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Pilot Ship Questions
kittyhawknx91036
Member Posts: 41 Arc User
I was looking at buying one Pilot Ship (all i can afford right now). That said I have a few questions:
What is the best Pilot Ship for staying alive and still sustaining massive damage? Strangely I saw a YouTube video saying they liked the science vessel over the tactical.
For the Romulan Pilot Ship is cloaking a valuable asset for a Pilot Ship style of play?
If you have to choose between a Federation and Romulan (federation) pilot ship what would you choose?
Any good links to Pilot Ship builds yet?
What is the best Pilot Ship for staying alive and still sustaining massive damage? Strangely I saw a YouTube video saying they liked the science vessel over the tactical.
For the Romulan Pilot Ship is cloaking a valuable asset for a Pilot Ship style of play?
If you have to choose between a Federation and Romulan (federation) pilot ship what would you choose?
Any good links to Pilot Ship builds yet?
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They're all pretty much equal in terms of hull/shield. Depends on how you outfit your ship and what career path. Obviously and Eng or Sci will have more heals available than a Tac would.
All Romulan pilot ships have a Romulan Battle cloak. The battle cloak is as important to the pilot ship as it is to any other Romulan ship. If it's part of you're battle strategy, then it's very important, if it's not, then it's not.
Depends. What are you lfying now?
I was flying a Fleet Defiant (T5U), Fleet B'Rel (T5U) and a Fleet T'Varo (T5U). The Tac pilot ship I bought I feel is a direct upgrade to the Defiant and the T'Varo. The Klingon pilot Raptor is more of a side-grade. Performance wise it's fine, but I kinda miss the battle cloak.
What ships you have now, would strongly influence my choice. I would go with whichever ship you have now that is weakest, and replace that one first.
One other thing to take into account, c-store ships are account unlocks. If you have two Fed's, you can buy one ship and use it on two characters, two Rom's same thing,... so there's that to take into consideration.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
I saw that one youtube posted that Science Pilot Ships are the best because Tactical were incredibly squishy. thoughts?
So for a Human federation Tactical. Is there a good build with an explanation on how to use it?
Any extra info on the Tactical would be valuable before I buy.
Thanks
I'm one of the crazies that bought the Pilot Ship Pack. You can stay alive just as well in any of the Pilot Ship variants. I refer you to this thread in one of the subforums. I have lots of comments about surviving in the Pilot Ships and heavy utilization on a feature of STO that seems to have been forgotten in all this BFAW-TAC Cruiser Craze that has gone on for a while now.
Bonus Defense.
The best form of defense is to not get hit. The best form of resist is to not get hit so you don't have to resist damage to mitigate its effects. Damage that doesn't touch you is damage that nobody, not you, not a teammate, has to repair.
Each of the Pilot Ship variants are outstanding in their own ways.
- The SCI version lets you play with a SCIScort format. LtCdr SCI is nice on any ship.
- The ENG version lets you play with the "Destroyer" format (any Escort with LtCdr ENG). Whether you use in that LtCdr position ET3, EPTW3, or whatever, it's a powerful ability. Escorts flying around with ET3 is a Cruiser level luxury on an elusive, nimble ship.
- The TAC version lets you go old school, TAC Heavy STO. The Cmdr TAC/Hybrid and LtCdr TAC lets you have a lot of freedom of offensive play. Did you say "Kemocite Laced Weapons?" Sure, and with a LtCdr slot, you can put on Kemocite Laced Weapons III (which are cheaper on exchange than I or II but still expensive nonetheless) and still have space to slot APB1 and TT1, and commit the Cmdr station to 100% Pilot.
Survivability? Very easy to survive in any version of the Pilot Ships. I refer again to the linked thread and the use of Bonus Defense. Pilot Ships also have the luxury that no other Escort, Raider, or Bird of Prey has: Overabundant combination of high turn rate, impulse mod (speed), and inertia. Only the Risian Cruiser flies better. Nothing else, even the vaunted JHAS/JHSS flies as well as the Pilot Ships. Not only that, the Pilot Ships have Pilot Maneuver abilities. Charge up the fuel and you have a very short maneuver that makes you IMMUNE to damage.
I have zero problems staying alive in my Pilot Ships. To include the TAC versions. The insane Bonus Defense they achieve, the ability to move so quickly into good firing positions or get fly fast away from trouble, and on top of it, Pilot Maneuvers for even more tools, it makes it easy to stay alive. I typically have my healing abilities charged up more because I hardly use them on myself. I tend to use my healing abilities on teammates that are getting hit all the time.
