I have the Pilot Escort 3-pack, which I mostly got for my tac and eng captains.
I am leveling a sci captain and am interested in trying a build without energy weapons. So running full Aux for exotic damage and using nothing but torps/mines in the weapon slots.
I know the ship may not be ideal, but it is what I have. My question is about the torps. If you were going to slot 5 torps together, which would work best?
This is not the same ship but it gives you an idea of some torps that work well together and how you can help to have some synergy with your exotic abilities. Reyan01 of course hit on every one that I use in this build. The Bio-mol photon can be swapped for the Resonant Trans I have in the rear, but honestly I have been having really good results out of the Trans torp.
FA Janin Delwynn - Fed Tac Officer
FA Dion - Romulan Engineer Officer
FA Zophie Delwynn - Fed Science Officer
And finally, since you are (presumably) not using consoles to boost projectile damage,
I am not sure why you assumed this. I indicated that I was not spec'ing for any energy weapons. The ship does have 5 tac console slots. Is there something besides torp consoles to use there?
Another thing I am curious about. Which space sets support kinetic/exotic builds the most?
Counter-command rep deflector with adapted MACO/ Klingon Honor Guard shield and engine are the usual setup.
As for other equipment, the bio-neural gel pack to boost neutronic, the hydrodynamc compensator with a bio-molucular turret does a nice 3-piece with the bio-molecular torp. The experimental proton weapon or proton particle console as well.
I see that most torp builds have one or more beams of some kind, usually in the aft. The Icarus is only a Sci oriented escort and thus has no innate sub-system targeting.
I was not planning on spending any skill points on energy weapon specs and I was planning keeping weapon energy at the lowest setting.
Do I still need cutting beam or some omi-directional beam in the back? I was thinking of just mines or mine/6th torp combo.
I see that most torp builds have one or more beams of some kind, usually in the aft. The Icarus is only a Sci oriented escort and thus has no innate sub-system targeting.
I was not planning on spending any skill points on energy weapon specs and I was planning keeping weapon energy at the lowest setting.
Do I still need cutting beam or some omi-directional beam in the back? I was thinking of just mines or mine/6th torp combo.
More often than not, beams or turrets in the back are to complete a 2 or 3 piece set for things like extra crit chance/ severity, extra radiation damage, and so forth.
So, you don't necessarily need energy weapons of any kind in the rear weapon slots, you just may miss out on some set bonuses you might like.
And finally, since you are (presumably) not using consoles to boost projectile damage,
I am not sure why you assumed this. I indicated that I was not spec'ing for any energy weapons. The ship does have 5 tac console slots. Is there something besides torp consoles to use there?
Yes - universal consoles that boost sci abilities.
Interesting. I need to get to know the universal consoles a little better then.
Do you think there is more to gain from using up to 5 tac consoles for sci upgrades than using them for +damage to the 5 torps?
And finally, since you are (presumably) not using consoles to boost projectile damage,
I am not sure why you assumed this. I indicated that I was not spec'ing for any energy weapons. The ship does have 5 tac console slots. Is there something besides torp consoles to use there?
Yes - universal consoles that boost sci abilities.
Interesting. I need to get to know the universal consoles a little better then.
Do you think there is more to gain from using up to 5 tac consoles for sci upgrades than using them for +damage to the 5 torps?
I guess it depends on what you want to use as your main damage dealer. Sci abilities or the torps? You can do both, but the question becomes, will it work as well as focusing on one or the other? I can't really add to what the others have said, other than maybe change your ship. If you don't have a tac vesta, then stick with what you have.
There are multiple build options that, bugs aside, are viable. How easily they can be utilized is up to you. Your ship selection should be influenced by three primary factors:
Seating Console slots Maneuverability
A 3 or 2 Tac console slot should, IMHO, focus more on Sci abilities or survivability (looking out for the torpedo Aggronauts in the community). 4-5 Tac console has the choice to choose, but typically would benefit the most from focusing on kinetic & radiation damage (with Kemocite).
Seating and Maneuverability are more straight-forward. Maneuverability is what you are comfortable with in your firing platform. I've made a "Siege Ship" out of a Presidio and other slow heavy cruisers. You can pull some very nice numbers using them as Qwhip/Ceph has done before.
I've made a "Siege Ship" out of a Presidio and other slow heavy cruisers. You can pull some very nice numbers using them as Qwhip/Ceph has done before.
