My Delta Recruit is a tac in a BoP

farranor · April 2015

Is there some way to tell the normal-mode story episode NPCs that, since I'm not an eng in a cruiser, I can't really handle taking a 50k hit through full shields? Also, it would be really nice if they took considerable damage when I hit them with APA, APO3, and CRF.

If I can't get through to them, would someone please relay the message for me? Thanks.

praxi5 · April 2015

Turn your difficulty down.

If it's on Normal, welcome to STO, where dumping HP into NPCs and giving them one-shot capability is considered "Difficulty."

reginamala78 · April 2015

After a decent shield hardness and even a single armor console that sort of hit should only dent your hull. Plus with EPTE and a maybe a Defense-boost like the Counter Command 2-piece, they should have a hard time keeping steady fire on you anyways. In other words, DOOOOOOOOODGE!!!!!

omgbamf00 · April 2015

What mission is it where you are getting hit for 50k on normal difficulty? As far as BoP combat goes... never stop moving, always flank, and use your battle cloak liberally. The idea is to not get hit, or at least mitigate as much of the damage as possible.

seaofsorrows · April 2015

I keep hearing about these super powered NPC's in Missions but have yet to see one.

My DR is a Tac and played all the way through in Escorts without any problems. I had a few missions where I took a little damage, got my wings singed a bit, but none of this 50k 1 hit death thing that people keep talking about.

Where specifically are you getting this issue? Even in a BoP if you're on Normal, you should cruise right through. Maybe you have a bug of some kind, but I haven't seen this yet.

jaguarskx · April 2015

Please use the following link to provide information about your ship, gear, captain skills, and bridge officers. Also, which mission are you having difficulty with?

http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/

omgbamf00 · April 2015

patrickngo wrote: »

Basically, the Beam overload takes down the shields, the cannon fire keeps it down, the torpedoes finish the job. That is HOW IT WORKS.

This pretty much sums up basic BoP flying (along with constant flanking). Once you can get comfortable with this, you can try to switch things up a bit. However, from my experience, this is the simplest, most effective method for tacs in a BoP.

farmallm · April 2015

From what I played around with on escorts/raiders. Keep moving is a key. Use evasive or any speed burst consuls or cloak. To get out of it, heal up, and go back in.

Like the others said. Overcharge on a beam array (DDB is what I use) and rapid fire on cannons does well. Once that shield is down. Fire torpedoes to light them up.

thunderfoot · April 2015

patrickngo wrote: »

I think you may need some build advice, my good man.

See, I can get quite good damage off MkX gear, and you can too.

(my DR is ALSO a Tac in BoP character. Big blonde Klingon guy, currently rides a Hegh'ta...)

First, find someone who Crafts like a maniac (or dig up your token crafter toon) and have him fab all your gear as you level (except when you can get sweet things like the Reman covariant from a mission drop...)

A crafter at 15 will turn out Purples without effort up to about MkVIII to MkX. So you get your crafter buddy to fab up your engines, Core, Deflector, etc. for you, or you fab it up yourself.

In the "Keeping up with the Jo'enness", Basic upgrade packs are surprisingly economical until you hit the need for better-than-MkX.

The more you upgrade a given bit of kit as you level, the more likely you are to bump up a rarity or two, and as you level up, you only have to replace one console at a time if you re-use and upgrade the same gear.

Currently my big-blonde-Klingon-biker looking dude (Koreh) has a rocking "Epic" quality Antiproton console that's basically been upgraded every level since he started, and the other two are sitting at "ultra Rare"...as are the DBB, the two DHC's and both his turrets.

Doing it "Upgrade style" does cost some Dilithium-which makes doing the wrappers and clearing your tutorials early a really, really, good idea. Wrapper missions, the PvP missions over Ker'rat or N'vak, the "Three times in a warzone per day" mission daily, and the Pi Canis: Way of the Warrior daily, should handle your need to improve your gear thorugh most of the levelling process until you reach the point you can grind STF's and other Queue'd content.

some of those also have good payouts for Skill points once the Event is over-which could be of significance if you ever want to master those hyper-expensive Specialization trees after you hit sixty.

Now...let's get into the bones of a good, basic, 'free to play' bird of prey layout from Level 40 on.

(I'm assuming you're not an LTS and therefore will have to pay for zen to get a B'rel...so we'll base off the Heggie.)

