Star Trek Online (Now for free and people are still playing!)

[grendelmk1]

Dump the beams on the and get all DHCs up front, and put turrets on the rear.

I just can't seem to make myself do that.

Then I highly recommend picking up a Science ship or Cruiser. Then you can do your beam broadsides, and/or use powers to buff/debuff folks.

This, afaik. I started playing 4 days ago, and last night I got out of the starter cruiser and into the first of the freebie escorts. Disruptor turret aft, 2 cannons forward (one's some sort of disruptor with a 45 degree arc, the other's a phaser cannon with a 90 degree arc) and a forward torp launcher.

Used to be I'd get into an orbit in my cruiser to put my broadside on and try to turn in to get a torp off when it was useful. Eventually that pissed me off so much I added another phaser to my cruiser, because I couldn't turn that far that fast regularly enough.

Now, I drive pretty much straight in at half throttle, hit the space bar at 10 km and pop a torp. By the time the torp gets there, anything smaller than a battleship has a hole where its facing shields used to be. Generally, if I don't fuck things up, the torp's arrival is the end of the battlecruisers I'm running into. I can fry all 3 birds o' prey in a "wing" without having to turn if I time everything right.

The DPS in that 45 degree arc is downright ridiculous, and the ship handles WAY better than the starter cruiser. I've been in a few PUGs, and I keep finding myself doing a fast flyby of something that's shooting at a friendly, pulling a J-turn onto the target's ass, and gutting it at close range. I've been getting a lot of 1st and 2nd place on the Starbase 24 fights by looking for things that are shooting friendlies and blowing them the hell up Though, the constant exposure to exploding ships means I've spent some time with my entire crew in sickbay.

 

[grendelmk1]

Guess I could stand a fleet invite

Grendel@grendelmarqun.

 

[grendelmk1]

Guess I could stand a fleet invite

Grendel@grendelmarqun.

If you haven't been added by the time I get a chance to get in-game today, I'll add you once I can log in.

Someone sent me an invite, I saw it flash up for a second when I logged in, but it disappeared immediately and I can't find it anywhere. I may have clicked something by accident on login, who knows. Could someone resend?

 

[grendelmk1]

So now that I'm in fleet, I've gotten to try the fleet PvE stuff.

Pubbies suck, which is about what I expected. Also, I'm effectively a pubbie

On the other hand, I've discovered the escort captain's crowd control ability:

1. Fly behind a "friendly" cruiser.
2. Let said cruiser aggro a few things.
3. Pop alpha, beta, fire at will.
4. Shoot EVERYONE.
5. Kill all the BoP, shuttles, bio-neurals, fighters, and anything else dinky, and deface everyone else's shield.
6. Die in the resulting aggro storm.
7. Respawn, and see a sector devoid of targets.

Gripping hand, the sheer chaos of a good pubfest on some of the bigger missions is awesome. I die more than is entirely seemly, but holy shit do I get to tear some ass. I just hope that killing everything smaller than a BC and cutting a facing completely off most other stuff is a good idea And yes, despite the complete lack of subtlety, I <3 escorts. Someone's gotta break shit

 

[grendelmk1]

Or on a good day:

6. hit evasive, max impulse, tac team, emergency to shields and just barely make it away from the hornet's nest
7. Circle back and switch to rapid fire and high yield to punish the bigger ships

Sure, and that's worked, like once I'm still in my 20s, and I'm the flying definition of "glass cannon". My skills are, as far as I can tell, all aimed at "fuck you" with not a whole lot of tank. Sure, there's a bit, just due to "I need a place to dump points", but not much. OTOH, sometimes I turret my ass behind a swarm of lemmings and fry the SHIT out of an entire wing of hostiles. High-yield and quantum torps to the first thing that looks tasty, and 5 second bursts of reverse impulse while I manage my pitiful tanking abilities to buy just one more volley. I'm getting better at it, and I've come to realise that sometimes the respawn timer is quicker than trying to unfuck a busted ship. After all, I'm trying to teach the pubbies to rep the damn freighter, not me, yes?

 

[grendelmk1]

I'm not sure why, but it's been some sort of "super pubbie" night.

