test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

What is a good ctrl/epg ratio?

meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
What is a good ctrl/epg ratio? I currently have 396/482 (not really specced for science).

Someone said, the other day, I had too much EPG. I lol-ed, and figured "There is no such thing as too much EPG!" But just in case there is, what is the optimal ratio between the two? And is there indeed such thing as too much EPG?

Thx.
3lsZz0w.jpg

Comments

  • sennahcheribsennahcherib Member Posts: 2,823 Arc User
    I have the same question, currently my best sci toon has 368/497, but I watch a vid from a sci master; his subspace vortex could do 5000 kinetic damage, i must able to have 4300 kinetic damage. sadly, the vid hadn't explanation.
  • sennahcheribsennahcherib Member Posts: 2,823 Arc User
    how you can have 589 epg? :o
  • tobiashirttobiashirt Member Posts: 630 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    589?

    100 from the skill tree, 50 from Temporal spec, 50 from deflector, 20 from secondary deflector, 40 from conductive rcs, 4*40 from research lab sci consoles, 80 from exotic field exciter, 40 from Chronometric Capacitor, 15 from Superior Astrophysicist, and 20 from 2 different holographic bridge officers each with standard Astrophysicist (Spock/Weyoun).

    That's 575 'static' right there, then add in 13 or 14 from the Maquis Raider console and there's your 589. Nukara console takes it to 610, and temporally shielded datacore takes it to 630.

    That said, I have about 360/535 (575 - RCS) in my Verne, with the Temporal ship mechanic adding the last 40 CtrlX.
    Post edited by tobiashirt on
  • mournblade#1863 mournblade Member Posts: 74 Arc User
    how you can have 589 epg? :o

    My SCI EPG build is well over 500 EPG. It's possible through a combination of space traits, your spec, your ship mastery, and of course consoles which comprise the bulk of your EPG. I'd have to pull up my ship to write everything down in order to relay it here, but the biggest contributors that I recall off the top of my head are Exotic Particle Focusers with EPG, Weapon Signature Nullifier with EPG, Conductive RCS with EPG, Exotic Particle Field Exciter with EPG, secondary Fleet/Colony deflector, Colony Protomatter deflector, and some other Universal consoles such as the Boronite Laced Weaponry and the Chronometric Capacitor. Then there's personal space traits like Enlightened, Conservation of Energy, and Superior Astrophysicist that also contribute to your EPG, as well as the Particle Generator Amplifier from space reputation traits. I'm probably forgetting a few things.

    Bear in mind, we're talking about Category 1 exotic damage here. There are other consoles such as the Delphic Tear Generator that provide you Category 2 exotic damage.
  • tobiashirttobiashirt Member Posts: 630 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    360 CtrlX is 100 from the skill tree, ~100 from sci consoles, 40 from primary deflector, 30 from secondary deflector, 40 from engines, ~30 from bioneural infusion circuits, and ~20 from the Raider console.

    As to the original question of the thread, I would say a good ratio is 340-360/480-500

    "Too much" would be taking up console space that could be more general exotic boosts with consoles that give only small bits of EPG/CtrlX.

    My 11 consoles are generally:

    Sci: 4*Research Lab, 1*Field Exciter
    Tac: Chronometric Capacitor, Delphic Tear, Bioneural
    Eng: Auxiliary Ejection Assembly, Constriction Anchor, Plasma Storm

    It would be a net downgrade and 'too much' for example if I replaced the Ejection Assembly (17.8% cat2 exotic) with the Nukara console (~23 EPG, i.e. 11.5% cat1 exotic damage).
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    westmetals wrote: »
    Let's see...

    100 from captain skills
    15 from Superior Astrophysicist personal trait
    50 from Temporal spec
    53.1 from Bajor Defense deflector [CtrlX/EPG] [EPG]x4
    26.5 from secondary deflector with [CtrlX/EPG], [CtrlX], and [EPG] mods, among others
    78.8 from Exotic Particle Field Exciter [EPG] (science console, R&D system)
    30 from Retrofitted Assimilator (universal console, lockbox/exchange)
    39.4 from Chronometric Capacitor (tactical console, mission reward)
    39.4 each from Restorative Particle Focuser [CtrlX] [EPG] (science console, fleet res lab)... which my ship has 5 of.

    Of course, that only works if everything is upgraded to the max AND your ship has to be a Miracle Worker science ship (so it can slot 6 sci consoles and the secondary deflector). (Mine is the Legendary Intrepid.)