Energy Types: Disruptor, or Antiproton. I've done Polaron Boats before, but you're looking for big damage, not looking to weaken enemy players in teamed PvP or doing a drain build sci...

the usual advice here; single energy weapon type, stack the consoles.

Generally if you fly BoP, your'e not going to BFAW-your-way-to VIk-toRee...you're a spiker. esp. as a Tac, you're a spike damage pilot, you have to line up your shots and fly a lot. (you're not hitting spacebar and watching netflix iow...)

CDR: TT1, BO2, CRF2, APO3
LTC: TT1, THY2,BO3
LT: HE1, TB2
LT: ET1, EPTE2

Weapons layout:

DBB, DHC, DHC, QT
Turret Turret

Consoles:

Engineering;
Speed. Speed and turn, Neutronium

Science:
Inertial Dampener (helps turn rate and resisting holds), 2 spots minimum, add a sheild console or universal here.

TAC;

Energy consoles. specific enegy consoles, disruptor or antiproton, depending on the flavour of weapons on the hull.

Reasons for hte above...

You are a Bird of Prey, you do not hull tank, you do not shield-tank. It's possible to do it with hte right combination of gear, but it doesn't work all that well and you're not going to be as effective.

Instead, you spike things to death. one target at a time, and constantly move.

Power settings:

Weapons: 125
Engines:50
Shields and Aux 25.

If you have a core and engines that can push the balance...

(say, a core that is A-W or A-E) you can fiddle it a bit, but in general terms, you're not to even TRY to rely on your shields-they're not all that useful. Generally, for shielding, go with Resilient over Covariant-yes, Covariant has a higher capacity-but they let 10% of blocked damage go through, Resilients cut that back, which is handy if you have to run from torpedoes.

The basic tactic

You are a bird of prey-you don't slow down, you run your engines at 'fast' all the time. Not full impulse unless you need to get somewhere, but fast. Engine batteries are good, Deuterium surplus is also good, if you want to forego BO3, you can run APO1 so you have an attack pattern up all the time that makes you faster.

(eh, well not ALL the time, but a majority...)

Teh idea is to time your weapons buffs.

as you approach the target(s) you want to get behind them-or behind most of them...you roll in, at 11K you hit your first few buffs-the BO,THY, and CRF buffs, TT1 and APO, then you decloak-is ussually pretty close, hit with tractor beam, hit spacebar, fire all weapons at once.

On MkX purples, I've gotten 33K+ hits on fully shielded NPC's. I won't say what it does to other players if they've got their buff cycle off mine enough to catch them between EPTS cycles, but in general, it erases that first target if you do it right. on Mobs in content, I can usually get a second or third shot before the pattern drops and I'm hitting EPTE, engine batteries and evasive to recloak.

often as not in "Normal" content (Normal Queue'd that is), that's usually enough to drop a sphere or more than one probe-even using Polarons instead of critty Antiprotons.

Desirables:

For a BoP: ACC, CRITH and CRITD, in that order.

Basically, the Beam overload takes down the shields, the cannon fire keeps it down, the torpedoes finish the job. That is HOW IT WORKS.

Excellent advice! My Female Orion Engineer, who is also exploring the Wonderful World of BoPs, (What can I say? Up until now I have been A Cruiser Guy, lol.) will follow this pattern. Thank you for sharing.

bravecatherine · April 2015

omgbamf00 wrote: »

What mission is it where you are getting hit for 50k on normal difficulty? As far as BoP combat goes... never stop moving, always flank, and use your battle cloak liberally. The idea is to not get hit, or at least mitigate as much of the damage as possible.

I remember getting one shotted by one tholian torpedo in the Tau Dewa red alert a few months ago.I was using a patrol escort full exotic with 45000 hull/10000 shield and 3 XII neutronium.:(

seaofsorrows · April 2015

valoreah wrote: »

Never played any of the Borg content on Advanced or Elite, have you?

I have, but we're not talking about Advanced or Elite. If the OP is on Elite Difficulty, then the solution to his problem is simple and obvious.

nikephorus · April 2015

As someone who plays a B'rel a lot I can tell you that you will die sometimes. BoP can be made to be relatively tanky, but there is always the risk of getting destroyed in couple of hits if you're not careful (which is what makes them fun to be honest). The biggest mistake I see with people using the b're as well as other fragile ships is getting sucked into a fur ball where they begin taking concentrated fire from all sides.

narthais · April 2015

Getting sucked into the ball is fine, just so long as you're diving out the other side moments later, the piloting spec tree even has resist bonuses for getting shot in the TRIBBLE so you could call it a cryptic approved tactic.

warmaker001b · April 2015

The Bird of Prey is the last kind of ship in STO where you actually have to be awake to play and survive.

