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Need help with making a sovereign capable of combat.
chriseon2731
Member Posts: 1 Arc User
So for the most part I have been playing this game as a casual gamer, I don't put money into it, and I only play every once in a while. I only made VA recently, and started to get bored with the missions. So I started doing PvE. I was doing some PVE (Infected: The Conduit) and did advanced by accident. Anyways, I got yelled at because I was bringing the team down because I was only putting out 1.5k dps. I am wanting to replace everything on this ship to make it better at combat, but I need to know what to put in it. Here is what I currently have loaded:
Fore Weapons:
Tetyron Beam Array MK XII [Dmg]
Quantum Torpedo Launcher MK XII [Dmg] (x2)
Phaser Beam Array MK XII
Aft Weapons:
Tetyron Beam Array MK XII
Quantum Torpedo Launcher MK XII (x2)
Phaser Beam Array MK XII
Tachyon Deflector Array MK II [Sif][SubD]
Prototype Gravitic Modulation Impulse Engines MK XI
Obelisk Subspae Rift Warp core
Regenerative Shield Array MK XII [cap]x2
Stations:
Lt. Tac: Tac team 1, Torpedo spread 2
Ens. Tac: Torpedo spread 1
Com. Eng: Emergency power to shields 1, Extend shields 1, Eject warp plasma 1, Boarding Party 3
Lt. Com. Eng: Em power to shields 1, Em. Power to Weapons 2, Boarding Party 2
Lt. Sci: Polarize Hull 1, Energy Siphon 1
Abilities I have:
Abandon Ship 3, Attack pattern Alpha 3, Brace for Impact 3, Evasive Maneuvers 3, Fire on my mar 3, Fleet Support 3, Go down fighting 3, Ramming speed 3, Shield Capacitor, Tactical Initiative 3
I do have consoles, but they are all Mk X. If you could suggest consoles, I have 4 Engineering, 2 Science, and 3 Tactical.
If you want to tell me this loadout is TRIBBLE, go ahead, but please give me an idea of what I need to do to fix it.
Fore Weapons:
Tetyron Beam Array MK XII [Dmg]
Quantum Torpedo Launcher MK XII [Dmg] (x2)
Phaser Beam Array MK XII
Aft Weapons:
Tetyron Beam Array MK XII
Quantum Torpedo Launcher MK XII (x2)
Phaser Beam Array MK XII
Tachyon Deflector Array MK II [Sif][SubD]
Prototype Gravitic Modulation Impulse Engines MK XI
Obelisk Subspae Rift Warp core
Regenerative Shield Array MK XII [cap]x2
Stations:
Lt. Tac: Tac team 1, Torpedo spread 2
Ens. Tac: Torpedo spread 1
Com. Eng: Emergency power to shields 1, Extend shields 1, Eject warp plasma 1, Boarding Party 3
Lt. Com. Eng: Em power to shields 1, Em. Power to Weapons 2, Boarding Party 2
Lt. Sci: Polarize Hull 1, Energy Siphon 1
Abilities I have:
Abandon Ship 3, Attack pattern Alpha 3, Brace for Impact 3, Evasive Maneuvers 3, Fire on my mar 3, Fleet Support 3, Go down fighting 3, Ramming speed 3, Shield Capacitor, Tactical Initiative 3
I do have consoles, but they are all Mk X. If you could suggest consoles, I have 4 Engineering, 2 Science, and 3 Tactical.
If you want to tell me this loadout is TRIBBLE, go ahead, but please give me an idea of what I need to do to fix it.
Post edited by chriseon2731 on
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Comments
There's a lot more information that I can impart to you to help out. Looked me up in game @sqwishedgrape and I'll try to help you out.
As said above, it's best to pick 1 type of weapon type and stick with it. Rather it's Plasma, Tetryon, Phasers, whatever.. they should be the same base type. That way you can set your Tactical consoles to boost that one type and give yourself a boost to everything at once.
For the Assault Cruiser, I would recommend starting with a simple Aux2Bat Beam Boat. I put together a basic starter build that you can see here.
A couple notes about the build.
1. This is not an endgame build. This is a basic build that you can throw together very cheap using inexpensive items from the exchange as well as Episode Replay.
2. The Solane items in the build can all be picked up for free by replaying the mission 'A step between stars.' At the end, you get to choose 1 of the 3 pieces but you can play the mission 3 times and pick a different item each time to get the entire set. The Warp Core you already have.
3. The Phasers I used the Blue Mark XI phasers you can get for free from replaying 'Everything Old is New' in the Klingon War chapter. Should you decide you don't wish to replay this mission 6 times, you can buy similar items for cheap from the exchange. If you go that route, I recommend just grabbing white Mk XII weapons. You can substitute Phaser for any type you like, I use it in the example but end game it's up to you.
4. The consoles should all be fairly cheap on the exchange. You can look for Mark XII and look at different rarity to find the best deals.
