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Lord Revan wrote:

Coaan wrote:Turrets are technically cannon based weaponry - I'd go with beams for the sheer amount of flexibility that fire at will has.

there also the point that turrets don't really hit hard enought to be viable as main weapons and the Sovvie doesn't have the turn rate to really use cannons effectivly.

Which would matter if turning were required at all with turrets. An all turret build may not have deeps but it is weaponized pretty

The Romulan Republic wrote:

Lord Revan wrote:Some of the later Delta Quadrant missions can get really hard with something like your current build, Phaser beams are decent enough and at this point don't have to optimize the modifiers so you might be able to get some mark 11 ones fairly cheap.

Full turret build won't work, even with heavy turrets they just don't do enough DPS. Turrets are generally best used as rear weapons in a cannon build as they count as cannons for most tac skills.

Perhaps I'll aim for six phaser beam arrays and two quantum or photon torpedo launchers, then. Classic Federation design.

Regarding energy credits, I currently have 235,654. I'm surprised that I have that many, but then again, I suppose I haven't been using them much lately. I've been relying on plunder rather than purchasing to upgrade my ship and I haven't used them on transwarp much recently.

I'd also like to enquire about weapons for my little Runabout. I'm not going to list everything it has on board, but its weapons are a Plasma Torpedo Launcher Mk IX and a Tetryon Turret Mk X.

200k EC isn't that much really, most my chars have 500k or more.

My prommy has 4 Dual heavy phaser cannons + photon torp(bio mol torp for a set) in front and 1 Phaser turret and 1 heavy phaser turret and the Kinetic Cutting beam at the back.

my Fed Engineer's Samsaar has neutronic torp+3 polaron beam arrays in front and 3 Polaron and Kinetic Cutting beam in back, my Orion has similar build but with Disruptor beams instead of polaron beams and photon torp (well bio mol torp) instead of the neutronic one.

Coaan wrote:

Lord Revan wrote:

Coaan wrote:Turrets are technically cannon based weaponry - I'd go with beams for the sheer amount of flexibility that fire at will has.

there also the point that turrets don't really hit hard enought to be viable as main weapons and the Sovvie doesn't have the turn rate to really use cannons effectivly.

Which would matter if turning were required at all with turrets. An all turret build may not have deeps but it is weaponized pretty

when gets to things like the Vaadwaur ships, beams will still be more viable then turret build.

I think I'm just about to get to the Vaadwaur. Any tips/warnings?

What part of 'it's not very effective, but it is pretty' did you miss exactly?

I know it's not going to be very effective, that's why I said it's not very effective.

The Romulan Republic wrote:I think I'm just about to get to the Vaadwaur. Any tips/warnings?

The Vaadwaur have an annoying combination of tough shields, very high manuverability and an artillery ability that can cover a wide area that will generally skull fuck anything caught in the blast zone.

To counter this, you will need high manuverability of your own, or preferrably rock and roll from the pilot specialisation tree (tier 2). Rock and roll's invulnerability allows you to barrel roll to a nice lack of damage. If you do not have rock and roll, make sure to keep your evasive manuvers for getting out of dodge.

Other than that, they don't really do anything different, although it's worth noting that the Vaadwaur were cryptic moving away from the highest DEEPS! and more towards survivability in terms of meta. A cruiser will have far more survivability against them than an escort because their ships are very tough and represent a return to slugging matches in space.

That's a bit confusing. You advise good maneuverability and you advise a durable cruiser. How often do those two overlap? I mean, my Sovereign's a nice big cruiser, but its maneuverability is not superb.

Edit: Fortunately, I tend to prioritize skills and tech. that will go towards durability.

The Romulan Republic wrote:I think I'm just about to get to the Vaadwaur. Any tips/warnings?

In space if you see glowing blue crosses near you move as The Vaadwaur have this bombardment ability that can tear thru ships if you're not careful. On ground there's just look out for mobs or drones that channel invincibility to other nearby Vaadwaur and the fact that they can run past you to flank you and you should be fine.

That's a bit confusing. You advise good maneuverability and you advise a durable cruiser. How often do those two overlap? I mean, my Sovereign's a nice big cruiser, but its maneuverability is not superb.

Pretty much never, I think he meant "have a fast ship that can away from the bombardment area or have a big sturdy
ship that can take the hits"

Coaan wrote:What part of 'it's not very effective, but it is pretty' did you miss exactly?

I know it's not going to be very effective, that's why I said it's not very effective.

sure it's pretty I won't deny that but at some point you'll have consider DPS even in solo play and turret builds aren't really viable at high level certain not against the Heralds.

You don't have to turn like an escort to be maneuverable - with the vaadwaur, their largest ship (the heavy artillery ship) will often try to break range, keep you at extreme distance and pelt you with that artillery barrage I mentioned. In that instance, you will want to be able to move with sufficient speed (or evasive/ rock and roll) to escape the blast radius.

I didn't actually mean more turny, as you're kind of limited by the fact you are a cruiser.

Before you go into combat with them, try to get resist consoles that protect against polaron if you can. Vaadwaur weapons are polaron based - if you do not have a solid tank that can handle any damage, fitting to the type is valid.

Well for a short burst of speed, I have the ability Evasive Maneuvers III. I often use it for a quick retreat in battle.

Yep, that's what I was meaning.

When you combine it with either power to engines, engine batteries, cruiser strategic maneuvering or (if you've taken a beating) ramming speed will allow you to escape blast zones and not take the massive damage they throwdown from those barrages.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Well for a short burst of speed, I have the ability Evasive Maneuvers III. I often use it for a quick retreat in battle.

if you keep an eye out for the crosshairs of the bombardment ability and use that ability to get out of the blast zone when you see them and Coaan some of the "lesser" vaadwaur ships have that bombardment too as special ability though the Arty ship are only to use it often. Once you learn how to deal with in the Vaadwaur aren't that bad. I'll second the Polaron resist consoles though.