The Pilot Ships are not your typical Escort. They're more than that. None of them are "squishy." Bad players make any ship squishy. I will say this:
Successfully flying a Pilot Ship is markedly different from other Escorts.
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Romulan Battle Cloak on the Rom Pilot Ships. How valuable is it? That greatly depends.
I clearly understand the OP nature of Romulan Battle Cloaks and I use it all the time, cloaking, decloaking to get the Ambush Damage Modifier. Depending on BOFF & Trait Setup, I can make that +45% Bonus Damage last 23 seconds with a roughly 9 second recloak timer. Very easy to do with a Reman Captain, actually. If not, my Romulans can make it last 15 seconds. I can make it 23 seconds with them also but that probably forsakes a Superior Romulan Operative somewhere. Anyways, no Attack Pattern in this game has that level of potency and availability. I use that OP Warbird-only capability to its max. When I fly Warbirds, I fly it to its fullest of what it offers.
However, I know the vast majority of Rom players out there do not use their Cloaks to their fullest. They may use it on the initial approach but once combat is started, they seem to think they're flying a Non-Cloaking Fed Vessel again.
Personally, not using Cloaked Warfare to their fullest in a Warbird, PVE or PVP, is a massive waste and throwing away one of the strongest, overpowered capabilities in this game.
If you're trying to fly the Rom Pilot Ships like a Fed ship, don't bother.
I don't have the Science version but I haven't found the Tac model to be squishy at all. It really depends on how you set it up and what consoles you're using. While it is not a hard and fast rule and there are multiple exceptions, I tend to follow the rule ship follows career. I use Tac ships on tac officers, science ships on science officers etc, etc,...
Approximately 5 seconds. Depends on how you trigger your powers. If you trigger them BEFORE you cloak, then about 5 secs. If you wait until you're cloaked then 5 seconds plus however long it takes to trigger off your powers and then get into position.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
Not sure what the basic recloak timers are for Warbirds but there is 1 trait in your entire Warbird's build that significantly cuts that down:
Romulan Operative
Found in either Romulan Captains (Liberated Borg Romulan Captains don't get this trait) or Romulan BOFFs. If you got the DR Pack, there is a Reman TAC BOFF that is OP as ****: He has Superior Romulan Operative and Superior Infiltrator.
Anyways, Romulan Operative does lots of great things but it cuts down that recloak timer very well. The higher quality of the trait, the better. I can get the recloak timer down to 9 seconds for my Roms/Remans. The best my KDF in a BOP can do is about 16-18 seconds.
Edit: Romulan Operative trait stacks, FYI.
Ummmmm just no! No no no. I am glad you're interested in the new stuff, sorta, but steer clear of these ships unless you know exactly what you're doing and have a lot of dps (as that's what they're designed for)
The hulls of these ships are down below the bug ship/defiant. They come stock around the aquarious/KDF raider. They are not designed to be hit, that's why they're so maneuverable. You should be a tac, or a decent dps'ing sci/eng because the purpose of this ship is to fly fast, dodge and blast. Trying it for other than its intended purpose is something I'd leave for us guys who have been in game a long time, have lots of loot and can experiment with various builds...
Now it's your money, but I would hate to see you blow it on something that you won't be happy with unless you know exactly what you're getting yourself in to. Let's put it this way, I bought all 9 but strictly for the traits, and for something to play around with because it's very different to fly these than anything else in the game, but I really need to be in a mood to just sorta mess around to fly it. When hunting marks or something, I'm not flying those. I did try and take one in Gates of Gre'thor Advanced once...I won't be doing that again, it's waaay to squishy to be trying to handle all those probes and stuff. I would say if you have fleeties that know what they're doing you'd be fine no matter what you're flying around...but PUG'ing anything, those pilot ships are not something you want to do unless you want to get popped a lot.
That all being said, if you are dead set on buying it, buy the sci variant if that's all you can afford as it has the most useful trait of the 3. It raises you shot penetration from 0-15% depending on your throttle setting. Obviously max settings will give you 15% and it lowers as you slow.
It seems you don't understand your way around Escorts.
Let me introduce to you an old friend called "Bonus Defense" that Cryptic introduced as something Escorts excel at, back around 2011. And the Pilot Ships take that and run away with it like they got the girl, too. Check the thread and enlighten yourself.