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beam boat power drain
partsource
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Just wondering if I'm doing something wrong. Finally got a Tac Oddy for myself, and with pricing in mind, made a beam boat using 6x phased polaron beams (all purple mk xii), 1xquantum front and 1x photon out back, and tac consoles for the beams.
I can't seem to avoid having my weapon power drain to rock bottom, even if I focus power on that system, esp when facing sideways. What can I do differently to alleviate this?
My sovereign has 4x beams, and 2x2 torpedoes without issue. I can do that with this ship, but I'd be losing out on torpedo use even with 2x RCS units.
Sacha
I can't seem to avoid having my weapon power drain to rock bottom, even if I focus power on that system, esp when facing sideways. What can I do differently to alleviate this?
My sovereign has 4x beams, and 2x2 torpedoes without issue. I can do that with this ship, but I'd be losing out on torpedo use even with 2x RCS units.
Sacha
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Two, mounting a Kinetic Cutting Beam aft combined with the Assimilated Module gives you the Omega Weapon Amplifier proc reasonably often, which gives you a few seconds of no drain plus a boost to your weapon power besides.
Three, when you use the very rare and very expensive doff Marion Frances Dulmur in concert with Directed Energy Modulation, for the first 8 seconds of the DEM cycle you'll have no drain.
These can all help to a point, but none of them completely solve the energy inefficiency of beam arrays. Such is the life of a cruiser captain.
Oh and the other thing you will love about your Ody is that as soon as you enter red alert your crew dies. I'm doing probe duty in KASE, nothing is shooting back and they start kicking off. It's like, "Red Alert" and the crew jumps into the escape pods or start stuffing their friends into the torpedo tubes.
In your Oddy, are you launching your rear combat shuttle? That removes a chunk of your crew, as does the actual saucer separation.
Eisaak
I have a Galor with 6 Spiral Disruptors, and I understand your concern. I still deal good damage from it regardless of the power drain. You're using a cruiser so make sure you understand it's native role, which is damage mitigation & team fire upport/heals, opposed to taking on the role of a primary damage dealer. There are successful Tactical Cruiser configurations out there so, it's not impossible to try to be on par with say an escort, you just need to be creative and experiment.
Cheers
Really? Do tell, how would that help?
Cheers
I also take it here he doesn't play this game very often. I rarely ever see an escort do fly by shots they mostly come to either to a stop or just stay right behind your rear so really this guy needs to play this game way more and possibly play some pvp instead of just constantly playing pve.
Also the purple nurses DOFF is a great way to keep crew alive. Phenomenal infact. The 2pc adapted MACO set also provides a great resist to your crews suicidal tendencies.
I prefer that to the EFF console since console space is at a super premium.
I'm the one who asked that question, and frankly I am disappointed by his answer.
Cannons do higher DPS as a basic fact of their existence. Single cannons are higher than beam arrays while dual cannons are higher than dual beam. Smaller arc = higher damage? I'm totally on board with you there, Geko. The problem is that beams are punished both for having lower rated DPS and for having more aggressive power drain.
In an artificial test, I found that a ship equipped with 4 turrets and 4 beam arrays had the same drain profile as a ship with 4 turrets and 4 single cannons (actual damage output was about 65% of what it would hypothetically be without drain). The ship with cannons did slightly more damage because cannons have higher basic DPS, but both configurations were being punished about the same amount for drain.
However, during non-synthetic combat, it's normal for your weapons to fall out of synchronization with eachother. This results in weapons draining power at different times, and an overall lessening of the impact drain has on your damage. Instead of everything all firing and draining at the same time, eventually you'll end up with weapons "spreading out" on the time axis. This helps cannons, especially dual cannons, because it means that any moment the drains aren't stacked as deep. But because beam arrays are draining their power for longer, they just never stop stepping on eachother's toes. In practical terms:
* dual heavy cannons drain power for 1 second of their 4 second volley time (25% duty cycle)
* single cannons and turrets drain power for 1.5 seconds of their 2.5 second volley time (60% duty cycle)
* beams drain power for 4 seconds of their 5 second volley time (80% duty cycle)
Guess which weapon is notorious for having power problems, and which weapon is praised for being super efficient (despite nominally having a higher drain value, too!).
This means that you could have 4 dual heavy cannons all firing for the same power drain as 1, if you got lucky with the timings. You're pretty much guaranteed that no particular weapon is going to be penalized with more than two stacks of drain. Versus, beams, where it is literally impossible for 4 beams to fire without stacking their full drain on eachother at some point. There is simply not enough time in their volley pattern for them to coexist without stacking multiple drains. Single cannons and turrets are in kind of a gray area.
As far as the arguments about the logical efficiency of beams versus pulses.... This is a game. Things need to make sense in terms of gameplay.
