Fore: Hyper Plasma Torpedo, Standard Plasma Torpedo x2 (or throw in a special one like Harpeng for example)
Aft: Experimental Romulan Beam, a Mine Launcher, Omega torpedo or a long cooldown one.
Tac boff abilities I'd just stick to the standard tactical team/torpedo spread or high yield/ attack pattern beta.
Eng the reliable EPtS and other defense. Possibly eject warp plasma.
Sci I would personally focus on energy drains like Tykens Rift, or Gravity Well, or both. With enough drain you can shut down their shields again post Rift fix.
Sorry for lack of detail short on time.
Nebula
Lt Tac 1: TT1, APB 1
Uni Tac: TT1 OR TS 1, TS 2 or HY 2
Lt Cmdr Eng: EPtS 1, Aux2Strut 1, EWP 1
Cmdr Sci: HE 1, ?, GW 1, TRift 3
Ens ?: ??
imo no real point to torp builds in pve since the npc's tend to be million hp mooks with massive shields.
wouldn't recommend it in a sci ship unless you plan on running a full drain build to neuter your targets. you will lose the tac powers & consoles you need to make the torps work and wont have your subsystem targeting since no beams.
False. It depends on the particular PvE you are doing most of the hull HP in STFs for example have no shields in the way. But yes turning the target's shields off does help.
Ach, so much response! I wish there were an easy way to quote multiple people (don't post on these forums too much).
@kublahkan: Yes you can! I actually leveled up my Rom with the sole intention of being a T'varo torp boat at endgame, so all my ships up to that were torp boats too. I didn't even spec into shield skills (though I technically couldn't defense-tank without EBC, so I had to rely on singularity abilites for shield repair, which was brutal in shuttle missions). The most hilarious part was getting the D'Deridex to maneuver to use plasma torpedoes. Overall it was a great experience, definitely viable.
@stirling191: It seems we have an advocate of Torpedo Boats by the Weak definition here. I do see the potential of such weak torpedo boats, yes, but from the info you just gave me (5 fore-weapons slots?) and by looking at something like rast1qq's build, Weak-torpedo boats seem to be a role for the Tac-oriented in escorts. To me, that seems to work because escorts really don't or shouldn't be optimizing into many science abilities, and they can afford to use and be effective in both energy and projectiles.
In my opinion however, scis have a harder time doing this, because it's almost impossible for a sci to have maximally effective energy weapons AND maximally effective science powers (skill and power-level wise), and when they do, it might be at the expense of some freedom in what a sci ship build can be. Using all projectiles and consolidating ship power solves this problem, allowing a sci to deal both decent damage and deploy great science.
With regard to photons, they can have a certain amount of value as "proc engines" for DOFFs in a larger system of torpedoes. In terms of being damaging on their own, or being the only autofiring launchers on a ship? I don't think so. You're right in that dual photons can completely reduce their own cooldowns, but that does not ALWAYS happen. According to my math, the probability of inducing a DOFF proc after firing at most 2 photons is 74%. On 3 quantums, this number is 87%. This, and general flying with torpedoes, suggests to me that there are actually more gaps in firing 2 photons than in 3 quantums. It may be a small difference, but I've noticed it when flying my ships, and I find it more unacceptable in a Strong-Torpedo boat than in your sort of Weak-torpedo boat. Your criticism tells me you like torpedoes as a heavy compliment to energy weapons, but talking about such ships was not the intention of this guide.
@ursusmorologus: You missed it (how did you miss it?), but I did mention the console-based torps in the "Supertorpedoes" section. Good points with regards to timing your spiking runs and HY/TS, I think I will add those.
I'm personally a "purist" guy, so I'm typically either "all kinetic" or "all energy" in my builds. Discussing torpedoes and mines as they interact alongside of energy weapons is not something in which I have experience, so I'm not sure I feel comfortable with that sort of discussion in this guide.
@badname834854: Good point with the Hargh'peng. I personally haven't noticed the damage of the TDD on my Wells, though it seems to be working perfectly fine with me. I look forward to your tests on it.
@skollulfr: I 100% disagree. In fact, I'll go so far to say that ALL science ships ought to be torp boats. Just ran my Wells through a few STFs today, and she didn't seem to be any worse off than my KDF Tor'kaht (universal slot was engineer BTW).
@generator88: I don't know if you've leveled up your reputations yet, but assuming you haven't here are some cheap builds I've theorized up for those two ships you have:
These ships are very much "skeleton builds," where I've only specified the weapons, tac consoles, tac abilities, and low-level eng and sci abilities. The other slots are more or less up to you in terms of what kind of science you'd like to do. You could go heavy in particle abilities + CC with Grav Well, FBP, and EWP on that engi spot on the nebula (not a far cry from how I fly my Wells), you could go heavy in shield drains w. Tach Beam and TB with the Doff or power drains w. ES or TR, and conceivably both ships can become great snoopers with the nebula console.
The Recon is themed all transphasic, and the Nebula is themed all plasma, though opposite themes on either ship could also work. The Recon, Nebula, Nova, and their Fleet variants all make great torp boats fed side, since they have just enough tac slots to make torpedoes work well. Of course, the Vesta and Wells probably make the best torp ships, just because that's how those ships roll.
I'll try to add these modifications to the main post as soon as I have the time.
@stirling191: It seems we have an advocate of Torpedo Boats by the Weak definition here. I do see the potential of such weak torpedo boats, yes, but from the info you just gave me (5 fore-weapons slots?) and by looking at something like rast1qq's build, Weak-torpedo boats seem to be a role for the Tac-oriented in escorts. To me, that seems to work because escorts really don't or shouldn't be optimizing into many science abilities, and they can afford to use and be effective in both energy and projectiles.
You really need to drop the condescending labels on torpedo builds that don't measure up to your standards of "purity". All torpedo vessels, whether they're all-projectile or hybrid platforms, function on the exact same premise: deal with the shields so that the missiles can shred the hull. At the end of the day they're doing the same thing, just in a slightly different manner.
Secondly, five-fore weapon slot vessels are the Kumari, Scimitar and now the Avenger. If you can't fathom how game-changing that fifth slot can be, I'll cover that in a moment.
In my opinion however, scis have a harder time doing this, because it's almost impossible for a sci to have maximally effective energy weapons AND maximally effective science powers (skill and power-level wise), and when they do, it might be at the expense of some freedom in what a sci ship build can be. Using all projectiles and consolidating ship power solves this problem, allowing a sci to deal both decent damage and deploy great science.
Here's the problem with your line of thinking: you're treating every single ship type as though they ought to be identical when it comes to their strategic options. Yes, science vessels have to approach their builds very differently than cruisers or escorts do. That no more invalidates varying projectile based loadouts based on the underlying ship platform than it does varying energy weapon or science based loadouts due to the same variable.
Certain builds are going to work on some ships and not on others. That doesn't for a moment mean any of them aren't viable.
With regard to photons, they can have a certain amount of value as "proc engines" for DOFFs in a larger system of torpedoes. In terms of being damaging on their own, or being the only autofiring launchers on a ship? I don't think so. You're right in that dual photons can completely reduce their own cooldowns, but that does not ALWAYS happen. According to my math, the probability of inducing a DOFF proc after firing at most 2 photons is 74%. On 3 quantums, this number is 87%. This, and general flying with torpedoes, suggests to me that there are actually more gaps in firing 2 photons than in 3 quantums. It may be a small difference, but I've noticed it when flying my ships, and I find it more unacceptable in a Strong-Torpedo boat than in your sort of Weak-torpedo boat. Your criticism tells me you like torpedoes as a heavy compliment to energy weapons, but talking about such ships was not the intention of this guide.
For starters, you're completely ignoring what I actually wrote, and the implications it has for a build. Having to devote 75% (or 60% in the case of the Avenger, Kumari and Scimitar) of your fore weapon slots to a single launcher type to sustain fire makes a ship a one trick pony that is seriously reliant on power based or external shield breaking (transphasics and sometimes plasma not withstanding). Given the ridiculous level of effective and the magnitude of power insulators, that's not a realistic way to fly.
On the other hand, having 50-60% of said weapon slots potentially open for alternate allocation (which is what happens when you have two photons in weapon slots 3-4 or 4-5) allows for some very creative approaches that don't sacrifice torpedo uptime or shield killing power.
You really need to drop the condescending labels on torpedo builds that don't measure up to your standards of "purity". All torpedo vessels, whether they're all-projectile or hybrid platforms, function on the exact same premise: deal with the shields so that the missiles can shred the hull. At the end of the day they're doing the same thing, just in a slightly different manner.
Secondly, five-fore weapon slot vessels are the Kumari, Scimitar and now the Avenger. If you can't fathom how game-changing that fifth slot can be, I'll cover that in a moment.
