Tactical Ship Selection
I don't agree! I think people should play the ship they like with the captain they like because STO is a game and the point of games is to have fun, and I don't think you provide a good argument to the contrary.
"Escorts and raiders can equip dual heavy cannons which do significantly more damage than beam arrays and even dual beam banks."
No, DHCs do less damage than beams.
Beams have a wider arc, so players can spend more time hitting enemies. Beams access more weapons power overcapping (4 times more). Beams have less of distance damage drop-off than cannons. FAW is a bigger damage multiplier than CSV. FAW has the same arc as your beams do while CSV has an even narrower arc than DHCs do. Beams travel faster than cannons so an enemy is less likely to die in the time it takes the energy to get there.
You don't even have to have that much gear to see the benefit. When I played my new delta recruit, I just got the ship with the most tac consoles at every opportunity, put on cheap, common beam arrays from the EC vendor at ESD, and as many copies of FAW as I could. I was blasting through content so fast that the NPCs were saying things like "We have to hold out for 30 more seconds" after everything was dead.
"You don’t need to have a dedicated science ship to take advantage of the Cdr LvL Science abilities"
If a ship has a commander level sci seat, then it's a sci ship, or at least a sci carrier. By definition, you need a sci ship to use commander level sci abilities.
"You can really make do with Lt. Cdr Science abilities simply because this is as much as your captain skills and ship’s power level will only be able to take advantage of the Lt Cdr abilities."
What is it about tactical captains that adversely affects a ship's science skills as compared to a science captain? Science captains get sensor scan (all damage multiplier), sub-nuc (doesn't buff sci skills), photonic fleet (doesn't buff sci skills), and scattering field (doesn't buff science skills). They get the traits photonic capacitor (doesn't buff science skills) and conservation of energy (exotic damage buff). They get nothing that benefits non-damage science abilities.
So it's conservation of energy and sensor scan vs. APA, GDF, and FOMM, all of which buff exotic damage and to a greater degree than the science abilities.
As for power levels, the only career-specific ability that affects auxiliary power is an engineering ability, so both science and tactical captains are at the same disadvantage there.
"And while Science and engineering captains have skills like Scattering Field and Miracle Worker, the tactical Captain have Attack pattern Alpha and Go Down Fighting. Neither of which help with Survivability."
First, killing things actually helps a *lot* with survivability. The damage you take from something that's dead is 0.
Second, APA, GDF, and FOMM all buff exotic (that is, science) damage. Sci captains get... sensor scan. That's it. This is why tac captains get the most damage from science ships.
Third, GDF gives a damage resistance buff.
"Now, Escorts in cruisers, while on paper this looks like a great idea, 4 fore and 4 aft vs the 5/2, 4/3 or 4/2 Escort/Raider configuration. Higher Hull, higher shields and I get to Separate my Saucer/chevron! You’re also slower and unable to equip Dual Cannons. These two factors affect damage output and survivability."
Cruisers have a lower damage output than ships with a commander tac seat, but the career of the captain has nothing to do with this.
Cruisers turn slower than escorts, but, again, the career of the captain has nothing to do with this.
And not being able to equip dual cannons increases damage output because beams do more damage.
"While you have abilities like Evasive Maneuvers and Emergency Power to Engines, you’re still slow in space and do not have the speed to evade many attacks which will melt a ship’s shields and hull down to 0 no matter how high it is. Engineers have the benefit of abilities like Rotate Shield Frequency and Miracle Worker as well as Engineering Fleet to heal and add damage resistance. "
Several problems:
1. In order to get high defense, escorts have to move. Defense is based on speed. But if you're using DHCs (like you keep saying people should), you can't move as much because of that tiny firing arc. Ships with beam arrays can keep moving at top speed. My scim gets around 90% bonus defense when moving at top speed, which is more than any escort will get while standing still.
2. RSF is crap. MW is great but has a long cd - if you really have problems with taking damage it won't completely solve them.
3. Again, what does this have to do with career? Cruisers' survivability is better than escorts' and their damage output is worse. Career doesn't change that.
Now onto a2b, which I agree isn't optimal, but it's not terrible for people starting out.
" Great plan, except you would need to be super specialized and you would have very little room for healing abilities."
A2B doubles your boff slots at the expense of 2 boff slots, which hardly makes you "super specialized." Not all heals are based on aux power. You get extra sci teams and eng teams.
Also it buffs shield and engine subsystem power, increasing shield regeneration and strength and defense.
