I see 23c skins most of the time... almost never see the pancake-prise skins
Yeah, not a fan of the 26th century skins in general. Really not happy that the 23c science vessel skin looks so bad but at least it looks like a Fed ship.
I love the cross-faction 31st century ships in terms of their capabilities, but not a fan of their looks at all. I will say the raider looks kind of cool with Breen visuals turned on, if I'm using my KDF character to fly it. Anybody else find good-looking visuals for any of the 26c/31c ships?
well, looks, size, appearance, ambiance, and how it handles as well as what it can do or is able to do over-all. No ship is going to be a favorite if it has zero console slots for example.
If you aren't a min/max player.....really any T5, T5U, or T6 can be viable endgame without difficulty. Lot of players still roll the Nova, and Vesta as endgame with no T6 versions.
For me, there is no question.. Fleet T5U K't'inga.
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.
^^This, absolutely
And yet I am something of a min-maxer. So I spend hours trying to figure out how to get the most out of my K't'inga. It's really not a bad ship, it just suffers from that over-emphasis on Engineering in a system in which it's very hard to really hurt anyone with Space Engineering skills. More detail about this specifically here- http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1225188/the-old-d7-and-engineering-boff-powers
Granted, ground is a different kettle of fish entirely; you can definitely ruin somebody's whole week with an Engie on the ground.
I've actually been using one of the Mirror Escorts, partly because of all stupid reasons, it has more colors on it! *shakes head* I got tired of looking at the other ones.
And yet I am something of a min-maxer. So I spend hours trying to figure out how to get the most out of my K't'inga. It's really not a bad ship, it just suffers from that over-emphasis on Engineering in a system in which it's very hard to really hurt anyone with Space Engineering skills.
Space Engi skills aren't really about hurting other ships - they're more about getting better after the other ships have hurt you.
@wendysue53: If I'm remembering correctly, as far as cloakable Fed ships go, the Defiant, the Avenger/Arbiter (battlecruiser), the Galaxy-X, the Hestia (newer version of the Prometheus), Fed intel ships, and the Vengeance can all cloak, either with a separate cloaking device console or built into the ship itself (depending on the ship - I have the Vengeance and it's built in).
It's really not a bad ship, it just suffers from that over-emphasis on Engineering in a system in which it's very hard to really hurt anyone with Space Engineering skills.
Emergency Power to Weapons backed by the Emergency Weapons Cycle and Improved Critical Systems is one of the most violent abilities around. Endothermic Induction Beam and Structural Integrity Collapse both say 'hi'.
1: I use the T6 TOS Constitution for my main character, and I also use the Risan Luxury. If I could only use one ship, never to get another, it probably would be the Risan.
@wendysue53: If I'm remembering correctly, as far as cloakable Fed ships go, the Defiant, the Avenger/Arbiter (battlecruiser), the Galaxy-X, the Hestia (newer version of the Prometheus), Fed intel ships, and the Vengeance can all cloak, either with a separate cloaking device console or built into the ship itself (depending on the ship - I have the Vengeance and it's built in).
The Aquarius also takes a cloak if you have it from the Gal-X or Defiant. Probably another we're both forgetting...
"Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell BAD." - Spock
@wendysue53: If I'm remembering correctly, as far as cloakable Fed ships go, the Defiant, the Avenger/Arbiter (battlecruiser), the Galaxy-X, the Hestia (newer version of the Prometheus), Fed intel ships, and the Vengeance can all cloak, either with a separate cloaking device console or built into the ship itself (depending on the ship - I have the Vengeance and it's built in).
thanks. I had to go look it up earlier, but it turned out is wasn't necessarily the ships, but a console from what I could find.
"Game Description The Treaty of Algeron, signed in 2311 by the Romulan Star Empire and the United Federation of Planets, prohibited Federation cloaking devices. This agreement has been a source of controversy in Starfleet, where some officers believed it severely limited tactical options and put the Federation at a disadvantage.