Here's the problem with your line of thinking: you're treating every single ship type as though they ought to be identical when it comes to their strategic options. Yes, science vessels have to approach their builds very differently than cruisers or escorts do. That no more invalidates varying projectile based loadouts based on the underlying ship platform than it does varying energy weapon or science based loadouts due to the same variable.
Certain builds are going to work on some ships and not on others. That doesn't for a moment mean any of them aren't viable.
For starters, you're completely ignoring what I actually wrote, and the implications it has for a build. Having to devote 75% (or 60% in the case of the Avenger, Kumari and Scimitar) of your fore weapon slots to a single launcher type to sustain fire makes a ship a one trick pony that is seriously reliant on power based or external shield breaking (transphasics and sometimes plasma not withstanding). Given the ridiculous level of effective and the magnitude of power insulators, that's not a realistic way to fly.
On the other hand, having 50-60% of said weapon slots potentially open for alternate allocation (which is what happens when you have two photons in weapon slots 3-4 or 4-5) allows for some very creative approaches that don't sacrifice torpedo uptime or shield killing power.
As I showed in my previous post my Reman Sci Transphasic Torp boat can deal MASSIVE amounts of damage in a open map like a cap and hold. They are less effective in much smaller closed engagements like arena matches.
On the Fed side she is almost always in the top 3 damage dealers and I rarely get killed. In fact I think I have died more times from my own exploding Mega Torp from the T'Varo then from enemy players!!
All torpedo vessels, whether they're all-projectile or hybrid platforms, function on the exact same premise: deal with the shields so that the missiles can shred the hull. At the end of the day they're doing the same thing, just in a slightly different manner.
Um...huh? I've read that a few times, and I'm still going "Um...huh?" about it. I mean, you say it yourself there...
"whether they're all-projectile or hybrid platforms"
...so it's not a case of saying "All torpedo vessels" in the least.
You've got Torpedo Vessels and Hybrid Platforms. You've separated them. There's a difference between a Torpedo Boat and a Boat with Torpedoes. Otherwise, if you've got 1 Projectile/7 Energy or 7 Projectile/1 Energy...um...you'd be calling them all Torpedo Vessels.
Further...the premise "deal with the shields so that the missiles can shred the hull." - well, um - for hybrid platforms, sure! For a Plas/Trans Torpedo Boat? Lol, don't care about shields in the least. Bleed 'n Burn...pop the target with full shields.
All in all, it's kind of reading like you're saying to run 3 PWO DOFFs for two Photon Torps while running 6 Energy Weapons...and...calling it a Torp Boat. That's um...huh?
On the Fed side she is almost always in the top 3 damage dealers and I rarely get killed. In fact I think I have died more times from my own exploding Mega Torp from the T'Varo then from enemy players!!
Heh, I've seen far more Willard was killed than Willard was killed by X. Hate when the Beach Ball gets popped by somebody starting up FAW....gets popped before I even see it on my screen - boom - dead.
Um...huh? I've read that a few times, and I'm still going "Um...huh?" about it. I mean, you say it yourself there...
"whether they're all-projectile or hybrid platforms"
...so it's not a case of saying "All torpedo vessels" in the least.
You've got Torpedo Vessels and Hybrid Platforms. You've separated them. There's a difference between a Torpedo Boat and a Boat with Torpedoes. Otherwise, if you've got 1 Projectile/7 Energy or 7 Projectile/1 Energy...um...you'd be calling them all Torpedo Vessels.
A torpedo boat is one that builds it's offensive armament around torpedoes. Tossing a token launcher on to a ship doesn't make it a torpedo boat. Selecting doffs, consoles, set boni and boff abilities to make the torpedoes the primary teeth of the ship does.
You yourself laid out multiple ways one can go about doing just that, be it a hybrid platform (and yes, there are more ways to setup a hybrid boat than twin photons backed by cannons), transphasic spam, chained hyper-plasma, omega and plasma torps, twin photons backing hargh's and clusters or any other crazy combination of projectile primary death. They're all torpedo boats.
Heh, I've seen far more Willard was killed than Willard was killed by X. Hate when the Beach Ball gets popped by somebody starting up FAW....gets popped before I even see it on my screen - boom - dead.
I find the T'varo mega torp almost useless in PvP and in fact a bigger threat to YOUR OWN SHIP - then any enemy!! While it packs a 40k+ hit - most of that is usually taken up by a players shields - even if they are down to 5% shields almost all is damage is absorbed by the stupid shields mechanic in the game.
It the T'Varo fires it while cloaked it has a 2.5km area where you are unshielded and your hull would have to take all that 40K+ damage
Given that they should either remove the back blast AOE to the T'varo or reduce it to what the AOE Tricobalts were : 1KM
2.5km is just way to much when you don't have shields and your enemy could have less shields left that a piece of paper - but they are protected and you are not = fail = stupid.
I find the T'varo mega torp almost useless in PvP and in fact a bigger threat to YOUR OWN SHIP - then any enemy!! While it packs a 40k+ hit - most of that is usually taken up by a players shields - even if they are down to 5% shields almost all is damage is absorbed by the stupid shields mechanic in the game.
It the T'Varo fires it while cloaked it has a 2.5km area where you are unshielded and your hull would have to take all that 40K+ damage
Given that they should either remove the back blast AOE to the T'varo or reduce it to what the AOE Tricobalts were : 1KM
2.5km is just way to much when you don't have shields and your enemy could have less shields left that a piece of paper - but they are protected and you are not = fail = stupid.
That splash helps when it hits a target with pets...etc, etc, etc.
If you drop it and then hit EM or EPtE...well, it tends to be fine. I have up the EPtE for ET though.
The damage it can do is going to depend on your consoles - since consoles boost off of base and the Beach Ball's got a high base. It gets a lot out of those consoles compared to other torps. It also applies that -33 DRR debuff - which will make your other projectiles (DPB3 Trans, Breen Cluster, etc) hit harder.
Honestly I mainly die to it from having forgotten it was out there and it eventually catches up to me with whatever target it's locked on after the initial target died days before the torp got there...
edit: Deleted because it may have been seen as a distraction, even though it was a literal question asking for clarification - but upon further reflection, somebody might have tried to fly it - which I did not want to be responsible in the least.
Their was only one time I used 2x photon launchers and found it effective. Waaaay back when ESTFs were just released and the [borg] mod was on the best weapons that extra 1k damage every second or two did help my cruiser deal respectable damage.
Now though the bar has been raised. I do agree that true hybrids do not exist anymore. You have ships that use projectiles as their primary method to kill the target (4 or more equipped) and others that use projectiles as a secondary weapon to help kill the target (1-2 equipped).
But that goes into a bit of build theory I've been meaning to write a guide about for new players. You have your primary armament (DHCs+turrets/beam arrays/cannons+turrets/etc) you focus your gearing/doffs/abilities around and if you want throw in a secondary armament (Torp Launcher/DBB/Mine/etc) to take advantage of a specific boff ability/doff/versatility. You can have 2 types of secondary armaments in some cases as well!
Nearly all high performance builds follow that logic. Nearly any weapon type can be the primary armament or secondary. A cruiser sporting 7 beam arrays and a single torpedo is built around it's broadsiding beams. An science vessel sporting 4 torpedoes, a mine, and a single beam array is built around it's torpedoes primarily. They are not what I would call a hybrid.
So actually last night, I started scratching together a transphasic build for my Recon ship. The character in question has minimal ranks in all reps (like, Romulan 1, Nukara 1, Omega 2), so anything that requires significant Rep ranks will be a long-term goal.
At least at the outset, I want one beam array to keep subsystem targeting, so that means I only get two projectiles aft. My first impulse was to skip the minelayer and use the other two aft mounts for the cluster torpedo and the argh'penguin.
My science powers are currently running a Tach Beam 2, a pair of Energy Siphon 2s, and a Grav Well 3 (but given the heavy drain focus, I'm thinking I might try out the new version of Tyken's Rift), in addition to the usual lower-rank stuff.
Equipment sets, I've got a few contending ideas:
1) Adapted Maco deflector & engine, Maco shield. Gives me more Aux and the +Torpedo damage, plus that nice power boost from the shield.
2) Breen set. Would only be for the Transphasic damage bonus.
3) Maco shield & engine, Jem deflector. Those Maco pieces are nice even in isolation, the minor recharge bonus is a touch of gravy, and I was following another thread about Stealth detection that seems to be making a strong case for the Jem deflector's utility on a snooper ship.
4) Full Jem'hadar. I've actually got the full set already, this character is using it as her placeholder until I figured out what I wanted from the rep system. The antiproton sweep from the full set would be useful in more shield-busting, so maybe I just stay with it, and get to scrounging Lobi crystals to get the set boosted up to Mk XII.
