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Torpedo advice
saladinbob
Member Posts: 116 Arc User
I read a suggestion that Transphasic torpedos are the best but is the 40% shield penetration bonus of Transphasic Torpedos worth dropping 224.5 DPS (like-for-like levels)? That seems an awfully big trade off to me.
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Ah cool, that's what I found difficult, the lining up of the mines for the ship to hit. This sounds like it does the hard work for you. So in terms of damage, what's the best damage type?
There are basically two different types of shields; Resilient and everything else. Resilient shields resists 95% of damage which means there is 5% bleed through damage. All other shields resists 90% of damage which means there is 10% bleed through damage. A Mk XII Photon Torpedo probably does around up to 3,000 damage. That means against resilient shields there is up to 150 damage that reaches the hull, and 300 damage for other types of shields.
Transphasic Torpedoes basically reduces shield resistance by 40% which means… Against resilient shields only 57% of the damage gets blocked by the shields and against all other shields only 54% of the damage get blocked by the shields. This means transphasic torpedoes have either a 43% or 46% bleed through damage depending on the shield. Let’s say a Mk XII Transphasic Torpedo does up to 2,300 damage. That means up to 989 or 1058 damage is inflicted on the hull; again depending on the shield.
As long as when shields are up Transphasic Torpedoes can do far more damage compared to Photon Torpedoes. However, once shields have dropped Photons will be more effective; the difference would be up to 700 damage. Also Transphasic Torpedoes have longer cooldown times (10 seconds) vs Photon Torpedoes (6 seconds). Note: Kelvin Timeline Photon Torpedoes has the [Reload] mod which cuts reload times by 2 seconds; meaning that have a 4 second cooldown. Additionally, the Rapid Reload Transphasic Torpedo from the mission Cold Comfort has a 8.5 second cooldown time.
Shields are pretty effective against torpedoes (Kinetic damage). Based on what I have read, shields absorbs 75% of the damage that does not bleed through to the hull. The remaining 25% of the damage will damage the shields.
A Mk XII Photon Torpedo against a non-resilient shield will cause up to 300 hull damage. Of the remaining maximum 2,700 damage 2,025 damage is simply absorbed by the shields and the shield itself will suffer 675 damage.
A Mk XII Transphasic Torpedo against a non-resilient shield will cause up to 1,058 hull damage. Of the remaining maximum 1,242 damage 931.5 damage is simply absorbed by the shields and the shield itself will suffer 310.5 damage.
The Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo (PEP) is one of my favorite torpedoes to use. Upon impact it creates a plasma cloud for 6 seconds that I think has a 2km radium, but I could be wrong. All ships caught within the cloud will suffer exotic damage that bypasses shields. The damage caused by the cloud is increased by Particle Generators which means PEP torpedoes can be pretty potent when used on science ships with an emphasis on exotic damage. It works pretty well in conjunction with Gravity Well.
Transphasic don’t do that much damage to hull though shields as the raw damage is so low. Due to a combo of factors I end up doing more damage to hull via Quantum then Transphasic. I spent many hours recording average damage of torpedos and Transphasic always came near the bottom.
I understand that but you're dropping 41.2% DPS which is a significant trade off. Wouldn't Transphasic be best suited for a pure Torpedo boat load out where you can't going to get the shields down? I fly a Command Cruiser which means I have fighters to compliment its already impressive firepower, which in turn means I'm not really having an issue getting their shields down. Plus Torpedos have an effect on shields and with the higher refire rate of Quantum/Photon, doesn't that offset the 40% penetration bonus?
Torpedo cooldown times definitely has an affect on overall DPS. The torpedo that you use on your ship should depend on whatever provides you with the most benefits. If knocking down shields is not a big deal, then naturally transphasics do not really offer much of a benefit to you.
You would likely be better off sticking with Photon / Quantum Torpedoes. Perhaps the Kelvin Timeline Photon Torpedo that I mentioned in my previous post is worth a look, but you need to keep in mind that by default it has the [Reload] mod which cuts cooldown times by 2 seconds.
I bought one just to play around with. When upgraded to Mk XIV it should be able to do around 4.5k to 5k base damage every 4 seconds + flight time; that excludes mod effects and increased damage due to rarity. Perhaps it's something you should consider since obliterating shields is not a big deal for you.
