lol this TRIBBLE child of DHC's is really a beam boat lol hahahahahahahahahaha I love it
Think about it, you can have free DHC's on this ship with its set bonus and then you can chose beam skills like Befaw, BO, or targeting and never miss a beat. My oh my oh my i actually think I will buy this thing now since I am major beam captain and this thing will be fun specially with my "Inertial Denial" Build.
How unorthodox, how interesting, how fun it will be, finally escorts have no choice atm but to be Beam boat DHC hybrids. I wonder if I will be credited with this discovery as I have done so many times in the past or if people will simple restate my own thoughts as theirs.
It's not that I am not happy with the ship itself, I am happy with the ship itself, but the consoles are underpowered. My original comparison was the Overload console alone vs Guramba's Javelin alone. You don't give up anything at all by having Siege Mode/Javelin on the Guramba, it's just there. As far as the pets, they die relatively easily, and are also a 3m cd. Which brings up another point. You call the pets, 30 seconds later, pets die, 2.5m before you can call them back out again. Which totally ruins the 3 set bonus right there for 2.5m plus that particular console til it is off CD again. What really ruins all these consoles though is that Overload/Tachyon Induction both start CDs on cannon abilities. You can't really chain the two either since Overload has a 4 second charge up time giving plenty of time for your target to get it's shields back up.
Gospel. I really do wonder what the "testing" environment was used for this ship in house. I ran PvP tests for most of the day on release and well - I now use the ENG ship and no consoles.
The Anrodian weapons should be on their own CD and the "charge-up" needs to go, as well as needing the pets to launch. I was wondering why the pets are on such a CD anyway as it is not like they do any real damage and they get vaporized so easily it does not make sense....
I think the pets should be cosmetic only but then I dont like pets so take it for what it is worth.
On a side I'm also one of the players that thinks every release should be tested by the players in Tribble at least a week prior to an official release.
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
Former Alpha & Beta Tester Original Cryptic Forum Name:Spartan (member #124) The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
0
archoncrypticMember, Cryptic DevelopersPosts: 0Arc User
edited February 2013
Just a quick update:
We are currently internally testing a change to take the Console powers off of the shared cooldown with Cannon: Rapid Fire and Cannon: Spread Volley. Instead, the consoles will have a longer (most likely 30 seconds) shared cooldown with each other.
In addition, I am cutting down the charge up time on the Overload to 2 seconds and slightly increasing the damage. It will still deal less than the Guramba's Javelin.
Finally, the Tachyon Burst is getting a bit of love as well. It will now also debuff the target's shields, causing them to suffer more damage to shields for a short time. This should make the Tachyon Burst provide a lot more utility in STFs and other endgame content.
These changes are still being tested and subject to possible change.
We are currently internally testing a change to take the Console powers off of the shared cooldown with Cannon: Rapid Fire and Cannon: Spread Volley. Instead, the consoles will have a longer (most likely 30 seconds) shared cooldown with each other.
In addition, I am cutting down the charge up time on the Overload to 2 seconds and slightly increasing the damage. It will still deal less than the Guramba's Javelin.
Finally, the Tachyon Burst is getting a bit of love as well. It will now also debuff the target's shields, causing them to suffer more damage to shields for a short time. This should make the Tachyon Burst provide a lot more utility in STFs and other endgame content.
These changes are still being tested and subject to possible change.
Thanks for the update - the information is greatly appreciated and a step in the right direction to say the least.
One suggestion, it would operationally nice to be able to "store" a charge and as a "negative" it should be used within say 10 seconds or it dissipates.
On a side note, will you consider making the pet auto deploy when entering combat or at least given us the option? It seems like a intentional hamfisting taking the extra step to be frank.
For what it is worth, I think they look silly and would love the option to simply not have them shown to be frank but I digress...
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
It will now also debuff the target's shields, causing them to suffer more damage to shields for a short time. This should make the Tachyon Burst provide a lot more utility in STFs and other endgame content.
These changes are still being tested and subject to possible change.
For the love of science can this be added to some of the currently craptastic science shield stripping abilities?
It will be kinda odd for an escort console to be more effective in shield stripping endgame content than fully maxed out science abilities....
We are currently internally testing a change to take the Console powers off of the shared cooldown with Cannon: Rapid Fire and Cannon: Spread Volley. Instead, the consoles will have a longer (most likely 30 seconds) shared cooldown with each other.