More later. Thanks to everyone for the helpful feedback.
Later on,
Generator
=================
I'm sure your DPS is great, but as Kahless said, "a petaQ with high system mastery is still a petaQ." (Well, he should have said it...!)
You really need to drop the condescending labels on torpedo builds that don't measure up to your standards of "purity". All torpedo vessels, whether they're all-projectile or hybrid platforms, function on the exact same premise: deal with the shields so that the missiles can shred the hull. At the end of the day they're doing the same thing, just in a slightly different manner.
Secondly, five-fore weapon slot vessels are the Kumari, Scimitar and now the Avenger. If you can't fathom how game-changing that fifth slot can be, I'll cover that in a moment.
Woah, hostile much? I think you're misinterpreting what I mean by "Strong" and "Weak" torpedo boats. These words are not qualifiers of the effectiveness of such build in and of themselves. In logically rigorous studies like Philosophy, Mathematics, etc., a definition or theorem that is "weak" is one that has a broad, conservative assertion that can be applied to more situations. A "strong" definition or theorem, on the other hand, is one that applies to a more specific and absolute case. By extension, a "Weak-Torpedo Boat" as i specified in the first post of this topic, can generally apply to many torpedo builds, including the more hybrid builds to which you are referring. "Strong-Torpedo Boats" are those specifically designed to go all-out all-projectiles.
And no, you're absolutely incorrect. Many of the more successful torp boat builds rely on bypassing shields with transphasics and plasmas, not stripping them down. And it seems you were completely ignoring what I wrote in the guide, which was to the effect of Plasma,Transphasic > other generic torpedo types for general damage unless you're trying for some other strange builds.
Here's the problem with your line of thinking: you're treating every single ship type as though they ought to be identical when it comes to their strategic options. Yes, science vessels have to approach their builds very differently than cruisers or escorts do. That no more invalidates varying projectile based loadouts based on the underlying ship platform than it does varying energy weapon or science based loadouts due to the same variable.
Certain builds are going to work on some ships and not on others. That doesn't for a moment mean any of them aren't viable.
No, that's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that great Energy Weapon Damage and great Science Abilities are, IMO, fundamentally incompatible. From my experience, it's a real struggle as a sci to use energy weapons, even in STF when I need to take down, say, even a few Borg Probes. Escorts get DHCs, Cruisers get power management options, which allows them to be king of cannons and beams, respectively. Science ships in general have very little of that capability, and to get it, you're sacrificing what a sci ship need to do: science! Having scis be kitted out to be Strong-Torpedo boats with Plasma and Transphasics means they can do great damage and be great at the science they're trying to do.
For starters, you're completely ignoring what I actually wrote, and the implications it has for a build. Having to devote 75% (or 60% in the case of the Avenger, Kumari and Scimitar) of your fore weapon slots to a single launcher type to sustain fire makes a ship a one trick pony that is seriously reliant on power based or external shield breaking (transphasics and sometimes plasma not withstanding). Given the ridiculous level of effective and the magnitude of power insulators, that's not a realistic way to fly.
On the other hand, having 50-60% of said weapon slots potentially open for alternate allocation (which is what happens when you have two photons in weapon slots 3-4 or 4-5) allows for some very creative approaches that don't sacrifice torpedo uptime or shield killing power.
I just love how I'm mostly trying to talk about sci-heavy ships, and you clearly bring the discussion back down to escorts, and how you're contradicting yourself by implying sci ships should treated differently than escorts, then implying everything should be treated like escorts. Like I said before, scis as transphasic and plasma boats does not limit their options. On the contrary, I find it greatly expands them.
No, that's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that great Energy Weapon Damage and great Science Abilities are, IMO, fundamentally incompatible. From my experience, it's a real struggle as a sci to use energy weapons, even in STF when I need to take down, say, even a few Borg Probes. Escorts get DHCs, Cruisers get power management options, which allows them to be king of cannons and beams, respectively. Science ships in general have very little of that capability, and to get it, you're sacrificing what a sci ship need to do: science! Having scis be kitted out to be Strong-Torpedo boats with Plasma and Transphasics means they can do great damage and be great at the science they're trying to do.
I totally agree with this. I'm fairly new to the game (only 1 capped Tac and now 1 capped Sci) but after extensive playing about with all sorts of combinations on my Sci, I figured out for myself that unless one is playing a full-on Drain build where you have lots of uptime with pretty much maxed out power on all systems, an all-torp is probably the most effective min-max strategy for Sci/Sci. Energy weapons are fun for sure, but the balance between Aux and Weapons is far too fiddly for me to sustain - and I like fiddly in games. (Why kill stuff with one button when you can do it with 3? ) And keeping max Aux and weps locked at 0 just gives me so much more shield and engine, it's hard to pass up (especially with just a bit of drain ability). I was actually quite gratified to find I was on the right lines according to your (great!) guide from a position of more experience.
I'm still working towards an endgame Plasma build, but when I discovered the Breen transphasics thing I felt that finally I had something I could work with and do Big Science and a decent mix of sustained and spike damage at the same time.
No, that's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that great Energy Weapon Damage and great Science Abilities are, IMO, fundamentally incompatible. From my experience, it's a real struggle as a sci to use energy weapons, even in STF when I need to take down, say, even a few Borg Probes. Escorts get DHCs, Cruisers get power management options, which allows them to be king of cannons and beams, respectively. Science ships in general have very little of that capability, and to get it, you're sacrificing what a sci ship need to do: science! Having scis be kitted out to be Strong-Torpedo boats with Plasma and Transphasics means they can do great damage and be great at the science they're trying to do.
This I disagree with, sorry. It depends on the ship and situation for specifics but nearly half of science abilities are not modified by AUX (or don't need said aux) and as for killing borg probes you should have more movement control than you know what to do with for killing those types of things.
Because at the end of the day no matter how it is built a Sci Vessel will be inferior for the killing part in PvE. But it can easily reach the 'good enough' point with energy or projectiles as it's primary armament.
What an interesting post. Thanks for creating the guide.
Ever since the Corvette came out I've been trying to find a build that fits my Sci captain with the ship.
Prior to the Corvette I worshiped solely at the temple of Forward DPS. But as soon as I piloted the ship I wondered how it's free asset: speed could be utilized. I believe and still do that it makes and excellent torpedo boat. You can perform quick pass overs or quickly turn to deploy your aft weapons.
I've tested numerous weak builds (and an initial strong) on the Corvette and gone full circle from a mix of torpedoes to single-type torpedoes to maximize damage then back to a mix of torpedoes-since reading your guide. That said, I was coming to the business-up-front (consistent fire), party in the back (spike damage) mullet philosophy of boat building on my own. My beam-photon build was not taking targets out like I wanted it to do so.
My Corvette torpedo boat-ish had either the Refracting DBB or it and BA (Beam array) so that I could target and weaken shields with TSS:S 1 and 2; and I used a tractor beam DOFF to buff my one hold (although Tac. Beam maybe to more effective at stripping shields with full aux). My late build, before reading your guide, had a beam weapon fore (Refracting DBB) and aft (eventually discovering a love for the Romulan Exp. Beam Array) for at-the-moment TSS:S 1 and 2 and for defensive fire.
I also used a DBB because I noticed that my fourth weapons slot (furthest to the right) was not consistently firing when all torpedoes occupied 4 fore slots. E.G. tubes 1-3 would fire on the first cycle, on the second cycle 2 would fire then 1 followed by 3 but 4 would not. I've tried mixing torpedoes with different timers but would sometimes encounter the same issue. I guess the issue is more than one of the 3 torpedo DOFF procs activating and that timer running out. Eventually 4 would fire but I felt that it was wasted dps and replaced it with a DBB. I also worried about the weapon working sub-optimally with low power but finally came to terms with that. However, the boast did not have all torpedoes.
Flying a strong torp. non-sci boat is interesting. Being liberated from weapons power puts some consoles, cores and other things in a different perspective. Not sure if there is a weapons power to skill but one would be nice if one does not exist-I'll have to check on this.
I do like having one aft slot dedicated to consistent fire, but aside from the Omega torp. (and possibly the Romulan Torp.) how consistent is fire from one tube really, however, I'm trying the spike damage approach for now. I'm still having issues with shielding so I may try re-implementing the DBB and BA/TSS:S hydrid build to see if my consistent quantum fire and rear spike damage are more effective. An all torp./DBB-5 torp sci drain boat (Intrepid) may be much more effective.
