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Elheru Aran wrote:What's ridiculous about the lock boxes, I don't know if it's just me but every single damn lock box I have ever come across has been Hirogen. No Breen, no Cardassian, no Borg, no whatever. Just Hirogen all over the bloody place. I imagine some of that stuff might be useful but I am not going to bother collecting Hirogen lockboxes because right now, frankly, if I picked one up every time I saw one drop I'd have 200 by now (not even kidding).

That's working as designed.

Basically they only have one type of lockbox out at a time. They will set the others to drop, but only in the transition period between ending one lockbox set and starting another. Otherwise, there's only ever one type out there. Given Season 9 will be focusing a lot on the Undine, I'd imagine they'll be rolling out Undine lockboxes along with it, so you should get that chance relatively soon.

Which isn't too bad, IMO, if you're the patient type. I had a shitload of old Cardie and Dominion lockboxes from way back sitting in my bank, and I managed to sell them for damn good EC on the Exchange, thanks to their rarity. So if you've got some Hirogen, save a few (sadly they only stack up to 20, IIRC) and wait a couple lockbox cycles or so. Eventually they'll start to get used up, become more rare, and you can make some bank on the Exchange.

The best bet though is save any you get during a lockbox rerun. Because you'll get the old stuff that way. And I think it depends on how good the specific lockbox items are. If people value the drops from Voth more than Hirogen, then the latter probably won't sell as good even when they do get rare. Probably could still make some money, though; if nothing else people will want the lobi. It just may not be as good as a Cardassian, Temporal, etc.

Agent Sorchus wrote:Yeah klingon mirror ships always sell for more, cause both supply and demand are there for them. The mirror Carrier, Raptor and now the Neg'var are all supposed to be quiet good though. And for personal experience the Mirror Neg'Var is basically the perfect ship for the current "meta." Easily worth 2 million when you consider the special lockbox ships are (low end) around 70million EC and not nearly as far superior to non-lockbox ships.

it's kind of funny how much that single Ensign Tactical station changes things, I'm now wondering should I switch my Tac team or Cannon Rapid fire with Beam Fire At Will, probably gonna go for canon as most of my weapons are beams and Neggy turns rather slow.

PS. a fleet mate helped me get the mirror version.

I'm using cannons with my mirror Neg'var, but it is better with beams. As for not being very agile, I'm running with emergency power to engines rather than the more common dual emergency to shields and using 2 single cannons instead of 4 dual heavies. But I'm keeping my power levels at 125 in everything but AUX which fluctuates between 5 and 135 and can stand around 110 easily, the high times are perfect for dropping Gravity well to group them up for a scatter volley. (If Aux to battery wasn't stupidly OP I'd dump it and keep all my power levels above 120 100% of the time.)

Agent Sorchus wrote:I'm using cannons with my mirror Neg'var, but it is better with beams. As for not being very agile, I'm running with emergency power to engines rather than the more common dual emergency to shields and using 2 single cannons instead of 4 dual heavies. But I'm keeping my power levels at 125 in everything but AUX which fluctuates between 5 and 135 and can stand around 110 easily, the high times are perfect for dropping Gravity well to group them up for a scatter volley. (If Aux to battery wasn't stupidly OP I'd dump it and keep all my power levels above 120 100% of the time.)

atm my plan is 1 dual heavy cannons and rest beams for the Negh'Var which seems keeping in with canon as well since IIRC Negh'Var-class used to fire mostly beams (generally from the underside of the "head") with the big cannons at the underside of the main hull being the only bolt weapons and tbh I don't mind the lack of agility that much as Negh'Var always seemed like a "slow brute" style of ship that may move slow but when it hits you know it.

btw is there any good high end phaser weapons for ships (I mean Mark 10-12 stuff) as I'd like to keep my Prommie with "regular" federation ship look as much as possible, though I can deal with weapons that look like phasers but aren't (like anti-proton stuff).

Lord Revan wrote:atm my plan is 1 dual heavy cannons and rest beams for the Negh'Var which seems keeping in with canon as well since IIRC Negh'Var-class used to fire mostly beams (generally from the underside of the "head") with the big cannons at the underside of the main hull being the only bolt weapons and tbh I don't mind the lack of agility that much as Negh'Var always seemed like a "slow brute" style of ship that may move slow but when it hits you know it.

btw is there any good high end phaser weapons for ships (I mean Mark 10-12 stuff) as I'd like to keep my Prommie with "regular" federation ship look as much as possible, though I can deal with weapons that look like phasers but aren't (like anti-proton stuff).

I'd consider a dual beam bank or two for your neg'var, since you are going to be stuck with fore arc weapons anyway to keep the dhc in play.

