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Shocked back into reality: Fed cruisers
mimey2
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
So it's time for this week's Fed cruiser thread, figured I'd make it this time.
I've been toying around in my Fleet Ambassador, having fun with it and everything, but getting rather shocked back into the reality of Fed cruisers.
While I've gotten my Ambassador to get about a 12 turn rate without buffs, which I would call pretty good, it still deals with the fact that it is a Fed cruiser.
Let me start by saying that I don't consider Fed cruisers bad, I consider them inefficient. There's a difference I feel. Fed cruisers are inefficient for the same reasons most people consider them 'bad'. In three ways mostly: Bad turn rate, beam arrays, and shared BOFF cooldowns.
Low turn rate is not a good thing in this game. With the amount of powers and weapons that you have to be turning for constantly, and Fed cruisers don't have that. At best you have either the Excelsior, or the Odyssey without it's saucer, or the Gal-R without it's saucer, and that's it...at least in terms of good turn rates most or all of the time.
RCS consoles don't help much at all due to the fact that they are percentage based, instead of a flat bonus, which means they do not help out cruisers as much as they could, because of their smaller base turn-rates, which gives a lot less of an increase compared to an escort or sci ship.
A cruiser CAN afford to give up an engineering console or two for them, if they were worth using. As it stands now, they really aren't that effective and thus few people use them on a cruiser.
Beam arrays aren't efficient because while they do drain 10 power, which is fine to me, they drain it after the first hit, which means the rest of the hits are greatly weakened, causing their overall damage to really plummet. A broadside is meant to be pretty devastating and lay a hurt on something, instead it generally ends up being a good first hit and then 3 low damage hits from all BAs.
If BAs instead drained over time, with each pulse, they would be loads better than they are now. Example:
6 BAs at 100 weapon power, let's pretend that they each did 1000 damage to start on the first hit. So first pulse: 6000 damage. This would be followed up by weapon power decreasing by 2.5 per beam array. On the second pulse, say each beam did...850 damage and again there would be a 2.5 weapon decrease per beam. Repeat for the third pulse at about 700 damage or so, and then the fourth for 550 damage.
In short, it'd look like this:
Start: 100 weapon power
1st pulse: 1000 damage per beam, weapon power drops to 85
2nd pulse: 850 damage per beam, weapon power drops to 70
3rd pulse: 700 damage per beam, weapon power drops to 55
4th pulse: 550 damage per beam, weapon power drops to 40, and then is restored back for the next go around.
What this would cause to happen is beam arrays would be delivering a very good amount of sustained fire, without buffing their damage at all. Yes they would be low at the end of a volley, but their effectiveness would increase tremendously because broadsiding wouldn't be such a massive drain on weapon power and just do tickle-level damage.
Now their third problem (and this can apply for Engineering BOFFs in general) lies with the number of shared cooldowns you have to deal with, especially at the lower levels. For most ships this isn't a problem, except of course for cruisers.
The four E-power to X abilities, while nice, do share cooldowns with each other, same with the three Aux to X abilities. Them sharing cooldowns isn't the issue. It's more they share so many cooldowns with each other, at the LOWER levels, something neither of the other two BOFF areas have to deal with as much. Like Attack Patterns start the Lt and Lt. Cmdr level, and VM is a Lt. Cmdr ability.
In other words, for tac and sci BOFFs, lower leveled cooldowns don't pose as much of a problem to them as compared for engineers. They can afford to work around that.
Engineering BOFFs however at the ensign level only have: E-power to X (all four of them, which share a CD), and Engineering Team (which has a cooldown with Tac and Sci team).
Tacs have: TT 1, HY 1, TS 1, BO 1, FAW 1, and the four Target X subsystem abilities. So TT shares cooldown with Eng and Sci team of course, the four Target X abilities share a cooldown*, BO and FAW 1 share a cooldown*, and the HY and TS share a cooldown.
*Can't remember if the Target X and other beam special powers share a cooldown or not.