5. For your Space Duty Officers, you'll want Technician DoFF's. These Officers reduce the cool down on your bridge officer abilities whenever you use Aux2Bat. You can equip 3 of them at a time, for starters just try and grab 3 blue or even green rarity off the Exchange. You can use the other 2 space slots however you like. You can get Purple variants later on for free with a little work, but once you get built up you should aim to eventually drop the Aux2Bat build. This is a starter build that should get you doing STFs and get you to where you can help your team and earn some Rep Gear to move up.
6. Lastly, I would set up a simple Keybind that will help you keep everything going. Head over to hilbertguide and scroll down to keybinds. There you will find very simple instructions on how to set a simple keybind that will make it to where when you press space, it will first distribute your shields and then will trigger whatever abilities you have in tray 7 of your interface. Set this up, and set your Tray 7 in the following order:
EP2S1,EP2W2,APB1,BFAW1,DEM3,A2B2,A2B1
It's important that the 2 A2B are at the end of the chain to trigger the cooldown on everything.
Once you have that set up, you'll mostly keep full power to Weapons. Continually spamming A2B will keep your shield and Engine power up as well. You're going to be broadsiding in this build, try and keep your ship to where you fire as many beams as possible at once. In battle stay at full impulse speed to keep your defensive value up and hit the space bar every couple seconds to keep everything firing. You will keep abilities like Engineering Team, Science Team, Hazard Emitters, etc on manual since you want to have these powers on demand.
This is a simple and inexpensive build that should easily get you through normal STF's and with a good team allow you to contribute in Advanced. As you get better gear you can decide if you want to stick with Aux2Bat or switch to another build down the road.
I hope this helps you, let me know if you have questions.
A2B for a STARTER build? Ambitious to say the least!
In case he doesn't have the capital for such an endeavour, I propose this as an alternative:
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=startbuildrevised_0
Lesser Rarity Technician Doffs make the costs much more affordable and work almost as well. Especially if you can get most of the gear for free.
End Game, I don't run A2B anymore out of preference, but it's generally the easiest for newer players to play. The alterations you suggested also make a very usable build.
Either option should be inexpensive and a significant improvement over the current build.
The Aux2Batt build is one way of doing this that builds the best DPS avail for the non-refit Sovy. The MK XII blue Phaser beams are cheaper now on the Exchange. I'd look for the [acc], [CritD] modifiers on the weapons.
How are your traits set up by the way? Take a look at my Vesta Class build, specifically in the trait sections.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=assulthelp_2083
I forgot about that site, good call.
Any of those builds will be a real improvement over what you're currently running.
Primary problems:
BOff layout is horrible. Not efficient, not set for damage and tanking. It's just... random.
Weapons layout is abysmal. Granted it's what the ship comes with, but the default stuff usually never works as well as other things.
Equipment is also random and in my opinion much of it is not suited to use on a cruiser.
So now that I'm done slapping it, here's how I would fix it:
WALL OF TEXT ALERT
The majority of other posters are right. I hate them with a passion, but on the standard freebie Tier IV Sovvy, Aux2Bat builds are the best. Now to get the DOffs, you just need to do the colonist chain for Betraka, and then you can start picking up Technician DOffs that will allow you to take the Aux2Bat build to it's fullest.
I don't exactly know the ideal Engi BOff setup for Aux2Bat, since I don't use it, so consult other sites/people on how to set that up.
Next up, weapons. Rainbow builds only work if you're VERY experienced. And you need very expensive equipment to get them to work. So since you're new, I'd say just don't. Stick to one energy type. Sqwished was correct when he stated that plasma has the highest end-game PvE damage, but that requires access to gear we aren't certain you have (access that is), and also requires LOTS of dilithium and a relatively high rep ranking. AP is quite nice, and you can get free mk XI blue [acc]x2 BAs as a mission reward (Sphere of Influence), and AP consoles are pretty cheap.
However, I must point you in the direction of the disruptor. Disruptors by FAR are incredibly nasty. Their proc is a defense shred. In simpler terms: disruptor proc OP, nerf NAO. In even simpler terms: disruptors reduce the hull resist of your target when it procs. Which then means you hit it even harder. Disruptor or AP is ideal to run, since you can get weapons and consoles for both relatively easily and cheaply.
I actually would seriously recommend AP for you though, since you have the obelisk warp core, and getting the omni-directional array is super easy. The two piece set will give you a flat 10% damage bonus to AP, which will be very helpful.
Which then brings us to your torpedoes. Honestly, just don't. I will grant you it's very satisfying launching a torp spread at a target, and my end-game cruiser does run a wide-angle quantum, but that's a wide-angle quantum. It has a 180 degree firing arc which allows it to be used in tandem with broadsiding. Regular torps just aren't ideal for MOST fed cruisers to use (esp the freebie ones) due to their limited 90 degree firing arc combined with the rather... sluggish mobility of the ships. I would recommend you remove the torps from your ship and replace them with more BAs. But if you absolutely MUST keep a torp, only have ONE, and keep it on your nose. Ideally you would be running 8 straight BAs (since on a cruiser keeping weapons power high is EASY, esp with Command: Weapons Efficiency), or 7 BAs 1 Torp, and end-game, 7 BAs 1 KCB (get to that later).
