Everyone here probably has a favorite ship. This could be a hero ship from the television series or movies or maybe it's one of Cryptic's in house designs. The reason I ask is because I personally barely ever use any of my favorite Star Trek ships in game. Most of my favorite ships have undesirable stats, bridge officer and/or console layouts so I end up using other ships that perform much better in game, but that I don't particularly like for one reason or another.
This leads to a couple questions-
1) Do you use a particular ship because you actually have an attachment to it (favorite hero ship, like the look of it ...etc), or do you base your ship choice on its performance in game?
2) Does it bother you when a ship you like has a poor stats (boff/console layout, shield modifier, turn rate...etc)?
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To answer your inquiry
1 : I use the KT Intel Dreadnaught "Vengeance class" not only do i like its apperance but i love its destructive capabilities
2 : Yes i was going to get the T6 sovvy/ archon but the deal breaker was its boff seating arrangement especially the intel seat, if the ship looks cool but stats and boff seating is rotten i wont get it.
No. First of all you can kit a ship out to help alleviate things like poor turn rate. Second, a differing BOFF layout than you're used to or like can lead to you trying out new setups that can lead to more interesting builds that you may not have considered before.
There's almost no ship in the game that's "to bad to use" and even then most of the "bad" ones to players are perfectly fine but just not to their liking and they don't like the look/theme of it enough to make it work. Player perception of what the "best" stats and the current "meta" is what pushes that fallacy, not stats. Fly what you like the look and theme of, you'll have more fun doing that then worrying over "It doesn't have perfectly optimized BOFF seating! IT'S GARBAGE!"
2. As long as a ship has a T5 or higher variant, I'm honestly pretty good. I think the first time I jumped into a D'deridex after spending so much time in a Valdore (bought the Valdore class as soon as I could, flew it until I could use the Mirror Mogai, finally started using the D'deridex after Black Friday) it was a bit of a shock, because those ships handle very, very differently. The Valdore is incredibly nimble and is a straight jouster with its cannons and/or double beams, while the D'deridex is an old school broadsider and has the turning rate of a bathtub.
I think my only disappointing experience with a ship has been when I toyed with an Oslo-class and even the Nebula-class when i was leveling my main Federation character way back when STO was released. I'd been mostly using Science ships, but I really like the Oslo class and wanted to give one a whirl. Maybe I just never gave her a fair shake back then (since I've escort-esque warbirds since then with a great amount of fun!), but it just never clicked with me. As for the Nebula? Compared to all the other science vessels I've flown, she just felt so sluggish. But both of those ships were probably more down to me being very used to one particular play-style and not taking the time to sit down and learn em'. It's a mistake I've avoided since I've come back to STO, which is probably why there's now such a plethora of ships I enjoy flying.
2. For me, the ships have T5 and T6 versions which aren't bad at all. I do wish for slightly different BOff layouts but its not a deal breaker for me as I prefer cruisers already. I have found the game to be rather easy overall, so the need to min/max every little detail is not absolutely required to be successful.
For what it is worth, if a ship has terrific stats but isn't appealing aesthetically to me, I simply will not fly it even if you gave it to me for free. >.> I am one of those guys lmao.
Yeah, I'm doing the Christmas stuff basically for the Admiralty card of the Breen ship.
Just not a fan of Breen vessels. But for free? Well, Admiralty cards are always nice!
Is literally the only reason I do that dang race every day. lol. I WANT THE CARD!
I fly other "perfect" layout ships only long enough to pick up the traits.....otherwise they are admiralty cards only. And I usually just hop into new ship, fly SB24 2 or 3 times on solo to hit the tier 5 trait, and then go back to classic ship of choice.
The only other special designs for me are the Xindi Narcine, Kumari and Vesta class starships. Those I do use frequently because all these ships have some potential and are easy to work with.
Mr. Spock: And the ways our differences combine, to create meaning and beauty.
