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Impulse Engines, Adapted MACO, MACO or Assimilated
gentoorax
Member Posts: 43 Arc User
I'm about to spend my hard earned grind on one of these. Input please:) - pros, cons and preferences for Mobius Escort. Ta.
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(Namely, what weapons are you running- what energy type, Cannons/beams, and do you use a Torpedo?)
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Chroniton Dual Beam Array
Omni-Directional AntiProton Beam Array
x2 Fludic Turrents
Gravimetric Torpedo
If you aren't going for a set bonus, get the best engines in game.
+ that 2p adapted isn't all too powerful, only boosts base damage of torps. And since your only torp in on your aft...it isn't going to do you much good
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Otherwise the Assimilated 2-pc hull repair proc is still one of the best things going, and the deflector+thrusters is a good combination to get it. If you want a chance to stay alive a little longer in a fight, this is what you want.
After that its really about the set bonus and which set you want to use. MACO for escorts, Adapted MACO for basic Sci ships, Omega for drain builds, Assimilated for whatever.
Can I ask why you're mixing weapon types Cannons/Beams, and energy types (Antiproton and Fluidic Disruptor/Phaser)?
Well, the better setup for a torpedo is going to involve using an Adapted MACO Two-piece set bonus: Deflector/Engine or Engine/Shield depending on whether you prefer using the 8472 Deflector for +DPS or an Elite Fleet shield for +Survivability... so that's your Impulse Engine choice sorted out!
I'm assuming you're already using a Proton Particle Stabilizer to boost that Gravimetric Launcher Damage? If you were running Disruptors/Phasers with it instead of a mixture of energy types I'd suggest grabbing a Counter-Command Multi-Energy Relay along with whatever Heavy Bio-Molecular Turret is applicable.
Since its a timeship I was going for the temporal warefare set hence chroniton beam array, when I get enough lobi I'll also collect the temporal disruption device also.
Ah, my mistake then. Chroniton indeed counts as Antiproton, but I was assuming when you said "fluidic" turrets that you meant the new 8472 versions which are Disruptor or Phaser typed depending on what option you pick. If the ones you're running with are antiproton then it makes more sense. There's no point in breaking out the Counter-Command Ordnance set if you're not running Phasers/Disruptors... but I'd still certainly opt for the AMACO Engine.
If/when you swap to the Temporal Disruption Device you can drop the Grav torp and Proton Particle Stabilizer Console - but it'll pair up nicely with the DBB, as well as the Adapted MACO 2-piece set bonus.
For the record, I'm in a tiny fleet, so I have hundreds of thousands of Fleet Credits, but nothing to spend them on except common DOFFs.
This character is why I don't play my Romulan any more. Tovan Khev is NOT my BFF! Get him off my bridge!
Cannons can get away with mixing to a limited degree due to CRF3 being a commander ability allowing mixing without denying one weapon system the use of it's abilities completely, but even then it's only getting half the uptime the cannons are so it ends up weaker, not to mention anything you can put in a given weapon slot barring the Kinetic beam is weaker then another cannon or turret in a build using them even with abilities.
Really if your looking to max your capability, (which since your asking for advice i assume you are), you have 3 build choices:
1. Pure torp boat with aft kinetic cutting beam and maybe a mine launcher
2. Pure DHC + Turret build
3. Pure Beam array build with massive energy overcap
Now i know you mentioned the temporal set. My main though here would be more or less: don't bother. The 2 set boosts what is for PVE arguably the worst torpedo type in game with awful DPS output and a proc not worth even talking about. And the 3 set is burdened with the same issue as 90% of such abilities, (including most universal console ones). It's got a 3 minute recharge. The set is utterly worthless beyond the capabilities of the individual pieces, which thanks to the nature of mixing beams and torps don't fit well together.
If your dead set on using it then i'd go for a Chroniton Torp based build. You'll want 2 lots of tac officers, one lot with the necessary tac teams and torp spread for general content, and the other with tac teams and torp high yield for the borg content, (as the majority of targets are invulnerable till other targets are killed making AoE virtually worthless).
Now to get back to the topic at hand. If your going to run a torp boat then the Adapted MACO engies and the Deflector combined with the standard MACO shield or any other shield with the -10% all energy damage tag are probably the best. Otherwise i would say assimilated coupled with whichever deflector boosts your sci abilities best and the matching shield.
The Wide Angle Quantum is a nice option for a broadsiding cruiser, due to never needing to rotate your ship to get an enemy into different weapon arcs. I'm not so sure about using another standard-arc one though.
