test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
Star Trek Battles - Raiding Party (PvP)
kadams
Member Posts: 204 Arc User
Another STB event, partially built from an idea that came to me in the middle of the night, or something, and partially because the idea of two Mirandas, a Nova, a Saber, an Akira and an Intrepid attempting to take down a DPS-y Scimitar warbird amuses me.
Also partially because someone/somewhere told me "why not make your own event" when I complained about the rules for the Dominion War event being not to my liking. So, why not.
In short, it's a PvP match. Five players in low level ships of one faction VS one endgame ship of another faction. Strategy and teamwork is sort of the point of the match - five people in poorly equipped, vastly inferior ships Vs an incredibly powerful ship with endgame gear.
Rules are fairly simple: (and may be subject to change)
For the "Prey" (name may change should a better one come to me), pretty much anything goes. General STB build rules apply (minus the "low DPS" one), but basically you need torps and arrays fore/aft, and whichever weapon-type is appropriate for your faction. Fleet weapons are advised, because it's going to be messy. Aux2bat Romplas FAWboats are probably not going to be very fair though.
For the Raiding Party, low tier ships - level 30 ships and below. Preferably (for the good of the team, I mean) teams include a mix of cruisers, escorts and science ships. Likewise, general STB rules apply - faction weapons, torps and arrays fore/aft, etc etc.
NO FLEET/RETROFITS
Unis are allowed though, as are traits. If you're using a c-store ship that comes with a specific console, it seems 'right' to me for it to be used. Consoles such as the torp point defense and things from higher tier ships are also allowed.
No neutroniums, no stacking of all one specific energy weapon consoles.
..DONE.
Discuss. Thoughts? Questions? Comments?
Also partially because someone/somewhere told me "why not make your own event" when I complained about the rules for the Dominion War event being not to my liking. So, why not.
In short, it's a PvP match. Five players in low level ships of one faction VS one endgame ship of another faction. Strategy and teamwork is sort of the point of the match - five people in poorly equipped, vastly inferior ships Vs an incredibly powerful ship with endgame gear.
Rules are fairly simple: (and may be subject to change)
For the "Prey" (name may change should a better one come to me), pretty much anything goes. General STB build rules apply (minus the "low DPS" one), but basically you need torps and arrays fore/aft, and whichever weapon-type is appropriate for your faction. Fleet weapons are advised, because it's going to be messy. Aux2bat Romplas FAWboats are probably not going to be very fair though.
For the Raiding Party, low tier ships - level 30 ships and below. Preferably (for the good of the team, I mean) teams include a mix of cruisers, escorts and science ships. Likewise, general STB rules apply - faction weapons, torps and arrays fore/aft, etc etc.
NO FLEET/RETROFITS
Unis are allowed though, as are traits. If you're using a c-store ship that comes with a specific console, it seems 'right' to me for it to be used. Consoles such as the torp point defense and things from higher tier ships are also allowed.
No neutroniums, no stacking of all one specific energy weapon consoles.
..DONE.
Discuss. Thoughts? Questions? Comments?
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
The ships I can bring are;
Constitution TOS
NX
Oberth
Rhode Island Refit
Saber Refit
and that is all. I don't have any T-3 refits, and I have dismissed all my normal ones.
Just remembered, I have the Steamrunner I think unopened on a level 50, but I'm not sure. What would be the opinion on a KDF T1-3 ship be?
I actually like Delta Rising.
My build is essentially cannon for the most part while still weighing in at 35k plus DPS. Using disruptor cannons ( that's what the Roms had in the shows right?), with the cloaked shield and barrage, wouldn't use the thalaron pulse though as the only time that was ever used ship to ship was when shinzon went for a vanity kill and look how that worked out.
Scimitar Barbie! Everything else is just a toy.
A KDF or Romulan raiding party would be neat too, B'rels and raptors against an Odyssey or something.
No real dates set yet, still just coming up with the idea. Are you in the STB channel, bethshepard? I don't recognize your name. If not, we could invite you, just haven't seen you before.
