test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
build suggestions please
gchewitt
Member Posts: 39 Arc User
in The Shipyard
I'm close to getting my 5th fleet ship module and am looking at the fleet strike wing escorts. I've played several escorts early in my career and enjoyed them. What I need is suggestions on what types of weapons and consoles might be most effective in this ship. I already have good (epic or ultra rare) warp core, impulse engine, shields and deflector.
Please note that as a free player I am limited to what I can acquire. I am limited to only 15 million energy credits, so all of the best offerings at the exchange are beyond my reach, and I have only a few zen.
And if it makes a difference, I am a Starfleet science officer.
Thank you.
Please note that as a free player I am limited to what I can acquire. I am limited to only 15 million energy credits, so all of the best offerings at the exchange are beyond my reach, and I have only a few zen.
And if it makes a difference, I am a Starfleet science officer.
Thank you.
0
Comments
Whatever energy type you end up using I'd try to fill all tactical console slots with tactical consoles. Mixing beams with turrets doesn't usually work very well. All cannons front and turrets rear can be a great choice for a fast turning escort like yours. If you don't mind using phaser as an energy type it might give you more options with respect to storyline and reputation consoles and weapons.
Have a look at the two bridge officer layouts suggested here - https://sto-league.com/engle-mirror-escort-carrier/
The top bridge officer (boff) layout uses 2 copies of Auxiliary to Battery to get your bridge officer abilities into cooldown. Going this route would require some extended doffing in the B'Tran Cluster to get 3 free purple technician active duty officers needed to make things work. This would be an excellent longer term solution.
A few of the boff abilities suggested could be swapped out. The BFAW1 which is there as a trigger for a fancy trait could be changed to a torpedo skill or filler tactical skill such as Best Served Cold (BSC). The kemocite which can be expensive could be swapped out for cannon rapid fire (CRF) to give you a single target cannon/turret firing mode option in addition to cannon scatter volley (CSV) which is multi-target. I usually use emergency power to engines (EPtE) instead of emergency power to shields (just a personal choice) in combination with an Emergency Conn Hologram (FED) active duty officer so that EPtE resets evasive maneuvers. Getting around a map faster is really nice. As they mention science team could be used instead of destabilizing resonance beam (DSR). There's some other things you could try also such as very cold in space (VCIS) or delayed overload cascade (DOC). VCIS would be a nice combination with the gravity well.
The other (bottom) boff layout uses photonic officer 2 (PO2) to cool things down and this would get you going right away without the need for technician active duty officers. Using either PO2 or the Aux2Batt method for cooldowns is really important to ensure your boff abilities are available as often as possible.
This is the skill tree that works best for me - Tactical Template. If you plan on using a torpedo move 1 point from targeting and 2 points from defensive maneuvering into the torpedo skill. Having a point or two into EPG seems to help abilities such as BSC, DSR, VCIS, and DOC. The 3 coordination protocols in tactical will help your pets and all of your team mates. If going the gravity well route you could drop something like shield regeneration for a point into control expertise... combined with a little Cx in your deflector and/or a console it can be enough to group up enemy ships.
I wouldn't be worried about the build cost or fancy consoles as there's a lot of storyline consoles and weapons you can use to gradually fill things in that work really well then reputation items added as they are earned.
Won't an all beam setup limit me? I've read in other posts here that beams will drain the target's shields, but projectiles (cannons, torpedoes, etc) do more damage to the hull. And the turret's 360degree firing arc makes them always in play. I have one omni-directional beam slotted aft, but I can only slot one of them.
Also, noone has made any defensive suggestions. My only negative experience with the escorts I have had is that I can be defeated easily in the middle of a battle. So I try to stay on the outskirts where I can more easily engage one enemy ship at a time. I think that's what's made escorts more fun for me than just raging in and shooting. What are the best consoles or skills, other than tactical, to help in this area?
Thank you for all your suggestions thus far.
