I'm starting to suspect that the mechanics have been rigged to something specific I don't have or don't have yet.
Given the responses, I'm assuming that no matter how you upgrade your shield, they're going to tear it down anyway, so it's useless in this encounter.
That might explain why my Kobali cruiser does slightly better in this scenario, the traits are all geared to hull augmentation as far as I can tell.
No, mechanics are the same as allways. No, shields can hold (given resistencies, capacity and heal). And yes, a cruiser with the addition of healingpowers can have an easier time.
If you wish to post about builds, do so and continue to be ignored.
And for the record, it's not the knowledge I don't trust, it is the ability of the average mmo player to discuss the problem without resorting to flamewarring.
Which is why I forbid build discussion absolutely now, to prevent the hostile activity that will inevitablity result. Now stop posting about builds, I have said all I wish to about that line of discussion.
There is only so much we can tell you without giving build advice. The herald encounters follow the same basic rules as every other encounter in this game. And the fastest way to improve would be to evaluate a build. There are only two tips one can give for heralds: Keep moving and shoot down the spam. Though those apply to all encounters.
If all you want to do is discuss tactics, why don't you go film yourself running it and people can critique your tactics.
He is basically right, though you cant parse tactics, but film them.
But obviously a skilled player could get some intel about your build from that, and you wouldnt want that, eh...
Its like you want us to cure a ruptured lung without operating
it is the ability of the average mmo player to discuss the problem without resorting to flamewarring.
Which is why I forbid build discussion absolutely now, to prevent the hostile activity that will inevitablity result. Now stop posting about builds, I have said all I wish to about that line of discussion.
Then dont post it in the general discussion subforum and post it in the mechanics subforum instead, or the appropriate shipyard subforum. Threads in those subforums tend to be pretty productive. If your build is good, your tactics are good then you shouldnt have any fear of the thread turning into a flamewar. And if people start to troll you or flame you then ignore them.
I'd rather have a discussion where all facts and information are presented and risk a flamewar (but still hope for a meaningful discussion) instead of having some halfassed discussion where you get to pick and choose what we can and cannot discuss EVEN if the things we cannot discuss are relevant to the discussion.
If you wanna ignore me/us fine...in which case the only advice i will give you is make sure the correct end of your phaser is pointed towards your enemy.
LOL, you make a thread that you're having a survivability issue but do not want build advice.
Okay, fine.
It's how you're flying and fighting against the Heralds and not a magical stat line that your're missing out on. There is no magical piece of gear that you need. There is no magical ship or tier that you need. It's you.
You can handle the Heralds on Advanced with Delta Recruits outfitted with TRIBBLE gear, zero T5 reps, TRIBBLE selection of traits.
There.
Indeed, what a silly thread. Enough ppl here that could help him with his survivability issue; but preemptively biting the hand, extended to help you, 'ok', whatever, OP, you're on your own then. :P
T6 ships have more options - specialist BOff slots, most notably. They're also substantially better stat-wise than the free T5 ships, though the current geneally agreed on best ship in the game is the T5-U version of the Scimitar.
But the queues are designed to be completeable with any ship at least as good as the free T5 ships. You'll have a rough time doing them there without top-end gear, but it can be done. I can do them in a T'varo retrofit, which is a VAdm token ship, with ease.
I am interested in the answers relating to the discrepancy between T5 and T5U/T6 ships.
.
.
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I'm starting to suspect that the mechanics have been rigged to something specific I don't have or don't have yet.
Given the responses, I'm assuming that no matter how you upgrade your shield, they're going to tear it down anyway, so it's useless in this encounter.
That might explain why my Kobali cruiser does slightly better in this scenario, the traits are all geared to hull augmentation as far as I can tell.
The discrepancy between T5 and T5u/T6 ships is pretty simple. T5u/T6 gains more stat bonuses (varies depending on the ship) and more hull strength as you level up your starship mastery. T5u have 4 mastery levels. T6 have 5 mastery levels. T5 ships have no mastery levels.
Don't discount the fact that the T6 Kobali cruiser's hull has more hit points than whatever T5 starship you are flying.
I've been having a problem with the survivalbility of my T5 ship in Advanced Queues (Iconian Heralds).
I thought the problem might be the shield was not good enough, so I upgraded it to level 14.
This had no effect in increasing survivability.
Which got me wondering, are the game mechanics designed so that only T5U and T6 ships with the associated Starship Traits can survive in level 60 content?
Before you say it, there is no Fleet, T5U or T6 version of my ship, so I have to use a T5 manditorily.
Also, if you want to offer build advice, do not.
In my personal experience, when mmo players want to offer build advice, to me, it means we want to start a flamewar because we don't like your build. And that includes STO players.