-Star Trek: Is There in Truth No Beauty? (1968)
Because it's pretty deadly already and because, had things gotten differently, I like to imagine it as a perfect ship for the Federation (albeit, after having a new paint job and getting its interior seriously upgraded to be more pleasant and welcoming): it's huge, it's fast, it's highly resilient, it can curbstomp a lot of things, it shows it can... and it just loves exploring, meeting new people, befriending them, helping them, and will only get angry if you're a bully. A gentle giant, basically.
For the D4x, it's a raider that has a battle cloak, a pilot ship I don't find ugly and I can crew the way I want, it can equip good exclusive consoles with interesting set bonuses to make it more resilient, and its wings move, like in its movie! It looks mean and like it was built with a semi-post-apocalyptic design in mind. Perfect for a KDF engineer!
While I usually choose my ships due to their appearance and actions in canon (still hoping to see the Jellyfish, the Kelvin and the Franklin, in STO one day), I also check their stats. I'm usually forgiving if they're not the best, but on rare occasions, they just make me want not to bother. Which leads to the second point.
2/ Stats and default builds rarely bother me as I'm not seeking to be the best in DPS. For example, despite the lack of cloak, strange angle when flying and lack of good color patterns, I really love my Baltim even if the Vengeance replaced it. But when something really seems off I won't bother with the ship. For example:
-not a single universal station, even if it's just an ensign one? Get it off of my face!
-no Lt Commander sci station for my Gravity Well? You'd better have some good exclusive console or something to compensate!
-no "Fly her Apart"-like ability for the T6 Excelsior? Get out of here!
Bolded for emphasis. The actual stat differences between a T5 and T6 ship is pretty negligible, and *most* T5 ships are capable of being T5-U, making the gap even smaller.
I do wish they'd let me upgrade my Mirror Mogai to T5-U, but it's a minor thing.
I think part of it is the nature of STO. "Optimization" is NOT a requirement. This isn't WoW where you need to have an absolutely perfect build to squeeze out that extra 2% DPS needed before anyone will let you raid with them.
With STO, you can probably complete any content with nothing but T5 ships. The bar for viability is very low, and when that happens a lot of people are content to just do whatever is fun for them. This is probably amplified by the fact that the majority of the playerbase are longtime Trek fans by the opportunity to sorta live out the fantasy of being their own Star Trek captain with their own ship and crew, going off to explore the final frontier. I'm definitely in that camp, and for me being the "BEST OF THE BEST OF THE BEST, SIR," isn't why I play STO.
As for people who do play for the min/max... more power to them, absolutely. There's a lot to enjoy in this game, and if you're the type who wants to see what combinations of gear and abilities and BOFFs and DOFFs will result in the absolute most impressive amounts of insane damage, go for it. The style of gameplay is an option in STO, but it's far from a requirement. It mostly means you'll be able to clear content at a faster speed and be able to thump your chest about what a beast your ship is. Which, again, nothing wrong with that. It irks me slightly when I enter a Red Alert and can't even touch a single Borg ship, but whatever, it's a pretty minor thing.
It's something that Cryptic has been good at for, well... ever. I remember losing countless time of my life to City of Heroes/Villains, and I don't think I ever had an "optimal" build (I never made a Regen Scrapper). Make a cool character with abilities that also seem cool, proceed to have fun.
Because you're a min/maxer apparently. That type of mindset is completely removed from the mindset a lot of other players have. To min/maxers a game isn't "fun" unless you're using the most optimized, "meta", loadout and theorycraft new stuff to see if it will give you a 1.113% DPS increase. People with that mindset will never fully get the "I'm playing what I find fun even if it takes me 15 more seconds to kill something."
This game isn't hard, even for people flying around in non-optimal builds. You can make a viable ship using almost any combination of equipment and abilities. It won't be optimal, but if someone wants to run around doing PvE content in vanilla Tetryon or Phaser type beams, or make a ship with 3 Torps, or even doing some crazy build based around one console it'll still work. It won't be optimal but it'll still let them clear the content in a way they enjoy. Just because a ship isn't optimal doesn't mean it's garbage that no one should use. That might be YOUR opinion, and judging by how you very carefully worded your OP and reply it's obviously the case, but that doesn't make it true.