Miranda (please, no)
Connie
Ambassador
Sao Paulo
Galaxy
B'rotlh
SuQob
Norgh
Kamarag
T'liss
T'varo
Valdore
D'deridex
The Galaxy, Kamarag, and D'deridex would seem out of place to me, though. Sure you don't want to cut this off at t3 ships rather than t4? The appeal is in the smallness.
I keep thinking of giving it a try to take a break from my attempts to break the 40k mark (without faw before you all insist on telling me how easy that is.). But I'm not sure you would all get on with my mentality. I've read your restrictions and was all for it, "you want to handicap me? Ok challenge excepted" then got to your catch all of capping DPS at 7k aiming for 5k and realised I had missed the point.
Yeah, no.
Nope. Nooooooooope. Not gonna be a problem. I'm debating between either IX whites, which can be purchased from vendors for (comparatively) cheap, or XI blues, which are fairly common mission rewards, and also allows use of the *speshul*, unique weapons and gear.
Those are all T3/level 30 ships :P
The Kamarag isn't all that big though, compared to the Gal/D'3 anyways. I agree with your point, though.
Generally I'm thinking the task forces should be setup like this:
- Command ship, a cruiser, a big ship, probably an Ambassador, Galaxy or heavy cruiser. Kamarag, Vor'cha for KDF, Ar'kif or Mogai for Romulan. ..though the RR are sort of SoL when it comes to ships.
- Big escort, like a Defiant or an Akira
- Two frigate/light cruiser/light escort-types, something like a Saber or a Miranda
- A science ship, LRSV, Nova, Hope. Oberth possibly if you wish to become a moving explosion.
Each ship should be setup for a specific task.
Cruiser should be setup for tanking, escort for DPS, science for support, heals. Frigate/light cruisers for, well. Harassment? Point defense against big torps? Something that puts their minimal firepower and hull to a useful task.
So, class matched would be best, I think. Engineers in cruisers, science in sci, tacs in escorts. Either/or for light cruiser/frigates.
As for ship builds, I think sticking to the weapons the ships come with by default would be best. Or, at least, the weapon setup. So DC/array/torp then an array aft for light escorts & stuff. If you don't remember what weapons your ship came with by default, check STOWiki, it has all of that fun stuff. Additionally, if NPC versions of a ship have a specific item, feel free to use it.. such as all NPC Fed escorts having the phaser quads.
Level 30 is tier 4.
OH RIGHT level 40 ships are classified as T5 aswell I'd forgotten.
I'm tempted to cut it off at T3, but the Romulans are sort of screwed with having half as many ships as the KDF and Federation, and people would like to bring along the Defiant. SO I'm going to allow the T4 ships, except for the Galaxy and the D'Deridex.
Miranda
Oberth
Exeter (Excalibur skin)
Gladius (Sabre skin)
Ambassador (for now, may swap this for the T5 one very soon)
or on my alt Stinn:
Oberth
Nova
Olympic
I already have alot of Mk XI blue phaser beam arrays lying around, and Mk XI green torps. I'm on board as long as equipment requirements are reasonable - I don't mind hitting up a vendor to get some whites if need be.
It sounds like fun - I'd be on board, if only for cannon fodder. Only rule I cringe a little at is class matching. Ralph's a tac, but almost all I fly is cruisers. This would seem like a perfect opportunity to bring out the Exeter. I can TRY to make the Gladius work for me though.
When was this planned to be? (Roughly) Next week? This weekend?
That kind of sounds like a good idea, to me, to get you out of your comfort zone a bit. Mix it up, get into a faster ship, learn the fun that is zipping around everything. Alternately (if you didn't mind spending some real money), you could buy the Akira refit and set that up, or the Sao Paulo.
As for date.. no clue. Next week sounds good, but I dunno. Wait a few days & see how it goes?
