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Single Cannons on a Cruiser
captaindecker12
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
A long, long time ago, there was a common (and effective) Damage Cruiser build that was four turrets aft and four single cannons forward or three and a torpedo, most commonly on an Excelsior or a Saucer Sep'ed Galaxy, usually running CRF or CSV.
Now, I not only do I rarely see this build, but I actively hear people say that Single Cannons aren't even worth the EC to vendor trash them. Is the single cannon, for a Cruiser, a dead? Or is there still some value to the weapon type?
Now, I not only do I rarely see this build, but I actively hear people say that Single Cannons aren't even worth the EC to vendor trash them. Is the single cannon, for a Cruiser, a dead? Or is there still some value to the weapon type?
Actual Join Date: Dec 2009 (Yes, that's pre-launch)
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Especially with aux2bat, you can run scattery volley and bfaw at once without issue.
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
effective - no, no and once more no.
both turrets and cannons have very short effective range, its 2 km. on a big and slow ship will have engine hamster will do overwork just to get you in to position AND range AND keeping the target there. expect a lot of double digit damage numbers.
cannon and turrets are like shotguns, deadly upfront, nearly useless on 50 m distance.
beam on other hand deliver their damage up to 8 km.
full beam broadside setup cover much bigger sphere and deliver much more damage.
They need to fix single cannons badly. Also dual regular cannons.;)
This information is wrong. Cannon/dht/turret does 100% dmg at 2 km. If that's your standard for "effective range" then beam's effective range is only 1 km.
Beam deals ~73% of their damage at 8km, compared to cannon's 50%. Cannon dmg starts to drop off at 2km. Beam damage starts to drop off at 1km, but less steeply than cannons. At only 3km, beams and cannons do the same percentage of their damage. Of course, the narrower arc cannon has higher starting dmg than beam array, so the equilibrium point is actually ~6.25 km, after which beam array does more dmg.
There are other factors to consider.
-With cannon fit, you don't have 8 cannons, you have 4 cannons and 4 lower damage turrets. With beam fit, you have 8 beam arrays for broadside. So the equilibrium point drops back to ~4km. You're not going to be shooting targets at under 4km in a fat cruiser. Thus, cruiser ppl fit beam broadside, and never cannon + turrets.
-Damage of dht is so far higher than beam array that they outdamages beam array at any range. Thus, escort ppl who can keep dhts in arc, fit them regardless of range, and never beam arrays.
I don't know, I still have parser data that showed cannons/turrets outdamaging beamboats by nearly 10%.
I have run the build that the OP has mentioned on my fleet excelsior for a long time and I think it is effective. This is not based on crunching numbers and what not. Rather, flying Ker'rat regularly as well as PVP the build can be effective if specced correctly and built right. It is a fun build and I have enjoyed it.
As for PVE, no question it does more than fine. Check out the Excelsior Show Case via Youtube.
Lose some DPS but gain some flex.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Avenger has base turn of 9, but it's a cruiser with cruiser commands (minus attract fire), so with strategic maneuvering, turn rate is actually 12. With just one rcs, it's over 17, more than enough to field dht. Between dht and beam arrays, single cannons just doesn't have its niche.
as for my experience when i grinded my klingon character i flied excessively with a carrier fitted with single cannon/turrets. and its actually a carrier with damage from pets.
i thought it is a good idea until i got bored that much seeing other ships killing stuff way faster then me. several tries and a couple millions ec spent later i end up having a torp with TS3, 2 dual beams fore, cutting beam and 2 normal beams on back.
time to kill in most cases has been cut by a half for me.
from that experience i've learned 2 things:
1. beams are better overall and reliable weapons.
2. fewer number of weapons running on higher power deliver more overall damage then more weapons on lower power. especially in this regard the turrets drain too much power for the damage they deliver severely lowering the performance of other weapons.
However, now that Aux2bat builds are so popular, and with the new cruiser commands, weapon power drain is much less of an issue than it used to be, which has resulted in BAs becoming far more effective than SCs.
Basically, it used to work, it still works, it's just fine for PvE, but it's only just fine. It's not optimal. And it certainly isn't the most powerful (anymore).
Second, using base damage alone on mk XII disruptors, just as an example, single cannons are 212 dps rated, beam arrats are 179 dps rated, and turrets are 132 dps rated. So assuming you get both front and back weapons on target at the same time (not as easy to do with single cannons -- I've tried it many a time) you get 344 base damage for the single cannon setup and 358 for 2x BAs which are much easier to get on target.
Then the real trick is that you get skills that modify/enhance these cannons/beams at different tiers. You get BO and FAW at ENS level so you get more, and you get it earlier. You only get CSV or FAW at LT level so you get less out of it from cruisers.
The sad part is that the cannon skills were originally placed at higher BOFF ranks because they were intended to be more powerful. The end result would be that DHCs with 3rd-lvl cannon boosting skills (CRF3 or CSV3) would be much more powerful than equivelant beams plus 3rd level skills. Running base damage of 256, you would get 388 base damage for a pair front/back (DHC/turret) as compared to a 358 for 2x BAs. That's just base damage. Any skills/modifiers would boost it, of course.
The problem is that with all the changes over the years, Cryptic keeps catering to the BA spammer users. And don't get me wrong I think there's a certain level of spam you should expect/demand as a player regardless of which way you set your ship up. However I think the skill balance has gotten way out of hand and that the skills which modify beams have grown exponentially while the skills which modify cannons have stagnated and are restrictive because of the ranks at which they become available.
The way beams work needs to be tamed. BIG time. They need to be reigned in. Overcapping eneds to be removed, for one. Damage levels need to be lowered so that DHCs plus top-end skills are still the damage kings, as orignally designed. There is currently no reason to ever run a fully-skilled escort with DHCs anymore. It won't get a fraction of the damage output possible on a FAW spammer cruiser with Maximum Overcap (TM, patent pending).
While I agree with you on a revamp to tac skills, I think tac skills are in a good place when compared to science skills. Sci skills get first dibs on a revamp I think. Unless they do a whole boff system revamp.
Anyway, FAW spamming cruiser may put out a lot of DPS, but a lot of it isn't meaningful DPS in a lot of situations. I don't think single cannons are really competitive anymore either, but I also don't think beams are anywhere near as OP as what you are making them sound like. Single target, a DHC escort will still crush a FAW cruiser.
Pay no attention to the dates and titles under my name at the left! I am a Career Officer, Lifetime Sub since launch, was in the Beta. Having problems with my forum account.
I'm not talking the kind of FAW spam where you tickle a billion different enemies with no appreciable results. I'm talking FAW spam where a gate goes down in 5 seconds. Real, practical, absurd results.