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Which Sci ship is right for me?
herrrmansen
Member Posts: 15 Arc User
I've been mulling over what ship to get for my Ferengi science officer for a few days now - So far I've pretty much settled on getting a T5 ship (because I don't really like how most of the T6 ships look - yes I'm vane :P) and upgrading it to T5U.
I've had my eye on one of the following.
Voth Palisade
It's sleek, it's fairly new and according to the reviews I've watched it was considered competitive at the time of release.
Odyssey Science Cruiser
The shiny, fancy new Enterprise, complete with a humongous crew.
Wells Temporal Science Vessel
An unlikely contestant? The wiki seems outdated and I can't really figure out if it is still competitive or even T5U'able.
Fleet Caitian Atrox Carrier
My guilty pleasure pick - Even if the Atrox can't carry frigates, it looks so incredibly sleek and fancy. (I imagine the Breen Carrier is considered better in every way?)
Pathfinder Long Range Science Vessel
The "I'm not really into T6 but if I had to pick one of them, the "Voyager" would be it.
Consoles I currently own that may influence the choice?
Projected Singularity
Repair Platform
Resonance Cascade Modulator (From the Steam starter pack)
All three Breen ships and their consoles (Which only work on Breen ships)
Disclaimer - I am not at the point where I can simply go out and buy one of these ships (except if a C-Store purchase of course or the Voth, which a friend will sell me)
I've had my eye on one of the following.
Voth Palisade
It's sleek, it's fairly new and according to the reviews I've watched it was considered competitive at the time of release.
Odyssey Science Cruiser
The shiny, fancy new Enterprise, complete with a humongous crew.
Wells Temporal Science Vessel
An unlikely contestant? The wiki seems outdated and I can't really figure out if it is still competitive or even T5U'able.
Fleet Caitian Atrox Carrier
My guilty pleasure pick - Even if the Atrox can't carry frigates, it looks so incredibly sleek and fancy. (I imagine the Breen Carrier is considered better in every way?)
Pathfinder Long Range Science Vessel
The "I'm not really into T6 but if I had to pick one of them, the "Voyager" would be it.
Consoles I currently own that may influence the choice?
Projected Singularity
Repair Platform
Resonance Cascade Modulator (From the Steam starter pack)
All three Breen ships and their consoles (Which only work on Breen ships)
Disclaimer - I am not at the point where I can simply go out and buy one of these ships (except if a C-Store purchase of course or the Voth, which a friend will sell me)
Post edited by herrrmansen on
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Comments
For Drain and Torpedo Boats, you'll generally want something with a higher mix of Sci-Tac.
For Exotic Damage, you can run Engineer-heavy for Eject Warp Plasma and Inverted Tractor Repulsors. An Eng-heavy Sci ship is also fine for a Transphasic Torpedo Boat or a support/healer setup.
It's worth mentioning that the Atrox and Sci Ody can be a bit cumbersome to bring deflector abilities(such as Gravity Well/Tyken's Rift) on a target with.
The Atrox is a very different ship from the Sarr Theln. The latter is more along the lines of a Dyson Sci-stroyer - good at drain builds. The Atrox is better served as an Exotic Damage platform.
All lockbox ships are freely upgradeable to T5U(and get a unique skin - Voth ships get a very shiny green/emerald material).
I've been switching between my Gravity Well and Singularity abilities to hold enemies in place while I pummel them to pieces with cannon fire abilities. I am probably not using my science abilities as much as I could, but I'd love to learn more about optimal tactics.
(Roughly how my Chel Gret looks at the moment - I've tried to avoid any heavy investment since I'm still flying mostly on my own and haven't found a specific style/road to go down. No STFs under my belt)
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=chelgretsci_0
Reversed tractor beam repulsors and graviton shield is just awesome
Vesta
This ship is rightly known to be one of the very best sci ships there is. With the 3 different variants you can go for any play style you want.
It will allow for a considerable amount of sci abilities whilst the tactical and engineering versions both allow for a lot of tactical options too.
I've got the engineering version (to allow for a tougher ship) but it still has 4 sci, 4 tac and 3 eng consoles. That's quite a variety of paths that opens up for you.
Also you can slot any type of weapons on here as the Vesta takes DHC's. Even the Aux DHC's it comes with are fairly decent and mean you don't need to worry about weapons power too much.
This is a very good ship for the whole grav well + torp spread tactic. The ability to slot DHC's means you can hoover up NPC's and then hit then with the focused arc of CSV fire to drop shields, then pop in a torp spread to kill.
Nova/Rhode Island
Essentially a Vesta but without the ability to slot DHC's. Though you could still use single cannons if you wanted, the Lt. Cmdr tac slot allows the use of cannon tac abilities which is something a lot of sci ships can't do.
It's a fast ship, almost on par with escorts.
It has a pretty hefty shield mod so it can be very tough to get killed when flying it (strong shields & high defence from moving so fast).
The only down side for the two ships above is that as they can only go up to T5-U they are probably eventually going to be surpassed by better ships. Therefore whilst they are still highly competitive they may not stay that way.
