Incline Official codex Star Trek Online topic :salute:

[Vaarna_Aarne]

We ran some more tests. Conclusion was that the game's balance is FUBAR, and that Klingons have absolutely no grounds for whining ever again, as BoPs can make a far worse gamebreaking build.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Also JESUS wasn't planning on playing anywhere near that amount of STO. Was just logging on to do DOFF missions and ended up spending a few hours space battling!

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

There's a new State of the Game article on the official site, hyping the upcoming Season 6. One particular detail:

OMFG MORN

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

And that's the strut, another level 50 char finished!

Say hello to captain Jhe'rid, our second Andorian (helpdesk also has one).

And his ship, USS Richmond, on an ongoing mission to find new aliens and teach them to fear the awesome power of the Double Axe Handle.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Bros, I just stopped laughing. It seems Penis was not the only unfortunately named Vulcan male in the game. I just got a Vulcan Research Scientist named Tit.

Also, the ship of evil and treachery has gone through updates:

 

[Zarniwoop]

Dat Guramba

I'm glad I picked that ship in the end. The ship is ugly as fuck but the game is much more fun when you can actually kill people in PvP. The butthurt cries and ragequitting of Federation players are most satisfying.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It's actually largely just the same as a Fleet Escort, that's the real beauty of it.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Well I never had a fleet (or any) escort, so compared to a cruiser it's a killing machine. Which again makes no sense but I guess I have to force myself to think less Star Trek and more Online.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I've talked about this endlessly following my first encounter with MHC's (apparently PvP staple) escort build. It's absolutely absurd. To understand the situation, dual cannons have more than DOUBLE the DPS of any other weapon types, and because of Scatter Volley + escort turning rates it's downright ridiculous when you remember that against a correctly built escort NO other ship type can pierce their shields anywhere near fast enough for there to be a contest. Me and MHC ran a test with his Fleet Escort and my Oddy (and I assume you guys do know my Oddy is not flimsily armed), and these were the results: The escort can hold indefinately at close range against non-stop cruiser fire at full weapons power, with the only death occurring due to Subnucleonic Beam (a CLASS-SPECIFIC ability) increasing the ability cooldowns on the escort's BOs so it couldn't recover. By contrast, a cruiser can barely hold indefinately at MAXIMUM range, and at close range it's mincemeat against the triple set of dual cannons + turrets and torpedo.

I've been trying to come up with ways of fighting escorts, but so far the only thing I've managed to scrounge up as a means is Feedback Pulse... Which they can avoid by simply not shooting at you, meaning it just gives you time to recover your shields so they can blast them down again.

Generally the issue really is that cruisers need a massive buff in firepower and durability to make up for lost mobility, so they're genuinely "I'm not fighting that shit in a fair fight" vessels. Though this obviously is completely ignoring Science Vessels, which are probably even more boned (though I think Varanus and other KDF ones can equip Dual Cannons so they're less so).

PS: And if my theorycrafting is correct, a Bird-of-Prey is even more ridiculous with the Indestructible Escort build, as they have far better BO options for it, AND they can Battlecloak if they feel things aren't going their way.

PPS: And for the record, I was genuinely shocked and butthurt about the Indestructible Escort build. I never encountered such cheese in Champions, and at least there it was fairly easy to spot faggots using exploit builds and flavours of the week (not to mention Cryptic has gone on a rampage in the past two months, fixing every single old balance issue there was).

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I've talked about this endlessly following my first encounter with MHC's (apparently PvP staple) escort build.

Actually I'm built that way for PVE. That's my borg-fighting loadout, the AOE on the torps and cannons was to handle adds from portals and defending the klingon ship and such. Presumably it'd be better for PVP to have higher single target damage abilities. And have high quality non-borg weapons, since all my weapons except the torp are anti-borg.

PPS: And for the record, I was genuinely shocked and butthurt about the Indestructible Escort build. I never encountered such cheese in Champions, and at least there it was fairly easy to spot faggots using exploit builds and flavours of the week (not to mention Cryptic has gone on a rampage in the past two months, fixing every single old balance issue there was).