Although the Federation initially agreed to follow the treaty after the destruction of the Romulan homeworld, in early 2409 Starfleet was authorized to develop and implement cloaking technology on selected ships. "
@wendysue53: If I'm remembering correctly, as far as cloakable Fed ships go, the Defiant, the Avenger/Arbiter (battlecruiser), the Galaxy-X, the Hestia (newer version of the Prometheus), Fed intel ships, and the Vengeance can all cloak, either with a separate cloaking device console or built into the ship itself (depending on the ship - I have the Vengeance and it's built in).
The Aquarius also takes a cloak if you have it from the Gal-X or Defiant. Probably another we're both forgetting...
Oh! The Intel Assault Cruiser (and anything capable of using its console, if you have it). Also, if you have the 3-piece set, it is one of the only Fed ships that uses BATTLE cloak. Maybe you are lumping it into the Fed Intel set of ships, but the original Intel Ships have integrated cloaking, the AC's used a console slot, plus the overall ship just doesn't fit with the rest, so I don't think you were.
"Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell BAD." - Spock
1) When it comes right down to it, gun to my head choice between a layout I like and Ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ, I'll pick layout. 90% of the time it's not that cut and dry, but for the questions posed in this thread, I don't really have a powerful attachment to any ship in Trek that I would fly it if the stat layout wasn't something I liked. Thankfully most ships I like also have layouts I can live with at least and love at best. The Hestia and Perseus are what my main two toons fly and those Tac/Sci layouts are perfect for me. But I have a soft spot for the Odyssey and the T6 Bortasqu'.
I will outright refuse a ship based on looks even if it has a layout I like, though - case in point, the Dauntless.
2) Sometimes. I wish the T6 Intrepid had more Tac power. I really want a fast, bite-y science ship for one of my Fed toons, but unless I slum it a little in a Vesta or Nova, I just can't get it. I would kill for a T6 Luna... A Lt. Cmdr Tac slot and Lt. Univ on my Sci ship is all I need, really. The Sutherland is a fair middle ground until we get some new Sci ships out in 2019 or something...
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?
I am blessed as the state of the game right now is that I am able to fly my absolute favorite ships on my characters: The T6 Constitution, the T6 Daedalus and a T6 Sovereign. Three characters, three ships. A fourth character flies a T5U Nicor and that's for RP reasons. So each choice is based on preference and not performance. That being said, each one of those ships can be utilized for high performance in this game, and I am building each one to the best of my budget/ability because I do have min-max tendencies.
2) Does it bother you when a ship you like has a poor stats (boff/console layout, shield modifier, turn rate...etc)?
Turn rate bugs me. I've been a strict adherent to cruisers since day 1 and I was always biased against the Galaxy in this game because of turn rate. I was also vitriolic toward the Excelsior because of its turn rate being so much better. But as stated above, currently I'm blessed since 3 of the 4 ships I list all have excellent turn rates and the other one is the sovereign which is the ship I've flown the most in this game, so I'm comfortable with that ship's turn rate.
Side note: My former main character, the one that logged the most time in a Sovereign, switched to a Guardian and I've gotten so used to that, that he's stayed in it. I simply am rocking the Sovereign on another character.
My take on this is right now, it's easy to fly the ship you like and still do over whatever threshold you might have for DPS and feel effective. The game itself doesn't require you to have a ton of DPS. Even the aforementioned elite maps that you cite as requiring a lot of DPS, really hinge more on strategy and teamwork than raw DPS. The DPS measurements themselves are a shorthand on the forums and in the community that oftentimes oversimplify actual performance (ie that 300k DPS run in ISA is great, but take that same ship with that same build into Battle of Procyon V and the number itself is radically different, and so the conversation about DPS usually distorts). And finally, with the skill revamp and all of the various changes, you can build any ship out to be effective.
To sum up:
DPS to win maps in this game is a very low bar
Skill Changes and New specs have made it fun and easy to achieve a level of DPS that is well beyond the low bar
You can build such a wide variety of loadouts that you can find one to fit any ship and be effective
The hardest maps in the game hinge far more on teamwork than on hyper focused fine tuned DPS maximization
With all that in place, it's very easy to just fly what you like and feel like a rockstar!