Manda ( my screen name)
It certainly won't limit you from a target's shields and hull perspective (see below). Weapons layouts that are all directed energy work very well.
I think an all beam setup on an escort will limit you simply from the perspective of not capitalizing on an escort's strengths (what they are good at). It comes down to personal taste though.
Beams are used for broadsiding. Broadsiding is easily done with a slower moving and turning cruiser. Cruisers have more hull and usually more heals from bridge officer abilities - this helps with survivability so you can slug it out a bit with the enemy.
Escorts have the turn rate and maneuverability to use dual cannons front and turrets rear to bring more focused fire and damage to the enemy. This is where their strength lies - high burst damage versus trying to slug things out with the enemy. Slug-fests don't end up well when in an escort as you may have experienced. The cannon/turret combo will give you the fire power to end things quickly.
Energy weapons (beams, cannons, and turrets) will damage both shields and hull. Torpedo's will be stopped by shields and are effective on hull once shields are down for the most part. It's torpedoes that are more limited.
This is where firing mode bridge officer (boff) abilities come into play. You're using two different types of energy weapons (beams & turrets - turrets are part of the cannon family) and a torpedo for a total of three. There usually isn't enough room for all these abilities which is why the usual advice is to choose either beams or cannons then perhaps add a torpedo. The reason firing mode boff abilities are used is so that your chosen weapons do more damage... way more. Use firing mode boff abilities as often as you can to avoid slug-fests that end badly.
Examples of firing mode boff abilities -
In all three cases the first ability listed is multi-target and the second is single target.
You could try your current mixed build in a patrol to experiment. Equip cannon scatter volley or rapid fire and use it against the enemy. You'll see your turrets now fire far faster and do far more damage. The same would apply to using a beam skill with your beams.
Now imagine how much damage you'd do if your chosen boff ability was used if your ship was equipped with all cannons/turrets or all beams. The ability is now buffing all or at least the majority of your weapons. This is a win.
Next in line to try would be the boff skill attack pattern beta 1(APB1). Using the patrol example engage the enemy and use APB1 and your beam or cannon skill. This is better yet as you just lowered the enemies damage resistance with APB1.
We're not ready to finish with a torpedo yet as there's a couple more steps...
You already have your ship's power level preset set to attack to put most power to your weapons. Now add more power yet with the boff ability emergency power to weapons. This will increase your directed energy damage even more.
Resist the temptation to set your power level to "balanced" and use 2 copies of emergency power to shields for more survivability. All this accomplishes is dramatically lowering the amount of damage you do which is what creates a slug-fest that doesn't work well with the enemy eventually wearing you down. Using 2 copies of emergency power to weapons is way more effective.
Finally add the boff ability tactical team 1. This will keep your shields distributing where they are taking fire automatically faster than you can do it yourself.
Let's have a look at the order of this new combination used to attack enemies...
Emergency power to weapons --> Beam or cannon firing mode --> attack pattern beta 1 --> tactical team 1
If there's anything left alive you could now add a torpedo and use torpedo spread or high yield against targets that have lost their shields due to your highly effective directed energy fire.
In my experience the vast majority of players that lose slug-fests don't have their offensive abilities set up optimally and aren't using the related bridge officer abilities often enough. They are creating their own slug fest so to speak.
Let's have a look at some sample bridge officer (boff) layouts for your ship with a cannon setup on the left and beams on the right. Both include a torpedo.
For the cannon layout there's a choice of cannon scatter volley for multiple targets or cannon rapid fire to focus fire on a single target. For the beam layout beam overload is shown but you could use beam fire at will instead for multiple targets.
Despite a lot of talk about limiting energy weapon types your ship does have a Commander tactical boff station so you could try a LtC beam skill combined with a Commander cannon skill for a mixed build. I can only recommend what seems to work for me - experimenting with different things is your job as Captain.
You asked about defensive capabilities. There are quite a few here -
Tactical team 1 to distribute your shields automatically.
