Star Trek Online

[ShadowDragon8685]

Aye, samples can be that way. Still, I'd suggest you ditch the retrofit phaser bank for another turret - Escorts are all about up-front damage, and having another turret in the back would let you add its DPS to your fore. That said, sounds like you've got a good set-up.

[Vanas]

Fft, my big damn gunship has nothing in the way of turrets whatsoever. Two varieties of twin beams, a beam array and a quant forward and two beams and a quant backward. Given my usual play style it works quite nicely. Two sets of high-yield torpedoes let me crank out about 10 torpedoes in 20 seconds. That tends to do the trick after overloaded twin beams dent sheilds.

That said, I don't PvP, so your milage may vary.

I did, however, sell a pile of my samples so as well as Glowy Borg Shit, I now have the full collection of Glowy Blue Shit. Some nice bonuses there.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I don't PvP either and what works for you, works for you. I'm just saying, nearly everyone who flies an escort sets up for alpha-strike burst damage because Escorts are so crunchy in the departments of shield strength and hull strength that they can't stand up in a knock-down drag-out brawl. Hence, the idea is to dump as much firepower in the first pass and then leg it; for that you need dual heavy cannons up front and turrets in the back to add the turret DPS to the front arc, and a quantum up front with Torpedo High Yield Three to dump four Quantums on someone's hull the moment his shields fail.

If you do the first pass right with this set-up, you often don't need to make a second pass.

[TheFeniX]

If you're soloing, it's rough no matter what. But if you've got a few friends, what always works out is a strong up-front single target attack, then immediately Jam Sensors to drop aggro and load up for another pass. But considering the damage output on escorts, you should be able to one-shot most NPCs. Your issue will be if you decide to do elite level missions (if they even still have that) or during boss fights.

[Flagg]

Death is such a joke anyway. "Wait 10 seconds to respawn".

[Vanas]

I can't say I've had too much problem with the Escort in terms of survivability. I tend to fly it as a nippy cruiser. I've got my Engies all with hull and shield buffs and my Scientists with Hazard emitters or science teams. 'cause I've got the twin forward duals, overcharge and high-yield, I'm quite happy doing what I do.

That and I've really not specced for cannons in the slightest. I crave firing arcs. I might just load it up with cannons for amusement's sake...

[ShadowDragon8685]

STO is very, very forgiving about specs, really.

The first time I tooled up with cannons I didn't have any spec in it - not in the energy type, nor in the cannon weapons themselves. Still worked out fine.

I mean, sure, speccing up will help you out, but unless your fights are routinely coming down to the wire and you're losing about half the time, it's not going to appreciably reduce the amount of time you spend killing someone. Cannons will... Cannons are just kind of broken crazy powerful, which Cryptic doesn't really seem to get. The only weapons people seem to use often at all are beam arrays if they're not fast, so they can broadside, or cannons so they can make attack runs.

Now, mind you, I suppose there's something to be said for loading up a beam if you plan to use, say, Beam Target (Subsystem, probably shields,) but remember with Overcharge you disable the energy type you fire. Unless you're firing a rainbow, or you're very careful, you might disable your weapons and shoot yourself in the foot.

Besides, that would be pretty complicated, and take up a Lt. Commander boff skill slot. I guess there's an argument to be made for its value, but I prefer chaining Cannon Rapid Fire Three and Cannon Rapid Fire Two, as well as Torpedo High Yield Three and Torpedo High Yield Two. They're the simplest and most effective way I think anybody's found for an escort to deal harm.

[Molyneux]

STO is very, very forgiving about specs, really.

The first time I tooled up with cannons I didn't have any spec in it - not in the energy type, nor in the cannon weapons themselves. Still worked out fine.

I mean, sure, speccing up will help you out, but unless your fights are routinely coming down to the wire and you're losing about half the time, it's not going to appreciably reduce the amount of time you spend killing someone. Cannons will... Cannons are just kind of broken crazy powerful, which Cryptic doesn't really seem to get. The only weapons people seem to use often at all are beam arrays if they're not fast, so they can broadside, or cannons so they can make attack runs.

Now, mind you, I suppose there's something to be said for loading up a beam if you plan to use, say, Beam Target (Subsystem, probably shields,) but remember with Overcharge you disable the energy type you fire. Unless you're firing a rainbow, or you're very careful, you might disable your weapons and shoot yourself in the foot.

