Thanks Cryptic for the Marks YAY - now can we address fleet weapons/crew death rate?

balordezul · February 2013

First off I would like to thank Dstahl and team for the fleet mark update in the last patch. I have not been this excited about a sto patch in a long time.

I want to bring up two topics that I would love the Dev team to start looking at.

1. Crew death rate on large crew ships vs the crew return rate.
2. Fleet Advanced weapons vs. Fleet Elite weapons vs. the better weapons

-Crew deaths on large crew ships
One of my main toons flies a Vo'Quv with a crew of 4k and after finishing a set of STFs that I might only die once if that my crew if just decimated. Also the time it takes for the crew to return to 100% is a little excessive as I have time to go make a phone call, get a drink and check the weather. Can this be addressed or looked at please.

-Top end weapons
My fleet has Star base 5 and Eng 5 at this point but only in the last two weeks was I enlightened to the fact that fleet weapons are not the best weapons in the game. Further more why are the advanced weapons better then the elite weapons?

(numbers are based of store window not active in game buffs)
Advanced Fleet Phaser Beam Array MkXII [Dmgx3] [Acc] 20k marks, 10k Dil
196.3 dps 10% Acc

Elite Fleet Phaser Beam Array MkXII [Dmgx2] [Acc] 30k marks, 15k Dil
192.3 dps 10% Acc
plus the thing that makes it elite!
2.5% Chance: 75.3 Shield regeneration on a successful attack

Personally I use these weapons as I have a shield regen tanking recluse. The issue I have is this is a sub par reward for reaching Tier 5. Also not everyone would get good use out of the the shield regen weapons. The way I see it I just payed an extra 10k marks and 5k Dil for a hybrid weapon that gives shield regen over something that is "Elite" or Tier 5 worthy.

Suggestions:
Add a extra [Acc] to all elite fleet weapons on top of what they have. This would help me want one of these over only spending a few Mil of EC on the exchange for a better weapon.

Next duplicate all the weapons and replace shield regen with a different stat.
Examples:
-A second Phaser proc
-X% kinetic damage
-Phaser proc kills two subsystems

for KDF as you could just follow the same theme with disruptors

I find this to be a little sad for all the work we have done on the fleet to still be searching for MK XII very rare weapons with [Acc] [CrtD] [CrtH] on the exchange over using the big star base rewards.

I know this can be addressed and I know the Dev team wants to make our hard work pay off but can this be a short term focus or an acknowledgement the it is being looked into.

Cheers, now back to the exchange to watch for a good deal

haravikk · February 2013

I think the proc on the Elite weapons is okay, but they really need to be available in the full range of modifier combos so that you can have [Acc]x3 if you want to; this would make them more interesting.

I'd then make them available with the following Elite proc options:
- Shield regen proc (as it is now)
- Double proc chance (increases the normal 2.5% proc chance to 5%)
- [Aux] proc causes half of power drain to come from Auxiliary power. So a beam array would use 5 weapon power and 5 auxiliary power, a dual heavy cannon would use 6 and 6 and so-on.

I don't think they're the worst weapons, but a bit more flexibility would be better as fleet advanced weapons are balanced by the fact that you're limited to [Dmg]x3 as three of the four modifiers. But the elite weapons should be able to offer at least some extra choice, even if you're forced to have at least one [Dmg] modifier it would be nice to at least be able to take a [Dmg] [Acc]x2, or [Dmg] [CrtH]x2 or whatever.

jellico1 · February 2013

I am very let down thats not a elite weapon its a sub standard weapon , I see no reason to turn in my advanced weapon for that let alone pay the high price for i

Not only that with rapid fire cannon users ger 2X the benifit over beam users

Not happy

jarninjf · February 2013

balordezul wrote: »

-Crew deaths on large crew ships
One of my main toons flies a Vo'Quv with a crew of 4k and after finishing a set of STFs that I might only die once if that my crew if just decimated. Also the time it takes for the crew to return to 100% is a little excessive as I have time to go make a phone call, get a drink and check the weather. Can this be addressed or looked at please.

Since you're talking about captaining a Vo'Quv I'm gonna guess you don't have the human BOffs that make crew hull regen worth while, in which case your crew doesn't matter that much. Instant and heal over time abilities like Engineering Team, Aux2SIF and Hazard Emitters supplanted crew hull regen back in beta and it hasn't really gotten a look since.

I recently loaded my Atrox up with human BOffs to see if it would make a difference, and it's actually quite noticeable. I think my crew hull regen got up to 220%/minute, which works out to about 1900 hull regen per second (instead of ~870/s). This allowed me to focus more on shield heals and other utility abilities like tractor beams.

I also outfitted the Atrox with 3x Emergency Force Field consoles and 3x Biofunction Monitors to see if they made a difference, and I think it was quite noticeable as well.

In testing I got by using only Tac Team and shield heals, since my crew was fixing my hull so quickly. I did end up tanking about half a dozen borg spheres in a normal Hive Onslaught; my entire crew was injured by the end of the fight, but they all survived. It was at that point I figured out the problem.

Back in beta there was a science ability called "Medical Team" which was an instant crew heal and resistance buff. Since most players in beta were relying on the faster instant heals like ET and AUX2SIF along with Hazard Emitters, nobody really used Medical Team, so it got axed and replaced with Science Team.
However, now that the human Leadership skill is working properly, I'm now using human crews on most of my character's ships.
For the most of my characters I don't need a medical team ability because my crews aren't all that big, but for my Atrox... HOLY COW does it take a long time to get my crew back up on their feet. Even with the biofunction monitors, it takes a good 60-120 seconds before I'm at full crew regen again. This is what Medical Team was for: To instantly revive dead/injured crew so large crew ships didn't have to have long waits between fights, but since that skill was removed we're back at waiting again, now that crew regen is a viable option.

So the devs have some options. They could add Medical Team back to the game in some form so large crew'd cruisers and carriers have a way to get their crew regen back up quickly. Or they could boost the crew resistances and revive bonuses on the supporting consoles to make up for the lack of Medical Team.

EDIT: Just got in game and there are DOffs that will boost crew revival in combat. The purples do +200%, the blues do +150%, greens do +100% and commons do +50%. Your ship's crew has to be below 75% before these DOff bonuses kick in.

Thanks Cryptic for the Marks YAY - now can we address fleet weapons/crew death rate?

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