If you're running any Torps at all, I'd recommend working the AMACO 2-set proc in there. It's basically a free Tac Console plus a decent Aux Power boost. The 8472 Deflector manages to buff all weapons slightly as well, so it makes sense to go for the AMACO Engine and Shield plus the 8472 Deflector unless you need a bit more Hull survivability than a Covariant Shield gives you.
As an aside, I would disagree with this.
There are abilities such as APO or APB which buff ALL damage output, and in these days of Aux2Bat builds you can usually fit in whatever other skills you might want. The only real limiting factor is Tactical Consoles, not ability slots; because if you use your Tac Console slots for buffing your energy damage type you'll not be able to use them for buffing your torpedos... however as hinted earlier, this can be mitigated a bit via set bonuses.
Currently Photon Torps are the most damaging type, because of the balance between refire rate and impact damage... and the fact that you can buff them up to the equivalent of 2-3 Tac consoles without hurting the rest of your build (via the Protonic Arsenal and AMACO 2-set bonuses, plus the 8472 Tac console if you're running Phasers/Disruptors).
The main draw of Torpedos (outside of specialist Transphasic shield penetration builds) is to deal Heavy Hull damage after having stripped the shields; and Torps excel at AoE splash damage. There is a lot of synergy in using a CSV or FAW to apply APB debuffs on a tighly-packed group of foes, and then hitting them with a Torpedo Spread or Splash-Damage High Yield shot. 'High Yield' and 'Spread' are useful even as Ensign abilities (check the values of an 8472 or Gravimetric High Yield Torp - there's not as much variance in damage between HYT3 and HYT1 as you might think!)
Given it's far less common in actual gameplay tha it is in forum discushion, (i see DoFF cost cited in game chat when it comes up as the main reason), i'm not going to assume he's running an A2B build unles he outright states it. Sure with one all the ability issues dissapear. Without it their highly prevelent.
Also photon torps are the worst of the bunch by far.
If there's even a sliver of shields left, (because of regen), the 75% kinetic damage reduction vs shields gets applied. Then the rest of damage, (including bleedthrough and overflow from downing the sliver), is worked out. When they work. Awesome. When they don't pure junk and it's a total lottery pick as to which you get. Also APB Torp spread is junk too, you might be able to get the debuff up on everyone. but APB does nada till your hitting hull and the chances of even one, let alone several of those multiple targets you just tagged not having at least a sliver of shields left is pretty dang low. So your hull damage will be minimal. Again when it works awsome, but it's even less reliable.
In the real world the only torpedoes that matter are Transphasics and plasma for the shield bypass and certain unique torpedoes with especially nasty procs, (technically tricobolts fall into this but are a bit heavy on cooldown, personal preference).
Also i wrote in the specific values for THY on the wiki so i know all about ability scaling. But 2 things:
1. A2B aside your going to have to give up some other ability to get another different weapon ability in. Which costs you somwhere.
2. You have a choice of damage split amongst 1 weapon type buffed by a large amount. Or damage split amongst 2 different ones, one buffed big, the other small. The latter will always be worse all other things being equal.
Photons are normally the worst of the bunch, but there are two notable exceptions:
1) The Gravimentric Photon Torpedo
2) The Enhanced Bio-Molecular Photon Torpedo
Bio-Molecular torpedoes are quite nasty because their proc always triggers on a hit, so they will slow a target (thereby dropping defense) and apply shield-ignoring radiation burst after 8 seconds. Its HYT3 form works like a Hargh'Peng -- fast projectile speed, and cannot be shot down. Damage is 14k base, but can hit 40k+ depending on criticals.
I usually run both of the above torpedoes with the Proton Particle Stabilizer console to maximize photon torpedo damage.
Omega Kinetic Sheering also lets torps apply shield-ignoring dot damage, and Intimidating Strikes can apply target confusion for 3 seconds.
Once I complete the new Counter-Command Ordinance set, weapons will start stripping Heal-over-time effects and reduce healing by 50% per successful proc for 10 seconds. Sounds fairly useful
It's slow enough that you want to be very close to a target when you deploy it and you can do that by strafing and doing a quick turnaround when you are in your enemy's face. Losing a turret for the torp is an easier sacrifice.
Actually this is only partially true.
Whenever a torpedo hits a ship, if the ship has shields up the incoming damage will indeed get reduced by the shields kinetic resistance. The modified damage is then applied against the shield's facing until it hits zero.
Once the facing actually HITS zero however, any remaining damage then gets multiplied back up again before being applied against the hull. It's worked this way for years and it's why High Yield Torps from Elite Tac Cubes can one-shot you through shields.
