Give Kinetic Weapons to BOFF & autofire

mackermomo · December 2013

Has anyone had any luck giving their tactical officer a fleet kinetic weapon as opposed to a fleet energy weapon?

Speaking of energy weapons, I've gone back to a hand phaser and disabled the 2nd, longer mode (removed from autofire), as it seems I just wasn't hitting anything. My rifle took forever to fire. Has anyone else done the same, and just manually trigger the 2nd mode?

Thanks!

cmdrscarlet · December 2013

Do you mean like a Bat'leth?

Sure have! I can't speak to Fleet weapons, but I gave a Klingon BOff a Bat'leth weapon then changed ground skills to enhance Hand-to-hand combat. He's the first to the fight every time and really chews them up

darkjeff · December 2013

I don't know if they've fixed the AI since I last tried, but when I initiated combat at range (30m or so, kneeling and sniping) my Klingon BOff with a melee weapon would tend to run laps between the enemy and myself.

She was trying to engage, firing off Lunge and Sweeping Strike, but then would regroup with me because she was too far away. It made her pretty useless. They don't seem to have that problem with pulsewaves or flamethrowers.

damzelltrill · December 2013

You mean I can pass out the melee weapons I have to my Boffs? I'd read some where that their AI's couldn't support melee, so i hadn't tried. Got a Gorn and a Jemmy that even though i arm them with long range weapons they insist on getting into hand to hand range.

mackermomo · December 2013

Sure would love to hear if others are having success arming their BOFFs with melee weapons.

thanks for the responses so far!

damzelltrill · December 2013

Armed my Gorn with one of the swords and he did decent with it. Did hit and fade strikes by darting in smacking the target then backing off closer to my Captain.

edgecrysger · December 2013

how the hell u guys do that????

I tried time ago with my klingon boff, i gave him a battlech but he never attack lol he sometimes acted like if he was doing rally points, but thats it. Or he get stucks doing nothing, sometimes using some skills but he never attacks lol. I just thought it was another big bug and i just replaced my klingon boff.

trycksh0t · December 2013

One of my old Klingon Captains had two Klingon Boffs armed with Bat'leths (Warrior trait-very important), the other two with split-beam disruptors, and he himself carried a disruptor compression pistol. The pistol meant I had to get close enough to the enemies that my melee guys didn't keep running back to the group, so they just kept wailing away (resulting in numerous knockdowns, roots, and exposes.)

It's been awhile, so I'm not sure if things have changed, but I never had an issue with anything when running that setup - groups either couldn't move, spent the entire battle on their back, or ate a combination of split-beam and compression bolt fire when they were exposed.

damzelltrill · December 2013

Have to consider switching to a pistol of that's how they behave.

gilion · December 2013

A full melee team was so awesome back in the day. It one point it worked almost too well, then for some reason the AI broke and now I cant get any of my boffs to use melee weapons

And you use auto fire on the ground? that sounds so boring.

mackermomo · December 2013

hahah. Yes, I use autofire. I'm an engineer, so mostly building things, but do fire from time to time.

Has anyone used melee weapons recently with their BOFFS? I've read posts pre 2011 where BOFFs could use melee weapons, then seems after that they couldn't.

Sure could use someone with recent experience. Bonus points if you've used melee weapons on the Romulan side. That's my character race

hasukurobi · December 2013

So far my BOFFs can handle swords but Lirpa's and Bat'leths confuse them. They will just stand around and do nothing or use a few abilities but never really attack if they are holding those.

edgecrysger · December 2013

So as far as i know, melee attacks on boffs are still no operative?

I wish i could give my klingon boff or someone else a battlech xD. I always wanted to see my boff doing melee action, but in 4 months, no luck. It makes no sense, klingons and battlechs are one, and a klingon using melee attacks is a common thing to see, how it is possible that so important thing is bugged in this game xD??

tigeraries · December 2013

I find melee weapon on BOFFs to be useless. I get in a fight and often times they just stand there doing nothing till I get hit or wait on the cool downs to use abilities. Boffs tend to stay near you... so with range they can shoot far away mobs.

greendragon527 · December 2013

I had a Jem Hadar boff on my main with a nanopulse lirpa, used him the other day on Skirmish, he jump kicked his way around with lunge and made good use of it to me.

crm14916 · December 2013

So, now, wait a second... Can hand-weapons be set to "autofire?" I've tried before and not been successful... How does one do this?

Thanks!
CM

mackermomo · December 2013

Wow. So many responses. It seems people would really like to give their BOFFS melee weapons.

I'm going to try one on my Borg tactical officer today. I'll let you know what happens.

My BOFFs just don't seem to be using their long-range sniper rifles. It's like the sniper rifles are almost useless. One of the things that drew me to STO was the fact you can have BOFFs help you out. They're not helping me much now. Hopefully Cryptic knows this and is working on a fix.

fvarbel · December 2013

I am a new player, about 2 weeks old, but I have been using melee on my BOFFs sInce about level 30.

I had purchased the Feline Bridge Office for the KDF, and since his skills included lunge and seemed melee focused I gave him one of those Vulcan weapons. He did so well I went and gave melee to two other bridge officers (a Jem'Hadar, and a Klingon.) They do extremely well and kills things much quicker because of the shield bypass.

I did not know there was an issue with the AI until I read this thread.

mackermomo · December 2013

I am a new player, about 2 weeks old, but I have been using melee on my BOFFs sInce about level 30.

I had purchased the Feline Bridge Office for the KDF, and since his skills included lunge and seemed melee focused I gave him one of those Vulcan weapons. He did so well I went and gave melee to two other bridge officers (a Jem'Hadar, and a Klingon.) They do extremely well and kills things much quicker because of the shield bypass.