Patrickngo covered the basic matters of BOP play. It's maneuverable, stealthy, good for spikes and damage output, esp if you make use of Raider Flanking. But the one thing it cannot do is trade shots well. If you're trying to fly it as an Escort, FAWBoat, or whatever is the flavor of the month of DPS these days, you are going to find the KDF BOP wanting. It just doesn't have the hull and shields to hang around and spam SPACEBAR like everything else does these days. You have to position. You have to maintain good speed (bonus defense). You have to surge your attacks: Old school STO spike dmg play that used to be more common years ago. You have to get out before the heat gets too much, recover, then go back in. That kind of play will not advance you anywhere with DPS. But it does get the damage in on the main targets, which I think is important these days since everyone likes to hit everything else but the main objective.

Guys may have heard of the KDF BOPs reputation, esp from years ago. But the truth of the matter was that the BOPs offered good advantages but was a ship that actually paid for its advantages, which doesn't happen with other ships and gimmicks in this game. Hitting Battle Cloak in combat is not an Instant-Get-Out-Of-Jail-For-Free Card like it is with the Romulans. Hitting Battle Cloak in combat with a KDF BOP will get you killed, ASAP.

The KDF BOP I have long felt to be the "Ace's Ship." Because relying on today's traditional play, esp DPS play, will get you killed quick in a BOP. Good performance in a BOP needs you to know the mechanics of this game and knowing what the ship can and can't do and playing accordingly. Margins for error are small in a BOP. Which is why I'd rank a high performing, survivor on one of these ships high. Esp the few guys that still PVP successfully in one of these things.

farranor · April 2015

patrickngo wrote: »

(giant wall of things I am quite of aware of thank you)

You think a leveling player should have to get a new full set of gear every couple hours in order to die slightly less often? Min/max item modifiers, craft, optimize Boff abilities, and so on and so forth... just to do basic leveling content?

To the people telling me to turn down the difficulty: as I said in the first post, it's on normal.

To the people asking what content this is, I mostly have trouble with Romulan stuff, like Mogai and D'deridex birds. Kind of hard to make flanking-bonus strafing runs when you have to be farther than 5km to avoid the tractor beam... because if you get caught in a tractor beam without APO or Polarize Hull available, you will die from the high-yield spread of plasma torpedos - or, of course, the one-hit "salvo" a Mogai hit me with for 50k. Oh, and whenever I get hit by a Tachyon Beam my shields are gone in about two seconds, but I know that's normal (for some stupid reason).

When I die on ground maps it isn't so bad, because the respawn points aren't 50km away from the objectives (on that one mission where you kill Hakeev and destroy the big gateway with all the catwalks, it actually respawned me exactly where I died, every time... I wasn't sure whether to rage at the meaningless death or cheer at the feeling that death could not stop me). This is important because the "Call for help" button does not work.

Contrast this with leveling an eng in a cruiser: you fly around, you press your buttons, and eventually the enemy dies and you sail away to the next battle. This isn't just a guess, either - I have two characters like that. So yeah, someone please send a message to the NPCs on all hailing frequencies letting them know that a reasonable challenge for a tank is an unreasonable challenge for... well, anything else. Thanks so much; I really appreciate it.

warmaker001b · April 2015

farranor wrote: »

You think a leveling player should have to get a new full set of gear every couple hours in order to die slightly less often? Min/max item modifiers, craft, optimize Boff abilities, and so on and so forth... just to do basic leveling content?

To the people telling me to turn down the difficulty: as I said in the first post, it's on normal.

To the people asking what content this is, I mostly have trouble with Romulan stuff, like Mogai and D'deridex birds. Kind of hard to make flanking-bonus strafing runs when you have to be farther than 5km to avoid the tractor beam... because if you get caught in a tractor beam without APO or Polarize Hull available, you will die from the high-yield spread of plasma torpedos - or, of course, the one-hit "salvo" a Mogai hit me with for 50k. Oh, and whenever I get hit by a Tachyon Beam my shields are gone in about two seconds, but I know that's normal (for some stupid reason).

