Spinning off a discussion that was getting started in the Borg lockbox thread so that that thread doesn't get derailed:
Woohoo! Got an Omni!
Game: * nope you can't equip this with your crafted Omni not you haha *
Sigh. Someday Cryptic will treat beam omnis like cannon omnis (turrets). Someday.
Not to derail the thread, but I kinda wish they'd do away with this mission + crafted/lockbox nonsense and instead have:
Mission/lockbox omni = Experimental Omni (high damage, can only equip one)
Crafted omni = normal Omni (lower damage, no equip limit)
Mission/lockbox turret = Experimental Turret (higher damage, can only equip one)
Crafted turret = normal Turret (current turret damage and equip rules)
In addition, missions and lockboxes should reward/have a chance to reward crafting schematics for the lower damage crafted versions of their respective omnis and turrets, with nerfed proc effects on the crafted versions if necessary.
turrets have less dmg than omni beams... if you want them to have the same dmg... might as well ask em to merge the 2 and get rid of the distinction between beams and cannon fire.
say you have a ship with 8 slots... all turrets. they will do less dmg than a ship doing broadsides with beam arrays. change that to omnis... I am sure internal tests show 8 omni's will just be THE meta choice. Then what? nerf em all down to do less than turrets? keep in mind the the tac skills, rapidfire/scatter volley vs overload/faw
capping it to 1 of each is ok... just need to expand that to 1 from mission rewards, 1 from Rep, 1 from Crafted & 1 from gamble box.
So from 2 to max 4.
They could restrict the omni beams to rear arc only to prevent 8 omni builds. As for them doing same damage as turrets, I only said lower damage, not necessarily the same damage as turrets. The damage should be such that cannon and beam builds are balanced enough that the overall damage is roughly equal.
Comments
For Space Barbie reasons I'd like to see all (rear slot) restrictions removed even if it means a damage nerf. So if you are using "modern" orange Phasers on an esort you could use 2-3 omnis in back and dual beam banks in front. Just like you can do with turrets and DHCs for a cannon build.
Being able to use more omnis might make Beam Overload more useful than it current is compared to BFAW.
Also have them do equal damage to each other.
Not if they balanced it properly, and they have several ways they could tune it whether that be reduced damage, increased power drain, proc nerfs, etc. Obviously they couldn't keep them the way they are now, which is why I listed ways I would change them. Imo it should be balanced such that a broadside cruiser build does more damage than a 4 omni cruiser build while the 4 omni obviously has the benefit of a much more forgiving fitting arc, and DBB builds wouldn't really be affected much since they already use 3 omnis (crafted, mission, kcb).
Tbh my main reason for wanting this change is to make it so that all the beams in my various builds look the same, I find it extremely irritating when for example my Disco phaser builds have the red KCB and orange mission omni mixed in.
Same here, it's Space Barbie for many characters.
For others, I'd just like to be able to mix and match more of them even if the beams don't match.
"gambleboxing" ones count as crafted since they dont have a set bonus
crafted/weaponbox ones are equal to normal beam arrays minus one modifier.
set omnis are weaker than those tho.
ingame: @Felisean
At this stage of the game I'm not sure if removing that restriction would even harm the game. I look at it as very similar as having all turrets on a ship which I've done a couple of times.
A negative impact I think Cryptic did do to ODs, players, & the game was place a part-of-a-set plasma OD behind a paywall (lobi) where all other OD energy types have a mission reward one: Trilithium-Enhanced Phaser OD, House of Martok Disruptor OD, Antichroniton Infused Tetryon OD, Chronometric Polaron OD, & the Ancient Antiproton OD.
Cryptic knew this, but deliberately decided the way they did for whatever reason. Maybe a plasma OD as part-of-a-set will be a mission reward in the future but the longer it takes the more doubtful it becomes.
100% agree.
I just afraid by the fact that they might apply this restriction to turrets.
I get that there is a hardpoint issue and how it appears the weapon is almost shooting through the ship in some instances, however that's an issues with an easy fix that's been around since the Armada series. In the Armada 1 and Armada 2 coding, if I have 4 phasers on a ship, those 4 phasers have multiple hardpoints they can fire from, thus allowing the ship to engage from any direction. If the ship is facing forward, it uses the forward HPs, if the ship is facing rear, it uses the rear HPs. I don't see why a similar type of solution couldn't be utilized here for STO. Given I've not seen their backend code, but that's how I do things when I code a mod for Armada 2 and how Armada 2 itself was coded. If a nearly 20 year old game series can do it, I don't see why STO couldn't do it in present day.
Let's not start the whole gamble box nonsense in here. With that said you're severely over-estimating the omnis. While omni beams can fire in any direction and constantly be firing like a turret can, their drawback is that they have one less mod than standard beams of all types, as they have a baked in [arc] mod that can't be removed. Their damage potential is also less than that of standard beams. While all omni builds would be possible if the restrictions were removed, just like an all turrets build, it wouldn't be a chart topper, and the meta for beams would still be standard beams.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Most mine layers are happy to have Omnis in the front shoots put forcing them into the rear slots would hurt us a lot. We would have to lose our mines to gain our mine set bonus.
