I can now testify to the power of 2 Aegis pieces vs the 2 borg.
Honestly guys, at least on my AE build I'm not seeing any down side at all to using the Aegis. I have higher SDR, Higher Defense, Higher Speed, with barely worse turn rate (loss of .07 degrees a second).
I think at least for Escorts anyway, Borg is dead.
I'll let ya'll know for sure after more seat time.
The Borg's biggest boon used to be it gave that shield heal out. Now, however with it just being a hull heal it's potency is greatly reduced. Right now I'm running 2 Aegis and a Maco shield.
I can now testify to the power of 2 Aegis pieces vs the 2 borg.
Honestly guys, at least on my AE build I'm not seeing any down side at all to using the Aegis. I have higher SDR, Higher Defense, Higher Speed, with barely worse turn rate (loss of .07 degrees a second).
I think at least for Escorts anyway, Borg is dead.
I'll let ya'll know for sure after more seat time.
The Borg's biggest boon used to be it gave that shield heal out. Now, however with it just being a hull heal it's potency is greatly reduced. Right now I'm running 2 Aegis and a Maco shield.
ya i haven't used borg for quite a wile myself. the engine is slow and aside from the extra power the items don't do a whole lot for me. im a huge omega fan though. + acc deflector, turn 2.5 hyper engine, tet glider, its all awesome, especially if you can slot 2 or 3 flow consoles. if i cant slot any flow cap, i should just go aegis 2 part.
aegis would be my second choice, with its 2 part defense bonus and hyper engine i dont know why anyone would use maco over it. the only problem is the blue quality cap 2 cov shield, what a POS. and the 3 part buffs hull resist not shield, figure that one out. the elite fleet shield is the aegis 3 part done right. all you need is 2 parts though for that extra defense, and the good old maco shield
In regard to the Aegis discussion, in looking at what to "upgrade" to on one of my toons...originally it had been that Borg thought. That changed a wee while back, as I considered Aegis 'n MACO options.
Aegis Deflector, Aegis Engines, MACO Shields.
Aegis Engines, MACO Deflector, MACO Shields.
With Elusive, 9 Maneuvers, and the 2pc Aegis you're looking at +90% Defense in an Escort while moving or +15% while sitting still.
With Elusive, 9 Maneuvers, and just the Aegis engines you're looking at +85% Defense in an Escort while moving or...+15% while sitting still.
In trading the Aegis Deflector for the MACO Deflector, you're doing the following:
-5% defense while moving
+5% ability recharge speed (but is this Mk XI or MK XII)
+15.2 insulators (but is this Mk XI or MK XII)
-5 shield power
+2.8 shield emitters
-4.9 shield systems
-4.9 inertial dampeners
-15.2 power insulators (which you're making up with the 2pc MACO, possibly more)
+26 structural integrity
+8.8 electro-plasma system
+18 graviton generators
Course, as mentioned for the Fleet folks - they'd be looking at different options with regard to Deflectors and Shields.
I'm not a Fleet guy, so I was just sharing what I've looked and what folks thought about 2pc MACO w/Aegis Engines as opposed to 2pc Aegis w/MACO Shields...
Consoles:
4x Polaron Tac
1x Field Emitter, 1x rom flow cap
1x Neutronium, 1x ablative, dominion console set (2 consoles)
The goal is to support the team with pets, group attack pattern and mines. You create quite a mess for anyone that fights around you. The ship doesn't do that much damage but the procs are great at slowing someone down long enough for the escorts to mop up.
Appreciate any thoughts as I am trying to make something pvp worthy out of this ship...
Consoles:
4x Polaron Tac
1x Field Emitter, 1x rom flow cap
1x Neutronium, 1x ablative, dominion console set (2 consoles)
The goal is to support the team with pets, group attack pattern and mines. You create quite a mess for anyone that fights around you. The ship doesn't do that much damage but the procs are great at slowing someone down long enough for the escorts to mop up.
Appreciate any thoughts as I am trying to make something pvp worthy out of this ship...
My suggestions are as follows:
Drop the Quantum Mines for Plasma Mines or Transphasic Mines. Plasma Mines recharge faster, but Transphasic Mines can hit harder at times.
Drop Rapid Fire 2 for Omega 1 You don't have a Polarized Hull, so your going to want a way to avoid Tractor Beams, and it will be helpful vs Warp Plasma as well.
Go with 2 Piece Borg Engine and Deflector for more Survivability.
You got your Universal Mixed up. The Universal is a Lt And your LtC is an Engineering station.
I'd recommend perhaps Changing your Lt Universal to a Science one for Hazard Emitters 1 and TSS 2, giving you the option to change your Ensign Sci to Polarized Hull 1, or even another Hazard Emitters or Transfer shield depending on what you feel comfortable with.
You think that your beta test was bad?
Think about this: American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Nice callout on the uni, just a typo. I go back and forth on a sci or engi Lt.