I played around with the special plasma launchers in my first strong builds and was not pleased with either. Sometimes I would get caught in my own plasma splash. This said, I may try to experiment with plasma on a sci ship. For a sci-ship build, because of the turn rate, I would strongly suggest using Tholian and Romulan consoles and beams in fore and aft positions for the use of the internal TSS skill. If you do not want to use both sets then definitely the Tholian 2 piece.
Anyway, thank you for the guide and advice. I've read it a few times over.
P.S. Did you mean "Mines" instead of "Torpedoes" in this sentence: *Torpedoes are aft weapons only, meaning you cannot be fully "kitted-out" in mines.
Yep, that was a typo on my part, should be fixed now.
As for that 4th weapon slot on ships like the Corvette, I often like to think of it as a "free" slot. It can be a torpedo, but not necessarily locked into autofire with the other three. You can keep the DBB if you want, but I don't think the Risian corvette has any innate subsystem targetting for that to be of great use. One thing you could consider is to have 3 fore torps autofiring, and have the 4th a longer cooldown torpedo, like the Breen Cluster or Bio-Neural. This 4th heavy torp would not be on autofire, and instead would be activated whenever you needed a little extra spike.
With regards to a science ship, a DBB can only be mounted fore (I think), and you will most often really need all 3 of those fore slots as autofiring torpedoes, so I'd think you're more or less restricted to 1 Beam Array, which would have to be slotted aft.
Plasma is hard to control, yes, so you really have to be a good pilot to use them, and you have to be able to tank through your own self damage sometimes. If you can do that, then plasma is just beautiful.
With regards to a single firing torpedo, remember that each activation of a torpedo has a .488 chance of activating a DOFF. This means, on a torp with an 8s cooldown, you have a 49% chance to wait 3 seconds or fewer until the next torp launch, and 51% chance to wait out the full 8 seconds. Altogether it doesn't seem like a great solution for just 1 torp on autofire. Even 2 is a stretch if you want to use something other than photons. Of course, if you have the Ferengi Missile Launcher, you could get away with something like Ferengi + Romulan Hyper Plasma as the only 2 torps on autofire.
Yeah, the Corvette is an interesting torp boat choice, I might just do some tinkering in the Skill Planner now.
This I disagree with, sorry. It depends on the ship and situation for specifics but nearly half of science abilities are not modified by AUX (or don't need said aux) and as for killing borg probes you should have more movement control than you know what to do with for killing those types of things.
Because at the end of the day no matter how it is built a Sci Vessel will be inferior for the killing part in PvE. But it can easily reach the 'good enough' point with energy or projectiles as it's primary armament.
You can use energy weaps on a sci, of course. But to be proficient in them, you're likely going to forfeit certain skill point options, aux based powers, consoles, etc. This is not just the case for BOFF powers; 3 of your 5 captain powers are also aux-based, and of course your perception, which is much more powerful on sci ships, is also aux based. There are other sciencey, aux-based things to consider, like the Scimitar's thalaron weapon, Web Mines, Aceton Assimilators, etc. More often than not, a sci will find it useful to have max aux all the time. A torp boat gives a sci ship the freedom to use whatever abilities without the sacrifices that energy weapons demand.
And of course I would have movement control to help kill probes. It still seems to take an eternity with energy weapons though.
Yep, that was a typo on my part, should be fixed now.
As for that 4th weapon slot on ships like the Corvette, I often like to think of it as a "free" slot. It can be a torpedo, but not necessarily locked into autofire with the other three. You can keep the DBB if you want, but I don't think the Risian corvette has any innate subsystem targetting for that to be of great use. One thing you could consider is to have 3 fore torps autofiring, and have the 4th a longer cooldown torpedo, like the Breen Cluster or Bio-Neural. This 4th heavy torp would not be on autofire, and instead would be activated whenever you needed a little extra spike.
With regards to a science ship, a DBB can only be mounted fore (I think), and you will most often really need all 3 of those fore slots as autofiring torpedoes, so I'd think you're more or less restricted to 1 Beam Array, which would have to be slotted aft.
Plasma is hard to control, yes, so you really have to be a good pilot to use them, and you have to be able to tank through your own self damage sometimes. If you can do that, then plasma is just beautiful.
With regards to a single firing torpedo, remember that each activation of a torpedo has a .488 chance of activating a DOFF. This means, on a torp with an 8s cooldown, you have a 49% chance to wait 3 seconds or fewer until the next torp launch, and 51% chance to wait out the full 8 seconds. Altogether it doesn't seem like a great solution for just 1 torp on autofire. Even 2 is a stretch if you want to use something other than photons. Of course, if you have the Ferengi Missile Launcher, you could get away with something like Ferengi + Romulan Hyper Plasma as the only 2 torps on autofire.
Yeah, the Corvette is an interesting torp boat choice, I might just do some tinkering in the Skill Planner now.
I'd like to see what you come up with for the Corvette, and no it is not a science ship. My consistent fire aft torpedo comment was just that. Per your suggestion whether sci-ship build or Corvette aft is for spike damage, as I tinker with the build. Sorry if I confused.
I PVE exclusively, and would I'd like to hear how I could improve dps, outside of piloting skills.
Given that you don't have a ton of room for shield drains on the corvette, some good shield penetrating torpedoes would be good. Given the fact that your corvette has an EWP-ish console (the Subspace Wake Generator), I figured, why not go all out on trolling cloud-ejection abilities? So you have the wake generator, the Theta vents, and of course eject warp plasma. The EWP and Subspace wake can conceivably supplement you shield-penetrating torpedoes, while Theta can drain shields, which is generally helpful to your torpedoes. They all are great in that they slow down enemies, and can assist your slower torps and mines in landing hits, as well as helping to conceal them.
PvP aside, all of this potential CC means you could definitely be a credit to team on STFs.
You can change between plasma or transphasic at your leisure. Something to note about embassy consoles is that the Plasma infused ones boost the DoTs of projectiles (but not of EWP I think). That 4th weapon slot is the Breen Cluster, though you could also put a Tric, Bio-Neural, or TDD there if you can afford one. The Romulan torp aft could also be exchangable with the Omega, especially if you wanted the Romulan one in a fore slot.
I've changed the engine to AMACO, since I believe it has a better turn than the borg, though I'm not 100% sure. Going 3pc AMACO would be viable if you wanted another trick up your sleeve to hide your torps.
I'm curious as to the damage the Subspace wake does. Is it boosted by Particle Gens, or Aux or Engine Power? I'm also curious to see if any of them have shared cooldowns with each other. If not, I'd imagine some hilarious stacking of DoT with EWP and the Subspace Wake.
Given that you don't have a ton of room for shield drains on the corvette, some good shield penetrating torpedoes would be good. Given the fact that your corvette has an EWP-ish console (the Subspace Wake Generator), I figured, why not go all out on trolling cloud-ejection abilities? So you have the wake generator, the Theta vents, and of course eject warp plasma. The EWP and Subspace wake can conceivably supplement you shield-penetrating torpedoes, while Theta can drain shields, which is generally helpful to your torpedoes. They all are great in that they slow down enemies, and can assist your slower torps and mines in landing hits, as well as helping to conceal them.
PvP aside, all of this potential CC means you could definitely be a credit to team on STFs.
You can change between plasma or transphasic at your leisure. Something to note about embassy consoles is that the Plasma infused ones boost the DoTs of projectiles (but not of EWP I think). That 4th weapon slot is the Breen Cluster, though you could also put a Tric, Bio-Neural, or TDD there if you can afford one. The Romulan torp aft could also be exchangable with the Omega, especially if you wanted the Romulan one in a fore slot.
I've changed the engine to AMACO, since I believe it has a better turn than the borg, though I'm not 100% sure. Going 3pc AMACO would be viable if you wanted another trick up your sleeve to hide your torps.
I'm curious as to the damage the Subspace wake does. Is it boosted by Particle Gens, or Aux or Engine Power? I'm also curious to see if any of them have shared cooldowns with each other. If not, I'd imagine some hilarious stacking of DoT with EWP and the Subspace Wake.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on your build if you play test it. I found the Wake device neat but situational and difficult. It is a great speed boost to flee. I would mostly use it to damage enemies. I would hold an opponent, park in front or on top of them, aim and activate the wake power. My Corvette flew too fast for me to control or aim weapons (narrow arch beams, cannons, and torpedoes) adequately when activating APO. That said it is a good escape option.
Eject plasma works great in NWS and in some STF's but if you go too fast the stream turns into individual puffs. But cc may be most helpful.
The AMACO engine seemed slower (moving and turning) to me so I chose not to use it. Oh, on my torp boats roughly equal power goes to shield, which has priority, and engine power.
Oh, that would be great! Unfortunately the plasma infusion only works with energy weapons; I was greatly disappointed when I found this out. I though the same thing but only saw the proc on my DBB on tool tips. The forums validated that they only work on energy weapons. Boo, Cryptic.
