Playing story missions solo - viable ships?

Comments

• davefenestrator Member Posts: 10,765 Arc User

  July 2016

  A tier 5 ship can do any of the content, a tier 3 Ambassador probably can't unless you're a smug puffin who claims a T1 is enough (thanks to all Mark XIV epic gear, special consoles, hundreds of millions of EC worth of captain traits and blowing up a lot).
  
  T6 gets you a bit more hull strength and an extra boff power or two but that just makes it a bit easier it's not pay 2 win.

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• officerbatman81 Member Posts: 2,761 Arc User

  July 2016

  Lol at "smug puffin". A lot of smug puffins jaunting around here.

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• jaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User

  July 2016

  It is possible to play story missions with just the T5 you get when you reach level 40. But the difficulty level of the game starts to scale up once you go past level 50. I would say that by level 56 it definitely becomes noticeable. By the time you reach level 60 all enemies are maxed out as well.
  
  You need to start picking the right gear to do damage and survive. I have an account that is strictly free to play although lately I did not have the time to devote to that secondary account. I basically have a level 60 KDF engineer flying the free T5 Vor'cha battle cruiser. I believe I have completed the Romulan Mystery story arc so next up would be the Cardassian Struggle. As for gear, I basically have rare / very rare Mk XII gear which is adequate enough for me to complete story mission thus far.
  
  The Vaadwaur are pretty tough and they show up in the later half of the Delta Quadrant story arc missions. The Heralds in the Iconian War which comes after the Delta Quadrant story arc can also be pretty tough. I would say that in a BoP you are going to have problems when fighting those races due to weak hull and the fact that you will likely be using dual heavy cannons which have limited firing arcs.
  
  You can always grind for the free event ships (Anniversary, Summer, Winter) that awards you for spending around 5 - 10 minutes per day to do a daily event that would give you vouchers to eventually claim whatever free T6 event ship that is being offered. The recent 2016 Risa Summer Event offered a free T6 Vorgon Xyfius Heavy Escort which is not a bad ship at all.
  
  The next event that rewards a free T6 starship would be the 2016 Winter Wonderland Event that should start sometime in December 2016. You need to win a race by running on an icy path with twists and turns. Generally speaking it should take around 3 - 4 minutes to complete that daily race (20 hour cool down), but you may need to do a bit of practice (i.e. do several attempts) before you get the hang of it due to a lot of potential slipping and sliding.
  
  Details of the ship reward should be announced a day or two before the event begins.

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• antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User

  July 2016

  I've certainly managed the Vaad on Mk XII gear - a T5 should be able to handle everything - it could be a bit trickier and it probably won't be as fast as a fleet T6 or T5U with their additional consoles.

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• Unknown

  July 2016 edited July 2016

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• jaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User

  July 2016

  ravenmorpheus2k wrote: »

  Among the ships I have (or had the last time I played) available I have a Constitution Refit class (TOS Movie era "Enterprise") all fitted out with what I believe is "good stuff" and I'm wondering if I can get away with playing the story missions with just that?

  
  
  You would have an extremely difficult time playing story missions at level 60 with only a Tier 2 starship. When you are level 60 enemy ships will definitely have a lot more than 100k hull points compared to 19.5k that the Cruiser retrofit has. Their weapons also packs a big punch. When shields are down you would be susceptible to being one-shot killed especially if you take a torpedo hit.
  
  End game ships can have as many as 8 weapon slots compared to 4 that ship has. That means you can have a pretty hard time doing damage against enemies. The cruiser refit also only has 5 console slots. NPC ships that you face-off against would have the equivalent of 11 console slots, but NPC ships do not necessarily have 11 console slots, they simply have beefed up stats and some abilities depending on the ship you are fighting against.
  
  The cruiser refit also limits your Boff (Bridge Officer) abilities to nothing higher than Lieutenant. That further limits you to lower level defensive / offensive abilities.
  
  There are a handful of players out there that can handle mission at level 60 even in a Tier 1 starship. But they are likely to be extremely skilled, use very expensive consoles and have expensive space traits in order to fight against enemy ships as a level 60 captain.

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• ravenmorpheus2k Member Posts: 103 Arc User

  July 2016

  Thanks.
  
  I had forgotten how this game is, it's been a year or more since I last played, when I last played the Delta quadrant stuff had only just been released. I guess I'll be best sticking with my Sovereign class cruiser for the moment.
  
  Did the Defari ambassador mission about an hour ago, got to the defense of the transport ship and I'm sure I would not have done at all well with the TOS Movie era Enterprise cruiser. Didn't do too well with my Sovereign class cruiser either, but managed to finally get the last big ship down in one go after blowing up and having to respawn several times.

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• seaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,919 Arc User

  July 2016 edited July 2016

  As you level up, you get free ships a long the way. The last free ship you get is at level 40 (The Sovereign class like the Enterprise E.) If you have that ship, you can make due with that just fine. You will hear people tell you that you can complete the content in any ship and they're not wrong. The thing is, that's something that experienced players who know the game very well can do. For a returning player just picking things back up, the Assault Cruiser (Enterprise E) should get you by just fine. At the very least it will get you by long enough to decide if you feel it's worth it to buy a new ship or not.
  
  You might have a problem doing end game mission ques in that ship given your experience level, but for regular story missions, you'll be just fine.

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• markhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User

  July 2016 edited July 2016

  Rule 1: tanking is LIFE!
  Rule 2: kill the enemy.
  
  ANY ship can do these, even the starter ships. But, you need to find the right balance between defense and offense to play well in space.
  
  For an eng heavy ship like Sovvy, beams are probably your best option when attacking. Also use the cruiser command for weapons efficiency. one or two copies each of emergency power to shields and weapons help a lot too.

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• Unknown

  July 2016

  This content has been removed.