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Science Leveling [PS4]
razenove
Member Posts: 15 Arc User
in The Academy
I'm going to be playing through STO as a Science Captain, using the Science vessels available through leveling. Bearing in mind not all features are present on console, and obviously it's a brand new character, I'd love any tips (or links) anyone may have on general strategy / builds and what abilities should be most useful for dealing a decent amount of damage while leveling and make me at least useful in PvE queues.
Thanks in advance!
Thanks in advance!
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But if yo uintend to use Science vessels for good, you should skill your Captain accordingly. Exotic Particle Generators, Drain Expertise and Control Expertise will be important skills for that, stuff that boosts Aux power. You need the tactical tree a bit less then other builds.
You might want to look more closely at what kind of deflector, secondary deflector and science consoles you want to equip. Stuff that boosts the aforementioned science skills we be particularly desirable. But don#t spend much (if any) EC or other resources on getting the gear for low level play. It's not that important or that difficult to go without. You might consider holding on to any very rare item drops you get, as these can be worth upgrading later, especailly if they are low Mark. That said, ultimately the gear you want will be from reputations, crafting, special ship consoles and gear found in well developed fleet holdings, and the occassional mission reward. (That's really the same for all classes.)
At early levels, you might rely, like a Cruiser captain, on tatical skills like beam fire at will, and use powers like Emergency Power to Shields, Science Team and Hazard emitters to keep yourself alive (once you have enough tactical slots, you will probably add Tactical team as your Ensign BO ability.). This doesn't really differ all that much for other ship classes.
Later, as you get better ships with higher science slots, you should look into Gravity Well. You might also want to experiment with Tyken's Rift, Energy Siphon or even Tachyon Beam, but Gravity Well is kinda the "ultimate" crowd control and DPS skill. Destabilizing Resonance Beam is another option, but it's a mission reward for a mission you get as high level character.
At higher levels, and once special torpedoes like Gravimetric Torpedoes (Dyson reputation), Quantum Phase Torpedoes (Mission Reward), Neutronic Torpedos (Delta Alliance Reputation) or Terran Torpeodes (Terran Reputation) become available, you might get rid of most of your beam weapons (primary purpose is then to complete item sets) and equip such torpedoes and Torpedo Spread, and dump all power into auxilliary to max out the damage from your science abilities.
Thanks again!
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
Most of the enemies you face won't have huge shield caps so using tachyon beam to knock them off and then slotting a torp into their bare hull is fairly good for killing things.
You can go for things like EPG and drains as well but at low levels you wont have much access to consoles to boost them i found.
Deflector arrays can enhance certain science abilities depending on the type of array and the mods (modifiers) they have; if any. Or they can enhance the ship.
- Graviton Deflectors are good for control abilities.
- Positron Deflectors do not enhance any science abilities, but they make your ship more survivable because they increase your ship's hull strength, shield capacity and shield healing.
- Tachyon Deflectors improves both drain and exotic damage abilities.
- Neutrino Deflects improves control and drain abilities.
Then there are the mods that deflector dishes may have.
[CrtlX] = Control
[DrainX] = Drain
[Em] = Improves shield heal abilities.
[EPG] = Exotic Damage
[HullCap] = Increase hull strength
[ShCap] = Increase shield capacity
As mentioned above, you can get pretty good science oriented ship gear in the Solanae Dyson Sphere story arc (level 50). Specifically in the mission called "A Step Between Two Stars" where you can get the Solanae Deflector Array, Hyper Efficient Combat Impulse Engine and Resilient Shield Array. Only one of them can be selected when you finish the mission. That means you need to play the same mission 3 times to get each piece of the space gear.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Mission:_A_Step_Between_Stars
The Solanae Space Set actually has 5 pieces to it. One of the missing pieces of gear is the Solanae Overcharged Warp Core. On the PC version of the game it was obtained during the 2014 Anniversary Event (every February) which gave players the opportunity to grind for the free Tier 5 (Tier 5 was the highest ship tier at that time) Solanae Dyson Science Destroyer which also comes with the Solanae Secondary Deflector Array; the 5th piece.
I have no idea if Cryptic is going to give console players a way to obtain the two missing pieces. Maybe they will be one of the mission reward options. Maybe they will not exist in the console version at all.
I might try Dual Beams, something a bit different to the usual Arrays.
It makes you realise you can actually remove those shields, or ignore those resistances, or stop that group of enemies moving rather than relying solely on massive DPS.
Tac captains can just smash their way through but science gives you alternative and less obvious routes to discover, which I think is much more entertaining.