Science - science team to clear certain things and some get some shield regeneration, hazard emitters to clear things like plasma fires and restore some hull.
Engineering - Auxiliary to the structural integrity field to restore hull and increase your damage resistance (this is a very powerful boff ability). Emergency power to engines for increased mobility. You could use emergency power to shields instead to firm them up. Engineering team to restore a bit of hull and clear even more things. Reverse shield polarity allows enemy fire to restore your shields but has a long cool down so save it for when you really need it.
The lieutenant commander science bridge officer skill Photonic Officer 2 (PO2) is used as the primary means of getting your skills to cool down quicker so they are available to use as often as possible. The difference between having things available half the time as compared to most of the time is amazing. I'd use it at the end of your "attack" sequence mentioned above.
If you don't use PO2 as a cool down reducer the simplest way to do things is to double up boff skills whenever possible. Two copies of emergency power to weapons, tactical team, beam or cannon skill, and torpedo skill. Sticking to either beams or cannons becomes more important using this method as there's less room available after doubling up your boff abilities.
For defensive consoles I wouldn't use more than a single neutronium alloy for all damage resistance. Given the way resistances work there are diminishing returns and quite a few storyline consoles that do far better at helping in a variety of ways so there's opportunity costs lost in slotting unnecessary resist consoles also.
Some favorites - Console - Engineering - Reinforced Armaments, Console - Engineering -_House Martok Defensive Configuration, Console - Universal - Assimilated Module, Console - Engineering - Trellium-D Plating, Console - Science - Temporal Disentanglement Suite
Tried to keep it to storyline rewards and straightforward items but ended up adding two reputation items equipped as science consoles to fill in a couple holes as well as a single reputation turret.
The build includes space and ground skill trees and specializations.
If you have any questions just ask.
https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/c04710eb720d38602dfb9aa15fed2b1b
For anyone looking to fill console slots with storyline gear they seem to do a great job that often can only be surpassed by reputation consoles or the "really fancy" stuff.
When I get everything done, I'll try to post a photo of build here.
__Manda
Excellent choice. By going all cannons front and turrets rear and leaving the torpedo out the amount of damage you do will INCREASE.
Your torpedo bridge officer ability can be replaced with Best Served Cold (winter event store) or Kemocite Laced Weaponry (exchange).
Having ALL your bridge officer abilities buffing ALL your weapons is both efficient and powerful.
Here's some good candidates for an all cannon build that work well for me -
Updated build - https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/b50c4fd4ad8d0fa7468bdffa4c4a5acf
Reminder - for an alternate boff layout that provides excellent cool downs using three free very rare Technician active duty doffs and two copies of Auxiliary to Battery 1 park your ship here B'Tran Cluster and complete the 7/7 assignments then upon critical success of Support Colonization Efforts get this doff Ten of Ten
I had been told (somewhere) to make sure ALL of my weapons slotted had at least one [ACC] mod......which seems to make sense to me...but, is that not a hard and fast rule?
Is there an [ACC] cap where I should stop and focus on other mods?
There's been a lot of experimentation and math that you can find over at https://reddit.com/r/stobuilds/ which when simplified comes down to any combination of CrtD and Dmg being the preferred modifiers for weapons.
I usually split the difference at 50/50. Haven't used an ACC modifier for quite a few years now.