My favorite ship is the NX-class, which obviously isn't viable as an endgame ship, but I do pull it out from time to time just to fly around and enjoy myself. If they made a T6 version I'd grab it from the C-store in a heartbeat, stats and Boff arrangement be damned.
That said, I'd only buy it as an account unlock, because I switch characters too often for a single-character ship to be worth the price.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
It's really not a bad ship, it just suffers from that over-emphasis on Engineering in a system in which it's very hard to really hurt anyone with Space Engineering skills.
Emergency Power to Weapons backed by the Emergency Weapons Cycle and Improved Critical Systems is one of the most violent abilities around. Endothermic Induction Beam and Structural Integrity Collapse both say 'hi'.
Go read the thread I linked to, in which I explain why EIB and SIC are not what you claim them to be.
EPW was once very nice, but feature creep has produced a situation in which power is now an abundant resource, so it's no longer all that impressive. Next you will be touting Aux2Bat?
Emergency Weapons Cycle isn't worth paying 3000 Zen for a mediocre T6 ship
Improved Critical Systems looks good on paper, but here's the hitch - we have arrived at an endgame situation in which we suffer an embarrassment of riches in both Traits and Consoles. In both cases we have far more choices than we can use. I personally don't think ICS is good enough to be worth a slot.
2) Sometimes. I wish the T6 Intrepid had more Tac power. I really want a fast, bite-y science ship for one of my Fed toons, but unless I slum it a little in a Vesta or Nova, I just can't get it. I would kill for a T6 Luna... A Lt. Cmdr Tac slot and Lt. Univ on my Sci ship is all I need, really. The Sutherland is a fair middle ground until we get some new Sci ships out in 2019 or something...
The 31c Science Ship is a T6 Vesta. I use it and I love the performance, but I heartily dislike the Art Deco Pumpkin Seed look.
Go read the thread I linked to, in which I explain why EIB and SIC are not what you claim them to be.
You may consider the base effect unimportant (odd, but whatever) but no one will ever sneeze at the added effects from the traits. Weapon haste is one of the best raw damage multipliers going in a quivering web of diminishing returns.
Emergency Weapons Cycle isn't worth paying 3000 Zen for a mediocre T6 ship
Are you deranged? The three factional battle cruisers are some of the straight up best directed energy warships in the game. Even moreso if you confine you comparisons to zeni-store ships and not lobi, lock box or promo! vessels.
Power creep will surely overtake us all, but yeah... those are still powerhouses.
I stand by my original statement.
Feel free. You're nuts, but that's your privilege .
I'm task specific, depends on what ship I've got for the job
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
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)?
1. Defiant. She's my favorite ship. She's the A-10 of Star Trek. And I am a big fan of the A-10 and Defiant.
2.not really. I have ships for specific captains. Doesn't matter the stats so much.
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!
Go read the thread I linked to, in which I explain why EIB and SIC are not what you claim them to be.
You may consider the base effect unimportant (odd, but whatever) but no one will ever sneeze at the added effects from the traits. Weapon haste is one of the best raw damage multipliers going in a quivering web of diminishing returns.
Emergency Weapons Cycle isn't worth paying 3000 Zen for a mediocre T6 ship
Are you deranged? The three factional battle cruisers are some of the straight up best directed energy warships in the game. Even moreso if you confine you comparisons to zeni-store ships and not lobi, lock box or promo! vessels.
Power creep will surely overtake us all, but yeah... those are still powerhouses.
I stand by my original statement.
Feel free. You're nuts, but that's your privilege .
The fact we're playing STO is prima facie evidence that we're all nuts.
I do use my favorite ship, K'tinga. Currently flying it via the D7 Temporal Battlecruiser kitted out with the K'tinga skin. Before I was fortunate enough to get that drop I was flying the T5-U Fleet K'tinga Retrofit model. Both are good ships.
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?
I fly ships I'm attached to. I fly a Sovereign (Thank you so much for the model revamp, Jam Jamz!) and a Galaxy because those are my favorite prime hero ships. I also fly a Konnie, a Vengeance, a D4x, and a T'laru because I'm a big Kelvin fan.
2) Does it bother you when a ship you like has a poor stats (boff/console layout, shield modifier, turn rate...etc)?