Playing with plasma on my Intrepid, yikes! Do you have any STF builds?
The Avenger... well... the VATA console seems to do decent damage, but 3 min cooldown? Not sure if worth it. Also not sure if the cruiser itself could pull off a torp boat setup, though I could be wrong. I'm gonna wait a while before I commit to theorizing a build for one.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on your build if you play test it. I found the Wake device neat but situational and difficult. It is a great speed boost to flee. I would mostly use it to damage enemies. I would hold an opponent, park in front or on top of them, aim and activate the wake power. My Corvette flew too fast for me to control or aim weapons (narrow arch beams, cannons, and torpedoes) adequately when activating APO. That said it is a good escape option.
Eject plasma works great in NWS and in some STF's but if you go too fast the stream turns into individual puffs. But cc may be most helpful.
The AMACO engine seemed slower (moving and turning) to me so I chose not to use it. Oh, on my torp boats roughly equal power goes to shield, which has priority, and engine power.
Oh, that would be great! Unfortunately the plasma infusion only works with energy weapons; I was greatly disappointed when I found this out. I though the same thing but only saw the proc on my DBB on tool tips. The forums validated that they only work on energy weapons. Boo, Cryptic.
Playing with plasma on my Intrepid, yikes! Do you have any STF builds?
I don't have the Corvette (hence my questions about does its console share cooldowns with anything, how does its damage scale) so I can't actually test it.
Something to note is that having speed alone isn't a big deal. Having a good turn rate is more valuable when it comes to turning to your aft weapons. Also, flying at max speed 100% of the time isn't always good, since you could do something like fly out of your tractor beam's (if you have one) effective range. Don't be afraid to throttle down sometimes, it won't execute your Defense value a huge amount.
If I were to take a guess, assuming the Wake console shares no cooldowns with EWP or Theta, and assuming it doesn't assume manual control over your throttle setting, I'd imagine a good tactic would be to make a direct pass over your enemies; reduce speed to about 1/2 or 1/4 impulse (so your plasma clouds don't become diluted when you activate your Wake), activate EWP and Wake or Theta and Wake as you are flying into them, and lastly drop mines and aft torpedoes as you pass overhead. At this point your enemies should be severely slowed and be cooking inside of your Wake and Cloud effects, and soon your aft weapons should hit. Then resume forward torpedo fire.
And no, they changed the Embassy consoles again at some point. I just checked, and they do boost DoTs of plasma projectiles (it's not a lot, but it's there).
Do you mean builds for the Intrepid or STF builds in general? I'd find the intrepid a hard ship to use a torpedo boat because it's significantly lacking in tac slots, unless you're willing to forgo dual TT. Still, it would seem a bit of a struggle to use one if you wanted to put out some decent weapon damage.
You can use energy weaps on a sci, of course. But to be proficient in them, you're likely going to forfeit certain skill point options, aux based powers, consoles, etc. This is not just the case for BOFF powers; 3 of your 5 captain powers are also aux-based, and of course your perception, which is much more powerful on sci ships, is also aux based. There are other sciencey, aux-based things to consider, like the Scimitar's thalaron weapon, Web Mines, Aceton Assimilators, etc. More often than not, a sci will find it useful to have max aux all the time. A torp boat gives a sci ship the freedom to use whatever abilities without the sacrifices that energy weapons demand.
And of course I would have movement control to help kill probes. It still seems to take an eternity with energy weapons though.
Oh it does limit your options to an extent no disagreement with that. As for the Sensor Scan that's what Aux Batteries are for
Aside from that though it really does depend on the science vessel and just what mix of tac/sci/eng options available to it. I would never run energy weapons on say an intrepid but on the Nebula, Vesta, or even the fleet one with a Lt Cmdr tac I seem to be unable to remember the name of they can work well enough. It also depends on captain type as well, Sci/Sci is nine times out of test best off in a torp boat.
So can anyone come up wih a torpedo boat build for the Avenger Battlecruiser?
I can't stress enough, don't take this build seriously. I've posted and deleted four builds for a Torp Avenger so far - not wanting to risk having somebody blame me for trying actually to build the ship and fly it. So please, I mean this in all seriousness - no wink, wink, nudge, nudge - don't take this build seriously.
Consoles
Tac - 3x Chron Flux Mk XII,V.A.T.A.
Eng - E-Neut Mk XII [+Turn],Tachyo, Bioneural, Leech
Sci - Borg, 0Point
Devices - RMC, SFM, Aux Batt
Other - Nimbus Pirate Distress Call
Honestly, don't take it seriously...sure, it's built around doing a certain thing...but that's not a certain thing that's generally needed and can be more efficiently covered by a plethora of other things when it is.
Great read, very concise and consistent. The vast majority of people claiming to know how to play do not. I question your use of PH over APO, is there really that much advantage for APD over APO, which gives both offense and defensive abilities?
"Plasma is for sci, tranny for tac, and if you are an eng god help you." LOL
Great read, very concise and consistent. The vast majority of people claiming to know how to play do not. I question your use of PH over APO, is there really that much advantage for APD over APO, which gives both offense and defensive abilities?
APO only buffs you. Both APD and APB buff the team shooting at the debuffed target.
"Plasma is for sci, tranny for tac, and if you are an eng god help you." LOL
HE, AtB HE (~150% uptime overall), Borg proc, WCE(Cleanse) proc...remove Plasma DoTs. Who can remove HE? Tac? Nope. Eng? Nope. Sci? Tada!
Unable to remove HE and thus maximize Plasma damage, what might be a good Torp for say a Tac to use in a Universe where Shields have an innate 75% kinetic damage reduction? Perhaps a Torp with increased bleed? Transphasic, eh? Hrmmm...
"Captain, I'm giving her all she take..."
"But our torpedoes are still doing TRIBBLE damage!"
"Captain, maybe you should reroll as a Tac or a Sci?"
"But, but, but...you're an Engineer too!"
"Aye, Captain - but I'm just a BOFF. Cryptic may dislike me..."
"But they don't hate you like they hate me."
"There you go, laddie - you're getting it now."
Comments
Gen
I'm sure your DPS is great, but as Kahless said, "a petaQ with high system mastery is still a petaQ." (Well, he should have said it...!)
For PvP primarily or PvE is the important first question.
I'm sure your DPS is great, but as Kahless said, "a petaQ with high system mastery is still a petaQ." (Well, he should have said it...!)
Fore: Hyper Plasma Torpedo, Standard Plasma Torpedo x2 (or throw in a special one like Harpeng for example)
Aft: Experimental Romulan Beam, a Mine Launcher, Omega torpedo or a long cooldown one.
Tac boff abilities I'd just stick to the standard tactical team/torpedo spread or high yield/ attack pattern beta.
Eng the reliable EPtS and other defense. Possibly eject warp plasma.
Sci I would personally focus on energy drains like Tykens Rift, or Gravity Well, or both. With enough drain you can shut down their shields again post Rift fix.
Sorry for lack of detail short on time.
Nebula
Lt Tac 1: TT1, APB 1
Uni Tac: TT1 OR TS 1, TS 2 or HY 2
Lt Cmdr Eng: EPtS 1, Aux2Strut 1, EWP 1
Cmdr Sci: HE 1, ?, GW 1, TRift 3
Ens ?: ??
General idea.
False. It depends on the particular PvE you are doing most of the hull HP in STFs for example have no shields in the way. But yes turning the target's shields off does help.
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/2249/940t.png
PVP 2014 - Fawn00bs,Vapers and leavers...
@kublahkan: Yes you can! I actually leveled up my Rom with the sole intention of being a T'varo torp boat at endgame, so all my ships up to that were torp boats too. I didn't even spec into shield skills (though I technically couldn't defense-tank without EBC, so I had to rely on singularity abilites for shield repair, which was brutal in shuttle missions). The most hilarious part was getting the D'Deridex to maneuver to use plasma torpedoes. Overall it was a great experience, definitely viable.
@stirling191: It seems we have an advocate of Torpedo Boats by the Weak definition here. I do see the potential of such weak torpedo boats, yes, but from the info you just gave me (5 fore-weapons slots?) and by looking at something like rast1qq's build, Weak-torpedo boats seem to be a role for the Tac-oriented in escorts. To me, that seems to work because escorts really don't or shouldn't be optimizing into many science abilities, and they can afford to use and be effective in both energy and projectiles.
In my opinion however, scis have a harder time doing this, because it's almost impossible for a sci to have maximally effective energy weapons AND maximally effective science powers (skill and power-level wise), and when they do, it might be at the expense of some freedom in what a sci ship build can be. Using all projectiles and consolidating ship power solves this problem, allowing a sci to deal both decent damage and deploy great science.