As for any high end phaser weapons, only fleet weapons at the moment but soon there will be a heavy phaser turret (season 9). Otherwise it is hard to get anti-proton weapons but there is the Obelisk set that has the 360 arc antiproton beam array that seriously ups AP damage. Unfortunately AP is at a premium, although that may change in season 9 when the anti 8472 stuff comes into play.

Best antiproton, frankly, is still Fleet Mk 12. No mumbo-jumbo, just a free CritD modifier, and higher base damage than anything from the Voth lockbox or that's available for free.

I run six Fleet antiproton beams on my Avenger (four front, two back), the omnidirectional beam from "Sphere of Influence", and the kinetic cutting beam. It melts stuff.

Wow. Talk about an abrupt switching of gears. Go from a level 50 Rom, to a 14 Klink, back to my 34 Starfleet. What the crap? Suddenly I'm made of wet tissue paper and can't turn worth a damn, while I might as well be spitting peas at my opponents... This is weird.

Oh, and here's a little reminder why I hate fucking Mogai Warbirds with a fucking passion. Fucking goddamn tractor-beam mine spammer fuckers with their goddamn heavy plasma torpedoes. I should have gotten a fucking Defiant rather than the bloody Galaxy.

Elheru Aran wrote:Oh, and here's a little reminder why I hate fucking Mogai Warbirds with a fucking passion. Fucking goddamn tractor-beam mine spammer fuckers with their goddamn heavy plasma torpedoes. I should have gotten a fucking Defiant rather than the bloody Galaxy.

I would've thought a Defiant would actually have more trouble against a tractor mine-spammer because all the guns point forward. Unless you're talking about trying to alpha-strike its ass off before it can launch.

Polarize Hull and Tractor Beam Repulsors and/or Beam: Fire At Will. Next?

I've killed Mogai's with my Galaxy many times using Beam: Fire At Will along with Emergency Power to Shields and Science Team I, works like a charm.

Likewise. Although when you say "Fire At Will," I read "point defense free." Also handy for dealing with those Romulan plasma torpedoes.

Elheru Aran wrote:Oh, and here's a little reminder why I hate fucking Mogai Warbirds with a fucking passion. Fucking goddamn tractor-beam mine spammer fuckers with their goddamn heavy plasma torpedoes. I should have gotten a fucking Defiant rather than the bloody Galaxy.

nah at least a Galaxy doesn't blow up when you look at it meanly and if you want really annoying try fighting Keldons same Tractor beam spam with "oh you got shields? well not anymore" with random full shield heal and a photonic Galor fleet, not that hard really but annoying as hell, hardest part for me there is pointing myself at the right target. that said if you got "Attack Pattern Omega" tractor beams come a lot less annoying as that skill provides immunity to holds meaning you can move and dodge torps (or just switch to shield facing that's stronger).

oh and "Beam fire at Will" is a charm at dealing with mines, torps, satelities or small craft that might be hard to target otherwise, it's one of the reasons I still keep a few beams on my craft even though I go mostly cannons on my prommie

btw does "Cannon Scatter Volley" destroy torps or similar sized objects in the AoE area or just hurt starships?

Well to be fair I wasn't using my Galaxy, I was in an Akira... that's what happens when you get fed up with how slow the Galaxy moves...

Simon_Jester wrote:Likewise. Although when you say "Fire At Will," I read "point defense free." Also handy for dealing with those Romulan plasma torpedoes.

And the frakking Borg Unimatrix plasma bolts. They're a lot harder to deal with in my Vor'cha than in my Avenger beam cruiser.

Lord Revan wrote: btw does "Cannon Scatter Volley" destroy torps or similar sized objects in the AoE area or just hurt starships?

Pretty sure I've seen mine take out torps.

After being curious about the game since it went F2P you guys have finally gotten me to try this out with this thread. After a couple weeks my Federation Engineering captain is about to reach rank 40. I've got a few questions:

1. Is there a fleet composed of SDN members?

2. I am going with cruisers on this character. Having flown the Galaxy for a bit, is there any point in mounting torpedoes on the late game cruisers? With the sluggish turning I'm finding that by the time I get a torpedo lined up on a downed shield facing as I'm circling the target in the broadside dance of death, the shields have already healed some causing the the torpedo to only do minimal (~25% IIRC) damage. This is not even thinking about the awkwardness of trying to line up an aft torpedo shot. I've also come to the conclusion that trying to mount more than one torpedo launcher on a facing is a wasted weapon slot on the late game cruisers due to the 3 second cooldown between torpedo launchers. Those Klingon ships certainly aren't going to stay with their downed shield facing in that 90 degree arc for that long. Would canons work any better? I'm honestly, considering sticking on all beam arrays with maybe a single mine launcher and calling it good, as that setup seemed to work decently on my Connie. My greatest concern with this would be the power drain from all the energy weapons firing simultaneously. Maybe replacing the all the torpedoes with one mine launcher and the rest turrets instead of beam arrays would help some, since they have a lesser cost to fire simultaneously?

