no. Cryptic has a really bad track record on this kind of issue so piping up NOW is the right time to do it. Especially if they expect people to dump money on their expansion.
What I see here is people looking at the first iteration of a ship on Tribble, a full month before it's going to be released, and then pissing and moaning about it being a failure. Ya'll are ripping the devs a new one over what's effectively an incomplete prototype of what will be released.
As for the starter/legacy packs. . .that's a gamble you'll have to take. I don't recommend it, even though you're 'saving' money. . .because I don't actually know what's gonna end up on Holodeck, and neither does any other player. Only someone with money to throw away would buy these packs. It's like pre-ordering a console game only to find it's TRIBBLE, and then whining about how you threw away money.
So, I'll say it again: JUST SIT DOWN AND WAIT, STOP SPECULATING. Save your scathing criticisms and complaints for when it's released, and reserve the constructive criticism for the Tribble feedback sections.
My PvP toon is Krov, of The House of Snoo. Beware of my Hegh'ta of doom.
What I see here is people looking at the first iteration of a ship on Tribble, a full month before it's going to be released, and then pissing and moaning about it being a failure. Ya'll are ripping the devs a new one over what's effectively an incomplete prototype of what will be released.
The best time to complain about this stuff is before it is released, because people are actively working on it. After release, the people who would be doing the changes get reassigned to other stuff and it gets exponentially harder.
I?m also not too happy with the BO layout of the D?Deridex
At the very least give it a Universal Ensign Slot
Due to the VERY limited amount of ships they have I thought that they would have made them all with Universal Commander and maybe universal Ensign BO slots to address the what ship goes with what career path.
I also noticed that all T5 Warbirds only swing Tactical or Engineering, no Science.
More variation in how ships operate would be nice. Rather than being a heavily escort focused game..... it'd be nice to see the ships like D'Deridex, Galaxy and other vessels science etc have more of an important role when it comes to missions / endgame, rather than just DPS. For me, the space combat sometimes feels too Star Wars, it's almost like Abrams helped design it.
Well the saving grace of the D'Deridex may be the battle cloak. If I remember correctly, the bop's battle cloak increases turn rate, so if romulan ships also get a buff to turn rate from batttle cloak, their poor maneuverability while decloaked may be somewhat offset once they cloak, which would truly emphasize their cloaking tendencies and the need to use it strategically in combat.
Though I must admit I would be disappointed by three engineering ensign slots... I'd probably much prefer that ensign be universal so one could have one extra science ability or better afford the mandatory tac team and still have two tactical attack abilities. But since they are reworking emergency power abilities, they may rework other abilities too so that being so engineering heavy may not be such a gimping, or perhaps they'll modify the team abilities so that tac team isn't the gold standard for defense anymore. If that's the case, the ship might be just fine... we'll have to see.
Additionally, I have been playing around with the war bortasqu which has a 5.5 turn rate and with two rcs and with full power to weapons, rest to engines, it actually turns surprisingly well... actually I think it might turn better than anything I've manged to do with the ody (with the exception of saucer sep). I don't know if it has a better inertia rating on it or what, but if a similar feat can be pulled off with the D'Deridex, I don't think the turn rate would be an absolute horror... any more so than all cruiser turn rates. And again, if the battle cloak gives a boost to turn rate, that might make the ship far more manageable. For all we know, as the masters of cloak, the romulans might even get a higher turn boost from battle cloak than the bop or a turn boost plus a speed boost to quickly re-position like how donatra zips around after cloaking.
I am not so concerned with the player version not being able to do what the npc version can though, the npc Kar'Fi can eject warp plasma while the player version can't. Though I am hopeful they will be reworking eng and sci powers. The once "I win" that was grav well where it sucked you in and crushed you in seconds wasn't cool, but since it's lost nearly all its bite, it should have a nigh inescapable pull. Tykens rift currently does next to nothing unless the target is stationary. I think it would be cool if tyken's rift was more crowd control in that it would instantly suck all power out of a ship being an effective disable, however, it would make the ship caught in it invulnerable to damage as any energy weapons fired into the rift are absorbed and torps lose power. Though I may not be fully thinking through the horrible, horrible consequences that could come of a power like that...
Directed energy modulation does little more than scratch the paint on the hull of whatever you're firing at, and with hazard emitters clearing both aceton beam AND eject warp plasma and with attack pattern omega removing the move debuff of warp plasma, those skills are far too easily countered.