With regard to photons, they can have a certain amount of value as "proc engines" for DOFFs in a larger system of torpedoes. In terms of being damaging on their own, or being the only autofiring launchers on a ship? I don't think so. You're right in that dual photons can completely reduce their own cooldowns, but that does not ALWAYS happen. According to my math, the probability of inducing a DOFF proc after firing at most 2 photons is 74%. On 3 quantums, this number is 87%. This, and general flying with torpedoes, suggests to me that there are actually more gaps in firing 2 photons than in 3 quantums. It may be a small difference, but I've noticed it when flying my ships, and I find it more unacceptable in a Strong-Torpedo boat than in your sort of Weak-torpedo boat. Your criticism tells me you like torpedoes as a heavy compliment to energy weapons, but talking about such ships was not the intention of this guide.
@ursusmorologus: You missed it (how did you miss it?), but I did mention the console-based torps in the "Supertorpedoes" section. Good points with regards to timing your spiking runs and HY/TS, I think I will add those.
I'm personally a "purist" guy, so I'm typically either "all kinetic" or "all energy" in my builds. Discussing torpedoes and mines as they interact alongside of energy weapons is not something in which I have experience, so I'm not sure I feel comfortable with that sort of discussion in this guide.
@badname834854: Good point with the Hargh'peng. I personally haven't noticed the damage of the TDD on my Wells, though it seems to be working perfectly fine with me. I look forward to your tests on it.
@skollulfr: I 100% disagree. In fact, I'll go so far to say that ALL science ships ought to be torp boats. Just ran my Wells through a few STFs today, and she didn't seem to be any worse off than my KDF Tor'kaht (universal slot was engineer BTW).
@generator88: I don't know if you've leveled up your reputations yet, but assuming you haven't here are some cheap builds I've theorized up for those two ships you have:
Recon Ship: http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=recontorpboatskeleton_0
Nebula Retrofit: http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=nebulatorpboatskeleton_0
These ships are very much "skeleton builds," where I've only specified the weapons, tac consoles, tac abilities, and low-level eng and sci abilities. The other slots are more or less up to you in terms of what kind of science you'd like to do. You could go heavy in particle abilities + CC with Grav Well, FBP, and EWP on that engi spot on the nebula (not a far cry from how I fly my Wells), you could go heavy in shield drains w. Tach Beam and TB with the Doff or power drains w. ES or TR, and conceivably both ships can become great snoopers with the nebula console.
The Recon is themed all transphasic, and the Nebula is themed all plasma, though opposite themes on either ship could also work. The Recon, Nebula, Nova, and their Fleet variants all make great torp boats fed side, since they have just enough tac slots to make torpedoes work well. Of course, the Vesta and Wells probably make the best torp ships, just because that's how those ships roll.
I'll try to add these modifications to the main post as soon as I have the time.
You really need to drop the condescending labels on torpedo builds that don't measure up to your standards of "purity". All torpedo vessels, whether they're all-projectile or hybrid platforms, function on the exact same premise: deal with the shields so that the missiles can shred the hull. At the end of the day they're doing the same thing, just in a slightly different manner.
Secondly, five-fore weapon slot vessels are the Kumari, Scimitar and now the Avenger. If you can't fathom how game-changing that fifth slot can be, I'll cover that in a moment.
Here's the problem with your line of thinking: you're treating every single ship type as though they ought to be identical when it comes to their strategic options. Yes, science vessels have to approach their builds very differently than cruisers or escorts do. That no more invalidates varying projectile based loadouts based on the underlying ship platform than it does varying energy weapon or science based loadouts due to the same variable.
Certain builds are going to work on some ships and not on others. That doesn't for a moment mean any of them aren't viable.
For starters, you're completely ignoring what I actually wrote, and the implications it has for a build. Having to devote 75% (or 60% in the case of the Avenger, Kumari and Scimitar) of your fore weapon slots to a single launcher type to sustain fire makes a ship a one trick pony that is seriously reliant on power based or external shield breaking (transphasics and sometimes plasma not withstanding). Given the ridiculous level of effective and the magnitude of power insulators, that's not a realistic way to fly.
On the other hand, having 50-60% of said weapon slots potentially open for alternate allocation (which is what happens when you have two photons in weapon slots 3-4 or 4-5) allows for some very creative approaches that don't sacrifice torpedo uptime or shield killing power.
As I showed in my previous post my Reman Sci Transphasic Torp boat can deal MASSIVE amounts of damage in a open map like a cap and hold. They are less effective in much smaller closed engagements like arena matches.
On the Fed side she is almost always in the top 3 damage dealers and I rarely get killed. In fact I think I have died more times from my own exploding Mega Torp from the T'Varo then from enemy players!!
Um...huh? I've read that a few times, and I'm still going "Um...huh?" about it. I mean, you say it yourself there...
"whether they're all-projectile or hybrid platforms"
...so it's not a case of saying "All torpedo vessels" in the least.
You've got Torpedo Vessels and Hybrid Platforms. You've separated them. There's a difference between a Torpedo Boat and a Boat with Torpedoes. Otherwise, if you've got 1 Projectile/7 Energy or 7 Projectile/1 Energy...um...you'd be calling them all Torpedo Vessels.
Further...the premise "deal with the shields so that the missiles can shred the hull." - well, um - for hybrid platforms, sure! For a Plas/Trans Torpedo Boat? Lol, don't care about shields in the least. Bleed 'n Burn...pop the target with full shields.
All in all, it's kind of reading like you're saying to run 3 PWO DOFFs for two Photon Torps while running 6 Energy Weapons...and...calling it a Torp Boat. That's um...huh?
Heh, I've seen far more Willard was killed than Willard was killed by X. Hate when the Beach Ball gets popped by somebody starting up FAW....gets popped before I even see it on my screen - boom - dead.
A torpedo boat is one that builds it's offensive armament around torpedoes. Tossing a token launcher on to a ship doesn't make it a torpedo boat. Selecting doffs, consoles, set boni and boff abilities to make the torpedoes the primary teeth of the ship does.
You yourself laid out multiple ways one can go about doing just that, be it a hybrid platform (and yes, there are more ways to setup a hybrid boat than twin photons backed by cannons), transphasic spam, chained hyper-plasma, omega and plasma torps, twin photons backing hargh's and clusters or any other crazy combination of projectile primary death. They're all torpedo boats.
2x Photon, 2-3x Energy Weapon
2-3x Energy Weapon
Which isn't quite the same as...
2x Photon, 2-3x longer CD Torps
2-3x low power Turrets w/ some form of Disruptor proc
I find the T'varo mega torp almost useless in PvP and in fact a bigger threat to YOUR OWN SHIP - then any enemy!! While it packs a 40k+ hit - most of that is usually taken up by a players shields - even if they are down to 5% shields almost all is damage is absorbed by the stupid shields mechanic in the game.
It the T'Varo fires it while cloaked it has a 2.5km area where you are unshielded and your hull would have to take all that 40K+ damage
Given that they should either remove the back blast AOE to the T'varo or reduce it to what the AOE Tricobalts were : 1KM
2.5km is just way to much when you don't have shields and your enemy could have less shields left that a piece of paper - but they are protected and you are not = fail = stupid.
That splash helps when it hits a target with pets...etc, etc, etc.
If you drop it and then hit EM or EPtE...well, it tends to be fine. I have up the EPtE for ET though.
The damage it can do is going to depend on your consoles - since consoles boost off of base and the Beach Ball's got a high base. It gets a lot out of those consoles compared to other torps. It also applies that -33 DRR debuff - which will make your other projectiles (DPB3 Trans, Breen Cluster, etc) hit harder.
Honestly I mainly die to it from having forgotten it was out there and it eventually catches up to me with whatever target it's locked on after the initial target died days before the torp got there...
Now though the bar has been raised. I do agree that true hybrids do not exist anymore. You have ships that use projectiles as their primary method to kill the target (4 or more equipped) and others that use projectiles as a secondary weapon to help kill the target (1-2 equipped).
But that goes into a bit of build theory I've been meaning to write a guide about for new players. You have your primary armament (DHCs+turrets/beam arrays/cannons+turrets/etc) you focus your gearing/doffs/abilities around and if you want throw in a secondary armament (Torp Launcher/DBB/Mine/etc) to take advantage of a specific boff ability/doff/versatility. You can have 2 types of secondary armaments in some cases as well!
Nearly all high performance builds follow that logic. Nearly any weapon type can be the primary armament or secondary. A cruiser sporting 7 beam arrays and a single torpedo is built around it's broadsiding beams. An science vessel sporting 4 torpedoes, a mine, and a single beam array is built around it's torpedoes primarily. They are not what I would call a hybrid.