At the end of the day the thing that actually kills a target will be reducing its hull hitpoints from 100% to 0%. It doesn't actually matter what type of weapons you use to make this happen - the hull still needs to hit zero.
APB helps with reducing hull to zero immensely, and it applies against whatever you throw at an enemy: torps, energy, mines, fighters, teammates, it doesn't care. It causes your target to take more hull damage from all sources for its duration and is only lightly affected by diminishing returns.
Because of this and the shield mechanics noted above, tagging a group of tightly-packed foes with APB and then hitting them with a Torp spread tends to completely melt them due to all the overlapping splash damage from each Torpedo hit in the spread.
As Shar points out above, the Gravimetric Launcher is the best choice for this, because (i) foes caught in a Spread will automatically bunch up even tighter due to the Gravity Wells and then get hit by direct unavoidable Hull damage from all those overlapping Gravity Wells, and (ii) it's easy to get a lot of extra base damage out of the Grav Launcher without touching your Tac Console setup due to the Protonic, AMACO and 8472 sets.
Photon Torpedo Launchers are currently demonstratably better than Quantums in both Damage per hit and cooldown time; the only valid argument against using them is when a target has Extremely Heavy Shields... and even that's debatable now given the recent Kinetic Shearing Trait changes and how easy it is to hit the GCD with Photons. It's true that Transphasics are still going to deal more hull damage per hit to a fully-shielded target, but once those shields start to get low, Photons have the edge. Combining Photons with energy weapons is therefore actually a viable tactic- Energy Weapons being used to getting shields low so that the Torpedos can deal a killing blow.
Thanks for that.
I've already covered the merits of APB above. "Giving up another ability to fit it in" is an issue in any build- it's a case of whether your build will be better of not after you've swapped an ability out for another one. APB is going to be one of the better choices in nearly any build.
APO3 is potentially even better than APB3 in certain cases, because it acts as a category 2 damage buff against both shields and hull. (Think of it as "bonus" damage - the same as EPTW or the Obelisk 2-piece set; it'll apply against your final damage output after buffs such as Weapons power AND Skills/Tac Consoles AND Cannon Rapid Fire; instead of merely adding extra additional base damage)
I won't deny that Weapontype-only buffs such as CRF3 are powerful, but when faced with choices for your Commander and LTCom level tac BOFF slots, it's usually better to opt for CRF2 and APO3 (1.4*1.25=1.75) instead of APO1 and CRF3 (1.15*1.5=1.725) if you're able to maintain uptime on both when it counts. The fact that APO will buff all your abilities and weapons instead of just your Cannon output is an added bonus
That's some of the most coherent and helpful ship build advice I've ever got on these boards, so big thanks to you sir! I tend to set up my ships more for immersion than min/maxing, hence they all have one forward and one aft torpedo launcher. Interesting what you said about photons being considered better than quantums, when I was starting out the talk around the boards was the other way round, so I've mostly left the photons alone for a while on my Fed ships (KDF still uses them though). The forward quantum is just a Mk XI purple launcher, so I would be happy to replace it with either of those new special photons when I can get access to them.
Regarding the ship kit, you're recommending Adapted M.A.C.O. shield and engines, and 8472 Command deflector? I have tier 5 on Task Force Omega rep, but only tier 1 on 8472, so it might take a little while to get that one. Do you remember off the top of your head which tier it becomes available?
This character is why I don't play my Romulan any more. Tovan Khev is NOT my BFF! Get him off my bridge!
No worries, and yeah the meta has changed a little bit in the past year or so.
If you take everything in a vacuum, Quantum's reload time and yield make them a bit more attractive than Photons in normal gameplay. And if you run a Torpedo boat and use Duty Officers to reduce the reload time, they become considerably better DPS than Photons once both are firing at the Global Cooldown of 2 seconds.
The first problem is that Photons are capable of being buffed up a lot more easily than Quantums are (the Adapted MACO bonus affects both, but Protonic Arsenal and the 8472 Tac Console just affects Photons) making their yield a bit better on "standard builds" where you slot mainly energy weapons and use all your Tac Console slots to buff energy damage.
The second problem is the fact that there is just one "Special" Quantum torpedo launcher (the Wide Angle version) and it doesn't deal any more damage than usual when it fires; just fires more often due to the arc being wider... whereas with Photons we have a lingering Cluster/Damage effect (Gravimetric) or a guaranteed delayed extra Damage (8472)
The final problem is active Duty Officer and Weapon slots.