My point being that an escort, even a Defiant if the pilot so chose, could easily slot three different powers that wouldn't have a single shared cooldown between them. No cruiser pilot can do that, because they don't have that variety available to them at all.
Now then, to start wrapping this up, I already know there's going to be posts of 'learn to fly your ship', or 'cruisers don't need a buff', or 'I can get X DPS in my cruiser', and so on. I'm fully expecting it, and here's my replies ahead of time:
'Learn to fly your ship'. I know how to fly quite well. This isn't about whether or not I can fly or play the game. I can get plenty out of a Fed cruiser, I've just re-realized recently just how inefficient they are.
'Cruisers don't need a buff'. No they don't, at least not in terms of damage, mostly Beam arrays I mean. Their hull, shields, etc is fine to me. The fact that BAs drain all their power at once makes them much less effective weapons. If I did truly ask for a buff though, it'd have to be in turn rate, because it's a little ridiculous at this point with all the 'large' ships that turn so well, it's silly that Fed cruisers are still so shafted like that. At the very least, making RCS consoles actually worthwhile for a cruiser would be more than enough to me.
'I can get X DPS in my cruiser'. And I'm glad for you. I know that gear, pilot skill, and captain powers can really help hugely in making a Fed cruiser a true terror regardless. HOWEVER, if at that point you've gotten to X DPS in your cruiser, wouldn't you be more effective in a different ship then? One that you didn't have to overcome some major inefficiencies to fly well?
And before any KDF players get on my case as well, even if you don't agree with some of what I said above, particularly about turn rate, I understand. However, the engineering BOFF abilities ARE still a problem even on the KDF side, and RCS consoles still don't help that much even for like the Fleet Tor'kaht as compared to a Raptor or BoP, so some of those things would help even for the KDF side.
I did have one final idea I was going to add to this, but I decided against it, feeling it would be highly controversial, and also probably distract way too much from the other things I brought up here.
I've been toying around in my Fleet Ambassador, having fun with it and everything, but getting rather shocked back into the reality of Fed cruisers.
While I've gotten my Ambassador to get about a 12 turn rate without buffs, which I would call pretty good, it still deals with the fact that it is a Fed cruiser.
Let me start by saying that I don't consider Fed cruisers bad, I consider them inefficient. There's a difference I feel. Fed cruisers are inefficient for the same reasons most people consider them 'bad'. In three ways mostly: Bad turn rate, beam arrays, and shared BOFF cooldowns.
Low turn rate is not a good thing in this game. With the amount of powers and weapons that you have to be turning for constantly, and Fed cruisers don't have that. At best you have either the Excelsior, or the Odyssey without it's saucer, or the Gal-R without it's saucer, and that's it...at least in terms of good turn rates most or all of the time.
RCS consoles don't help much at all due to the fact that they are percentage based, instead of a flat bonus, which means they do not help out cruisers as much as they could, because of their smaller base turn-rates, which gives a lot less of an increase compared to an escort or sci ship.
A cruiser CAN afford to give up an engineering console or two for them, if they were worth using. As it stands now, they really aren't that effective and thus few people use them on a cruiser.
Beam arrays aren't efficient because while they do drain 10 power, which is fine to me, they drain it after the first hit, which means the rest of the hits are greatly weakened, causing their overall damage to really plummet. A broadside is meant to be pretty devastating and lay a hurt on something, instead it generally ends up being a good first hit and then 3 low damage hits from all BAs.
If BAs instead drained over time, with each pulse, they would be loads better than they are now. Example:
6 BAs at 100 weapon power, let's pretend that they each did 1000 damage to start on the first hit. So first pulse: 6000 damage. This would be followed up by weapon power decreasing by 2.5 per beam array. On the second pulse, say each beam did...850 damage and again there would be a 2.5 weapon decrease per beam. Repeat for the third pulse at about 700 damage or so, and then the fourth for 550 damage.
In short, it'd look like this:
Start: 100 weapon power
1st pulse: 1000 damage per beam, weapon power drops to 85
2nd pulse: 850 damage per beam, weapon power drops to 70
3rd pulse: 700 damage per beam, weapon power drops to 55
4th pulse: 550 damage per beam, weapon power drops to 40, and then is restored back for the next go around.