When I die on ground maps it isn't so bad, because the respawn points aren't 50km away from the objectives (on that one mission where you kill Hakeev and destroy the big gateway with all the catwalks, it actually respawned me exactly where I died, every time... I wasn't sure whether to rage at the meaningless death or cheer at the feeling that death could not stop me). This is important because the "Call for help" button does not work.

Contrast this with leveling an eng in a cruiser: you fly around, you press your buttons, and eventually the enemy dies and you sail away to the next battle. This isn't just a guess, either - I have two characters like that. So yeah, someone please send a message to the NPCs on all hailing frequencies letting them know that a reasonable challenge for a tank is an unreasonable challenge for... well, anything else. Thanks so much; I really appreciate it.

Obviously, you took his post to heart requiring you to get endgame gear. Frankly, buying cheap, odd-mark, common quality equipment from the ship vendor as you level up in rank, and having a decent enough grind, leveling build is too OP for this game. For someone of your early registration date, I'm surprised you're having trouble with Tractor Beams. EPTE, A2D, Evasive Maneuvers, APO, etc all resist or get you out of holds like Tractor Beams. You really need to dive into the abilities of this game and know what they can and can't do, and finding a combination of abilities to throw onto a ship and make it perform. That alone will enhance your play in this game far better than having fancy equipment.

While leveling, I did not bother with any shield or hull repairing abilities. Whether I was flying an Escort, Bird of Prey, Cruiser. It didn't matter. I had ZERO need for any repair abilities whatsoever.

Escorts? EPTW, TAC abilities like CRF, HYT, BO, etc were more than enough. I will kill everything before my hull is down to 98%.

Cruisers? EPTW, BFAW. Done. Next.

You can do this with common quality gear. You can do this with the common quality gear from a lower rank that you just left. The key is getting an aggressive enough BOFF setup and kill everything before they're a problem. Once you get to the high enough ranks to start doing STFs, then you actually have to worry about other things. But for leveling, this joke of a game has nothing. Go ALL OFFENSE. Know your counters. Kill 'em all.

narthais · April 2015

farranor wrote: »

You think a leveling player should have to get a new full set of gear every couple hours in order to die slightly less often? Min/max item modifiers, craft, optimize Boff abilities, and so on and so forth... just to do basic leveling content?

Short answer; Abso-bloody-lutly.

Somewhat longer answer: Your gear should be keeping up with your teir, if that meas a whole new set every few hours then so be it, you can do this with the odd numbered whites you can get fro EC at the shipyard for faction weapons and basic ship gear, consoles are a bit trickier but the whites still go cheap on the exchange.

Personally I craft MK 2 gear when I start a new character and throw superiour upgrades with a x2 tech point catalyst, that will keep them upgrading with me right through to MK 8, but im aware not everyone can or is willing to do this. you can do it with whites.

As for the boff optimization, why wouldn't you? I mean that's just simple logic, you can even make up for sub par gear with a good boff build.

stofsk · April 2015

Is patrickngo's advice on piloting a BoP applicable to sci and eng characters as well?

warmaker001b · April 2015

stofsk wrote: »

Is patrickngo's advice on piloting a BoP applicable to sci and eng characters as well?

Bird of Prey play is Bird of Prey play, regardless of what Captain class you put into it. It's what the Captain class offers the ship. Regardless of Capt class, there's no escaping the Pro's and Con's of a BOP.

For the low levels, I'd put half the stations as Tactical abilities. Feel free to use ET, ST to feel safe. But in <Lv50 content, you really don't need them much. I fit them as a failsafe but I rarely used them. With the heavy TAC alignment you are sure to cut through all the NPCs very quickly. With turn rate of a BOP, you can present forward heavy weapons easily.

Some very quick, down and dirty examples to cut through the garbage and move on with BOFF setups not requiring premium stuff like BO3. Also, these are forward heavy builds. I was spamming Forward Shield Distribution. Tactical Team later on was merely a luxury and too much for NPCs to handle.

Tier 2: DBB, DHCx2, Turret
BO1, CRF1
ET1
ST1

Tier 3: DBB, DHCx2, Turretx2
TT1, BO2, CRF2
TT1, CRF1
ET1
ST1
Lots of playroom from here on out with Tactical abilities and having fun. 2 CRFs to work with as your common attacks to cut down the NPCs. Saving BO2 for the hard spike. CRF is more than enough to deal easily with most of the ships out there. BO is your execution shot.

