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Need beginner tips on carriers
irishxp
Member Posts: 72 Arc User
in The Shipyard
Hello! 
I'm not a beginner per se, I played for quite some time now, I'm just ignorant on how to fly in a good carrier
I looked for information but I can't really find something useful so I came here asking for you collective expertise.
I bought a gamma pack yesterday, now I have lots of new ships and want to roll a proud Jem'Hadar Vanguard and taking the chance for flying a carrier.
Problem is, as I've already said, I know nothing about carriers
I was thinking of going engineer to up my survivability.
What's important to keep in mind when playing a carrier?
I suppose much of my attack power will come through my pet, how to keep them safe? How to make them more powerful?
Any peculiar tactics?
I suppose, anything will prove helpful
I'm not a beginner per se, I played for quite some time now, I'm just ignorant on how to fly in a good carrier
I looked for information but I can't really find something useful so I came here asking for you collective expertise.
I bought a gamma pack yesterday, now I have lots of new ships and want to roll a proud Jem'Hadar Vanguard and taking the chance for flying a carrier.
Problem is, as I've already said, I know nothing about carriers
I was thinking of going engineer to up my survivability.
What's important to keep in mind when playing a carrier?
I suppose much of my attack power will come through my pet, how to keep them safe? How to make them more powerful?
Any peculiar tactics?
I suppose, anything will prove helpful
0
Comments
the carrier has only two engineering console slots, so it is alot more of a glass cannon then you'ld think for such a large ship. ignoring pet for a moment it is a sci heavy ship, plan to use it like one. debuff that decrease your targets resists help you and your pets, all your pets, buff to your damage mostly only help you.
on to pets, quickist way to improve em buy the advance version from the dil store. as far as trait to help them. get wing commander and Scramble Fighters from the exchange, both are pretty costly.
if you have access to the breen carrier you want the starship trait from that, if not don't worry about it. Coordinated Assault from the ships in the escort carrier bundle give your hanger per beam overload or rapid fire when you use beam overload or rapid fire. oh if you use intel skill the trait from the carrier itself is useful.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Another good trait from the large Vanguard pack is "Calm Before the Storm" from the Cardassian Flight-Deck Crusier, which is a building Damage Resistance that turns into a Haste for energy weapons (makes them fire faster) and cools down your bridge officer abilities (make them come back faster).
If you're not planning to exclusively use the Vanguard Gunboats, consider rolling a KDF-allied character to be able to pick up the "Superior Area Denial" Trait from the exchange cheaply instead of having to buy an entire Lockbox ship. The trait gives Fire At Will and Cannon: Scatter Volley to your Hangar pets and you a out-going debuff similar to Attack Pattern:Beta. If you're going exclusively for the excellent Gunboats, it doesn't matter as mush as those already have Fire At Will.
Especially on wich traits will come in handy!
I was thinking of going fed to get Reciprocity from the intel escort but kdf sounds juicy
I'll probably mostly fly vanguard ships but I don't want to limit myself, even though training to be a carrier captain will probably influence what kind of ships I'll be "proficient" to fly.
As I'm currently flying a Sarco KDF side... my advice is don't bother trying to outmaneuver things. Load up on beam arrays. One trait I'd suggest at some point is Coordinated Assault, off the Flight Deck Raptor. Can also get it Fed side off the T6 Escort Carrier. Gives your pets a free Beam Overload 1 or Cannon Rapid Fire 1 whenever you use Beam Overload or Cannon Rapid Fire.
Pretty fun trait on a full 2 hanger carrier. Also there is the new Superior Area Denial that comes off the new Mirror Escort Carrier. KDF can get it for about 5-7 mil last I checked. Slaps the enemy with a debuff and grants hanger pets a free Fire at Will 1 or Scatter Volley 1 when you use Fire at Will or Scatter Volley.
If you can slot something to buff your turn rate a bit it will help on a full size carrier, but you're not gonna be running circles around things.
Also your pets are not the sole source of damage.
I'm running 2 Elite Slaver Pets, and they are pretty fun. Seeing 12 extra beam arrays is also entertaining.
Without any carrier related traits but with the all 3 CP's am getting up to 20K dps (pets only) on a Kar'Fi with elite Fer'Jai frigates and about 25K dps out of the Jem carrier using the standard pets that come with the ship.
Carriers are doing quite well these days.
I created a vanguard jem'hadar engineer kdf allied, now I shall have to build some weapons\equipment for team and the ship or I won't even be able to get out of spaceport
Jem'Hadar come with some decent Mk XII purple gear, check your starter Bug ship and your fighter for gear to outfit things while you grind things to take it further. The starting BOffs also have decent Mk XII gear on them too.
Oh boy! Where do I start? Well, I will start by saying that I fly carriers almost exclusively. I always fly carriers and they are generally always my go to ships. The only times I really fly any other ship is when I am trying to unlock their starship traits.
Anyways, I will give you my personal opinion on carriers. People may not agree with this but at least hear me out. For me personally the two key things I focus on with any carrier is mobility and flight speed. Carriers generally move and turn slow so one of your biggest bets and achievements is to get that ship moving. You can achieve this through multiple consoles and space traits as well as reputation traits.
The second thing I focus on in any carrier is its destructive power. You can achieve this by going for highest [DMG] modifier or a combination of critical chance and critical damage. Or you can do what I did which was squeezing in as much critical chance and critical damage as much as possible after maximizing raw damage. I see any critical hits and critical damage as a bonus.
In addition to all of this, you can further increase the destructive force of your carrier by giving it a little bit of extra subsystem power and power transfer rate. Once again you can achieve this through ship gear and skill allocation. It is not a requirement but it will help.
And the very last thing you can do is get yourself a good set of hangar pets. They will provide an extra boost of power. However, I would not over-emphasize their importance over the above-mentioned. I personally see them as a nice extra touch. Once you are super powerful the hangar pets won't really matter much. Or at least you won't have a chance to perceive their damage output because you yourself will be killing stuff significantly faster. There are a ton of different hangar pets but personally I love frigates. I just think they are cool.
Personally I prefer hangar pets that have Torpedo Yield and Beam Overload for the sole reason that any AOE type of attacks will make them aggro more enemies to the point where they die more easily. Additionally, I tend to avoid hangar pets with cannons and stick to those with beam arrays, dual beam banks or omni-directional beam(s). As for their torpedo I think the best one they can use is the transphasic one. It goes through the target's shields and will hit its hull more directly. Sadly most hangar pets do not have this so you will have to find something with a trade off. The ones that really do are the Spire and Mir fighters as well the Baltim Raider Frigates.
But I went with the Yukawa frigates because they can be used on other ships. They also come with three fore dual beam banks, a quantum torpedo and an omni-directional beam array... and Torpedo Spread 3. It's a good frigate if you can afford them. There are possibly better hangar pets out there but I think they are as good as they can get with a good combination of weaponry, abilities and no restriction.
Anyways, here is a sample of what a large carrier can do in terms of damage, mobility and speed. I am just playing casually here in Japori System. The reason why I choice this place was to eliminate any external interference like other players. I suggest that you go there and see for yourself how you compare to let's say all the damage indicators and mobility seen in my recorded video.
I hope you can see the damage indicators because the video is in 4K.