First was the blockade mission where we saved 14 transports with what appeared to be relative ease. Then came the Borg incursion where the first fleet was dead in less than 40 seconds, and the 4th was down with 11 minutes and change still on the clock. Then we fried the boss, and I'm pretty sure NO ONE DIED. I know no one ate a plasma torp, because I shot them all down. Following that was Fleet Alert where the base sailed right through the whole mess barely scathed.

What the hell?

 

[grendelmk1]

Maybe you should rush out and buy a lotto ticket.

Yeah? The light in my "dining room" that I never bothered to fix because hell, I never use it.... it just came on. It's been non-functional for, umm, 3 years? I mean, I REALLY never use it, I didn't even know the switch was on until shit got bright all of a sudden.

<smallvoice>help? </sv>

<edit>A full polaron fit with a single plasma torpedo on an escort is nasty*. I'd hate to be the AI running a siege dreadnought. "hay, there's a tiny ship over... the fuck? I've got no power to anyth/what the hell is that giant wobbly green thing?"

*Let's assume we have at least rapid fire, attack pattern alpha, and some version of high yield. Anything else is a welcome parcel of lols. Like, say, fire on my mark. Look, I appreciate it when some sciency boffin type heals my busted ass, but the (imagined) wailing when I've entirely blasted some poor git's power grid back to the stone age doth pour the imaginary tears into mine converter.

 

[grendelmk1]

the chairs had flip down arms that were supposed to lock on the legs/chest and stop them flipping out

Plus, if you have inertial compensators/dampers why do you need seat belts?

For the same reason you have a crew in the first place.

Machines break, machines fail. More so in combat, when people are slinging hundreds of grams of antimatter at your ship. Terajoule disruptor pulses have a tendency to disrespect your carefully designed hardware, too. The sheer mass of typical ST ships means the impacts from heavy weapons are (hopefully) only generating single-G accelerations, but when your compensators are straight-up missing large portions of their effector grids because a bunch of your hull just went bye-bye, the crew goes flying.

*This explanation has no respect for ST canon, but how the hell all those writers never figured out that shit BREAKS when there's holes in your ship, I dunno. A real-life WW II battleship could sail and fight with a couple hundred crew, most of whom were loading the guns. The rest of the crew was there to fix things when a 500 kg explody thing punched holes in the boat.

Jandrese: A typical Slaver stasis field includes a (very compact) timer system external to the field under a sheath of neutronium. Otherwise, Lying Bastard and Hot Needle of Inquiry would never have come out of stasis after their respective encounters with a defense system that uses lasing solar flares The conductive coating necessary for the stasis effect was integral to the GP hull molecule, and the entire hull plus the reinforcing generator rode inside the field. Details from "World of Ptavvs" suggest that a stasis field slows things down massively, but doesn't completely stop time. This is consistent with the stasis generator continuing to function from inside the field.

Kzanol's suit, being built to order for rather idiotic Slavers, includes a rescue switch under a sheath of neutronium. How Slavers, Puppeteers et al manipulate neutronium into a covering that can, in some cases, be manipulated directly by a typical sophont is left as an exercise for the alert reader.

I note you mention the "crash chair", and you may be looking at a "crash web", a la the system included in flying cars. This isn't a stasis field, but rather a variation on the "stickybomb" field used by ARMs to immobilise people. Time doesn't slow in one of these, but things tend to "stick" to one place in relation to the field generator. There's also a fixed version used for longer-term prisoner restraint. Beowulf Schaeffer's hands get broken (by acceleration, not impact) because they're outside the crash field when he rams the Drunkard's Walk with his aircar. Had he had a stasis field, he wouldn't have had to use his (unbroken) feet to turn the radio up

Good $diety, I'm such a Known Space geek...

Imagine a compact fusion power plant, a radiator that works at a frequency that GP hulls are transparent at, a reactionless thruster, a small computer, A stasis field setup, and some sensors. Mount all that shit inside a GP #1 hull, which is, IIRC, the size of a basketball. Build a BUNCH of them. Fire them at something you don't like, and order them (via laser) to impact the thing you don't like repeatedly at, oh, 1% C until there's no piece larger than an Austin Mini left over.

 

[grendelmk1]

Thrusters are crap at maneuvering though. That would only work against stationary targets.

