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Tired of cannons for sci ship threds...
pwstolemyname
Member Posts: 1,417 Arc User
Since we recived the Vesta there have been a lot of posts from people who want to improve the DPS of their Science ships. Some have requested aux turrets to go with the aux cannons on their Vesta. Some have wanted aux cannons with different damage types and some have simply wanted to fit dual cannons to pre existing science ships.
I am rather tired of these threads. I don't think we need more cannons on our science ships. But I do think that science ships need some attention. From the player base as a whole, who seem to have a lot of strange ideas about science ships, and from cryptic, who seem to have a lot of strange ideas about how to balance them.
My opinion is just one more in the ocean of opinions though and my perspective upon this is as likely to be biased as any one elses. So that you can form your own opinion about my opinion, hear is where I am coming from. Skip the next section if you really don?t give a hoot.
(you may wish to skip this)
I am a long time player. I primarily use a science captain. I have 42 boffs to ensure I have the right combination of abilities to make the most out of which ever ship I may be flying and for what ever purpose. I know and have tested all the abilities, weapons and skills in the game. I know how they actually perform as well as the often erroneous impressions their descriptions give.
Ships that I used a lot in the past:
Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit
Long Range Science Vessel Retrofit
Multi-Vector Advanced Escort
Ships that I use a lot now:
Fleet Tactical Escort Retrofit
Chimera Heavy Destroyer
Multi-Mission Reconnaissance Explorer
(End of section you may wish to skip)
Now the first problem I think we need to deal with is the misconception a lot of players have regarding what science ships are.
Science ships are not the ship equivalent of healers. If you relay want to set up a ship in a healing role you can do it in a science ship with a leaning toward engineering abilities, but a cruiser with a leaning toward science abilities will do this a lot better. (science support abilities only go up to Lt.Com level, Engineering ones go up to commander.)
Turn rate wise Science ships fit between escorts and cruisers. Some science ships have better turn rates then some escorts, and some cruisers have better turn rates then some science ships.
Damage wise Science ships are at the bottom of the heap. Both cruisers and Escorts can be set up to out DPS Science ships. The only exception being the Vesta, which can be set up as if it were an escort, though you may wish to ask yourself why you are doing this rather then simply using an escort, which will do the job an awful lot better.
Tanking in a science ship is quite interesting. The shield modifiers on science ships are as good they get. Some have decent hull points as well, others have very little hull to speak of. Set up to maximise the advantage of their shields some science ships can out tank cruisers.
So just what are science ships? I would like to say they fit a niche between escorts and cruisers. Flying an Advanced research vessel is a lot like flying a cruiser, while flying a long range science vessel can be a lot like flying an escort. But I am not sure science ships realy do fit between crusers and escorts. They are simply an odd bunch.
I think the role of science ships is meant to be defined by their science abilities, rather then by the statistics of the ships themselves. But science abilities cant do damage without encroaching on the role of escorts, and they cant defend against damage without encroaching upon the role of cruisers so many science abilities are reduced to the role of gimmicks, or have lengthy cool downs imposed upon them. Lets look at some examples.
Tachyon Beam. Honestly if this did what it said on the tin it relay would be too powerful. If you run elite STFs you know how troublesome tachyon beams that work as advertised can be. But those a player can produce really only tickle. The damage you can squeeze out of a tachyon beam simply doesn't approach the amount equivalent shield healing abilities can restore (or make up for the DPS you loose by pumping power out of weapons and into aux). Science ships may wish to use it as they need every little bit of damage they can do to keep up with cruisers and escorts but leave this one off ships with fewer science ability slots.
Tractor Beam. Fun, but not really useful in PVE: Use tractor on ship, kill ship. Kill a bunch more ships while tractor is on cool down. Then repeat. See how step two shows step one to have been unnecessary? In PVP you may as well leave an ability slot empty. Any one who doesn't have a polarized hull or attack pattern omega to render a tractor useless probably wouldn't have been a challenge in the first place.
Tykens Rift. Did you ever train a boff with two tractor beams and two tyken abilities and laugh meniachly as you signed up for some pvp? Didn't work so well did it? You might have got lucky and found some one who couldn't slip the tractor beam, but what a waist tykens rift turned out to be. Don't believe me? Just sit still and let a friend use it on you. This is one of those gimick abilities that take valuable ability slots away from other things.