Aesthetics come first for me. I choose my ship based on looks first, then I worry about working on it. That being said, it does bother me when I see something I don't like. For example, recently got the T6 Sovereign/Archon. The starship trait was worthless for me and it was disappointing, but it didn't stop me from getting one because Sovereign is my favorite ship in Trek. Plus I have plenty of good starship traits to choose from.
For things that can't really be changed (e.g. boff layout), I still go for it even when it doesn't suit me, but only if I reallyyyy like the ship's look. If I like the ship enough, my attitude is "Don't care, I'll fly it anways". I believe this is how I first got into flying science ships because way back when I had no experience, I didn't know what the heck I was doing in them. I tossed the idea of touching them until I finally saved up enough for my first crazy expensive exchange purchase, a Wells class. I didn't know how to make EC when it first came out and I wanted one really badly. Years later, I finally got one and I was super happy that I did.
I don't even think about flying ships that look ugly in my eyes, no matter how good it is. I also don't buy ships that are decent looking to me. A ship has to look good or at least be able to use a skin that I like, otherwise I pass.
Comments
Yeah, not a fan of the 26th century skins in general. Really not happy that the 23c science vessel skin looks so bad but at least it looks like a Fed ship.
I love the cross-faction 31st century ships in terms of their capabilities, but not a fan of their looks at all. I will say the raider looks kind of cool with Breen visuals turned on, if I'm using my KDF character to fly it. Anybody else find good-looking visuals for any of the 26c/31c ships?
well, looks, size, appearance, ambiance, and how it handles as well as what it can do or is able to do over-all. No ship is going to be a favorite if it has zero console slots for example.
^^This, absolutely
And yet I am something of a min-maxer. So I spend hours trying to figure out how to get the most out of my K't'inga. It's really not a bad ship, it just suffers from that over-emphasis on Engineering in a system in which it's very hard to really hurt anyone with Space Engineering skills. More detail about this specifically here-
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1225188/the-old-d7-and-engineering-boff-powers
Granted, ground is a different kettle of fish entirely; you can definitely ruin somebody's whole week with an Engie on the ground.
Emergency Power to Weapons backed by the Emergency Weapons Cycle and Improved Critical Systems is one of the most violent abilities around. Endothermic Induction Beam and Structural Integrity Collapse both say 'hi'.
2: I don't have any issues yet.
The Aquarius also takes a cloak if you have it from the Gal-X or Defiant. Probably another we're both forgetting...
thanks. I had to go look it up earlier, but it turned out is wasn't necessarily the ships, but a console from what I could find.
Oh! The Intel Assault Cruiser (and anything capable of using its console, if you have it). Also, if you have the 3-piece set, it is one of the only Fed ships that uses BATTLE cloak. Maybe you are lumping it into the Fed Intel set of ships, but the original Intel Ships have integrated cloaking, the AC's used a console slot, plus the overall ship just doesn't fit with the rest, so I don't think you were.
I will outright refuse a ship based on looks even if it has a layout I like, though - case in point, the Dauntless.
2) Sometimes. I wish the T6 Intrepid had more Tac power. I really want a fast, bite-y science ship for one of my Fed toons, but unless I slum it a little in a Vesta or Nova, I just can't get it. I would kill for a T6 Luna... A Lt. Cmdr Tac slot and Lt. Univ on my Sci ship is all I need, really. The Sutherland is a fair middle ground until we get some new Sci ships out in 2019 or something...
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
I am blessed as the state of the game right now is that I am able to fly my absolute favorite ships on my characters: The T6 Constitution, the T6 Daedalus and a T6 Sovereign. Three characters, three ships. A fourth character flies a T5U Nicor and that's for RP reasons. So each choice is based on preference and not performance. That being said, each one of those ships can be utilized for high performance in this game, and I am building each one to the best of my budget/ability because I do have min-max tendencies.
Turn rate bugs me. I've been a strict adherent to cruisers since day 1 and I was always biased against the Galaxy in this game because of turn rate. I was also vitriolic toward the Excelsior because of its turn rate being so much better. But as stated above, currently I'm blessed since 3 of the 4 ships I list all have excellent turn rates and the other one is the sovereign which is the ship I've flown the most in this game, so I'm comfortable with that ship's turn rate.
