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New ship advice for sci character?
dykeras
Member Posts: 326 Arc User
As a second character, I decided to make her a Science character (as I already have a Tactical officer character as my main) and i'm nearing 50.
Now my dilemma is what ship would be best for her given the current meta for damage?
I'm thinking either the Vesta, some high offense cruiser or sticking her into an Escort so not to be useless during high level missions...
As I already have a character in an Escort, i'd prefer a change but don't want to feel gimped
Edit: This is a Fed Character if that makes any difference?
Now my dilemma is what ship would be best for her given the current meta for damage?
I'm thinking either the Vesta, some high offense cruiser or sticking her into an Escort so not to be useless during high level missions...
As I already have a character in an Escort, i'd prefer a change but don't want to feel gimped
Edit: This is a Fed Character if that makes any difference?
Post edited by dykeras on
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That said, I really love the D'Kyr. It's outclassed and outdated, and not very good at straight-up DPS, but it's extremely great at healing and keeping allies up. Plus it grants the second most durable shuttle in the game to all of your fed-aligned characters. Needs a fleet version, badly, though.
The bridge officer layout with its two universal stations is great for versatility so, you can either go more science, engineering or tactical with this ship. Another great addition is the hangar bay, so you can slot what ever shuttles or fighters you fancy, I use Yellowstone Runabouts and love them to bits cause they TRIBBLE people off
Then there's the Auxiliary Phaser Dual Heavy Cannons XII [Acc]x2 [Dmg], the only weapons in the game that use Auxiliary power which is great if you are going more science. Which means that if you are taking a more Crowd Control or Healer role and you have diverted all power to Auxiliary, all your science abilities will for the most part be at full power when activated.
Just bare in mind that when the Auxiliary Cannons fire they drain power so if you wish to use an ability at its full potential, hold fire on the cannons until you have cast the desired ability.
I have listed details below regarding the three variations and special consoles/abilities:
Type: Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer
Class: Vesta
Favors: Science
Console & Ability: Sympathetic Fermion Transceiver > Fermion Field
The Vesta class has five science console slots and features +15 bonus auxiliary power.
The Fermion Field created by its universal console is an excellent way to heal not only yourself but allies too!
Type: Multi-Mission Strategic Explorer
Class: Rademaker
Favors: Engineering
Console & Ability: Multidimensional Wave-Function Analysis Module > Multidimensional Graviton Shield.
The Rademaker class has three engineering console slots and features +5 shield bonus power and +10 bonus auxiliary power.
The Multidimensional Graviton Shield can protect you from the effects of Gravity Wells, and other control effects. It can also repel close targets (up to three) and reflect the damage of weapons that deal kinetic damage, like torpedoes. (Excellent for keeping those drones away in Khitomer Vortex)
Type: Multi-Mission Reconnaissance Explorer
Class: Aventine
Favors: Tactical
Console & Ability: Quantum Field Focus Controller > Quantum Field Focus Phaser
The Aventine class has 4 tactical console slots and features +5 bonus weapons power and +10 bonus auxiliary power.
The Quantum Field Focus Phaser is amazing, basically phaser energy is rerouted through the main deflector resulting in a massive phaser beam that fires for 12 seconds dealing a base phaser damage of 857.7 for a duration of 12 seconds. This ability is buffed with phaser tactical consoles and particle generator consoles and utilizes auxiliary power. I have managed to buff this beam to 5000 damage per second, that's 60 000 damage! Be advised, this weapon has a very narrow 45 degree firing arc.
The two piece set gives the Chroniton Integrated Quantum Slipstream Drive which allows for much better turn rate at slipstream velocities and increased speed. This makes the Vesta the fastest slipstream vessel in Star Trek Online (Equipment, Buffs & Skills help)
The three piece set gives you the Quantum Focused Shield Bubble which makes you completely invulnerable to all damage for 15 seconds if i'm correct? This allows you to use ramming speed without taking damage or surviving the Crystaline Entity's shockwave or Borg Command Ships Plasma Lance. You cannot fire weapons while the shield is active but you are able to use heals/abilities.
And thats it from me, hope this helps you make a decision. I know purchasing the Vesta 3-Pack was the best decision I made in Star Trek Online
Now, keep in mind that even that you will never be able to deal as much damage as an escort or a good built cruiser. Science ships are not designed for that.
But the Vesta 3 pack is a must. And yes, the quantum field focus is awesome ^^, i wish other weapons had the same effectiveness, like for example the arkif singularity beam, that suckss really bad.
Fast and agile.
I use an Aegis set build with Solanae warp core.
Weapons: I use mostly plasma beams plus a tetryon beam to soften shields.
Able to hold my own AND heal during STFs.
Call me one of the "Crazy Nova Captain's Club" members. It's a great little ship!
I do play the Vesta class with another toon. Full agreement with the other comments here about what a fantastic starship class it is. But try the mirror Nova (inexpensive purchase on the Exchange), or fleet Nova/Rhode Island.