I like the buff to the non-shield emergency powers, but not sure how I feel about the cool/uptime changes, and if the problem is with it being called "emergency" power, lets rename it "reserve power" or something else concise since "divert all power from non-essential systems to:X" would be too lengthy.
And with tac team the gold standard in defense skills, something would have to be done so that ships with such limited tac powers as the D'Deridex and galaxy and several other cruisers and sci ships aren't limited even further in tac options by basically having to take tac team if they want to survive.
So... yeah... I'm not overly concerned about the D'Deridex stats as they are, but I'm hopeful for a touch of improvement/saving graces from battle cloak, singularity powers, perhaps more singularity abilities/power available to it since it's bigger, reworking of eng/sci abilites, etc.
Inertial dampeners keep things inside the ship from getting salsified by the extreme acceleration forces incurred during spaceflight (especially FTL travel). They have no effect whatsoever on the ship's flight characteristics.
True however in space there is effectively nothing to cause resisitance and thus inertia, so the ships should be able to turn quickly. I am not saying it is not there it is just so small as to be negligable. You can't apply the rules that affect ships and planes on Earth to those in space, and even less so in a game that is based on sci-fi. This part of the post is incorrect as pointed out to me please ignore it.
I would prefer a more dynamic turn rate, the faster your forward momentum the slower your turn speed and the slower your forward momentum the faster your turn speed, this is currently how I manage my banking arc. Make it a trade off for all ships. How it would be explained I have no idea though I am sure someone could come up with a reasonable explaination as to why this is.
The D"Deridex was also supposed to have more firepower then the Galaxy, which is why Picard was always hesitant to fight one solo, and prefered to talk, or have allies like Klingon Vorcha's show up to help. I don't think the Enterprise itself ever managed to solo a D'Deridex.
So while I would like a little better turn, that is not the main fault I see in it, I am concerned with the boff layout mostly. I know this game is slanted towards cannons, I use DHC on everything that can mount them, even a Bortasqu, I am experienced enough to make slow turn ships work with DHC, but I can't do it if it has the horrible boff layout of a Galaxy. If they are going to make the ship have bad turn, it better get 5 tac consoles and Lt Cmdr tac at least like a bort does.
Turn rate doesn't quite so concern me since I see the ship, with its battle cloak, engaging in more positional combat situations.
just to note...the REFIT version of the DD has a LT TAC, COMM Eng, LT SCI and LT UNI....its almost like they are forcing us to buy a ship just for a better layout -_-...that we cant even test until LoR goes live
I find this line of replies sadly hilarious. We put a lot of work into the massive list of fixes/changes above, and ya'll are hung up on the ability to skip our content. =p
just to note...the REFIT version of the DD has a LT TAC, COMM Eng, LT SCI and LT UNI....its almost like they are forcing us to buy a ship just for a better layout -_-...that we cant even test until LoR goes live
It'd only be worth it to buy the version available at VA rank, much like the Exploration Cruiser Retrofit. It'd be nice if the Exploration Cruiser Retrofit also got a universal BO station to match.
This should be pretty easy. All they need to do is take the lt commander engineer from the Galaxy and make him a tactical to show that the D'deridex is more combat focused than the Galaxy.
Then you'd have less survivability but more alpha strike punch from having access to teir 3 tac abilities, which jives well with the "decloak and fire" design philosophy.
Then you just do the same for the consoles. Move one of the sciences to tactical to show that it's a Warbird and not a "Scansgaseousanomoliesbird".
So in the end you have
lt tac, lt cm tac
cm eng
lt sci
en eng
4 eng consoles
3 tac consoles
2 sci consoles
Now it feels like a battlecruiser/warship like it's supposed to be, and not an explorer and research vessel like the Galaxy.
The turn rate is fine, it should be slow given how big it is. It should also however have shield and hull points to likewise reflect how big it is.
I'd also argue for a 5/3 weapon split front to back instead of the usual 4/4 as the Warbirds always struck me as having a forward weapon facing bias. That's pie in the sky stuff that'll never happen though. I'll be happy if it doesn't get saddled with 4/3.
The D'Deredix is both an icon and a cruiser. Thus we can infer that it, like the galaxy class, will be relegated to the echelons of uncompetitiveness.
Welcome to Star Trek: Escorts Online.