Energy Syphon. This isn't actually a bad ability. Sure your enemy isn't likely to notice much power loss from it. But the buff to your own systems is almost like having a red matter capacitor. A shame you have to wait a minute between reuses on this one.
Gravity Well. Fantastic ability. Any one with scatter volley on their escort will love you. But hold on, wouldn't it be nice if the cool down matched up with that on scatter volley as well? Seems like half the time that escort friend has a scatter volley ready you have no well ready to go.
Polarize Hull, Transfer shield strength and hazard emitters. All fantastic abilities. These should defiantly be the first three abilities any non science ship considers for their science ability slots. They should also be top contenders on science ships. Such a shame that that's three slots used up on abilities with dreadful cool downs. Might have been nice to use one or two of those slots to stack two of any of your other science abilitie... that also have dreadful cool downs, oh well.
Scramble sensors. Duration very short. Cool down very very very long. Shame, could have been a useful ability... if you wernt giving up something more useful that could help you more often or for longer.
There are a lot more science abilities, of varying usefulness. But sadly every one of them, with the exception of tractor repulsers (which is really good for annoying all your friends and enemies alike, but also very useful if your situationaly aware), comes pre-nerfed in some way, either through simple lack of umph, over abundance of counters, or short durations and over long cool downs.
So we have the humble science ship, a class that relies on its abilities to define it, the victim of ability impotence.
No wonder then that so many people are calling for shiny DPS heavy cannons to fit to their ships. But I dont want that. I want science ships to be science ships, not escorts.
What then can we do? We could tackle the abilities them selves. But there was a time when science abilities ruled the roost and I am not so certain we really want to return to it. No what we need is something to boost science abilities on science ships, without boosting them on escorts and cruisers, which already have advantages of their own.
The Vesta already does this in a way. Those aux cannons... Running aux at full all of the time, without having to constantly switch between it and weapons power goes a long way toward giving science abilities that little boost they need.
What if science ships came with a built in emergency power to auxiliary ability? This would be nice, and while we are giving science ships an ability why don?t we share one science ships already have. Beam target subsystems could be given to all crusers as well. A minor boost to beam boats could make a lot of cruiser captains happy.
Hear is another idea. What if science ships had an extra boff ability slot over the number other ships in their level range had. Science ships have one less weapon then escorts, two less then cruisers. With an extra ability slot they could stack something to re-use it a little more often, or combine more science abilities in interesting ways.
So what are your thoughts? How would you buff science ships? Or do you disagree with me? Would you prefer things be left as they are?
I am rather tired of these threads. I don't think we need more cannons on our science ships. But I do think that science ships need some attention. From the player base as a whole, who seem to have a lot of strange ideas about science ships, and from cryptic, who seem to have a lot of strange ideas about how to balance them.
My opinion is just one more in the ocean of opinions though and my perspective upon this is as likely to be biased as any one elses. So that you can form your own opinion about my opinion, hear is where I am coming from. Skip the next section if you really don?t give a hoot.
(you may wish to skip this)
I am a long time player. I primarily use a science captain. I have 42 boffs to ensure I have the right combination of abilities to make the most out of which ever ship I may be flying and for what ever purpose. I know and have tested all the abilities, weapons and skills in the game. I know how they actually perform as well as the often erroneous impressions their descriptions give.
Ships that I used a lot in the past:
Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit
Long Range Science Vessel Retrofit
Multi-Vector Advanced Escort
Ships that I use a lot now:
Fleet Tactical Escort Retrofit
Chimera Heavy Destroyer
Multi-Mission Reconnaissance Explorer
(End of section you may wish to skip)
Now the first problem I think we need to deal with is the misconception a lot of players have regarding what science ships are.
Science ships are not the ship equivalent of healers. If you relay want to set up a ship in a healing role you can do it in a science ship with a leaning toward engineering abilities, but a cruiser with a leaning toward science abilities will do this a lot better. (science support abilities only go up to Lt.Com level, Engineering ones go up to commander.)
Turn rate wise Science ships fit between escorts and cruisers. Some science ships have better turn rates then some escorts, and some cruisers have better turn rates then some science ships.
Damage wise Science ships are at the bottom of the heap. Both cruisers and Escorts can be set up to out DPS Science ships. The only exception being the Vesta, which can be set up as if it were an escort, though you may wish to ask yourself why you are doing this rather then simply using an escort, which will do the job an awful lot better.