What nonsense? gamble box gear is at worse, nominally better than the rest. we are talking about removing all restrictions to omni and just letting them be aft only...
outside of the vorgon ship with 6 aft slots... most ships have a cap of 4. if you limit omnis to mission reward, rep item, crafted & gamble box... that is 4 omnis. that will not skew the dps too far out of line from the current, that limits you to either mission/rep or crafted/gamble box.
right now we have an either/or with omnis... if you have one kind, you dont need to get the other... if we limit it to 1 of each (by source) you encourage a player to possible get at least 1 of each. that's without tipping the dps scale too far to one side if you lifted all restrictions and just limited Omni's to aft slots.
I only really offered that as a counter to the argument that 8 omnis would be OP, but honestly with proper balancing dual or non-omni single beams should always be better in the front arcs.
The Y'tijara has five aft slots, not six.
Sorry your right, 3 fore & 5 aft... 8 total like most larger ships. 4 omnis + cutting beam =p
SO basically what you're saying is the devs should make beams useless...force me to get nothing but omni beams because standard beams are inferior
That's not what he said at all, he said omni beams are already inferior to standard beams.
Yep, one less mod and for crafted you can't easily get [Pen] because you're crafting at Mark XII, with a special boff, with a 20 hour wait per attempt vs. 5 minutes and generic boffs for Mark II.
Omni have the 360 arc, but with most people using BFAW and with swarms of enemies a regular beam array will be firing at something too and will do more damage.
Omnis are most useful DPS-wise for single-target attacks when you are nose on instead of broadsiding, so more for tactical ships than cruisers and more for Beam Overload than BFAW.
Removing the Omni restrictions would make Beam Overload more useful and nose-on attacks more practical for beams.
Omni Beams are inferior to single beams in every way except their firing arc. If you removed restrictions on Omni Beams and let people slot 8 of them.. hey great.. congratulations.. you just made a weaker beam build. Bravo!
Removing the restriction on Omni Beams wouldn't shift the meta any more then the lack of restriction on Turrets. You could make some cool fun builds.. they would be viable just like a turret boat, but you wouldn't see any ship with more then a couple Omni's (mostly for set powers) anywhere near the top of the DPS charts.
Your assessment that the restriction is somehow a balance issue is laughable.
Sure, go for it. Turning your ship in combat is such a drag after all, gotta have 360 weapons. How about give them 1000 km range, too so you don't have to move, either. Just sit there at the spawn point tapping spacebar and wait for everything to die.
But then there's usually some kind of auto-win timer anyway...so yeah, whatever. Fighting at all such a drag, might as well wait for all the enemies to get bored and leave on their own.
Do they every give a reason why Plasma is only main energy type that does not have an obtained by mission omni of its energy type?
I'm saying to drop the "gamble box" stuff as it serves no purpose. There's a time and place for that stuff, but this isn't it.
Now in regards to omnis, I'm saying remove the restrictions outright as they serve no value in today's game anymore than restricting turrets would serve. An all omni build would be capable of doing damage most certainly, just like an all turrets build can do damage, but when compared to a standard beam array build of 8 beams, the omni build would fall short of topping the charts just based on pure numbers alone. For every omni a person put on a ship, that would be an additional mod they're giving up, and if someone has 8 omnis, that's 8 dmg mods, 8 crtd mods, or so on that the person has given up. While 2-3 won't hurt you, 8 certainly can. Not to mention the lower base values of omnis themselves vs standard beams or dual banks anyways. Cannons already enjoy many an advantage that beams simply don't have. FAW actually slightly debuffs your damage while active and your accuracy, rapid fire and scatter volley don't do that. in fact it wasn't until just recently that overload was made worthwhile and overload builds were even possible. In today's game all it does is artificially limit build diversity without really adding anything of value.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
and the basedmg from omnis is just lower compared to beam arrays for the set omnis.
the crafted omnis are the same as normal beam arrays minus 1 mod (thats the arc mod). they are basically equal to wide arc cannons
ingame: @Felisean
With that idea now you're close to intruding upon the term & concept I've seen called, "steelmaxing" or as I think of it, "sponging off others' efforts".
I think it's similar to the practice of people chasing dps in most, not all, cases using no torps & all energy builds. I still prefer 1 or 2 torps, but nowadays I'd be getting more dps if I went all energy.
What you're down-playing can already be done with all turrets, with participating enhancing the game-play & fun in my experience.
facts turrets do less dmg that an omni. crafted turrets does way less than craft omni. turrets from gamble boxes does less than an omni from a gamble box.
you can buy gamble box or crafted omnis on exchange.
I do agree that a limit of 2 is too strict... but removing all restrictions would not make this a better game.
Agreed, but it also wouldn't make it worse.
I just see it as a silly and pointless restriction, but it doesn't effect me either way. I wouldn't run an 'Omni-Boat' even if I could. If others want it though, I say let them have it.
It really won't effect the overall face of the game one way or another.
Mmm no. I have a couple toons that put an Omni on the front since I want more coverage on the rear of those ships and they lack enough rear facing hardpoints.
Let's remove the FORE only restriction on single cannons. Why can't my cruiser try to get a 8 cannon broadside?!
Sure, that makes sense for single cannons. Actually, if someone really wants to put dual beam banks or heavy cannons in the rear arc then why not? What does it hurt?