Still - they do most damage per shot than any other ...
1) Quantum - simply because they do the most damage and have a fairly low cool-down to match so getting the most damage out of them is not too hard. Plus there' a lot of different specialized variants of quantum's to pick from (Neutronic, Quantum Phase etc.)
2) Photon - the quickest reloading torp available. So potentially the highest rate of fire which should translate to highest damage potential. You can almost shoot 1 per second with the right setup.
3) Particle Emission Plasma - simply the best utility torp in game in my opinion. 100% proc rate on the plasma cloud, high damage potential boosted by EPG + Projectile skills, cloud knocks engines of enemies offline, good synergy with crowd control abilities. And pretty cheap on the exchange.
Potential 4th choice -
4) Kelvin Photon - even quicker reloading than the basic photon but more expensive and at the mercy of lockboxes or the exchange to get the right mods.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Choosing a torpedo and optimizing its use for your style of flying, your ship characteristics and merging it into your ability rotation is not always an easy task to implement, let alone actually realize and identify. Here are a number of things that affect which torpedo to choose for your specific build:
So to sum my very elaborate example before even having brought it up, for my particular build and style of flying, including choice of ships, the Kelvin Photon torpedo was the most optimal choice seconded by the Plasma Emission and the Quantum Phase torpedos. These are the torpedos that work exceptionally well in their own way with my build.
If you want to keep using transphasic torpedos I would highly recommend Omega Kinetic Shearing because the amount of damage this trait does is related to how much hull damage the torpedo does with and without shields up. Because of this Kinetic Shearing is less useful with other torpedos than transphasic ones when the target's shields are up.
Also, do note that the [PEN] modifier does not add 10% extra shield penetration. It adds negation of 10 armor rating (does not equal 10% resistance negation). You are better off with the [CrtD] and [DMG] mods, and that in particular the latter because it increases your shield penetration damage. The [DMG] modifier, including [CrtD], is very compatible and scales very well with damage buffs and traits that increase your transphasic torpedo's damage.
Now as for my example, I like to fly very large ships and by norm they are relatively slow at flying and turning. However, I broke away from the usual way of flying these ships and if we were to ever play together you will see me whooping by at a combat speed of 90 impulse with a turn rate of 30-40. I also fly a very powerful crit build so taking down enemy shields is not very difficult for me. I also have a lot of cooldown reduction traits and what not so I can fire off Beam Overload/Fire at Will and Torpedo Yield/Torpedo Spread every 15 second.
Try different torpedos and see how they work with your choice of ships, ability rotation and attack pattern (including choice of abilities). If I were to use transphasic torpedos I would probably use [DMG]x4 (seconded by CrtDx4) combined with Omega Kinetic Shearing and Torpedo Yield III, and more frequent use of Fire at Will rather than Beam Overload (good for shield stripping but negates the use of transphasic torpedos). This is to say, when the intention is to optimize the use of the transphasic torpedo (whenever its use is emphasized in certain scenarios).
With the Particle Emission and Quantum phase torpedos I use Fire at Will III and Torpedo Spread III more frequently to enhance their impact. I never use Torpedo Yield with plasma torpedos because it makes them way too slow.
I know this is a lot of text to read but I hope it will help you in some way. I am not a torpedo expert nor do I truly emphasize their use and impact with my build. I use them as a secondary source of damage but I do attempt to optimize that purpose by taking into the account when and why I use Torpedo Spread or Yield with different torpedos based on their characteristics.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Hargh'peng_Torpedo_Launcher
Yes, it is a stand alone torpedo and doesn't use HY or TS but in my opinion no torpedo build is complete without a "Peng"
There absolutely should be an increase in damage when upgrading. Sometimes the tooltips are utterly wrong through so don't always trust them, and remember it shows how your skills etc. affect it and will give more accuracy in orbit too.
The jump from XIII > XIV is quite significant on nearly all items when upgrading.
Rarity increases will add things like mods that may affect damage as well.
Your torpedo choices will rely heavily on the rest of your ship build, as some torpedoes will work better than others for specific builds.
For example, high EPG (like science builds) will find Particle Emission Plasma and Gravimetric Torpedoes great because both have procs that scale off EPG (that's why you see some of the sci players recommending that here). High Yield builds (ships that use Concentrate Firepower) will gain a lot from Enhanced Bio-Molecular torpedoes. Personally on my HY setups, I prefer photons (Enh Bio, Terran Task Force and Gravimetric) due to their complimenting set bonuses. Ships with a decent amount of DrainX will be great with Neutronic and Quantum Phase.