I am interested in the answers relating to the discrepancy between T5 and T5U/T6 ships.
There are tactics?
I thought the battle was fairly scripted, 1st stage, kill all the groups around the bases, 2nd stage, shut down the radiation gateways, 3rd stage, Dreadnaught.
I'm starting to suspect that the mechanics have been rigged to something specific I don't have or don't have yet.
Given the responses, I'm assuming that no matter how you upgrade your shield, they're going to tear it down anyway, so it's useless in this encounter.
That might explain why my Kobali cruiser does slightly better in this scenario, the traits are all geared to hull augmentation as far as I can tell.
If you wish to post about builds, do so and continue to be ignored.
And for the record, it's not the knowledge I don't trust, it is the ability of the average mmo player to discuss the problem without resorting to flamewarring.
Which is why I forbid build discussion absolutely now, to prevent the hostile activity that will inevitablity result. Now stop posting about builds, I have said all I wish to about that line of discussion.
First off, what ship are you flying that comes only in a T5 variant, with no other options?
To the best of my knowledge, the few ships that meet that specification are the mirror birds, and of them, outside of the KDF and RR mirrors, they're clones of a different ship that does have a fleet version - if not the skin you desire...
Secondly, the build discussion threads I see on the forums here usually don't take the "flame the OP with the question" technique, it's usually "flame the other guy who's advice doesn't match what I want to say".
And even then, I've seen productive thoughts come out of those combats...
Thirdly, the only players I know that can realistically say "Tactics, I don't need no stinking tactics" are the ones who are parsed doing 30k+ DPS while PuGging ISA. The rest of us need some idea of what to do and/or how to do it while piloting our ships. The fact that you are here complaining about the differences between straight up T5 and T5.5 (aka Fleet) or T6 is an indication that you aren't quite there. 80% of the race to 30k DPS is build, 20% is piloting. But, to help guide you as to what power to use at what junction to help increase your DPS requires a discussion or at least listing of what you're using in your build...
For the record, I'm in the T6 Pathfinder (Intrepid), putting out an average of 9k DPS in ISA PuGs, but I usually only run into issues with the Heralds when I either solo them or maintain aggro for way too long. I could probably have close to the same results if I popped over to my T5 Luna, partially due to skill choices and traits (build components), partially due to tactics - like knowing when and how to use some of my build's abilities (always GW the bigger ship(s) of a Herald force, as they are the ones that spam the disable probes. Having BFaW is a godsend for swarms of the raiders or probes, and sometimes it's better to hold off on the AoE because the opposition is on cooldown too, I've GWed a battleship/dreadnought, watched it spawn the solar gateway, then BFaWed to nail the gateway instead of spamming GW and BFaW just to watch my ship melt to the delayed solar gate)
Now, to close out and answer the question you actually opened with.
Yes, the game mechanics are designed to favor Fleet T6 ships the most, Plain T6 & T5U ships fairly well, and leaving the rest of the ship(s) in the yards. It should be obvious that the latest greatest power level is what they're building their opposition around. Otherwise, if they kept the game balanced for T5 (straight), nobody would feel that "pressing need" to upgrade to the fancy-schmancy new stuff.
At the same time, is it possible for a well built straight-up T5 handle the content? Yes, it's possible, but requires a very tight / specific build with very little room for error in use.
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
What is parsing?
I thought it was recording combat logs as a text file, which most likely cannot be done on a MacOS system.
But video recording on the other hand, that made more sense, so here you go: Fighting the Iconian Heralds in GG
Apologies in advance for the quality of the video and the odd cropping, my gaming capture software is not very good.
And only watch that video if you have 15 minutes to spare. it is not a short one.
The video was recorded at normal difficulty, I doubt you will learn much from seeing my ship explode a lot during the Advanced mode.
The video was recorded at normal difficulty, I doubt you will learn much from seeing my ship explode a lot during the Advanced mode.
Actually, people probably would... But the fact you've not shown your Boff abilities, or anything of the like for that matter - undoubtedly to maintain this crutch that the problem has nothing to do with you and how you're playing, but some unfair discrepancy between T5 and T5U/T6 - virtually negates anyone being able to give sound advice anyway...
Sovereign Class.
And before you say it, the Fleet Sovereign Class is not the same ship!
The BOFF stations are different.
They are the same, almost... Fleet variant has one additional Tac console slot, a Uni Lt instead of Uni Sci and 10% stronger hull... These are not hugely game-changing differences...
They are the same, almost... Fleet variant has one additional Tac console slot, a Uni Lt instead of Uni Sci and 10% stronger hull... These are not hugely game-changing differences...
There's also the switch between LtComm Tac and LtComm Eng.
