Emissary class

Comments

• darkjeff Member Posts: 2,590 Arc User

  April 2015 edited April 2015

  In general, we wanted to have the same type of weapons (DHCs/DCs/Cannons/Turrets vs Beams/DBBs) because abilities (Fire At Will, Cannon Scatter Volley) only affect one type of weapon. So it doesn't make sense to (for example) carry both FAW and CSV to only affect half your weapons each, as opposed to carrying two copies of FAW or CSV and affecting all your weapons.
  
  This doesn't necessarily apply to the newer ships with hybrid seats, which have abilities that affect all energy weapons, like Surgical Strike.
  
  For a Star Cruiser, you're going to want 7 beam arrays and 1 Kinetic Cutting Beam or 8 beam arrays, all of the same energy type. You're not going to turn fast enough to use anything else, and if you grab 4 RCS consoles you'd still basically fighting against your ship's innate stats.
  
  Your tactical consoles would ideally be Tactical Vulnerability Locators of the appropriate energy type, but if you don't have access to them (they're from Fleet Spires) then simply the appropriate tactical console for that energy type. There is never cause for anything other than tactical consoles of the right flavor in your tactical console slots.
  
  The other slots are freer for whatever you want. If you have a Plasmonic Leech console (very expensive) then you're going to want Flow Caps in all your Science consoles, preferably ones with [Plas] from a Fleet Embassy. Otherwise, you're still going to want the Fleet version of Science consoles, if available.
  
  You do not want more than one armor console unless you're planning on being a Tank (Tank = Take&Hold Aggro + Survive Aggro), usually we end up throwing our Universal consoles in the Engineering console slots. Assimilated (Omega Rep) and Zero-Point Energy Conduit (Romulan Rep) are fitting here. If you have Lobi, Bioneural Infusion Circuits is the highest contributor to DPS.
  
  Speaking of the Zero-Point Energy Conduit, I tend to recommend Plasma as a decent energy type for a beam boat. You have the Experimental Romulan Plasma Array from the Romulan Rep which doesn't drain weapon power, always handy, and the 2-set bonus will boost Plasma. Kind of nice since you're hurting for damage boosts with only two tactical consoles.
  
  Now, the above has just been about Gear. However, where Performance = Gear x Piloting x Build, Gear is one of the least important contributors towards Performance, with Piloting and especially Build having a much greater effect.
  
  With the engineer-heavy seating in the Star Cruiser, I recommend a cheap Dragon build (which refers to having two pairs of EPtX abilities):
  
  Lt Tac: TT1/FAW2
  Cdr Eng: EPtS1/ET2/EPtW3/AtSIF3
  LCdr Eng: EPtS1/RSP1/EPtW3
  Lt Sci: HE1/TSS2
  Ens Sci: ST1
  
  Your power settings should be 100 Weapon / 50 Shields / 25 Engines / 25 Auxiliary to start (then tweak as you go).
  
  If you were worried about shields, now you have indestructible shields.
  
  First of all, EPtS1 (Emergency Power to Shields 1) and EPtW3 (Emergency Power to Weapons 3) each have a 30s duration, a 45s cooldown, and 30s Duplicate Ability cooldown. That means having two copies of either one allows for full uptime on either ability. There is also 15s System cooldown, which means using one puts the other on a 15s cooldown. This means that after 15s (when you use one of them), you'll be able to have both EPtS1 and EPtW3 active constantly.
  
  (If you're an Engineering Captain, having 3 ranks in the Starship Batteries skill will cause the EPS Manifold Efficiency trait to be constantly active as a result of this.)
  
  EPtS1 will regenerate and give resistance to your shields, as well as boost Shield Power (which does the same thing), helping them stay up. EPtW3 will give you a damage bonus as well as a Weapon Power boost, which is important - ideally we want our Weapon Power to stay at 125 at all times when we're shooting, including during FAW (Fire At Will).
  
  FAW2 is going to be your primary source of damage, you're going to want to use that whenever appropriate - don't waste it when there's only one enemy left and a group is approaching at 11km, don't waste it when you're passing the Gateway in Infected and aren't in position yet - but otherwise you want to have it going whenever it's off cooldown.
  
  Energy Weapon Officer DOffs can help reduce the cooldown on FAW.
  
  Defensively, TT1 (Tactical Team 1) will automatically and instantly redistribute shields, which can effectively quadruple the shield health of one facing. It'll also clear boarding parties - use TT1 as appropriate, when one facing is falling or when you're boarded.
  
  To actually recover shields, you have TSS (Transfer Shield Strength), ST (Science Team), and RSP (Reverse Shield Polarity). TSS is a good shield heal over time and hardens your shields as well, so activate it as your shields start to fall. ST is a big chunk of instant shield heal and clears Science debuffs (like those annoying pacify and confuse effects), so save it for when you need it. RSP has the longest duration but it turns incoming energy damage into a shield heal - if you're under fire from a group of enemies, it can effectively get you from Almost Dead Shields to Completely Full Shields in seconds.
  
  If all that isn't enough, Shield Distribution Officer DOffs will turn Brace For Impact into a shield heal.
  