What this would cause to happen is beam arrays would be delivering a very good amount of sustained fire, without buffing their damage at all. Yes they would be low at the end of a volley, but their effectiveness would increase tremendously because broadsiding wouldn't be such a massive drain on weapon power and just do tickle-level damage.
Now their third problem (and this can apply for Engineering BOFFs in general) lies with the number of shared cooldowns you have to deal with, especially at the lower levels. For most ships this isn't a problem, except of course for cruisers.
The four E-power to X abilities, while nice, do share cooldowns with each other, same with the three Aux to X abilities. Them sharing cooldowns isn't the issue. It's more they share so many cooldowns with each other, at the LOWER levels, something neither of the other two BOFF areas have to deal with as much. Like Attack Patterns start the Lt and Lt. Cmdr level, and VM is a Lt. Cmdr ability.
In other words, for tac and sci BOFFs, lower leveled cooldowns don't pose as much of a problem to them as compared for engineers. They can afford to work around that.
Engineering BOFFs however at the ensign level only have: E-power to X (all four of them, which share a CD), and Engineering Team (which has a cooldown with Tac and Sci team).
Tacs have: TT 1, HY 1, TS 1, BO 1, FAW 1, and the four Target X subsystem abilities. So TT shares cooldown with Eng and Sci team of course, the four Target X abilities share a cooldown*, BO and FAW 1 share a cooldown*, and the HY and TS share a cooldown.
*Can't remember if the Target X and other beam special powers share a cooldown or not.
My point being that an escort, even a Defiant if the pilot so chose, could easily slot three different powers that wouldn't have a single shared cooldown between them. No cruiser pilot can do that, because they don't have that variety available to them at all.
Now then, to start wrapping this up, I already know there's going to be posts of 'learn to fly your ship', or 'cruisers don't need a buff', or 'I can get X DPS in my cruiser', and so on. I'm fully expecting it, and here's my replies ahead of time:
'Learn to fly your ship'. I know how to fly quite well. This isn't about whether or not I can fly or play the game. I can get plenty out of a Fed cruiser, I've just re-realized recently just how inefficient they are.
'Cruisers don't need a buff'. No they don't, at least not in terms of damage, mostly Beam arrays I mean. Their hull, shields, etc is fine to me. The fact that BAs drain all their power at once makes them much less effective weapons. If I did truly ask for a buff though, it'd have to be in turn rate, because it's a little ridiculous at this point with all the 'large' ships that turn so well, it's silly that Fed cruisers are still so shafted like that. At the very least, making RCS consoles actually worthwhile for a cruiser would be more than enough to me.
'I can get X DPS in my cruiser'. And I'm glad for you. I know that gear, pilot skill, and captain powers can really help hugely in making a Fed cruiser a true terror regardless. HOWEVER, if at that point you've gotten to X DPS in your cruiser, wouldn't you be more effective in a different ship then? One that you didn't have to overcome some major inefficiencies to fly well?
And before any KDF players get on my case as well, even if you don't agree with some of what I said above, particularly about turn rate, I understand. However, the engineering BOFF abilities ARE still a problem even on the KDF side, and RCS consoles still don't help that much even for like the Fleet Tor'kaht as compared to a Raptor or BoP, so some of those things would help even for the KDF side.
I did have one final idea I was going to add to this, but I decided against it, feeling it would be highly controversial, and also probably distract way too much from the other things I brought up here.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.pwlaughingtrendy wrote:I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
Post edited by mimey2 on
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Lol.
If only. Heck if they just added a 'heavy beam array' that worked like DHCs, more power consumption but shorter firing time, how much would that alone fix? Not saying cruisers need to do as much damage as escorts of course, but if an escort can do 80% of a cruiser's tanking, shouldn't a cruiser do 80% of an escort's damage?
