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Someone point me to the math department
cptmassive1
Member Posts: 21 Arc User
Noobish question. I have been noticing something that may or may not be all in my head. I am just experienced enough at STO now to know I know very little of the hidden cryptic math behind the curtain.
Premise (means I think I have noticed): Smaller ships will die much faster than larger ships, hull/shielding/defense being ~equal.
Is this true? I have discovered how fun the T'Varo combo is with plasma cannons, turrets and torps so I have been flying it quite a bit lately. It has 21 EPS, roughly 66K hull, shields ~14K, and all resists ~41% in its current setup.
I can take a cruiser with those stats and fly around blind and backwards without having to look at the damage meter much but with this lighter ship I am getting one-shotted and dying a lot faster in general.
Is there a hidden maths somewhere dealing with ship size or is the T'Varo getting more threat because of its damage output and it just seems like it is made of paper because it gets shot by more people?
I have switched some traits and gear out for more defense on this build and will try it some more but either my painkillers (in post-surgery bedtime/STO marathons) are really good or something ain't right. As I advance in age I need one of those large, light-up calculators with the fist-sized buttons, so go slow.
Premise (means I think I have noticed): Smaller ships will die much faster than larger ships, hull/shielding/defense being ~equal.
Is this true? I have discovered how fun the T'Varo combo is with plasma cannons, turrets and torps so I have been flying it quite a bit lately. It has 21 EPS, roughly 66K hull, shields ~14K, and all resists ~41% in its current setup.
I can take a cruiser with those stats and fly around blind and backwards without having to look at the damage meter much but with this lighter ship I am getting one-shotted and dying a lot faster in general.
Is there a hidden maths somewhere dealing with ship size or is the T'Varo getting more threat because of its damage output and it just seems like it is made of paper because it gets shot by more people?
I have switched some traits and gear out for more defense on this build and will try it some more but either my painkillers (in post-surgery bedtime/STO marathons) are really good or something ain't right. As I advance in age I need one of those large, light-up calculators with the fist-sized buttons, so go slow.
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But on the whole, yes, smaller, faster ships will die a good amount faster than larger ones.
Depending on the ship and it's preference for console's you may require slotting more healing ENG/SCI abilities rather than offensive. But usually with a little trial and error you find something that is workable; also check to see what Starship Trait's your using. You earn more from either T6 Event Ships, CSTORE T6, T6 Lobi or Lockbox Ships.
Note however you can also find some on Exchange in Reward Packs searching keyword 'trait' or 'starship trait' usually of Rare or Very Rare Quality. You may see both Personal Space / Ground Trait's as well as Starship Trait's if you used just the 'trait' keyword. That will allow you some flexibility to acquire additional trait's.
Also if your a Romulan using Plasma make sure your bridge officer's have Superior Romulan Operative Trait that are assigned to Officer Stations on the ship so you gain their space trait. If you using Plasma Torpedo's make sure you use the Romulan Rep Hyper Plasma Torpedo it fires 3 Torpedo's much faster then use the crafted Particle Emission Plasma in the Rear which moves slower since enemy are flying towards you.
Just so you know, Superior Romulan Operative doesn't matter what type of damage it is. Just boosts Crits across the board (always nice) and cloak cooldown (always nice if you have a cloaker)
+ Most Romulan's all have Subterfuge which gives the Cloaking, Defense, and Damage Boost after Decloaking.
+ A few have Superior Romulan Operative gives Critical & Critical Severity bonus in addition to reduced cloak cooldown.
But as he only stated that he used Plasma I said if he might be a "Romulan using Plasma" consider getting 4 to 5 of his Very Rare Bridge officer's with the Space Trait - Superior Romulan Operative. You'll also likely want 2 or 3 of your frequently used Bridge officer's for away missions to have their two superior trait's for ground encounters as you have at least 8.
If you are Romulan as well consider the Personal Space Trait that helps boost your singularity level - then choose Singularity Overcharge when your singularity level reaches 5. If your not Romulan then simply disregard the above statements as they don't apply to you. Regardless you can find some nice Traits searching Reward Packs on Exchange for 'Trait' or 'Starship Trait' keywords in Rare or Very Rare Quality to possibly help improve different abilities if you have the energy credits.
Very Rare Bridge Officer's be they Science, Engineering, or Tactical usually start with that SRO Trait for Romulan's at 500,000 energy credit's and above but sometimes you get lucky and find one for less.
- Cruisers have higher basic hull capacity and have hull resistances and max hull capacity in the ship mastery.
- Cruisers have higher engineering skills (aux2sif3 comes to mind)
- Cruisers usually spin around a 1.00-1.10x shield multiplier. That means that a space shield with 10.000 shield capacity will have 11.000 shield capacity at 1.10x. The shield capacity captain skills and additional shield capacity from items also factors in.