Besides, that would be pretty complicated, and take up a Lt. Commander boff skill slot. I guess there's an argument to be made for its value, but I prefer chaining Cannon Rapid Fire Three and Cannon Rapid Fire Two, as well as Torpedo High Yield Three and Torpedo High Yield Two. They're the simplest and most effective way I think anybody's found for an escort to deal harm.

I'm fairly sure there's a skill/ability that pushes Overcharge-d systems back online faster.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I'm fairly sure there's a skill/ability that pushes Overcharge-d systems back online faster.

Well, possibly, but that's an example of chasing a sunken cost. Not only do you have to use a boff ability slot to get Beam Overload, but you need one to deal with the disabling.

Plus, I'm not sure if there is one. Beam Overload doesn't disable your Weapons directly, which you could sort out with a couple of abilities or even a consumable device - Engineering Team would sort it out in five seconds, Emergency Power to Weapons would sort it out immediately, and consuming a Weapons Battery would sort it immediately.

But the disability inflicted by using Beam Overload isn't that simple: it disables an energy weapon's energy type; if you use Beam Overload to overcharge a Disruptor dual beam bank, your Disruptor Cannons will be disabled, but your Phaser Turrets would still fire, you follow? That means its something that's not... A default, simple mechanic, and Cryptic are not known for readily handling non-default, custom mechanics. They're not Blizzard.

Besides, like I said; you'd be chasing one skill with another to counteract the drawbacks of the first. Not only could you use both of those skills to greater effect elsewhere, but you might prefer the second skill at another time, before its cooldown is up, and not have it.

I certainly won't say it's not tempting - Dual Beam Banks have critted for over 10,000 on hull, yes!

But bear in mind that Tricobalts hit for 13K on hull, and nobody uses them for forward armament* because Quantums can crit for upwards of 20K on hull; and you can fire off four Quantums at once with only one tactical skill; and another three for the next tactical skill below that one. Yes, a beam overload will do far better on shields than Quantums, but generally when you have a Big attack ready you want to use it on hull, not shields.


*On the other hand, if you're in a late-tier cruiser, too many beam arrays is more than possible, so most people prefer to run with a torpedo up front and a torpedo in the aft. And since Tricobalts don't benefit from any Torpedo (whatever) abilities, those who do like to use their torpedo powers in the front wave and then drop a tricobalt on the pass from the rear out of spite.

[Molyneux]

I'm fairly sure there's a skill/ability that pushes Overcharge-d systems back online faster.

Well, possibly, but that's an example of chasing a sunken cost. Not only do you have to use a boff ability slot to get Beam Overload, but you need one to deal with the disabling.

Plus, I'm not sure if there is one. Beam Overload doesn't disable your Weapons directly, which you could sort out with a couple of abilities or even a consumable device - Engineering Team would sort it out in five seconds, Emergency Power to Weapons would sort it out immediately, and consuming a Weapons Battery would sort it immediately.

But the disability inflicted by using Beam Overload isn't that simple: it disables an energy weapon's energy type; if you use Beam Overload to overcharge a Disruptor dual beam bank, your Disruptor Cannons will be disabled, but your Phaser Turrets would still fire, you follow? That means its something that's not... A default, simple mechanic, and Cryptic are not known for readily handling non-default, custom mechanics. They're not Blizzard.

Besides, like I said; you'd be chasing one skill with another to counteract the drawbacks of the first. Not only could you use both of those skills to greater effect elsewhere, but you might prefer the second skill at another time, before its cooldown is up, and not have it.

I certainly won't say it's not tempting - Dual Beam Banks have critted for over 10,000 on hull, yes!

But bear in mind that Tricobalts hit for 13K on hull, and nobody uses them for forward armament* because Quantums can crit for upwards of 20K on hull; and you can fire off four Quantums at once with only one tactical skill; and another three for the next tactical skill below that one. Yes, a beam overload will do far better on shields than Quantums, but generally when you have a Big attack ready you want to use it on hull, not shields.


*On the other hand, if you're in a late-tier cruiser, too many beam arrays is more than possible, so most people prefer to run with a torpedo up front and a torpedo in the aft. And since Tricobalts don't benefit from any Torpedo (whatever) abilities, those who do like to use their torpedo powers in the front wave and then drop a tricobalt on the pass from the rear out of spite.

