New to Engineer Please Help.

Comments

• arionisa Member Posts: 1,421 Arc User

  March 2017

  Unless you decide to suck all the fun out of the game (just my opinion) and go for nothing but max DPS, use whatever you have the most fun with. I personally love the look of a full cannon scatter volley and a torp spread launch at a mass of enemy ships. Might not do the most damage in the game but it sure the heck looks impressive.
  
  With a decent ship and the right BOFF skills, any of your choices will get you through all game content. Try em all, find the one you like, and then ask for advice on proper BOFF skills etc to go with your choice of weaponry.

  LTS and loving it.
  
  

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• davefenestrator Member Posts: 10,718 Arc User

  March 2017

  An engineer can do well in any ship, with beams, cannons and/or torpedoes, using any energy type. Fly whatever is fun for you.
  
  Just
  - pick one energy type, don't mix phasers with polarons and tetryons.
  - pick either cannons or beams not both. You want to use powers like beam fire at will and cannon rapid fire, but if you mix beams and cannons then the buff only works on half of your weapons.

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• davefenestrator Member Posts: 10,718 Arc User

  March 2017

  You will get 2 more free ships, at level 30 and 40. You could use the level 30 ship to try something different and see how you like it.

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• vuzafein Member Posts: 3 Arc User

  March 2017

  Hmm! Some very good points. Although, i thought i read that in the Balancing Update that Beam Fire at Will now has some rather steep penalties for using it thus making it virtually useless. Or did i read it wrong?

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• dumas13 Member Posts: 281 Arc User

  March 2017

  Use the EPS Manifold Efficiency trait. It grants 10 extra points of power to all subsystems whenever you activate an Emergency Power ability, which can give you a small edge in several areas if you run two EPtX abilities. I usually take Weapons and Shields and generally manage to have one or the other active at all times; the shared cooldown means a third EPtX ability is a bit awkward to use.
  
  Other than that, fly whatever ships you like most, with the weapon colours you think prettiest, and have fun.
  
  As for BFAW, it looks like it'll be getting an accuracy penalty that's very large for rank 1 and nonnegligible at rank 3 but easily compensated for with a trait or a bit of gear. At least, that's what I remember hearing on a thread about the changes on Tribble.

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• jaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User

  March 2017 edited March 2017

  There is no such thing as a best type weapon for an engineer or any other captain career. Use whatever weapon that best fits your style of play. Have you ever used cannons before? If not, then this is a good time to simply try them out to determine if you can adjust your play style to cope with the limited 45 degree firing arc of dual cannons and dual heavy cannons. Single cannons have 180 degree fire arcs. Best to find out now rather than later.

  Post edited by jaguarskx on March 2017

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• ihatepwe735 Member Posts: 337 Arc User

  March 2017

  If you, as an engineer, have picked a cruiser, then go beams as cruisers are slow to turn, so keeping enemies in front of cannons is hard.
  
  Do remember that one of the quests in the progression gives you a free cruiser, I forget what level, so when picking that tier of ship choosing the escort or science vessel will give you more choices (and, ultimately a slighter better spread of initial admiralty cards).
  
  Personally I go with at least 1 forward facing torp for extra hull damage once the shields are down. Arguably one looses out on boff synergies, but taking one beam weapon out the cycle means its not depleting your weapon subsystem power so its probably a nett dps win.
  
  Your engineers skills, in a cruiser, do make you particularly tankish, but solo questing can get very tedious if it takes forever to kill your enemies, so I like to use escorts to make a tac heavy build, but use my captains eng skills to give it the survivability that tactical captains lack.

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• davefenestrator Member Posts: 10,718 Arc User

  March 2017

  In a cruiser, an engineer can take 1x - 2x emergency power to weapons instead of EPTshields since you have rotate shield frequency and miracle worker.

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• tygerzz Member Posts: 105 Arc User

  March 2017

  In a ship with a poor turn rate I would focus a bit more on firing arc but then again you can always fly backwards to help keep enemies in front of you. There is a trait that negates some of the power loss for flying backwards in a specialist in tree so this may be more of an advanced tactic but as long as your having fun, I say go for it.

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• vuzafein Member Posts: 3 Arc User

  March 2017

  To ihatepwe735: You mean the Galaxy Class Support Cruiser, yeah i got that like 2 levels ago. But i don't think I can use it until higher levels.
  
  To jaguarskx: I have a Klingon Tac(lvl 10) so yes I'm familiar with cannons & .. very good point. They wouldn't be practical in a big ole barge like a cruiser lol.
  
  To everyone: Thanks a huge bunch for all the help. You've given me plenty of food for thought going forward!
  

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• tiberious

  tiberious#6095

  Member Posts: 183 Arc User

  March 2017

  davefenestrator wrote: »

  An engineer can do well in any ship, with beams, cannons and/or torpedoes, using any energy type. Fly whatever is fun for you.
  
  Just
  - pick one energy type, don't mix phasers with polarons and tetryons.
  - pick either cannons or beams not both. You want to use powers like beam fire at will and cannon rapid fire, but if you mix beams and cannons then the buff only works on half of your weapons.

  
  To the Op,
  
  The above says it all. While I'm a PS4 player and not PC, my engineer captain has 3 ships to fly. Pathfinder Science Ship, Andromeda Cruiser and Heavy Escort Carrier. It does fine in all of the them. What matters the most is how you set up your ship, boffs and captain skills. Stick to one energy 'weapon' type. Beams and Omnibeams or Canons and turrets. Use torpedoes as you like. All my ships have one forward and rear. To me, they're a great finishing weapon with torpedo spread plus the Quantum Phase Torpedo, I use on initial strike for drainage.
  
  I do mix energy 'damage' type on my Escort, Quantum Phase weapon set from Future Proof mission and two polaron weapon sets (mission and rep sets) as I use and like the various sets' bonus damages. Quantum Phase set use drainage which is a key component of the T6 Heavy Escort Carrier console. All three weapon sets use dual heavy cannons plus a turret with consoles that boost the weapon damage type plus torpedoes and other things like radiation damage. Nice thing with the Engineer is my escort is a little more survivable versus using my Tac Captain though the Tac Captain kills slightly quicker. I use this same ship with my science captain also. Adds variety to my game play as the same ship handles a little bit differently with each of my captains and their set ups.
  

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• postagepaid Member Posts: 2,899 Arc User

  March 2017

  I've tended to go with tractor mines in the back rather than a torp and once levelled enough to slot them 360 beam arrays.
  
  One thing I sometimes find myself forgetting about is the cruisers ability to buff weaps, shields, engines. If you're not taking a beating then shield buff isnt needed, likewise if power levels are ok then being cheaper to fire isnt as handy as the engines since that gives mobility which will always be useful. May not be a huge boost but it does make some of the cruisers like the galaxy require a good chunk less of the map simply to turn.

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• allentrill Member Posts: 6 Arc User

  April 2017

  Thank god I hated cannons and wanted to use chasers but thought since it came with cannons they were better.

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