In addition, I am cutting down the charge up time on the Overload to 2 seconds and slightly increasing the damage. It will still deal less than the Guramba's Javelin.
Finally, the Tachyon Burst is getting a bit of love as well. It will now also debuff the target's shields, causing them to suffer more damage to shields for a short time. This should make the Tachyon Burst provide a lot more utility in STFs and other endgame content.
These changes are still being tested and subject to possible change.
I concur. On the bright side if you run the sci version of the ship you are all set.
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
We are currently internally testing a change to take the Console powers off of the shared cooldown with Cannon: Rapid Fire and Cannon: Spread Volley. Instead, the consoles will have a longer (most likely 30 seconds) shared cooldown with each other.
In addition, I am cutting down the charge up time on the Overload to 2 seconds and slightly increasing the damage. It will still deal less than the Guramba's Javelin.
Finally, the Tachyon Burst is getting a bit of love as well. It will now also debuff the target's shields, causing them to suffer more damage to shields for a short time. This should make the Tachyon Burst provide a lot more utility in STFs and other endgame content.
These changes are still being tested and subject to possible change.
I'd never expect it to do the same amount of damage as a Spinal Lance or Javelin.
I'm just so happy you're testing it with an unshared CD with C:SV C:RF. Oh god thank you, thank you, thank you.
Why is it when i use CRF or CSV the wing cannons take a major damage hit. From a base of 4699 to 995.2 when using crf 3 this is kinda lame.
I'm having the same issue. Every time I use rapid fire my Kumari wing cannons go from dealing ~5800 damage per hit to only dealing ~1100 damage per hit. All my other cannons damage is unchanged. The wing cannons apparently don't play well with boff cannon abilities AT ALL.
We are currently internally testing a change to take the Console powers off of the shared cooldown with Cannon: Rapid Fire and Cannon: Spread Volley. Instead, the consoles will have a longer (most likely 30 seconds) shared cooldown with each other.
In addition, I am cutting down the charge up time on the Overload to 2 seconds and slightly increasing the damage. It will still deal less than the Guramba's Javelin.
Finally, the Tachyon Burst is getting a bit of love as well. It will now also debuff the target's shields, causing them to suffer more damage to shields for a short time. This should make the Tachyon Burst provide a lot more utility in STFs and other endgame content.
These changes are still being tested and subject to possible change.
If only there was a test server to compliment the preview server, we could aid you by also testing.
My question is for a bundle pack why is the ship just overall patheticaly weak. no matter what you do you can not get around the fact any jem attack ship, fleet advanced escort, or even a fleet patrol has higher survival and more dps.....so whats the point........???? i want my money back!
My question is for a bundle pack why is the ship just overall patheticaly weak. no matter what you do you can not get around the fact any jem attack ship, fleet advanced escort, or even a fleet patrol has higher survival and more dps.....so whats the point........???? i want my money back!
Wut.
It has the same boff layout as a patrol escort/steam runner and more dhc space and its weaker and less dps.... ?
When the tac console is activated and the cannon is actually charging, i couldnt use any skills for those 4 secs charge time, I needed to activate a battery and use my TSS and EPTS and they would not work until the cannon fired its shot, of course by the time that had happened my ship blew up because i couldnt use tac team at the crucial moment.
I dont see why we cant use any skill what so ever while its charging. Surely the charge is taken from the weapons. Why cant shields etc work as they would normally do.
At the moment the console is sat in my inventory and the weapons themselves aren't far behind it with a weapon from the fleet store or the exchange to replace it. Seems that sometimes it doesnt fire when it should. Seems to have a random glitch where its cd goes to a random time.
0
archoncrypticMember, Cryptic DevelopersPosts: 0Arc User
I'm having the same issue. Every time I use rapid fire my Kumari wing cannons go from dealing ~5800 damage per hit to only dealing ~1100 damage per hit. All my other cannons damage is unchanged. The wing cannons apparently don't play well with boff cannon abilities AT ALL.
This is because while the normal attacks for the Wing Cannons are super slow and heavy on burst (much like torpedoes), the Rapid Fire mode hits much faster (the same rate of fire as a standard DHC).
A standard Wing Cannon attack hits about once every 3.75 seconds (it takes 0.75 seconds to activate and has a 3 second cooldown between shots).
When in rapid fire mode, you hit 4 times every approximately 2.2 seconds. That's 0.55 seconds per hit.
