test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
In general, I am not sure what I am supposed to be doing.
saumerez
Member Posts: 34 Arc User
in The Academy
I played this game a couple of years ago. I think the level cap was 50 then and I got to the cap as a tactical officer.
I knew I was not doing everything the game offered even back then and the game has gotten a bit deeper since I returned (or so it seems).
I am having fun and that is the main thing but I am still curious about things that I am clearly not doing well.
sometimes in a borg threat mission I will fly off and engage by myself and get toasted pretty quickly. Sometimes I see players fly off and pop a cube like a balloon and I wonder what they are using. What am I missing?
I am enjoying the game as I said. I am 57 at the moment. I have a t6 escort carrier (whatever its called) and I recently bought the command battlecruiser pack. I am sure I have not equipped them particularly well but they're fun.
Still I could use some general guidance. Maybe a li k to a not-so-newbie guide.
I knew I was not doing everything the game offered even back then and the game has gotten a bit deeper since I returned (or so it seems).
I am having fun and that is the main thing but I am still curious about things that I am clearly not doing well.
sometimes in a borg threat mission I will fly off and engage by myself and get toasted pretty quickly. Sometimes I see players fly off and pop a cube like a balloon and I wonder what they are using. What am I missing?
I am enjoying the game as I said. I am 57 at the moment. I have a t6 escort carrier (whatever its called) and I recently bought the command battlecruiser pack. I am sure I have not equipped them particularly well but they're fun.
Still I could use some general guidance. Maybe a li k to a not-so-newbie guide.
0
Comments
Weapon types - make sure you only use one weapon type, then fill all of your tactical consoles with consoles which boost that damage. (In my opinion this is super broken as it makes ships with more tactical console slots OP, reduces the usefulness of fun gimmick consoles and makes a lot of tactical consoles obsolete but it ups damage so much that it's sort of an unwritten rule that you don't not do it)
Power management: You should always have your weapons power at maximum once you reach about level 40. This ups your damage considerably. The spread of the rest is up to you and dependant on the ship.
I usually pick one of the others to max and keep the other two super low although a few times I've tried flying builds where I alter the power based on what I'm doing - I found that a little difficult given there are now soo many abilities and BOFF powers to activate as well. Now I pretty much default to:
escort - max power weapons, then as much of the rest in engines as poss.
science - max power weapons, then as much of the rest in aux as poss.
cruiser -max power weapons, then as much of the rest in shields as poss.
Also try and make sure there's synergy with your power set up and your warpcore. I used to use a lot of warpcores that did very little because they'd be doing things like adding seven percent of my lowest allocated power type to my highest rather than the other way around.
DOFFS - if you don't have purple active doffs in your space roster which are useful and relevant to the ship you're flying you're doing it wrong.
Finally beware using too many BOFF powers which share cooldowns. All the "monster" players choose boff powers carefully so that they can be constantly activating a different type of power - e.g. as soon one attack pattern finishes it's effect another one can be set-off which will run out when the cooldown of the first one has finished etc. People have written tracts on how to have the perfect BOFF powers set-up but I still like to hold onto an element of fun-ness and mission appropriateness in this area.
Similarly your skill points could be optimised to a degree to optimise both attack and defense, although if you fly lots of different types of ships and want to ensure variety I wouldn't specialise too much here as it's not really necessary. However there are many skills where having at least 6 points is considered a must have and several others which are considered a waste of points.
Finally make sure you've filled all your trait slots and don't have any unspent spec points.
The guys that are able to pop cubes like balloons, are typically those that have the lastest top end DPS machine and, more than likely, are using whatever current broken damage mechanic exists in the game. Takes a boat load of resources to get to that point.
By comparison, my ferengi toon just got to the point where she could fly the Nandi. Since I like to buck the trend, I'm using a skittle boat. Every damage type of cannons for the wider arc. Cannon damage boosters. Not much else special. "Proper" doffs for my setup but none of them are purple so it's not optimal. Decent setup of boff skills and using 2 copies of CRF. Grav well and an energy syphon. Some set items from the last two FEs. No fleet stuff. No SRO roms. Nothing better than Mk XII rare I think and some is probably Mk X. In fact, I think a couple of the tac consoles are uncommon Mk VIII. Just started the Reps so no equipment or traits from that. No traits except the basic ones and the one that you get mastering the Nandi.
Borg red alerts aren't "easy", but I can take out the groups of spheres myself as well as 2 cubes as long as I take on one at a time. Much the same in Tholian red alerts. As long as I pick my targets carefully and never take on more than 1 recluse at a time, I can solo the support groups.
So really, most would consider this a "TRIBBLE" setup and laugh me out of queues etc but I think it "works" because I've followed some of the basic guidelines. Even this sort of setup will do well for me once I actually get some better gear on it etc. I think a big part of it as well is knowing what your setup can do and use more strategy as opposed to just going in guns a blazein.