Don't worry, the devs make sure the Galaxy will remain the worst end-game cruiser in STO.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
It has been stated many many many many many times that the stats and layout of the D'deridex and other high-level ships are not finalized.
Which you should all have figured out for yourself, seeing as it's on the test server, not the release server. Why not head over to Tribble and see what's actually going on instead of getting all bent out of shape over something that's not an issue yet.
This should be pretty easy. All they need to do is take the lt commander engineer from the Galaxy and make him a tactical to show that the D'deridex is more combat focused than the Galaxy.
Then you'd have less survivability but more alpha strike punch from having access to teir 3 tac abilities, which jives well with the "decloak and fire" design philosophy.
Then you just do the same for the consoles. Move one of the sciences to tactical to show that it's a Warbird and not a "Scansgaseousanomoliesbird".
So in the end you have
lt tac, lt cm tac
cm eng
lt sci
en eng
4 eng consoles
3 tac consoles
2 sci consoles
Now it feels like a battlecruiser/warship like it's supposed to be, and not an explorer and research vessel like the Galaxy.
The turn rate is fine, it should be slow given how big it is. It should also however have shield and hull points to likewise reflect how big it is.
I'd also argue for a 5/3 weapon split front to back instead of the usual 4/4 as the Warbirds always struck me as having a forward weapon facing bias. That's pie in the sky stuff that'll never happen though. I'll be happy if it doesn't get saddled with 4/3.
I doubt they would do it cause universals on a "free" ship are few an far between, but if they just made the ltc. spot universal, I think it would well reflect the "this ship has to do everything" as the backbone of the romulan fleet, and it can be taken more tac heavy, more eng heavy, or more sci heavy depending on the circumstances/mission/captain flying it. That to me would be ideal.
I think the console layout on the D'Deridex on tribble is already supposed to be slightly more tactical than the galaxy in that it has 3 tac consoles rather than three sci consoles. Additionally, I think the ship has slightly more hitpoints and something silly like a 1.01 modifier that just ever so slightly gives it like 1% more shields... unless it's a typo and it's supposed to be 1.1
Which you should all have figured out for yourself, seeing as it's on the test server, not the release server.
As past history indicates, a lot of stuff never gets changed while on test and really only gets noticed once it goes live. So while I appreciate what you're saying you should also appreciate that people who've dealt with Cryptic's testing protocols in the past definitely have experience in seeing something go unchanged and get released bugged or mistake-filled.
Why not head over to Tribble and see what's actually going on instead of getting all bent out of shape over something that's not an issue yet.
A lot of folks still can't access Romulans on Tribble. So what would be the point?
Ok, if any devs are reading this, please keep in mind that it's called a Romulan Warbird. Not a Sciencebird or Engineerbird. Please give the final version the tac stations/consoles it deserves.
The point of early testing would be to spot potential problems early before they're multiplied and entrenched into problems that become harder to correct.
The D'deridex having the bridge officer and console layout of the Galaxy would qualify as a problem. The fact the Galaxy is a ship that is almost never seen in high level play is sufficient evidence to prove that the combination of that Boff/console layout and ship type is not something that should be duplicated or imitated.
Given that the Romulans will have such a limited number of ships available to them at launch every effort needs to be made to ensure that those ships that are available are each useful and competitive in their own way. No one wants to see a Romulan faction where everyone flies endgame ship X, because endgame ship X is clearly and obviously better than endgame ships Y,W, and Z.
The reality of the game as it stands is that "tank" type builds that can sustain a lot of damage, but put out virtually none, have little value in end game content where everything is about DPS and timers that cause you to fail optionals if your team doesn't have enough DPS. I'm saying this as a Cruiser captain. Damage potential coming from boff layouts and consoles is the reason why cruisers like the fleet Excelsior are fantastic and the Galaxy dread that I also own is almost never played.
While it's bad enough that ships like the Galaxy and Galaxy dread are forever stuck filling this tanking role that isn't required or wanted in endgame teams, the idea of creating more NEW ships to also sit on the bench next to them is even worse. Especially when it's being done on something like the TNG D'deridex warbird, which given that a lot of us likely grew up watching TNG, will no doubt sell like crazy so long as it doesn't suck too bad to bear.
The time to voice any kind of disapproval for this is now though, while it's still being tested. That's the point of beta testing. If you don't like it speak up now and say so and hopefully, if the stars align and the magical Romulan faeries are in a good mood, it'll be fixed before it goes live and Romulan players won't get stuck with a mile long paperweight where a historic battlecruiser should have been.