In the same time frame as you can hit once with a normal attack, you can hit approximately 6.8 times with Rapid Fire. This isn't exact, since you're not always going to be firing continuously, latency can cause minor alterations, etc.
But with your sample numbers of say 1100/shot with Rapid Fire, assuming you hit 6.8 times as fast, that'd be about equivalent DPS to hitting for 7500 in one shot. If your base damage is 5800, this shows a significant increase by switching to Rapid Fire.
Edit: To clarify, those sample numbers are not necessarily representative of the actual DPS difference between these abilities. I'm simply using the numbers in the example.
Is there any change planned for the firing rate of the platforms? At the moment the platforms fire only when the Wing cannons fire, and seeing as you said these weapons are designed to do less damage than a normal weapon, having these fire at such low rates makes them less than lovable.
Also can we have the platforms be locked in position to the sides of the ship and not behind and have them move a lot less. Or maybe have them circle around the Y axis. Kinda like Options, its annoying when your doing fast runs through exploding enemies and ur platforms stay so far behind they get stuck in explosions and warp core breaches.
One last thing that could be made to improve the platform is that when using the 3 console set the platforms also benefit from your shield repair and hull repair abilities. Whn you use it on you the effect also affects the platforms.
Oh and for gods sake lower the cooldown from 3 minutes to like 1 minute or something cause its ridiculous, when your doing dailies and missions that require map changing, you summon the platforms only to warp out and then bam 3m with no platforms. Its like you spend most of the time without being able to use the platforms when you are running regular missions.
0
archoncrypticMember, Cryptic DevelopersPosts: 0Arc User
edited February 2013
Is there any change planned for the firing rate of the platforms? At the moment the platforms fire only when the Wing cannons fire, and seeing as you said these weapons are designed to do less damage than a normal weapon, having these fire at such low rates makes them less than lovable.
I'm working on some optimizations to the AI on these to get them fire a little more consistently and cutting down their cooldown between shots a little. Their base damage per shot isn't being increased, but their rate of fire will be a little more consistent.
I'm also improving their Overload damage significantly.
Sounds like I might have to give the console set a 2nd look once the changes go through.
Any chance of changing the boff layout on the tac version, maybe swaping the lt tac to an ensign tac and giving us an lt eng or sci in its place. Given the global cooldowns there is just no way to use that many tactical boff powers, not unless you want to equip beams on an escort.
To start:
These ships are gorgeous and i love them, as soon as you fix the bugs and un-nerf them i will happily blow $50 on the whole set!
Now to more important things:
If these ships are made to exemplify every aspect of an escort there is one thing y'all could do... Escorts = Speed and power right? they have the marvelous 5 forward weapon slots which makes them better then every other escort in the game DPS wise, but there are several others (three to be exact) that still have better turn rate and could get behind it and kill it in PVP. So if you increase its turn rate from 16 to 18 (just 2 points) i would be VERY happy! It would then be the best escort in the game, even beating out the stupid and much vaunted Bug.
Sounds like I might have to give the console set a 2nd look once the changes go through.
Any chance of changing the boff layout on the tac version, maybe swapping the lt tac to an ensign tac and giving us an lt eng or sci in its place. Given the global cooldowns there is just no way to use that many tactical boff powers, not unless you want to equip beams on an escort.
Just dump the third tac ensign all together.
There is never a reason for 3 tac ensigns on any ship that will be used for maximum performance, such as the zstore ships. The only ships that have three tac positions are escorts and cannons are the order of the day since torps are so lame and have limited applicability from performance stand point. (and balance is driven by performance not role play) Ships like cruisers and science vessels would never have 3 tac Boffs, well maybe in a decade when new ship ideas require that kind of expansion.
This is a great ship, the balance issue is due to the fact that dps is king. Really the oddy and the vesta were required to answer the potential of fleet patrol escorts. Imagine the fleet version of a Kumari if one comes out.
Balance could be easier to obtain if players were forced to put one torpedo in the fore weapons of every ship and perhaps cruisers and sci ships have a torp/mine in the rear. This could be done by separating the weapons slots from general weapons slots to kinetic and energy slots.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
By the way y'all should release a Dev blog when you finish fixing these ships to make sure the whole community is aware of the improvement... It may also boost sales when people see how much better they are.
