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Thoughts for Science Portion of this Ship?
tiberious
Member Posts: 183 Arc User
With the formation of the Romulan Republic and breakup of the Romulan Empire, my Romulan science captain is looking for a fresh start on life and looking to do some scientific exploration. Unfortunately, with the Republic so new and lacking ships, he could only find a temporary substitute for a science vessel until such time as the Republic builds some science vessels. [Note: on PS4 so it will be quite some time till the new Romulan science vessel reaches the PS4.]
So my Romulan science captain now commands a Jhu'ael Tactical Carrier Warbird. (http://sto.gamepedia.com/Jhu'ael_Tactical_Carrier_Warbird) While set up to protect the Republic, it can seat a Lt Cmdr science, has a universal Lt. Cmdr seat and comes with 4 science consoles plus a universal console for Destabilized Tachyon Emitters.
Since my captain is still learning about science capabilities of ships, I was looking for thoughts for using science as secondary combat support. What would some good ways to use the 4 science consoles? Should I commission a science boff for the universal seat? Focus on drain abilities for science?
As this is a Romulan vessel, all weapons will be plasma based weapons. Will be using the Romulan reputation weapon set plus likely craft any need plasma weapons at some point. Open as to reputation sets to use for powering the ship.
Also looking to use the tier V ship trait for either beams, cannons or both for the hanger ships. Helps make the ship something different to play even if it doesn't not provide the best dps setup. As long as I can get the job done and have fun, I'm fine.
Thanks for any input!
So my Romulan science captain now commands a Jhu'ael Tactical Carrier Warbird. (http://sto.gamepedia.com/Jhu'ael_Tactical_Carrier_Warbird) While set up to protect the Republic, it can seat a Lt Cmdr science, has a universal Lt. Cmdr seat and comes with 4 science consoles plus a universal console for Destabilized Tachyon Emitters.
Since my captain is still learning about science capabilities of ships, I was looking for thoughts for using science as secondary combat support. What would some good ways to use the 4 science consoles? Should I commission a science boff for the universal seat? Focus on drain abilities for science?
As this is a Romulan vessel, all weapons will be plasma based weapons. Will be using the Romulan reputation weapon set plus likely craft any need plasma weapons at some point. Open as to reputation sets to use for powering the ship.
Also looking to use the tier V ship trait for either beams, cannons or both for the hanger ships. Helps make the ship something different to play even if it doesn't not provide the best dps setup. As long as I can get the job done and have fun, I'm fine.
Thanks for any input!
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Comments
I remember the T6 release of this ship, it was with the T6 Fed Akira and KDF Qatel Raptor flight deck escorts. I was never fond of this Warbird's BOFF seating arrangement because it's pretty limited and forces you heavily into using the Universal as Engineering. The others were far more flexible.
But whatever. What can you do with the ship? The Console arrangement is good for today's meta. 4 TAC (5 for fleet version) and 4 SCI Console Slots.
I don't know what kind of stuff you have, but here are very quick, down and dirty ideas:
Plasmonic Leech+DrainX
- Spire +CritH TAC Consoles
- Embassy +Plasma SCI Consoles with DrainX. Promote your DrainX/Plasmonic Leech while having +Plasma Explosions to promote your DPS
- Plasmonic Leech
- Whatever Space Set or Set Combo to promote more DrainX, there are many.
- Energy Siphon III to help boost your Subsystem Power Levels in combat, which is a big deal for newer Romulan non-Engineer characters who will have power level issues.
SCI Escort+CC
- Spire +CritH TAC Consoles
- Embassy +Plasma SCI Consoles
- Plasmonic Leech
- Slot Gravity Well I for CC. Bunch up enemies and murder them in that very convenient area. With your weapons doing CSV and/or BFAW and plasma explosions going off, it makes short work of them. Having GW1 also is good if you Pug a lot and need it to save the idiots out there from failing the mission objectives.
- Skills to prioritize: Split your SCI dedication between CntrlX and DrainX skillboxes. You still want good DrainX for Plasmonic Leech. But you want good CntrlX so that NPCs cannot simply "walk away" from a weak Gravity Well. Before you dedicate into expensive Embassy SCI Console arrangement, I highly suggest to come up with an equipment and console combo first, using cheap, regular SCI Consoles, test it out in game until you get the desired effects. You still want good enough DrainX but still good enough CtrlX as I stated before.
I highly recommend you get a plasmonic leech if you do not have one already. If you are KDF aligned then buy the T3 Vandal Destroyer to obtain that console. If you are Fed aligned, then the only to obtain it is from the Exchange. Note that the box which awards the plasmonic leech to a Fed captain, it rewards a totally different console to KDF captains. The leech drains power from you enemies when you use energy weapons and adds it to your subsystems. The leech for a Romulan science captain is more or less a requirement.