Tier 4: DBB, DHCx2, Turretx2
TT1, BO2, CRF2
TT1, CRF1
ET1, EPTW2 for hitting power or A2D1 for improved handling and kinetic resists
ST1

If Tractors are a worry, Evasive Manevuers is there. I was never worried about them.

Aux2Damp? Very wonderful ability. Improves speed, handling, and grants a good kinetic resist. If you want to really make A2D shine, get a Matter-Antimatter Specialist DOFF that improves A2D. It increases the buff duration as well as adds All Energy Resists to it. You will find Rare & Very Rare quality versions of that DOFF go for a lot. They're that good. But honestly, the Uncommon Quality ones are OP for this game already and are cheap and easy to attain one way or another.

With setups like these, and even using basic, common quality gear from the Ship Equipment Vendor, this game is still a joke. Escorts, Birds of Prey RIP through the Sub-50 content like it doesn't exist. They have the Tactical ability. They have the handling. And nothing in low level content was ever a challenge even with common quality gear. You do not need fancy, crafted gear handed down from advanced toons to twink out your new character. It helps, but basic, aggressive play is too OP for this game.

Eng & Sci Team are there for the formality of having hull & shield heals on. For an emergency. But honestly, your TRIBBLE shields and their pitiful Regeneration Rates, unbuffed, are too much for the NPCs.

Again, when you start playing endgame content like Adv/Elite STFs, you're going to have to adjust a lot more. But content less than that, it's no problem, even in a fragile ship like a BOP.

myko9 · April 2015

The buff to tachyon beam made a lot of the battleship class enemies a lot more dangerous to low hull ships, and fighting the Borg you may as well run without shields. There are also some missions Klingon side where Command cruisers spawn, and they use the new skills (haven't seen this on any of the other factions).

warmaker001b · April 2015

patrickngo wrote: »

TBH, part of the reason I suggested getting the crafted items, was that for the first week or so, there was low-level PvP going on, and it's easier to just run with the same setup for the first forty or fifty levels, with only needing to add things sporadically-upgrade kits go for a flat rate from the vendor for the basics, but they let you NOT have to replace much as you level, while the rarity increases that occasionally happen help in getting you into endgame without needing to grind your eyeballs out on STF's to move sliders from left, to right.

basically, with my recruit, I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to end at, and started with a setup that doesn't need much changes to get there beyond spending dilithium on upgrades and occasionally cranking out an additional console of a type I already wanted (instead of hoping the random number gods will give me one.)

keep in mind, I don't use Univesals much on ANY of my builds. I may occasionally carry a Leech on a drain build, but in general, most of my characters aren't reliant on set bonuses, lockbox consoles, or Rep Consoles. (i do have a couple of toons that are heavily into 'fleet gear' setups.)

I hear you.

I can get by without the fancy consoles either. At low levels, even Plasmonic Leech isn't a big impact like it is for endgame builds. Vent Theta Radiation is pointless because NPC shields hold up like wet paper bag with hulls the equivalent of a wet noodle.

From the leveling process, by the time my new characters, regardless of faction and ship, were at Lv40-ish, I typically had odd-mark, common quality weapons and equipment. consoles were so random I just simply threw on whatever was there. If I got tac consoles that pertained to my weapons, that was nice, but wasn't necessary. You can level towards Lv50 without any TAC consoles and find this game to be a joke.

It's refreshing in a ways doing the low level stuff. None of the extra stuff you gotta worry about with endgame builds. Am I hitting 75 across my subsystems for AMP to be maximized? Do I have enough of X skill to make Y ability hit this hard to get Z performance? Is this combination of gear towards bonuses ideal?

For leveling, none of that **** matters. Just put basic equipment on the ship. BOFF loadout is more important. I don't even slot any EPTx abilities except EPTW until Tier 5. Even BOFF traits is irrelevant in Sub-50 leveling. Do that and this game is just a total ****ing joke.

farranor · April 2015

warmaker001b wrote: »

Obviously, you took his post to heart requiring you to get endgame gear. Frankly, buying cheap, odd-mark, common quality equipment from the ship vendor as you level up in rank, and having a decent enough grind, leveling build is too OP for this game. For someone of your early registration date, I'm surprised you're having trouble with Tractor Beams. EPTE, A2D, Evasive Maneuvers, APO, etc all resist or get you out of holds like Tractor Beams. You really need to dive into the abilities of this game and know what they can and can't do, and finding a combination of abilities to throw onto a ship and make it perform. That alone will enhance your play in this game far better than having fancy equipment.