Sorry bro.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Weapons don't matter that much whether they're Borg or not, as long as they're Blue/Purple and Mk X-XII range. What the weapons ARE matters more (= single color). And yea, I got the impression from mary that the Indestructible Cruiser is also a staple at PvP, less so than in PvE where you can go pure glass cannon. Though after doing some tests adapting the Guramba and Defiant to the build, I'll say it's piss-easy to deal ridiculous damage AND be untouchable to most things.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Who's Mary? And the reason I didn't want to go pure glass cannon in PvE is because I always did PUG STF runs and I can't count on anyone else tanking worth shit. With this loadout I can tank most everything in normal difficulty STFs, except occasionally tac cubes can overwhelm me. Don't always have enough dakka to kill everything in time though, depending on the map. That map where the borg send ships from 2 directions toward the time portal or whatever can give me shits if I'm on guard duty and I have to try to solo both sides heading to the portal.

Been ages since I did STFs last though. Was kinda interested in getting more MACO pieces (And I sorta wanted the full ground set for the hell of it) but those rare plans/pieces/whatever they're called drop so infrequently I gave up. Just lucked out when I got the piece for the shield on my first or second STF. And I've got a bunch of chips piled up and not sure what if anything I wanna spend 'em on. Probably just get a DOFF.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You can buy the second tier of STF sets with chips... At 40 chips per piece.

Mary is marysueleigh, one of the non-Codex players in the group, helpdesk got her into it.

Also, like I said, it's easy to have maximum firepower and indestructibility for an escort. This is because you never need more than Rank 1 Tactical Team, and the other ability slots already have their function laid our for them: Two instances of cannon and torpedo powers (either twins or both Scatter Volley II and Rapid Fire II with High Yield II and Spread II) + Attack Pattern Omega III.

 

[Zarniwoop]

I wonder how the "big PvP changes" in Season 6 will affect this whole thing. The obvious problems with making an online game based on an existing universe/canon of course means the ships can never be anywhere close to the real Star Trek, but maybe there will at least be some changes to make cruisers viable in PvP. It's a bit hard to find information on what exactly they're changing from official sources though.

 

[Sukeban Cho]

Two instances of cannon and torpedo powers (either twins or both Scatter Volley II and Rapid Fire II with High Yield II and Spread II) + Attack Pattern Omega III.

Is it a good idea to take both cannons and torpedos?

I always went with full cannon for both the escorts and the BoPs, but now I wonder.

 

[treave]

Tried logging into STO yesterday in a long while. Still laggy. Same with CO. I have no frickin' idea why it's only Cryptic's MMOs that give me lag problems, which is a pity since I really do like their stuff.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Two instances of cannon and torpedo powers (either twins or both Scatter Volley II and Rapid Fire II with High Yield II and Spread II) + Attack Pattern Omega III.

Is it a good idea to take both cannons and torpedos?

I always went with full cannon for both the escorts and the BoPs, but now I wonder.

Some people swear by it but torpedoes do very little damage to shields so you usually waste them by firing them on the first approach, and you lose a weapon slot obviously. I prefer full dual heavy cannons in the front, taking out the shields as quick as possible, then engaging evasive maneuvers, turning around quickly letting my rear torpedo launcher unleash a volley, then turning around for another cannon strike if they're still alive. Or just flying past and letting the torpedoes hit the opposite shield. They still don't have much effect if the shields are up but at least you only sacrifice a turret for the torp launcher and not a cannon.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

treave they've been having server problems lately, apparently it's both technical and overpopulation. They are working on it. But if you've had it before, you may wanna check the graphics options, some settings like having too many projected shadows or High Detail Objects can really put a noose on performance.

Two instances of cannon and torpedo powers (either twins or both Scatter Volley II and Rapid Fire II with High Yield II and Spread II) + Attack Pattern Omega III.

Is it a good idea to take both cannons and torpedos?

I always went with full cannon for both the escorts and the BoPs, but now I wonder.