Fore weapons
Long Range Destabilized Tetryon Heavy Cannon MK XV [AC/DM] [CtrD] {CtrH}x3 Epic
Refracting Tetryon Duel Heavy Cannons MK XV [CrtD]x2 [Proc] Very Rare
Refracting Tetryon Duel Cannons MK XV [CrtD]x2 [Proc] Very Rare
Wide Arc Tetryon Duel Heavy Cannons MK XV [Arc] [CrtD]x3 Ultra Rare
Aft Weapons
Refractin Tetryon Turret MK XV [CtrD]x2 [Proc] Very Rare
Antichroniton Infused Tetryon Turret MK XV [Acc]x2 [Dmg] Very Rare
Heavy Bio-molecular Tetryon Turret MK XV [CtrD]x2 [Proc]
Experimental Weapon
Hyperexcited Ion Stream Projector MK XV [CvtrD/Dmg] [CtrD] Epic
Deflector
Sol Defense Deflector Array Mk XV Very Rare
Impulse Engine
Quantum Phase Combat Impulse Engines Mk XV [SecSpd-2] [Spd] Epic
Warp Core
Preeminent Warp Core Mk XV Epic
Shields
Elite Fleet Adaptive Regenerative Shield Array Mk XV [Cap] [Reg]x3 Ultra Rare
Engineering Consoles
Enhanced Neutronium Alloy Mk XV [HP] Ultra Rare
Trellium-D Plating Mk XV Very Rare
Xenoteck Resilience Module Mk XV Epic
Science Consoles
Emitter Array Mk XV Ultra Rare
Temporal Trajectory Shifter Epic
Exotic Particle Field Exciter Mk XV [HullRepair] Ultra Rare
Tactical Consoles
Vulnerability Locator Mk XV [Tetryon] Ultra Rare
(3) Tetryon Pulse Generator Mk XV 2-Very 1-Ultra Rare
Auto Targeting Module Mk XV [Tetryon}
Various Devices and Hanger Pets change on whim
I also have a torpedo loadout replacing one cannon with:
Advanced Diffusive Tetryon Torpedo Launcher Mk XV [CtrD] [CtrH] ]Dmg]
Fore weapons
Long Range Destabilized Tetryon Heavy Cannon MK XV [AC/DM] [CtrD] {CtrH}x3 Epic
Refracting Tetryon Duel Heavy Cannons MK XV [CrtD]x2 [Proc] Very Rare
Refracting Tetryon Duel Cannons MK XV [CrtD]x2 [Proc] Very Rare
Wide Arc Tetryon Duel Heavy Cannons MK XV [Arc] [CrtD]x3 Ultra Rare
Aft Weapons
Refractin Tetryon Turret MK XV [CtrD]x2 [Proc] Very Rare
Antichroniton Infused Tetryon Turret MK XV [Acc]x2 [Dmg] Very Rare
Heavy Bio-molecular Tetryon Turret MK XV [CtrD]x2 [Proc]
Experimental Weapon
Hyperexcited Ion Stream Projector MK XV [CvtrD/Dmg] [CtrD] Epic
Deflector
Sol Defense Deflector Array Mk XV Very Rare
Impulse Engine
Quantum Phase Combat Impulse Engines Mk XV [SecSpd-2] [Spd] Epic
Warp Core
Preeminent Warp Core Mk XV Epic
Shields
Elite Fleet Adaptive Regenerative Shield Array Mk XV [Cap] [Reg]x3 Ultra Rare
Engineering Consoles
Enhanced Neutronium Alloy Mk XV [HP] Ultra Rare
Trellium-D Plating Mk XV Very Rare
Xenoteck Resilience Module Mk XV Epic
Science Consoles
Emitter Array Mk XV Ultra Rare
Temporal Trajectory Shifter Epic
Exotic Particle Field Exciter Mk XV [HullRepair] Ultra Rare
Tactical Consoles
Vulnerability Locator Mk XV [Tetryon] Ultra Rare
(3) Tetryon Pulse Generator Mk XV 2-Very 1-Ultra Rare
Auto Targeting Module Mk XV [Tetryon}
Various Devices and Hanger pets change on whim
I also have a Torpedo loadout replacing one cannon with:
Advanced Diffusive Tetryon Torpedo Launcher Mk XV [CtrD] [CtrH] ]Dmg]
That turret has a matching console that's pretty nice and has a decent two piece bonus. Have a look at the Hydrodynamics Compensator from this set that with your turret gives bonus Tetryon damage.
If room is needed the two fleet engineering consoles and a couple science consoles possibly aren't doing as much as thought and could be considered for swapping out in future upgrades.
