need IMHO is a rebalance of the science and engineering Boff abilities to make them more useful and fun on ships with an abundance of eng/sci Boff slots.
Sorry guys your work is inspired, but $120 depending on the rate R1 200 is a lot of cash to burn on a game where longevity is not certain. Yes i can see the positives of getting the packs, but hey im banging my head here just to ensure that i have the bandwith.
Sure it has a few irritations, but congrats . For a game this size, hey nothing is perfect. 1.6m credits for a once-off key is a bit insane. In closing thank you for FTP lets even us cheapasses get to see your creation and helps the "Legacy" of trekking live on..
edit: But i do not agree entirely with your methods of achieving that.
You realize this was posted almost 8 months ago and you just necro'ed it, right?