Some people swear by it but torpedoes do very little damage to shields so you usually waste them by firing them on the first approach, and you lose a weapon slot obviously. I prefer full dual heavy cannons in the front, taking out the shields as quick as possible, then engaging evasive maneuvers, turning around quickly letting my rear torpedo launcher unleash a volley, then turning around for another cannon strike if they're still alive. Or just flying past and letting the torpedoes hit the opposite shield. They still don't have much effect if the shields are up but at least you only sacrifice a turret for the torp launcher and not a cannon.

Torpedoes are not about the shields, they're about the absolutely massive hull damage they inflict when at no or red shields (usual state of anything fighting against an escort). I'd argue that a the constant pressure of triple cannons + turrets and a proton torpedy will provide superior results, and when you account for the immense firepower of the torpedo abilities it becomes a doozy. However, theoretically an escort doesn't need torpedos due to how ridiculously overpowered dual cannons are.

In terms of abilities, it's no biggie to have both cannons and torpedos, heck escorts can have cannons, torps AND mines without a hint of trouble. There's more than enough ability slots that will fill out the needs.

 

[treave]

For me the lag started in April... and never really went away. Turning down graphics has never really helped much. Well, I still keep the two installed and updated though. Compared to their F2P competition Cryptic are still pretty good, server woes notwithstanding.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Have you tried reinstalling?

 

[Zarniwoop]

treave they've been having server problems lately, apparently it's both technical and overpopulation. They are working on it. But if you've had it before, you may wanna check the graphics options, some settings like having too many projected shadows or High Detail Objects can really put a noose on performance.

Two instances of cannon and torpedo powers (either twins or both Scatter Volley II and Rapid Fire II with High Yield II and Spread II) + Attack Pattern Omega III.

Is it a good idea to take both cannons and torpedos?

I always went with full cannon for both the escorts and the BoPs, but now I wonder.

Some people swear by it but torpedoes do very little damage to shields so you usually waste them by firing them on the first approach, and you lose a weapon slot obviously. I prefer full dual heavy cannons in the front, taking out the shields as quick as possible, then engaging evasive maneuvers, turning around quickly letting my rear torpedo launcher unleash a volley, then turning around for another cannon strike if they're still alive. Or just flying past and letting the torpedoes hit the opposite shield. They still don't have much effect if the shields are up but at least you only sacrifice a turret for the torp launcher and not a cannon.

Torpedoes are not about the shields, they're about the absolutely massive hull damage they inflict when at no or red shields (usual state of anything fighting against an escort). I'd argue that a the constant pressure of triple cannons + turrets and a proton torpedy will provide superior results, and when you account for the immense firepower of the torpedo abilities it becomes a doozy. However, theoretically an escort doesn't need torpedos due to how ridiculously overpowered dual cannons are.

In terms of abilities, it's no biggie to have both cannons and torpedos, heck escorts can have cannons, torps AND mines without a hint of trouble. There's more than enough ability slots that will fill out the needs.

Yeah I totally agree, but until the shields are down or nearly down they have little effect which is why I put mine at the back for when I've already let loose with the cannons. Once the shields are down a few quantums or photons will wreak total havoc on the hull. I guess it depends on your playing style really.

 

[Zarniwoop]

For me the lag started in April... and never really went away. Turning down graphics has never really helped much. Well, I still keep the two installed and updated though. Compared to their F2P competition Cryptic are still pretty good, server woes notwithstanding.

At first I thought you meant internet connection lag, but if it's graphics your best bet is re-installing your graphics drivers, especially if you have an ATI card. What card are you using by the way?

The servers are down as we speak BTW.

 

[treave]

I doubt it's graphics lag. I had no lag at all playing CO at the start of the year with full settings. Ditto with the first few days of STO. I'll try a reinstall, haven't done one. That's a lot of gigs to download...

 

[Zarniwoop]

Re-installing the game is almost guaranteed to not work, you'd be wasting your time. It's either your GPU drivers (most likely), a bug in the game itself, or one specific setting (also likely) that's causing problems. All of those will still be there if you re-install. 99% of the time games do something funky, it's your drivers.

Could also be an incompatibility if you're running a Crossfire/SLI setup, I had that a while back.

 

[treave]

Well, when I say lag, I'm referring to a rubberbanding issue, not slowdown. My ISP hates Cryptic's servers more likely.