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3:5 event ship - time to remove the omni beam restriction?
davefenestrator
Member Posts: 10,664 Arc User
The summer event ship has 5 rear weapon slots. For a cannons build you could put 5 turrets in back, but for beams we are hobbled by the (1 crafted) + (1 episode) restriction. Why not finally remove this ancient rule?
Con: BFAW works better than CSV and CRF so it's power creep
Pro:
- Let people play the way they want to
- The omni beams are much harder to get than turrets, so we earn those extras. Crafting XII Omnis is much more expensive in mats than mark II turrets, lock box omnis are much much rarer than turrets. Episode rewards are the same, but both have the "1 per ship" limit so the other 4 omnis must be crafted or lock box.
- We also have to spend a lot more dil to upgrade to epic since they can't be crafted at mark II.
CRF / CSV could be buffed a bit if that's really the only good argument against it.
Con: BFAW works better than CSV and CRF so it's power creep
Pro:
- Let people play the way they want to
- The omni beams are much harder to get than turrets, so we earn those extras. Crafting XII Omnis is much more expensive in mats than mark II turrets, lock box omnis are much much rarer than turrets. Episode rewards are the same, but both have the "1 per ship" limit so the other 4 omnis must be crafted or lock box.
- We also have to spend a lot more dil to upgrade to epic since they can't be crafted at mark II.
CRF / CSV could be buffed a bit if that's really the only good argument against it.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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The Con isn't even a real con since.. this isn't actually true. CSV and CRV are the two highest DPS abilites in the game at the present time. Beams have taken a real hit in the last round of money grab.. I mean.. nerf.. I mean.. 'Balance' making it so that BFAW III is really about the only beam skill left that's worth slotting. FAW I and II have been nerfed so hard they're almost not worth having, and things like Overload and Surgical Strikes are still just pathetic thanks to constant nerfs.
The truth is there is absolutely no reason for the Omni Beam limitation at all.. none. Even in the Event ship with it's 3:5 layout, 8 single beams broadsiding would be a superior build to anything with 5 rear omni's from a pure DPS perspective. The lower overall damage output of Omni's vs. Single beams alone would do it. Even if you loaded the front with something like 3 Dual Beam Banks, the ships inherit slowness would offset any DPS gain from the 3 higher damage weapons, 8 beams would still be the way to go.
The other argument is that Omni's can be used to complete sets. If you allowed unlimited omni's people could have 4 or 5 set bonuses, but again.. this is not a problem. Completing a set comes with a cost, they have an accompanying console that while usually fairly good is hardly 'optimal' in DPS loadouts. Most are using a weapon that's somewhat worse then their 1st option coupled with a console that's 'ok' but is there for the set. Sets come with a trade and that keeps this aspect in check as well.
The current limit on Omni beams is there for one reason only.. because Cryptic wants it. From a game play perspective there is no reason for it at all.
You are totally correct, they can be completed with the Turret layout, the only limitation is against the beams.
I would explain the exact reason why this limitation must remain.. but I can't give you that reason..
Because it doesn't exist.
So turrets can't exist either?
With the automatic auto-fire feature, you all (devs) have taken away the need for anyone to do any type of flying maneuvers. You also took away the need for any type of skill or knowledge. Might as well just make a movie of watching automated ships fly through the game while the player watches. Since a player can not have more than 1 complete weapons set (Tetryon excluded), we might as well just forget the popcorn while we watch our ships do all the work while the mobs keep spawning in the same place over and over again.
See that's a valid point. This is where astrogation should come into play, but it does not. When you start talking about maneuvers in the void, there is ALOT that has to be considered, and in STO, it is not. For example, we should be able to make a complete 360 on any axis, but we cant. We should also be able to travel pointed in any "direction" (relative to the galactic plane) on any axis, but we cant. So weapon arcs should be a heavily considered thing in any space flight simulator, but again, here on STO the lack of any actual science (other than what is needed for programming) is as absent as it is in SW.
StarSword wuz here, fixin ur quote tags.