I seem to recall that the RT units on late-model Kzinti warships were intended to hold the ship stationary against the thrust of the fusion drives. They specifically built ships around this because Humans fucked them up with a wiiiide variety of reaction systems during wars I-IV. I KNOW that at least 1 story made specific reference to a civilian (!) vessel making 30 G on RTs. I'm not counting anything from juggler/betrayer/crapper of worlds.

Thrusters were good enough that at least by the time of Ringworld 1, ships only mounted fusion drives because of the Kzinti lesson. After all, you can land in the center of a city on RTs without killing the city, AND you can make 30+ G, what's not to like?

Nothing non-military (or non-Puppeteer, because really, they're PEACEFUL, just ask who's actually building 200G fusion drives and putting them in GP hulls*) uses reaction drives by the time of the "late" known-space books. The Pak do, because all they know is ramscoops, but the Pak pretty much define military. Kzin, ditto. Puppeteer, "cowards" that either move, fry, or social engineer anything even a bit threatening. Humans, well, adaptable species in a hostile universe.

Right, everyone has reaction drives. All of them are weapons with reactionless thrusters to actually move the boat.

*The Hindmost very carefully stated that the over-capacity in Needle's fusion drive was for utility. Such tricks as choking the motors wide open at high flow and low power would push a massive torch of low-temperature plasma out the nozzles, giving off an enormous quantity of visible light. By the same token, the "spotlight" in the nose was demonstrated to be powerful enough to turn entire 20 story buildings into instant flaming concrete vapor Every system could be claimed peaceful, and most could level cities.

For giggles, consider that pretty much everyone is using a tiny point of what is effectively degenerate matter as a thermal storage device. (See Ringworld, after the wing's been shot off). Thrusters work just fine. Dozens of almost-indetectable basketballs flying around at 30+ G with jack for a radiated signature, and I'd bet a "military" drive that's not carrying a passenger ship makes more than 30 G

 

[grendelmk1]

Let me preface this by saying I have no idea what I'm doing.

I logged on about 2 weeks ago on a toon that was level 50. I think that was max last time I logged in. I managed to level to 65 pretty goddamn fast. Gaining XP isn't actually difficult.

However, this put me in the position where my gear was not up to my level. OK, as a Tac captain in a strike wing escort, I could somewhat DPS space problems, kinda.

On what was literally my second day back, I made a throwaway comment about "mmmyeah, I'm clueless and underequipped" in a conversation in zone chat.

I now have T15 gear that ranges from purple to orange on my ship because someone decided gearing up the returning player was a good idea.

My fleet strike wing escort is now a fucking avatar of antiproton murder. As a result, I can now basically do ALL the space content by murdering the fuck out of everything within the forwardmost 45 degrees of my ship. My benefactor asked, and I said I like maneuver, so I'm basically a full glass cannon. Engine power, weapon power, big guns, and RCS modules. Shield stuff in science.

I had no idea just how nasty a good escort could be. If I pop maneuver alpha and rate of fire, I can blap a fucking BATTLESHIP. I've been working on intel and pilot specialties, so it gets even worse

The R+D system is new to me, and over the last 2 weeks I've used it to unfuck all my ground gear. Plus the reputation system and all the perks. Holy CRAP can you ever make your ship and captain OP I mean, a heal for your ship hull that's based on your outgoing DPS? On an escort? Hoo boy.

I've also been taking some (not all) of my rewards in fleet marks, so I'm curious what you mean by "way to go doff guys", I'm assuming there's a more efficient way to generate fleet marks rather than doing random TFOs?

 

[grendelmk1]

Let me preface this by saying I have no idea what I'm doing.

I logged on about 2 weeks ago on a toon that was level 50. I think that was max last time I logged in. I managed to level to 65 pretty goddamn fast. Gaining XP isn't actually difficult.

However, this put me in the position where my gear was not up to my level. OK, as a Tac captain in a strike wing escort, I could somewhat DPS space problems, kinda.

On what was literally my second day back, I made a throwaway comment about "mmmyeah, I'm clueless and underequipped" in a conversation in zone chat.

I now have T15 gear that ranges from purple to orange on my ship because someone decided gearing up the returning player was a good idea.

My fleet strike wing escort is now a fucking avatar of antiproton murder. As a result, I can now basically do ALL the space content by murdering the fuck out of everything within the forwardmost 45 degrees of my ship. My benefactor asked, and I said I like maneuver, so I'm basically a full glass cannon. Engine power, weapon power, big guns, and RCS modules. Shield stuff in science.