3. I take it ground based fleet actions are unpopular, as I've been trying to do Breaking the Planet for over a week with no success. Either not enough people join, or on the rare occasion that enough show up I consistently get a message saying the game couldn't start because not enough people accepted. Is this a normal experience for the PvE queues?

4. For those who have played longer, are the higher difficulties worth it in terms of better loot? I've tried advanced, and while I do like the slightly tougher fights, some them are just too tedious and grindy. Maybe the grindyness will go down as better loot is acquired.

5. Finally, assault cruiser or star cruiser? I'm kind of leaning toward the assault since I already have two tactical Boffs and only one science Boff, though perhaps I'm not seeing an advantage to an extra T1 science skill and another science console due to inexperience on my part. Any thoughts?

I'm no vet by any standard but I'd say you can probably make due with just ensign Sci if you build an offense based cruiser (for a tanky one I'd think you'd need at least Lt.), there's engineer powers that can replace a lot if not most of your science defensive skills and you'll probably won't have enough alt power to make real use of the Sci offensive powers like gravity well and such, if you got only 1 ensign sci slot and fairly slow turning ship I'd go for tractor to keep the enemies at your firing arc.

as for weapons unless you want to invest a lot of time to make turn faster then your average house, I'd go beams with 1 torp per facing max and maybe 1 dual beam at front for extra kick, from what I can gather Turrets are a secondary rear weapon for cannon boats but I've not heard or seen a turret only build, also I don't think there's a AoE "scatter" fire mode for turrets unless they use Scatter Volley(cannon one). Cannons on a cruiser can work but normally they turn way too slow to really make use of that.

Personally I prefer torps over mines but that's just my personal taste tbh, that said you should never mount more then 1 torp per facing without a very good reason, though if you have problems of enemies turning too fast you might want to invest on an chroniton torpedo launcher (it has an inherent chance to reduce the targets turn rate) and possible an RCS accelerator or 2

No, it looks like turrets have no such upgrade.

I made the probably suboptimal choice of using rear turrets on an engineering cruiser, simply because I liked being able to get all of my firepower in the forward arc as well as the broadsides.

Turrets count as cannon weapons, so they'll run off of all the cannon powers. Generally, they're a bit pants. Good for Escorts, but cruisers are much better off as beam boats. I tend to keep a fore and aft torpedo in my cruisers, IIRC 6 beams is about as good as a non-engineer will get in terms of damage output/power ratios.

Wing Commander MAD wrote:After being curious about the game since it went F2P you guys have finally gotten me to try this out with this thread. After a couple weeks my Federation Engineering captain is about to reach rank 40. I've got a few questions:

1. Nope, though I'm, a co-founder of a pretty large fed fleet and have a old klingon fleet I inherited.

2. I am going with cruisers on this character. Having flown the Galaxy for a bit, is there any point in mounting torpedoes on the late game cruisers? With the sluggish turning I'm finding that by the time I get a torpedo lined up on a downed shield facing as I'm circling the target in the broadside dance of death, the shields have already healed some causing the the torpedo to only do minimal (~25% IIRC) damage. This is not even thinking about the awkwardness of trying to line up an aft torpedo shot. I've also come to the conclusion that trying to mount more than one torpedo launcher on a facing is a wasted weapon slot on the late game cruisers due to the 3 second cooldown between torpedo launchers. Those Klingon ships certainly aren't going to stay with their downed shield facing in that 90 degree arc for that long. Would canons work any better? I'm honestly, considering sticking on all beam arrays with maybe a single mine launcher and calling it good, as that setup seemed to work decently on my Connie. My greatest concern with this would be the power drain from all the energy weapons firing simultaneously. Maybe replacing the all the torpedoes with one mine launcher and the rest turrets instead of beam arrays would help some, since they have a lesser cost to fire simultaneously?

I've heard a lot of people trying to do full turret builds but the problem is that cannon scatter volley has a limited arc compared to the 360 degrees of beam spam that is fire at will. Currently beams rule the effectiveness chart. As for Torpedoes, there are ways to play them effectively but in general you only want one, and usually the Romulan rep torpedo launcher Omega Force Torp or the Dyson Grav Torp. The Romulan torp has the highest dps as a siege weapon, but don't really rock with broadsides in my mind. The Omega torp will fire about six times in ~12 seconds before needing recharged at which point you can go back to broadsiding, it also has a higher plasma burn then any other torps. The Grav Torp is a crazy science weapon of murder that massacres mobs of enemys especially if you group them up with Gravity Well. You can do a pure torp build and be moderately successful but not mercilessly so.