Pathfinder
This is probably the best sci ship in the game at the moment, although some would say that was the Scryer (which looks like the backside of a horse).
It can do a tonne of sci tricks with it 2 high level boff seat for sci. It also has enough sci consoles to pack some real punch into things like parti-gens or flow caps etc.
It lacks in tac consoles (only 2) but the pretty much guaranteed Fleet version will acquire a 3rd tac console to boost weapon damage.
However it can slot 2 Lt. level tac boffs and that means you can have a fair amount of kick behind your weapons, plus it allow for use of things like torp spread 2 and BFAW 2 to deal damage into clustered up NPCs stuck in grav wells.
Also you have the access to intel boff abilities at lower levels, so things like Intel Team or Ionic Turbulence can be quite helpful.
All of these ships will have access to a Secondary Deflector soon so that will not longer set the newer ships apart.
My current first choice would be the Pathfinder as it's newest and we know it will get an even better fleet version soon(ish). Also it is not part of the old set of ships so it will be top line for a fair whilst yet.
However I still love flying my Vesta quite a lot as it has something that you only really get with that ship in my opinion, just feel right for me.
I like the Rhode Island but it just feel lacking for me for some reason. Still very good and reyan01 is the one to ask for tip on how to make it a very effective ship.
I also like the (fleet) Nebula t5u, by the way. It has a good boff layout, is more eng heavy and has a unique look.
The Nebula... Actually... I initially didn't consider them because the "neck" less ships looked odd - But the Magellan variant looks pretty sweet. I'm confused as to what the Wiki means exactly by buying it for 2000z on the store. Makes it sounds like an additional purchase to the Nebula (Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit)
I know the Scryer has already been mentioned and discounted, but if you do have extra zen to spare it is worth getting just to get the starship mastery trait.
I will also be one to tell you if your Sci characters aren't using the Eng (and if necessary, Tac) console slots for your Universal consoles, and are not stuffing all those Sci console slots with Exotic-damage boosting consoles (to boost the damage from Gravity Wells via Particle Generator/[PrtG] equipment for one), you're are not going to do any useful DPS with your Sci skills (which is a big issue if you're going to use a Sci ship in the first place).
With that said, I would suggest the Pathfinder first and foremost, due to being able to use at least OSS1 and Ionic Turbulence 1, or OSS1 and OSS2.
But if you intend to run with a more conventional weapon setup, and still want to practice your builds before really committing, get that Palisade from your friend, as it sounds to be the cheapest one available to you.
The Wells Temporal Science Vessel is also a really nice ship; but its cost to outfit to its maximum potential will set you back a lot; both in EC and Zen (and Lobi via either; EC -> Exchange Key+Lockbox -> Lobi or C-Store Key+Lockbox -> Lobi).
If you're also considering other ships; the Tholian Orb Weaver is a nice Sci ship as well, and the Tholian Recluse Carrier, even if it doesn't have Sensor Analysis, is also Sci-oriented, and if you can get at least its Advanced Mesh Frigates, will further debuff your enemies via Attack Pattern Beta spamming.
Of course, you also have the T6 Breen Carrier, which is also Sci-oriented, and its pets both use Polarons which help a bit.
But if a "new" Vesta is in the not so distant future maybe I should hold off for now and stick with my unconventional Breen setup - it seems to be working just fine on my own for now at least.
Tholian ships? Well.... Arachnaphobia? And to be frank I'd put them in the "sharp edges" category along with the Scry
--Red Annorax
So I guess we'll not know until it happens with that one. But certainly don't pin your hopes on getting a T6 version.
The Vesta is still a very good ship and is unlikely to be replaced for some time yet if a newer version is incoming.
All lock box T5 ships gets a free upgrade to T5u so you can definitely upgrade the Well Science Vessel to T5u. I may get the KDF / Romulan variant for my other science toons.
That spherical hull on the Horizon variant is just beyond hilarious - Reminds me of those old plasma globes.
as for you Fleet Research Science Vessel Retrofit i would say its not worth it as you can do the exact same setup on the Fleet Nebula Retrofit as well, but you turn a little slower.
I kinda like the Nebula, but I don't use it as not to big on its Sci-Eng mix there I rather like the Sci-Tac mix of the Tac Vesta instead.
I'm hitting almost 35k DPS with it, and I don't even have the Particle Manipulator trait yet.
Right now its my fav ship for PVE due to being able to debuff the TRIBBLE out of everything (combination of Attack Pattern Beta, Sensor Analysis, and Ionic Turbulence) and hit hard with a Torp Spread 3 with the Neutronic Torpedo.
I run two equipment layouts with it, one for pure dps, the other with defensive tanking gear.
The major difficulty with the ship is the lack of Engineering skills, but I just run EPTS x1 and EPTA x1 and run a traditional "drake" build with 3x Damage Control Engineers to reduce the cooldowns on those two skills to global.
It also looks pretty good while you are flying it :P
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Fleet_Research_Science_Vessel_Retrofit
https://trekazoid.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/federation_research_science_vessel_horizon.png