I haven't flown it myself but I've flown the Galaxy dread and spent ages trying to find a role and setup for it that didn't feel underpowered. If the D'deridex is just the galaxy dread in a green skin with a better cloaking device, worse turn rate and massive power generation penalties in exchange for gimmick powers it will be one of the worst endgame ships in Star Trek Online.
This clip not only shows a Warbird with disruptors, but it maneuvers behind a smaller, more agile craft and it turns 180 degrees in about 3-4 seconds. Not bad for a fat whale!
I find this line of replies sadly hilarious. We put a lot of work into the massive list of fixes/changes above, and ya'll are hung up on the ability to skip our content. =p
1.)
However, consider the D'deridex also gets a battle cloak. For those who haven't used one on the BOPs before, unlike a regular cloaking device the battle cloak can be turned on even if you're in the middle of combat. It's a powerful tool for BOPs, it might be even more powerful for a big ship with the hull points and armor to survive those lucky parting torpedoes. There's no other heavy cruiser with a battle cloak to compare it to.
The problem with Battle Cloak in a ship with that kind of turn rate and speed is that it can easily be found once it cloaks and an escort, BoP, or bug ship can easily maneuver to its location and be close enough to see through its cloak.
That's a little different than the one I saw but almost as bad. At least the consoles are fixed now though so that's an improvement.
I'd say easiest thing to do now is just swap the lt tc and cm engineering. So you would have a commander tactical but he would be your only tactical. This would make it feel like a warship but also leave it with enough supporting engineering skills to tank some damage and not allow it to encroach on the "my offense is ALWAYS up" territory of the multi hi tac escorts.
You'd get access to the most powerful tac abilities in the game but you'd have to pick and chose what you wanted as you've only got 4 slots, and would get them less frequently than a comparable escort due to cooldowns. You'd have to think hard if you wanted two copies of tac team for example, since doing that would literally use up half your tac potential. It's a big ship that's slow to turn though so you might just need it...
This would also give the D'deridex a more hit and run style where you'd decloak, unload your nasty alpha strike, then recloak and wait for cooldowns.
The reality of the game as it sits right now is you need tactical slots to make worthwhile contributions to your team at the endgame, and a single lieutenant on a T5 ship is not going to cut it. Releasing new ships with those console layouts into the current environment means you're just dedicating resources to building something that's either going to sit in the hanger its entire life, or get loaded up with every color beam in the rainbow and flown into the hive elite by someone who doesn't know any better, much to the agony of everyone else there.
This clip not only shows a Warbird with disruptors, but it maneuvers behind a smaller, more agile craft and it turns 180 degrees in about 3-4 seconds. Not bad for a fat whale!
Everyone knows that any time we saw a big ship like the galaxy or the D'deridex maneuver like that on screen, the captain had to use their evasive maneuvers skill. Dur. =P
That's a little different than the one I saw but almost as bad. At least the consoles are fixed now though so that's an improvement.
I'd say easiest thing to do now is just swap the lt tc and cm engineering. So you would have a commander tactical but he would be your only tactical. This would make it feel like a warship but also leave it with enough supporting engineering skills to tank some damage and not allow it to encroach on the "my offense is ALWAYS up" territory of the multi hi tac escorts.
You'd get access to the most powerful tac abilities in the game but you'd have to pick and chose what you wanted as you've only got 4 slots, and would get them less frequently than a comparable escort due to cooldowns. You'd have to think hard if you wanted two copies of tac team for example, since doing that would literally use up half your tac potential. It's a big ship that's slow to turn though so you might just need it...
This would also give the D'deridex a more hit and run style where you'd decloak, unload your nasty alpha strike, then recloak and wait for cooldowns.
The reality of the game as it sits right now is you need tactical slots to make worthwhile contributions to your team at the endgame, and a single lieutenant on a T5 ship is not going to cut it. Releasing new ships with those console layouts into the current environment means you're just dedicating resources to building something that's either going to sit in the hanger its entire life, or get loaded up with every color beam in the rainbow and flown into the hive elite by someone who doesn't know any better, much to the agony of everyone else there.
Since the super "warrior" oriented klingons don't even have a cruiser with a commander tac, I doubt they'd do it, there would be too much of a fuss. But frankly, I would prefer they modify the engineering offensive powers to not be a joke so that an engineering heavy ship can really contribute to the dps race that is STO.