Combining different torps are fine as well. On my science builds I tend to run a hybrid of EPG and DrainX so I use the Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo, Neutronic and Terran Task Force torpedoes. The PEPT torp scales off my EPG while the Neutronic gives some really high kinetic hits while serving as part of a set bonus to my radiation damage. The Terran Task Force torp is my favorite finishing torpedo. It also has some set bonuses that further boost the damage of all my other torpedoes.
Unlike beam builds, there is no "one best torp" right now and that's what makes torps fun (and complicated).
For some really good torpedo advice, @darkknightucf is one of the best people to talk to.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
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I am currently using a heavy PartGen/Control build on an Eternal-class with the following torps w/ TSII and TSIII (plus all my other sci/temporal powers, including the sci skill superpower, great with torps btw):
Front
Enhanced Bio-Molecular Photon Torpedo Launcher Mk XIV [Acc]
Neutronic Torpedo Launcher Mk XIV [CrtH]
Gravimetric Photon Torpedo Launcher Mk XIV [CrtH]
Rear
Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo Launcher Mk XIV [CrtD]x2 [CrtH]
Resonant Transphasic Torpedo Launcher Mk XIV
Breen Transphasic Cluster Torpedo Mk XIV [CrtH]
or
Tractor Beam Mine Launcher Mk XIV [CrtH]
(depending if I want more hold power)
Hulls just melt under all of that. And usually before I can bring all of my sci powers to bare.
Use Gravity Well and a Torpedo Spread 3. My Tric Boat regularly did around 200K like that. All of the tricobalts and their area effect blasts all hit everyone held in the well, laying multiple layers of damage. The problem is actually hitting with them all. Thankfully there are DOffs that boost their speed. Doesn't help against the enemies that use Fire At Will like the Tholians, though.
On topic, Transphasic Torpedoes are okay for a Torp Boat. As others have said: use either the [Pen] crafted types or the Rapid Reload from the Breen Arc. The Cluster is good, but remember that one is buffed by Mine Abilities and Consoles.
Plasma works better than Transphasics due to the fact that its plasma fires bypass shields. The crafted Emission type is good to have, along with the Omega Torpedo and the Hyper Plasma from the Reputation system.
I prefer a mix of torpedoes, myself. Unlike mixing Energy Weapons, mixing Torpedoes does not make much of a difference. Usually I use the Temporal Disruption Device (super-chroniton whose High Yield does the Chroniton Proc with 100% hit rate to every enemy that it passes on the way to the target, then hits like a Tricolbalt), Gravimetric Torpedo (Spread does multiple Gravity Wells on impact), Hyper Plasma (fires two High Yields in a row even without using the BOff Ability), and the Plasma Emission Torpedo (for the AoE Plasma Cloud).
If you want to make a Torpedo Boat, I suggest picking up the "Hot Pursuit" Trait from the Exchange. It'll double the lock-on and chase range for Mines. You will no longer need to be at point blank to effectively use them; you can usually hang at about 5 or 6 kilometers for many types. Transphasic is the best mine type, in my opinion, with the 60% shield bypass. Tricobalt is a heavy hitter, but you will need to be slightly closer for those mines. Tholian Web Mines from the Reputation is pretty good; last I heard its damage is not attributed to you, so keep that in mind if you use one of those DSP readers. Tractor Mines can have their uses if you use slower torpedo types like High Yield Plasma types.
Clearing up a couple of points made here (in no particular order):
The trait "Hot Pursuit" only affects mines, not torps.
Cluster torps deploy mines. The delivery torpedo does NOT impact the target. To effectively use cluster torps, you have to factor in travel time, deployment time of the mines, activation time of the mines, travel time of the mines, and damage of the mines. If you have +Torp consoles, they will not boost the mine damage. You will need the specific type (+Transphasic, +Tricobalt, or +Chroniton) to boost the mine damage.
The [Pen] mod is an effective -10 HULL resistance only for that torpedo impact.