Not really a problem with the Fleet Ambassador. I just got mine recently and use the universal station as a Tac. My setup has very few shared cooldowns:
Tac
TT1
BO1, THY 2
BFAW 1, APB 1
Eng
EPTW 1, ET 2, EPTS 3, ATS3
Sci
PH 1, HE 2, TSS 3
Very high powered heals, many of which can support your team. You're very hard to kill and your engineering powers don't overlap with anything. Keep a pile of Aux batteries with you and you'll have a very hard time dying.
Unfortunately this thread will go unread by the devs and nothing will get done the next patch will read repair GUI on andorion weapon of mass destruction
Even if they just sorted the drain mechanics and accuracy out
I mean bfaw is a joke and beam overload on a broadside is power Suicide
To play this game to the full you have to pay around 200 gbp
I play another online mmog which I won't say the name of but I paid 40gbp for the game and one of the bits of kit on there is op bit like an escort but every time I play I don't want to use that so I use something else a bit like a cruiser/carrier with beams but whatever I want to use works as intended and you don't have to feel handicapped just because you want a change of pace
The devs know this is a major problem yet they bring out another escort as if to slap the other game players in the face
Bfaw beam overload
Tt1 engineering team
Eptw epts
Na not many
While I would be more then happy to make the Cruisers have more health and shields and healing abilities.
But not more damage. And if you want more damage, a torpedo and dual beam arrays is a viable solution.
Heavy beam arrays are called Dual beam banks. With a romulan torpedo they work well in an stf.
With the power level goodies you have available as an ENG it's pretty simple to run almost perma weapon power at 125 and I don't see this huge drop off in DPS per beam shot you are talking about, but maybe that's because I build most of my beam boats to take advantage of crit damage and use disruptors most of the time so my damage is pretty constant across the board, though I do run 1 DBB and 5 BAs so maybe only broadsiding with 5 is the way to go.
Will Cruisers ever match escorts for pure DPS? No. Are they still a viable ship to fly in game? Sure. Honestly unless you are doing PVP or Elite missions, PVE is a joke you can solo with just about any ship, hell I get bored and do the daily Romulan patrols with a Tier 2 Exeter just for kicks and I hardly ever go below 80% or come close to getting blown up. Same goes for the assault cruiser, that thing could whip around like a top, even had a joystick you could control the helm with(silly idea in my mind, but it's in the movie...) and the Sovy in the films could turn on a dime.
If anyone has anything to cry about it's Science captains/Sci ships. I've shelved most of my Sci captains because they are pointless to play anymore unless you buy a Vesta. Though in terms of cruisers needing anything, I wouldn't mind seeing Cruisers all get a turn rate buff or getting some type of manuevering thrusters console. If you go back and watch any of the shows, even the big tubs were pretty darn manueverable and could whip around in a hurry. Look at the Gal-X in TNG and then fly it in this game, it's not even comparable to how it could move on TV.
Y'know, I hear this argument a lot, usually from escort meatheads. To refute your argument, I pose to you that tanks/healers are not needed in this game. Escorts can tank well enough that cruisers are not needed, so with cruisers doing laughable damage...where does that leave them? And if cruisers are the intended healer/tank, what are science vessels?
As for your "more damage" solution, I'd like to remind you that torpedoes and dual beam banks (which suffer from the same power drain flaws as arrays and are, therefore, horribly subpar) only have a 90 degree firing arc, which is difficult to utilize in a ship with such an abysmal turn rate.
Now, to those saying "omg lrn2play your cruiser noob, i get x dps on blah blah blah", yes, very good for you. Given the amount of effort you had to put forth to do so well in your cruiser, think of how much MORE effective you would be in an Escort. I am not an advocate of Escorts, nor do I hate them. I do, however, hate that Escorts have become the be-all end-all of STO when almost every iconic ship in Star Trek canon has been a cruiser, not an Escort and I don't believe they fit the "feel" of what Star Trek is, but that's just my opinion. I'm not in the "nerf escorts" camp, but I am firmly in the "buff all other ships so escorts aren't leaps and bounds ahead of them with zero effort" camp. If the other ship classifications don't get improved in some way, that gap still needs to be narrowed somehow.