Edit:
In relation to the OP, it's not so much mechanics designed to favor T5U/T6 as mechanics favoring specific build types. Sure, T5U/T6 will provide improved performance, but using the same build is likely going to yield extremely similar results.
I know you don't want to discuss build stuff, but from what I see......cycling resist buffs, carrying a SciTeam to clear subnuke and not relying on the Breen set (which is fairly mediocre) would probably improve performance.
I've been having a problem with the survivalbility of my T5 ship in Advanced Queues (Iconian Heralds).
I thought the problem might be the shield was not good enough, so I upgraded it to level 14.
This had no effect in increasing survivability.
Which got me wondering, are the game mechanics designed so that only T5U and T6 ships with the associated Starship Traits can survive in level 60 content?
Before you say it, there is no Fleet, T5U or T6 version of my ship, so I have to use a T5 manditorily.
Also, if you want to offer build advice, do not.
In my personal experience, when mmo players want to offer build advice, to me, it means we want to start a flamewar because we don't like your build. And that includes STO players.
The opponent you're facing uses a lot of shield bypassing ramming attacks so an upgraded shield has only limited value. Against the heralds the key words are crowd control, Area of Effect weapons and hull tanking.
While the content in not specifically geared towards T5-U/T6 and can be done with T3-5 the extra hull gives some nice additional survivability.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
T5 ships do not gain bonus hull after level 40 to level 60. They will have at most 9 consoles. They will have at most 12 BOff stations. They are not top of the line, but still quite effective.
T5U/T6 ships gain bonus hull after level 40 to level 60. They will at most have 11 consoles. They will at most have 12 (T5U) or 13 (T6) Boff stations. They are top of the line and VERY effective.
You don't want build advice fine, I won't give you specifics. But to survive the Heralds you need something that cleanses offensive debuffs (they use suppression barrage), you will need something that restores downed subsystems (they use EMP probes), and you will need something that cleanses disables (they use ionic turbulence and subnucleonic wave). If you can use those things, you can do just fine even in a freebie assault cruiser.
But to answer the title of your thread, this next portion is what you want.
Normal content can be completed with a T5 ship and mk IX white gear. All of it. Advanced content, it can still be done, but it will be rough. It's recommended you at least upgrade to mk XII blue gear at the weakest. As for Elite content? Don't even bother unless you at least have a T5U ship with at least mk XII purple gear. So yes, the absolute hardest end game content is geared towards fully fitted out T5U and T6 ships.
Any other questions OP?
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
I've been having a problem with the survivalbility of my T5 ship in Advanced Queues (Iconian Heralds).
I thought the problem might be the shield was not good enough, so I upgraded it to level 14.
This had no effect in increasing survivability.
Which got me wondering, are the game mechanics designed so that only T5U and T6 ships with the associated Starship Traits can survive in level 60 content?
Before you say it, there is no Fleet, T5U or T6 version of my ship, so I have to use a T5 manditorily.
Also, if you want to offer build advice, do not.
In my personal experience, when mmo players want to offer build advice, to me, it means we want to start a flamewar because we don't like your build. And that includes STO players.
Surviveability has a lot to do with what the player has done. Each ship has it's strengths and weaknesses, maximized and minimized by gear, how the ship is flown, and how it is set up.
A T5 ship is totally able to be competitive with level 60 content, if it is setup and operated well.
An improperly setup T5 ship is just as bad as an improperly setup T6 ship, so upgrading to a T6 ship won't help make things better, it will feel like a wasted expense of an upgrade. Fortunately, it's probably not a difficult thing to improve what you already have which could make the experience much more enjoyable.
When you are ready to get help, ask for it, but don't put restrictions in place as it is often times going to hurt things more than help.
It also favors skilled players... Not that I am one or have any problems just slapping breen/solanae/jem'hadar on whatever I'm flying and trollololing though... Upgrading what's that... Can you eat it?
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
I've been having a problem with the survivalbility of my T5 ship in Advanced Queues (Iconian Heralds).
I thought the problem might be the shield was not good enough, so I upgraded it to level 14.
This had no effect in increasing survivability.
Which got me wondering, are the game mechanics designed so that only T5U and T6 ships with the associated Starship Traits can survive in level 60 content?
In short, t5 is still good enough more or less.
current content is designed to provide a challenge to a casual player driving a t5U ship with say 15, 20 spec points and level XIV gear (at least the weapons) with a decent build. A skilled player can still do it in a t5. An unskilled player can't do it in a t6.
Most players do not have starship traits in large numbers. A typical player might have enough to put one trait in each slot in the character sheet but odds are half of the are not really all that good for their particular build. Example... someone might have the breen and kobali free ship traits, and those may not be doing much for their ship... but they have nothing else to put there... the only people with tons of good traits spent a lot of money and effort to get them, and the game is not balanced around having 4 awesome traits installed. The only good one I have is pedal to the metal... and all it does is a minor damage increase.