Tanking in a science ship is quite interesting. The shield modifiers on science ships are as good they get. Some have decent hull points as well, others have very little hull to speak of. Set up to maximise the advantage of their shields some science ships can out tank cruisers.
So just what are science ships? I would like to say they fit a niche between escorts and cruisers. Flying an Advanced research vessel is a lot like flying a cruiser, while flying a long range science vessel can be a lot like flying an escort. But I am not sure science ships realy do fit between crusers and escorts. They are simply an odd bunch.
I think the role of science ships is meant to be defined by their science abilities, rather then by the statistics of the ships themselves. But science abilities cant do damage without encroaching on the role of escorts, and they cant defend against damage without encroaching upon the role of cruisers so many science abilities are reduced to the role of gimmicks, or have lengthy cool downs imposed upon them. Lets look at some examples.
Tachyon Beam. Honestly if this did what it said on the tin it relay would be too powerful. If you run elite STFs you know how troublesome tachyon beams that work as advertised can be. But those a player can produce really only tickle. The damage you can squeeze out of a tachyon beam simply doesn't approach the amount equivalent shield healing abilities can restore (or make up for the DPS you loose by pumping power out of weapons and into aux). Science ships may wish to use it as they need every little bit of damage they can do to keep up with cruisers and escorts but leave this one off ships with fewer science ability slots.
Tractor Beam. Fun, but not really useful in PVE: Use tractor on ship, kill ship. Kill a bunch more ships while tractor is on cool down. Then repeat. See how step two shows step one to have been unnecessary? In PVP you may as well leave an ability slot empty. Any one who doesn't have a polarized hull or attack pattern omega to render a tractor useless probably wouldn't have been a challenge in the first place.
Tykens Rift. Did you ever train a boff with two tractor beams and two tyken abilities and laugh meniachly as you signed up for some pvp? Didn't work so well did it? You might have got lucky and found some one who couldn't slip the tractor beam, but what a waist tykens rift turned out to be. Don't believe me? Just sit still and let a friend use it on you. This is one of those gimick abilities that take valuable ability slots away from other things.
Energy Syphon. This isn't actually a bad ability. Sure your enemy isn't likely to notice much power loss from it. But the buff to your own systems is almost like having a red matter capacitor. A shame you have to wait a minute between reuses on this one.
Gravity Well. Fantastic ability. Any one with scatter volley on their escort will love you. But hold on, wouldn't it be nice if the cool down matched up with that on scatter volley as well? Seems like half the time that escort friend has a scatter volley ready you have no well ready to go.
Polarize Hull, Transfer shield strength and hazard emitters. All fantastic abilities. These should defiantly be the first three abilities any non science ship considers for their science ability slots. They should also be top contenders on science ships. Such a shame that that's three slots used up on abilities with dreadful cool downs. Might have been nice to use one or two of those slots to stack two of any of your other science abilitie... that also have dreadful cool downs, oh well.
Scramble sensors. Duration very short. Cool down very very very long. Shame, could have been a useful ability... if you wernt giving up something more useful that could help you more often or for longer.
There are a lot more science abilities, of varying usefulness. But sadly every one of them, with the exception of tractor repulsers (which is really good for annoying all your friends and enemies alike, but also very useful if your situationaly aware), comes pre-nerfed in some way, either through simple lack of umph, over abundance of counters, or short durations and over long cool downs.
So we have the humble science ship, a class that relies on its abilities to define it, the victim of ability impotence.
No wonder then that so many people are calling for shiny DPS heavy cannons to fit to their ships. But I dont want that. I want science ships to be science ships, not escorts.
What then can we do? We could tackle the abilities them selves. But there was a time when science abilities ruled the roost and I am not so certain we really want to return to it. No what we need is something to boost science abilities on science ships, without boosting them on escorts and cruisers, which already have advantages of their own.
The Vesta already does this in a way. Those aux cannons... Running aux at full all of the time, without having to constantly switch between it and weapons power goes a long way toward giving science abilities that little boost they need.
What if science ships came with a built in emergency power to auxiliary ability? This would be nice, and while we are giving science ships an ability why don?t we share one science ships already have. Beam target subsystems could be given to all crusers as well. A minor boost to beam boats could make a lot of cruiser captains happy.