"And even if that wasn’t an issue we’d still be running into power issues. Even with the boost Aux to bat gives every other systems you’re still firing 8 weapons at the same time and remember higher weapons power = higher energy damage."
What does this have to do with a2b? You're still going to be firing 8 weapons with or without a2b. If you're saying that it's still a problem for cruisers to have 8 weapons, again, how's that an issue just for tactical captains?
Also, more overcapping power helps beams more than it does cannons (beams have access to 4 times more overcapping power than DHCs do), and a2b increases overcapping power. So A2B mitigates this problem.
"Also if you are able to mitigate your energy levels, Aux to Bat builds are not the cheapest builds. A Fully Realized Aux to bat Build will cost about 200 Mil EC"
A2B requires 2 copies of a2b (available at ESD for 2000 ec) and 3 technician doffs, which can be obtained for free at the B'Tran Cluster or found on the exchange for a few million ec. I have no clue how you got to 200 million ec.
I was running a2b back when I couldn't afford much in this game, with purple doffs even though you could get away with blue doffs. If you look at STO build discussions, a2b is always brought up as the *cheap* way to reduce cd on tactical abilities, and that's because it can be as cheap as you want it to be.
"Engineering Captains have EPS Power Transfer and Nadion Inversion they also have the trait EPS Manifold Efficiency. EPS Power Transfer gives a massive power boost to all Power Levels and Nadion Inversion reduces the drain abilities have on power levels. EPS Manifold Efficiency give a secondary boost to all subsystems when you use a battery or emergency power abilities."
EPS power transfer runs for 30 seconds with a 120 second cooldown. That's 1/4 uptime. 3/4 of the time an eng captain has the same subsystem power as any other career.
Nadion Inversion does not reduce the "drain abilities have on power levels." Just on weapons power. It's nice, but, again, there are lots of other ways to reduce weapons power drain, like, say, running beams and taking advantage of overcapping power, spire cores, the assimilated 2-piece, greedy emitters trait from the nandi....
EPS Manifold Efficiency helps some, true. But it's not game-breaking or even enough to compete with tactical captains' abilities.
Career affects 4 abilities and 2 trait choices in a game where you're likely to have 30 to 40 abilities to use and so many traits that are better than the ones that come from your career. In space, there really isn't much difference between the careers as they're all as capable of enough DPS to beat all the content in the game, and piloting, gear, and teamwork have far more affect on DPS and survivability than career does.
"Escorts and raiders can equip dual heavy cannons which do significantly more damage than beam arrays and even dual beam banks."
No, DHCs do less damage than beams.
Beams have a wider arc, so players can spend more time hitting enemies. Beams access more weapons power overcapping (4 times more). Beams have less of distance damage drop-off than cannons. FAW is a bigger damage multiplier than CSV. FAW has the same arc as your beams do while CSV has an even narrower arc than DHCs do. Beams travel faster than cannons so an enemy is less likely to die in the time it takes the energy to get there.
You don't even have to have that much gear to see the benefit. When I played my new delta recruit, I just got the ship with the most tac consoles at every opportunity, put on cheap, common beam arrays from the EC vendor at ESD, and as many copies of FAW as I could. I was blasting through content so fast that the NPCs were saying things like "We have to hold out for 30 more seconds" after everything was dead.
"You don’t need to have a dedicated science ship to take advantage of the Cdr LvL Science abilities"
If a ship has a commander level sci seat, then it's a sci ship, or at least a sci carrier. By definition, you need a sci ship to use commander level sci abilities.
"You can really make do with Lt. Cdr Science abilities simply because this is as much as your captain skills and ship’s power level will only be able to take advantage of the Lt Cdr abilities."
What is it about tactical captains that adversely affects a ship's science skills as compared to a science captain? Science captains get sensor scan (all damage multiplier), sub-nuc (doesn't buff sci skills), photonic fleet (doesn't buff sci skills), and scattering field (doesn't buff science skills). They get the traits photonic capacitor (doesn't buff science skills) and conservation of energy (exotic damage buff). They get nothing that benefits non-damage science abilities.
So it's conservation of energy and sensor scan vs. APA, GDF, and FOMM, all of which buff exotic damage and to a greater degree than the science abilities.
As for power levels, the only career-specific ability that affects auxiliary power is an engineering ability, so both science and tactical captains are at the same disadvantage there.
"And while Science and engineering captains have skills like Scattering Field and Miracle Worker, the tactical Captain have Attack pattern Alpha and Go Down Fighting. Neither of which help with Survivability."
First, killing things actually helps a *lot* with survivability. The damage you take from something that's dead is 0.