This clip not only shows a Warbird with disruptors, but it maneuvers behind a smaller, more agile craft and it turns 180 degrees in about 3-4 seconds. Not bad for a fat whale!
god i miss ron jones work on star trek...
Edit: with 3 tac consoles, the ensign eng swapped for eng sci this deridex is, imho, quite what it should be.
I remind everyone that no warbird ever in star trek fired any sort of "dual cannon".
A singe cannon / turret build on this ship would be quite canon.
Also, battlecloack used in conjuction with jam sensors (oh look who just got a free spare slot for that) and a well timed POWER TO ENGINES, the new go to power for all who have not kept up with tribble, will make the battlecloack quite useful.
Now, what the focus of lobbying here on the forum should be, is to get HEAVY single cannons for everyone....
Comments
What I see here is people looking at the first iteration of a ship on Tribble, a full month before it's going to be released, and then pissing and moaning about it being a failure. Ya'll are ripping the devs a new one over what's effectively an incomplete prototype of what will be released.
As for the starter/legacy packs. . .that's a gamble you'll have to take. I don't recommend it, even though you're 'saving' money. . .because I don't actually know what's gonna end up on Holodeck, and neither does any other player. Only someone with money to throw away would buy these packs. It's like pre-ordering a console game only to find it's TRIBBLE, and then whining about how you threw away money.
So, I'll say it again: JUST SIT DOWN AND WAIT, STOP SPECULATING. Save your scathing criticisms and complaints for when it's released, and reserve the constructive criticism for the Tribble feedback sections.
The best time to complain about this stuff is before it is released, because people are actively working on it. After release, the people who would be doing the changes get reassigned to other stuff and it gets exponentially harder.
So a couple years back, they released some stats on the Nebula. They were terrible. They got changed then the ship was put on Tribble. Still terrible.
Look at the Nebula today.
Yup. Terrible.
Then argue that they fix the content, not make all the ships into escorts.
At the very least give it a Universal Ensign Slot
Due to the VERY limited amount of ships they have I thought that they would have made them all with Universal Commander and maybe universal Ensign BO slots to address the what ship goes with what career path.
I also noticed that all T5 Warbirds only swing Tactical or Engineering, no Science.
Look like Science Captains have been left behind.
D'Tan and his rag tag bunch of farm boys don't really have room in their republic for scientists. Maybe later.
Additionally, I have been playing around with the war bortasqu which has a 5.5 turn rate and with two rcs and with full power to weapons, rest to engines, it actually turns surprisingly well... actually I think it might turn better than anything I've manged to do with the ody (with the exception of saucer sep). I don't know if it has a better inertia rating on it or what, but if a similar feat can be pulled off with the D'Deridex, I don't think the turn rate would be an absolute horror... any more so than all cruiser turn rates. And again, if the battle cloak gives a boost to turn rate, that might make the ship far more manageable. For all we know, as the masters of cloak, the romulans might even get a higher turn boost from battle cloak than the bop or a turn boost plus a speed boost to quickly re-position like how donatra zips around after cloaking.
I am not so concerned with the player version not being able to do what the npc version can though, the npc Kar'Fi can eject warp plasma while the player version can't. Though I am hopeful they will be reworking eng and sci powers. The once "I win" that was grav well where it sucked you in and crushed you in seconds wasn't cool, but since it's lost nearly all its bite, it should have a nigh inescapable pull. Tykens rift currently does next to nothing unless the target is stationary. I think it would be cool if tyken's rift was more crowd control in that it would instantly suck all power out of a ship being an effective disable, however, it would make the ship caught in it invulnerable to damage as any energy weapons fired into the rift are absorbed and torps lose power. Though I may not be fully thinking through the horrible, horrible consequences that could come of a power like that...
Directed energy modulation does little more than scratch the paint on the hull of whatever you're firing at, and with hazard emitters clearing both aceton beam AND eject warp plasma and with attack pattern omega removing the move debuff of warp plasma, those skills are far too easily countered.
I like the buff to the non-shield emergency powers, but not sure how I feel about the cool/uptime changes, and if the problem is with it being called "emergency" power, lets rename it "reserve power" or something else concise since "divert all power from non-essential systems to:X" would be too lengthy.
And with tac team the gold standard in defense skills, something would have to be done so that ships with such limited tac powers as the D'Deridex and galaxy and several other cruisers and sci ships aren't limited even further in tac options by basically having to take tac team if they want to survive.