Hear is another idea. What if science ships had an extra boff ability slot over the number other ships in their level range had. Science ships have one less weapon then escorts, two less then cruisers. With an extra ability slot they could stack something to re-use it a little more often, or combine more science abilities in interesting ways.
So what are your thoughts? How would you buff science ships? Or do you disagree with me? Would you prefer things be left as they are?
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
I do agree with you that science powers need fixing and I think it should be the powers themselves that should be looked at, there is afterall no point in adding another weak power to a list of already weak powers....
I agree the cooldowns need looking at again and brought down to a reasonable level and the effectiveness needs looking at, AP:O for example makes an escort immune to its primary weakness, if it didn't make you immune to all holds, maybe only increase resistance to holds and give TR a nice drain buff then TB+TR could be damn nasty.
Power insulators is another thing that needs looking at, insulators and flow caps should have equal effect rather than insulators that currently overpower anything flow caps brings to the table. Although sensors skill should be more powerful than stealth skill due to the power of ship cloaks skilled or not though not to the point that we see escorts heavily skilled in sensors blowing up cloaked ships everywhere but science ships with an inherent sensors bonus should be able to see and counter cloaks. (Poor Tric bombing BoPs :P)
I maintain heals should be percentage based with the aux power mech applied after the percentages are calculated such that cruisers would have better heals than escorts and science would benefit most from aux powered heals which still wouldn't turn science into primary healers but it would serve to make them the most effective sci heal users.
I'm not so sure about built in EPtA for science ships I think EPtX1/2 (Full set) should be a feature of the cruiser class and more ensign eng skills should be created.
I'm also not a fan of cannons on science ships then again there is nothing stopping you speccing into aux performance and running full weapon power with everything else in aux that puts you around 90-100 aux power on a sci ship anyway and then learning how to use beams effectively.
Science ships are constantly being nerfed because they can handle a pounding and chip away at you slowly. In a 1v1 a science ship will always win specially aginst escorts which are said to be the strongest ships dps wise in the game. It's that same as any other game. OP Healing far outweighs OP Damage. But players are not satisfied with winning one on one and two on one matches they have to win 5-6-7-8-9 on one matches apparently to confirm that they are great. When in all actuality it's the ship and the skills you copy and pasted from the forums that is great you just happen to be there pressing a button and sipping on soda.
I always hate wehn people try to make something into something it's not. And to a point I agree with Klink's who are angry about the wide use of DHC's in fed ships. Angry at players who have no idea what they are doing and want more to hide up or cover up the fact they are not talented or have the ability to actually surmise their skill set ups. Their are a lot of things in these forums that just make you shake your head but most of it is the elitist culture of people in itself. We will always want to be considered better or grander then we really are and when we do become that great we want to be placed on an even higher pedastool and acclaimed as a great and almighty one.
Will they give sci ships like the vesta more weapons? No, they are not going to make a ship class that is constantly being nerfed any stronger and usually the ones who ask for more strength are just trying to cover up their own weakness.
Do i have wants? Yes. I want them to make beams stronger. Not to hide any insecurities I may have about my own decisions in my build, but to stem the tide of DHC's being used as semi "I win, you lose set ups." (Even though i kill more DHC players then they kill me, some how they still seem to come to these forums and read these one sided arguments and continue to grow. Damn you Bfaw, how i love you but you ruined my beams.)
Anyhow, I do appreciate this posting and the weird kinda read don't read, maybe read feel you gave to it, but just because you say no will not stop people from asking, begging, and demanding like the petulant children we are, but in the end you get what you pay for, do more research on your vessels, ask captains who pilot them or used to pilot them and ask them to be honest and frank. And then decide before you spend your money on these things if this is for you. Because critiquing it later on and instead of giving up on it and realizing you purchased a lemon, asking for it to be stronger to validate your purchase will be perceived as ******** moaning and crying over spilled milk.
As of right now, when you think of an effective sci-vessel, you think of the vesta. But why is that? Is it because of her fancy consoles and set powers? I dare say no, there's another reason. Is it, because she can carry DHCs? I still wsay no. Granted, DHCs make the most oomph, but it is still not the reason, why the vesta is at the moment the most effective (and for me also fun) sci-vessel. It is simply because her DHCs are Aux-based. It's as simple as that. Think of it. If you had a Nova, Nebula, Intrepid or all the other sci-vessels, but equipped with Aux-based weaponry (and I DON'T say DCs/DHCs!), they would be much more fun and effective. Because they dont have to make a compromise between Weapons, Aux, and Shield energy, in fact they could run at 100+ Aux and do some damage that is beyond a simple light show while maintaining those cool sci-tricks.