What are we doing for canon loadout on a Gladius? Beamscort like the default (on has one set of cannons, two beams)? Or multiple cannon/turrets allowed (I'll keep the torp)? If beamscort, I may be tempted to get the Sao Paulo and use the quads, I can bring them over to my shiny new VA Defiant anyway. Or, if I shy from parting with zen, I could always fly pure science in my hospital ship. Either way, I'll figure something out.
That's a good point with the Romulans there, apologies. Class matching is suggested but not required?
Sorry for late response. Some of the group are a bit obsessed with the numbers, but as far as I'm concerned, don't melt things quickly and I don't care how much deeps you're capable of dealing.
Same as it came with the gear on it, but putting the quads on it sounds great. A general rule of thumb, IMO, is when in doubt, check to see what the NPCs use.
No cannon/turret builds though, just a FYI.
Perhaps next weekend for a tentative date?
A few things learned:
- SCIENCE. WE NEED SCIENCE. And possibly a tanking cruiser. At least a T3 cruiser. Definitely need a sci in a sciship though, even a healboat Nova would be useful with TSS, Sciteam and Hazard emitters.
- Tacteam. Tacteam is OP. Also, incredibly useful for the prey/target.
- TBR. TBR HURTS. I also imagine gravwell, eject warp plasma and other high level AoE/disable abilities like that would have a similar effect.
Gear
- XI blues. We will be standardizing all gear to XI blues. Exceptions are ship-specific items (such as the Breen consoles) or special items, such as the rapid-reload transphasic torps.
- Neutroniums are still prohibited. Duranium, tritanium, victorium etc are all acceptable, however. Good luck finding a blue or purple polyduranium alloy for less than 2.46 trillion though. I jest. Probably only 2 billion and a JHAS. Sorry. 10 million and an Orb Weaver? I'll stop now.
- Big red ball of doom (aka the T'varo consoles) are allowed, because seeing "Kinanra was killed" is hilarious. And because for all it's OPness, it's balanced by it being just as much liability as it is an asset.
- Ushaan-class (one of the Escort/Refit skins) is allowed to use Andorian phasers, along with the Andorian Light Escort (should anyone have it). Other Fed ships are restricted to orange phasers, except for the pre refit Connie, which has it's pew-y blue arrays. Should you need XI rare phaser arrays, "Everything Old is New" drops [CrtD]x2 and [Dmg]x2 phaser arrays for a fairly quick run for free.
- The only real prohibited devices are ship summons. If you're part of the raiding party, no summoning a Scimitar dreadnought to help you. That's wrong.
- Defiant cloaking device is an exception. Fed ships shouldn't cloak, and the only Defiant that should cloak, is *the* first Defiant that was destroyed at the second battle of Chin'toka.
Loadouts
- We need a mixed balance of ships - one cruiser, at least one science captain in a science ship and one tac in an Akira or Defiant (which shouldn't be hard to find). The specific makeup of the rest are irrelevant, but vital for other purposes such as "cannon fodder/meatshields" and "point defense for the other ships". One of them should be a healboat to keep the rest of the fleet alive. All ships below level 40 are acceptable, except for the Exploration Cruiser and D'deridex on the grounds they sort of ruin the "small ship combat" feeling.
- Torpedo launchers and beam arrays fore/aft generally, unless your ship only has 1 aft slot. Array, torp, turret, whichever you feel most appropriate fits. No all cannons builds, though. Dual Heavy Cannons are limited to bigger ships.
- Have not made a choice yet on mines, debating between "Nah, not a thing" and "HRRRM this might be alright."
Notes
If you have any obscure, uncommon or just plain rare ships, BRING THEM OUT! As long as they're not level 40+ ships. Use the less common Cryptic skins for the more common ships.
AND DONE.
Probably will expand tomorrow.
Bit of a problem here I didn't think of until you signed off: Andorian phasers are only available as X common, XI very rare from the dil store (which no one in their right mind buys), or fleet XII ultra rares. So which are acceptable?
Edit: Oh and as standard issue if you have the t1 light escort that comes with that Neverwinter thing.