  For your hull, we have AtSIF3 (Auxiliary to Structural), ET2 (Engineering Team), and HE1 (Hazard Emitters). AtSIF has a really low cooldown of 15s, and is a good heal and damage resistance buff (10s). I like to keep this firing every 15s, it'll keep my hull topped up while I'm not paying attention, and keep my damage resistance up 2/3rds of the time. Then you have ET2 giving a big chunk of health when you need it, and it'll restore disabled subsystems as well. Lastly HE1 will clearly hazard debuffs (like the Borg Shield Neutralizer or Plasma Fires, and a few of the new Intel things) and provide a heal over time. Use'em as appropriate.
  
  You should be effectively invulnerable while dealing decent damage from FAW2 backed by EPtW3.
  
  If you find you're too invulnerable (you never use all your heals), then switch out RSP1 and ET2 for two copies of DEM1. DEM (Directed Energy Modulation) doesn't add that much damage, but it beats having redundant heals. Make sure to time your DEM1 with FAW2 - you don't want to waste DEM when you're not using FAW2. The Marion DOff makes DEM reduce weapon power drain, which would significantly increase the damage of this alternative, but he costs significant amounts of EC.
  
  
  Next there's the AtB build. This requires you to have 2-3 good Technician DOffs. You can get free purples from Critical Successes on the Support B'Tran Cluster Colonization assignment. How Technicians work is that they reduce the cooldown of BOff abilities when you use Aux to Battery. So with that in mind:
  
  Lt Tac: TT1/FAW2
  Cdr Eng: EPtS1/AtB1/EPtW3/DEM3
  LCdr Eng: ET1/AtB1/RSP2
  Lt Sci: HE1/ST2
  Ens Sci: TSS1
  
  By constantly using AtB (Auxiliary to Battery), you'll be keeping the cooldowns on everything at their minimum. This will allow you to use FAW2 50% more (twice per minute to thrice per minute), as well as pair it with DEM3. Your Auxiliary powered abilities will be weaker, hence the switch of TSS and ST. The availability of all those heals will practically double, so you'll be tougher and more damaging.
  
  There are a few downsides to AtB, but I don't think they'll affect you yet - for example, AtB builds can't use the Tier 4 Nukara Reputation traits (some of the best in the game), but I'm guessing you're not at that point anyway.
  
  Hope that helps! The Star Cruiser was what I spent most of my time flying (using the Dragon build I described, without any DOffs) back when I was new and poor, 2-3 years ago. Very nostalgic.

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• kiloace Member Posts: 488 Arc User

  April 2015 edited April 2015

  I love the Star Cruiser, but I utilized the skin by purchasing a "Mirror Universe Assault Cruiser" from the exchange for a small amount of EC. I couldn't afford the prime one with Dilithium.
  
  That ship was gold to me for a very long time on my Fed alt. I stocked my beloved "space whale" with the traditional "3 beams + 1 torp" fore and aft and it was very nice. In a cruiser (more easily as an Engie captain, but still) you want to exploit any opportunity to max out your power levels. More weapon damage, shield resistance, speed and aux boost to certain abilities is great.
  
  I would recommend investing in skills that buff power levels, like Warp Core Efficiency, Warp Core Potential, DEFINITELY Weapon and Shield Performance...
  
  On ANY ship you EVER FLY (except maybe a torpedo boat) you want 100 power in weapons. After that, it depends on shields and aux for a cruiser. Higher shield power will make your shields better at absorbing damage and regenerating. This is why high power levels across the board are good fro cruisers.
  
  To seal the hole in your shield weakness, I would recommend looking for abilities that have "Reduces Damage to Shields by X%" attached. Your two main skills for this are going to be "Emergency Power to Shields" (an Engineering ability) and "Transfer Shield Strength" (a Science ability). In ships with a lot of Engineering Bridge Officer abilities, you want to stack multiple kinds of "Emergency Power" abilities. I use Shields + Weapons, and alternate them as soon as the cooldown is up. That keeps both Weapon and Shield Power maxxed a good deal of the time, ensuring that I'm dealing maximum damage and my shields are at full strength. Toss on a Regenerative Shield Array (these are great with high shield power!) and you got it!
  
  Hope this helps.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie

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• excusatio Member Posts: 4 Arc User

  April 2015 edited April 2015

  WOW WOW WOW Thank you a lot darkjeff, your response was VERY exhaustive, I am missing half of the acronyms, but I'll manage!!! Is there perhaps a page with acronyms?
  
  Thanks to you as well, Kiloace.
  
  I was coming from a Trident class (Fleet Deep Space Science Vessel) and since I didn't have enough zen to pass to a tier 6 class (I originally wanted to get a Pathfinder Long Range Science Vessel), I thought that getting a star cruiser would have been a good idea.
  
  I hope I was not wrong.
  
  THANK YOU AGAIN!!

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• darkjeff Member Posts: 2,590 Arc User

  April 2015 edited April 2015

  I thought I explained the acronyms in the "how to use" sections, did I miss one?
  
  I take it this is a Fleet Star Cruiser (T5.5) not a Star Cruiser (T5-40), then? It's not the choice I would have made, but it should be alright.
  
  Personally, the only Fleet ship I own is a Fleet Assault Cruiser Refit - 'cause it's the Enterprise-E.
  
  There's also the Fleet Exploration Cruiser (T6) now.

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• excusatio Member Posts: 4 Arc User

  April 2015 edited April 2015

  Yes sorry, you've been perfectly clear in all suggestions.
  
  Perhaps I will ask some more if problems arise
  
  
  Thanks again

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