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Improving Federation Cruisers
eraserfish
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Here is a list of suggestions that I feel would particularly improve the overall viability of Federation cruisers, although they can be applied to other equivalent-sized vessels as well. There are also some suggestions that are more general in scope, but would ultimately help out cruisers. Please consider each suggestion separately.
I am aware that some of these ideas have already been raised, but I felt like getting this all off my chest.
Innate resistances
To overall damage and/or some special effects, possibly as a skill bonus or a percentage resistance separate from the skill system. The durability of their hulls and size of their crews don't seem particularly impressive when all vessels rely heavily on shielding for protection and crew numbers drop at a similar rate, regardless of overall size. It also seems that cruisers suffer from some debuffs far worse than either escorts or science vessels, due to their limited mobility, lack of cleansing or immunity abilities, and reliance on high power levels in multiple subsystems.
Faster turning speeds
Mobility of Federation cruisers is simply too low, and no two ways about it. Lack of turning ability is particularly crippling. It affects how well cruisers can maintain broadsides or forward weaponry on target, protecting weakened shield facings, or even how quickly they can reach an ally in order to apply repairs.
Innate bonuses
Instead of +5 power spread across all subsystems (as is the case for many cruisers) for a total of +20 power overall, allow one or more subsystems to receive additional power ranging from +10 to +15, for a total of +25 power overall.
BETTER BEAM ARRAYS
Improve base accuracy and reduce power drain. Out of all problems that affect cruisers, this is probably THE most significant and yet the easiest one to resolve.
Improved beam-related abilities
Beam Overload has a lot of faults for what it does, but the absolute worst is that it appears to miss very often. Either it should hit all the time, or have a much higher degree of accuracy than the weapon it is being fired from.
Beam Fire At Will is simply inefficient compared to Cannon Scatter Volley, so it may be more of an issue regarding comparison than anything else. Perhaps Cannon Scatter Volley could be reworked so that it doesn't have a damage bonus but increases accuracy, just so that Beam Fire At Will has some sort of niche.
Would be nice to add some sort of beam ability that temporarily increases accuracy/critical hit percentage for a period of time, as well as one that affects the proc chances in a similar way. This would give beam abilities more purpose as a general utility weapon, compared to the raw damage that cannons can project.
Faster shield distribution
Current rate of distribution works too slowly and makes Tactical Team an absolute necessity. Particularly bad for cruisers due to their slow turn rates, to the point where survivability often hinges on whether or not the ability is available for use.
Rework of crew system
As they are, they're not really an advantage or a drawback. Give cruisers resistance against losing crew members to various causes, enhance the effect of crews on repair and power transfer rates while in battle, and add a debuff that occurs whenever a ship's complement drops below 10% of its full capacity. This would make Aceton Beam/Boarding Party a little more useful as offensive abilities.
Faster-moving torpedoes
The current speed of most torpedoes makes it difficult to exploit shield facing weaknesses on fast-moving targets or any targets that are over 5km away. Photon, quantum, regular plasma, chroniton, and regular transphasic should have their speeds boosted.
Separate armour slot(s)
I would say that every ship should have at least two armour slots, but perhaps cruisers can be differentiated by having two armour slots while other ships have no more than one? Either way, relegating armour consoles to a dedicated slot would help free up Engineering slots, for consoles that emphasize their strengths or compensate for their weaknesses.
Enable aft mounting for DBBs
I am aware that some of these ideas have already been raised, but I felt like getting this all off my chest.
Innate resistances
To overall damage and/or some special effects, possibly as a skill bonus or a percentage resistance separate from the skill system. The durability of their hulls and size of their crews don't seem particularly impressive when all vessels rely heavily on shielding for protection and crew numbers drop at a similar rate, regardless of overall size. It also seems that cruisers suffer from some debuffs far worse than either escorts or science vessels, due to their limited mobility, lack of cleansing or immunity abilities, and reliance on high power levels in multiple subsystems.
Faster turning speeds
Mobility of Federation cruisers is simply too low, and no two ways about it. Lack of turning ability is particularly crippling. It affects how well cruisers can maintain broadsides or forward weaponry on target, protecting weakened shield facings, or even how quickly they can reach an ally in order to apply repairs.
Innate bonuses
Instead of +5 power spread across all subsystems (as is the case for many cruisers) for a total of +20 power overall, allow one or more subsystems to receive additional power ranging from +10 to +15, for a total of +25 power overall.