- Cruisers also have higher regeneration numbers for hull
- Cruiser users tend to invest into those engineering skills that reinforce their ships via hull resist, shield resist, hull cap, shield cap, hull regen, shield regen, hull heal, shield heal.
In general it's ship type not size that determine this. Cryptic's grasp on maths is very poor. Apparently a T6 Miranda, Connie or NX can have similar HP and Hardpoints to ships ten times their size! It's a joke this can be so. A Universe Class ship should be able to make small work of any of these ships.
Rom ships lose subsystem power but gain singularity, this reduces sheld resistance and regen, and any heals that feed of aux power. Rom tac ships are potentially squishy. Its a reason to use things like plasmonic leach. Want more shield power try epts with cooldown boosts, also energy/protectile weapon doff that adds 20 to shield power.
IMO the best value doff in the game is a blue antimatter specialist for auxtodamp, they help any ship stay alive and mobile. Best half mil you'll spend.
Heal by doing damage: Roms Valdore console heal shields from damage; ultrarare spacewarfare doffs 10% of damage becomes self heal, choose doff that fits build as activation trigger is 20% chance after an ability is used; energy refrequencer rep trait 2.5% damage is self heal. Even someone doing 10Kdps with 12.5% in auto-heals is getting more than if they had hazard emitters running all the time.
I had 2 superior romulan operatives on my bridge already but the other two or three were different races or flavor choices so apparently I knew of the SRO at one point in the past and had forgotten it when I came back to STO most recently. I am a LTS but took a break for a few years starting in about 2011 and then off and on since.
The trait and console ideas are exactly what I was looking for -- now to just collect them over time. What I was missing was the cruiser benefits in my math -- I knew they were there but couldn't possibly read and comprehend when I was wondering why my T'Varo was getting ganked all the time.
Updated my pilot slot too while I was at it - my pilot / engineer was a Ferengi so I added a spec to my Rom SRO engineer and now should have the best of both worlds.
Yea Pilot or Command Specialization is excellent for Escort feel free to try one or the other as Primary and the other as Secondary and see what works best for you based on your skill choices and equipment gear you have slotted.
Most romulan's I think are given one Very Rare Science Officer with SRO trait at 50; although with recruitment Duty Officer missions as New Romulus many can get 4-5 of their Bridge Officer's with that Trait. I'd caution you getting more than 5 however as it's good to have 3 Bridge Officer with 2 of their Superior Trait's focused on Ground combat for Away Missions.
After all you can only slot 5 Bridge Officer's on your Starship to gain the trait bonus; just make sure the ones with SRO are given a ship station to take advantage of the trait.
Also make sure you get the Iconian REP console for sure it greatly improves Hull & Shield Healing while also giving an all Weapon Damage boost similar to a tactical console.
I was pretty sure you might have had Romulan's as your Captain. Your avatar is adorable.
No, he didn't.
(Emphasis mine) So the question is: is there a variable beyond those (hull, shielding, defense) that correlates with size, which
determines survivability. Though I cannot say I noticed that.
No, I was asking why they die faster with the same stats. And it was answered. Thanks for your input.
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
All else being equal, small ships should not die faster than large ships. All else is seldom equal, however. It might be your skills, traits, equipment, doffs, captain abilities, boff abilities, or differences in your flying. Cryptic has plenty of hidden math, but this isn't one of them. If Cryptic gives different stats to smaller ships than to bigger ships, then that's a design choice made on a ship-by-ship basis; it has nothing to do with how big the ship looks.
Although there are hidden differences between different classes of ships — cruisers, escorts, science vessels, BoPs, raptors, battle cruisers, warbirds, and so on — those differences are in the initial inputs to the math formulas. The final results show up on the "Stats" tab.
Are you sure you looked at all the stats? There's a whole tab full of them. Admittedly, some stats are missing (most notably, shield resistances), and some can't be interpreted correctly without know more about the mechanics, but most of it is all there.
If you have "noticed" some ships being more squishy than others, you likely have not actually seen all the stats the go into calculating survivability, or otherwise have had some incredible and convenient luck.
It is by far the most resilient Warbird a Romulan/Reman can ride.
I can detail a sketched build for dps and survivability balanced inside a nutshell with more than average results once you can handle piloting a heavy ship. It is mostly worth it. Another alternative would be a Miracle Worker Warbird.
The Valdore console has a 2.5% chance to heal your shield facings based on the damage you just shot when it proc'ed, multiplied by a factor of 2. (200%). If you land a hit of 2000, it will heal all shield facings will be healed for 4000 shield hitpoints.
But the problem with this console is that on 7 firing weapons (presuming you run a torp or a kcb or something that doesn't have the same firing cycle) ... Is that you get healed only when your shields drop under 90% of their capacity. And the odds are 1/40 on each beam, roughly.
That's not survivability, that's calling on luck and firing cycle haste.
I'll detail if you want to know more.