If I understand the term correctly, a "siege ship" lumbers into range, and opens up a heavy hitting torp attack, usually from distance?
I've made a "Siege Ship" out of a Presidio and other slow heavy cruisers. You can pull some very nice numbers using them as Qwhip/Ceph has done before.
If I understand the term correctly, a "siege ship" lumbers into range, and opens up a heavy hitting torp attack, usually from distance?
Correct. Those are typically firing torps that are heavy hitting (regardless of flight speed). You can have energy weapons to help supplement the ship either offensively or defensively, but the bulk of the damage is done via torps.
You can see my Presidio in action here (video courtesy of Timberwolf1701):
I have the Pilot Escort 3-pack, which I mostly got for my tac and eng captains.
I am leveling a sci captain and am interested in trying a build without energy weapons. So running full Aux for exotic damage and using nothing but torps/mines in the weapon slots.
I know the ship may not be ideal, but it is what I have. My question is about the torps. If you were going to slot 5 torps together, which would work best?
Any suggestions?
Depends on your build.
Generally, I suggest using spike (burst) and sustained damage torpedoes. Spike damage can be put fore or aft. Use shield bypassing damage/torpedoes because of those pesky shields. I've found that using all sustained damage torpedoes, such as photons/plasma/etc, leads to prolonged (long drawn out) dogfights. Best to mix Spike/Burst and Sustained damage torpedoes.
Suggestions:
Example: Sustained damage:fore, spike damage:aft.
Fore:
Hargh'peng (burst)/Neutronic (Suggestions: Depending on the build: Neutronic with a flow cap build)
Gravimetric (Suggestions: Place in first priority if using a part. gens build)
Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo (PEP) (Suggestions: Place in first priority if using a plasma build or to use as a 6 sec near hold)
I can actually verify that there was no change to any listed damage to the Gravimetric via tooltip by adding or subtracting Part. Gen. consoles as of Wednesday 8/26/15; I did not run any tests though so I cannot comment on if damage was actually affected.
I can actually verify that there was no change to any listed damage to the Gravimetric via tooltip by adding or subtracting Part. Gen. consoles as of Wednesday 8/26/15; I did not run any tests though so I cannot comment on if damage was actually affected.
I have never managed to find any evidence that we can boost the damage of that torpedo with Part. Gen but its clear the GravGens skill extends the duration in high yield.
Grav torps are definitely only affected by the grav gen skill, nothing else (except general kinetic damage boosts). The name is a bit misleading as people assume it'll work like grav wells but sadly it doesn't. Don't let that put you off though.
Dropping a GW3 on a group of NPC's and then dropping a spread of these torps is always fun, especially if they all proc and you get the "washing machine" effect going.
The particle emission torp is probably the top one for sci boats as it's damage can be boosted real high with all the parti gen boosts they can get. The cloud also slows targets which again makes hitting them easier as they stay in your arc plus have less defense value.
Also, this torp's main damage potential (the cloud) bypasses shields so you don't need to worry about them.
If you are going with the sci-pilot-escort then make sure you have a grav well of some sort. The advantage of having a grav well is that it clusters the targets together which turns pretty much any torp into and AOE attack with splash damage.
And for those torps that legitimately have AOE attacks already, everything overlaps and you can do way more damage than shooting at moving targets out in the open. It literally is like shooting fish in a barrel.
5 torps, so you want heavy hitting/ long cooldown torps to the left, with fast reload ones on the right. Starting from left to right, I'd go with:
IMO that shouldn't matter. In order to properly fly a torp boat, you need to learn how to fire your torps manually. It will be difficult at first but it will be very rewarding once you learn how to do it.
I see that most torp builds have one or more beams of some kind, usually in the aft. The Icarus is only a Sci oriented escort and thus has no innate sub-system targeting.
As mentioned by @ryakidrys, some of us run beams aft to complete set bonuses. In addition to that, some traits/abilities that benefit torps require an energy weapon (such as the Weapon System Synergy trait or the Command Tree traits) to trigger.
In order to properly fly a torp boat, you need to learn how to fire your torps manually. It will be difficult at first but it will be very rewarding once you learn how to do it.
I'll defer to your judgement. I've tried firing them manually and been very unhappy with the results, so I most likely did it wrong. I've been very happy with the amount of information I've been getting lately on kinetics on this forum and other sources. Please, keep it coming!
In order to properly fly a torp boat, you need to learn how to fire your torps manually. It will be difficult at first but it will be very rewarding once you learn how to do it.