I suppose the Mk XI purples would be acceptable, given you're flying a T2 ship. I also did mention special items. The Mk X whites would probably be best ones to use, though, unless you wanna spend 100k~ in D. Or already did at some point.
Having flown the "prey" (or Giant Evil Boss) for some of the tests, I got a feel for the other side of things, and have a few suggestions for those who plan on fighting against a bunch of low-tier ships.
First off is selecting the ship itself, and in this case, bigger is almost absolutely better. Tholian Relcuse, Bortasqu', Galaxy, Odyssey, Obelisk, Monbosh, Jem Dread, etc. All are perfect for the job.
Why bigger? Well, besides the fact that it looks freaking awesome, most of the bigger ships available have large hulls and good engineering capabilities, making them excellent tanks. In this case, tanking is key. While you may be fighting low-tier ships, a Rare Mk XI Dual Cannon hits just as hard on a Saber as on an Avenger.
On top of getting a big ship to use, make sure that it has plenty of Science abilities to use along with it's Engineering abilities, even if not necessarily science consoles. (Science powers are considerably more important than Tactical powers in this case, more on this later.) Ships such as the Recluse, and the Tal Shiar Battlecruiser (which is what I used) work great.
No, hanger bays are not a must, but they do add to the excitement, same with Cloak.
After you've got a ship comes equipping it, and I can't say this more.
Beam Arrays.
Beam Arrays.
Beam Arrays.
At least two fore and aft, mark and rarity don't really matter that much, though I would suggest Debuffing procs (Any manner of Phased weapons, Polaron-drain weapons, Tetryon-proc weapons, Voth Antiproton are amazing.) and less direct damage procs (Plasma, Antiproton, Protonic Polaron, etc.).
Torpedoes are next in line, though only if you can use torpedo abilities with it, otherwise slap a beam array there. Targetable torpedoes (like the Romulan Hyper-plasma) are preferable.
Cannons are iffy, only because they are very damaging, and don't really do much for overall looks.
Rule of Cool and all.
As for consoles, stack as much Armor and Passive Healing consoles as possible, with less focus on damage-increasing consoles and speed-increasing consoles. Put anything down that will make your ship a giant bag of shield and hull HP. If your ship has special consoles, use them. Especially if they have some kind of strange debuffing or disabling effect. One-shot "mega gun" consoles also work well here, like the giant Elachi cannon or Disruptor Autocannon.
Get a Positron Deflector, though shields and engines don't really matter much. They all do their job well.
Traits follow the same rules as consoles, anything that'll make your ship passively tanky. (Nukara hull increase and Borg passive hull healing work well together.)
Now BOFF powers.
Really, the best abilities one can have are ones that increase shield or hull durability, though don't necessarily heal per se. Things like Polarize Hull, Aux to SIF, and EPtS are great in this regard, with Engineering and Science team less so. Why? Well, frankly if I had used all my heals to the extent of their power, I'd still be sitting there now surrounded by all the little ships.
Let the passive healing you stacked up on earlier do all the work, and actively heal as little as possible. Work on mitigating damage rather than healing it. Yes, you will blow up this way, but the point isn't to completely roflstomp the raiding party, nor fly around in circles being impossible to destroy.
Also, don't under any circumstances use Tactical Team. This ability is far to overpowered to be used on a ship like this, and having shield facings that actually fall makes the raiding party use more tactics than just "endless pew pew pew".
Next comes offensive powers, and some are definitely better than others. If possible, have two copies of Fire At Will, along with at least one torpedo power. Attack Pattern Omega or Delta can also be used, and I can't say enough about using Subsystem Targeting abilities if you have space left over.
Aceton Beam is also good to use, the more debuffs, the better. Shy away from direct-damage abilities such as DEM and Warp Plasma.
As for Science powers, disabling and debuffing. Gravity Well and Tractor Beam Repulsors are way too overpowered against the raiding party, don't use them at all. Energy Siphon, Tyken's Rift, Photonic Shockwave, Tachyon Beam, Viral Matrix, and Charged Particle Burst are all viable and good to use. Feedback Pulse can also be used, though only if you've got room.