There was a bit of math floating around a while ago about the optimum number of launchers... but basically there's a "sweet spot" for Photons with just two DOFFs and two launchers... Quantums need more DOFFs and/or Launchers to hit a similar level due to the longer base cooldown. Since Active Space DOFF slots are highly prized, getting away with using one less is a noticeable bonus.
If you're happy to keep rotating your ship to get enemies into the arcs, this would probably give you more damage than you're seeing currently. Just be aware that things can get tricky when you start mixing Torpedo Types (the AMACO set bonus will apply to everything, but the Protonic Arsenal one only applies to Photons!)
Making your rear weapon arcs overlap with your fore weapon arcs is technically one of the better options for a slow-turning cruiser (keeping everything at roughly 90 degrees to you and always firing every weapon you have at them)... hence the normal recommendation of using the Wide-Angle Quantum's, plus beam arrays and the Omnidirectional Kinetic Cutting Beam. However, if you're going for "fun" over "cookie-cutting damage" then this isn't going to be a limiting factor for you: use whatever you're having fun with!
Yeah, for damage output anyway.
On my Tanking Cruiser I've opted for the AMACO Deflector/Engines and an Elite Fleet Shield.
The 8472 Deflector becomes available at Tier II I believe; I'm nearly at Tier IV and have got it slotted as my secondary Project at the moment, just another day's worth of Dilithium to refine...
There are no elite turnX3, only advanced turnX3, elite turnX2.
I would say go to romulan engines, if i would compare it to fleet engines romulan engine would be:
elite fleet efficient combat engines speedX2, fullX1, and then replace power mod for attack pattern mod.
People underestimate benefits from speed modifier in PVP, important same as turn rate....
1. The last post i saw on the matter claimed otherwise and in game experience seemed in line, but i'll take your word for it
2. Absolutely on the first sentence. The question for me is are torpedoes particularly effective at this. Again if it's weak will it be alive when the torpedoes get there and if it's strong will it have regenerated that sliver that's enough to stop the spread cold. And if it's strong are there enough such npc's together to make spread better than THY.
The second part i think falls afoul of some misunderstanding. When i call photon torps cruddy i mean in comparison to transphasics and plasma, i'd consider quantum torps cruddy too. I'm not trying to order them next to anything else and the APB comment was a very general one.
Also AFAIK unless your using a torpedo with default AoE capability, (Romulan Hyper Plasma, Tricobolt's, TDR's, e.t.c.), torp spreads do not have splash damage. And even then those with shield bypassing damage are top of the pile again IMO. Feel free to correct me again if you wish though.
Regarding you last few lines. Bear in mind i was discussing strictly in the sense of torp boats. There using 3 slots for projectile officers is totally justifiable, and once you do that and are using 2 or more slots for torps photons start overcapping their RoF.
3. Er Your Welcome. Not sure why the link, (though i thought i knew the name, just assumed you where a regular though). I did do the spread values bu someone reverted them shortly after and i wasn't gonna argue the toss with them over it.
4. That's kind of my point though. It will always be worse in a mixing torps with anything else situation. My Chimera runs the following:
TT1 * 2, APB1 * 2, CRF/CSV 8 2, APB3
There's no way to squeeze a torp ability in there that doesn't mean dropping either an APB, a cannon ability, or APB for CRF3 so a Lt Cmdr slot opens up, and even if i go for the latter i'm left with drastically lower uptime on my choice of torp ability compared to cannon abilities, (and it dosen't work for beam variants), (ignoring the way torp abilities working causing this anyway if your firing a torp more often than 1 every 10 seconds), so even if a single torp launcher with ability was comparable to a single DHC or beam array with cannon ability or beam ability the lower uptime will make it worse.
Which is what i meant originally. I wasn't talking about swapping in APO in the place of a CRF, i was talking about swapping your Cmdr tac ability for CRF3 so you have a free lower tier ability to actually put a torp ability in. A non-ability buffed torpedo is pretty poor, it made sense back in the day's before massive overcapping became easy because of how 7 and 8 beams did the same DPS. But these day's that's not so relevant due to overcap.
APO itself is a whole other discussion.
@OP: if your going for that style of build your still going to have the issue that the set bonus benefits chroniton and if i remember right the disruption device is a chronition so whilst Mahyew's is certainly correct about gravemetrics or Bio Molecular being top level for you, (alongside Romulan hyper plasma s i believe the spred torps from that are AoE too), your disruption device is always going to be struggling with not benefiting from all the same things that buff them.
Splash damage applies to most Torpedo and Mine explosions. The only difference with things like Tricobalts and Gravimetric High Yield hits is that the damage dealt by the explosion is factionless (meaning that it can hurt YOU as well as your enemy target).