So... yeah... I'm not overly concerned about the D'Deridex stats as they are, but I'm hopeful for a touch of improvement/saving graces from battle cloak, singularity powers, perhaps more singularity abilities/power available to it since it's bigger, reworking of eng/sci abilites, etc.
True however in space there is effectively nothing to cause resisitance and thus inertia, so the ships should be able to turn quickly. I am not saying it is not there it is just so small as to be negligable. You can't apply the rules that affect ships and planes on Earth to those in space, and even less so in a game that is based on sci-fi. This part of the post is incorrect as pointed out to me please ignore it.
I would prefer a more dynamic turn rate, the faster your forward momentum the slower your turn speed and the slower your forward momentum the faster your turn speed, this is currently how I manage my banking arc. Make it a trade off for all ships. How it would be explained I have no idea though I am sure someone could come up with a reasonable explaination as to why this is.
Turn rate doesn't quite so concern me since I see the ship, with its battle cloak, engaging in more positional combat situations.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
Resistance AKA friction and inertia are two completely different things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertia
I am not that up on science, though thank you for the info, you learn something new every day. I am NOT being sarcastic here.
It'd only be worth it to buy the version available at VA rank, much like the Exploration Cruiser Retrofit. It'd be nice if the Exploration Cruiser Retrofit also got a universal BO station to match.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
Then you'd have less survivability but more alpha strike punch from having access to teir 3 tac abilities, which jives well with the "decloak and fire" design philosophy.
Then you just do the same for the consoles. Move one of the sciences to tactical to show that it's a Warbird and not a "Scansgaseousanomoliesbird".
So in the end you have
lt tac, lt cm tac
cm eng
lt sci
en eng
4 eng consoles
3 tac consoles
2 sci consoles
Now it feels like a battlecruiser/warship like it's supposed to be, and not an explorer and research vessel like the Galaxy.
The turn rate is fine, it should be slow given how big it is. It should also however have shield and hull points to likewise reflect how big it is.
I'd also argue for a 5/3 weapon split front to back instead of the usual 4/4 as the Warbirds always struck me as having a forward weapon facing bias. That's pie in the sky stuff that'll never happen though. I'll be happy if it doesn't get saddled with 4/3.
Welcome to Star Trek: Escorts Online.
Lag Watch:
Delta Rising: Warning
Anniversary Event: Severe
Iconian Season: Critical
Don't worry, the devs make sure the Galaxy will remain the worst end-game cruiser in STO.
Which you should all have figured out for yourself, seeing as it's on the test server, not the release server. Why not head over to Tribble and see what's actually going on instead of getting all bent out of shape over something that's not an issue yet.
I doubt they would do it cause universals on a "free" ship are few an far between, but if they just made the ltc. spot universal, I think it would well reflect the "this ship has to do everything" as the backbone of the romulan fleet, and it can be taken more tac heavy, more eng heavy, or more sci heavy depending on the circumstances/mission/captain flying it. That to me would be ideal.
I think the console layout on the D'Deridex on tribble is already supposed to be slightly more tactical than the galaxy in that it has 3 tac consoles rather than three sci consoles. Additionally, I think the ship has slightly more hitpoints and something silly like a 1.01 modifier that just ever so slightly gives it like 1% more shields... unless it's a typo and it's supposed to be 1.1
As past history indicates, a lot of stuff never gets changed while on test and really only gets noticed once it goes live. So while I appreciate what you're saying you should also appreciate that people who've dealt with Cryptic's testing protocols in the past definitely have experience in seeing something go unchanged and get released bugged or mistake-filled.
A lot of folks still can't access Romulans on Tribble. So what would be the point?
The D'deridex having the bridge officer and console layout of the Galaxy would qualify as a problem. The fact the Galaxy is a ship that is almost never seen in high level play is sufficient evidence to prove that the combination of that Boff/console layout and ship type is not something that should be duplicated or imitated.
Given that the Romulans will have such a limited number of ships available to them at launch every effort needs to be made to ensure that those ships that are available are each useful and competitive in their own way. No one wants to see a Romulan faction where everyone flies endgame ship X, because endgame ship X is clearly and obviously better than endgame ships Y,W, and Z.
