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Advice on ship aft weapons
misanthrope
Member Posts: 84 Arc User
in The Shipyard
I have a disruptor weapon build on my ship so I'm looking for a 360 degree aft weapon that does disruptor damage. My ship has 4 aft weapon slots, I already have the house martok omni beam, an omni-directional disruptor beam array, and I'm thinking of getting the borg kinetic cutting beam for my 3rd aft weapon but what should I use for my 4th slot?
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Not sure I would phrase it exactly this way.. but I have to agree.
A 4/4 ship is a poor choice for a front facing build. If you have a build you are set on, then find a ship that supports that build.
If you have a ship you're set on, then run a build that plays to the strengths of that ship.
What you're trying to do does neither.
- If you use Cannons => Turrets
- If you use Beams => Omni Beams and Beam Arrays
- If you use Torpedoes = > Stuff that completes useful set bonuses or more torpedoes.
ruinthefun has a simple maxime: If it doesn't maximize what you're going for, it sucks and you probably shouldn't bother.Your damage potential with a forward facing 4/4 build is weaker than the damage potential of a broadside 4/4 build. Not so great to start with.
Worse, if you use a beam build, all your weapons should be beams, otherwise not all your weapons will benefit from beam damage buffs like Beam Overload or Beam Fire At Will. But you can only have 2 Omni-Beams at best, that means 2 of your weapons will be regular beam arrays, that can't fire into your forward facing arc. A Kinetic Cutting Beam might compensate a bit, because at least it will also fire forward, even if it doesn't benefit from your beam buffs but IIRC, it also doesn't drain your power. But at the minimum, your 4th weapon slot will either not shoot at all into the front arc, or drain power and not benefit for your weapon buffs.
No one really cares if you also have a somewhat decent damage output in the rear. Your goal in combat is to maximize your strength, and that means you bring your targets in your strongest firing arc, and what the "weaker" arcs deal in damage should be almost never important, because they won't fire the majority of the time.
Of course you can play different and probably still beat most content and what not - but if one isn't trying to maximize damage output, why ask advice on what the best weapon choice would be? I mean, what are the criteria for "best" then? Whatever they are, you better explain them, because otherwise one would have to guess. You could say for example. "How do I best mimic the canonical look" or something, that would give people something to work with. But otherwise, the default assumption it's about build effectiveness in combat.
We're not saying it's not possible to have 4 360 degree weapons in the aft.
We're saying it's very difficult to have 4 that are all optimized by your skills. If, for example, you have 3 Omni Beams and a Turret.. you have 4 weapons, but only 3 of them are being effected by the beam skills that help the rest of your ship. I can think of one single ship in STO that can power 4 aft weapons and apply their skill to all of them and that's the Eclipse Intel Cruiser running Surgical Strikes (It has Commander Intel/Engineering Hybrid station.) And that build isn't that great, I know.. I have done it.
Look man, there is no need to get angry or defensive. I know the way Ruin said what he said wasn't the nicest, but honestly.. I'm trying to help you here. Can you do this? You can.. but why? There are ships so much better suited for what you want to do. If you already have 4 weapons that are working, I would love to hear what they are, because right now the only way to pull this off is with Turrets due to the Omni Beam limit. The way Naplam suggested with a Mine for quick turns is also not a bad idea. If you already have this set up then, why start a thread asking what to use? Are you just looking to tune the build?
Again, trying to help here.. I support people playing the way they want to play. Your concept simply seems inefficient to me and I am trying to help you improve it. Nothing more.
I've read over the responses above and don't think I get why not. (edit: aside from the omni limitation)
Is it power or firing arcs that are the problem? Would this still apply to 4/4 ships that have better agility than a full-sized cruiser?
My questions assume all beams with maybe 1 torp in front.
(Also, the tone intended is utter shock, not argumentativeness)
The Omni limitation means when you're 'facing forward' you will always have 1 weapon in your aft that can't fire. 4/4 layout is best left to single beams and broadsiding so you can fire all your weapons at once. The only way to have all 4 aft weapons firing is to mismatch one to a different energy type (example a turret in a beam loadout) which is also sub-optimal.
It's not that you can't do it.. you can. It's just not the best idea. 4/4 ships are simply not built to optimize a front facing load out.
Understood.
So if the front is all 250 arrays with a torp possibly, 2 or 3 omnis in back with an additional array (mine, etc) do you consider this a Front Facing build? Again, stunned in my own ignorance because this is the base of how I've been building most of my cruisers.
Useful examples. Thank you!
If you're using 250 degree beams that is not a front facing build.
Single Beams have a wider firing arc then any other weapon (250) so the best thing to do with these is to face the side of your ship at the enemy. This lets the front and rear beams all hit the enemy at once. If you have a ship with 8 single beams for example, you can keep the side of your ship facing the enemy and all 8 of your beams can hit them at once.
In the example you gave, with a front facing torpedo.. the typical method is to aim the side of your ship at your enemy until their shields are gone. At that point, you swing the nose around and fire the torp at their unprotected hull. You then turn back to broadside while your torpedo cools down for another shot.
Many builds that use single beams do use 1 or 2 omni beams in the rear. This however, is usually more done to complete set bonuses then it is because of the actual power of the weapon. For example, if you were wanting the 'speed tweaks' bonus from the Trilithium Laced Weapons set, you would likely slot the omni and the console to get the 2pc bonus. If you were not running the console as well, then it would be better to not take the omni either and replace it with a 250' that you could engineer to have ideal mods. Right now, all of my Phaser Builds that use single beams use 7 beams and the Trilithium Omni with the console. You could work other 2pc sets in as well if you like, that's up to the individual captain.
But to answer your question, a build using single beams is referred to as a broadside build. Front facing builds use weapons with narrow firing arcs in the front like Dual Cannons and Dual heavy cannons. These weapons deal superior damage to anything else, but are obviously harder to use because they require you to keep your nose constantly pointed at your target. When doing this, you want weapons in your rear that can also fire forward. In cannon builds, you can just use turrets in the aft, but for beams you're limited to 3 weapons in the best case that can fire forward. As Napalm pointed out, many times you can't even have that many. You can never have 4 aft facing 360' beams, it's currently not possible.
I hope that helps a little.
It did. I do generally follow the rules both you and coldnapalm laid out, but
I think it was the terms that threw me for whatever reason. Your definition was the ticket.
Thank you both!
Ok, cool.. if that's what makes you happy then by all means, go with it.
Currently, there is no 4th beam weapon that can fire forward, so there is nothing to suggest as a replacement. I would suggest that later on if you find yourself in the market for a new ship that you consider something with a 5/3 layout instead. That would let you drop the turret that is just a filler and replace it with another front firing weapon.
For now though, there are no other real options that can fire forward. The best idea IMO was the aft mine launcher that Napalm suggested, that at least makes the slot serve a purpose.
Good luck with your build.
However, what Cold said about single beams is absolutely correct. If you find broadsiding lame, then indeed, why on earth you're using single beams (and a 4/4 ship) in the first place?
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The effect of those mines is indeed useful.
Something of an odd find is the use of this:
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Kentari_Mass-Produced_Missile_Launcher
I used it since i had nothing else for the relatively fresh JH character, but with the high ROF and debuff that kentari missile works pretty good. Maybe not high end material, but certainly something to consider on budget builds.
The layout, for me, is to acquire as much set bonuses as I can for, primarily, Disruptor Damage.
There’s no set way to play the game. Play as you will.