Yes, you should commission a science Boff to use the universal slot. In fact, I would also use a science Boff in the Science/Pilot station as well. That will alow you to use two copies of Gravity Well I. Gravity Well (GW) has a 60 second cool down, but if you have another copy of that ability, then the cooldown on the copy is 40 seconds. GW causes exotic damage which basically bypasses shields and is augmented by using Exotic Particle Generator science consoles which are the science consoles you should be using. If you have not devoted any skill points into Drain, then one Flow Capacitor console can be used to enhance the power drain the Plasmonic Leech.
Another ability that is good to use in conjunction with GW is Subspace Vortex which can be purchased from the Exchange. It is another science Boff ability that does AoE exotic damage in a 3km radius. The best way to use this ability is to activate GW frist, then wait a couple of seconds for ships to be pulled in, then activate Subspace Vortex.
Drain is more or less a waste of time if the goal is to drain power from enemy NPCs in order to shut them down. You need to create an extremely specialized build in order to do so. That is a waste of time and resources in opinion.
I think this is not really a fair comment without explaining what a good drain boat can manage.
A decent drain boat will shut any target down (or multiple targets) in mere seconds. They might not lose their shields but they will be sitting ducks shooting nothing but air at you and your teammates. It's not going to win any prizes for DPS most days but it'll be a huge asset to any team who've got the sense to see what it's doing to help them out. Being a drainer is a true support role.
But it you're right in it needing quite a specialized build. Not really suited to a tac focused ship like the escort carrier, i think you'd sacrifice a fair bit of damage potential in order to get decent enough drains going on (you're looking for at least 300+ DrainX skill).
That said though it might be an interesting tactic to drain a target and let the pets murder it uninterrupted by enemy fire.
This is pretty much my build, although I did switch it to run a threat based fbp setup, but that isn't hugely successful as its not the most tanky of ships.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/3ffca12b4781de82fea64cffb6528445
Can't remember exactly, but it was good for 80 - 90k before fbp, and if you setup for 2 resonance beams, was a great debuff ship
After reading the posts here, I did go online for the PS4 and checked for Plasmonic Leech. You can only get it from a Klingon ship and it is only available for Klingon ships. So that option is out for my Fed and Romulan ships. If the Fed stuff ends up being lockboxes, that will be out also as I don't do lockboxes and gambling. Odds never work out well for me to get what I am looking for.
Tried the Gravity Well I suggestion and with torpedo spread III, did quite a bit of damage Deep Space Encounters with just level X/XI plasma stuff. And I don't even have any skill points given to my captain yet. I like this ship myself and glad I bought it. Think my focus will be on the control side though my captain will be set up for drain also for when the Romulan Science ship evntually comes out.
I'll play around with all the suggestions that I can obtain to see what ends up suiting me best.
On a non-Science Warbird, you don't have a Cmdr Science ability anyway, so just focus on Weapons first, Aux second, since your damage comes from your guns first. Unless you make a torpedo build, then it's Aux only.
The key ingredient to torpedo builds - aside from lots of decent traits to boost them and a gravity Well to ensure the enemies all get to enjoy any AoE extra effects - is that you have to use reputation torpedoes and other special torpedoes (Plasma-Emission, Quantum Phase) and apply Torpedo Spread liberally. Kemocite Laced Weaponry helps, if it's available, but is not a must to get a viable build (on Science Vessels, you rarely have the slot for all of the stuff you want.)
It can certainly be done but it won't be cheap to get all the neccesary shinnies.
As @mustrumridcully0 said, concentrate on the fancy rep torps as they have a lot of side affects like AOE blasts/clouds etc. and DOT affects too, many of which avoid shields. General torps like photons, quantums don't really work unless you can really ramp up the damage from them but specialist torps are often boosted by sci skills like EPG, perfect for your sci heavy warbird.
A grav well, even rank 1, will draw in a decent number of NPC's and then you can TS3 them to death with fancy space magic torps.
Also, that Lt. Cmdr hybrid seat could slot Concentrate Firepower 3 which would work nicely with torps.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
He'd need to change platform first.
The only Romulan Science Vessels on console are the Ha'nom and the Dyson Destroyer.
I though the Dyson Destroyer was a great torpedo/exotic damage platform. In fact, it was one of my first attempts of the whole thing before Delta Rising and it was already surprisingly effective then. I mostly ignored the Destroyer Mode and the Proton Cannon, obviously. I think those are trap builds. But if you ignore them, you still get a Tier 5 Fleet Grade Science Vessels, plus a beautiful ship model. It's not as good as the Vesta (because the Vesta has a hangar bay that always helps and doesn't cost you anything to run in your build), but it arguably is better than every other Tier 6 Science Vessel.
The OP is playing on a PS4 console.
The new T6 science vessels are not avail for consoles yet. In fact, the consoles are missing a lot of T5 and T6 starships.