Now powerlevels, yes this is important. First off, put your weapon power as low as possible. That's right, lowest weapon power value you can get. With ~6 beam arrays.
Let's put it this way, I was running at only 90 weapon power, and I tore through the low-tier ships like wet paper. I immediately dropped it to 15 setting, and things went a lot smoother.
The constant pressure damage of the low-damage Fire At Will is more than enough to blow up the ships attacking, though not to the point where the entire engagement lasts 3 seconds.
Now, max out Shields and Auxiliary, make your tanking and debuffing as effective as it can be.
Aaaaaaaaaaand I think that's it.
(oh gawd i have way too much time on my hands)
Till then fly safe!
I *never* say no to a career science officer. Make a post in the Star Trek Battles channel thread so one of the channel admins (not me, sadly) can invite you?
If the dilithium store ones had any advantage over fleet I'd be willing to buy the dual cannons, at least. Since they're outright inferior, Mk X it is.
Everyone, go look at caasicam's post on the previous page if you missed it.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=17711501&postcount=20
-edit-
I'll send you an invite when I get on today, if no one else does first.
Having looked through the suggestions if the cannons are an issue I do have nice set of duel beam banks lying around and with the dropping tac team gives me the space for a plasma torp to drop my cutting beam for and some powers to use on them, dropping the weapon power will give me room to put more in engines and aux so will drop my aux to bat/damp in favour of dual aux to damp to improve tank and make my movement even more ungodly.
My character Tsin'xing
Some stuff that was brought up last night:
In case anyone was wondering about my loadout...
TS1, TT2
EptS1, ET
TB1, I forget, Tyken's rift, Viral Matrix3
JTS, TB2
My character Tsin'xing
In reference to @dragonsbrethren remark on rarity, believe it or not, unless it has the [Dmg] mod, weapons do the same damage across the board regardless of rarity. It's the Mark that changes the damage. The other mods just give accuracy, or change the chance/damage of a Critical Hit. It's interesting that we are using lower tier ships against a High-DPS vessel, but I don't recommend limiting it too much on the defending team as that was one of the reasons the DW re-enactment (Dominion War) failed.
@markhawkman: I think it is the best out of 15 as it stands. Who ever has the majority wins.
Also, sorry I missed last night, got off late and simply wanted to relax when I got home. I will be up for playing the Aggressor tonight.
One last thing before I go, I don't think it should be ships from the same faction in a match. Faction vs Faction, or KDF/Fed/RR vs Lockbox/Lobi ships. Even trying to pretend the other ship is from the MU is kinda hard since they won't release the right paint scheme for the ships.
Captains/Generals/Commanders/Pirates 07
-risingstar2009
Our Battles
Good day Captain 07,
I didn't realize that CC did that much damage in PvP. I thought tho like APO or PH would easily counter that but I guess that's only IF the aggressor had those or other counters to it. Some ships have been geared towards science type damage and it may turn off those type of Captains.
Taking away the CC did also make it a bit more even but IMO gave the aggressor an advantage. After taking the CC away we were only able to do 2 kills? Something to think about.
Here are my thoughts on the event. With the last one I participated in I found differences of opinion were coming out and were causing some conversation on how to change things. There were some negativity and this is one of the reasons I don't PvP as with human nature comes the need to be competive as well as ensure that "their" side is heard. My advice is to keep it fun and remember we are just playing a game.
To Risingstar, I don't think the DW was a failure but with the restrictions it did turn some off. Looking back in the posts in the DW thread there was some great interest but I think it was more timing and preparation. I personally think it was good as it kept everyone on a level playing field and it relied more on skill... just my 2 cents. IMO it also felt more closer to ST in terms of battles but my 2 cents where take out the hull heal so as not to drag out the matches.
I'm still not a fan of PvP but there is good fun to be had as long as we all remember that. To K.adams, I totally support your event and look forward to participating in more matches IF you need a filler:D I still would rather mow down our good friends the Borg.
Take call all and see you in game 07