Mines can be fun, but really not that useful. The romulan tractor mines are ok, Tricobalt are nuts, and the Web mines are pretty decent but not reliable. No point to Photon, quantum, transphasic, and only barely chroniton.

3. Ground is not liked by the majority of players for no good reason. You can get any ground queue to pop at end game but it takes ages or you use the publiceliteSTF channel to get a team. That or a fleet.

4. Difficulty is currently stupid. No real reason to do it while leveling and once you get good enough gear and doffs ELITE PVE queues are the only thing that is worth playing.

5. I went Star Cruiser cause... I actually like it's looks. Also now that it is possible to tank I'm drawing all the fire in Mirror Invasion when people don't stop the Typhoon battelship's from spam spawning. The higher shield mod on the star cruiser (or effective shield mod using sci-consoles) really allows you to soak firepower. On the other hand I do play offensive battle cruisers and they are fun enough.

As for just how bad turrets are I believe the STO forumites think they actually lose Dual heavy cannon ships dps over not mounting them. Though the new HEAVY turret might fix that some.

So, in STO, how to they treat the Borg? Are they portrayed like they were in TNG/FC, where it takes a fleet to (hopefully) bring a cube down, and that smaller ships are very heavily armed for their size? Or did they take the Voyager approach, where you and ur plucky lil' ship will be more than a match once ur reach the higher levels?

Lord Revan wrote:I'm no vet by any standard but I'd say you can probably make due with just ensign Sci if you build an offense based cruiser (for a tanky one I'd think you'd need at least Lt.), there's engineer powers that can replace a lot if not most of your science defensive skills and you'll probably won't have enough alt power to make real use of the Sci offensive powers like gravity well and such, if you got only 1 ensign sci slot and fairly slow turning ship I'd go for tractor to keep the enemies at your firing arc.

If all you can fit is an Ens Sci, you're basically locked into using it for Hazard Emitters. Great hull heal and it gets rid of a lot of debuffs like plasma fires and the Borg shield neutralizer.

Lt sci, de rigeur now is Science Team 1* and Hazard Emitters 2. It's only when you get more sci slots than just a lone Lt that you can generally branch out into stuff like gravity well.

* Used to be Transfer Shield Strength 1, but they removed the shared cooldown between Tac Team, Engi Team, and Sci Team at the beginning of the month.

as for weapons unless you want to invest a lot of time to make turn faster then your average house, I'd go beams with 1 torp per facing max and maybe 1 dual beam at front for extra kick, from what I can gather Turrets are a secondary rear weapon for cannon boats but I've not heard or seen a turret only build, also I don't think there's a AoE "scatter" fire mode for turrets unless they use Scatter Volley(cannon one). Cannons on a cruiser can work but normally they turn way too slow to really make use of that.

One trick I've seen used successfully is cruisers mounting single cannons up front and turrets in the rear. This mostly gets around the turning issue because you only need the target within a 180 degree arc of the bow. I'm told this was developed when there was a long-standing bug with FAW where it wouldn't crit (that was fixed back in January).

Tribble wrote:So, in STO, how to they treat the Borg? Are they portrayed like they were in TNG/FC, where it takes a fleet to (hopefully) bring a cube down, and that smaller ships are very heavily armed for their size? Or did they take the Voyager approach, where you and ur plucky lil' ship will be more than a match once ur reach the higher levels?

Nowadays more the latter -- just last week I soloed two mob groups of mixed Borg ships in an invasion daily, whereas there were four people working on the other two needed to get the boss battle -- but that's mostly due to power creep. They were a lot more dangerous when the game launched.

Of course, on the ground you get the busywork of remodulating to cleanse the adaption debuff.

In space, the Borg can still be nasty in STFs, but I enjoy the satisfaction of murdering a Cube with a barrage of anti-proton fire coupled with some quantum torpedo barrages.

Steve wrote:Of course, on the ground you get the busywork of remodulating to cleanse the adaption debuff.

In space, the Borg can still be nasty in STFs, but I enjoy the satisfaction of murdering a Cube with a barrage of anti-proton fire coupled with some quantum torpedo barrages.

I've never worried too much about the remodulation. Here's my captain and bridge crew. One of each weapon type and the captain ploughs into them with a poleaxe. The drones really don't last long.