BETTER BEAM ARRAYS
Improve base accuracy and reduce power drain. Out of all problems that affect cruisers, this is probably THE most significant and yet the easiest one to resolve.
Improved beam-related abilities
Beam Overload has a lot of faults for what it does, but the absolute worst is that it appears to miss very often. Either it should hit all the time, or have a much higher degree of accuracy than the weapon it is being fired from.
Beam Fire At Will is simply inefficient compared to Cannon Scatter Volley, so it may be more of an issue regarding comparison than anything else. Perhaps Cannon Scatter Volley could be reworked so that it doesn't have a damage bonus but increases accuracy, just so that Beam Fire At Will has some sort of niche.
Would be nice to add some sort of beam ability that temporarily increases accuracy/critical hit percentage for a period of time, as well as one that affects the proc chances in a similar way. This would give beam abilities more purpose as a general utility weapon, compared to the raw damage that cannons can project.
Faster shield distribution
Current rate of distribution works too slowly and makes Tactical Team an absolute necessity. Particularly bad for cruisers due to their slow turn rates, to the point where survivability often hinges on whether or not the ability is available for use.
Rework of crew system
As they are, they're not really an advantage or a drawback. Give cruisers resistance against losing crew members to various causes, enhance the effect of crews on repair and power transfer rates while in battle, and add a debuff that occurs whenever a ship's complement drops below 10% of its full capacity. This would make Aceton Beam/Boarding Party a little more useful as offensive abilities.
Faster-moving torpedoes
The current speed of most torpedoes makes it difficult to exploit shield facing weaknesses on fast-moving targets or any targets that are over 5km away. Photon, quantum, regular plasma, chroniton, and regular transphasic should have their speeds boosted.
Separate armour slot(s)
I would say that every ship should have at least two armour slots, but perhaps cruisers can be differentiated by having two armour slots while other ships have no more than one? Either way, relegating armour consoles to a dedicated slot would help free up Engineering slots, for consoles that emphasize their strengths or compensate for their weaknesses.
Enable aft mounting for DBBs
Post edited by eraserfish on
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Comments
First couple of points are, others are general improvements that will ultimately benefit cruisers in some way.
I didn't mention any special or ship-specific weapons. I also fully agree with you on that note.
They aren't fine, really. I get the feeling that they miss more on average than cannons
It's a far bigger issue for cruisers.
Well either way, I'd like to see crew mechanic figure into the game more. Otherwise, just axe it and replace with something works. Or, if it doesn't work, build in a faster recovery rate for cruisers and perhaps science vessels as well.
It's an issue in terms of timing, and it definitely affects cruisers due to their comparative mobility and how difficult it is for them to close within optimal range. Also, I said that this should only apply to regular torpedoes, and not those big destructible ones.
i definitely agree with this; they should move at hargh'peng speeds, or at least 75% of hargh'peng speed
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You suggest lots of things that would make cruisers tankier, if you're having problems tanking then your level of understanding on cruisers is probably not as high as you think.
With all the recent changes to the metagame, mostly in the way of additional defenses there may be an argument to be made for improving beam arrays. I would prefer a simple straight dps bump instead of a more complicated drain rework or rebalance (seriously, am I the only one that has a realistic idea of the mess we'd be in for months if not years if Cryptic went in to try and change things in anything deeper than entries on the weapon database?!?!). And after a while seeing if the dps bump was enough to counterbalance the metagame changes. Of course, then people would rightfully complain about their upgrades being devalued..... ugh, can we go to cosmetic upgrades now? The current power creep system is just untenable.
The one thing that gets my total support is the turning buff for fed cruisers. I've always felt that an extra point of turning (or two) would not really change anything other than improve the Quality of Life of cruiser pilots.
I can make a cruiser very tanky indeed, but the problem is that I won't be doing much other than waddling around the field. That's what I call a brick; something that is hard to destroy, but easy to ignore because it poses no threat. However, if you try to alter most cruiser builds to accommodate some measure of damage, then what you'll get is a cruiser that is not good at tanking and not good at dealing damage. If you improve some of the baseline tanking abilities of a cruiser, it would be far safer for people to explore some measure of offensive capability.
Really, it isn't so much the desire to have DPS than the desire to actually do some damage. As I've said before, you'll see situations where one escort can take on two to three cruisers on its own, while one cruiser will have trouble trying to handle two escorts. That led me to question why I bothered arming myself at all, if I couldn't do enough damage to kill or cripple another ship. Just going down that line of inquiry is just plain discouraging and very nearly makes me want to give up on the game in disgust.