While leveling, I did not bother with any shield or hull repairing abilities. Whether I was flying an Escort, Bird of Prey, Cruiser. It didn't matter. I had ZERO need for any repair abilities whatsoever.

Escorts? EPTW, TAC abilities like CRF, HYT, BO, etc were more than enough. I will kill everything before my hull is down to 98%.

Cruisers? EPTW, BFAW. Done. Next.

You can do this with common quality gear. You can do this with the common quality gear from a lower rank that you just left. The key is getting an aggressive enough BOFF setup and kill everything before they're a problem. Once you get to the high enough ranks to start doing STFs, then you actually have to worry about other things. But for leveling, this joke of a game has nothing. Go ALL OFFENSE. Know your counters. Kill 'em all.

That's very nice for you, but I'd be below 98% after the enemy fired their first shot. Or, if that shot was a "salvo," I would be dead. Kinda hard to shoot things down when your weapons are in the middle of a firing cycle and there's little time to react because you're close in behind the enemy in an attempt to do more damage.

narthais wrote: »

Short answer; Abso-bloody-lutly.

Somewhat longer answer: Your gear should be keeping up with your teir, if that meas a whole new set every few hours then so be it, you can do this with the odd numbered whites you can get fro EC at the shipyard for faction weapons and basic ship gear, consoles are a bit trickier but the whites still go cheap on the exchange.

Personally I craft MK 2 gear when I start a new character and throw superiour upgrades with a x2 tech point catalyst, that will keep them upgrading with me right through to MK 8, but im aware not everyone can or is willing to do this. you can do it with whites.

As for the boff optimization, why wouldn't you? I mean that's just simple logic, you can even make up for sub par gear with a good boff build.

I'm using the gear that came with the ship on slots for which I hadn't gotten any upgrades from drops or quest rewards (meaning pretty much no consoles). I used the mission-reward Boffs with their default abilities until getting the level 40 BoP. My crafting on that character is level 4 for one school and nothing for the rest, so crafting would have to be done on a high-level main (new "recruits" don't have those). The notion that you should have to spend dilithium on gear just to do normal-mode story episodes without dying every five minutes is patently ridiculous. I sincerely pity any actual new players who go into this game hoping to Boldly Go just like their favorite starship captain and trusting that the developers balanced the leveling experience. Fortunately, they'll learn otherwise quite quickly.

...Unless, of course, their favorite starship captain is Picard, and they're dead set on using iconic abilities like Fire at Will and Emergency Power to Shields while piloting their cruiser. Then they will be fine.

TL;DR: Dying in a videogame is a hint to the player that they did something dreadfully wrong. It should not be a normal part of the leveling process, even for ordinary players who aren't veteran min-maxers.

bernatk · April 2015

Ok an obvious question, you know you get a free ship every 10 levels, right?

You should really use those tokens. BOP is a POS for PVE. It's a PVP ship.

fovrel · April 2015

If you play on normal, do as I do in a BoP. This can only work if you have a Lt Comm engineer. Slot Eject Warp plasma I. Cloak, close in on the target, decloak, hit EWP and evasive man. lay a warp plasma screen arround your target, place yourself at his rear, fire away. I call this tactic The TRIBBLE.

EWP is also a wonderful defensive tool for pets and destructable projectiles.

dpsloss88 · April 2015

BOP is the most powerful ship in the game before you hit 50. I am using a tier 2 Bop even though I have access to a cstore Tier 3 romulan ship. Thats how good they are. Flanking is deadly against NPCs. They rarely get off more than 2 shots from their rear weapons...

Use BO2 and a torp when decloaking point blank on the target's stern, NPCs do not use tac team....

mustrumridcully0 · April 2015

farranor wrote: »

I'm using the gear that came with the ship on slots for which I hadn't gotten any upgrades from drops or quest rewards (meaning pretty much no consoles). I used the mission-reward Boffs with their default abilities until getting the level 40 BoP. My crafting on that character is level 4 for one school and nothing for the rest, so crafting would have to be done on a high-level main (new "recruits" don't have those). The notion that you should have to spend dilithium on gear just to do normal-mode story episodes without dying every five minutes is patently ridiculous. I sincerely pity any actual new players who go into this game hoping to Boldly Go just like their favorite starship captain and trusting that the developers balanced the leveling experience. Fortunately, they'll learn otherwise quite quickly.