Surviving a new enemy type takes adaptation and tweaking of your build. Day 1, DR launch, tears and more tears about the evil horrible undefeatable impossible vaaduar ships. Turns out if you avoid their blue balls of death, they are pretty wimpy after all. Now we have iconians.. and it turns out that if you kill off the stupid probes and suicide fighters, they are pretty wimpy after all. You need AOE to beat iconians, period. Those probes are nasty, and their fighters are nasty. The easiest time I have had of it was with TBR X 2 installed on my ship -- but I am a science captain on my main. It was doable with just FAW spam but as my FAW spammer is an escort, it was risky and I die sometimes (and its a t6 ubership too). Figure out WHAT exactly is killing you. Change your skills or strategy to handle it. This has nothing to do with me telling you a specific build to use -- I don't care what you do -- but if you want to survive, this always applies to new content: figure it out and adapt to it, or die. While we are being captain obvious here... the best defense is a good offense. If you splatter them across the black before they can shoot back, you won't die. Some t5 ships can do this, and some can't. You may or may not have a high dps ship or high dps build, but this is a game that expects at least "decent" dps ....
At the end of the day, its calculus to the rescue. You have to kill them at a faster rate than they kill you. How you do that ... you could be immortal and just sit there dinking away for 3 hours, or you could be a glass cannon that does 500k dps or whatever people are doing these days, or you can do something in between. There are many thousands of builds that can do this in t5 ships. There are also thousands of builds that can't do it.
Such a ridiculous premise, that build has nothing to do with it.
The single biggest increase in anti-Iconian performance that I got came from replacing my Aux to Struct with Eng Team so I could counter their bloody disables.
Or sell a T5U upgrade item for the generic T5 ships.
I would have bought that!
Heck, if they take it to the logical extreme, there would also be a market to add Command and Pilot specializations to T5/T5U and T6 ships that didn't specifically come with those stations (Nicor bioship, Romulan Scimitar, etc).
And if anyone is wondering what the purpose of the thread is, it's about whether T5 ships are performance hampered compared to T5U or T6 ships at endgame level difficulty.
Short answer is yes they are hampered, only due to the obvious lack of Boff slots, Stats and other very well known stuff.
Longer answer is that it's got more to do with your abilities in piloting and building a ship. While some say it's 80% build and 20% piloting, I'd actually say it's closer to 75% piloting and 25% build. Building a ship is a skill in itself, despite your fear of a group of people coming to burn the house down with arguments, you actually caused a problem with your initial statement denying anyone the ability to try to assist you in getting the fundamentals of your build right.
For instance I normally fly a faw boat. It's fun and does the job of clearing out mobs nicely. However we had a laugh last night building a cheap all Turret build to try to get 10K DPS in ISA with it (remember this was for fun ). First run I barely broke 5K, but I had no idea how to fly the ship (first time running an Ambassador T5 ever and with a totally silly build). Second run I hit 9.7K DPS and would have managed 10 if I hadn't mis-clicked at the end and got myself blown up!
In the end I learn't a lot about how to fly that ship more effectively which almost doubled my DPS, rather than changing all the stuff on the ship to get more DPS. Of the gear used most was Mk 11 or 12 ranging from Uncommon to Very Rare qualities. I used the Breen set which was Mk 11 too and really wasn't suited to the build much, but was what I had lying around.
With the main ship and some slightly better gear on that character I can pull around 20-25K DPS with a T5-U running Mk 12 gear. So while build is important, knowing how to use it is far more important.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
I've been having a problem with the survivalbility of my T5 ship in Advanced Queues (Iconian Heralds).
I thought the problem might be the shield was not good enough, so I upgraded it to level 14.
This had no effect in increasing survivability.
Which got me wondering, are the game mechanics designed so that only T5U and T6 ships with the associated Starship Traits can survive in level 60 content?
Before you say it, there is no Fleet, T5U or T6 version of my ship, so I have to use a T5 manditorily.
Also, if you want to offer build advice, do not.
In my personal experience, when mmo players want to offer build advice, to me, it means we want to start a flamewar because we don't like your build. And that includes STO players.
Your problem is, One you are closed minded. Two, You say you like your build but cant survive and refuse build advice. *FACEPALM*, And lastely You think your gear is the only factor in surviving. Skill points, Doffs and boff skill placment is key, GEar is the least of your worries. THats what your problem is.
So if I'm interpreting the info provided so far correctly, it's all about Sci skills?
That could be a problem, as most ships only get LT level stations in Science.