I would also recommend looking over your active space roster and making sure you have your highest quality conn officer on duty to reduce the cooldown of your evasive maneuvers, as well as just tweaking who you have on duty to lend little boosts here and there.

Can never go wrong with reduced cooldown heals from science and engineering teams, or the chance of extra power from emergency skills.

Cannons are a trap. Dual cannons are not, but cannons, the 180-arc crappy-DPS, I-wish-I-were-a-beam-array weapons, are just...there are no builds that use them that aren't bad, period. They don't have the arc to overlap a broadside and they don't have the DPS to make up for not being able to overlap a broadside. When looking at weapons, ask yourself this: when will this weapon not be able to fire, and is it good enough to be worth that downtime? Is firing that dual beam bank worth not firing your three aft beam arrays? ...No.

Beyond that, I just have to echo the rest of the advice. Go buy some cheapass phasers and phaser consoles. See what the Exchange wants for them, and get the best that are still cheap.

Lord Revan wrote:(only exception I'd say is the Borg Kinectic Cutting Beam and even that's debateble)

The KCB gives no fucks about Beam abilities, since it won't be affected by them. So it is pretty viable to replace, say, an aft turret on a cannon build.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Though replacing all my beam weapons with omni-directional turrets holds some appeal.

That won't happen, because Cryptic is smarter than that.

The best you can get is three: the Kinetic Cutting Beam, the Ancient Obelisk Antiproton OmniBeam Array (or whatever it's called) and then one (and only one) of the crafted OmniBeam Arrays. Trust me, I wish I could rainboat Omni Arrays too, but alas.

Anyway yeah, I'd be more concerned with solidifying Beams vs Cannons than I would worrying about Energy Types, as I'm pretty sure Rainbow Boats are perfectly viable for most of the non-STF/Queued content you'll encounter. People rail on them because they're not efficient but if you're doing solo play who cares what they think? And you can get pretty good DPS out of them anyway if you want to work at it.

Really if you're running a lot of mark 11 or 12 beams, it doesn't much matter what they are, the DPS will be fairly decent. It'll only get better if you match them up but otherwise.

I tend to pay a little attention to DPS as I don't like to waste time spinning around farting rainbows...

Seven of Nine's back. Excellent.

Okay, they haven't been formally identified yet, but I think I just met my first Vaadwaur ships. Nothing that's called a frigate should have shields that good.

I have basically not gotten into the post-Sphere of Influence content while fiddling around with various alternate characters. Can someone summarize for me how the Vaadwaur fight? They sound intriguingly tricky. I get the impression of raw, blocky, bulky firepower.

Vaadwaur ships, from what I've seen so far, are fairly tough in terms of shields and firepower. One of their frigates gave my Sovereign a reasonably challenging fight.

One interesting thing I've noticed- both Seven and Hugh don't seem to have aged much. While I'd expect long lives from good medical technology in the Star Trek, it makes me wonder if the Borg/ex-Borg drones have a resistance to aging.

Simon_Jester wrote:I have basically not gotten into the post-Sphere of Influence content while fiddling around with various alternate characters. Can someone summarize for me how the Vaadwaur fight? They sound intriguingly tricky. I get the impression of raw, blocky, bulky firepower.

the Vaadwaur aren't actually that tricky what they have in space is rather strong firepower with Polaron energy weapons and tricobalt torps and can also take considerble punishment before going down. Only real trick they got in space is the bombardment ability.

On ground they have drones or special troopers (commandos IIRC) that can make others immune to all forms of damage (though not to knock back or interupt IIRC) and their overseers (Captain level mobs)Spoiler and thus can be a pain to fight.

in alot of ways the Vaadwaur act as a preview for the Heralds.

RogueIce wrote:Anyway yeah, I'd be more concerned with solidifying Beams vs Cannons than I would worrying about Energy Types, as I'm pretty sure Rainbow Boats are perfectly viable for most of the non-STF/Queued content you'll encounter. People rail on them because they're not efficient but if you're doing solo play who cares what they think? And you can get pretty good DPS out of them anyway if you want to work at it.

while true for a most part the Herald ships in the "Iconian War" storyline will cause headaces for rainbow ships but that's about it and even with them it's more important to be able to survive then to do massive DPS.

Rainbow fits annoy me if you are attempting to create a boat that can hold their own and fight off end game critters, then matching damage type matters as much as standardising on one weapon type

Why do something half assed and bollock up getting a good damage fit that doesn't need to be replaced when he runs out of story and starts looking at STFs?

As another downside, rainbow fits prevent you from making best use of the proper damage tac consoles as they are damage typed rather than weapon typed. 30% phaser damage isn't that great when you have only one phaser array. When you have seven? it's heinous.

My Delta Quadrant missions are coming along nicely. It looks like my last fight with the Hirogen resulted in some nice consoles to loot. And I'm almost at level 53 now.

Fighting the Hierarchy is a fucking pain in the ass. Not terribly hard, exactly. It just takes a long time to wear them down, plus their fucking ships keep teleporting around the map or something. Tedious. Very tedious.

The Voth, however, are genuinely formidable opponents.

Yeah, they're rather annoying. It's not teleportation though...they're using jam targeting (IIRC) on you. So they vanish from your scopes, but they're still moving normally. You can tell when they've done it, because you might still have a beam or two hit them, but they're invisible without cloaking.