So actually last night, I started scratching together a transphasic build for my Recon ship. The character in question has minimal ranks in all reps (like, Romulan 1, Nukara 1, Omega 2), so anything that requires significant Rep ranks will be a long-term goal.
At least at the outset, I want one beam array to keep subsystem targeting, so that means I only get two projectiles aft. My first impulse was to skip the minelayer and use the other two aft mounts for the cluster torpedo and the argh'penguin.
My science powers are currently running a Tach Beam 2, a pair of Energy Siphon 2s, and a Grav Well 3 (but given the heavy drain focus, I'm thinking I might try out the new version of Tyken's Rift), in addition to the usual lower-rank stuff.
Equipment sets, I've got a few contending ideas:
1) Adapted Maco deflector & engine, Maco shield. Gives me more Aux and the +Torpedo damage, plus that nice power boost from the shield.
2) Breen set. Would only be for the Transphasic damage bonus.
3) Maco shield & engine, Jem deflector. Those Maco pieces are nice even in isolation, the minor recharge bonus is a touch of gravy, and I was following another thread about Stealth detection that seems to be making a strong case for the Jem deflector's utility on a snooper ship.
4) Full Jem'hadar. I've actually got the full set already, this character is using it as her placeholder until I figured out what I wanted from the rep system. The antiproton sweep from the full set would be useful in more shield-busting, so maybe I just stay with it, and get to scrounging Lobi crystals to get the set boosted up to Mk XII.
More later. Thanks to everyone for the helpful feedback.
Later on,
Generator
I'm sure your DPS is great, but as Kahless said, "a petaQ with high system mastery is still a petaQ." (Well, he should have said it...!)
Woah, hostile much? I think you're misinterpreting what I mean by "Strong" and "Weak" torpedo boats. These words are not qualifiers of the effectiveness of such build in and of themselves. In logically rigorous studies like Philosophy, Mathematics, etc., a definition or theorem that is "weak" is one that has a broad, conservative assertion that can be applied to more situations. A "strong" definition or theorem, on the other hand, is one that applies to a more specific and absolute case. By extension, a "Weak-Torpedo Boat" as i specified in the first post of this topic, can generally apply to many torpedo builds, including the more hybrid builds to which you are referring. "Strong-Torpedo Boats" are those specifically designed to go all-out all-projectiles.
And no, you're absolutely incorrect. Many of the more successful torp boat builds rely on bypassing shields with transphasics and plasmas, not stripping them down. And it seems you were completely ignoring what I wrote in the guide, which was to the effect of Plasma,Transphasic > other generic torpedo types for general damage unless you're trying for some other strange builds.
No, that's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that great Energy Weapon Damage and great Science Abilities are, IMO, fundamentally incompatible. From my experience, it's a real struggle as a sci to use energy weapons, even in STF when I need to take down, say, even a few Borg Probes. Escorts get DHCs, Cruisers get power management options, which allows them to be king of cannons and beams, respectively. Science ships in general have very little of that capability, and to get it, you're sacrificing what a sci ship need to do: science! Having scis be kitted out to be Strong-Torpedo boats with Plasma and Transphasics means they can do great damage and be great at the science they're trying to do.
I just love how I'm mostly trying to talk about sci-heavy ships, and you clearly bring the discussion back down to escorts, and how you're contradicting yourself by implying sci ships should treated differently than escorts, then implying everything should be treated like escorts. Like I said before, scis as transphasic and plasma boats does not limit their options. On the contrary, I find it greatly expands them.
I totally agree with this. I'm fairly new to the game (only 1 capped Tac and now 1 capped Sci) but after extensive playing about with all sorts of combinations on my Sci, I figured out for myself that unless one is playing a full-on Drain build where you have lots of uptime with pretty much maxed out power on all systems, an all-torp is probably the most effective min-max strategy for Sci/Sci. Energy weapons are fun for sure, but the balance between Aux and Weapons is far too fiddly for me to sustain - and I like fiddly in games. (Why kill stuff with one button when you can do it with 3?
I'm still working towards an endgame Plasma build, but when I discovered the Breen transphasics thing I felt that finally I had something I could work with and do Big Science and a decent mix of sustained and spike damage at the same time.
This I disagree with, sorry. It depends on the ship and situation for specifics but nearly half of science abilities are not modified by AUX (or don't need said aux) and as for killing borg probes you should have more movement control than you know what to do with for killing those types of things.
Because at the end of the day no matter how it is built a Sci Vessel will be inferior for the killing part in PvE. But it can easily reach the 'good enough' point with energy or projectiles as it's primary armament.
Ever since the Corvette came out I've been trying to find a build that fits my Sci captain with the ship.
Prior to the Corvette I worshiped solely at the temple of Forward DPS. But as soon as I piloted the ship I wondered how it's free asset: speed could be utilized. I believe and still do that it makes and excellent torpedo boat. You can perform quick pass overs or quickly turn to deploy your aft weapons.
I've tested numerous weak builds (and an initial strong) on the Corvette and gone full circle from a mix of torpedoes to single-type torpedoes to maximize damage then back to a mix of torpedoes-since reading your guide. That said, I was coming to the business-up-front (consistent fire), party in the back (spike damage) mullet philosophy of boat building on my own. My beam-photon build was not taking targets out like I wanted it to do so.
My Corvette torpedo boat-ish had either the Refracting DBB or it and BA (Beam array) so that I could target and weaken shields with TSS:S 1 and 2; and I used a tractor beam DOFF to buff my one hold (although Tac. Beam maybe to more effective at stripping shields with full aux). My late build, before reading your guide, had a beam weapon fore (Refracting DBB) and aft (eventually discovering a love for the Romulan Exp. Beam Array) for at-the-moment TSS:S 1 and 2 and for defensive fire.
I also used a DBB because I noticed that my fourth weapons slot (furthest to the right) was not consistently firing when all torpedoes occupied 4 fore slots. E.G. tubes 1-3 would fire on the first cycle, on the second cycle 2 would fire then 1 followed by 3 but 4 would not. I've tried mixing torpedoes with different timers but would sometimes encounter the same issue. I guess the issue is more than one of the 3 torpedo DOFF procs activating and that timer running out. Eventually 4 would fire but I felt that it was wasted dps and replaced it with a DBB. I also worried about the weapon working sub-optimally with low power but finally came to terms with that. However, the boast did not have all torpedoes.
Flying a strong torp. non-sci boat is interesting. Being liberated from weapons power puts some consoles, cores and other things in a different perspective. Not sure if there is a weapons power to skill but one would be nice if one does not exist-I'll have to check on this.
I do like having one aft slot dedicated to consistent fire, but aside from the Omega torp. (and possibly the Romulan Torp.) how consistent is fire from one tube really, however, I'm trying the spike damage approach for now. I'm still having issues with shielding so I may try re-implementing the DBB and BA/TSS:S hydrid build to see if my consistent quantum fire and rear spike damage are more effective. An all torp./DBB-5 torp sci drain boat (Intrepid) may be much more effective.
I played around with the special plasma launchers in my first strong builds and was not pleased with either. Sometimes I would get caught in my own plasma splash. This said, I may try to experiment with plasma on a sci ship. For a sci-ship build, because of the turn rate, I would strongly suggest using Tholian and Romulan consoles and beams in fore and aft positions for the use of the internal TSS skill. If you do not want to use both sets then definitely the Tholian 2 piece.
Anyway, thank you for the guide and advice. I've read it a few times over.
P.S. Did you mean "Mines" instead of "Torpedoes" in this sentence: *Torpedoes are aft weapons only, meaning you cannot be fully "kitted-out" in mines.
As for that 4th weapon slot on ships like the Corvette, I often like to think of it as a "free" slot. It can be a torpedo, but not necessarily locked into autofire with the other three. You can keep the DBB if you want, but I don't think the Risian corvette has any innate subsystem targetting for that to be of great use. One thing you could consider is to have 3 fore torps autofiring, and have the 4th a longer cooldown torpedo, like the Breen Cluster or Bio-Neural. This 4th heavy torp would not be on autofire, and instead would be activated whenever you needed a little extra spike.
With regards to a science ship, a DBB can only be mounted fore (I think), and you will most often really need all 3 of those fore slots as autofiring torpedoes, so I'd think you're more or less restricted to 1 Beam Array, which would have to be slotted aft.
Plasma is hard to control, yes, so you really have to be a good pilot to use them, and you have to be able to tank through your own self damage sometimes. If you can do that, then plasma is just beautiful.
With regards to a single firing torpedo, remember that each activation of a torpedo has a .488 chance of activating a DOFF. This means, on a torp with an 8s cooldown, you have a 49% chance to wait 3 seconds or fewer until the next torp launch, and 51% chance to wait out the full 8 seconds. Altogether it doesn't seem like a great solution for just 1 torp on autofire. Even 2 is a stretch if you want to use something other than photons. Of course, if you have the Ferengi Missile Launcher, you could get away with something like Ferengi + Romulan Hyper Plasma as the only 2 torps on autofire.