It's a luxury if your ship can have an LTComm science station.
I vaguely remember a time when the STO playerbase came down with LFMedic syndrome (that means everyone wants a medic in their team, but nobody wants to be the medic).
I had hoped we'd gotten over that phase, but maybe not.
I tend to ignore the debuffs, they don't seem to last long or do any significant damage.
But now that you mention it, I have noticed some of the smaller enemy ships have attended the Kamacazi School of Piloting.
The probes are particularly annoying, but only when my weapons are offline, if they are active, the problem is solved 2 seconds later.
Solar gateway is my primary concern, but I don't think there is a counter for that, other then blow it up or get out of range.
That second tactic has been a bit hard, I once measured it at 12ks (the active limit for weapons range is supposed to be 10ks!)
I have seen on occasion the fighter spam goes through the roof in 3rd phase (Dreadnaught).
One player claimed it was because the team was targeting ships other then the Dreadnaught, which triggers the arrival of fighters, but I have not verified that info.
That is also a consistent problem, but not one I think can be solved.
Players who spend ages chasing down the wrong targets, leaving you alone to deal with the most powerful enemy on the map.
Cue kaboom.
I am planning on adding some armor consoles, but at the moment, that is not possible, the vendor that sells them is not at the right level (yes, it does need to be levelled up, it is a fleet vendor) to unlock access.
Whether or not that improves hull damage resistance, I have no idea.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
So if I'm interpreting the info provided so far correctly, it's all about Sci skills?
That could be a problem, as most ships only get LT level stations in Science.
It's a luxury if your ship can have an LTComm science station.
Actually, it isn't JUST sci skills, it's more than that. The issue is that you are willfully withholding information so anyone can adequately help you. You give bits and pieces but you say you don't want the very help (ship build advice) you obviously need in whole, not in part or pieces. Based on your video, there is also piloting advice you could use too.
I've run a T4 cruiser without rep gear, without epic anything, mainly mk 12 blue stuff and made it through GTG, as a tank no less, with only blowing up once as I learned what I could get away with while testing the viability of T4 ships in end game content. If you have a T5 ship, it should be easy with a good setup, which you don't want for some odd reason.
This also isn't the first time I recall you posting on the forums but not wanting ship build advice, which you could have used then. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1350801
So if I'm interpreting the info provided so far correctly, it's all about Sci skills?
That could be a problem, as most ships only get LT level stations in Science.
It's a luxury if your ship can have an LTComm science station.
Solar gateway is my primary concern, but I don't think there is a counter for that, other then blow it up or get out of range.
That second tactic has been a bit hard, I once measured it at 12ks (the active limit for weapons range is supposed to be 10ks!)
Run TBR1 or, better yet, FAW2! Then you'll be able to easily destroy the Solar Gateways. The only time I have problems with them is when they're behind me and my TBR is on cooldown.
...did you ever finally get rid of TS2 as your LT BOFF power?
So if I'm interpreting the info provided so far correctly, it's all about Sci skills?
Not at all. While my example of adapting to the new enemy included science skills, my main character is a science captain and flying a pseudo sci ship that has lots of blue seats (breen carrier, atm).
I do OK on my other characters as well... as I said, I usually manage with just FAW spam in my escort. The point is not what skill you actually use or what build gets you there, the point was that you have to acknowledge that fact that new enemy require a different strategy that counters whatever they are doing to you that is making you explode. There are usually a couple dozen ways to do this for any given ship class and build.
Comments
Even a discussion of counters to the Iconian disables would enter into discussing your build.
You don't want to discuss your build, so what's left?
If all you want to do is discuss tactics, why don't you go parse yourself running it and people can critique your tactics.
Battle-tactics have only little to do with scripting.
Difference in skill and knowledge.
No, mechanics are the same as allways. No, shields can hold (given resistencies, capacity and heal). And yes, a cruiser with the addition of healingpowers can have an easier time.
There is only so much we can tell you without giving build advice. The herald encounters follow the same basic rules as every other encounter in this game. And the fastest way to improve would be to evaluate a build. There are only two tips one can give for heralds: Keep moving and shoot down the spam. Though those apply to all encounters.
He is basically right, though you cant parse tactics, but film them.
But obviously a skilled player could get some intel about your build from that, and you wouldnt want that, eh...
Its like you want us to cure a ruptured lung without operating
Then dont post it in the general discussion subforum and post it in the mechanics subforum instead, or the appropriate shipyard subforum. Threads in those subforums tend to be pretty productive. If your build is good, your tactics are good then you shouldnt have any fear of the thread turning into a flamewar. And if people start to troll you or flame you then ignore them.