I had no idea just how nasty a good escort could be. If I pop maneuver alpha and rate of fire, I can blap a fucking BATTLESHIP. I can pull a 180 in less than 4 seconds at full speed while literally DODGING a substantial portion of the incoming fire. I've been working on intel and pilot specialties, so it gets even worse

The R+D system is new to me, and over the last 2 weeks I've used it to unfuck all my ground gear. Plus the reputation system and all the perks. Holy CRAP can you ever make your ship and captain OP I mean, a heal for your ship hull that's based on your outgoing DPS? On an escort? Hoo boy. Oh, and, umm, would you like +25% to both speed and turn rate?

Oy.

I've also been taking some (not all) of my rewards in fleet marks, so I'm curious what you mean by "way to go doff guys", I'm assuming there's a more efficient way to generate fleet marks rather than doing random TFOs?

 

[grendelmk1]

It's the Fleet version. Also have an upgrade on it, so I guess it's a T-5U. I'm contemplating throwing a few bucks at the game and pushing it up to T-5X for one more console. Plus, there's the fleet version of the fighters to get as well.

Most of my Doff tracks are at 1 or 2, so I guess I'm not contributing marks that way any time soon

 

[grendelmk1]

I spent the money, I figure I'm getting enough fun to throw a few bucks at them.

I had enough fleet creds and dilithium to buy a fleet console that's basically neutronium armpr plus half an RCS module. So now I'm even more maneuverable, and I actually have hull resists! I think my next fleet purchase will be the space reputation slot, and I'll put the trait that increases resists with decreasing hull.

I've no doubt there's stuff out there that could hand me my ass 1v1, but I'm feeling pretty good about this ship

 

[grendelmk1]

I'm getting the hang of all the new stuff since last I played. Shotgun post:

I bought a warp drive from the colony. Elite fleet isolated protomatter, and its highlights seem to be plus all energy that's not guns, plus max of same, and W ->E. Ohhh, W ->E. On an escort with a Tac/intel/pilot captain with 36 and growing spec points. Did I mention new mechanics?

My "everything to the guns" setting now does 46 speed and 45 degrees/sec. I'm literally too fast for "pedal to the metal" to really get time to be worth anything. You know those little fucking swarmers? I can CHASE them. My new favorite STO thing to do is get lightly stoned, pull the camera down to a high shoulder sort of place, and play space fighter with antiproton cannons. It still drives more poorly than an advanced PatCom, but it'll do

The STO community continues to blow my mind with their generosity. Some random guy announced in chat he's giving away T6 ships. I've seen him do this before. Anyone recognise "John Goodman" in STO instead of meatspace? He's pretty clear about not giving shit to vets. After about 2 weeks of seeing him sit down south of Fed space giving shit away, I joke about how driving a fleet T5X disqualifies me.* Fucker gives me a T6 Ferengi ship with its own Dabo table.

AND THEN. The guy who originally settled a whole fuckton of T15 purples on my cringing head?

Sends me a random mail with a coupon for a T6 ship, AND an upgrade module. Says to me "now you can really rock those cannons".

I haven't spent either yet, I'm not sure what I want. I think I'll just hold them until something REALLY grabs me by the yabbos.

*ok, I admit, I was fishing a bit. Thing is, what I'd seen go by in chat was mostly weird shit, but weird shit I'd heard of OUTSIDE the game. I'm actually pretty jazzed about owning a Ferengi attack ship. I feel like it's the option for the free-wheeling admiral-about-the-galaxy.

Please, your guards may enjoy the entertainment while we chat about who needs to be violenced. Also, there might be an Orion individual of talent in your cabin when we're done chatting. Oh, Starfleet is stiff-necked? I have no idea who you've been talking to! Oh, yes, that pulse rifle on the wall is mine. No, I've lost count. Where were we?

 

[grendelmk1]

Goddamnit, double post.

 

[grendelmk1]

I can imagine. If I could be arsed, I'd be incredibly space rich in Eve, with a main that's from 2006. I lost for a while about 2 years ago, but my god, the self-entitled ignorance in that game is ridiculous.