Side note: My former main character, the one that logged the most time in a Sovereign, switched to a Guardian and I've gotten so used to that, that he's stayed in it. I simply am rocking the Sovereign on another character.
My take on this is right now, it's easy to fly the ship you like and still do over whatever threshold you might have for DPS and feel effective. The game itself doesn't require you to have a ton of DPS. Even the aforementioned elite maps that you cite as requiring a lot of DPS, really hinge more on strategy and teamwork than raw DPS. The DPS measurements themselves are a shorthand on the forums and in the community that oftentimes oversimplify actual performance (ie that 300k DPS run in ISA is great, but take that same ship with that same build into Battle of Procyon V and the number itself is radically different, and so the conversation about DPS usually distorts). And finally, with the skill revamp and all of the various changes, you can build any ship out to be effective.
To sum up:
With all that in place, it's very easy to just fly what you like and feel like a rockstar!
But someday!
That said, I'd only buy it as an account unlock, because I switch characters too often for a single-character ship to be worth the price.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Go read the thread I linked to, in which I explain why EIB and SIC are not what you claim them to be.
EPW was once very nice, but feature creep has produced a situation in which power is now an abundant resource, so it's no longer all that impressive. Next you will be touting Aux2Bat?
Emergency Weapons Cycle isn't worth paying 3000 Zen for a mediocre T6 ship
Improved Critical Systems looks good on paper, but here's the hitch - we have arrived at an endgame situation in which we suffer an embarrassment of riches in both Traits and Consoles. In both cases we have far more choices than we can use. I personally don't think ICS is good enough to be worth a slot.
I stand by my original statement.
The 31c Science Ship is a T6 Vesta. I use it and I love the performance, but I heartily dislike the Art Deco Pumpkin Seed look.
You may consider the base effect unimportant (odd, but whatever) but no one will ever sneeze at the added effects from the traits. Weapon haste is one of the best raw damage multipliers going in a quivering web of diminishing returns.
Are you deranged? The three factional battle cruisers are some of the straight up best directed energy warships in the game. Even moreso if you confine you comparisons to zeni-store ships and not lobi, lock box or promo! vessels.
Power creep will surely overtake us all, but yeah... those are still powerhouses.
Feel free. You're nuts, but that's your privilege
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
T5 Vor'cha Battle Cruiser Retrofit.
1. Defiant. She's my favorite ship. She's the A-10 of Star Trek. And I am a big fan of the A-10 and Defiant.
2.not really. I have ships for specific captains. Doesn't matter the stats so much.
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
The fact we're playing STO is prima facie evidence that we're all nuts.
Ow.... OW! Fire on all decks! Solid burn on all four facings! XO, copy the log to an emergency buoy. All hands: Abandon ship!!
Well played, sir.
Sick crunchy, crispy nuts.
But we all gotta be a bit nut to enjoy life, otherwise it's not fun.
Aesthetics come first for me. I choose my ship based on looks first, then I worry about working on it. That being said, it does bother me when I see something I don't like. For example, recently got the T6 Sovereign/Archon. The starship trait was worthless for me and it was disappointing, but it didn't stop me from getting one because Sovereign is my favorite ship in Trek. Plus I have plenty of good starship traits to choose from.
For things that can't really be changed (e.g. boff layout), I still go for it even when it doesn't suit me, but only if I reallyyyy like the ship's look. If I like the ship enough, my attitude is "Don't care, I'll fly it anways". I believe this is how I first got into flying science ships because way back when I had no experience, I didn't know what the heck I was doing in them. I tossed the idea of touching them until I finally saved up enough for my first crazy expensive exchange purchase, a Wells class. I didn't know how to make EC when it first came out and I wanted one really badly. Years later, I finally got one and I was super happy that I did.
I don't even think about flying ships that look ugly in my eyes, no matter how good it is. I also don't buy ships that are decent looking to me. A ship has to look good or at least be able to use a skin that I like, otherwise I pass.
tl;dr
Aesthetics > Stats