Flying an escort takes some skill.

roxbad · October 2013

I've only returned to STO a few months ago, after a long absence. When I had stopped playing, characters were locked into a ship class for there career. If, the first ship you chose was an escort, you could only get escorts from that point on. Silly, I know, but that's the way it was.

I was a Tactical officer, but I wanted to fly the Connie, so I went Cruiser. Until a week or so ago, cruisers were all that I knew. Before I cancelled my subscription and since returning, I've bee flying the Exploration Cruiser Retrofit. I always pop the saucer and try to fly the drive section like an escort.

A week or so ago, I bought an Escort Refit. I've been slowly outfitting it and just recently started to fly it through the dailies and a few PvP matches. Now I have a new appreciation for the players that do big damage with these ships in PvE and especially in PvP.

Flying an escort takes some skill. Keeping the guns on target in a ship with such a high turn rate and timing that with the window of opportunity for maximum damage is challenging. A successful escort captain knows how to fly.

I'm not a successful escort captain, yet.

thecosmic1 · October 2013

roxbad wrote: »

I've only returned to STO a few months ago, after a long absence. When I had stopped playing, characters were locked into a ship class for there career. If, the first ship you chose was an escort, you could only get escorts from that point on. Silly, I know, but that's the way it was.

You are mistaken. At each Rank-up you could always choose whatever free ship you wanted from any of the 3 Classes. My first character, an Engineer, flew a TOS Connie at Lt, a Nova at Lt. Cmdr, an Akira at Cmdr, a Galaxy at Captain, and a Luna at Admiral - he now flies a Fleet Sovereign.

roxbad · October 2013

thecosmic1 wrote: »

You are mistaken. At each Rank-up you could always choose whatever free ship you wanted from any of the 3 Classes. My first character, an Engineer, flew a TOS Connie at Lt, a Nova at Lt. Cmdr, an Akira at Cmdr, a Galaxy at Captain, and a Luna at Admiral - he now flies a Fleet Sovereign.

It's possible, that I am mistaken. It was over three years ago, but that is how I remember it. However, I'm willing to stand corrected.

In any event, my memory of flying a nimble escort is much more recent.

anazonda · October 2013

roxbad wrote: »

It's possible, that I am mistaken. It was over three years ago, but that is how I remember it. However, I'm willing to stand corrected.

In any event, my memory of flying a nimble escort is much more recent.

You are right that you did sacrifice some points when skilling up, but you could, as cosmic stated, choose whatever you wanted to fly, and buy more of any kind if you pleased.

asardetemplari · October 2013

Personally, I have a small collection of ships to choose from depending on what I'm in the mood for, all on one toon.

Charal
Fleet Galaxy
Fleet Defiant
Fleet Sovereign
Chel Grett
Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carrier
Risian Corvette that has not seen the outside of spacedock thanks to my Charal and Defiant.

All I gotta do is swap the engines, shields and other consoles out and any one of my ships is ready to take on any target. However, I will admit that I love my Ferasan's Hegh'ta.

skyranger1414 · October 2013

thecosmic1 wrote: »

You are mistaken. At each Rank-up you could always choose whatever free ship you wanted from any of the 3 Classes. My first character, an Engineer, flew a TOS Connie at Lt, a Nova at Lt. Cmdr, an Akira at Cmdr, a Galaxy at Captain, and a Luna at Admiral - he now flies a Fleet Sovereign.

He's remembering a time when you specced into specific ship types and classes. Remember when each individual ship had a skill?

lomax6996 · October 2013

You are right that escorts take a very different set of skills. Just keep practicing, you'll get it. One thing to remember is that the "Q" and "E" keys can be critical, depending on your layout and attack style. Escorts are squishier so it can be a LOT more dangerous for them to slow down, the faster you go the harder you are to hit. However slowing on approach can leave your forward weapons on target just a second longer... and with the right build that can make the difference. So you get good at working those keys to slow down and speed back up. Also remember that, more so than beams, cannons benefit from close proximity. The closer you are the higher your DPS. So you gotta snuggle in close. But, of course, you're taking more damage yourself. With an escort/raider/BOP it's more of a dance. Think "fighter pilot".

shar487a · October 2013

lomax6996 wrote: »

You are right that escorts take a very different set of skills. Just keep practicing, you'll get it. One thing to remember is that the "Q" and "E" keys can be critical, depending on your layout and attack style. Escorts are squishier so it can be a LOT more dangerous for them to slow down, the faster you go the harder you are to hit. However slowing on approach can leave your forward weapons on target just a second longer... and with the right build that can make the difference. So you get good at working those keys to slow down and speed back up. Also remember that, more so than beams, cannons benefit from close proximity. The closer you are the higher your DPS. So you gotta snuggle in close. But, of course, you're taking more damage yourself. With an escort/raider/BOP it's more of a dance. Think "fighter pilot".

One of the first things I did was remap the Q and E keys -- after all, modern throttle controls in real world vehicles are set in a down <-> up orientation as opposed to left <-> right.

So, instead of using Q <-> E, test out

R (throttle up)
^
|
v
F (throttle down)

or other vertically oriented key bind. This set-up is much more intuitive and doesn't trap you into being unable to turn left while decelerating or unable to turn right while accelerating.

roxbad · October 2013

Yeah. I found myself wanting to use a joystick and throttle.

I might check out some different keybinds. Thanks.

sonnikku · October 2013

Yeah, escorts are tough. Like, you pop attack pattern alpha and omega with cannon scatter volley, get all your ducks in a row and all your targets lined up in your narrow firing arc and WHAM herp derp REPULSORS LAWLZ. If I had a million dollars for every time someone knocked my targets in separate directions or PUSHED borg spheres towards the nanite transfer things, I'd be a millionaire.