I'll defer to your judgement. I've tried firing them manually and been very unhappy with the results, so I most likely did it wrong. I've been very happy with the amount of information I've been getting lately on kinetics on this forum and other sources. Please, keep it coming!
Yeah I was skeptical at first when @darkknightucf first told me to do it. It took me weeks to get right and until now I have not perfected it. Even then, it gave me a lot of control over my torps and I can switch torp priority on the fly as needed.
What worked for me was placing my torps to be triggered by the 1-4 keys. Weapon buffs are on Shift+1-4 keys and Sci skills at Ctrl+1-3 keys. To supplement that, I have fire all weapons set to space so that when all I am doing is firing normal torp shots (when TS or HY are on cooldown), I can use the space bar to trigger everything in sequence.
In order to properly fly a torp boat, you need to learn how to fire your torps manually. It will be difficult at first but it will be very rewarding once you learn how to do it.
I'll defer to your judgement. I've tried firing them manually and been very unhappy with the results, so I most likely did it wrong. I've been very happy with the amount of information I've been getting lately on kinetics on this forum and other sources. Please, keep it coming!
Yeah I was skeptical at first when @darkknightucf first told me to do it. It took me weeks to get right and until now I have not perfected it. Even then, it gave me a lot of control over my torps and I can switch torp priority on the fly as needed.
What worked for me was placing my torps to be triggered by the 1-4 keys. Weapon buffs are on Shift+1-4 keys and Sci skills at Ctrl+1-3 keys. To supplement that, I have fire all weapons set to space so that when all I am doing is firing normal torp shots (when TS or HY are on cooldown), I can use the space bar to trigger everything in sequence.
What he does helps a ton in improving your game with projectiles. Find targets that would 'give you a break' and shoot at them until this becomes second nature to you, then unleash hell upon your enemies
Comments
This is not the same ship but it gives you an idea of some torps that work well together and how you can help to have some synergy with your exotic abilities. Reyan01 of course hit on every one that I use in this build. The Bio-mol photon can be swapped for the Resonant Trans I have in the rear, but honestly I have been having really good results out of the Trans torp.
FA Dion - Romulan Engineer Officer
FA Zophie Delwynn - Fed Science Officer
I am not sure why you assumed this. I indicated that I was not spec'ing for any energy weapons. The ship does have 5 tac console slots. Is there something besides torp consoles to use there?
With having so many torps, would you use some kind of "fire all" command, or fire each one individually depending on the situation?
1. Vaadwaar Cluster Torp
2. Particle Emission Projectile
3. Neutronic
4. Bio-Molecular photon
5. Gravimetric photon
You may want to look at the thread linked below. There is a lot of good info and links to ship builds too.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums#/discussion/1201621/torp-boats/p1
Odenknight has some of the better kinetic builds for PvE, so check his stuff out if you can.
As for other equipment, the bio-neural gel pack to boost neutronic, the hydrodynamc compensator with a bio-molucular turret does a nice 3-piece with the bio-molecular torp. The experimental proton weapon or proton particle console as well.
I was not planning on spending any skill points on energy weapon specs and I was planning keeping weapon energy at the lowest setting.
Do I still need cutting beam or some omi-directional beam in the back? I was thinking of just mines or mine/6th torp combo.
More often than not, beams or turrets in the back are to complete a 2 or 3 piece set for things like extra crit chance/ severity, extra radiation damage, and so forth.
So, you don't necessarily need energy weapons of any kind in the rear weapon slots, you just may miss out on some set bonuses you might like.
Interesting. I need to get to know the universal consoles a little better then.
Do you think there is more to gain from using up to 5 tac consoles for sci upgrades than using them for +damage to the 5 torps?
I guess it depends on what you want to use as your main damage dealer. Sci abilities or the torps? You can do both, but the question becomes, will it work as well as focusing on one or the other? I can't really add to what the others have said, other than maybe change your ship. If you don't have a tac vesta, then stick with what you have.
Seating
Console slots
Maneuverability
A 3 or 2 Tac console slot should, IMHO, focus more on Sci abilities or survivability (looking out for the torpedo Aggronauts in the community). 4-5 Tac console has the choice to choose, but typically would benefit the most from focusing on kinetic & radiation damage (with Kemocite).