I feel that forcing every ship to have a torp in the fore weapon and some to have them in the rear would be in line with star trek cannon. Of course each ship would have a tractor too.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
There is never a reason for 3 tac ensigns on any ship that will be used for maximum performance, such as the zstore ships. The only ships that have three tac positions are escorts and cannons are the order of the day since torps are so lame and have limited applicability from performance stand point. (and balance is driven by performance not role play) Ships like cruisers and science vessels would never have 3 tac Boffs, well maybe in a decade when new ship ideas require that kind of expansion.
Well ofcourse I would prefer not to have more then the lt cmdr and cmdr tac, just didn't want to be to greedy in my question.
I'm working on some optimizations to the AI on these to get them fire a little more consistently and cutting down their cooldown between shots a little. Their base damage per shot isn't being increased, but their rate of fire will be a little more consistent.
I'm also improving their Overload damage significantly.
Hey Archon, I've come to really enjoy the WCP's and appreciate the changes considered above. However, one aspect of the plaforms is sorely lacking: longevity. I've noticed that they seem to try to "jump" away from explosions, which is a greatly needed combat pet response in general. IMO, THESE pets need more, considering their long cooldown, having only two active at a time and lack of durability. No, they shouldn't be able to survive being directly targeted for long, that wouldn't be fair, but losing them and staring at 3-minutes before I can relaunch doesn't sit well either.
Also, and this may be just me, but I noticed that I tend to fly differently when they're online in an effort to keep them online. This isn't true with my HEC because I know I can respawn almost as quickly as I need to.
Drop 3rd Tac and make it a Uni. Ensign tac options for a none BB are so limited it is not funny. Two Uni would be better so Tac players dont have to use the Eng or Sci version to greatly improve their survivability. Sad really....
My personal preference is for two Commander Tac slots on the Tac ship - as it should be for such a ship.
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
If these ships are made to exemplify every aspect of an escort there is one thing y'all could do... Escorts = Speed and power right? they have the marvelous 5 forward weapon slots which makes them better then every other escort in the game DPS wise, but there are several others (three to be exact) that still have better turn rate and could get behind it and kill it in PVP. So if you increase its turn rate from 16 to 18 (just 2 points) i would be VERY happy! It would then be the best escort in the game, even beating out the stupid and much vaunted Bug.
For your keyboard to god's eyes! A snappy turnrate would make this ship a lot better. A buff would just need to make the Ando equal to the F-TER in terms of turnrate to make me very happy.
I don't care about turn rate, the thing can have a few weaknesses. If it were perfect then there is no room for the next ship. Really it makes sense, all weapon systems and platforms have their weaknesses, but tactics and doctrine is what can make a good weapon great and an great weapon elite.
I am advocating a removal of the 3rd tac doff on all escorts because there is no reason for it. Really it seems a bit of an exploit to have all cannons, but till that is fixed then the third tac is silly and wasteful of a BO slot. It was not ever seen in Star Trek that I can recall where a major power's warship of high tier only had energy or kinetic weapons.
Balance will always cripple game play and creativity till this game gets back to Star Trek roots: create viable cripple (not destroy) and science based win scenarios for combat (imagine if a science ship could turn cap points in Cap and Hold much faster than escorts) and break the game into 4 game play modes with separate skill trees/stats and equipment load outs: space pvp, space pve, ground pvp, and ground pve. The problem is balance doesn't work when you want to balance a human opponent (pvp) to a contemporary gaming AI opponent (pve). This seems to be the heart of this ship's balance issue and the heart of the overall game balance issue. PvP and PvE are incompatible in the same skill tree. Ships need a pvp and pve load out, ground perhaps as well.
Until this is done I don't see a way to get optimal balance where both pve and pvp aspects of the game can flourish. Both game play options are great, but they are water and oil.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
I don't care about turn rate, the thing can have a few weaknesses. If it were perfect then there is no room for the next ship. Really it makes sense, all weapon systems and platforms have their weaknesses, but tactics and doctrine is what can make a good weapon great and an great weapon elite.
Look, it's Sun Tzu! You could have made your case for what YOU want changed without spitting on what I want, brain-boy.
Comments
Think about it, you can have free DHC's on this ship with its set bonus and then you can chose beam skills like Befaw, BO, or targeting and never miss a beat. My oh my oh my i actually think I will buy this thing now since I am major beam captain and this thing will be fun specially with my "Inertial Denial" Build.