If memory serves, with a traditional Torpedo Spread multiple "autohit" salvos are sent at multiple targets and each hit on every target generates an explosion with (200-300 radius?) splash damage; and this damage does NOT lessen the further you are from the explosion's center.
In the past this splash damage mechanic has led to some interesting and unintended effects, and it also suffered from severe spikes in effectiveness due to the "if one hit crits, all hits crit" bug.
Whether or not using Transphasics will be "better" than Photons really just comes down to how much of your torpedo damage will be acting solely upon shields (and whether or not you're prepared to spend Tactical Console slots buffing their damage!). For a Pure Torpedo boat with no energy weapons, Transphasics are certainly an obvious choice... but it'd be interesting to do a side by side comparison of how the two torpedo types perform versus fully shielded and semi-shielded targets in a more traditional build under various optimised equipment/trait/DOFF loadouts.
There's a bit of disagreement over just how the revamped extra penetration traits and the Nanite Disruptor proc works in conjunction with torpedos; so a series of torpedo loadout performance tests could help pin this down too and kill two birds with one stone.
Next time I find myself with a few free evenings I might give this a shot
Actually at a quick look, I can actually see three ways to fit a Torpedo Skill into that loadout.
The first and most obvious method would be to drop one of your two copies of APB1 for a Torpedo Spread 2 (since you have a copy of APB3 to stagger with the first APB1, the second APB1 is wasted due to the global cooldown), the second method would be to drop a copy of Tac Team 1 and offset the cooldown gap with 1-2 Conn Officers; and the third and final method (Engineering Slots permitting) would be to run Aux2Bat and drop everything you have more than one copy of.
Admittedly my loadouts tend to be a little more outside the cookie-cutter box... but personally if I was running that setup; I'd probably drop a copy of Tac Team for TS1, drop APB3 in favour of APO3, and swap CSV2 and APB1 around for CSV1 and APB2. The difference in damage dealt between CSV2 (a 1.2 modifier) and CSV1 (a 1.15 modifier) is negligible; but they share the same number of maximum targets. The lower-rank version will therefore work just as well for applying APB to multiple foes prior to a Torpedo Spread; and the damage from CSV itself can always be buffed up via APO3 if needed.
Torpedo BOFF abilities aren't long-duration like FAW or CRF/CSV, and instead trigger just once like BO. This makes them more suitable for spike hull damage instead of Hull Damage over Time - if you want to buff torpedo hull damage over time you're generally better off using APB. In the majority of PVE situations, I find that the times I most want extra spike hull damage are against large crowds of weaker foes such as Borg Probes... therefore I'm much more a fan of Torpedo Spread than High Yield.
The Chimera has a very nice BOFF layout though.
Personally, I'd probably set up that kind of ship as:
TT1, CSV1, CRF2, APO3
TT1, TS2, APB2
EPTW1
EPTS1 Aux2Bat1
ST1 HE2
With 3 Technicians, 2 Projectile Reload DOFFs and possibly a Space Warfare DOFF or a Shield Distribution Officer depending on what I'm fighting. If I was feeling particularly Torp-friendly, I could drop a copy of TT1 for THY1 and swap in a Conn Officer.
Running a single copy of Aux2Bat instead of the usual two gives full uptime on 60s-cooldown/30s-GCD abilities like EPTW/EPTS and lets you chain your 30s-cooldown/15s-GCD Tactical abilities like CRF 3 times back to back - that's long enough to kill nearly anything up to and including Elite Tac Cubes and Gateways... :P
This is true.
If you're building for maximum combat effectiveness there are a lot better choices than the Disruption Device... but if the OP is building for a theme, nearly any loadout can be made to "work" as long as they remember the general rules of thumb about trying to steer clear of multiple weapon damage flavours; and buffing the flavours you've got via ablities, consoles and set bonuses
My Orb Weaver Torp boat runs Plasma's too with HY as with grav well i can get every ship in the group with the blast of one and the burn of a HY is something to see, especially on a crit. Hitting everybody for a critted plasma torpedo may not get many kills in my experience. But boy does it tend to hit them with a huge burn and really degrade their shielding. Once had a 20 man fleet back around it's release where i took most of the health off a siege dreadnought solo with nothing but plasma burn, (Shield regen far exceeded my rate of shield damage).
Also basic torps have splash? That's just dumb balance wise. And it's not exactly well shown anywhere.
Also pretty much any build can be made to work, don;t get me wrong there, i remember back in ye olden days, (about 18 months ago), someone made a rainbow beam boat work quite well. I was just pointing out it's hard to optomise.