Finished the 11th anniversary stuff today and got the Tamer raider. Speed and turn rate in the low 60s with my gear, but less firepower. It'd be hilarious with other players around to act as an anvil, but I think it's a bit TOO much on the speed over firepower end for solo play. It's a bit harder to set up to make use of the 40% rear quarter DPS bonus when you're by yourself. Which is a shame, what with the bonii from intel skills.

However, the universal console that comes with it happens to fit beautifully with my current antiproton build. The torp PDS was fun on occasion, but more DPS and a "I need ALL the damage" button? Yeah, I swapped. I like the new experimental weapon as well. I like the sound when they fire, it's got a nice "chunk" to it.

EDIT: Yeah, if you're already on an antiproton build, Alliance Tactics synergises pretty nicely. If you push butan, you slap the target for about 15k of big purple bolts of inevitable slow punch in the face. Then you get a 5 second DPS bonus. When that ends, you get a bonus to turn and speed. The applications are obvious if you're already a glass cannon

I get what they want to do with the Tamer, but I don't think you can be that sneaky unless you want to spend WAY too long fighting big blobs of NPCs.

Again, it'd be nice with other players, cloaking up, getting into the back 1/4, then tearassing the target, and then disappearing to do it again. For uncoorinated PvP or PvE, it's just not punchy enough. ESPECIALLY if you put the console on something with a lot more slots

 

[grendelmk1]

So about a day ago it finally occurred to me that since my space fit is definitely working, I could put some effort into making the inevitable ground combat less of a chore. After all, most of the PvE content, including episodes, is new to me. I'll be shootimg shit in ground mode for a while.

I don't mean just fitting myself out, I've been doing that. Rather, BOFFs for away teams have been getting a bit of love. This actually encapsulates why I've been playing so much since I "came back". There's a not-inconsequential part of the game that is basically a single player game.

So yeah, now I'm pulling a "Baldur's Gate" and kitting my party out.

Additionally!

All the various work I've put into kitting and skilling my own self has taken me from running around trying to not die to literally picking a spot, hitting "x", and just being a murder turret. I know you jaded vets have played around with all this shit, but... oh my. There are both single target and cone AoE torpedo launchers that HOME. You know, I sort of feel like a waist pouch full of smart munitions that are tuned in to your personal neural interface would be pretty useful They're not knife missiles, but I'll take it.

Side note: Fuck you Ars, I'm now thinking about how to secure your personal net from intrusion. Having someone suddenly detonate your munitions is the LEAST of your possible worries! Internet of Things, forsooth.

 

[grendelmk1]

I'm a tac guy. I do drop with 1 each science and engineering. As you say, the deployables are great, and having a healer/space wizard doesn't hurt either.

I think I need to make a few changes in some of their skills here and there. Not sure what exactly I want yet, but I'm getting there.

I've got the crystal spike deployable, which is an AoE taunt that goes boom at the end of its life. Is that the one you mean? I usually open with that, let it get some aggro, then torpedo the area. By then the engy usually has her mortar down and my tac boffs have grenaded something as well. Explosions everywhere!

 

[grendelmk1]

So the endeavor system keeps letting me take crit severity (space).

I recently discovered vulnerability locator (AP) in the spire. I have 3 now.

I'm working towards a complete temporal defense cannon/turret fit, which is AP, so that's fun I don't have parses or anything, since I don't run a parser. But, with all of my turrets fitted with temporal, and 1 set temporal heavy cannon forward, my ship feels tougher and quicker. Might be confirmation bias, might be the buffs

I'm buying my cannons with accuracy 1 and critD 2. I'm not sure about how they balance stuff, since "critH" is 2%, and "critD" is 20% on a weapon, but if you buy fleet modules you get 2%(ish) critH but only 10%(ish) critD. So yeah, modules for H, guns for D. The grind is real, though. Rep and dil take so much time. I kinda laugh at the vids I've been watching on youtube, with all gold gear. I mean yeah, I'll be there eventually, but no one talks about HOW to get there.

I'm going to pass all the "standard" modules back to my previously mentioned benefactor, and ask him to boost someone else with them. Once I'm fitted, anyway. I'm maybe 35% there, just in terms of base gear at 15. Gold? Shit. Been focusing cannons in R+D and it's high 13 I looked at quality boosting stuff in the exchange, and yeah, not buying those.