Due to captains buffs a TAC can do more damage in a science ship.
When picking a ship try to get one that complements your character strengths.
My view is based on the game its about destruction of enemies, SCI in a SCI ship does less destruction.
TAC - Any ship
Eng - escorts and cruisers.
SCI -escorts and cruisers
another hybrid option would be the tal shiar cruiser and/or destroyer. Those two have sensor analasys and the tal shiar cruiser even has cruiser commands too. both can cloak.
why a hybrid? all you need is GW1, boosted by Omega 3 (the poor mans alpha) which a pure sci vessel can never have.
another good option would be the elachi s'golth, basically a breen cruiser boff layout with more turn and schield mod, but less hull
yet another option, the nicor bio ship
So the choice is between the Tac vesta (3 pack consoles + turn rate modules and isomtric charge console) or the Tal Shiar destroyer which looks fun :-)
I never, ever get sick of my Wells. I can't say that about any other ship.
This. There are also a few ships that aren't sci ships in general, but work just as well. A few of my choices:
1) The Multi-Vector Advanced Escort. It's the only Escort with a Lt. Comm Sci BOFF slot, making it a Tac/Sci ship. Put in Gravity Well I, Torp Spread and Cannon Spread and you can wipe out a lot with little effort.
2) The Fleet Support Cruiser. The Fleet Ambassador is one of two Cruisers with a natural Lt. Comm Sci BOFF and with a Lt. Universal BOFF Slot, you can make it Sci-heavy, Eng-heavy or Tac-heavy (mine's Tac-heavy)
2a) The Mirror Heavy Cruiser. If the Fleet Support Cruiser is too rich for your blood, the Mirror Heavy Cruiser does well in a pinch with a 3-3-3 Console set up and a Lt. Comm Sci BOFF set. It's weaker, but more agile than the Support Cruiser
3) Fleet Science Vessel Retrofit. The Fleet Nova is the oddest of the Sci ships for the sole fact that it's the most nimble of the Science Vessels and it has a Lt. Comm Tac BOFF slot, making it a Sci/Tac ship.
4)The Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit. It's an odd one as its a strange hybrid of a Cruiser and a Science Vessel with many Sci slots, yet the turn rate and armor of a Cruiser. It does have a Lt. Universal BOFF slot if there's a way you want to set up your ship, though.
Not Quite, the new Patrol Escort Refit / Fleet Patrol Escort Refit both have a Lt Cmdr Universal. However both of those only have two Science Consoles.
What are you looking to do with the character? Do you want to fly a disabling ship that leaves your enemies helpless? Do you want to run a zone-control/interdiction ship that dictates the flow of battle? Do you want to run a healing/buffing ship that keeps other players, especially squishy escorts, alive so they can go all out? Do you just want to be a DPS-ship with some flashy utility? All of these playstyles are possible and equally viable, multiple ways each, as a science captain.
I'll run through a couple ships:
The Tactical Vesta/Aventine is an amazingly powerful shield-tanking torpedo boat. Gravity Well with High Yield/Torp Spread 3 is a very nasty combo and its ability to use Runabouts affords it with ample means of point defense to protect itself(while also tractoring potential prey). Do not fall for the Aux Cannons trap(it will never hit like a real escort with them). The Vesta more or less replaced the Nebula for this role and there aren't really any other science ships that can compete with the Vesta's agility, tactical capacity and fighter support.
The Science Vesta/"Vesta" makes an excellent Drain-Boat. The flexible bridge layout and 5 science consoles means you can stack a lot of Flow Capacitors and Energy Siphon/Tyken's Rift on the ship. It's probably a close second or third behind the Wells and KDF Kar'fi as a drain boat; The (A)DSDs are roughly equivalent to the Vesta in this capacity.
For Zone Control you'll probably want to be looking more at a Nebula, Atrox or D'kyr. The Vesta can fill this niche as well(it's called a wonder-ship for a reason), but it's fragile hull makes it a little less suited for 'holding its ground'. They're all ships that can charge on a group of enemies and lock them in place with Gravity Wells, Inverted Tractor Repulsors and Eject Warp Plasma. They're all pretty sturdy and can handle a ship or two blowing up in their face if need be. The Bastion is the best ship I've discovered for this purpose, hands down, but like the rest of the FDCs, it's better suited for KDF players sporting Orion Interceptors and Plasmonic Leech.
For defensive support, the Yamaguchi/Fleet Support Cruiser is probably the Federation's front-runner. The Mirror Heavy Cruiser and (fleet)Star Cruiser are your other prime candidates. Otherwise, most of the Zone Control ships(especially the Atrox or Vesta with repair drones) will work for the purpose due to their ability to slot Extend Shields. The main reason you'd want to run a Cruiser over a science ship is the ability to slot Aceton Beam 3(cuts a target's energy weapon damage by 75% for half a minute) - which is excellent at neutering high-damage targets/bosses. Most Science heals happen at the lower rank, so you really don't need a Commander Science for the role, but having science consoles with Emitter Arrays in them is fairly important.
vesta or wells
I have both of them and my favorite in absolute is the wells, IMHO no other ship is versatile as much as a temporal science vessel
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
I must agree that the vesta is a VERY NICE science ship. However, I have bought all 3 the ships and I basically ended up using 0 of their consoles.. There just are better options :P
Right now I'm flying a Voth Palisade and it's very, very nice!
sorry for the text wall.