Interesting thought on the mines. I chose quantum because the tachyon mines do such a good job stripping shields. The way the cooldowns work though makes it hard to tell if transphasic would be better.
Nice callout on the uni, just a typo. I go back and forth on a sci or engi Lt.
Interesting thought on the mines. I chose quantum because the tachyon mines do such a good job stripping shields. The way the cooldowns work though makes it hard to tell if transphasic would be better.
The Transphasics are good for Shielded Targets that your Tachyon Mines don't completely strip. Same with Plasma Mines.
Plasma Mines though do hit harder then Transphasics against unshielded hull and have an automatic Plasma Dot. It works very well with Dispersal Pattern Beta.
You think that your beta test was bad?
Think about this: American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
While either using Disruptors or Romulan Disruptors with the Hyper or Omega Torp and using either the Romulan/Reman Advanced Sets?
My 6th toon there - the KDF Sci - I've been wondering about dorking around with something like this on a Hegh'ta... something along the lines of trying to match some of the abilities seen from the D'Deridex/Mogai/RBoP...
Has anyone done the analysis for DPS to compare a transphasic torpedo boat build (with the appropriate doffs) vs. plasma burn torpedo boat build, with maybe the Harpang or Rom torp?
Essentially, here's my problem. I'm running sci captains in sci vessels and we often face off to do a bit of PvP within our little guild, since we all have both Kling and Fed characters. At the moment, one of our teammates has an Oddy that runs with almost 32k per shield facing, and add in that he's an engineering captain, I literally can't seem to touch him.
So, if I can't drop those shields (tried CPB and TB3, plus the tractor beam doff, tachyon weps with the Maco tachyon proc), I need to find a way to ignore them and directly damage that hull. Thus, I'm wondering if it makes more sense to try to transphasic him or to burn him out, or both if I use the generic kinetic damage tac consoles. Obviously, I'd have to add in a couple of copies of TBR, but is there anything else I can do to get past those rediculous shields?
The only other alternative is to try to drain him to death, I suppose?
I'm going to get the Fleet Recon Sci ship for my joined trill sci captain, and I put together a couple of builds based on what I've been reading here. I'm curious what feedback anyone would have on these.
I've got the regular recon now, and the fleet recon just looks like it would be fun. I'm more partial to the second build because of the VM, but I think they are both pretty decent. I'd welcome any suggestions as well.
The main thing I'd like to do with this ship is area control type stuff, locking down ships etc.
Has anyone done the analysis for DPS to compare a transphasic torpedo boat build (with the appropriate doffs) vs. plasma burn torpedo boat build, with maybe the Harpang or Rom torp?
Essentially, here's my problem. I'm running sci captains in sci vessels and we often face off to do a bit of PvP within our little guild, since we all have both Kling and Fed characters. At the moment, one of our teammates has an Oddy that runs with almost 32k per shield facing, and add in that he's an engineering captain, I literally can't seem to touch him.
So, if I can't drop those shields (tried CPB and TB3, plus the tractor beam doff, tachyon weps with the Maco tachyon proc), I need to find a way to ignore them and directly damage that hull. Thus, I'm wondering if it makes more sense to try to transphasic him or to burn him out, or both if I use the generic kinetic damage tac consoles. Obviously, I'd have to add in a couple of copies of TBR, but is there anything else I can do to get past those rediculous shields?
The only other alternative is to try to drain him to death, I suppose?
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.
i recommend including EWP in any plasma projectile builds. the plasma energy tac consoles buff ewp, and the dot of projectile proc damage. reportedly more so then plasma kinetic consoles do actually. the best plasma boats are cruisers in my opinion, because they can slot EWP3. for escorts and sci ships, trasnphasics are proboly best.
I'm going to get the Fleet Recon Sci ship for my joined trill sci captain, and I put together a couple of builds based on what I've been reading here. I'm curious what feedback anyone would have on these.
I've got the regular recon now, and the fleet recon just looks like it would be fun. I'm more partial to the second build because of the VM, but I think they are both pretty decent. I'd welcome any suggestions as well.
The main thing I'd like to do with this ship is area control type stuff, locking down ships etc.
im not a sci ship expert, but it looks like you intended to use torps, with the THY, but you didnt spec into torp damage at all. if your going to use VM, your proboly best off maxing decompilers too.
also consider this, the vesta can mimic the station setup of the intrepid, recon, nebula and deep space sci ship, and can have the same console set up as all 3 of them. the best bang for your buck vs geting the fleet version of any of those ships, is to get the vesta, that can be them and more. and also has a hanger, and can mount DHCs. its kinda to bad that the vesta made all those sci ships so irreverent. it could also have the LTC used for eng or tactical, so even more interesting possibilities there.
the only ships the vesta doesn't make redundant are the nova, ball ship and wells. those can all still have unique station setups it cant mimc
im not a sci ship expert, but it looks like you intended to use torps, with the THY, but you didnt spec into torp damage at all. if your going to use VM, your proboly best off maxing decompilers too.
also consider this, the vesta can mimic the station setup of the intrepid, recon, nebula and deep space sci ship, and can have the same console set up as all 3 of them. the best bang for your buck vs geting the fleet version of any of those ships, is to get the vesta, that can be them and more. and also has a hanger, and can mount DHCs. its kinda to bad that the vesta made all those sci ships so irreverent. it could also have the LTC used for eng or tactical, so even more interesting possibilities there.
the only ships the vesta doesn't make redundant are the nova, ball ship and wells. those can all still have unique station setups it cant mimc
I was thinking about that actually... The Vesta seems like it could do this pretty easy as well.