How unorthodox, how interesting, how fun it will be, finally escorts have no choice atm but to be Beam boat DHC hybrids. I wonder if I will be credited with this discovery as I have done so many times in the past or if people will simple restate my own thoughts as theirs.
Gospel. I really do wonder what the "testing" environment was used for this ship in house. I ran PvP tests for most of the day on release and well - I now use the ENG ship and no consoles.
The Anrodian weapons should be on their own CD and the "charge-up" needs to go, as well as needing the pets to launch. I was wondering why the pets are on such a CD anyway as it is not like they do any real damage and they get vaporized so easily it does not make sense....
I think the pets should be cosmetic only but then I dont like pets so take it for what it is worth.
On a side I'm also one of the players that thinks every release should be tested by the players in Tribble at least a week prior to an official release.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
We are currently internally testing a change to take the Console powers off of the shared cooldown with Cannon: Rapid Fire and Cannon: Spread Volley. Instead, the consoles will have a longer (most likely 30 seconds) shared cooldown with each other.
In addition, I am cutting down the charge up time on the Overload to 2 seconds and slightly increasing the damage. It will still deal less than the Guramba's Javelin.
Finally, the Tachyon Burst is getting a bit of love as well. It will now also debuff the target's shields, causing them to suffer more damage to shields for a short time. This should make the Tachyon Burst provide a lot more utility in STFs and other endgame content.
These changes are still being tested and subject to possible change.
Thanks for the update - the information is greatly appreciated and a step in the right direction to say the least.
One suggestion, it would operationally nice to be able to "store" a charge and as a "negative" it should be used within say 10 seconds or it dissipates.
On a side note, will you consider making the pet auto deploy when entering combat or at least given us the option? It seems like a intentional hamfisting taking the extra step to be frank.
For what it is worth, I think they look silly and would love the option to simply not have them shown to be frank but I digress...
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
For the love of science can this be added to some of the currently craptastic science shield stripping abilities?
It will be kinda odd for an escort console to be more effective in shield stripping endgame content than fully maxed out science abilities....
And I don't mean by adding in a doff with it.
I concur. On the bright side if you run the sci version of the ship you are all set.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
I'd never expect it to do the same amount of damage as a Spinal Lance or Javelin.
I'm just so happy you're testing it with an unshared CD with C:SV C:RF. Oh god thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'm having the same issue. Every time I use rapid fire my Kumari wing cannons go from dealing ~5800 damage per hit to only dealing ~1100 damage per hit. All my other cannons damage is unchanged. The wing cannons apparently don't play well with boff cannon abilities AT ALL.
If only there was a test server to compliment the preview server, we could aid you by also testing.
Wut.
It has the same boff layout as a patrol escort/steam runner and more dhc space and its weaker and less dps.... ?
What is this I don't even
At the moment the console is sat in my inventory and the weapons themselves aren't far behind it with a weapon from the fleet store or the exchange to replace it. Seems that sometimes it doesnt fire when it should. Seems to have a random glitch where its cd goes to a random time.
This is because while the normal attacks for the Wing Cannons are super slow and heavy on burst (much like torpedoes), the Rapid Fire mode hits much faster (the same rate of fire as a standard DHC).
A standard Wing Cannon attack hits about once every 3.75 seconds (it takes 0.75 seconds to activate and has a 3 second cooldown between shots).
When in rapid fire mode, you hit 4 times every approximately 2.2 seconds. That's 0.55 seconds per hit.
In the same time frame as you can hit once with a normal attack, you can hit approximately 6.8 times with Rapid Fire. This isn't exact, since you're not always going to be firing continuously, latency can cause minor alterations, etc.
But with your sample numbers of say 1100/shot with Rapid Fire, assuming you hit 6.8 times as fast, that'd be about equivalent DPS to hitting for 7500 in one shot. If your base damage is 5800, this shows a significant increase by switching to Rapid Fire.
Edit: To clarify, those sample numbers are not necessarily representative of the actual DPS difference between these abilities. I'm simply using the numbers in the example.
Also can we have the platforms be locked in position to the sides of the ship and not behind and have them move a lot less. Or maybe have them circle around the Y axis. Kinda like Options, its annoying when your doing fast runs through exploding enemies and ur platforms stay so far behind they get stuck in explosions and warp core breaches.
One last thing that could be made to improve the platform is that when using the 3 console set the platforms also benefit from your shield repair and hull repair abilities. Whn you use it on you the effect also affects the platforms.