Use it in PvP, especially against escorts. BO feels like it misses half the time, unless I hit the target with something to slow it down/lower defense (tractor beam, warp plasma, w/e).
Beam rapid fire same as cannon rapid fire just with a beam
Beam turrets just like a cannon turret
All of the end game content is DPS content ,the best rewards are for the best DPS so with that in mind cruisers and sci ships should recieve boosts to DPs or the DPS of escorts lowered
Tanks are not needed in the game my escort proves that each and every day as do many of yours
If you cant tank end game content in PvE with a escort
Your flying it wrong
With 5 escorts you kill it before it can hurt anyone !
And , thats all i got to say about that..............
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Was the most fun I've had in ages!
I didn't have the DPS of any of my Escorts, but I swear, my burst DPS from CRF and CSV were brilliant. Also, I didn't have any problem with being unable to turn fast enough, as I use the Tachyokinetic Converter for boosted turn rate.
Just make sure you're not flying around at full impulse all the time, and you've cracked the turn rate issue.
I do also wish that armour alloys or whatever, were separate from Engineering Consoles. This would give ships that extra boost, and make things a lot more interesting.
That is a direct effect of how defenses/heals are ahead of damage in the game as a whole. Making things tankier is not a solution at all, in a way NPCs becoming tankier to "increase difficulty" is part of the reason we're where we are now. One on one fights between skilled players are almost always a draw, and I've seen Odys laugh at 4 other ships as well. In a weird way some of the PvP crowd consider this a good thing since it favors teamwork in PvP.
@skoll
I felt my post was sarcastic enough about how well power creep would work as a solution no? A better solution would be to buff the damage passives, but that would go against the general decision Cryptic has made to always favor defenses.
Done both with an escort. Easily. Tank tac cube on elite? TT1, EPtS1, TSS2. Fall asleep waiting to die. NWS? TT1 + CSV2 + APO3 + EPtW2 + Enemy Waves = TT1 + CSV2 + APO3 + EPtW2 + no enemy waves.
^This is the sad truth of the matter
It's either a buff to beam arrays and cruisers, or a nerf to escorts and cannons. As for tankiness, I've already pointed out that being tanky doesn't mean nothing if you can't pose a threat. Otherwise you simply get ignored in favour of other targets.
The thing about damage is that it doesn't mean much if you miss so much of the time like cruisers do. Defence is the king-stat of the game, and that is just one of the major factors that end up bringing down cruisers.
Ship stats by mass is a ******n headache that would require a complete overhaul of core gameplay mechanics and would likely introduce problems of its own. Allowing cruisers to mount dhc would be nice, but that's just simply dodging the issue of beam arrays being less effective than just about everything else. Furthermore, I don't think you've really worked out how weapon firing arcs really work...
If it comes to power creep, then so be it. I doubt that the devs would go for any measure that creates too much work for them, which is why I'm just settling on resolving issues bit by bit. It's blatantly apparent that Federation cruisers suffer badly in terms of firepower, and the problem behind that ultimately comes down to the weapons they use and the qualities of the boats themselves. They just cannot be built for damage, and attempting to do so usually compromises their capability to sustain damage in return.
Now, if nothing's going to be done about Federation cruisers, I'm just going to give up on the game. It's damn frustrating to watch time and time again how one escort can tank as much damage as a cruiser while hitting much harder. More than anything else, a game should not go out of its way to actually frustrate its players, and that's what STO is doing to me right now. It's one thing to be challenged, but entirely another to be shown that "resistance is futile". That all the time and resources you have invested into your cruiser and character are all for naught. I could stick to PvE, but that doesn't really help things when considering that escorts can perform so much better than you can in those instances.
Tier 3 Heavy Cruiser 26k hull 8 turn
Tier 4 Intrepid science vessel 22.5k 12 turn
Tier 5 Akira escort/carrier 32k 15 turn
In fact this is why all Escorts have high turn rates regardless of thier tonnage becuase the "game" gave them an arbitrary crutch, he say that is.
Then he'll talk on about how ships in STO should be reclassified by tonnage instead which oddly ends up making cruisers turn better while escorts need to be nerfed in turn for balance and then the DHCs need to be unlocked for all ships but not neccasarily all ships since some escorts cant mount them but most cruisers can....
It can really drone on.