Second, APA, GDF, and FOMM all buff exotic (that is, science) damage. Sci captains get... sensor scan. That's it. This is why tac captains get the most damage from science ships.
Third, GDF gives a damage resistance buff.
"Now, Escorts in cruisers, while on paper this looks like a great idea, 4 fore and 4 aft vs the 5/2, 4/3 or 4/2 Escort/Raider configuration. Higher Hull, higher shields and I get to Separate my Saucer/chevron! You’re also slower and unable to equip Dual Cannons. These two factors affect damage output and survivability."
Cruisers have a lower damage output than ships with a commander tac seat, but the career of the captain has nothing to do with this.
Cruisers turn slower than escorts, but, again, the career of the captain has nothing to do with this.
And not being able to equip dual cannons increases damage output because beams do more damage.
"While you have abilities like Evasive Maneuvers and Emergency Power to Engines, you’re still slow in space and do not have the speed to evade many attacks which will melt a ship’s shields and hull down to 0 no matter how high it is. Engineers have the benefit of abilities like Rotate Shield Frequency and Miracle Worker as well as Engineering Fleet to heal and add damage resistance. "
Several problems:
1. In order to get high defense, escorts have to move. Defense is based on speed. But if you're using DHCs (like you keep saying people should), you can't move as much because of that tiny firing arc. Ships with beam arrays can keep moving at top speed. My scim gets around 90% bonus defense when moving at top speed, which is more than any escort will get while standing still.
2. RSF is crap. MW is great but has a long cd - if you really have problems with taking damage it won't completely solve them.
3. Again, what does this have to do with career? Cruisers' survivability is better than escorts' and their damage output is worse. Career doesn't change that.
Now onto a2b, which I agree isn't optimal, but it's not terrible for people starting out.
" Great plan, except you would need to be super specialized and you would have very little room for healing abilities."
A2B doubles your boff slots at the expense of 2 boff slots, which hardly makes you "super specialized." Not all heals are based on aux power. You get extra sci teams and eng teams.
Also it buffs shield and engine subsystem power, increasing shield regeneration and strength and defense.
"And even if that wasn’t an issue we’d still be running into power issues. Even with the boost Aux to bat gives every other systems you’re still firing 8 weapons at the same time and remember higher weapons power = higher energy damage."
What does this have to do with a2b? You're still going to be firing 8 weapons with or without a2b. If you're saying that it's still a problem for cruisers to have 8 weapons, again, how's that an issue just for tactical captains?
Also, more overcapping power helps beams more than it does cannons (beams have access to 4 times more overcapping power than DHCs do), and a2b increases overcapping power. So A2B mitigates this problem.
"Also if you are able to mitigate your energy levels, Aux to Bat builds are not the cheapest builds. A Fully Realized Aux to bat Build will cost about 200 Mil EC"
A2B requires 2 copies of a2b (available at ESD for 2000 ec) and 3 technician doffs, which can be obtained for free at the B'Tran Cluster or found on the exchange for a few million ec. I have no clue how you got to 200 million ec.
I was running a2b back when I couldn't afford much in this game, with purple doffs even though you could get away with blue doffs. If you look at STO build discussions, a2b is always brought up as the *cheap* way to reduce cd on tactical abilities, and that's because it can be as cheap as you want it to be.
"Engineering Captains have EPS Power Transfer and Nadion Inversion they also have the trait EPS Manifold Efficiency. EPS Power Transfer gives a massive power boost to all Power Levels and Nadion Inversion reduces the drain abilities have on power levels. EPS Manifold Efficiency give a secondary boost to all subsystems when you use a battery or emergency power abilities."
EPS power transfer runs for 30 seconds with a 120 second cooldown. That's 1/4 uptime. 3/4 of the time an eng captain has the same subsystem power as any other career.
Nadion Inversion does not reduce the "drain abilities have on power levels." Just on weapons power. It's nice, but, again, there are lots of other ways to reduce weapons power drain, like, say, running beams and taking advantage of overcapping power, spire cores, the assimilated 2-piece, greedy emitters trait from the nandi....
EPS Manifold Efficiency helps some, true. But it's not game-breaking or even enough to compete with tactical captains' abilities.
Career affects 4 abilities and 2 trait choices in a game where you're likely to have 30 to 40 abilities to use and so many traits that are better than the ones that come from your career. In space, there really isn't much difference between the careers as they're all as capable of enough DPS to beat all the content in the game, and piloting, gear, and teamwork have far more affect on DPS and survivability than career does.