Electro Plasma Systems is a must for just about any energy based player, beams or cannons. High skill level in EPS will help you recover power faster, and also increase the speed when changing power levels - ie changing from full weapons to full shields for tanking or full aux for healing.
EPS is no longer involved in weapon performance.
The way it USED to work, is a weapon consumed some points from your weapon power allocation and then that power would have to charge back up again. EPS transfer rate thus directly influenced your energy weapon performance because it dictated how many power units per second were being pumped into your weapons.
The way it works NOW is that a weapon refunds the value it drained at the end of its firing cycle. The power is "borrowed" rather than "subtracted", so it never has to recharge, so EPS is never involved.
Anyway I'm now pretty satisifed that beams are broken, people at Cryptic know about the situation but don't think it's a problem, and that nothing will ever be done about it. Forget about beam broadsiding unless you're running a Aux2Batt/DEM/no-drain exploit build.
Take a look at how you have your captains skills allocated.
I run all beam, and all cannon/turret builds KDF side. But my player character is set up for it.
Its not just consoles. The good character build also has a very great deal to do with it.
If you really want to run an all beam boat, or a 6 beam boat then you may want to consider putting zero skill points into torpedo skills.
Using the Harqh'peng torpedo gives you a viable burst damage weapon (and the DOT is a nice little bonus.. Might add that its hell on fighters, and deployables as when the DOT goes off it causes area of effect damage that I belive ignores shields. Even if the torp causes no damage when it hits because the shields are healthy it still causes the DOT.
Also the Hargh'peng. It's also a very fast moving torp.. Use that with your beam loadouts.
Take the points you would have spent on torp skills and slug them into energy transfer, maintainence, and boost skills instead. It also aleviates the typical Cruiser short of Tactical slots ssue with not needing to slot BOFF's with torrpedo volley and spread. Instead concentrate on beam fire at will, beam overload, along with Tactical team (the cruisers friend)
Hope it helps.. You cant entirely get rid of the power draw down from beams, but it can be mitigated to a great extent.
Khemaraa sends.
No.
"Base" power and EPTW power seem to behave differently. You would be very disappointed with the performance of an energy-heavy ship at only 75 weapon power setting.
Power over 125 is tracked to some degree, but it doesn't work well enough to matter.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=524071
I didn't test batteries because batteries have poor up time. A beam boat shouldn't rely on batteries as a part of its basic strategy for the same reason that a tank shouldn't rely on Vesta's invulnerability shield.
You can go full tilt with Turrets and the Cutting Beam on the back as well as a rear torp and a Hargh'Peng or Omega Torp up front. Then slap on your choice of 3 Single Cannons or if you want to really be brutal 3 Dual Beam Banks all Anti-Proton on the front. Rank up your energy weapon specialization and enjoy a beam overload that can one-shot most noobs. You can also have arrays on the back of the ship if you want a little more omph on your rear end and I find that against Borg Structures and Cubes (For Elite STF's) you can get all your forward arc and back arc weapons to hit them which is a real treat.
Yes, you will still feel some drain when you hit BO but the damage you can deal is extreme and being saucer separated will bump up your weapon power further. In the meantime you can survive things that make even other Cruisers fall apart and Escorts explode at the mere mention.
Typical..... lets turn everything into an Escort! Loose that stupid saucer and then you got yourself a real Escort there son!.... now, just load up those turrets and a cutting beam in the back, golly gee if they could only boost the turn rate of that darn ol Oddy and then allow us to have cannons, man... then you would really be doing it right!
The trollyiest part of your post all together is the fact that an Oddy can't use cannons.
Eisaak
Sarcasm? Do I really need to explain what an EPS Flow Regulator does?
http://www.stowiki.org/Console_-_Engineering_-_EPS_Flow_Regulator
Look it up yourself.
Otherwise if that was a serious question..... Then look it up yourself ^
**Hint hint AHEM!! Link AHEM!!! Mmm***
I use 1 EPS Flow Regulator Mk XI. I am also skilled up 6 levels in Electro-plasma Systems. Emergency Power to Weapons I and II are also used.
Even when I am broad-siding a target, all 6 beams firing using FAW III, I never see it drop below 90 or so weapon power.
If your skills/abilities do not provide the power necessary, you will see those siginificant drops. Also, I was using Beam Overload III, which reduces your power by 50, so if you are using that, consider using FAW instead. Using FAW instead of BO is what I did, and it increases your DPS too.
A 1 off 20,000+ hp shot doesn't do a whole lot of good if you miss and its also a waste of 30 second cool down too.
Legendary Starfleet Captain
STO Forum Member since December 2010
I believe he was asking you to explain how an EPS console would help prevent weapons power drain as a veiled insult to your recommendation to use one since the EPS consoles do not actually prevent weapons power drain.
Weapons power that is used when firing a weapon is immediately and fully returned after the weapon's cycle is finished. An EPS console will only assist you in recovering from a beam overload or when transferring power from one system to another.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG