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Let's talk about the new hangar pets.
doctorstegi
Member Posts: 1,185 Arc User
So far I have used Scorpion Fighter 1 hangar Scorpoin Squadron Fighter 1 hanger. Does the Squadron look cool? Yes they do but is it worth it only getting half the damage for the looks? Not for me. The Frigates barely double the damage of 1 scorpion fighter most of them even didn't get that. They looked good on paper but other then the visuals (looks) those new pets are not as good as i hoped they would have been. I was looking for an improvement on the fed side since pets on the fed sides are lacking a lot. Any other opinons about the the new pets. Do they differ when used with a different race?
C-Store Inc. is still looking for active members on the fed side. If you don't have a fleet feel free to contact me in game @stegi.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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I get the opposite result. I ran a test with two hangars full of each, on the same ship, fighting the same battle. The Elite Scorpion Squadron pets consistently did 1.5-2 time more damage than the Elite Scorpion Fighters. My parsing gave roughly the same base dps for the fighters that you display... 1000-1500 dps for fighters with the occasional 2000.. for the squadrons they were pretty consistently in the 2000-3000 range with the occasional 4000ish.
I use pet-heavy traits though... so this is with Superior Area Denial that is giving them Scatter Volley consistently, and with Voth Carrier Synergies which ensures they never die. I did NOT use Scramble Fighters because its damage bonus can be inconsistent and I didn't want that to muck with the results.
I dunno i find that hard to believe however i will give it a shot in a day or two and use an Elite STF to test them again.
Are you under the impression that they slipped me a hundred bucks to talk them up because they have a secret crush on you or something? I'm simply telling you what the parses said when I contrasted two hangars of elite scorpions with two hangars of elite scorpion squadrons, done on the same fight twice each.
The elite jem'hadar fighter squadrons seem to be consistently better for me than the elite scorpion squadrons too... but that's unsurprising given their DEM and having additional beam arrays which mesh well with Superior Area Denial.
No lol. But i have seem some test results on reddit which don't look in favor either. But i need some time and want to test more so it might take a few days.
I would love them to be on equal terms because they are visually way more attractive.
The new pets definitely seem to lack any real punch. I figured this would probably be the case, but they're actually somewhat worse then I expected and a disappointment. If I had paid actual money, I might be more annoyed. Now, the next patch should let me run 2 hangers of Gunboats so that will give it boost, but with 6 weapons.. these are never going to be good performers. I picked up the Jem one because it looks cool and it's fun to use in story missions, but if ship performance is important to you, these are not the ships you want.
I have done some advanced story content, patrols and Battle Zones with the ship and as expected it still handles any content with the greatest of ease. The ship doesn't 'suck' you can still handle any content but it's strength is definitely the looks. Two hangars of Fighter Squadrons looks very cool especially with the Wing men. It really looks like you're bringing a full fleet to the fight, it's just a bit of a shame that fleet isn't particularly effective.
The ships aren't bad enough that people should demand a refund, nothing crazy like that.. they're about what you would expect from the given stats, just slightly worse because of the disappointing performance of the hangar pets. It's only been a few days though, lets see if any changes are made since Cryptic is getting a good deal of feedback on these.
I think the difference in test results can be explained by the use of the Superior Area Denial trait, and the fact that the developers were inconsistent with their layout for the normal scorpions and the scorpion squadrons.
The specific difference is that the non-squadron scorpions have a Plasma Turret while the squadrons have a Plasma Pulse Cannon.
If you're not aware of the quirky difference... the pulse cannon is like a weaker version of the turret that only shows up on hangar pets. 360 degree arc cannons and such. What makes them quirky is that while they are worse than a normal turret, when under the effects of Superior Area Denial they outperform not just regular turrets but also Dual Cannons. This quirk (bug?) is even noted in the STO wiki.
So there you go... with Superior Area Denial the squadron pets are very clearly better than the non-squadrons. Without it is likely they are worse owing to the lower base damage of pulse cannons to the normal turrets.
EDIT:
It should be noted that the fighters with turrets often have pulse cannons instead of turrets at the blue and purple levels, only getting turrets at the elite level. This means that in conjunction with the Superior Area Denial trait it is likely that Advanced versions will outperform Elite versions of the same pet (as with most of the non-squadron versions of the squadron pets).
If fighter craft DPS is inconsistent or bugged, with it underperforming normally and performing great (comparable to other types of hangar craft like frigates) with the *inferior* weapon type while Superior Area Denial is being used, I'd think that'd necessitate fighter craft being buffed up to par with other things, which I doubt will ever happen.
Total SAD 35k
Scorpion Fighter Squad: Top 3528, average 3076
Elite Scorpion Fighter Sqaud: Top 3334, average 3013
Currently the Jem'Hadar Fighter Squadron will outperform both types of scorpion pets, though again this is based on carelessness on the part of the developers. While the scorpion squadron benefits from them forgetting to replace the pulse cannon with a turret if you use SAD, the Jem'hadar squadron benefits more because they added the turret to the elite versions but forgot to remove the pulse cannon... meaning they have both. They also have beam arrays which always work well with SAD.
STO at its finest. I'd break the bank to the point of being on the street and losing computer, if I bought enough keys to sell, to buy the escort.
As for the trait, it's more available on the Klingon side because you can just get it in a less rare cross-faction reward box.
All of these traits were already well out of the reach of your average player, and have gone higher still since the carrier bundle appeared (I thought the price was high for SF, then I took a look at HM - Ouch), but I am sure there are many players who would like to see a damage comparison using commonly available, or at least more afordable, traits and consoles.
You should actually read this thread, not just the last post or two on it. Most of the numbers shown are without "fancy" traits and are generally uninteresting.. it's really only with Superior Area Denial that it becomes unusual with the results.
Without pet survival traits any numbers you get will be wildly variable owing to the fact that the pets are prone to death and that will mess with the per second damage measures. The only trait you need to worry about with the numbers is Superior Area Denial, not the others which will affect them all fairly evenly.
If you're worrying about what you can afford to support a pet build then you shouldn't worry too much about the mild differences in numbers. You're better off experimenting and playing by feel than by taking the numbers to mean more than they actually do.
I had actually read the entire thread several times, but Autism with a small dose of Dyslexia thrown in does sometime make it difficult to absorb everything.
I think what I was wondering was that, taking those traits out of the equation, how the new squadrons compared to the old in damage terms. But given your advice and the other threads discussing them, it does seem that the general consensus is that (at least for now) the squadrons are not significantly better and in some cases are worse than the single fighter versions, regardless of the traits in play.
Would that be the case, or have I misunderstood the reasoning?
It varies because they weren't very careful when they made the squadron pets - specifically, their armaments frequently do not match their description, at least at the Elite level on the two sets I tested.
It is clear that Cryptic intended squadrons to be purely cosmetic, making them identical to their non-squadron counterparts otherwise... which is a bit insulting to players and lazy on their part. So assuming they go back in and adjust the weapons on the squadron pets they will eventually be equal in performance to their non-squadron versions.
The two squadrons I tested, which were scorpions and jem'hadar fighters, break on either side of their non-squadron counterparts. The elite scorpion squadron is inferior to the elite scorpion fighter owing to retaining the plasma pulse cannon which is supposed to be replaced with a full turret at the elite level. The elite jem'hadar squadron is superior to the elite jem'hadar fighter owing to gaining the turret at the elite level, but also retaining the polaron pulse cannon which is supposed to be replaced by that turret.
Pulse cannons are like weaker turrets, but they have a quirk (probably a bug) that makes them outperform turrets during scatter volley, which is what the trait Superior Area Denial activates on them. So, without SAD, pulse cannons are worse than turrets... with it, they are better... and that's why the numbers have been confusing.
I've been trying to compile a list of hangar pets to sort them based on class of weapons, presence of a torpedo, effective bridge officer abilities, other effective abilities or unique skills, durability, total number of weapons provided per hangar, but it's becoming very difficult with stat inconsistencies such as these. Also still waiting on fixes with the new carriers: lack of Qaw'Dun frigate access or compatibility with T6 Vo'Quv, and no Jem'hadar gunboat compatibility on Jem'hadar support carrier.
Also interesting how the Caitian Stalkers had higher relative DPS considering they lack an extra weapon (12 weapons/hangar) and any weapon boosting boff ability. My only guess is their battle cloak, masked warp signature, jam sensors, and antiproton sweep help them stay alive better in the absence of Scramble Fighters.
The Scorpions Squads beating single Scorpions seems pretty consistence in my runs and the Elite Scorpions Squads seem to be performing very well. All the other squads seem to perform worse than the singles by around 5%. Perhaps I should do some more runs?
Just ran the Drone ships and I see why people like them even better then Scorpions but I need to rerun the test again as I hadn’t unlocked the Romulan carrier mastery to make it a fair test.
At the moment its looking like Drone ships are best (not tested different versions) followed by Elite Scorpions Squads followed by basic Scorpions Fighters and a very close possibly in margin of error Scorpion basic Squad. Been at this all day and I need a break. Will take a fresh look tomorrow.
I literally covered this in the post above your posts.
Elite Scorpion Squadrons do not have a turret, they have a pulse cannon. The tooltip/details are wrong, which is why the elite squadrons are outperformed by elite scorpion fighters unless you use Superior Area Denial.
Elite Jem'Hadar Squadrons have BOTH a turret and a pulse cannon. In theory Elite pets that have a pulse cannon are meant to trade it in for a turret, but they neglected to remove the pulse cannon when adding the turret with these pets.
I have to admit I was a bit disappointed in how they handled them versus how they were described. I thought maybe we were going back to the good old days when we had fighter swarms, or at least an approximation. But as soon as I saw they cost exactly the same as normal fighters, that was my first clue.
Sloppy and lazy development indeed, no wonder this game is a bugged out mess and half-broken with an extra side of rubberbanding.
I guess it remains to be seen now if or when they attempt to fix the numerous issues with the carriers and pets and whether the fixes even work.
As you say the key does seem to be picking the ships with Pulse Cannons when using SAD only we have to test every single ship manually not look at the incorrect tooltip/details