I'd rather have a discussion where all facts and information are presented and risk a flamewar (but still hope for a meaningful discussion) instead of having some halfassed discussion where you get to pick and choose what we can and cannot discuss EVEN if the things we cannot discuss are relevant to the discussion.
If you wanna ignore me/us fine...in which case the only advice i will give you is make sure the correct end of your phaser is pointed towards your enemy.
Indeed, what a silly thread. Enough ppl here that could help him with his survivability issue; but preemptively biting the hand, extended to help you, 'ok', whatever, OP, you're on your own then. :P
T6 ships have more options - specialist BOff slots, most notably. They're also substantially better stat-wise than the free T5 ships, though the current geneally agreed on best ship in the game is the T5-U version of the Scimitar.
But the queues are designed to be completeable with any ship at least as good as the free T5 ships. You'll have a rough time doing them there without top-end gear, but it can be done. I can do them in a T'varo retrofit, which is a VAdm token ship, with ease.
The discrepancy between T5 and T5u/T6 ships is pretty simple. T5u/T6 gains more stat bonuses (varies depending on the ship) and more hull strength as you level up your starship mastery. T5u have 4 mastery levels. T6 have 5 mastery levels. T5 ships have no mastery levels.
Don't discount the fact that the T6 Kobali cruiser's hull has more hit points than whatever T5 starship you are flying.
First off, what ship are you flying that comes only in a T5 variant, with no other options?
To the best of my knowledge, the few ships that meet that specification are the mirror birds, and of them, outside of the KDF and RR mirrors, they're clones of a different ship that does have a fleet version - if not the skin you desire...
Secondly, the build discussion threads I see on the forums here usually don't take the "flame the OP with the question" technique, it's usually "flame the other guy who's advice doesn't match what I want to say".
And even then, I've seen productive thoughts come out of those combats...
Thirdly, the only players I know that can realistically say "Tactics, I don't need no stinking tactics" are the ones who are parsed doing 30k+ DPS while PuGging ISA. The rest of us need some idea of what to do and/or how to do it while piloting our ships. The fact that you are here complaining about the differences between straight up T5 and T5.5 (aka Fleet) or T6 is an indication that you aren't quite there. 80% of the race to 30k DPS is build, 20% is piloting. But, to help guide you as to what power to use at what junction to help increase your DPS requires a discussion or at least listing of what you're using in your build...
For the record, I'm in the T6 Pathfinder (Intrepid), putting out an average of 9k DPS in ISA PuGs, but I usually only run into issues with the Heralds when I either solo them or maintain aggro for way too long. I could probably have close to the same results if I popped over to my T5 Luna, partially due to skill choices and traits (build components), partially due to tactics - like knowing when and how to use some of my build's abilities (always GW the bigger ship(s) of a Herald force, as they are the ones that spam the disable probes. Having BFaW is a godsend for swarms of the raiders or probes, and sometimes it's better to hold off on the AoE because the opposition is on cooldown too, I've GWed a battleship/dreadnought, watched it spawn the solar gateway, then BFaWed to nail the gateway instead of spamming GW and BFaW just to watch my ship melt to the delayed solar gate)
Now, to close out and answer the question you actually opened with.
Yes, the game mechanics are designed to favor Fleet T6 ships the most, Plain T6 & T5U ships fairly well, and leaving the rest of the ship(s) in the yards. It should be obvious that the latest greatest power level is what they're building their opposition around. Otherwise, if they kept the game balanced for T5 (straight), nobody would feel that "pressing need" to upgrade to the fancy-schmancy new stuff.
At the same time, is it possible for a well built straight-up T5 handle the content? Yes, it's possible, but requires a very tight / specific build with very little room for error in use.
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I thought it was recording combat logs as a text file, which most likely cannot be done on a MacOS system.
But video recording on the other hand, that made more sense, so here you go:
Fighting the Iconian Heralds in GG
Apologies in advance for the quality of the video and the odd cropping, my gaming capture software is not very good.
And only watch that video if you have 15 minutes to spare. it is not a short one.
The video was recorded at normal difficulty, I doubt you will learn much from seeing my ship explode a lot during the Advanced mode.
Sovereign Class.
And before you say it, the Fleet Sovereign Class is not the same ship!
The BOFF stations are different.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Actually, people probably would... But the fact you've not shown your Boff abilities, or anything of the like for that matter - undoubtedly to maintain this crutch that the problem has nothing to do with you and how you're playing, but some unfair discrepancy between T5 and T5U/T6 - virtually negates anyone being able to give sound advice anyway...
They are the same, almost... Fleet variant has one additional Tac console slot, a Uni Lt instead of Uni Sci and 10% stronger hull... These are not hugely game-changing differences...
Assault Cruiser...
Fleet Assault Cruiser...
