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Lockbox Ship Advice Needed
whiteshores
Member Posts: 46 Arc User
Hi all,
I am at a bit of an impasse with my ship choices, so hopefully someone can help me out here.
I'm a Tac captain, but I like to fly the big ships. The cruisers, the battleships, the carriers. I have my chance at the Adapted Battle Cruiser and/or the JHD Dreadnought Carrier (and I have the bug ship -- hopefully to be followed by elite hangar pets).
Issue is, beyond just being a Tac captain who'd not be flying an escort, I am bored as can possibly be of pure beam boats. I want these ships to get some diversity involved. I wanted to incorporate cannons, a torpedo or two, maybe a beam array for BO skills. I've seen people say this can work fine, especially if I get the cannons and torpedo launcher with wider arcs. I've seen people say it can't.
Thoughts? Are either of these ships viable for what I want? I hope so, because I love them both in terms of looks.
I am at a bit of an impasse with my ship choices, so hopefully someone can help me out here.
I'm a Tac captain, but I like to fly the big ships. The cruisers, the battleships, the carriers. I have my chance at the Adapted Battle Cruiser and/or the JHD Dreadnought Carrier (and I have the bug ship -- hopefully to be followed by elite hangar pets).
Issue is, beyond just being a Tac captain who'd not be flying an escort, I am bored as can possibly be of pure beam boats. I want these ships to get some diversity involved. I wanted to incorporate cannons, a torpedo or two, maybe a beam array for BO skills. I've seen people say this can work fine, especially if I get the cannons and torpedo launcher with wider arcs. I've seen people say it can't.
Thoughts? Are either of these ships viable for what I want? I hope so, because I love them both in terms of looks.
Post edited by whiteshores on
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Comments
The Tal Shiar ABC can work with what you want since it's a Cruiser with a strong science leaning; Sensor Analysis, Indoctrination Nanite Console - give it Gravity Well and Viral Matrix with BOffs to disable, hold and slow enemy ships and use "Cruiser Command: Strategic Manuvering" to increase your own manuverability. Since it doesn't have Subsystem Targeting like a pure-Science vessel would, the lack of beam arrays wouldn't affect it, so you could go with turrets, cannons and dual cannons (180 and 90 degree arcs, I don't recommend the Heavy and Dual Heavy Cannons with their limited 45 degree arc most of the time.) and the "Ancient Omni-Direction Beam Array" from "Sphere of Influence" in case you need to pull out a Beam: Fire At Will to clear out small craft or mines.
The Jem'Hadar DC is a bit tougher since - fitting with the Jem'hadar mentality - it leans heavily towards direct confrontation. Normally, I recommend a carrier with a good science slant since Sci BOff powers and Hanger Bays both work on Auxiliary Powers, but with its Tactical/Offensive slant, that doesn't work for the JHDC. With only a Lt. Cmdr Eng slot, Ens. Sci. and Lt. Uni, it lacks access to some of the higher level abilities in those BOff careers like Gravity Well, Tyken's Rift and Viral Matrix for Science and leaves a player having to decide between Engineering abilities like Boarding Party or Vent Warp Plasma. The Attack Ship frigate carrier pets are nice, but with the Carrier having Subsystem Targeting, a beam-based inate ability, the Carrier itself seems to lean towards beam arrays, which you said you want to move away from. It can be played without useing Subsystem Targeting - I hardly use it myself, even on Science vessels - but that's something to keep in mind.
...And I'll be honest; lately, the game's enemy AI has become distinctly carrier-unfriendly with frequent use of Area of Effect powers like Voth gravity wells, Undine Fluidic Rifts and Vaadwaur Cannon Barrages that wipe out most or all deployed carrier pets, even frigates (like the Advanced B'Rotlh from my Mirror Vo'quv) in one swoop leaving a player without their 'mobile weapons platforms' and seriously reducing their firepower until they can get them re-deployed.