The reality of the game as it stands is that "tank" type builds that can sustain a lot of damage, but put out virtually none, have little value in end game content where everything is about DPS and timers that cause you to fail optionals if your team doesn't have enough DPS. I'm saying this as a Cruiser captain. Damage potential coming from boff layouts and consoles is the reason why cruisers like the fleet Excelsior are fantastic and the Galaxy dread that I also own is almost never played.
While it's bad enough that ships like the Galaxy and Galaxy dread are forever stuck filling this tanking role that isn't required or wanted in endgame teams, the idea of creating more NEW ships to also sit on the bench next to them is even worse. Especially when it's being done on something like the TNG D'deridex warbird, which given that a lot of us likely grew up watching TNG, will no doubt sell like crazy so long as it doesn't suck too bad to bear.
The time to voice any kind of disapproval for this is now though, while it's still being tested. That's the point of beta testing. If you don't like it speak up now and say so and hopefully, if the stars align and the magical Romulan faeries are in a good mood, it'll be fixed before it goes live and Romulan players won't get stuck with a mile long paperweight where a historic battlecruiser should have been.
I haven't flown it myself but I've flown the Galaxy dread and spent ages trying to find a role and setup for it that didn't feel underpowered. If the D'deridex is just the galaxy dread in a green skin with a better cloaking device, worse turn rate and massive power generation penalties in exchange for gimmick powers it will be one of the worst endgame ships in Star Trek Online.
Please make it not so.
It has cannons in canon.
http://youtu.be/yLKwSJswQIY
This clip not only shows a Warbird with disruptors, but it maneuvers behind a smaller, more agile craft and it turns 180 degrees in about 3-4 seconds. Not bad for a fat whale!
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9426/scrnshotn.png
The problem with Battle Cloak in a ship with that kind of turn rate and speed is that it can easily be found once it cloaks and an escort, BoP, or bug ship can easily maneuver to its location and be close enough to see through its cloak.
That's a little different than the one I saw but almost as bad. At least the consoles are fixed now though so that's an improvement.
I'd say easiest thing to do now is just swap the lt tc and cm engineering. So you would have a commander tactical but he would be your only tactical. This would make it feel like a warship but also leave it with enough supporting engineering skills to tank some damage and not allow it to encroach on the "my offense is ALWAYS up" territory of the multi hi tac escorts.
You'd get access to the most powerful tac abilities in the game but you'd have to pick and chose what you wanted as you've only got 4 slots, and would get them less frequently than a comparable escort due to cooldowns. You'd have to think hard if you wanted two copies of tac team for example, since doing that would literally use up half your tac potential. It's a big ship that's slow to turn though so you might just need it...
This would also give the D'deridex a more hit and run style where you'd decloak, unload your nasty alpha strike, then recloak and wait for cooldowns.
The reality of the game as it sits right now is you need tactical slots to make worthwhile contributions to your team at the endgame, and a single lieutenant on a T5 ship is not going to cut it. Releasing new ships with those console layouts into the current environment means you're just dedicating resources to building something that's either going to sit in the hanger its entire life, or get loaded up with every color beam in the rainbow and flown into the hive elite by someone who doesn't know any better, much to the agony of everyone else there.
Everyone knows that any time we saw a big ship like the galaxy or the D'deridex maneuver like that on screen, the captain had to use their evasive maneuvers skill. Dur. =P
Since the super "warrior" oriented klingons don't even have a cruiser with a commander tac, I doubt they'd do it, there would be too much of a fuss. But frankly, I would prefer they modify the engineering offensive powers to not be a joke so that an engineering heavy ship can really contribute to the dps race that is STO.
god i miss ron jones work on star trek...
Edit: with 3 tac consoles, the ensign eng swapped for eng sci this deridex is, imho, quite what it should be.
I remind everyone that no warbird ever in star trek fired any sort of "dual cannon".
A singe cannon / turret build on this ship would be quite canon.
Also, battlecloack used in conjuction with jam sensors (oh look who just got a free spare slot for that) and a well timed POWER TO ENGINES, the new go to power for all who have not kept up with tribble, will make the battlecloack quite useful.
Now, what the focus of lobbying here on the forum should be, is to get HEAVY single cannons for everyone....
Arrays got dual beams, dual cannon got dual heavy's. single cannon got jack.
90? angle double damage half the pulses heavy please.
We then could make decent canon'esque warbirds.
oh btw:
What will really dump this ship into the "gah wtf" territory will be:
Weapon hardpoints.
i hate when weapons hardpoints are placed on the fckn bussard collectors....