Yeah, the Corvette is an interesting torp boat choice, I might just do some tinkering in the Skill Planner now.
You can use energy weaps on a sci, of course. But to be proficient in them, you're likely going to forfeit certain skill point options, aux based powers, consoles, etc. This is not just the case for BOFF powers; 3 of your 5 captain powers are also aux-based, and of course your perception, which is much more powerful on sci ships, is also aux based. There are other sciencey, aux-based things to consider, like the Scimitar's thalaron weapon, Web Mines, Aceton Assimilators, etc. More often than not, a sci will find it useful to have max aux all the time. A torp boat gives a sci ship the freedom to use whatever abilities without the sacrifices that energy weapons demand.
And of course I would have movement control to help kill probes. It still seems to take an eternity with energy weapons though.
I'd like to see what you come up with for the Corvette, and no it is not a science ship. My consistent fire aft torpedo comment was just that. Per your suggestion whether sci-ship build or Corvette aft is for spike damage, as I tinker with the build. Sorry if I confused.
I PVE exclusively, and would I'd like to hear how I could improve dps, outside of piloting skills.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=gerstorpbuild_0
The fourth weapon slot is blank because I'm tinkered with a few options. Thanks.
Given that you don't have a ton of room for shield drains on the corvette, some good shield penetrating torpedoes would be good. Given the fact that your corvette has an EWP-ish console (the Subspace Wake Generator), I figured, why not go all out on trolling cloud-ejection abilities? So you have the wake generator, the Theta vents, and of course eject warp plasma. The EWP and Subspace wake can conceivably supplement you shield-penetrating torpedoes, while Theta can drain shields, which is generally helpful to your torpedoes. They all are great in that they slow down enemies, and can assist your slower torps and mines in landing hits, as well as helping to conceal them.
PvP aside, all of this potential CC means you could definitely be a credit to team on STFs.
You can change between plasma or transphasic at your leisure. Something to note about embassy consoles is that the Plasma infused ones boost the DoTs of projectiles (but not of EWP I think). That 4th weapon slot is the Breen Cluster, though you could also put a Tric, Bio-Neural, or TDD there if you can afford one. The Romulan torp aft could also be exchangable with the Omega, especially if you wanted the Romulan one in a fore slot.
I've changed the engine to AMACO, since I believe it has a better turn than the borg, though I'm not 100% sure. Going 3pc AMACO would be viable if you wanted another trick up your sleeve to hide your torps.
I'm curious as to the damage the Subspace wake does. Is it boosted by Particle Gens, or Aux or Engine Power? I'm also curious to see if any of them have shared cooldowns with each other. If not, I'd imagine some hilarious stacking of DoT with EWP and the Subspace Wake.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on your build if you play test it. I found the Wake device neat but situational and difficult. It is a great speed boost to flee. I would mostly use it to damage enemies. I would hold an opponent, park in front or on top of them, aim and activate the wake power. My Corvette flew too fast for me to control or aim weapons (narrow arch beams, cannons, and torpedoes) adequately when activating APO. That said it is a good escape option.
Eject plasma works great in NWS and in some STF's but if you go too fast the stream turns into individual puffs. But cc may be most helpful.
The AMACO engine seemed slower (moving and turning) to me so I chose not to use it. Oh, on my torp boats roughly equal power goes to shield, which has priority, and engine power.
Oh, that would be great! Unfortunately the plasma infusion only works with energy weapons; I was greatly disappointed when I found this out. I though the same thing but only saw the proc on my DBB on tool tips. The forums validated that they only work on energy weapons. Boo, Cryptic.
Playing with plasma on my Intrepid, yikes! Do you have any STF builds?
I don't have the Corvette (hence my questions about does its console share cooldowns with anything, how does its damage scale) so I can't actually test it.
Something to note is that having speed alone isn't a big deal. Having a good turn rate is more valuable when it comes to turning to your aft weapons. Also, flying at max speed 100% of the time isn't always good, since you could do something like fly out of your tractor beam's (if you have one) effective range. Don't be afraid to throttle down sometimes, it won't execute your Defense value a huge amount.
If I were to take a guess, assuming the Wake console shares no cooldowns with EWP or Theta, and assuming it doesn't assume manual control over your throttle setting, I'd imagine a good tactic would be to make a direct pass over your enemies; reduce speed to about 1/2 or 1/4 impulse (so your plasma clouds don't become diluted when you activate your Wake), activate EWP and Wake or Theta and Wake as you are flying into them, and lastly drop mines and aft torpedoes as you pass overhead. At this point your enemies should be severely slowed and be cooking inside of your Wake and Cloud effects, and soon your aft weapons should hit. Then resume forward torpedo fire.
And no, they changed the Embassy consoles again at some point. I just checked, and they do boost DoTs of plasma projectiles (it's not a lot, but it's there).
Do you mean builds for the Intrepid or STF builds in general? I'd find the intrepid a hard ship to use a torpedo boat because it's significantly lacking in tac slots, unless you're willing to forgo dual TT. Still, it would seem a bit of a struggle to use one if you wanted to put out some decent weapon damage.
Oh it does limit your options to an extent no disagreement with that. As for the Sensor Scan that's what Aux Batteries are for
Aside from that though it really does depend on the science vessel and just what mix of tac/sci/eng options available to it. I would never run energy weapons on say an intrepid but on the Nebula, Vesta, or even the fleet one with a Lt Cmdr tac I seem to be unable to remember the name of they can work well enough. It also depends on captain type as well, Sci/Sci is nine times out of test best off in a torp boat.
I can't stress enough, don't take this build seriously. I've posted and deleted four builds for a Torp Avenger so far - not wanting to risk having somebody blame me for trying actually to build the ship and fly it. So please, I mean this in all seriousness - no wink, wink, nudge, nudge - don't take this build seriously.
Fleet Avenger w/ Alien Sci Captain
Traits - Accurate, Astrophysicist, Efficient Captain, Elusive, Helmsman, Inspirational Leader, Photonic Capacitor, Techie, Warp Theorist
Reputation
New Rom - Precision, Emergency Secondary Shielding, Quantum Singularity Manipulation
Nukara - Fortified Hull, Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense, Refracting Tetryon Cascade
Omega - Omega Weapon Training, Omega Graviton Amplifier
HY1, TS2, APB2
TT1, BO1
TT1
EPtS1, EPtS2, ExS2, AtS3
TSS1, HE2
(3x Emb Op, 2x Emb Sub)
DOFFs - 3x PWO(Torp), EWO(BO+Pen), WCE(Cleanse)
Deflector - AMACO Mk XII
Engine - AMACO Mk XII
Shield - Elite Fleet Resilient Mk XII [Cap]x2[ResA/B][Adapt]
Core - Elite Fleet Reinforced Mk XII [SEP][S->W][SCap][AMP][SST]
Weapons
Fore - Chron DBA, Temporal Disruption Device, Subspace Torp, 2x Chron Torp Mk XII [Acc]x3
Aft - 3x Nanite Disruptor Mk XII [Acc]x3
Consoles
Tac - 3x Chron Flux Mk XII, V.A.T.A.
Eng - E-Neut Mk XII [+Turn], Tachyo, Bioneural, Leech
Sci - Borg, 0Point
Devices - RMC, SFM, Aux Batt
Other - Nimbus Pirate Distress Call
Honestly, don't take it seriously...sure, it's built around doing a certain thing...but that's not a certain thing that's generally needed and can be more efficiently covered by a plethora of other things when it is.
"Plasma is for sci, tranny for tac, and if you are an eng god help you." LOL
APO only buffs you. Both APD and APB buff the team shooting at the debuffed target.
Should be...common knowledge.
HE, AtB HE (~150% uptime overall), Borg proc, WCE(Cleanse) proc...remove Plasma DoTs. Who can remove HE? Tac? Nope. Eng? Nope. Sci? Tada!
Unable to remove HE and thus maximize Plasma damage, what might be a good Torp for say a Tac to use in a Universe where Shields have an innate 75% kinetic damage reduction? Perhaps a Torp with increased bleed? Transphasic, eh? Hrmmm...
"Captain, I'm giving her all she take..."
"But our torpedoes are still doing TRIBBLE damage!"
"Captain, maybe you should reroll as a Tac or a Sci?"
"But, but, but...you're an Engineer too!"
"Aye, Captain - but I'm just a BOFF. Cryptic may dislike me..."
"But they don't hate you like they hate me."
"There you go, laddie - you're getting it now."