That is why I propose Aux-based weaponry for sci-ships. That would make their sci-abilities more effective (when u come from a compromise power level setup) and deal at the very least a measurable amount of damage. I dont say they should out-DPS Escorts or Cruisers. And they won't, with those 3/3 weapon slots anyway. So, what I suggest is the introduction of [Aux] as a modifier. That would of course mean, that these sci-weapons could have only 2 other modifiers, but I think that's ok, considering the boost in damage just by having an appropriate power level.
So, what do you think?
That might help balance with Escorts
I think that if most science abilities didnt suck donkey balls, there would be no need for such passives...but what can I know
put them in lock boxes like other weapons are
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
That might go some way to un-nerfing sci ships, without making them OP (since it takes some time for 'Sensor Analysis' to really make a real difference).
I'd rather have science powers that are worth having rather than making the battlefield prettier
Didn't the Nebula's console use to do that before the nurf?
any science power worth having in PvE gets nerfed by PvP
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
The Nebula's console has always been mostly about detecting cloaked ships; but it might have, I'm not sure (I think I was on a break from STO when the Neb was first released).
If you want to up your DPS in a sci focused ship learn to fly a carrier. My Atrox constantly does more DPS then my vesta due to the second hangar of elite scorps. The vesta gets up there if I go full tac hybrid, but it doesn't catch it. At that point I'd rather just hop in a sci-scort, as for the mobility I get in the vesta to get the damage output I have to give up sci control. If I'm going that route a MV will give me even more damage and I can still load a grav well. Chel is even better while I wait for my fleet MV. The carrier lets me keep that level of damage and still bust out a full arsenal of sci goodies.
Quantum Focus Phaser is the jem of the Vesta... Cannons are just bonus realy.
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
And while I don't want another "AUX Weapons", I do wish there could be an "Aux to Weapon power converter console".
Even if they release another "Aux Power Weapons" it will be outdated pretty soon. But if there is a console you could equip on your Science ship, which makes equipped weapons use AUX instead of Weapons, that would be nice to have (so you can make use of those Fleet weapons )
It doesn't have to be 100% conversion rate... it could be 90% conversion rate, but still would be significant boost to Science captains!
You could boost the innate aux on sci ships a bit more to be a bit more forgiving for this. In my escort I never really need to switch power levels, and my cruiser..about the same (From time to time shields while tanking but most of the time never).
Additionally in order to get the most out of sci skills you need to spec in them, which really isnt a problem till you realize those points have to come from some where eles that you needed them from. Sci builds tend to be very tight on points.
Again for my escorts and cruisers its fairly easy for me to place the build points, my escort hardly suffers in fact, while my cruiser just generally has to drop torp skills (They still do fine unspecc'ed, not as damaging but yeah).
Few people probably remember when Sci ships/skills were kings of pvp, and could shut ships down indefinatly or kill a cruiser or escort with ease just by pushing pulse feedback (man that was fun) and i get that Cryptic may be a bit leery about boosting sci skills again, but something needs to be done. Its rare to see sci ships in stfs unless its a carrier. I want to see them again.
Ideally, I'd really like to see sci abilities boosted to the point where a well built sci ship with 60 weapons power and 125 aux could be a close contender for most valuable PvE vessel, along with the cruisers that can deal 6-8k DPS, hold agro, and tank practically anything, and the escorts that can do 10k+ and just blast their way through anything. Short of that, a console like the one you described sounds like a really good idea. It negates the power disadvantage sci ships always suffer from, and could easily be bound to sci ships only (make a KDF version too), possibly including the 2 hangar carriers, but probably not. It wouldn't solve all the problems of course, sci would still be a disadvantaged class (and having to run a certain additional console just to get acceptable power levels would not be an insignificant disadvantage in itself), but it would move us closer to parity, as does the Vesta (when it's actually used as a sci ship at least, I kind of wish it didn't have that LtC Uni).
Science ships are meant to play a complementary role to the DPS ships. They can also be made to be devastating with the right build. The problem is, the builds that make a sci ship devastating are different than the builds that make an escort dish out damage.