That's not entirely true...at least your analysis of me. While I do try to optimize my ships as much as possible. I wouldn't call myself a min/maxer. In that I don't build my ships around the so called "meta". I do like to be the best that I can be within my own build system, but I personally don't follow the meta. I still use an a2b build, which if you know anything about the current meta, isn't anywhere close to optimal.
While I generally agree that the game isn't hard there are a few mission in game that do push people to their limits. Hive Space: Elite for instance. I wouldn't recommend for people using less then optimal builds/gear if they want to succeed at the mission and get the optional and max reward.
I use them regardless. Vor'cha, B'rel, Negh'var, D'Deridex, Valdore and so on. Most Cryptic designed ships are ugly as sin. I may get them for the trait, but after that I'm dumping them.
I really wish Cryptic would lose the Trek license or at least that ***** of lead designer would get replaced.
My beliefs kind of align with yours in some respects. I use the B'rel, and Vor'cha on my kdf character, and the D'Deridex on my RR character. I enjoy the canon designs and for the most part shun the majority of the Cryptic designs. In some cases they have some decent looking ships. I do like the Command Cruisers on the fed and romulan side for instance.
As for losing the license I don't actively hope for that. I enjoy this game and play it and don't really want it to go away.
Most, but not all.
I, for one, love my Nimbus class. All the other DSSVs definitely fall into the "Oh gods, WHY?!" category for me, but the Nimbus pulls it off. Probably because it's less vertically oriented than the other DSSVs and it's secondary deflector array isn't quite as pronounced. That, and some of its aesthetics reminds me of Federation ships from the original films.
I'm also a pretty big fan of the Valdore variant skin/class for the Mogai, and a lot of the Romulan Cryptic ships in general are pretty solid (not the Haakona and other bizarre four winged.... things Or the Ha'feh, it just doesn't click for me). Actually, thinking about it, it's really Federation Cryptic ships that tend to lose me. I really love the looks of the Gorn vessels, my Voth Bulwark may look vaguely like a sex toy but it's still a fun design... they definitely have some winners in there.
Then you've got the "future" temporal federation ships, which all look like someone flew a regular Federation ship too close to a black hole with... and then flew it under a giant waffle iron.
It is my favorite ship in Star Trek. Yes, stat-wise, it is easily eclipsed by T6 ships (and quite a few T5s as well), but i have loved the "look" of that ship since I first seen the D7 inthe ST episode Day if the Dove. I REALLY fell in love during the flyover of the K't'ingas during TMP as they were flying toward V'Ger. I still use the ship with 3 of my characters. Tried to get ahold of the recent T6, but luck wasn't on my side. Still, I am happy to at least be able to fly my favorite ship in Star Trek.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
There are a few ships that I don't like, but for the most part I'll be able to make just about anything work.
I actually really enjoy that ship as well. So much so that I spent all the Feet Modules to get the Fleet version. It's really unfortunate that the T6 was part of the promo pack...put it out of my price range.
My main got that Odyssey-class prototype in the Anniversary event a few years back, and was flying that at T5 (I don't think it had a T5-U option) until I got a Zen gift card, whenupon I was able to upgrade to the very similar-looking T6 Yorktown-class. It needs a buttload of RCS modules because it handles like a cow on skates, but in my eyes it's a beautiful ship.
As I dont even give a rats TRIBBLE about upgrading past blue/purple mkXII, I am fairly sure its safe to say that, no I dont give a rats TRIBBLE about sub-par stats. I've also seen "subpar" ships, with a good build and a player that knows how to use it right, utterly decimate the "optimal" ships in game.
STO is so dead easy I can take a t4 ship, with green/blue mk IX gear into the "endgame" story content and win. Admittedly I will probably die a few times but the point is, "Optimized" and min/max and all that other TRIBBLE is just not needed. I can roll my fleet varanus into an advanced STF, do well, sometimes even rank 2nd/3rd, and move on. Not bad for a "subpar" ship half the community seems to despise.
Yea... all my temporal ships are using 23rd Century skins on my TOS as well.
And I never could get used to how sluggish the old Ody was compared to my Sovy at the time.