One specific question; do two tac consoles of the exact same type stack? If so, how do they stack. If both are 20% damage for example, does a second console add a straight 20% of the base weapon damage or 20% of the weapon plus first console total?
No, you didn't necessarily. If your ship is going to broadside, then you'd typically use "all" beam arrays. If you're going to try and keep your nose at the targets all the time, then you might do something like beam banks fore and then in the back you would use all the omni beam arrays you could, and then turrets for the rest. The main thing is that they're all the same damage type to match your tac consoles. eg, all plasma.The issue with turrets is that, unless you do a cannon build, your boff powers are going to boost your beams and thus your turrets don't get any buff. They end up being pretty much useless. If you do a cannon build, then you wouldn't want omni beams (cutting beam is a typical exception to the rule) on the back even if they do more damage than turrets. Cause your boff skills you'll use will be buffing cannons (and turrets).
Another thing to consider. If you're doing the escort type thing of nose to target as much as possible, then you're expecting to kill that target first pass and not have to swing around for another pass. Pilots typically will slow down, reverse or whatever so they don't have to turn and can just kill it fast. Thus they'll have turrets on the back even if they have beams up front. However, if you plan on doing nose on most of the time but don't mind swinging around for a second, third, fourth pass etc, then you might as well use beam arrays instead of turrets on the back so you do more damage as you swing around. So really, it all depends on how you're going to fly your ship that will determine whether you end up sticking some turrets on there cause there might not be much else you can do with the slots.
I haven't flown the ships you mentioned but It would seem to me they would be more suitable for broadsiding. Thus you'd go the "all" beam array route.
- Dual (Heavy) Cannons front + Turrets. => Cannon Rapid Fire and Cannon Scatter Volley buff everything.
- Beam Arrays everywhere => Beam Fire At Will Buffs everything.
- Dual Beam Banks front, Omni-Directional Beam Array Aft. => Best for ships with a front-loaded weapon load out (like 5/3, 5/2, 4/3); Beam Fire At Will Buffs almost everything. Ideal if you ch
Sometimes people add either a single dual beam bank with beam overload for extra spike damage (only for cannon/turret builds), or add in a torpedo with High Yield or more likely these days Torpedo Spread (works both cannon/turret and beam builds). Beam Overload and the torpedo buffs only affect a single weapon, but can a lot of extra damage to that weapon.The favourite in the high DPS area seems to be BFAW-based beam builds.
When you get to Science Vessel, I think you're probably better off with a different route - a torpedo heavy build.
Blowing up a Borg Cube is not that difficult, at least not in Red Alert. You probably want Mark XIV gear for that, but a 3 DHC + 1 DBB + 3 AFt Turret builds buffed by Attack Pattern Alpha and Omega and Cannon Rapid Fire and Beam Overload III can do this easily, and AFAIK, this isn't one of the top-level DPS builds. (It's great fun though with a manoeuvrable ship like most Escorts.)
It's complicated, but basically, they work in that the first console will add just as much as the second console. But the numbers you will see might not work out to be exactly 20 %.
The game has many modifiers that affect your damage. I believe we currently distinguish 3 or 4 categories of damage modifiers. Within a category, you simply add the bonus, but the categories are multiplied.
Among the modifiers you might not even conciosly think of are things like the Mark of a weapon. The standard white common phaser array deals a certain amount of damage, and the weapon mark is modifier from a particular category that multiplies that damage - and several other damage modifiers also fall into that category.
If you're asking how you can improve your damage (without getting bogged down in details):
-Use the same types of weapons(avoid mixing, say, single cannons and dual cannons or cannons and beams). This disrupts weapon power flow and, directly, the amount of damage from each shot.
-Resistance nullification and armor penetration go a long way. They will usually add more damage to your attacks than straight damage boosts - obviously, you can stack them with said damage boosts.
-Range is important. This is especially true for cannons which see a serious damage falloff after about 5km(7-8km for beams). I suggest trying to stay around 3km for general combat. This is less critical for ships focused around torpedos or exotic damage.
There are a LOT of little ways to launch damage through the roof and into the stratosphere beyond this, but it tends to get a lot more convoluted.
Percentage based consoles stack at the base level(non cumulative). Each damage console will add the same flat amount of damage to your weapons before all other modifiers.
"- All energy weapons should either be beam-style weapons OR cannon-style weapons; do not mix and match beams and cannons on the same ship. (Turrets are cannons, though they do not use the word.)
- If you choose to use projectile weapons, use only one, and place it in a forward slot."
Why these matter? Seems rather arbitrary rules.
Please explain because im in total violation. I dont PvP if it matters.
Not sure on the torpedo thing.