Science CAPTAINS already possess CAPTAIN skills that are major forces in PvP. Subnucleonic Beam, Sensor Scan and Scattering Field are amazing when used correctly. Subsystem targeting also is incredible when timed well.
If you are trying to use a tactical ship type of load out, you aren't going to be able to DPS effectively AND get the most out of your science abilities. If you use a more creative load out and build you can make science ships some of the most dangerous and feared ships in the game.
THIS SHIP:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=6681721&postcount=170
One of my favorite PvP teammates flies a Wells set up with this build and trust me, there is no one you would rather have on your team. It should be clear from looking at the build, but just to make sure: DPS on this builds comes from kinetic damage. No need to gimp aux power when you aren't relying on beams and cannons to dish it out.
Are there skills that could use a balance pass? Of course there are. All three professions have skills in need of a balance pass. I personally agree Tachyon Beam (for example) could be a bit more nasty without causing problems. That said, with an Aux Battery, the DOFF that adds the turn rate debuff, and a heavy Aux Power setting ... Tachyon Beam = Dead Escort. Of course that does assume you time it correctly so the Escort Captain on your TEAM can unload his CRF right as you use it. Stupid escort getting away from your Gravity Well by using APO? Did you save your Subnuc til AFTER he popped APO?
Teamwork and timing ... what a concept ... LOL.
So in summary:
Science Captain in Science Ship ... not your job to dish out the damage. Your job is to torment, debuff and otherwise gimp the target so the DPS ships can dish it out better.
Want to fly a science ship and use sparkly powers while still dishing it out? Put a Tactical Captain in the chair.
Want to deal nasty DPS with your Science Captain? Fly an escort.
Each ship has a role to play. It's kind of frustrating to keep seeing these threads asking to devs to make cruiser and sci ships able to dish it out, and then go into a PvP match or Elite STF and BE DISHING IT OUT in an escort only to not get heal support from the cruiser and not get CC and debuff support from the sci and then ... you know this part ... get blown to bits.
This post is not meant to be a trash on anyone else or their ability to play the game. Just to point out that if you actually try to do with your ship what it was designed for, you will find they are good at doing it. If you don't enjoy the role of your profession and ship, play a different profession and/or ship. You will find you might actually enjoy it.
Thank you glass, for helping me to prove my point.
In the right hands sci ships are extremely extremely dangerous they are the only ships that I simply see on the battlefield and come nose to nose with, shake hands and will walk away from. Everyone else and I mean everyone else would be dead before they even saw me.
I don't even play around with sci ships. If I hit them with befaw and defuff them you better kill them asap or we're all in trouble. They are not going to buff these guys skills because just a little bit of a buff will have a million threads yelling about them being op.
The joined trill flies a vesta with all 3 console mods and the kitty carrier occasionally and the borg flies a tholian recluse carrier. Now while these ships are all special either lock box or Zen store they are hard hitting in their own right. I'll explain.
In my opinion a science officer in a science ship is a beast. No matter what that ship is whether it is a carrier, vesta nebula, recon. etc The reason for this is NOT because of it's beams or single cannon. It is the culmination of the combination of both inherant and trained bridge officer abilities of the science officer and appropriate boffs. For example lets take a typical fight. 1vs1 pve and lets see how much I can TRIBBLE that mob up.
Sensor Analysis, sensor scan, subtargeting, gravity well, energy siphon, subnucleonic beam, tachyon beam and tractor beam just to name a few that I use on a regular basis.
and this is even before I use my torps and the target is now like a baby. - then I hit him with my torps and he will be pretty much dead. Oh I forgot Im a carrier vesta or atrox or recluse doesn't matter fighters are on their way to finish the target off.
The point is science ships have a multitude of abilities that make up the total dps of the ship Not just it's phasers.
Personally Im primarily a carrier pilot and prefer the playstyle. My ship is a weapon that stays in the 8-10km range of the target and and I use debuffs and crowd crontrol so the dps guys can do their job. Depending on the ship and fighter I'll launch them appropriately. I use my beams for 1 purpose only and that is to disable subsystems. along with this I can hull heal, shield heal and support my group as necessary.
typical loadout tholian carrier
forward 2 phased beam array( I will drop one in favor of omega plasma torp)
tholian torp
rear 1 phased tetryon - 1 cutting beam 1 1 tri-cobolt mine launcher.