Damage of an XII VR omni-beam: 502
Damage of a XII VR beam array: 505
The 3 damage point trade off coming of cost to 110 degrees of firing arc. That's a moot compromise. Compare that to the difference between turrets and single cannons (253 vs. 404 respectively). Blanket derestriction of omni-beams would require a significant nerf as to not invalidate a common class of weapon via the same trade off found in the cannon category (taking into account proportional gains in damage and degrees: we're looking at ~387 damage omnis* for 505 arrays.) That would remove most of the incentive for removing the limitation (simple convenience) and be a detriment to existing builds with omni beams.
*dO2 =dO1-(((dC-dT)/dC)/'('T-'C))*'('O-'A))*dO1
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Tooltip damage is notoriously inaccurate. I’ll have to find the solid numbers, but Omni’s typically parse lower then single beams.
What I'd question there is "typically." If there's consistent variation in what you see on a DPS tracker you'll want take a controlled reading that excludes extraneous variables like power use, the timing there of, when targets fall between firing cycles, and so on to be sure that an averaged sample of two weapons with stated near identical power is valid to their comparison. Plus you could do a T-test for a showy P value.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
If anyting, a slight reduction in damage would be a good trade to remove the current restriction. I would be perfectly fine with Omni Beams being more in line with something like Turrets. They should serve the function of turrets in beam builds.
No one wants to see someone parse 100k using 8 Omni Beams.. that would be silly.
That Omni dmg from crafted Omni? Crafted Omni has higher DPS than mission reward Omni. I assume Gamble Box Omni DPS would be similar to Crafted.
Turrets shouldn't be unlimited, yes. They can't be true 360 on the same plane as one would block the other. Ship weapon loadout and arcs are very badly handled in-game. On a standard ship, you could only have one dorsal omni and one ventral if they had clear 360 line of sight, which as most weapons are on the saucer rules out most ships, you could have one port and starboard, but the positions would vary and the 360 plane is let's say vertical and not horizontal, which horizontal is more preferred. The biggest array on-screen was the Galaxy, and that was 270 degrees IIRC, one dorsal and one ventral. STO's Weapon beam arcs are silly. 270 for ANY array regardless of ship! In the Starfleet Command Series, ALL ships had Canon weapon arcs, and most were less than 180. Even Voyager's Arrays were only about 120 degrees.
And I'm not even going to go into the incomprehensible notion that the Omni arrays can hit anything with-in it's sphere.......without destroying your ship cause it's actually firing through the hull!
Since the "reverse the polarity!" "oh no, a chroniton-tachyon storm sent us into the past!" science in Trek isn't much more realistic than Star Wars I hand-wave 360 arcs as being a separation between generators / capacitors and emitters.
That is, a ship might have multiple beam emitters all attached to a single "beam array" particle generator / energy capacitor. Perhaps the same beam emitter could even be shared by more than one "array." That makes as much sense as sillyon particles causing you to laugh too much.
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Yeah kinda how you have to think about it, weapons are a bit more abstract. I mean what the Galaxy class is suppose to have 12 or so phaser arrays? The scimitar had 50+ cannons and some absurd amount of torpedo launchers
Here's an easy solution, add a new class of weapons: Low-Power Omni-Directional Beams. Basically, omnis with the same damage output as a turret.
not to mention that currently the only energy types that have 3 are the three weakest, Polaron Tetryon and plasma
GD please allow us players a little bit of leeway. Feel free to keep the limit on the basic (non-set items) Omni-Directional weapons to one. BUT lift the limit ban on the set items. You now have two Omni-Tetryon sets and two Omni-Polaron sets. Let us use them along with one basic Omni-Directional without having to rely on the Omega Borg set (Kinetic Cutting beam) as the third add-on. It would be nice to be a fully dedicated Polaron and/or Tetryon build utilizing those sets.
We just had this conversation last week in my thread, but once again:
Omnis are harder to craft, much harder to get from lock boxes, and cost much more dil to reach Epic since most of them are acquired at Mark XII instead of crafted at mark II.
https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1242080/3-5-event-ship-time-to-remove-the-omni-beam-restriction#latest
Not all omni's as that makes little sense.
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