Personally, I find that running with Beam Arrays (and maybe one fore and one aft torpedo launcher), Emergency Power to Weapons, and Beam Fire at Will lets me take out pretty much anything I need to on my star cruiser - I love my broadsides.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Personally, I find that running with Beam Arrays (and maybe one fore and one aft torpedo launcher), Emergency Power to Weapons, and Beam Fire at Will lets me take out pretty much anything I need to on my star cruiser - I love my broadsides.

Well, yeah. Beam spam is the point of a cruiser, after all.

Just remember, with weapons more is not always better. Because each weapon after the first that you fire subtracts an amount of energy from your weapon energy setting that lasts until the weapon's volley is done firing, you will hit a point of negative returns where firing more beams at a target is actually getting you less damage.

IIRC, for beams that number is 6 - and 6 is only a very marginal improvement over 5. 7 is actually worse than 5. Remember, cannons subtract 12, beams subtract 10, turrets subtract 8.

Here's the guy who crunched the numbers. He has a number of fancy charts that are quite illuminating, I think you might find.

[Molyneux]

Personally, I find that running with Beam Arrays (and maybe one fore and one aft torpedo launcher), Emergency Power to Weapons, and Beam Fire at Will lets me take out pretty much anything I need to on my star cruiser - I love my broadsides.

Well, yeah. Beam spam is the point of a cruiser, after all.

Just remember, with weapons more is not always better. Because each weapon after the first that you fire subtracts an amount of energy from your weapon energy setting that lasts until the weapon's volley is done firing, you will hit a point of negative returns where firing more beams at a target is actually getting you less damage.

IIRC, for beams that number is 6 - and 6 is only a very marginal improvement over 5. 7 is actually worse than 5. Remember, cannons subtract 12, beams subtract 10, turrets subtract 8.

Here's the guy who crunched the numbers. He has a number of fancy charts that are quite illuminating, I think you might find.

Very interesting...I'll have to give that a good read, thanks!
It's very strange going from STO (which I have a lifetime subscription for) to EVE Online (for which I bought that two-month sale price thing). I find myself trying to use the STO throttle commands on my Drake, and trying to trigger a missile volley on my cruiser.

[TheFeniX]

STO is very, very forgiving about specs, really.

In space, most definitely. Sub-optimal builds with points in abilities you don't use are still very viable for PvE and PvP. Gear is the same way. In WoW, it's almost impossible to win against against a fully PvP geared player who isn't brain damaged if you're still running 339s. All a perfect spec and gear setup in STO let's you do is hit a bit harder and last a bit longer. Players in greens are just as much a threat as a player in full epics.

On the ground, things are a bit different. Having the epic set of gear and your spec worked out makes the basic parts of the endgame missions considerably easier, leaving you with the only hard part being the pulls and the "team-effort" parts like activating switches at the right time. My respec and purchasing of my epic healing kit took me from throwing 1/2 to 3/4 heals, to over-healing non-stop. Hell, my area heal would top off the entire team when we stacked up. After we got the gear and had vent to co-ordinate the switches, we could almost sleep through infected.

Just remember, with weapons more is not always better. Because each weapon after the first that you fire subtracts an amount of energy from your weapon energy setting that lasts until the weapon's volley is done firing, you will hit a point of negative returns where firing more beams at a target is actually getting you less damage.

Before I quit, I got into it a bit with a guy in the warzone ("lol spacebar firing is for nubs"). A lot of players seem to forget the 250' firing arc. You save broadsides for when you have full weapon power, Power to Weapons is up, or you have a battery. Even with the dropped DPS, you're looking for procs. Since I ran tetryons with 6 beam arrays, I did proc a good number of times during the fight.

But other than that, I could face forward on an enemy, leaving only 3 beams to fire while I regenerated weapon power. Just make sure to always redistribute your shields based on combat. I can't tell you the number of kills I've scored in PvP against opponents (especially escorts) who have one shield-facing down and the other 3 at almost full power.