This may not be perfect but to your liking but it is what works for me. Perhaps you should look at alternatives.
Typical Vesta Load out
forward
1 aux dhc, 1 beam array 1 torp launcher
rear
2 beam array's 1 cutting beam
Just 1 final note. My bridge officers loadout (skills) do not change from ship to ship. Im very happy with the performance of my officer
Just my 2 cents :-)
Playing STO since Beta
Leader of S-P-Q-R
Sensor Analysis doesn't have time to stack on anything smaller than a gate, tac cube, or dreadnought.
Sensor Scan has a 2 minute CD, so it won't help you with the next enemy.
Subsystem Targeting also has a long CD, as well as a limited chance of doing anything worthwhile.
Gravity Well is a good power, and it is AoE, but the long CD is painful.
Energy Siphon is an awfully small drain, around 20 points of power, and is single target with a minute long CD. The main effect is the buff to your own power levels, which is nice to have, but doesn't really give you all the power you need.
Subnucleonic Beam is single target with a 2 minute CD, and only limits the abilities a target can use, and given how few abilities targets use, it's only worth hitting on those rare occasions when one of them uses EPtS.
Tachyon Beam, as discussed earlier in this thread, has a very minimal effect, and it's single target.
Tractor Beam is just a waste of time except possibly if you have the shield drain doff for it. Its damage is minimal, so its only notable effect is a single target hold, and a single target hold is just pointless, there are always either multiple targets that need to be held or no targets that need to be held (sole exception: Negh'vars in CSN, but not in CSE).
That's the problem, it all sounds great on paper, but when you get 30 seconds into combat you start realizing that everything you were relying on is on CD and your job isn't done yet, and you're accomplishing very little while you wait.
And to the people who think sci ships are great in PvP and nothing else should matter, take a look around. PvP is at best a footnote in this game, all of the game progression is based on PvE, and for PvE sci is weak. Maybe we do need to have separate balances for PvE and PvP, but we already have that on some weapon procs, so it shouldn't be too hard to do.
So, 7 different powers listed there. Longest Cooldown: 2 minutes without Doffs. So you can use one of these science powers once every fifteen seconds. Sounds pretty good to me.
As to PvP vs PvE. If you are actually complaining that you don;t have enough power for PvE, wow ... just wow. There is absolutely ZERO PvE content that requires anything beyond an RA Ship with White MK X gear to complete.
Maybe I am being a snob here, but PvE is so ROFL easy that to even consider it in this argument is ... honestly I don't have a word for what I am thinking that wouldn't get screened. The reason you aren't noticing how uber your science powers are in PvP is because they are based on debuffing your enemy and NPCs don't use buffs barely at all. Maybe if PvE content was scaled up to a reasonable level of difficulty, you would notice how good sci powers actually are. Until then, you really can't even make arguments about balancing ships unless you consider PvP, because that would be the only way to compare them.
That said, I almost always take first place in gorn minefield or SB24 in my escort. The one person who knocks me down to second place regularly: the Wells Captain I mentioned in the earlier post.
No ship in this game is designed to play second fiddle to any other type of ship. Why? Because most of this game is played solo by most of its players. Every ship faces the same challenges over the course of the game, and has to be equally capable of defeating them.
That is how the game was designed.
Science ships seem like they exist to mess up enemies for the benefit of others these days, but that's only because their abilities have been ground so hard into the dirt that their noses barely poke above ground. When this game launched, science ships fought as hard as any other type of ship; their powers were their weapons, and they cracked heads with them.
Sure, it is still possible to build a good science ship; but it is way harder than it is to build a good anything else. That alone tells us that science ships need a little dev time.
I can complete any PvE mission just as easily and quickly in my Sci Ship with Sci Captain, Tac Ship with Tac Captain, Eng Ship with Eng Captain. I can complete those same PvE missions with my Tac Captain in a Mirror Deep Space (with is measly two tac consoles) only ever so slightly less quickly than in my Heavy Escort carrier with Ultra Rare Scorpion Fighters.
I stand by my view that if you are struggling to do PvE in a Sci Ship it's because you are not building it correctly for a Sci Ship. Complaining because a Sci Ship doesn't DPS like an escort is equivalent to complaining that I can't run Grav Well 3 on an escort.