And what about that auto targeting! Alpha, Omega, Rapid fire cannons. Then you kill the ship on the first volley, but instead of auto targeting one of the other 5 or so ships directly in front of you and in your main arc, auto targeting picks some random ship behind or to the side of me instead. My turrets are always in range, so they use up my rapid fire charges while the dual heavies are cold. Damn targeting computer! And I try to click on the damn things to try to circumvent it, but instead of getting whatever sphere or ship or whatever, I just get some big fat target thing/conduit etc. Bleh!

g0h4n4 · October 2013

Try setting throttle controls to your mouse wheel.

kharonsoreman · October 2013

sonnikku wrote: »

Yeah, escorts are tough. Like, you pop attack pattern alpha and omega with cannon scatter volley, get all your ducks in a row and all your targets lined up in your narrow firing arc and WHAM herp derp REPULSORS LAWLZ. If I had a million dollars for every time someone knocked my targets in separate directions or PUSHED borg spheres towards the nanite transfer things, I'd be a millionaire.

And what about that auto targeting! Alpha, Omega, Rapid fire cannons. Then you kill the ship on the first volley, but instead of auto targeting one of the other 5 or so ships directly in front of you and in your main arc, auto targeting picks some random ship behind or to the side of me instead. My turrets are always in range, so they use up my rapid fire charges while the dual heavies are cold. Damn targeting computer! And I try to click on the damn things to try to circumvent it, but instead of getting whatever sphere or ship or whatever, I just get some big fat target thing/conduit etc. Bleh!

Testify!! Repulsors just need to be removed from the game, I have met maybe 4/100 people who use them correctly.. Nope I didn't want to hit (insert space mob here) with my full alpha strike and weapon battery I just wasted, I was just kidding!

I don't even bother using repulsors because I don't want to do the same thing to someone else even on accident! Trapping things in Grav wells or warp plasma is a far better option anyway as it takes their movement defense bonus away!

rylanadionysis · October 2013

sonnikku wrote: »

Yeah, escorts are tough. Like, you pop attack pattern alpha and omega with cannon scatter volley, get all your ducks in a row and all your targets lined up in your narrow firing arc and WHAM herp derp REPULSORS LAWLZ. If I had a million dollars for every time someone knocked my targets in separate directions or PUSHED borg spheres towards the nanite transfer things, I'd be a millionaire.

And what about that auto targeting! Alpha, Omega, Rapid fire cannons. Then you kill the ship on the first volley, but instead of auto targeting one of the other 5 or so ships directly in front of you and in your main arc, auto targeting picks some random ship behind or to the side of me instead. My turrets are always in range, so they use up my rapid fire charges while the dual heavies are cold. Damn targeting computer! And I try to click on the damn things to try to circumvent it, but instead of getting whatever sphere or ship or whatever, I just get some big fat target thing/conduit etc. Bleh!

Sure beats flying in a perpetual circle mashing spacebar doesnt it?

biggshaun357 · October 2013

lomax6996 wrote: »

You are right that escorts take a very different set of skills. Just keep practicing, you'll get it. One thing to remember is that the "Q" and "E" keys can be critical, depending on your layout and attack style. Escorts are squishier so it can be a LOT more dangerous for them to slow down, the faster you go the harder you are to hit. However slowing on approach can leave your forward weapons on target just a second longer... and with the right build that can make the difference. So you get good at working those keys to slow down and speed back up. Also remember that, more so than beams, cannons benefit from close proximity. The closer you are the higher your DPS. So you gotta snuggle in close. But, of course, you're taking more damage yourself. With an escort/raider/BOP it's more of a dance. Think "fighter pilot".

I just came back today. Even so the account I am on is not my original one. About three years ago I played as escort for over a year, and learned how to "dance" as you put it. I agree with the you and the original post. Escort involves a skill set of it's own....Reflexes!

age03 · October 2013

Neing a Tac in general takes a lot of skill mabe not as much as Sci ground.

adamkafei · October 2013

rylanadionysis wrote: »

Sure beats flying in a perpetual circle mashing spacebar doesnt it?

Hm... fly around something at silly speed (as my 'cruiser' does now) and feel like I'm actually killing stuff or insta-vape things upon sight? Hmm... I'll take the former thanks, besides, flying a cruiser that can't help but drift around turns is more fun than any escort :P

cptjhunter · October 2013

kharonsoreman wrote: »

Testify!! Repulsors just need to be removed from the game, I have met maybe 4/100 people who use them correctly.. Nope I didn't want to hit (insert space mob here) with my full alpha strike and weapon battery I just wasted, I was just kidding!

I don't even bother using repulsors because I don't want to do the same thing to someone else even on accident! Trapping things in Grav wells or warp plasma is a far better option anyway as it takes their movement defense bonus away!

then what will TAC hating SCI captains use to push assimilated Neg'vars at me as the warp core starts to breach? This has happened to me on several STFs (not often) when I try to save secondary. The (failing) Kang guard tries pushing the burning wreckage at me. That's gratitude for ya.(sigh) Sucks using evasive for such a petty thing.

khayuung · October 2013

adamkafei wrote: »

Hm... fly around something at silly speed (as my 'cruiser' does now) and feel like I'm actually killing stuff or insta-vape things upon sight? Hmm... I'll take the former thanks, besides, flying a cruiser that can't help but drift around turns is more fun than any escort :P

Tell me about it, I've gotten used to achieving escape velocity while turning at full, when using EM + EPtE1 + engine battery on a Hypercharged Warp Core, to get out of CCE shockwave!

And the resulting spin out from the buffs wearing off... :cool:

Thank Q for the planet. I use it for braking. XD

Flying an escort takes some skill.

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