In summation, personally, I would say go with the Tal Shiar Adapted Batle Cruiser, I would think that, overall, it would probably work better with what you want to do... but the final decision remains yours.
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
I have a JHDC and it performs well with cannons. I have rep pets on mine due to no attack ship joy. Its very good but not great; it lacks a tac console for hitting power and the officer layout is meh --- it can't quite reach the dps of the nicor.
Tal shier cruiser is an amazing ship but lacks tac consoles. I fly one as a science ship but as a dps boat? Not really.
Anyway, I think you might like your JHDC with cannons. Put some specialization points into the pilot tree for turn rate. Buy a couple of fleet turn consoles. Maybe invest in the turn rate captain trait from lockbox? A little work and it can easily support the turn rate for DHC against NPC / PVE targets. I would not want to try to shoot down a player driven escort in PVP using cannons on that cow -- it just can't keep the target in its sights with that layout.
Arc cannons are worthless. Wastes a mod that could add dps for a crutch or to attempt to shove an inappropriate weapon on the wrong hull. Get a rack of 4 [thrust] turrets and use dps forward DHC instead, and after you get your turn rate into the 20s or better, learn to fly
The Elite JHAS hangers at level 60 have around 100k hull. They are not dying very much to anything.
I appreciate the overall advice. However, averaging it all together, the answer I seem to see is ...
Give it up, you're flying a beamboat. :P
Not exactly the conclusion I was hoping for (and I wasn't even hoping for Best. DPS. Ever!), but a clear majority opinion would seem to make me think that I'm wasting my resources on either ship if I don't want to stick with beams.
This is just not true unless you are in PVP, where maneuverability is king. But a carrier in PVP is awkward anyway as player aoe quickly makes scrap of your pets, and your pets are a significant part of playing a carrier... Doing "ok" and forcing it to work is possible but you are at this point putting a square peg in a round hole.
There are enough ways to augment turn rate that you can use cannons on this ship if you want to for PVE and have zero difficulty doing so. And that is not [arc] cannons but just straight up DHC. I have done it. It is viable, and is quite good. There are better ships for dps, but it is solidly a second tier dps ship esp when you factor in the pet damage. By second tier dps I mean that you are never going to keep pace with a fully loaded scimitar, nicor, xindi escort, or other gunboat with your carrier. You can get close enough to vape NPCs, but they will top you on the parse/meter thingy.
If you want a cruiser that works with cannons look at the avenger or mogh for kdf. Anything classed as a battle cruiser has enough turn to work with cannons. Pure cruisers, it is possible but often frustrating and not optimal.
Winter is coming and the chelgrett is a destroyer with a cruisers 4/4 weapon load out, and you might find that it is exactly what you're looking for. It has solid armor and a free upgrade to t5u.
RCS Accelerators can help improve turn rates I think the best ones gives +40% turn rate. With two of them and 9 points devoted to the maneuvering thruster captain skill I would guess you can increase turn rates to around 14 for the JHDC and probably 17 for TSABC. That is good enough for dual beam banks or wide arc DHC. However, for normal DHC I find those turn rate to be too low to allow DHC to be effective with their narrow 45 degree firing arc.
Are there any larger ships out there (other than the Scimitar and the Breen winter ship) which put out DPS which isn't second rate? Preferably one which would allow you to mix it up so you don't have just a beam in every slot. Lockbox ships are 100% acceptable as suggestions.
I'm sure it sounds strange, but has become dull to just fire off beams and broadside everything. Shooting a torpedo, firing a cannon, changing it up somehow is important to me.
Particle generator science builds are rocking.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=19418131&postcount=52
Sarcasmdetector posted a 50k DPs narcine but its a beam ship.
I didn't save links but I've seen some recluse builds that used cannons effectively by staying at max range and leveraging sci powers and 4 stacks of attack pattern beta from the frigates.
But really, the best cruiser cannon builds I've seen were kdf battle cruisers, the only fed ones I've seen used the avenger.