Everyone in chat seems to be PvP focused, so I ask you, is there a good set replacement for Aegis? I'm at 4 in most reps, 5 isn't TOO far away, and if it's mission based, I'll run it I like mobility, regen over capacity, and hardness over regen for shields. I'm running +max power and +power gear anywhere I can find it, based on the assumption that everything, even aux power (resists to sciency shit, yes?), is good on a DPS build.

I've got a prolonged engagement power dynamo, which really seems to pull a lot more than its weight in a really good fight. I've also got a plasma power manifold that I think I need to find a replacement for. Yes it's 9.5 weapon power, but there's got to be a better option. Tanking is occasionally an issue, but DPS is ALWAYS an issue, so I'm leaning towards anything that bumps the guns over, say, a Fleet neutronium plate with maneuver. I'm not sure where to look for boosts anymore

I'm pretty much in that dead zone you hit in Eve where you have the basics down, but the really GOOD tricks aren't there yet. Which I appreciate, I like a complex system.

Oh. I'm good with spending rep, fleet creds, or dil. Lobi is off the table until the current event finishes, and I'll take recommendations for lobi gear if they're worth it, as I figure to spend my event on lobi.

Edit: I think I've got my ground game down. Temporal pistols, micro torpedo spread, crystal spire for distraction. Ground TFOs that used to kick my ass are cake. Also, the only good bug is a dead bug

 

[grendelmk1]

If I ever get around to him, I did start a KDF alt. I feel like I'm pretty much required to build for disruptors on him. He's engineering, so I'll probably go for some sort of enormous flagship-like brick of a ship.

I still want to push my main I've found myself trying to carry TFOs a few times, and some of the battlegrounds can be a real pain if I'm alone or only have 1-2 other players around. Plus, I'd just like to see how far I can go with my current build concept. He came up in strike wing escorts, he's going to keep flying them.

 

[grendelmk1]

I hit my first level 15 R&D today, cannons.

So from a dil perspective (since that seems to be the bottleneck), are the x2 quality crafted tech upgrades the most efficient way to upgrade quality once a piece of gear is at mark 15? Most of my gear is VR or UR, and I'd like to make them epic eventually.

 

[grendelmk1]

Not sure how I missed it until now, but I just found the memorial on DS9. I was happy to see all the "bit players" they acknowledged, rather than just naming the people we all know.

On an unrelated note, my current mission chain has me talking to a Weyoun, and all I can think of is "Maybe you should talk to Worf again!"

 

[grendelmk1]

In the past I would have agreed with that general sentiment but the new ground tfo for the event has absolute swarms of ensigns and lieutenants who I absolutely melt with my now 6 module sci who is all aoe. I think I am killing at least one enemy combatant per second on average. It's unclear to me how this is not a war crime, but my legal team believes that I can make the claim that they aren't real people because they are from an alternate universe.

Based on this post, I decided to try it out.

Holy shit, that is a target rich environment. I'm running a tac captain, with things like chroniton microtorpedo spread and temporal defense pistols. Elevator doors open, everyone in the elevator dies. Maybe half my kit is stuff intended to fuck up heavy targets, but just the trash killing half of my stuff utterly murders things. It's disgusting. Admiral Quinn has a bad day, over and over and over. It's so goddamn overkill that the "oh shit" mode on my Na'khul shield didn't even trigger, and I basically just found a good place to stand, went into aim mode, and channeled my inner turret.

Totally unrelated, I bought a wing of elite scorpions for my strike wing escort.

Those are not fair, in a good way. So many heavy plasma torpedoes. I should have bought them a long time ago, they punch like mad for something that's basically a novelty slot on non-carriers.

EDIT: I learned a thing. Heavy plasma torpedoes don't go away when their target dies. They switch to chasing whatever you target next. This includes the HPTs from your fighters. I'm not sure what their duration or range is, but it's not inconsequential. I've had them just hang in space, waiting for me to target something. The consequences of this can involve some very Bad Things™.

 

[grendelmk1]

Some ships really need a turn console, like the crafted RCS, a fleet RCS + damage resist, or the Discovery rep RCS + crit chance. When I switch captains from a nimble tac ship to a space whale cruiser it takes me a TFO or alert to get used to the slowness again. And going the other direction I have the same problem of overshooting the target. Variety is still fun though.