I did not know there was an issue with the AI until I read this thread.

Thanks for the info! Good to hear it. Sounds like melee weapons work well for the KDF.

For anyone else having problems with the autofire...I just bought a borg arm weapon and it works like a charm. Never had a better operating weapon. It shoots when you want it to.

centaurianalpha · December 2013

I've got a Saurian Tactical officer I equipped with a Lirpa, and gave him some good polyweave armor & kinetic shield. He goes right after the baddies in melee, but probably because his ground specialties are Photon Grenade and Sweeping Strikes, so he's already trained for close combat. I equip my Bolian Engineer with compression pistols, so I have one BOff from each flank doing close assault while my First Officer and Science officer hang back with me and blast the prime targets with rifles. My Vulcan Science officer is also the de facto Medical Officer (ground abilities like Medical Tricorder), so she's close enough to revive the assault BOff's if they get overpowered.

Since I've been directing my BOff's training in a focused direction, I've now got a purple first officer, and the rest of them are green. I just wish I could equip them with kits, but it seems they get specific ground training instead...

tpalelena · December 2013

I would suggest giving the boffs some cheap white melee weapons and trying out some easy ground mission to see how they behave.

If they do good, you can buy them better weapons, if not, you did not waste a lot of EC on good melee weapons.

damzelltrill · December 2013

Colosseum provides the Worn weapons. They are dirt cheep on the Exchange.

jeffel82 · December 2013

I once tried my hand at a lirpa-wielding Vulcan Tactical boff.

What I found was that she would mostly use the melee abilities I gave her (lunge, etc), but would rarely actually use the lirpa. I would say in a typical combat situation she would take maybe 1 or 2 swipes with the lirpa, and otherwise would stand around until the boff abilities were off cooldown - then she would use them.

All in all, a very disappointing experiment.

edgecrysger · December 2013

Another fail here.

I tried to give my female caitian boff a plasma battlech (the one of the winter event) and she never used it... she only used the pounce and lunge attacks and the stealth, even the close basic attacks lol, but NEVER USED the battlech.

So, i switched to a regular battlech, and the same result. Its like if she is barehanded with any weapons at all.

I just cant believe the AI in this aspect is so stupid.. not in a game like this.. im new to the game (5 months old or so) but i must say im very dissapointed in this xD, that almost most of the boffs can't use melee weapons...

, i already tried 3 times, one with a klingon boof, other one with a gorn one and the caitian one. I cant get my boffs to fight with melee weapons!!!.:mad:

EDIT: Didnt see the post before this, xD, its almost the same case, but in my case my caitina NEVER used the battlech (i already tried with the lirpa as well, same result).

jeffel82 · December 2013

edgecrysger wrote: »

EDIT: Didnt see the post before this, xD, its almost the same case, but in my case my caitina NEVER used the battlech (i already tried with the lirpa as well, same result).

Yeah, sounds basically identical. I swear I did see my boff use the weapon occasionally, but only once or twice per combat. I can't remember exactly, but I may have put the rest of my Away Team into Passive mode, just to give her the opportunity. :P

And like you, I tried both a standard lirpa and the nanopulse edge version.

sonnikku · December 2013

Just give all your boffs pulsewave assault weapons and laugh at your opponents feeble attempts to stay on their feet.

noroblad · December 2013

Depends on the enemy but if your BOs are good on the ground, if you put them in decent +physical damage or +crit chance armor and melee weapons, they can wipe out the enemy fast. Its super effective against well shielded opponents. I would not bother unless your officers all have strong physical racial attributes, but if they DO....

You certainly cannot play the coward in the back like this. Your BOs will run back to you, they are on a short leash, so the 4 melee BO and a sniper rifle approach is fail. My captain has melee racial traits so I pop stealth, run in with them, and then backstab (flank..) the toughest opponent with an ambush & lunge 3 and then beat them up with my sword. It works quite well.

Flanking is key whether you use melee or guns. When I use guns, I still charge in to ambush-lunge the toughest guy, then after that I set up a crossfire situation where either the target attacks ME and gets flanked by my 4 goons, or it attacks them and gets flanked by me. Either way it dies fast, next target...

Apart from the exchange or maybe crafting, it can be a pain to find 4 or 5 melee weapons at lower levels a for a fed captain. I gave up and mailed myself some from my kdf alt.

edgecrysger · December 2013

I always use ranged attacks, but thats not the problem. I was just doing some tests. The problem is, melee attacks are a part of the game, and some species are better fited (klingons for example), carrying a melee weapon. And what the hell, in a game like this, that melee weapons are common, i dont understand why cryptic still didnt fix the melee behaviour of the boffs. If i like star trek, and i love klingons and i love the battlech, not be able to give a battlech to my boff is really sad, to the point that makes, for example, to avoid having klingon boffs on my away team. Now, since caitians are not a warrior species (but they have melee advantjes) i dont care to give her a ranged weapon. But klingons look far better using a battlech, as they ve seen so many times in the tv. But in this game klingons cant use a battlech... lol. Its a little hilarious.

edgecrysger · December 2013

More testing.. wow, it turns out that now, it doesnt matter what weapon i give to my caitian boff, he will never use it, i dunno what the hell is going on....

And, by the way, i cant see the green glowing effect on the winter melee weapons, anybody else noticed this?? i suspect is some sort of bug, once you equip your boff with one of these weapons.. the weapon slot breaks, or someting must be going on...

Give Kinetic Weapons to BOFF & autofire

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