[Vanas]

My forward arrays are a dual plasma, dual AP and single AP. The overcharge affects the first in line, namely the plasma. It's there to chip through sheilds, and to allow me to announce 'fire lasers'. I've never really noticed the disabling, even when I'm overcharging the dual AP instead. Most of my hull damage admittedly comes from the metric fuckton of torpedoes I tend loose off, buffed by Omega and Alpha.

The other plus is that I've got 125 weapon power. Full beam attacks may get me to nugde 100 if I'm pushing it. (And the overload drops it to a shocking 75)

Cruisers, I've always had 6 beams, two torps in, simply on principle.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Very interesting...I'll have to give that a good read, thanks!
It's very strange going from STO (which I have a lifetime subscription for) to EVE Online (for which I bought that two-month sale price thing). I find myself trying to use the STO throttle commands on my Drake, and trying to trigger a missile volley on my cruiser.

Ahhh, missile volleys would be nice. I miss those from Star Trek: Starfleet Command II: Empires at War. It would be nice, in an escort; going full-out, dropping a swarm of missiles that travels just slightly slower than me out the aft slots while cannons chew away at the enemy, scourging his shield facing down, and then he has to ask himself: what do I shoot? If I stop concentrating on that damn escort, if I start targeting those drones I might shoot them all down. But if I don't, and shoot the escort, that gigantic swarm of missiles is going to hit me just as he passes!

Ahhh... Those were the daze.

STO is very, very forgiving about specs, really.

In space, most definitely. Sub-optimal builds with points in abilities you don't use are still very viable for PvE and PvP. Gear is the same way. In WoW, it's almost impossible to win against against a fully PvP geared player who isn't brain damaged if you're still running 339s. All a perfect spec and gear setup in STO let's you do is hit a bit harder and last a bit longer. Players in greens are just as much a threat as a player in full epics.

On the ground, things are a bit different. Having the epic set of gear and your spec worked out makes the basic parts of the endgame missions considerably easier, leaving you with the only hard part being the pulls and the "team-effort" parts like activating switches at the right time. My respec and purchasing of my epic healing kit took me from throwing 1/2 to 3/4 heals, to over-healing non-stop. Hell, my area heal would top off the entire team when we stacked up. After we got the gear and had vent to co-ordinate the switches, we could almost sleep through infected.

There's a ground portion to Star Trek Online?

More seriously, you're right. When you're leveling a new character, the only reason I see that you should have anything other than whites on your ship is because it's a BoP mission reward. Craft and sell to other, more power-hungry players, sell the non-BoP rewards, etcetera.

As for ground healing, well... It can be pretty hectic when you're only half-specced right and using the Physician kit, which is (despite the name) only half heals and half buffs - aggravatingly short 45-second buffs.

Before I quit, I got into it a bit with a guy in the warzone ("lol spacebar firing is for nubs"). A lot of players seem to forget the 250' firing arc. You save broadsides for when you have full weapon power, Power to Weapons is up, or you have a battery. Even with the dropped DPS, you're looking for procs. Since I ran tetryons with 6 beam arrays, I did proc a good number of times during the fight.

But other than that, I could face forward on an enemy, leaving only 3 beams to fire while I regenerated weapon power. Just make sure to always redistribute your shields based on combat. I can't tell you the number of kills I've scored in PvP against opponents (especially escorts) who have one shield-facing down and the other 3 at almost full power.

Wow, that guy sounds like the nub. If you're flying an end-tier cruiser and still have all your energy weapons on the hotbars, you won't have any slots left for abilities! That said, while you do make a point about procs, they don't proc nearly often enough, even if you've got all turrets (most bolts = most chances to fire) and Cannon Rapid Fire. 40 shots at 2.5% chance to proc doesn't guarantee you a proc, and Tetryons, of all weapons? It lowers each of the enemy's shield facings by slightly more than one full volley from a beam array. It's too little, too spread out - if that was all concentrated on the facing you hit, it might be worth it as a way to knock an instant hole in a shield facing.

As it is, I'd prefer phasers (2.5% chance to fuck one of four systems for five seconds, one of which is shields entirely drop, one of which is weapons stop firing, one of which is enemy stops dead in space, and one of which does fuck-all. I mean, disables his Auxiliary subsystems,) plasmas (set the enemy on fire, and if he's a PvPer prevents him from battle cloaking (most NPCs that cloak that you want to keep shooting at are scripted to cloak and ignore it)) or Antiprotons (all of them are +20% critical damage by default.)