If you're unwilling to seek advice on what you could be doing wrong, or at least better, then you'd better be prepared to go boom alot...
There's also the switch between LtComm Tac and LtComm Eng.
Edit:
In relation to the OP, it's not so much mechanics designed to favor T5U/T6 as mechanics favoring specific build types. Sure, T5U/T6 will provide improved performance, but using the same build is likely going to yield extremely similar results.
I know you don't want to discuss build stuff, but from what I see......cycling resist buffs, carrying a SciTeam to clear subnuke and not relying on the Breen set (which is fairly mediocre) would probably improve performance.
The opponent you're facing uses a lot of shield bypassing ramming attacks so an upgraded shield has only limited value. Against the heralds the key words are crowd control, Area of Effect weapons and hull tanking.
While the content in not specifically geared towards T5-U/T6 and can be done with T3-5 the extra hull gives some nice additional survivability.
T5 ships do not gain bonus hull after level 40 to level 60. They will have at most 9 consoles. They will have at most 12 BOff stations. They are not top of the line, but still quite effective.
T5U/T6 ships gain bonus hull after level 40 to level 60. They will at most have 11 consoles. They will at most have 12 (T5U) or 13 (T6) Boff stations. They are top of the line and VERY effective.
You don't want build advice fine, I won't give you specifics. But to survive the Heralds you need something that cleanses offensive debuffs (they use suppression barrage), you will need something that restores downed subsystems (they use EMP probes), and you will need something that cleanses disables (they use ionic turbulence and subnucleonic wave). If you can use those things, you can do just fine even in a freebie assault cruiser.
But to answer the title of your thread, this next portion is what you want.
Normal content can be completed with a T5 ship and mk IX white gear. All of it. Advanced content, it can still be done, but it will be rough. It's recommended you at least upgrade to mk XII blue gear at the weakest. As for Elite content? Don't even bother unless you at least have a T5U ship with at least mk XII purple gear. So yes, the absolute hardest end game content is geared towards fully fitted out T5U and T6 ships.
Any other questions OP?
Surviveability has a lot to do with what the player has done. Each ship has it's strengths and weaknesses, maximized and minimized by gear, how the ship is flown, and how it is set up.
A T5 ship is totally able to be competitive with level 60 content, if it is setup and operated well.
An improperly setup T5 ship is just as bad as an improperly setup T6 ship, so upgrading to a T6 ship won't help make things better, it will feel like a wasted expense of an upgrade. Fortunately, it's probably not a difficult thing to improve what you already have which could make the experience much more enjoyable.
When you are ready to get help, ask for it, but don't put restrictions in place as it is often times going to hurt things more than help.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
In short, t5 is still good enough more or less.
current content is designed to provide a challenge to a casual player driving a t5U ship with say 15, 20 spec points and level XIV gear (at least the weapons) with a decent build. A skilled player can still do it in a t5. An unskilled player can't do it in a t6.
Most players do not have starship traits in large numbers. A typical player might have enough to put one trait in each slot in the character sheet but odds are half of the are not really all that good for their particular build. Example... someone might have the breen and kobali free ship traits, and those may not be doing much for their ship... but they have nothing else to put there... the only people with tons of good traits spent a lot of money and effort to get them, and the game is not balanced around having 4 awesome traits installed. The only good one I have is pedal to the metal... and all it does is a minor damage increase.
Surviving a new enemy type takes adaptation and tweaking of your build. Day 1, DR launch, tears and more tears about the evil horrible undefeatable impossible vaaduar ships. Turns out if you avoid their blue balls of death, they are pretty wimpy after all. Now we have iconians.. and it turns out that if you kill off the stupid probes and suicide fighters, they are pretty wimpy after all. You need AOE to beat iconians, period. Those probes are nasty, and their fighters are nasty. The easiest time I have had of it was with TBR X 2 installed on my ship -- but I am a science captain on my main. It was doable with just FAW spam but as my FAW spammer is an escort, it was risky and I die sometimes (and its a t6 ubership too). Figure out WHAT exactly is killing you. Change your skills or strategy to handle it. This has nothing to do with me telling you a specific build to use -- I don't care what you do -- but if you want to survive, this always applies to new content: figure it out and adapt to it, or die. While we are being captain obvious here... the best defense is a good offense. If you splatter them across the black before they can shoot back, you won't die. Some t5 ships can do this, and some can't. You may or may not have a high dps ship or high dps build, but this is a game that expects at least "decent" dps ....
At the end of the day, its calculus to the rescue. You have to kill them at a faster rate than they kill you. How you do that ... you could be immortal and just sit there dinking away for 3 hours, or you could be a glass cannon that does 500k dps or whatever people are doing these days, or you can do something in between. There are many thousands of builds that can do this in t5 ships. There are also thousands of builds that can't do it.