Seating and Maneuverability are more straight-forward. Maneuverability is what you are comfortable with in your firing platform. I've made a "Siege Ship" out of a Presidio and other slow heavy cruisers. You can pull some very nice numbers using them as Qwhip/Ceph has done before.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
If I understand the term correctly, a "siege ship" lumbers into range, and opens up a heavy hitting torp attack, usually from distance?
Correct. Those are typically firing torps that are heavy hitting (regardless of flight speed). You can have energy weapons to help supplement the ship either offensively or defensively, but the bulk of the damage is done via torps.
You can see my Presidio in action here (video courtesy of Timberwolf1701):
https://youtu.be/W5p0JsdiyuE
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Depends on your build.
Generally, I suggest using spike (burst) and sustained damage torpedoes. Spike damage can be put fore or aft. Use shield bypassing damage/torpedoes because of those pesky shields. I've found that using all sustained damage torpedoes, such as photons/plasma/etc, leads to prolonged (long drawn out) dogfights. Best to mix Spike/Burst and Sustained damage torpedoes.
Suggestions:
Example: Sustained damage:fore, spike damage:aft.
Fore:
Hargh'peng (burst)/Neutronic (Suggestions: Depending on the build: Neutronic with a flow cap build)
Gravimetric (Suggestions: Place in first priority if using a part. gens build)
Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo (PEP) (Suggestions: Place in first priority if using a plasma build or to use as a 6 sec near hold)
Aft:
Breen Cluster (burst)
Romulan Hyper Torpedo (sustained damage)/Tricobalt (burst)
You can mix them up:
Fore:
Breen Cluster
Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo
Enhanced Biomolecular Torpedo
Aft:
Neutronic/Hargh'peng/Tricobalt (depending on the build)
Romulan Hyper Torpedo
Example of Plasma Build:
Fore:
PEP
Omega
Craftable Plasma/Lobi Torpedo
Aft:
Breen/Vaudwar Custer Torpedo
Romulan Hyper Torpedo
You can use many different torpedoes, play around with different builds. Have fun with it.
The cloud from PEP is affected by PGens.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Interesting, they seemed to work (poster mentions Part. Gens. boost damage) and now you are claiming they do not in a test you ran. Sounds like something is going on.
I can actually verify that there was no change to any listed damage to the Gravimetric via tooltip by adding or subtracting Part. Gen. consoles as of Wednesday 8/26/15; I did not run any tests though so I cannot comment on if damage was actually affected.
Dropping a GW3 on a group of NPC's and then dropping a spread of these torps is always fun, especially if they all proc and you get the "washing machine" effect going.
The particle emission torp is probably the top one for sci boats as it's damage can be boosted real high with all the parti gen boosts they can get. The cloud also slows targets which again makes hitting them easier as they stay in your arc plus have less defense value.
Also, this torp's main damage potential (the cloud) bypasses shields so you don't need to worry about them.
If you are going with the sci-pilot-escort then make sure you have a grav well of some sort. The advantage of having a grav well is that it clusters the targets together which turns pretty much any torp into and AOE attack with splash damage.
And for those torps that legitimately have AOE attacks already, everything overlaps and you can do way more damage than shooting at moving targets out in the open. It literally is like shooting fish in a barrel.
IMO that shouldn't matter. In order to properly fly a torp boat, you need to learn how to fire your torps manually. It will be difficult at first but it will be very rewarding once you learn how to do it.
As mentioned by @ryakidrys, some of us run beams aft to complete set bonuses. In addition to that, some traits/abilities that benefit torps require an energy weapon (such as the Weapon System Synergy trait or the Command Tree traits) to trigger.
Torp God @darkknightucf covered everything else.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
I'll defer to your judgement. I've tried firing them manually and been very unhappy with the results, so I most likely did it wrong. I've been very happy with the amount of information I've been getting lately on kinetics on this forum and other sources. Please, keep it coming!
Yeah I was skeptical at first when @darkknightucf first told me to do it. It took me weeks to get right and until now I have not perfected it. Even then, it gave me a lot of control over my torps and I can switch torp priority on the fly as needed.
What worked for me was placing my torps to be triggered by the 1-4 keys. Weapon buffs are on Shift+1-4 keys and Sci skills at Ctrl+1-3 keys. To supplement that, I have fire all weapons set to space so that when all I am doing is firing normal torp shots (when TS or HY are on cooldown), I can use the space bar to trigger everything in sequence.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
What he does helps a ton in improving your game with projectiles. Find targets that would 'give you a break' and shoot at them until this becomes second nature to you, then unleash hell upon your enemies
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.