Thank you for adding absolutely nothing of value to this discussion. Don't let the door hit you in the TRIBBLE on the way out.
This is - by far - the most sensible solution to "The Beam Problem" that I have ever come across.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Except they are 100% correct.
My eng flies a cruiser and scores very highly, usually first or second in dps in premade STFs, it also has threat control, takes the most damage and heals the most. If a ship is capable of scoring 1st or 2nd in damage and 1st in threat/damage taken/healing then that is op. Escorts become obsolete with builds like that.
So, learn 2 play is 100% valid here. I have 3 sets of combat logs I took last night, CSE, ISE and KASE back to back. I could post the results, but it won't stop the buff cruiser idiots will it? Nothing will please them
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it not about making the cruiser the main damage dealer, it about making the cruiser more efficient in dealing damage with beam.
that will not make them escort damage type ship, far from it, even in the best build dedicated to maximum damage at expense of survivability, escort would still rule and with not much of an effort.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=528931&page=271
Ok, so skills, builds, and knowledge...
Yet you say "learn 2 play" without actually offering anything of substance. You just make internet claims of "I am teh r0xX0rz! u suck lololololol noobs lrn2play". How about instead of spouting drivel like that, you give some useful information, like HOW you rate 1st or 2nd in damage and 1st in threat/damage taken/healing. Useful information is appreciated. Hot air and braggarts are not.
Front : 2 Advanced Fleet plasma beam banks, 1 Romulan prototype Beam, 1 Romulan Hyper plasma torpedo.
Rear: 2 Advanced fleet plasma beam arrays, 1 Borg cutting beam, 1 Omega torpedo launcher.
Engine-Deflector-Shield : Borg Mark XI set.
ENG consoles : Borg Assimilated console, 2 Ablative armor, 1 electroceramic.
SCI consoles : Field generator and Shield emitter amplifier.
TAC consoles : 2 Plasma infusers, 1 ambiplasma envelope, and 1 Romulan Zero point energy conduit.
Tac powers : Tac team 1, Beam fire at will 2, Spread volley 3.
Sci powers : Hazard Emitters 1, polarize hull 2
Eng powers : Aceton beam 3, Reverse shield polarity 2, Auxiliary power to Emergency battery 1, Auxiliary power to Structural integrity field 1, Emergency power to shields, weapons, and auxuliary 1.
I also use subspace field modulator when a Tac cube attacks and my other resistance stuff is down.
I may not rate greatest in damage, but this build still deals a medium damage and is almost impossibly to kill unless you get a critical one shot invisible torpedo hit. And that's with me just healing myself, and keeping threat up by spamming the romulan torpedoes at the cube
no it is not valid, sorry.
your eng cruiser may deal almost same damage as an escort, but that in the pve world my friend.
you known, the world where enemy hardly balanced their shield, fly most of the time in straight line at a very slow peace, who never care to cure themselve and their teammate and don't have hight defence value score.
a world where you don't have to anticipate their strategy, where you hardly face a pure combination of alpha strike and where enemy just wait for you to filled their throat with a bunch of plasma torpedo.
we hardly speaking about piloting skill here...
the problem with the efficiency of the beam only matter in pvp environment, even if you already see it in pve stuff, the reality is that this game is so easy that they could be even more crappy we will still finished it "finger in the nose".
in pvp, you will find that AOE attack that make your hight score in ACT will not help you kill anyone.
you will anderstand that their isn't a equivalent of canon rapid fire for beam, and that beam overload is too costly to be really threatening in the long term use. it is only a finishing power.
beam fire at will only really help to clear spam.
then you will just try to help your teamate with a broadside unbuffed beam at his target and realize you could have thrown cooton balls with same effect.
and i don't even speak about the torpedo that fly slower than my granma visiting paris, who are inefective against even a slim slide of shield ( remember tact team spam! ), when they just don't miss or never reach the target, an other weapon that only escort can use with great efficiency.
if only they give us a fire at will for 1 target, even a less powerfull than the one we have for multi target right now, then we will have a more balanced game repartition of tactic power concerning beam and canon.
as of today any serious pvp player have aknowledge that the limitation of beam are too hight, and that piloting and playstyle hardly enter in the equation.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=528931&page=271
they problem is i have mention this everywhere, look at other threads for my thoughts in more specifics.