Dying in STO is harmless. There are no cost associated with it if you stay on Easy. So I think if you really just tke the BOFFs as you level, and not optimize your gear, then dying every 5 minutes is okay.

Otherwise, you're just flying through a video, but you are not playing a game.

There should be some level of threat that makes you think "Okay, I need to figure this out".
I am not saying that STO does this perfectly well, however.

Picking the right BO skills to ensure you kill your enemies without getting killed for example I think is essential. That is something you should at least start to learn during leveling, even if a lot will still elude the grasp of a new player. Biggest challenge in STO is that figuring out what a power actually does, what purpose it has and is it useful.

In case of the BOP. It is a fragile ship. Using its maneuverability and battle cloak to get in the right position to unload massive alphas is the best general strategy. Trying to "harden" it will probably fail if your problem is single hit kills - ensuring that these hits don't happen in the first place is your best guess. I think.

Many offensive powers that could hurt you only work in the front arc, some may work on both aft and front, but not side (I think most NPCs don't seem to shoot torps out f the back, but I could be wrong. If they shoot front and aft, you may have to attack from the side).

For example, if you attack a Warbird from the side, you're definitely save from any massive torpedo salvos, until it can turn. If it tractors you, that may be unfortunate, but if it doesn't turn fast enough before it blows up, it is not a big problem.
If that doesn't work, you could try to slot one of the counters (Polarize Hull or Attack Pattern Omega).

Another way to deal with heavy torpedoes can be using area effect powers. Cannon Scatter Volley instead of Cannon Rapid Fire will lower your alpha strike capability, of course, but maybe it can help you deal with your troubles, too. Gravity Well, Tyken's Rift and (well timed) a Photonic Shockwave could also help.

Generally - if you need certain powers to deliver enough firepower or have enough counters ready, don't forget to wait for them to recharge!

dpsloss88 wrote: »

Use BO2 and a torp when decloaking point blank on the target's stern, NPCs do not use tac team....

I think Mogai do. Or at least used to. That made them tougher than Warbirds. That and Tractor Beam Mines made them particular nasty...

Mustrum "And now I want a Tier 6 BOP" Ridcully

warmaker001b · April 2015

farranor wrote: »

That's very nice for you, but I'd be below 98% after the enemy fired their first shot. Or, if that shot was a "salvo," I would be dead. Kinda hard to shoot things down when your weapons are in the middle of a firing cycle and there's little time to react because you're close in behind the enemy in an attempt to do more damage.

I'm using the gear that came with the ship on slots for which I hadn't gotten any upgrades from drops or quest rewards (meaning pretty much no consoles). I used the mission-reward Boffs with their default abilities until getting the level 40 BoP. My crafting on that character is level 4 for one school and nothing for the rest, so crafting would have to be done on a high-level main (new "recruits" don't have those). The notion that you should have to spend dilithium on gear just to do normal-mode story episodes without dying every five minutes is patently ridiculous. I sincerely pity any actual new players who go into this game hoping to Boldly Go just like their favorite starship captain and trusting that the developers balanced the leveling experience. Fortunately, they'll learn otherwise quite quickly.

...Unless, of course, their favorite starship captain is Picard, and they're dead set on using iconic abilities like Fire at Will and Emergency Power to Shields while piloting their cruiser. Then they will be fine.

TL;DR: Dying in a videogame is a hint to the player that they did something dreadfully wrong. It should not be a normal part of the leveling process, even for ordinary players who aren't veteran min-maxers.

I honestly cannot see how you're dying in Sub-Lv50 normal content. I truly can't. You can curbstomp this game with the offense possible in such low levels because the NPCs hardly do anything. Their damage is covered by the natural shield regen with zero shield heals thrown in. I hold the PVE in this game in such utter contempt that I have zero regard to their offensive capability.

Aggressive action, aggressive BOFF setups, and keeping the bare bones ET1, ST1 is too OP for this game below Lv50. You can stomp this game with only common quality gear and no universals, no epics, no hand-me-downs from twinked out characters.

This game's PVE should be treated the way it truly deserves: Curbstomp the **** out if it, disrespect it, kick it to the side and move on to the next kills, the next missions. You don't need fancy BO3/TS3/premium BOFF abilities. You don't need fancy gear. You don't even need the C-Store ships as you level.

My Delta Recruit is a tac in a BoP

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