Sincerely,
Goddess/Aiosha
Well, i'm looking to be aggressive, but also have some Sci powers to augment my weapons :-)
The Tactical Vesta with missiles seems interesting and also fun :-) Any tips on building one?
This is more or less the build I use on my Kinetic Specialist. It's very powerful(50k-150k AoE Plasma Bolt Crits + Gravity Well = dead stuff), but also dangerous to use(a single enemy fighter infront of your ship at the wrong time can blow yourself up) and requires a different playstyle/mindset to most ships(closer to a "Warlock" in most fantasy MMOs):
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=vestaplasmatorpedoboat_0
You'll probably want to run a Transphasic(cheap and easy to setup) or Photon Build if you want to give it a go.
Transphasic - http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=vestatransphasictorpedoboat_0
Photon - http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=vestaphotontorpedoboat_0
Fill in the blanks and upgrade the whites as you see fit. The Quantum Field Focuser that the Aventine comes with is a decent console choice due to it being boosted by Aux power and doing a good job at keeping a shield facing down for your torpedos.
I'd suggest going a bit heavier on the +crit for photons so you can better overcome shields(Torpedo Spreads don't miss, so aim for [CritH] over [ACC] on the backup torpedos). You can drop the front backup torpedo for an Aux Cannon if you're running a Projectile Doff(it's only there to catch the longer delay of the Gravimetric). Both builds are better are clearing large groups of smaller targets than singular large targets, so focus on what you're good at. The Plasma build is good against all targets, but again, it's not something I recommend for beginners - both for its cost and learning curve.
The main goal with all the builds is to put most of your power into Aux and Shields, while leaving Weapons power empty. The innate shield modifier overcomes the capacity weakness of Regen shields and with shield and aux power at the level you'll be running, your shields will be absolutely beastly. Leave the Danubes in Intercept mode to shoot down hostile heavily torpedos and fighters.
That said I eventually gave up on the special consoles as they are kinda gimmicky, though the quantum focused field controller maybe the most useful. In the current power creeped world the other AOE focused heal consoles become less useful too. Same thing with the Aux cannons as well.... played with them a bit when I first got the ship and quickly tossed them. On my current not super duper build my aux is running at 86. If I really need some extra umph I can pop an aux battery.
In my current build, which is still in the process of being upgraded, I parsed 7k DPS in ISE the other week. For a beam boat sci ship that is pretty respectable. Throw in a bit of crowd control via grav wells and debuffing with senor scan and you are making a solid contribution to your team.
tsk tsk, sticking her in an escort so she isnt useless? For shame, why role science if you are going to do that? Straight sci toons arent useless at all. For groups without god tier dps they can be incredibly helpful, healing, debuffing, etc.
I own a vesta and i have no regrets. A sci ship with decent tac consoles and a hangar is pretty good.
The objective is blowing up your enemies a TAC in a SCI ship does a better job.
You can have fun anywY you like though does means its efficient.
Sensor scan, Beta, TAC Team, Weapons battery, Sub Nuc, Hyper Flux is a nasty combo with dual heavy cannons.
As stated, I already have a Tac Captain in an Escort so wanted a change :-) but sadly, due to the game mechanics 'Damage' is king, what's the point in stripping shields or disabling sub-systems if you hit like a wet noodle...
The Torp Vesta seems fun :-)
I do not agree. I have several tactical captain to play both pvp and pve and 2 science captain both flying temporal science ships (used to play pvp and pve). A sci captain in a science vessel can be usefull and effective as much as a tactical captain flying a escort...and you do not need a dps oriented build... the real problem is that it's easy building a tactical toon flying an escort, but building a usefull support science vessel is much more difficult. People think that you always need a lot of dps but it's not true. If you play pvp crowd control, disabling systems, draining energy, disturbing are as much important as dps but even if you play pve a crowd control build can make the difference... i stop counting how many times I saved an sft or maximized the dps of my teammates.... all thanks to a gw or a tbr or taking the threat....
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
Sure, its much more difficult to built a good DPS-Support-Sciship, but its doable. Everything over 15k is surely not low-dps.
Any captain can fly any ship and do well. Eng do *great* in fragile ships, escorts and such, keeping them alive with their captain abilities. Sci do amazing things in carriers, and the recluse is a huge winner as it can flip from pure sci to tac/sci and tank either way.
My advice to sci captains is to get something with a high end universal seat. The nicor, for example... then you can blast things if you want or set up to heal if needed. There are a lot of great ships that can do this, unfortunately most are lockbox and take a lot of EC.