Bingo. people say escorts or op and escort captains say the cruiser people are just whining. I prove they're wrong. so aveimperato, do let the door hit your butt on the way out.
actually take the time to look at other threads on this issue. so until you do. SIT DOWN AND SHUT UUP
Agree 100%
Any person can sit down and start shooting stuff.. takes a lot more effort and research to get good tho.
Anyone can fly an escort, mount cannons, train boffs in CRF3 or whatever and get benefits and slots that go with it. but they are still unhappy. They hate Apa, they Hate Apo (even tho they can get this one). Sounds like what they really want is a nerf to Tac's.
I admit I am a Tac in an Odyssey (both things many players seem to hate) but I usually score very high on Gorn Minefield or Starbase 24, often even on first or second place, with escorts in group.
My personal view on ships is that Tacs can do well in cruisers, making the most of the limited tactical options of these ships and the same can be true for engineers in escorts as some of their skills can help improve the otherwise limited tanking options.
It all comes down to build and playstyle and the fact that I simply love the Odyssey.:D
Why does your escort need to hit and run? My escorts can literally sit on top of tac cubes/gateways with almost no fear of dying. The only difference between cruisers and escorts as survivability goes is 15% shields and 20% hull. The higher level engineering powers are meaningless, as you can get just as much effectiveness out of an EPtS1 as you can from an EPtS3 with a warp core engineer, and if you combine that with TSS2, your shields are very VERY hard to break. As for hull heals? HE1, Aux2SIF1. That's all the hull healing you'll ever need. If you combine that with TT1, your escort is almost indestructible outside of those annoying invisitorps.
My cruiser can sit all day and not need to worry about running either. But guess what, it only does maybe 60% of the DPS that my escort can achieve, if that. But it does nothing better. It can heal other players much better, but so what? If they are set up correctly (which many of them are), they don't need it. It's just a TRIBBLE deal for cruisers as damage goes.
They want to have their cake and eat it too, that's why. Escort turnrate, escort fiepower, cruiser hull/shields=I WIN!!!
My favorite would a high bonus defense number for remaining stationary. It would be great if cruisers like the Gal/Ody could remain still, but really lay into a target for extended periods.
Nope, won't work. Remember, most of these guys would rather pray to Cryptic for escort nerfs, and make snide comments, rather than use their cruisers as designed.
I know I still have a lot to learn about cruisers and dealing damage with them. I'm not the best player but I'm decent and I can say without a doubt that all other things being equal you SHOULD live longer in a cruiser than you will in an escort under heavy fire if you're built right.
I did have an idle thought as to how to close up the firepower differential a bit more, as I think everyone agrees that cruisers need to be able to do a bit more damage. Either release a new ship or retool some of the "tactical" cruisers with slow turn rates to have five fore and aft weapon slots. The tradeoff would be these ships would not be allowed to mount anything other than beam arrays and torpedo launchers, which is how it typically shakes out anyway.
Power drain would be the biggest issue, but I think that's part of a different problem. It seems to me that the most powerful weapons shouldn't also be the most efficient ones, and cannon drain is too low, while beam drain is too high. Gameplay is almost entirely built around the damage you can dish out and absorb in your 90 degree "nosecone". It would be refreshing to see more reasons to break that trend. To this day the most awesome-looking thing I've seen in STO was a Bortasqu' flying at about 1/4 impulse along the length of a Unimatrix command ship, unleashing a fearsome-looking broadside, still, I knew that ultimately I was doing more damage in my Steamrunner, parked at a dead stop around 7 km out idly blasting away with DHCs.
I could just be talking out of my TRIBBLE, though. I just thought the concept of a 5/5 broadside-oriented beam boat was a neat one.