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How're the Calisto's peforming...
lianthelia
Member Posts: 7,905 Arc User
I'm curious how they're performing for people, being that they're chocked full of cannons...
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
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The fact that they have 'scratch the paint' is a major deal. My Xindi carrier pets have this trait as well, and it easily triples the life span of a hangar pet, especially frigates. The Elite Calisto's have some really impressive durability.
They seem to be able to maneuver fast enough to keep their cannons on target, especially if you're using Gravity Wells, which you should be.
Overall, they're nice pets.. you're still going to be subject to occasionally buggy AI.. that goes with the terrain, but they're my favorite Fed Carrier pets to date. They seem pretty effective so far in my limited time using them.
Badly; They are somewhat durable, I'll give them that, but I fear its mostly because they don't shoot or draw any agro.
I was in a fleet alert, a nice place to test out a new ship and elite hangers, 1st spawn everyone was on it, couldn't really see what they did except they weren't on my wing, no surprise there.
2nd spawns 1-2 ships in various locations, identified all shots as coming from player ships, confirmed my frigates were still alive.... but what the heck were they doing.
3rd and 4th spawns .. nothing identifiable as frigate attacks .. and I was looking
last spawn <named ship> most things dead, big ship left and 2 small streams of cannon fire arrived too late to do any damage.
Frigates were 10k out with only the named ship left, cannons from 10k .. what a waste of a ship and hangers. At least they could have made it a sci ship with a 2ndary deflector.
After a couple PVE and STF runs against borg and heralds, final opinion .. there's nothing good about the Jupiter .. renamed the Gypiter.
Considering the Jem'hadar Carrier is a 4x3 and quite the effective fighter, and the Xindi-aquadic is dps beast with its frigate pets, even the ole Vo'que has bops with cloak and can battle well, the federation carrier looks more like a tarted version of the Atrox, but designed to drain more dil. Elite shuttle 10's do better DPS than the elite frigates that have 4-6x times the weapons and supposed firepower. If this was a 2 year old t5 without upgrades it would fit right in. As it stands now, save your zen.
PRO'S
+ Frigates tend to be very sturdy and last a long time. Basic Callistos are tough for their rarity. If one blew up, it was surprising. If my character had Wing Commander, it would have been even better.
+ If they're actually pointed towards the target, they're a very "shooty" hangar unit. They're bristling with weapons facing the front arc.
CON'S
- They're Frigates. As I feared and mentioned in different Jupiter-related threads, they have very mediocre turning. All those narrow arc weapons facing the forward arc? It doesn't matter if half the time their aft or sides are facing the target so their primary, heavy weapons aren't firing as much as a nimble Fighter or Beam Array equipped Frigate would.
- "Scratch the Paint" is a high end ability in the Pilot Spec Tree. It requires the ship to go in and ram the target to land shield damage and shield resist debuff. The Callistos do make the proper rams but here's the issue... Once they hit they take these long, slow, leisurely, extremely wide turns before they come around and present their forward weapons again. This is something I feared and it unfortunately is true. - Disregard, confused with another totally different ability.
- Callistos have extremely slow impulse speeds. If you're in a situation where you fight in one spot, then high speed to another spot to fight, have fun... Because the Callistos will *NEVER* catch up. Callistos are hands down the slowest hangar units I have ever seen, slower than other Frigates by a huge margin. If you want your Callistos in subsequent fights, the distance to travel must be very short (even then, that's iffy given how slow they are) or the Carrier player must recover them. That takes time, considering how SLOW they already are. I'm a longtime Carrier player in both PVP and PVE. This is something you typically don't have to do with fighter, shuttle, or frigate hangar units because they do catch up to the fight eventually. Not Callistos.
UNKNOWN
-/+ Basic versions do not have Elite version's "Lock Trajectory" for me to see their behavior. I'm curious to know how that helps in their forward arc firing time and how well they stay in combat range, because Lock Trajectory is a very problematic ability when used improperly. I've seen players accidentally use this ability and send themselves 10-15km outside combat range of the target. Considering how dumb the AI is, I'm greatly concerned how these units use this ability.
So there you have it. I'm not sold on the Callistos to commit to Elite. The Feds' first Frigate has lots of question marks on it, but the behavior is a familiar tale for longtime KDF Carrier players.
Do hangar pets even have different speeds? Because I have this exact problem with absolutely every carrier pet in the game. I use Elite Scorpions, Plesh Brek Raiders, Insectoid Castroi Fighters, Elite Romulan Drones, and Callisto and they all function like this.. every single one of them.
*ahem*...
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Disregard, confused with another ability. For posterity however
I never questioned how quick Scratch the Paint becomes available. I questioned the Callisto's ship behavior after they try these Scratch the Paint runs. As I said, "Once they hit they take these long, slow, leisurely, extremely wide turns before they come around and present their forward weapons again."
And just so you know, they don't constantly seek to "ram" the target for Scratch the Paint effects. If you want to really see ramming effects in action, watch someone with a Herald ship and Mir Fighters. Those actively seek to ram the target for actual hull damage. But unlike Callistos, they're fast and maneuverable enough to turn around after in very reasonable time to attack with their weapons. It greatly helps that they have beams instead of being cannons focused like some Frigates are.
All hangar units lag behind if you high tail it to a distant combat area without recovering your deployed units. The problem is that Callistos lag behind noticeably more. I've used Carriers since the Vo'Quv was the only 2-hangar Carrier in the game. I own that, the Kar'Fi, Atrox, JHDC, Recluse, Sarr Theln, Adv.Obelisk, and the Vonph. I'm used to the later arrival of hangar units if you don't recover them and you speed to a distant area. But Callistos are something special in how they lag behind even more.