I would be willing to bet that if you post your sci ship build in this thread, you could actually get some good advice on how to make it more effective. I already linked you to a post that has a build that would work for any sci ship and make you hit harder than the doomsday device. It seems to me that you don't actually want to play a sci ship. You might actually find that if you set up a good SciScort you will enjoy it!
I am curius glassguitar. I am not entirly cirtain what your position is hear with regards to the topic. Do you feel that science ships are fine as they are?
I fly escorts and science ships both with my science captain. In both PVP and PVE. I top leader boards consistantly in either ship type and I flatter myself that I am not bad.
However my feeling is that I have had to expend a grate deal more of my time and resources to make my science ships viable then I have had to with escorts. As has been pointed out white gear, no special consoles and no doffs makes little differance to how well some one that knows what they are doing, can do in an escort.
But I have found the right doff combinations to be essential to competative science ship builds, which need all the cool down reduction they can get.
Bare in mind i mean competative with competant PVPers, not your avrage lost soul in kar'rat.
My position is not that science ships can not be competative, and not that they neciserily need a dps boost. It is simply that they should be able to be science ships with no more resource investment then an escort needs to be an escort, or that a cruiser needs to be a cruiser.
Sci ships do not fight like escorts, no ship fights like an escort only escorts since they can easily max out their abilities with a simple 125/50/25/25 set up. No Other ship can do that so easily.
No matter how you look at it this argument is doomed to run around in an endless circle of "If you do this you have to do this."
If one ship gets buffed then they will all have to be buffed to keep the backlash down and we are right back where we started. I personally don't understand how people are struggling in PVE anyhow, the only thing that the npc's have going for them is mass numbers beyond that even on the elite setting which I play on all day every day is no different then childs play. So you need things like pvp for you to actually figure out if your build is good or not since the npc's are DESIGNED TO LOSE TO YOU.
They will not be giving sci ships or their skills a boost since in PVP they are already monsters. in 1vs1 and 2 vs 1 they can hold their own. in pve they may seem weak but thats because the settings of the computers see different values then what we see and understand. I have died soooo much to sci's in pvp that i just don't deal with them and in battles I'm sure in team functions they are just as effective. I don't know I keep my eyes on my enemies so I don't pay attention. But I know in pvp sci ships are sooooo good that even I a die hard scortie will switch to one just to have the shoe on the other foot.
I don't mind if sci skills get a boost in PVE as long as EVERYONE GET"S A BOOST in pve not just one sect. If not then the argument will always end with. "Get a Vesta."
I agree with Glass, it's not so muh that the dev's need to help the sci's out so much as the scis have to help themselves. Their is more info out their on tacs because their are more tacs posting and placing builds then any other sect. Out of 20-30 tac skills only about 7-8 are actually used and most are used in doubles so prolly dropping that to 5-6 skills and you don't see us complaining. Out of ALL the Tac skills I use TT, TS, BeFaw, Omega, and Beta. and that is it. 5 skills out of 30 something skills, just five and one, Omega hardly get's used, so i should only count 4. So in the end you have to fine tune your skills to meet your needs and that's it. Since with 4 skills of my class I am considered Elite then I'm not sure what is keeping you guys from doing the same. Lol... wow... i use only 4 skills... that is crazy.
Now I can only speak for elite STFs as I mainly run them but there is no function a science ship can do that an escort could not have done better except maybe tanking a cube.
I will agree that sci skills are great in PvP but in PvE where enemies have more than 10 times the health and shields of PvP ships, science skill feel like they don't hold their own and that's even with max points in the science skills and then using 3 console to buff it even further.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
Because if you jump into torp boats then tacscrot will do it better. If you jump into Beam Target Subsystem, then tacscort will do it better. Drain builds? 8-turret sci-heavy cruiser will do it better.
Sci in PvE is slow unless you stop using it as sciship and start using it as less tactical escort and sci abilities as supplemental to your weapons.
Not like sci should be run. Because if you do this then... simply get escort. Or even cruiser.
And yeah, I know how to play sci/sci in PvE and kill relatively quick. Drain-build is pretty good for PvE if you time it and the torps. But still - I need torps to kill. I can use same torps with escort and replace drain with DHC - and killing will be faster.
And PvP - as much as I love it it's just a pimp on STOs big fat PvE TRIBBLE. Nothing more. If ship is not optimal for PvE then its setup is simply not worth flying.