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
I run cannons with my beams. Torps in the front and rear. My escorts at times I put mines. I never had issues taking out targets. Then again, I don't do STFs. Most say don't use cannons on a D'Deridex, come with me on a mission. I will show them a thing or 2.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
The main reason to use only a single torpedo is that torpedo buffs only affect a single launcher, and equipping more torpedoes means that you have less cannons or beams benefitting from your cannon or beam buffs without getting "buffability" for the extra torp. (The same reason is why I suggest if you use cannons, you can use a single dual beam bank, since you can combine it with beam overload, which also buffs only a single beam.)
There are torpedo-oriented builds that use more launchers, but they are in my experience only interesting for science vessels that already deal a lot of kinetic damage, and utilize a lot of special torpedoes from reputations or crafting. (Particle Emission Torpedo, Gravimetric Torpedo, Neutronic Torpedo are among the recommended choices.)
Ultimately, it comes down to firing cycles and power drain. Cannons fire - they steal their weapon energy, now your beams fire and deal less damage because of lower weapon power - steal their energy, then your cannons fire and deal less damage, rinse; repeat.
Conversely, if you run all dual heavy cannons, for example, they all fire at the same time. Damage is calculated before weapon drain, so they will all fire for maximum damage.
You can compensate this by overloading your weapon's power beyond 125 and adding weapon drain resistance, but those solutions can require some sizable investment. Back before power generation became as prolific as it was today, these measures were more or less mandatory for broadsiding beam cruisers(which will commonly have miss-matched firing cycles due to fore and aft arcs not always reaching their target(s) at the same time.)
Amusingly, this means running aft beam arrays instead of turrets/Omnis on an escort is more power efficient, but most people(myself often included) don't care that much. It also eats a lot of tactical bridge seating if you're running cannons up front.
The bit about torpedos is rubbish and entirely subjective depending on your build and what you want to do with the ship. that said, never mount more than two photon torpedos on the same facing; they naturally cycle fast enough that there is no benefit for slotting more than that(likewise, same-type mines cycle perfectly in pairs and cannot be rotated faster than that by adding more). Quantums/plasmas imperfectly cycle at 3 launchers with a bit of dead time - you can easily use less tubes with some projectile duty officers. The Gravimetric Photon Torpedo has a Quantum/Plasma 8 second timing instead of the usual 6 second of every other photon, so you'll have to adjust for that if you use it.
At the end of the day, however, the most important thing is that you're having FUN with whatever you are flying, regardless of how impractical or 'un-optimal' it is.
As others have said, when using the "AoE weapon" powers - Cannon Scatter Volley and Beam Fire at Will, they only affect weapons of the "name" type - since Turrets are Cannon, BFaW doesn't boost them (and therefore boost DPS).
Back in the day, I consciously ran a DBB-fore turrets-aft Luna, specifically because I didn't want BFaW aggroing everything on my tail and wasn't as concerned about DPS as I was "mission effectiveness" (I tended to die a lot more aggroing spheres on then-KASE probe duty with BFaW aft arrays, and a dead probe duty officer = not good)
Since we have the omnidirectional arrays, I usually ride with the KCB and a crafted Omni of my weapon type, and BFaW benefits at least the crafted one, but sends one shot forward so I'm not an aggro-magnet...
As far as torps go, I "buck the trend" some with a fore and aft torp. However, I make sure my aft torp serves a dual-purpose use - it's almost always a set-piece and one with "significant drawbacks" - my old go-to had been the Omega torp, for the 3 piece set's heal, and while it's a good torp while "fully charged", it sucked when it could only fire one shot every cycle - so being aft I could get it's "full benefit" on the relatively-rare peel off maneuver, and it would have plenty of time to recharge before the next time I chose to show my tail at something... (That, and I'm a fan of the ISC from SFB/SFC. Omega Torp = Rear firing F-torps
Current Pathfinder build uses the Gravimetric (aka an OP-type) torpedo fore, and the one that unlocks the isokinetic cannon aft - specifically for Iso Cannon... :P
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]
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Who knows, if I ever get back around to flying this particular engie/cruiser alt "even remotely semi-regularly", I have a pile of things to look into - [snare] weapons, getting his Gal-X out of "slowpoke turn land" with pilot spec points / crafted and dil mine +turn consoles / other nifty consoles that turn cruisers into pseudo-scorts, etc. etc.
Which would lead him quite quickly into "do I go pure beams because that's the thing to do, or do I slot the Omega Torp so that I can "play ISC" with the character that was inspired by my ISC persona in SFC? (If he even has it and/or I decide to grind for it...)
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]
This is what usually happens on me. Specially with the smaller ships that can speed around my ship. So I end up using a lot of my rear weapons on them. Now the bigger ones. I start up my pylon turns.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
My character Tsin'xing