That concludes weapons.
Now for equipment. What you have isn't bad. It ain't what I would run, but it's not bad. So to start fixing it, I would first ditch the prototype engine. It's not great. It's actually pretty bad. I would get the efficient impulse engines from the mission: Past Imperfect. Excellent engines, and free.
Next up, your deflector. Not bad, but definitely not good. I would grab a Positron Deflector array (even the mk X white one is great for cruisers, but if you can get a better one relatively cheap (as in 150k ECs or less), then go for it). That will increase your durability by quite a bit.
The shields you have aren't bad, but I would go for a Resilient Shield Array, with at least one reg mod, and at least a cap mod to go with it.
For freebies, the warp core you have is fine.
And that concludes my tip post. The only additional inputs I have is that you want to run either two copies of Tactical Team (since it's the absolute best BOff ability for PvE) or one copy with the DOffs to reduce it's cooldown. Secondly, for Sci, run a Hazard Emitters and a Transfer Shield Strength. That will give you good self/ally heals over time. I would offer advice on engi, but like I said, I am not horribly experienced with Aux2bat builds (mostly due to my outright refusal to use them).
Good luck!
Endgame you are correct of course, but for where the OP is it is just fine. Assuming they can fly straight - and to get 1.5k is indicative of very much not being able to do that. (Seriously, why do people ALWAYS think about gear as if that ever helps with the basics?)
At your level OP, gear is irrelevant. For some of the other posters here it isn't, but you currently aren't even a tenth as effective as them. (Or even one thirtieth of one of them.) So, apart from sorting some more beams, forget gear.
So to start:
There is a display somewhere on your UI which shows your power levels. Click the maximum weapon power preset. Once done, you will now be firing shots, and not duds.
Next, actual piloting. There are 8 weapons on your ship, and at most you are using 4. And, my inference from your frankly terrible boff layout is you are almost certainly relying on your weakest weapons for your damage. Bad idea.
Broadside from close range (max damage is <1km away, diminishes linearly to 65% at 10km) with all beams, no torps.
Flown right, this should at least triple your performance, even before any boff skills.
To test:
Run some Argala/Jalpori/Starbase 234 whatever nice and easily repeated thing you want to do. If you can get to around 3-4k DPS in one of those (or 6k in an ISN) then start looking at swapping stuff and boff abilities - there is no point in p155ing resources away on stuff you don't know how to use.
On Boffs/Equipment:
I don't need to cover it, the advice that you already have will suffice. Well, for what you want to do at least.
I get what you're saying and you're not wrong. But A2B doesn't have to be expensive.
You can use Blue/Green Technician DoFFs while you run B'Tran Colonization, that's what I did. The most important DoFFs (and the most expensive) in A2B setup can all be had for free. It works fine to use much cheaper DoFFs while you wait for free upgrades from B'Tran.
Honestly, I spent more EC when I moved away from A2B. I had to pick up a Damage Control DoFF because you can only get 1 for free, and that takes Engineering level 4 which takes forever. The A2B build wasn't better then what I use now, but it actually was cheaper.
Contrary to popular believe, A2B is an inexpensive starter build. You're right, there are other ways, and your suggestions are solid. The only reason I suggested A2B is because I find that beginners find it a generally easy build to use. It's not the only way, and I don't believe it's the best way. It's simply one of many possible paths.
Personally, I don't use A2B anymore, but I used it for a long time and it was very productive for me.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=nissaassaultcruiser_5549
Yes, it might take that long, but, it does only require logging in and setting up doff missions.
The OP is smart enough to ask for help, he/she/it is therefore capable of setting up keybinds and learning the basics.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=stormchild_8873
The fourth DEV slot has the nimbus pirate call in it, but that doesn't seem to exist as an option for the builder...
Tried to do a similar build with a TAC toon, but it never worked as well. This one seems to stand up to incredible punishment, while still handing it out. It has been and will continue to be a bit of an upgrade grind, but most of what I have I either made myself, or bought relatively cheaply at lower levels from the exchange.
Hope this helps the OP, but I would also be interested to know what others think of it...
Well, equipment is obviously work in progress, but your boff skills are a bit... daft.
You've massively overspecced into your two weakest weapons in boff skills and tac consoles; you only have one EPTX, but 2xDEM, 2xET, 2xA2SIF when you only need one of each; sci skills are ok, but unsuitable.
It's damage potential as it sits is not particularly good, and your threat generation is so low I am not surprised you find it capable of incredible punishment, it could survive the likely incoming damage on a fifth of it's heals, if it needed that.
Consider the advice already made above.