    Meanwhile, the Control comes from:
    100 from captain skills
    10 from BOFF racial traits (1x "K-13 Survivor Science" BOFF)... I could get more than one but didn't.
    42.5 from Bajor Defense deflector (as above)
    26.5 from secondary deflector (as above)
    30 from Retrofitted Assimilator (universal console, lockbox/exchange)
    39.4 from Conductive RCS Accelerator [CtrlX] (engineering console, R&D system)
    26.3 each from Restorative Particle Focuser [CtrlX] [EPG] (science console, fleet res lab)... which my ship has 5 of.

    Note: the res lab consoles are available also with the opposite stat boosts, so be careful when shopping. The two R&D consoles could have opposite mods and still give the same total. (The RCS and EPFE have the same pool of mods; the numerical difference above is because the EPFE has half of its EPG bonus baked in.) You can mix and match a little with these three types of consoles if needed, to get the desired totals. If using a non-Miracle Worker ship you will need to eliminate at least one, possibly two, of the res lab consoles.

    EDIT: rearranged last paragraph for clarity.


    Thanks or this great feedback! Since my CTRL is at 396 already, for EPG, I only have 50 from Science captain skills; 21.3 from Elite Protomatter Deflector, and 26.5 from Dranuur Deteriorating Secondary one, 5x Exotic Particle focusser (the kind with 39.4 EPG), 1x EPG RCS, and 1x EPFE (+75 EPG). Plus Retrofitted, plus Chronometric console. All on Warship Voyager, of course.

    Setting Secondary to Temporal, YAY, gave me another 50 indeed. Thx for the tip, leaving me at 532 EPG. Not that bad, for not being specced into Science. :)

    EDIT: With Bajor Deflector, I get to 407/564. I'd have to give up ColCrit from the Dranuur Deflector, though.
    3lsZz0w.jpg
  • mournblade#1863 mournblade Member Posts: 74 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    westmetals wrote: »
    Actually, of those only Superior Astro actually gives EPG stat. The others are Exotic Damage boosters.

    To clarify something here, there's no difference between the EPG stat itself or EPG damage expressed as a percentile, as it all contributes to Category 1 EPG damage. Remember, modifiers stack additively within a category, and multiplicatively across categories. For every point of EPG, you get +.5% damage. So at 100 EPG, that's +50% damage. You can easily convert the other way. For a personal space trait like Enlightened that gives you +15% EPG damage, that's +30 EPG. So when you are calculating total EPG, you need to convert those % EPG damages to get your actual total EPG.

    When you see something like +20% bonus exotic damage like on the Delphic Tear Generator, that's when it's Category 2. Conservation of Energy from the personal space traits, and Auxiliary Power Configuration (Offense) and Particle Generator Amplifier from the space reputation traits also grant Cat 2 damage. I inadvertently included them in my first post when I was trying to recall Cat 1 EPG on my ship without looking at it, which may have been what you were trying to point out.

    After reviewing my main SCI ship (Fleet T6 Long Range Science Vessel), I have a total of 352 Control, 626 EPG (Cat 1), 100% bonus EPG damage (Cat 2), and 130 AUX. I'm excluding anything that is activated, such as the Chronometric Energy Converter. I should probably make some adjustments to get a bit more CtrlX on there, but I generally don't have any issues with keeping enemies in my Gravity Well.

    Also bear in mind that for EPG builds, AUX power is calculated separately in the damage formula, much in the same way that WPN power is calculated separately in the damage formula for energy weapons. For 125 AUX, which you should be at or higher for a SCI EPG build, you receive a 112.5% modifier (x1.125). For 130 AUX, it would be x1.15 This is why some players run the Gamma Impulse Engines on their SCI EPG build, because AUX isn't affected by impulse speed on those engines so you'll do max damage the moment you drop from full impulse.

    For those who are curious, the damage formula for most EPG abilities is:
    (Base)*(1+Σ(Cat1's))*(1+Σ(Cat2's))*(0.005*[AuxPwr])+0.5)
    The sigma sign (Σ) simply means to sum up, which is what I alluded to earlier that modifiers stack additively within a category. If you want to calculate your total damage, just plug in the numbers for each ability. The base damage for Gravity Well 3 is 370. So for my ship, the formula will look something like this for Gravity Well 3:
    (370)*(1+3.13)*(1+1)*(0.005*130)+0.5) or (370)*(4.13)*(2)*(1.15) = 3514.63

    (Sorry for getting this off topic a bit, btw. But I thought it would be helpful to elaborate on the EPG damage formula here.)
    Post edited by mournblade#1863 on
  • mournblade#1863 mournblade Member Posts: 74 Arc User
    westmetals wrote: »

    Remember though that when people are actually putting the build together, and they're looking at the stats displayed in the game, adding an +Exotic Damage boost will increment the actual damage but not increment the EPG stat as shown on the stats screen. That was the point that I was trying to make, that I didn't think needed to be explained, and that you decided needed to be the subject of a master's level course.