Depending on how I was going to lay out the weapons I would have used torps on the 1st build, and all beams / turrets on the second one.
I was thinking about that actually... The Vesta seems like it could do this pretty easy as well.
Depending on how I was going to lay out the weapons I would have used torps on the 1st build, and all beams / turrets on the second one.
What DDIS said. For sic ships go Vesta or go home. Wells/korath is nice, if you consider them to be a realistic alternative. The orb weaver offers a healing heavy setup that i don't think the vesta can field. But the vesta's cannons, and pets should make up for it.
Until the next sci ship 3pc pack is release, no reason to bother with any other sci ships anymore.
ah yes, the orb is another non redundant sci ship, and a good one still i think. its turn is a bit low, so most have moved from it to a wells, a shame
Just don't make the mistake of selling the Fleet Science Ships short, they're pretty much top-to-bottom excellent... except maybe the Fleet DSSV.
The Vesta cannot mimic every possible Nebula layout, nor the Golfball (Fleet Research Science Vessel) or Nova (Fleet Science Vessel). That said, it and the Wells are the level-best choices... just not so far ahead of the other Fleet Sci ships you should feel obligated to buy them.
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
Just don't make the mistake of selling the Fleet Science Ships short, they're pretty much top-to-bottom excellent... except maybe the Fleet DSSV.
The Vesta cannot mimic every possible Nebula layout, nor the Golfball (Fleet Research Science Vessel) or Nova (Fleet Science Vessel). That said, it and the Wells are the level-best choices... just not so far ahead of the other Fleet Sci ships you should feel obligated to buy them.
the fleet DSSV strangely has the 5 sci consoles. would have made more sense and been consistent with the fleet gal and fleet defiant for the intrepid to have the 5 sci consoles. oh well, hardly maters with vesta existing.
i did mention in another post that the nova and golf ball still had a niche, and technically if you slotted a tac in the universal on the neb, that would be unique still.
so the sci ships in game that currently mater are
vesta
nova
hospital golfball
nebula, though vesta can basically do what it can do
orb
wells
DSSV, recon, intrepid have no reason to exist with vesta around. though i suppose the recon has 1 better turn then the vesta, but no dhcs or pet hanger.
the fleet DSSV strangely has the 5 sci consoles. would have made more sense and been consistent with the fleet gal and fleet defiant for the intrepid to have the 5 sci consoles. oh well, hardly maters with vesta existing.
i did mention in another post that the nova and golf ball still had a niche, and technically if you slotted a tac in the universal on the neb, that would be unique still.
so the sci ships in game that currently mater are
vesta
nova
hospital golfball
nebula, though vesta can basically do what it can do
orb
wells
DSSV, recon, intrepid have no reason to exist with vesta around. though i suppose the recon has 1 better turn then the vesta, but no dhcs or pet hanger.
That's it in a nutshell. The Intrepid and Rec Sci are still good, just not better than the Vesta, though I'd contend the Vesta's not too much better if Danubes were out of the picture (in all seriousness, who's idea was it to make CC powers on pets automatic and refreshed by launching new pets). All the Fleet Sci ships are moderately to (in the Nebbie's case) significantly tougher than the Vesta. Only the Nebbie and DSSV have worse turn rates than the Vesta. The F-Intrepid ties it, the F-Rec Sci and F-Golfball exceed it by 1, and the F-Nova, well, it's tied with the Wells at 15.
The main thrust of my point is that a person should not feel obligated to fly just the Vesta or Wells, they're top-dogs, but not by so much that you're strictly hurting yourself and your teammates by flying one of the other Fleet Sci ships.
Except, maybe, the Fleet DSSV. That ship is sadness-inducing. It comes off as a kinda of well-rounded Sci ship that doesn't really do anything that the other ones don't just out-sci it at (other than maybe having the biggest potential shield capacity in STO*).
*If you're spamming your Sci Ship's Sci Console slots with Field Gens, yes, you are doing it wrong.