Transphasics have one of the lowest damage range (iirc, THE lowest) in the game. They were designed for Level 50 content. That is not to say that one cannot make an effective Transphasic ship for level 60 content, but for Advanced and Elite content, they simply lack the punch that other torps have, especially when you factor in BOff abilities and traits. One notable trait is the Personal Trait, Self-Modulating Fire. Get it while it's still cheap.
Omega Kinetic Shearing has been recently changed/fixed to calculate its DOT damage PRIOR to shield impact. In addition, the DOT damage is now subjected to hull resists (both positive and negative hull resist ratings). The same with Concentrate Firepower's damage. This is a major QoL vs shielded targets, and is the final nail in the coffin for Transphasic builds in current Advanced and Elite content, due to Transphasic's low damage range. (See Video #1)
Damage per shot (or damage per volley) != (read, "Does Not Equal") overall DPS. You can have torpedo hits that will hit for 1M damage, but only do 20K DPS for the entire run, depending on your frequency of firing and how fast the run takes. What a lot of people look at is the tooltip DPS of the torpedo. That is there to show you what the single shot DPS is based off of the damage divided by the rate of fire. Some people only use auto-fire on their torps and do NOT use BOff (Bridge Officer) abilities that enhance their torpedoes to do even more damage overall.
If you want a high-DPS torpedo ship, you have to find ways to increase the frequency of your damage per volley attacks, as well as increase your damage for each attack.
There are situations where you want to maximize your damage per volley, even at the expense of a longer cooldown/reload time. Korfez and Borg Disconnected come to mind.
I typically recommend using manual fire for your torpedoes, and only use auto-fire for torpedoes that do not interfere with the global torpedo launch cooldown and/or utilize a BOff ability like Torpedo Spread (TS) or High Yield (HY). Torpedoes like the Hargh'peng and the Bio-Neural Warhead fall into this category.
Adding to the advice of @nephitis
"
Travel speed of your ship and average distance to your targets.
Turn rate of your ship and your ability to bring targets into your torpedo's targeting arc.
Travel speed of your torpedo and how long it takes for it to reach your targets in relation to how fast you can bring down your target's shields.
The cooldown of your torpedo and its ability to merge well into your ability rotation and attack cycle.
"
I would also add shot selection; You want to use the right torpedo against the right target(s) with the right BOff ability. In some cases, it would be beneficial to hold off firing a specific torpedo for 1-3 seconds in order to enhance it via a BOff ability, or to wait for a specific Capt ability. auto-fire typically does not allow this to happen.
Typically speaking, Reputation and Reward Specialty torpedoes perform far better than their generic and/or crafted counterparts. This is opposite of the energy weapon meta, where (aside from Coalitions and the Terran Reputation energy weapons) crafted weapons with the right mods are far superior to their Reputation or Reward counterparts.
@borticuscryptic & @crypticrock here are some more specifics for you both.
Specific torpedoes have a, "best firing mode" based off of the current iteration of the torpedo in game now, and not based off of what the tooltip states that it should do. For example, the PEP (Level 15 Projectile R&D crafted torpedo) has TS as its best firing mode because of the number of PEP clouds it can generate ( one cloud per target, which are boosted by EPG), and the relatively strong plasma DOT's they create on the target (said DOT's are boosted by +plasma). Now, if you fire the PEP under HY, you have a slow-moving, destructible plasma torpedo that will hit decently hard, but generates only one PEP cloud upon impact, and the plasma DOT does 27 damage per tick. I am NOT exaggerating on the number. It makes no sense.
Then there is the Reputation trait, Torpedo Pre-Fire Sequence, that is supposed to increase the travel time for destructible torpedoes, and the Romulan ship 2pc set bonus that is supposed to increase the speed of destructible plasma torpedoes. You can see the tests and performance in Video #2. Needless to say, that there are issues with both working properly, especially when they are combined.
In upgrading weapons, there is a noted pattern that the damage increases with a change in Mark level and a change in Quality level (with the addition of a modifier). For torpedoes, that pattern does not remain consistent at the Ultra-Rare Quality upgrade. There is a mod's value of damage missing. For the vast majority of torpedoes, it is still worth it to bring them to Epic Quality at Mk XIV for maximum damage potential, but there is damage missing at the UR Quality level. Notable exceptions are Tricobalts and the Temporal Disruption Device. For Tricobalts, ZERO mods work. For example [Pen] does not provide the -10 hull resist modifier upon impact, and none of the mods apply the expected damage increase, as demonstrated by firing tests and looking at the tooltips. Logs have been made available since Nov 2014. For the TDD, the upgrade "path" is... confusing. There are no rules derived from what is observed, but there is a lack of damage increase from Mk XII to XIII and in Quality increase.