    Are you referring to the Stats tab on a ship? If so, there is no EPG stat displayed on the console version. Regardless, I'm not sure I understand your point. To determine your actual EPG total, you still have to add all the Cat 1 together, whether it's displayed correctly in the UI or not.
  • mournblade#1863 mournblade Member Posts: 74 Arc User
    westmetals wrote: »
    Nobody had mentioned the console version until you just did. I'm a PC player and the stat total (without the +Exotic Damage stuff like Enlightened trait) is shown in the ship statistics screen. Which is not the same number used for the actual damage calculation, granted, but being that it is visible it is probably useful to use that number as a reference for discussion.

    That was the distinction I was trying to point out.

    If you don't understand my point it's probably because you're overthinking it.

    I only mentioned the console version because you are referring to a stat display that we don't have, and I don't assume that everyone here is on PC as you did. For console players, there is no EPG stat to reference, therefore, you have to add it all up yourself. And even if I was on PC and had that EPG stat to look at, how is it useful to use that as a reference for discussion when it's not entirely accurate because it's not including the other Cat 1 damage that's simply expressed in a different format (i.e. + exotic damage)? I don't think I misunderstood your point - I think you missed mine.
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    westmetals wrote: »
    westmetals wrote: »
    Nobody had mentioned the console version until you just did. I'm a PC player and the stat total (without the +Exotic Damage stuff like Enlightened trait) is shown in the ship statistics screen. Which is not the same number used for the actual damage calculation, granted, but being that it is visible it is probably useful to use that number as a reference for discussion.

    That was the distinction I was trying to point out.

    If you don't understand my point it's probably because you're overthinking it.

    I only mentioned the console version because you are referring to a stat display that we don't have, and I don't assume that everyone here is on PC as you did. For console players, there is no EPG stat to reference, therefore, you have to add it all up yourself. And even if I was on PC and had that EPG stat to look at, how is it useful to use that as a reference for discussion when it's not entirely accurate because it's not including the other Cat 1 damage that's simply expressed in a different format (i.e. + exotic damage)? I don't think I misunderstood your point - I think you missed mine.

    Oh. So I was somehow supposed to magically know that you consider the way the rest of us were discussing this throughout the rest of the thread to be invalid and misleading based on a difference between the PC and console interface when that information WAS NEVER MENTIONED BY ANYONE INCLUDING YOU.

    Oh and this coming from someone who had already ignored the actual text of what was written in favor of his own interpretation - including a reference to your OWN previous post that you said you didn't know what I was referring to?

    And FYI it's useful because it's THERE (on PC anyway) and not everyone is a math expert. Not everyone just implicitly KNOWS that EPG stat and cat 1 exotic damage boosts are interchangeable at a specific ratio. Even with the formula provided (which by the way comes from an unofficial source), I honestly would probably not know how to calculate it properly. I struggled through tenth grade algebra and the last math class I took was 20+ years ago and far too recently for my tastes.

    Plus it wasn't a big leap to assume that (since everyone else was referring to it that way) that they are also PC players who could see it on the screen.

    FORGET IT. I'm done. If anyone actually wants help with this... find someone else. I'm sick and tired of people deciding to be ultra pedantic and correcting my every word including things I did NOT say and making me feel like every single post I write has to be a ten page term paper copy and pasted from Reddit.


    I was certainly speaking from a PC perspective (which, ironically, doesn't mean Politically Correct here, so as to include a console interface I'm wholly unfamiliar with). And I don't think that's strange. We had another poster here, a few weeks back, saying he had to switch ships to train a boff. Nobody understood what he was talking about. Turned out to be a weird console thing. So, far as I'm concerned, what happens on console, stays on console.

    Still, I appreciate everyone's valuable contributions to this thread.
    3lsZz0w.jpg
  • ltminnsltminns Member Posts: 12,569 Arc User
    Thanks for all the good information. I just wish petty fights wouldn't break out in every Thread on these Boards that detract from the informative dialog.
    'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
    Judge Dan Haywood
    'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
    l don't know.
    l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
    That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
    Lt. Philip J. Minns
Sign In or Register to comment.