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
Advanced strategies and tactics- ships and captain types
the thread has a lot of builds now, but its lacking on strategies for success. i think the boot camp touches on that, but im not involved and cant be sure. i'll touch on some basic truths about somethings from my point of view, what works and what you shouldn't bother with an all that.
eng/cruiser- the best use of an eng, and in a pug the best healer.
sci/cruiser- this is what you wont in an organized match for a healer. the extra set of sci debuffs with the cruiser heals can make a huge difference. the eng doesn't bring a whole lot to the team compared to a sci in that situation, partly why many consider the eng very underpowered.
tac/cruiser- this is a perfect fit on kdf cruisers, these can be escort replacements, that need much less healer attention. fed cruiser though outside of puging simply cant effect a target if there is any cross healing going on. its possible to get strong damage out of these, but its gradual damage, and gradual damage might as well be no damage.
eng/escort- worthless, aside from blowing through pve easier with your eng, this is a terrible combo. your weapons without tac buffs wont have the spike needed to effectively injure, and nadieon and EPS transfer are made irrelevant next to simple weapons power overcaping.
sci/escort- deals same damage as an eng, BUT you have the most powerful debuffs in the game. use an escort with a LTC sci and you can be especially dangerous, throwing VM, scan and nuk on someone can make them easy pickings. in a team environment you can never have to many of those 3 things when focusing on a target.
tac/escort- the obvious choice. best damage, and with all the passive heals you can run anymore, its not even that squishy. speed tanking with maxed out engine power and the rest in shields seems tankier then any other sort of tanking that involves out healing incoming damage.
eng/sci- no real synergy at all, just tankier. proboly most harmless combination possible
tac/sci- all the damage dealing sci skills deal ether a form of energy or kinetic damage, meaning tac captain tac buffs effect them. abilities like TBR, FBP, PSW, and an ISO charge console with as many particle jen consoles as possible are recommended. if your sci ship has a LTC eng, EWP1 is recommended too. its buffed by those tac buffs and particle gens as well. if you have a LTC tac, APO for sure, makes using TBR much easier and buffs damage a bit. transphasic torps for additional hull damaging is recommended, all these skill mainly damage hull too. like a tac cruiser, these are less effective as well in orginized teams, the cross healing can negate your effect and your presents means 1 less sci around for issuing debuffs
sci/sci- imagine your target is a ball, it is your job to juggle that ball so it is completely unable to respond. the sci/sci is not for killing primarily, it is for makeing a target so befudled that it is easy for others to kill. it does not mater that you deal next to no damage, if you make someone more killable you are invaluable.
Advanced strategies and tactics- effective use of key binding and tray setup
this is the secret behind everyone you see being impossibly good. sure, many will say they don't use any macros and do great, but they could do much better sans clicking. the ui lag alone makes it almost a necessity, not just an effectiveness boosting measure.
clicking to activate anything you NEED mid urgent situation is putting you at a huge disadvantage compared to someone that has panic macros that will execute exactly what they need when they need it. this goes for chaining a bunch of tac buffs, the windows of opportunity were a target cant have APO or TT are golden, if you fumble clicking to activate abilities you likely wont be able to mount an effective attack at the right time. if you have the luxury of a cloak, this is a bit less of an issue, but whenever you attack wile uncloaked, mid battle, macros for alpha creating are invaluable.
you cant macro everything, well i suppose you could but you might find yourself in the same situation your in trying to click activate everything. effectively set up treys are just as important, even though i have most abilities you cycle often set up in a macro, i always include them in the main 3 viable treys so i can keep an eye on their cooldowns. several abilities like RSP, evasive, the tac/eng/sci fleet, and most other captain powers you don't want part of any more common macro, those are for use exactly when you need them. group your 3 visible trays in a way that is intuitive to you, so not a split second is wasted searching for abilities to click
macros and controls i recommend
the go to bind for most is to bind all sorts of things to spacebar, this is actually a terrible idea and you need to wean yourself off this immediately. every time you hit a macro it will activate 2 things at once, but anything you have bound to the fire key will take priority and cause more then a second worth delay befor firing, that can take away a bunch of damage from an alpha with a bunch of tac buffs running.
i re did all my binds recently, and its improved my effectiveness 50%, on top of the 50% improvement my old binds gave me over useing no binds. i recomend a mouse with between 4 and 6 extra buttons to use for macros, i use a logitec G700 myself, and all my ability macros are on it. hitting the macro keys will only activate 1 or 2 at once, so you must hit these keys over and over as fast as you can, not just once.
non macros
fire all energy
fire all toprs
fire all mines (if you use mines)
these you just setup in the bind menu in game, no macros needed with these.
macros
execute full tray 4 (basic defense)- assuming you have treys 1 through 3 visible in your hud at all times, place skills you want cycling at all times in tray 4, and distribute all shields. skills like EPtX, AtB and put fleet support there too, this is one you click contently, so as soon as your hull drops that low it will call in the npc
execute full tray 5 (basic offense)- place in tray 5 skills like the attack patterns, CRF, BO, THY and APA. when you see a window of opportunity, you want this bind activating all those abilities as fast as humanly possible. maybe even skills like TB or VM as well.