Oh and for gods sake lower the cooldown from 3 minutes to like 1 minute or something cause its ridiculous, when your doing dailies and missions that require map changing, you summon the platforms only to warp out and then bam 3m with no platforms. Its like you spend most of the time without being able to use the platforms when you are running regular missions.
I'm working on some optimizations to the AI on these to get them fire a little more consistently and cutting down their cooldown between shots a little. Their base damage per shot isn't being increased, but their rate of fire will be a little more consistent.
I'm also improving their Overload damage significantly.
Any chance of changing the boff layout on the tac version, maybe swaping the lt tac to an ensign tac and giving us an lt eng or sci in its place. Given the global cooldowns there is just no way to use that many tactical boff powers, not unless you want to equip beams on an escort.
These ships are gorgeous and i love them, as soon as you fix the bugs and un-nerf them i will happily blow $50 on the whole set!
Now to more important things:
If these ships are made to exemplify every aspect of an escort there is one thing y'all could do... Escorts = Speed and power right? they have the marvelous 5 forward weapon slots which makes them better then every other escort in the game DPS wise, but there are several others (three to be exact) that still have better turn rate and could get behind it and kill it in PVP. So if you increase its turn rate from 16 to 18 (just 2 points) i would be VERY happy! It would then be the best escort in the game, even beating out the stupid and much vaunted Bug.
Just dump the third tac ensign all together.
There is never a reason for 3 tac ensigns on any ship that will be used for maximum performance, such as the zstore ships. The only ships that have three tac positions are escorts and cannons are the order of the day since torps are so lame and have limited applicability from performance stand point. (and balance is driven by performance not role play) Ships like cruisers and science vessels would never have 3 tac Boffs, well maybe in a decade when new ship ideas require that kind of expansion.
This is a great ship, the balance issue is due to the fact that dps is king. Really the oddy and the vesta were required to answer the potential of fleet patrol escorts. Imagine the fleet version of a Kumari if one comes out.
Balance could be easier to obtain if players were forced to put one torpedo in the fore weapons of every ship and perhaps cruisers and sci ships have a torp/mine in the rear. This could be done by separating the weapons slots from general weapons slots to kinetic and energy slots.
By the way y'all should release a Dev blog when you finish fixing these ships to make sure the whole community is aware of the improvement... It may also boost sales when people see how much better they are.
Well ofcourse I would prefer not to have more then the lt cmdr and cmdr tac, just didn't want to be to greedy in my question.
Hey Archon, I've come to really enjoy the WCP's and appreciate the changes considered above. However, one aspect of the plaforms is sorely lacking: longevity. I've noticed that they seem to try to "jump" away from explosions, which is a greatly needed combat pet response in general. IMO, THESE pets need more, considering their long cooldown, having only two active at a time and lack of durability. No, they shouldn't be able to survive being directly targeted for long, that wouldn't be fair, but losing them and staring at 3-minutes before I can relaunch doesn't sit well either.
Also, and this may be just me, but I noticed that I tend to fly differently when they're online in an effort to keep them online. This isn't true with my HEC because I know I can respawn almost as quickly as I need to.
My personal preference is for two Commander Tac slots on the Tac ship - as it should be for such a ship.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
For your keyboard to god's eyes!
I am advocating a removal of the 3rd tac doff on all escorts because there is no reason for it. Really it seems a bit of an exploit to have all cannons, but till that is fixed then the third tac is silly and wasteful of a BO slot. It was not ever seen in Star Trek that I can recall where a major power's warship of high tier only had energy or kinetic weapons.
Balance will always cripple game play and creativity till this game gets back to Star Trek roots: create viable cripple (not destroy) and science based win scenarios for combat (imagine if a science ship could turn cap points in Cap and Hold much faster than escorts) and break the game into 4 game play modes with separate skill trees/stats and equipment load outs: space pvp, space pve, ground pvp, and ground pve. The problem is balance doesn't work when you want to balance a human opponent (pvp) to a contemporary gaming AI opponent (pve). This seems to be the heart of this ship's balance issue and the heart of the overall game balance issue. PvP and PvE are incompatible in the same skill tree. Ships need a pvp and pve load out, ground perhaps as well.
Until this is done I don't see a way to get optimal balance where both pve and pvp aspects of the game can flourish. Both game play options are great, but they are water and oil.
Look, it's Sun Tzu!