The single biggest increase in anti-Iconian performance that I got came from replacing my Aux to Struct with Eng Team so I could counter their bloody disables.
Short answer is yes they are hampered, only due to the obvious lack of Boff slots, Stats and other very well known stuff.
Longer answer is that it's got more to do with your abilities in piloting and building a ship. While some say it's 80% build and 20% piloting, I'd actually say it's closer to 75% piloting and 25% build. Building a ship is a skill in itself, despite your fear of a group of people coming to burn the house down with arguments, you actually caused a problem with your initial statement denying anyone the ability to try to assist you in getting the fundamentals of your build right.
For instance I normally fly a faw boat. It's fun and does the job of clearing out mobs nicely. However we had a laugh last night building a cheap all Turret build to try to get 10K DPS in ISA with it (remember this was for fun
In the end I learn't a lot about how to fly that ship more effectively which almost doubled my DPS, rather than changing all the stuff on the ship to get more DPS. Of the gear used most was Mk 11 or 12 ranging from Uncommon to Very Rare qualities. I used the Breen set which was Mk 11 too and really wasn't suited to the build much, but was what I had lying around.
With the main ship and some slightly better gear on that character I can pull around 20-25K DPS with a T5-U running Mk 12 gear. So while build is important, knowing how to use it is far more important.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Your problem is, One you are closed minded. Two, You say you like your build but cant survive and refuse build advice. *FACEPALM*, And lastely You think your gear is the only factor in surviving. Skill points, Doffs and boff skill placment is key, GEar is the least of your worries. THats what your problem is.
That could be a problem, as most ships only get LT level stations in Science.
It's a luxury if your ship can have an LTComm science station.
I vaguely remember a time when the STO playerbase came down with LFMedic syndrome (that means everyone wants a medic in their team, but nobody wants to be the medic).
I had hoped we'd gotten over that phase, but maybe not.
I tend to ignore the debuffs, they don't seem to last long or do any significant damage.
But now that you mention it, I have noticed some of the smaller enemy ships have attended the Kamacazi School of Piloting.
The probes are particularly annoying, but only when my weapons are offline, if they are active, the problem is solved 2 seconds later.
Solar gateway is my primary concern, but I don't think there is a counter for that, other then blow it up or get out of range.
That second tactic has been a bit hard, I once measured it at 12ks (the active limit for weapons range is supposed to be 10ks!)
I have seen on occasion the fighter spam goes through the roof in 3rd phase (Dreadnaught).
One player claimed it was because the team was targeting ships other then the Dreadnaught, which triggers the arrival of fighters, but I have not verified that info.
That is also a consistent problem, but not one I think can be solved.
Players who spend ages chasing down the wrong targets, leaving you alone to deal with the most powerful enemy on the map.
Cue kaboom.
I am planning on adding some armor consoles, but at the moment, that is not possible, the vendor that sells them is not at the right level (yes, it does need to be levelled up, it is a fleet vendor) to unlock access.
Whether or not that improves hull damage resistance, I have no idea.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
It's mainly Eng Team to recover from EMP probes knocking your shields and other systems offline.
No shields and no engines, stuck next to gateways, means boom.
Actually, it isn't JUST sci skills, it's more than that. The issue is that you are willfully withholding information so anyone can adequately help you. You give bits and pieces but you say you don't want the very help (ship build advice) you obviously need in whole, not in part or pieces. Based on your video, there is also piloting advice you could use too.
I've run a T4 cruiser without rep gear, without epic anything, mainly mk 12 blue stuff and made it through GTG, as a tank no less, with only blowing up once as I learned what I could get away with while testing the viability of T4 ships in end game content. If you have a T5 ship, it should be easy with a good setup, which you don't want for some odd reason.
This also isn't the first time I recall you posting on the forums but not wanting ship build advice, which you could have used then. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1350801
ST1 + HE2 or TBR1 could help you a lot there.
*snip rambling*
Run TBR1 or, better yet, FAW2! Then you'll be able to easily destroy the Solar Gateways. The only time I have problems with them is when they're behind me and my TBR is on cooldown.
...did you ever finally get rid of TS2 as your LT BOFF power?
Not at all. While my example of adapting to the new enemy included science skills, my main character is a science captain and flying a pseudo sci ship that has lots of blue seats (breen carrier, atm).
I do OK on my other characters as well... as I said, I usually manage with just FAW spam in my escort. The point is not what skill you actually use or what build gets you there, the point was that you have to acknowledge that fact that new enemy require a different strategy that counters whatever they are doing to you that is making you explode. There are usually a couple dozen ways to do this for any given ship class and build.