execute full tray 6 (oh **** button)- place in tray 6 TT, and FBP if you have it. it might be tempting to stick this in trey 5, but you really want these separate so it can be activated at a moments notice, ONLY when you need it. you never want someone watching you use TT for no reason, in 10 seconds they will begin an alpha on you. nothing is more life and death then TT activated exactly when you need it. i also like to put BFI and the subspace modual here,
execute full tray 7 (rapid healing)- place heals like TSS, AtS, HE, and ET or ST, in that order. this can be helpful for saveing a team mate, throwing everything you can on them, or the same for yourself. ET last is so your panic healing doesnt trump your TT when you would have needed it more. leave something like RSP off here. frantically clicking on heals to try to save you or yourself is frustrating and ineffective, this keybind on the other hand is awesome at timely delivering heals
execute full tray 8 (special)- every build should have something here, a defensive or offensive skill. things like RSP, EWP, GW, VM, consoles skills, anything like that you want activated at a moments notice, but dont fit with the cycleing of the other binds.
handy extras
target calling bind- say in team chat something along the lines of target '$Target', this will send a team message saying target your current target, im sure you have seen this pop up in pvp before. my exact line is 'pew directly at ->$Target<-'
end of match message- if you hate switching to zone chat, and typeing gg, or want something more universal for all those ocations were it was NOT a gg, you can bind a simple message of say in zone chat 'thanks for the match' or something. i use such a bind to spam this thread when i see several people that could maybe use some pvp help.
/softwarecursor 0- hate when your mouse gets that stupid shadow pointer that follows it around? this command will fix that. i have it set to say in local chat, and then i select it and hitctrlC and ctrlV it into the chat box and hit enter. having it display doesn't activate it, but it brings up the right command, like i could remember it off the top of my head.
there you have it, thats basically all my hax, if you have trouble killing me, its because i have all this running at the touch of multiple buttons. seems like it might be a lot of work to set up in some text file right? WRONG! to be even more of a lazy macro abuser, i made all these binds with a key bind generating graphical user interface. give it a try here, its foolproof
Comments
Honestly guys, at least on my AE build I'm not seeing any down side at all to using the Aegis. I have higher SDR, Higher Defense, Higher Speed, with barely worse turn rate (loss of .07 degrees a second).
I think at least for Escorts anyway, Borg is dead.
I'll let ya'll know for sure after more seat time.
The Borg's biggest boon used to be it gave that shield heal out. Now, however with it just being a hull heal it's potency is greatly reduced. Right now I'm running 2 Aegis and a Maco shield.
ya i haven't used borg for quite a wile myself. the engine is slow and aside from the extra power the items don't do a whole lot for me. im a huge omega fan though. + acc deflector, turn 2.5 hyper engine, tet glider, its all awesome, especially if you can slot 2 or 3 flow consoles. if i cant slot any flow cap, i should just go aegis 2 part.
aegis would be my second choice, with its 2 part defense bonus and hyper engine i dont know why anyone would use maco over it. the only problem is the blue quality cap 2 cov shield, what a POS. and the 3 part buffs hull resist not shield, figure that one out. the elite fleet shield is the aegis 3 part done right. all you need is 2 parts though for that extra defense, and the good old maco shield
Aegis Deflector, Aegis Engines, MACO Shields.
Aegis Engines, MACO Deflector, MACO Shields.
With Elusive, 9 Maneuvers, and the 2pc Aegis you're looking at +90% Defense in an Escort while moving or +15% while sitting still.
With Elusive, 9 Maneuvers, and just the Aegis engines you're looking at +85% Defense in an Escort while moving or...+15% while sitting still.
In trading the Aegis Deflector for the MACO Deflector, you're doing the following:
-5% defense while moving
+5% ability recharge speed (but is this Mk XI or MK XII)
+15.2 insulators (but is this Mk XI or MK XII)
-5 shield power
+2.8 shield emitters
-4.9 shield systems
-4.9 inertial dampeners
-15.2 power insulators (which you're making up with the 2pc MACO, possibly more)
+26 structural integrity
+8.8 electro-plasma system
+18 graviton generators
Course, as mentioned for the Fleet folks - they'd be looking at different options with regard to Deflectors and Shields.
I'm not a Fleet guy, so I was just sharing what I've looked and what folks thought about 2pc MACO w/Aegis Engines as opposed to 2pc Aegis w/MACO Shields...
Sci/Jem'hadar Dread Carrier
Fore: 3x phased polaron single cannons, 1x phased polaron DBB
Aft: 1x phased polaron turret, 1x tachyon mines, 1x quantum mines
Tac: TT1, BO2, CRF2, DPB3
Tac: TT1, CRF1
Eng: EPTS1, RSP
Uni: EPTS, A2SIF1, EWP1
Sci: TSS1
Doffs:
Varies to situation, almost always have 3x SDO for the extra heal
Hangar:
1x JHAS, 1x Danubes
Equipment:
Fleet Resilient Shield/Jem Resilient Shield (whatever my mood is)
Jem Engine
Jem Deflector
Consoles:
4x Polaron Tac
1x Field Emitter, 1x rom flow cap
1x Neutronium, 1x ablative, dominion console set (2 consoles)
The goal is to support the team with pets, group attack pattern and mines. You create quite a mess for anyone that fights around you. The ship doesn't do that much damage but the procs are great at slowing someone down long enough for the escorts to mop up.