Overall, torpedo builds are fun to fly. I am learning the Science aspect of the game so I can expand upon my build experience, but I will always return to the heavy kinetic delivery style. If you want to excel in using torpedo builds, it's best to know the bugs, as well as the capabilities of what you're firing down range. Aside from some mechanics changes, the biggest QoL for torpedoes are bug fixes. Things being fixed like, "tricobalts do not receive the cooldown reset benefit from a Concentrate Firepower proc" would go a long way to help improve the state of torpedoes in the game.
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.
It contains some stuff regarding the situation of torpedoes and stuff they are experimenting with.
Cryptic devs have for a long time tried to improve the standing of torpedoes. The results are basically what you see in reputation torpedoes and other speciality torpedoes (like the Quantum Phase Torpedo from the Sunrise mission). I think you can find some very good torpedoes among those. But standard torpedoes are simply weaker than those, and I would not recommend building around them. (And the devs still realize that this is a problem, but the existing speciality torpedoes also make any changes to this more difficult.)
I use the Quantum Phase Torpedo (and set pieces) on most of my torpedo builds, because the shield drain is significant and increases the chances that you can actually hit a few times against unshielded hull. Neutronic, Plasma-Emission, Gravimetric and the Terran Rep Torpedo are among those I pick second and third.
I rarely use more than 3 torpedoes on any ship - the remaining 3 weapon slots on my science vessels are usually reserved to whatever helps complete the set bonuses. Mind you, I have never really tried a torpedo boat setup for anything but a science vessel. Everyone else can get a lot out of energy weapons, but science vessels can get a majority of their damage from mostly shield-ignoring exotic weapon damage and high auxilliary power, so that the energy weapons are really just set-completers, not a major damage source.
I will further elaborate on the two different armor penetration in this game that I think many people either mix up or misunderstand.
The first type of armor penetration like the Delta reputation trait gives you a direct and flat % negation of your target's resistance, and that regardless of its armor rating. Whether your target has 100 or 1000 armor rating you will always negate or rather ignore 5% damage resistance (Delta trait) and 15% (Subwarp Sheath). This makes these two traits very useful in all kinds of situations and very solid against any targets... even those with very high armor rating.
The second type of armor penetration is that from the [PEN] weapon modifier. What this one does is provide -10 armor rating. Effectively, it reduces the target's armor rating by a value of 10. Armor rating has diminishing returns which means that the higher the target's innate armor rating, the less effectiveness the [PEN] modifier has. Here is an example of why with fictional scaling numbers.
10 rating = 10% resistance
20 rating = 20%
30 rating = 30%
40 rating = 40%
50 rating = 50% (The PEN modifier only useful up to this point with 10% damage resistance negation)
100 rating = 60% (diminishing returns would start here)
200 rating = 70%
400 rating = 80%
800 rating = 90%
1600 rating = 100%
From 10 to 50 armor rating the negation of -10 rating from the [PEN] modifier would effectively and consistently ignore 10% damage resistance. Anything beyond that and the target would need a lot more armor rating to gain damage resistance. This also means that the [PEN] modifier needs to go through the same amount of armor rating that is added because of the diminishing returns. So if the [PEN] modifier brings 1600 armor rating down to 1590 then it would no longer equal ignoring 10% damage resistance. Instead it would probably amount to something like 0.1% or even less.
So the [PEN] modifier is very useful against targets with low amount of armor rating, whereas the Delta and Subwarp Sheath % armor penetration will always ignore their amount of damage resistance.
Oh? Is that why Bort nerfed the sh*t out of the Neutronic and Quantum torp?! Every time torps look like they might be good again, Bort comes in and ruins the fun again. Ugh!
It was stated that it was a band-aid for the client and server performance issues that were being experienced at the time. Since those issues have been fixed, and it has been demonstrated that those changes are indeed a performance loss, it is only logical that the changes be reversed, or at least modified, so that their performance would equal what they were before the major change.
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.
Yes, let's hope that happens soon.