What ship did you decide on?
It should be very economical to reproduce as it uses almost all story line gear, consoles, and weapons with just a couple of reputation items and only one active duty doff with cool downs taken care of via Photonic Officer 2. Since "defensive suggestions" were mentioned earlier in the thread it's been built with sturdiness in mind.
For weapons it uses refracting (Nukara reputation), Resonating (story line), and Piercing (story line) Tetryon weapons.
Incontrovertible Defenses 4 piece set bonus (storyline)
Counter Command Ordnance 2 piece set bonus (8472 Counter Command reputation)
Krenim Temporal Manipulation 2 piece set bonus (story line)
Emitter Refocuser single console (story line) +Tetryon damage
Trellium-D Plating single console (story line) gives passive resistance and +Hull & Shield Capacity
House Martok Defensive Configuration and Reinforced Armaments (both story line). Two free consoles that do eight different things.
Lorca's Custom Fire Controls single tactical console from Discovery reputation
Tetryon Pulse Generator from storyline mission Midnight replay
Emergency Conn Hologram active duty officer from Phoenix prize pack token. Get out of trouble or to the other side of the map more often.
Long Range Destabilized Tetryon Heavy Cannon MK XV [AC/DM] [CtrD] {CtrH}x3 Epic
Refracting Tetryon Duel Heavy Cannons MK XV [CrtD]x2 [Proc] Very Rare
Refracting Tetryon Duel Cannons MK XV [CrtD]x2 [Proc] Very Rare
Wide Arc Tetryon Duel Heavy Cannons MK XV [Arc] [CrtD]x3 Ultra Rare
Aft Weapons
Refractin Tetryon Turret MK XV [CtrD]x2 [Proc] Very Rare
Antichroniton Infused Tetryon Turret MK XV [Acc]x2 [Dmg] Very Rare
Heavy Bio-molecular Tetryon Turret MK XV [CtrD]x2 [Proc]
Experimental Weapon
Hyperexcited Ion Stream Projector MK XV [CvtrD/Dmg] [CtrD] Epic
Deflector
Sol Defense Deflector Array Mk XV Very Rare
Impulse Engine
Quantum Phase Combat Impulse Engines Mk XV [SecSpd-2] [Spd] Epic
Warp Core
Preeminent Warp Core Mk XV Epic
Shields
Elite Fleet Adaptive Regenerative Shield Array Mk XV [Cap] [Reg]x3 Ultra Rare
Engineering Consoles
Enhanced Neutronium Alloy Mk XV [HP] Ultra Rare
Trellium-D Plating Mk XV Very Rare
Xenoteck Resilience Module Mk XV Epic
Science Consoles
Emitter Array Mk XV Ultra Rare
Temporal Trajectory Shifter Epic
Exotic Particle Field Exciter Mk XV [HullRepair] Ultra Rare
Tactical Consoles
Vulnerability Locator Mk XV [Tetryon] Ultra Rare
(3) Tetryon Pulse Generator Mk XV 2-Very 1-Ultra Rare
Auto Targeting Module Mk XV [Tetryon}
Various Devices and Hanger pets change on whim
I also have a Torpedo loadout replacing one cannon with:
Advanced Diffusive Tetryon Torpedo Launcher Mk XV [CtrD] [CtrH] ]Dmg]
^ These two rear weapons have matching consoles for 2 piece set bonuses. See above. The matching consoles are excellent
Quite often the Trellium-D plating, along with a single point into Hull Plating in the skill tree, is all that's needed for passive resists. There are diminishing returns and a boff ability such as Aux to the Structural Integrity Field ( A2SiF) increases damage resistance in addition to healing hull.
As with the Engineering consoles the items in Italics potentially aren't doing much. In addition to some of the items mentioned in the previous build link (especially the 2 piece set consoles that go with your rear weapons) something like an Assimilated Module can add a nice bit of zing to things so it's an option as well.