Appreciate any thoughts as I am trying to make something pvp worthy out of this ship...
My suggestions are as follows:
Drop the Quantum Mines for Plasma Mines or Transphasic Mines. Plasma Mines recharge faster, but Transphasic Mines can hit harder at times.
Drop Rapid Fire 2 for Omega 1 You don't have a Polarized Hull, so your going to want a way to avoid Tractor Beams, and it will be helpful vs Warp Plasma as well.
Go with 2 Piece Borg Engine and Deflector for more Survivability.
You got your Universal Mixed up. The Universal is a Lt And your LtC is an Engineering station.
I'd recommend perhaps Changing your Lt Universal to a Science one for Hazard Emitters 1 and TSS 2, giving you the option to change your Ensign Sci to Polarized Hull 1, or even another Hazard Emitters or Transfer shield depending on what you feel comfortable with.
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Interesting thought on the mines. I chose quantum because the tachyon mines do such a good job stripping shields. The way the cooldowns work though makes it hard to tell if transphasic would be better.
The Transphasics are good for Shielded Targets that your Tachyon Mines don't completely strip. Same with Plasma Mines.
Plasma Mines though do hit harder then Transphasics against unshielded hull and have an automatic Plasma Dot. It works very well with Dispersal Pattern Beta.
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
THY1/TS1, CRF1
EPtS1, RSP1/AtS1
PH1, TSS1, TB3, VM3
ST1, HE2, PSW1
While either using Disruptors or Romulan Disruptors with the Hyper or Omega Torp and using either the Romulan/Reman Advanced Sets?
My 6th toon there - the KDF Sci - I've been wondering about dorking around with something like this on a Hegh'ta... something along the lines of trying to match some of the abilities seen from the D'Deridex/Mogai/RBoP...
edit: Then it gets into gear, eh?
Weapons
Fore: 2x Romulan Plasma DHC [Acc][CrtH], Hyper-Plasma Torp, Omega Torp
Aft: 2x Romulan Plasma Turret [Acc][CrtH]
Consoles
Tac: 2x Infuser, Ambiplasma
Eng: Borg, Nadeon, Neut
Sci: 0Point, Leech, ???
D/E/S: Advanced Reman/Romulan...hrmmm, need to find the stats for these.
Does this still work well in pvp?
I was thinking of opening one of my Galors to chuck my sci on just for fun....is it doable with Spiral wave beams?
Essentially, here's my problem. I'm running sci captains in sci vessels and we often face off to do a bit of PvP within our little guild, since we all have both Kling and Fed characters. At the moment, one of our teammates has an Oddy that runs with almost 32k per shield facing, and add in that he's an engineering captain, I literally can't seem to touch him.
So, if I can't drop those shields (tried CPB and TB3, plus the tractor beam doff, tachyon weps with the Maco tachyon proc), I need to find a way to ignore them and directly damage that hull. Thus, I'm wondering if it makes more sense to try to transphasic him or to burn him out, or both if I use the generic kinetic damage tac consoles. Obviously, I'd have to add in a couple of copies of TBR, but is there anything else I can do to get past those rediculous shields?
The only other alternative is to try to drain him to death, I suppose?
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.
I'm going to get the Fleet Recon Sci ship for my joined trill sci captain, and I put together a couple of builds based on what I've been reading here. I'm curious what feedback anyone would have on these.
Build 1
Build 2
I've got the regular recon now, and the fleet recon just looks like it would be fun. I'm more partial to the second build because of the VM, but I think they are both pretty decent. I'd welcome any suggestions as well.
The main thing I'd like to do with this ship is area control type stuff, locking down ships etc.
that would still work well. the spirals would work too, i'd proboly use APO1 and BO2, or APD1 for beams
i recommend including EWP in any plasma projectile builds. the plasma energy tac consoles buff ewp, and the dot of projectile proc damage. reportedly more so then plasma kinetic consoles do actually. the best plasma boats are cruisers in my opinion, because they can slot EWP3. for escorts and sci ships, trasnphasics are proboly best.
im not a sci ship expert, but it looks like you intended to use torps, with the THY, but you didnt spec into torp damage at all. if your going to use VM, your proboly best off maxing decompilers too.
also consider this, the vesta can mimic the station setup of the intrepid, recon, nebula and deep space sci ship, and can have the same console set up as all 3 of them. the best bang for your buck vs geting the fleet version of any of those ships, is to get the vesta, that can be them and more. and also has a hanger, and can mount DHCs. its kinda to bad that the vesta made all those sci ships so irreverent. it could also have the LTC used for eng or tactical, so even more interesting possibilities there.
the only ships the vesta doesn't make redundant are the nova, ball ship and wells. those can all still have unique station setups it cant mimc
I was thinking about that actually... The Vesta seems like it could do this pretty easy as well.