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You guys want to know the sad thing with all this?
All these issues, excluding the newer elements like Lock Trajectory, Scratch the Paint, are very old problems. The problems of Frigates turning very slowly which is a big issue for narrow arc focused versions. Fighters don't have that issue because they're fast and maneuverable. The KDF had learned this long ago with the Vo'Quv's BOPs and Kar'Fi's Fer'Jai Frigates, as far back as when the KDF had the ONLY Carriers in the game. The Elite BOP for instance is very close in what the Callisto is trying to do: DHCs with CRF3, Quantum with HYT3. If they're actually lined up they can light up a target real good. But after that initial attack run, you can watch them take these stupidly long, slow, wide turns so they barely use those DHCs and Torps. The issue of Frigates being able to present their forward firing arcs has been complained about even when the Vo'Quv was the only Carrier. But here we are, a few months shy of STO going into 6 years and the same problem exists.
scratch the paint IS NOT shield scraping
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
TRIBBLE, you know what, you are right
I like the idea of the Fed Carrier launching Frigates, but I admit, I do hate the fact that they have Cannons and Torps instead of beams. Swarmers will explode much faster, but I'll be able to put 12 of them on the field and I can always make more. Worth a try just to see how they do in comparison.
I was thinking this...12 of them along with the trait from the T6 Akira and the Jupiter trait...would be single target but 12 BO's and 12 TW's...could be something?
They should have some sort of torp. Transphasic I think?
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Not that I have hard numbers and stats to back it up, but my general feeling is that from what I've played, there are 3 hangar units of my own I want to die quickly: Swarmers, Elite Scorpions, and Mir Fighters
The sooner the Swarmers die means the sooner you can launch another one with a fresh copy of Beam Overload on it. Same thing with Elite Scorpions. The sooner they die, the sooner I launch another one with a fresh HYT Plasma on it. Why wait for their abilities to come off whatever built in CD they have when you just let them die quickly after they launch their HYT/BO, and launch a fresh one with an unused HYT/BO ability? Mir Fighters? I really don't care if they die late or quickly. All I care about is seeing them do their ramming attacks, which they like to do and easily can since they move fast and as easily as a fighter. Wing Commander isn't necessary for them to do their duties.
Traditionally, on my Carrier oriented characters when I put them on a true, 2 hangar Carrier, it's a given I slot Wing Commander. But if using those certain units, I don't bother with it.
By Generic, I mean I didn't use any parsing tools, I just did a general test. I took my Jupiter to Argala (Normal.) At the start of the mission, I launched my pets and sent them to attack the enemies. In both cases I fought the Hirogen to keep things consistent. My carrier didn't fire any shots, I just let the pets fight the enemies without any buffs or intervention from my ship. I had no traits equipped that provided any benefit to Hangar Pets.
I did this using 2 hangars of Elite Callisto Frigates and also using 2 Hangars of Elite Scorpion Fighters purchased from the Fleet Spire.
Both tests started out pretty similar. I targeted the first enemy and my fighters went right after them. Results were fairly similar for the first target. It should be noted that the fighters went straight at the targets that were about 10km away so they were in the 'forward arc' for the Callisto fighters. Both sets of pets dispatched the first enemy fairly quickly, but the Swarmers had the edge. They consistently killed the target a couple seconds faster then the Callisto's. Then things got interesting..
After the first enemy was defeted, I switched target to the Second Hirogen Escort. The Swarmers immediately open fire and begin doing damage but the Callisto's behave rather.. strangely. Instead of just turning to get into position, they do the wide arcs described eariler in the thread. They seem to take the longest possible path to get back into range. This makes them take well over twice as long to destroy the second target. Even if some of the swarmers die, and they often do, they still finish the target twice as fast as the Callisto's.
The Callisto's initial burst is effective, but after the opening Salvo, they rapidly decline in efficiency. Yes, they're tough.. they're very tough, the Calliso's almost never die. The problem is that while they're alive, they don't really help you much. I haven't tried other types of pets, I have spent enough resources for Elite Hangar Pets for now, but between Elite Callisto's and Elite Obelisk Swarmers I can tell you there is no contest. The Swarmers kill targets a minimum of twice as fast, sometimes even faster. Also, the Swarmers do indeed travel much faster then Callisto's, if I take off at full impulse and 'dock' my Swarmers they'll eventually catch up to the ship and dock. The Callisto's stay ridiculously far behind and most fights are over before they even catch up. This has to be a bug because the speed makes them completely useless. If you have to travel between two fights like you would in a battle zone or between Borg Cubes in Red Alerts, you'll fight the second battle without any pets at all.
I'm hoping they will work on them in future updates, because at 100k FC per hangar it was an expensive lesson to learn. While I can say that Callisto's have possibly the best durability of any pet I have ever seen, I can't recommend them at this time due to their complete lack of effectiveness in combat. In the end, you really don't ever want pets with Cannons. Cannons are fine in the hands of players that can use them effectively but when left up to the AI they're almost completely useless. The amount of time that Swarmers spend 'on target' versus Callisto's is ridiculous.
Edit: Mixed with advanced Danubes, allows the callistos to set for firing runs. I wonder if this is what they had in mind, more mixed hangars instead of the standard doubles, after all real carriers have more craft than fighters .
Maybe the reasons why Callistos seem to survive more is that they have trouble getting to the next area of combat. You can't blow up from combat if you can't go to later stages of fighting in time
Nailed it.
Which is funny, because Cryptic nerfed Hangar Units long ago because one of the things they had was "too many HPs."
I'm getting some swarmers and going to kill something. Beam pets, say it alot. Until the developers upgrade the moron AI or give us better tactical control commands for these pets.