I was gifted a T6 cruiser a while back, by the same benefactor that gave me a shit ton of top tier kit for my escort. Fuck did that guy change my game

I swear he was teasing me, because man, when you've been driving something with a base turn of 15, and you go to a cruiser...OY.

I'm actually tempted, as a tac captain, to do an all-turrets, all threat cruiser and see what happens. I mean with all turrets, facing stops mattering, and the ability I've currently slotted for -aggro can be replaced with +aggro at no cost. 8 turrets, no waiting, right?

The issue is...pubbies, you know? I mean, if I fuck up, that's on me, and as a tac/dps guy, that's DEFINITELY on me. As a taunting tank? I'm depending on someone to DPS my aggro, and someone else to maybe toss me a heal here and there. If I was in a group, I'd be all over it. I've tanked for some pretty hardcore incoming when I can trust my clanmates. But as a pubbie?

DPS escort all the way. If I can't kill it, I can outrun it.

 

[grendelmk1]

I very, VERY recently crossed the threshold into being able to do elite TFOs.

Considering I started playing when you needed to worry about how much crew you have on your ship during a fight, I may have progressed slowly. The secret sauce was to make a science toon and spend some lobi from a previous event chain on a Hur'q Assembly, and go torp/sci.

As far as the wiki thing, yeah, that's basically how I "got gud", plus asking questions in ESD. I'd do random dives into the wiki, go annoy ESD chat, rinse, repeat. I am now apparently Zoey Squirrel's nemesis

Got to say, though, STO's community is generous, they gifted me some pretty pricey gear (holy crap, a conductive RCS with ResAll is a LOT of EC), and the advice ends up being pretty damn useful as well.

This game needs a fitting tool similar to some of Eve's third-party external fitting tools. Something where you can plug stuff in and see how the math actually works out.

I mean just figuring out what "stack 1" vs "stack 2" damage bonuses are can be a pain. The word "bonus" means stack 2, and the only other stack 2 is criticals. Each stack is additive, and then the 2 stacks multiply 1 by 2. So if you have a +40% plasma energy weapon module, that's stack 1. +all damage, also stack 1. However, something like the Dragonsblood flame reactor from last summer's event that says "bonus" damage? That's stack 2. So if you use disruptors with disruptor vulnerability locators, and the dragon mod, you get some fun math

Unfortunately, what made EFT and others work was access to game data. I'm not sure that STO will ever open up that way. but, if you fark around a lot and get a parser (which reads your mission data and tells you who did how much damage, and with what) you can figure it out.

Unlike most pubbies, Arsians tend to be fairly intelligent

It's also worth noting that sometimes you actually want to make non-optimal choices. For instance, the Gamma reputation warp core gives spectacular bonuses to map travel. Like base warp speeds in the mid-20s and slipstream of 48, and also major transwarp cooldown bonuses. If you're sciency, you pair it with a Gamma deflector that gives science BOFF cooldown reduction (but only when you upgrade it, so you'll never know unless you wiki the thing) and get a set bonus that boosts speed and turn for everyone in group when you're doing group content like TFOs.

I finally got confident enough in the mechanics to try a DEW/SCI build without spending a buttload of money. We'll see how that goes, but so far, so good. Rumor has it they're expensive, but it's doing ok, so far...

EDIT:

It's worth noting that some of the VERY recent content has some really good traits. For instance, Inertial Supremacy from the new escort. If you happened to do a KDF toon on the very recent event, you can combine IS with Withering Barrage from the ship they give you for free, which makes Cannon scatter volley last 14 seconds. Shared cooldown on CSV is 15 seconds, so you can effectively perma-run a multi-target armor debuff on multiple targets. This also works with Fire At Will (who's Will?) and Torpedo Spread. But, CSV is the easiest to perma-run.

Even my pure science toon runs it, using omnis in the aft slots to spread the good word. Grav well, FAW, let everyone get together, then drop the DPS hammer on a festival of debuffed victims. Did I mention I like to add attack pattern Beta?

 

[grendelmk1]

It does take a bit of planning, yeah. I found science worked best for me, but sci boats generally tend to the squishy side. Cannon builds on escorts put down some pretty good DPS as well.