Depending on how I was going to lay out the weapons I would have used torps on the 1st build, and all beams / turrets on the second one.
What DDIS said. For sic ships go Vesta or go home. Wells/korath is nice, if you consider them to be a realistic alternative. The orb weaver offers a healing heavy setup that i don't think the vesta can field. But the vesta's cannons, and pets should make up for it.
Until the next sci ship 3pc pack is release, no reason to bother with any other sci ships anymore.
/sarcasm_1 Gee, thanks systems /sarcasm_0
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
Just don't make the mistake of selling the Fleet Science Ships short, they're pretty much top-to-bottom excellent... except maybe the Fleet DSSV.
The Vesta cannot mimic every possible Nebula layout, nor the Golfball (Fleet Research Science Vessel) or Nova (Fleet Science Vessel). That said, it and the Wells are the level-best choices... just not so far ahead of the other Fleet Sci ships you should feel obligated to buy them.
the fleet DSSV strangely has the 5 sci consoles. would have made more sense and been consistent with the fleet gal and fleet defiant for the intrepid to have the 5 sci consoles. oh well, hardly maters with vesta existing.
i did mention in another post that the nova and golf ball still had a niche, and technically if you slotted a tac in the universal on the neb, that would be unique still.
so the sci ships in game that currently mater are
vesta
nova
hospital golfball
nebula, though vesta can basically do what it can do
orb
wells
DSSV, recon, intrepid have no reason to exist with vesta around. though i suppose the recon has 1 better turn then the vesta, but no dhcs or pet hanger.
That's it in a nutshell. The Intrepid and Rec Sci are still good, just not better than the Vesta, though I'd contend the Vesta's not too much better if Danubes were out of the picture (in all seriousness, who's idea was it to make CC powers on pets automatic and refreshed by launching new pets). All the Fleet Sci ships are moderately to (in the Nebbie's case) significantly tougher than the Vesta. Only the Nebbie and DSSV have worse turn rates than the Vesta. The F-Intrepid ties it, the F-Rec Sci and F-Golfball exceed it by 1, and the F-Nova, well, it's tied with the Wells at 15.
The main thrust of my point is that a person should not feel obligated to fly just the Vesta or Wells, they're top-dogs, but not by so much that you're strictly hurting yourself and your teammates by flying one of the other Fleet Sci ships.
Except, maybe, the Fleet DSSV. That ship is sadness-inducing. It comes off as a kinda of well-rounded Sci ship that doesn't really do anything that the other ones don't just out-sci it at (other than maybe having the biggest potential shield capacity in STO*).
*If you're spamming your Sci Ship's Sci Console slots with Field Gens, yes, you are doing it wrong.
It's an lrsv boff layout
just thought i'd point it out...
the thread has a lot of builds now, but its lacking on strategies for success. i think the boot camp touches on that, but im not involved and cant be sure. i'll touch on some basic truths about somethings from my point of view, what works and what you shouldn't bother with an all that.
eng/cruiser- the best use of an eng, and in a pug the best healer.
sci/cruiser- this is what you wont in an organized match for a healer. the extra set of sci debuffs with the cruiser heals can make a huge difference. the eng doesn't bring a whole lot to the team compared to a sci in that situation, partly why many consider the eng very underpowered.
tac/cruiser- this is a perfect fit on kdf cruisers, these can be escort replacements, that need much less healer attention. fed cruiser though outside of puging simply cant effect a target if there is any cross healing going on. its possible to get strong damage out of these, but its gradual damage, and gradual damage might as well be no damage.
eng/escort- worthless, aside from blowing through pve easier with your eng, this is a terrible combo. your weapons without tac buffs wont have the spike needed to effectively injure, and nadieon and EPS transfer are made irrelevant next to simple weapons power overcaping.
sci/escort- deals same damage as an eng, BUT you have the most powerful debuffs in the game. use an escort with a LTC sci and you can be especially dangerous, throwing VM, scan and nuk on someone can make them easy pickings. in a team environment you can never have to many of those 3 things when focusing on a target.
tac/escort- the obvious choice. best damage, and with all the passive heals you can run anymore, its not even that squishy. speed tanking with maxed out engine power and the rest in shields seems tankier then any other sort of tanking that involves out healing incoming damage.
eng/sci- no real synergy at all, just tankier. proboly most harmless combination possible
tac/sci- all the damage dealing sci skills deal ether a form of energy or kinetic damage, meaning tac captain tac buffs effect them. abilities like TBR, FBP, PSW, and an ISO charge console with as many particle jen consoles as possible are recommended. if your sci ship has a LTC eng, EWP1 is recommended too. its buffed by those tac buffs and particle gens as well. if you have a LTC tac, APO for sure, makes using TBR much easier and buffs damage a bit. transphasic torps for additional hull damaging is recommended, all these skill mainly damage hull too. like a tac cruiser, these are less effective as well in orginized teams, the cross healing can negate your effect and your presents means 1 less sci around for issuing debuffs
sci/sci- imagine your target is a ball, it is your job to juggle that ball so it is completely unable to respond. the sci/sci is not for killing primarily, it is for makeing a target so befudled that it is easy for others to kill. it does not mater that you deal next to no damage, if you make someone more killable you are invaluable.