I usually run with full power to weapons, the rest of my power potential to shields and let Engines and Aux get by with whatever's left. Besides, you can use Efficiency skills to get low-set powers up to reasonably high power settings anyway.

[Steve]

Made Captain last night, picked up my shiny Defiant. I named it Avenger because Monitor is blocked.

I'm running triple dual heavies and a q-torp in the bow and my turret/retrofit array in the back. Yes, I know it reduces my front DPS a tad, but I like being able to finish off enemies as I pass if their hull is in red and their shields are out, and the retrofit does good damage. Plus it makes fighters even easier to deal with.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Made Captain last night, picked up my shiny Defiant. I named it Avenger because Monitor is blocked.

I'm running triple dual heavies and a q-torp in the bow and my turret/retrofit array in the back. Yes, I know it reduces my front DPS a tad, but I like being able to finish off enemies as I pass if their hull is in red and their shields are out, and the retrofit does good damage. Plus it makes fighters even easier to deal with.

Hate to say this, but unless you're planning to go back to Starbase 24 or something, by now you've seen pretty much the last of the fighters in the game.

[White Haven]

Which is a damned shame, really. Beam: Fire At Will 3 is such a sexy skill for times like that.

'Tactical?'
'Sir?'
'Kill everything.'

[ShadowDragon8685]

Which is a damned shame, really. Beam: Fire At Will 3 is such a sexy skill for times like that.

'Tactical?'
'Sir?'
'Kill everything.'

Hell yes. It's even more fun when you go back to Starbase 24 in a Sovereign and use Change Instance to swap into one with Lieutenants. Just plow on through like you just don't give a fuck, alternating Beam Spam 3 and Beam Spam 2.


Also, gotta looooooove Craptic. Recently, amongst the Litany of Bugs known to the playerbase was the fact that while you could spend the latinum to buy a ship trophy (a big pile of latinum that you put on your ship,) you would not actually "get" the trophy - which was not a physical item that went into your inventory - but you would be out the latinum.

From their own release notes for today:

[*]Latinum Ship Tropies in the Latinum Store can be purchased, but the item will not be received. We're working on a fix now. For now, please do not attempt to purchase this item.

Seems wrong, doesn't it? Well, if they had been a competent company...

[*]Latinum Ship Tropies in the Latinum Store can be purchased, but the item will not be received. We're working on a fix now. For now, the items have been removed from the latinum stores.

Or even possibly...

[*]Latinum Ship Tropies in the Latinum Store can be purchased, but the item will not be received. We're working on a fix now. For now, the items have been removed from the latinum stores, and when the issue has been resolved all characters who purchased a trophy and have not received it will be correctly awarded their trophy.

Star Trek Online. Come for the Trek. Stay for the Trek, 'cause Cryptic sure as hell isn't doing anything else to inspire loyalty.

[Agent Sorchus]

Is it possible to solo stuff in STO? I am thinking of giving it a month long try, but I don't think I would want to play if I absolutely have to have allies in game.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I've soloed (not counting fleet actions and the like) my way up to Rear Admiral, so I'd certainly say it's possible. Granted, a lot of that XP was from ground PvP (which I am pretty good at, so it racked up quite a bit of XP for me) with whatever random group I got put into. It's also starting to get tricky now with the Borg, but nothing insurmountable yet.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Is it possible to solo stuff in STO? I am thinking of giving it a month long try, but I don't think I would want to play if I absolutely have to have allies in game.

You can solo your way up to Vice Admiral if you wish, and depending on how addicted to the game you get, you can do it within that month-long try.

But, STO can be a lot of fun with allies.

[Coaan]

On a similar vein of thought, if anyone is looking for a Fleet, White haven and I created Special Circumstances ages ago and have recently started playing again

Everyone is welcome to come along if you're looking for a place to stay

[Molyneux]

On a similar vein of thought, if anyone is looking for a Fleet, White haven and I created Special Circumstances ages ago and have recently started playing again

Everyone is welcome to come along if you're looking for a place to stay

Is there anyone else in Special Circumstances, or is it just the two of you?

I've got the Wildlanders; another very small fleet, I believe I'm currently the only active player in it.

[Coaan]

Just the two of us at the moment...hoping to expand on that though