I think its just a weak attempt to turn the tables on escorts without fixing anything at just moving the position of topdog from escorts to cruisers.
I can only imagine if his idea was followed we would have cruisers online again for a while until somebody whines, ignores and insults others or blabbers enough to to be heard about how thier golfball science ship should be hitting harder, moving faster and nigh invunerable becuase it has all the best newest technology logically becuase its a science vessel after all.
All the while the game merely moves the topdog position again while keeping its bugs, imbalances and other fiobles that are actually unbalancing the game as a whole.
Needless to say I among others find it ill advised and a unsimple idea for a fix that would fix nothing afterall.
But hey, those Cruisers would be back on topspot again and thats what important afterall.
Balanced be damned
Its not like we could ask for a turn rate buff for cruisers, a beam and minor cannon fix, some new BOff ability for beams or maybe a hull buff for cruisers (and a science class/vessel revisit on effectiveness).
No lets just redesign the whole system instead that helps Cruisers abitrarily and screws escort as well.
Thats balance.
R.I.P
To my mind, this is all that's needed to make the Federation's cruisers comparable (but different) to the KDF's.
My notion was to give Federation cruisers a "discretionary power" feature. In addition to the +5 power to all systems which they already have (other ships also have equivalent bonus power), Federation cruisers would get a further 20 points that they can assign as they please. The player can toggle on/off discretionary power to subsystems of their choice, and the 20 is spit evenly between everything turned on. So you can have +5 to everything, +10 to weapons and shields, or +20 to engines, depending on what you need.
It's a serious feature, but compare this to the KDF cruisers having substantially better agility, the option to mount dual cannons, and built in cloaking devices.
For example, adding inventory space to ships (cargo bays). The bigger the ship is, the more space for stuff it has. That would make cruisers (and maybe some of the larger science ships) much more appealing to silver players, who don't have much space to work with without spending money anyway.
If they started to sell more, Cryptic might be more interested in improving them.
Which again, is simply dodging the problem.
Yes, but it's constructive dodging. Things that sell lots of zen are more likely to see further development than things that don't.
Judging by all the Odysseys and Ambassadors flying around, cruisers sell quite well. I don't see an issue insofar popularity is concerned.
That's because saucer ships + phaser beams are cliche. That's why you see more of those than any other.
When's the last time that you've seen a Cruiser win in anything? Escorts can tank almost as well and put out 2.5x the damage. Add in the Escort's increased speed, APO tractor beam immunity, and its a no-brainer on what to bring to any group action.
I got both of those for free. I imagine lots of other people did too. Sure, some people bought them, but the number of them you see flying around is misleading.
Still get people asking for which cruisers they should fly.
Point is, I doubt that the number of people who buy cruisers are insignificant, and that such people are often those who do not participate in PvP. At least as many cruisers as escorts have been released over course of this game, if not more. The Assault Cruiser Refit was only just released over the summer after all, and that hasn't really made a splash insofar the offensive viability of cruisers is concerned.
I'll re-iterate that the overall popularity of cruisers isn't actually at any disadvantage, and so I doubt that desirability is the problem. Either developers refuse to see that there is a problem or simply don't care to work on balance, which I would say is a pity.
The Odyssey was sold back when cruisers were actually still worthwhile to use, before the sudden glut of tanky DHC equippable, nimble escorts.
The Ambassador on the other hand, is because of power creep.
The Fleet variant of this 80-year ship whose design is supposed to be superseded by the Galaxy class is available from a T3 shipyard. This super-cruiser has far superior turn rate, inertia, hull strength, bridge officer layout, and console layout compared to a top-of-the-line Odyssey class cruiser available from a T5 shipyard or the C-Store.
So, yeah. There is a problem.
Same thing with the Excelsior too. If they ever decide to make a fleet version of the Light Cruiser, I bet it'll blow all other ships outta the water.
i just want to see the 20 man fleet action with a bunch of light cruiser bursting into planets lol
Make all beam weapons fire from emitter strips for cruisers and science ships only. This would give a 360 firing arc for all such weapons. It would mean the full energy weapon fire power of the cruiser or sci could be brought to bare and turn rate would be left as is. Cruisers should not turn as fast as an escort.
Allow science ships innate Target Subsystem: X to function with science ship mounted beam and cannons. Use of such puts other beam and cannon Boff abilities on cool down so it can't be abused.
Make RCS consoles a flat rate boost to turn rates instead of a percentage.
Just these changes alone should answer all concerns.
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