this is the secret behind everyone you see being impossibly good. sure, many will say they don't use any macros and do great, but they could do much better sans clicking. the ui lag alone makes it almost a necessity, not just an effectiveness boosting measure.
clicking to activate anything you NEED mid urgent situation is putting you at a huge disadvantage compared to someone that has panic macros that will execute exactly what they need when they need it. this goes for chaining a bunch of tac buffs, the windows of opportunity were a target cant have APO or TT are golden, if you fumble clicking to activate abilities you likely wont be able to mount an effective attack at the right time. if you have the luxury of a cloak, this is a bit less of an issue, but whenever you attack wile uncloaked, mid battle, macros for alpha creating are invaluable.
you cant macro everything, well i suppose you could but you might find yourself in the same situation your in trying to click activate everything. effectively set up treys are just as important, even though i have most abilities you cycle often set up in a macro, i always include them in the main 3 viable treys so i can keep an eye on their cooldowns. several abilities like RSP, evasive, the tac/eng/sci fleet, and most other captain powers you don't want part of any more common macro, those are for use exactly when you need them. group your 3 visible trays in a way that is intuitive to you, so not a split second is wasted searching for abilities to click
macros and controls i recommend
the go to bind for most is to bind all sorts of things to spacebar, this is actually a terrible idea and you need to wean yourself off this immediately. every time you hit a macro it will activate 2 things at once, but anything you have bound to the fire key will take priority and cause more then a second worth delay befor firing, that can take away a bunch of damage from an alpha with a bunch of tac buffs running.
i re did all my binds recently, and its improved my effectiveness 50%, on top of the 50% improvement my old binds gave me over useing no binds. i recomend a mouse with between 4 and 6 extra buttons to use for macros, i use a logitec G700 myself, and all my ability macros are on it. hitting the macro keys will only activate 1 or 2 at once, so you must hit these keys over and over as fast as you can, not just once.
non macros
fire all energy
fire all toprs
fire all mines (if you use mines)
these you just setup in the bind menu in game, no macros needed with these.
macros
execute full tray 4 (basic defense)- assuming you have treys 1 through 3 visible in your hud at all times, place skills you want cycling at all times in tray 4, and distribute all shields. skills like EPtX, AtB and put fleet support there too, this is one you click contently, so as soon as your hull drops that low it will call in the npc
execute full tray 5 (basic offense)- place in tray 5 skills like the attack patterns, CRF, BO, THY and APA. when you see a window of opportunity, you want this bind activating all those abilities as fast as humanly possible. maybe even skills like TB or VM as well.
execute full tray 6 (oh **** button)- place in tray 6 TT, and FBP if you have it. it might be tempting to stick this in trey 5, but you really want these separate so it can be activated at a moments notice, ONLY when you need it. you never want someone watching you use TT for no reason, in 10 seconds they will begin an alpha on you. nothing is more life and death then TT activated exactly when you need it. i also like to put BFI and the subspace modual here,
execute full tray 7 (rapid healing)- place heals like TSS, AtS, HE, and ET or ST, in that order. this can be helpful for saveing a team mate, throwing everything you can on them, or the same for yourself. ET last is so your panic healing doesnt trump your TT when you would have needed it more. leave something like RSP off here. frantically clicking on heals to try to save you or yourself is frustrating and ineffective, this keybind on the other hand is awesome at timely delivering heals
execute full tray 8 (special)- every build should have something here, a defensive or offensive skill. things like RSP, EWP, GW, VM, consoles skills, anything like that you want activated at a moments notice, but dont fit with the cycleing of the other binds.
handy extras
target calling bind- say in team chat something along the lines of target '$Target', this will send a team message saying target your current target, im sure you have seen this pop up in pvp before. my exact line is 'pew directly at ->$Target<-'
end of match message- if you hate switching to zone chat, and typeing gg, or want something more universal for all those ocations were it was NOT a gg, you can bind a simple message of say in zone chat 'thanks for the match' or something. i use such a bind to spam this thread when i see several people that could maybe use some pvp help.
/softwarecursor 0- hate when your mouse gets that stupid shadow pointer that follows it around? this command will fix that. i have it set to say in local chat, and then i select it and hitctrlC and ctrlV it into the chat box and hit enter. having it display doesn't activate it, but it brings up the right command, like i could remember it off the top of my head.
there you have it, thats basically all my hax, if you have trouble killing me, its because i have all this running at the touch of multiple buttons. seems like it might be a lot of work to set up in some text file right? WRONG! to be even more of a lazy macro abuser, i made all these binds with a key bind generating graphical user interface. give it a try here, its foolproof
http://www.ifes.us/STOKeyBind/index.html