Common mistakes and improvements

This post will be fairly short but a list of very common things people often do that can make a drastic difference in how effective their ship is.

1. Mixing weapon types. Ill admit even when I first started out this was something I did. Mixing different types like tetryon and antiproton for example. Some do this because its cheaper, others because they think they cn take advantage of each proc :ie shield stripping, or knocking out subsystems etc. However the problem is since Tactical consoles are limited especially if your not playing an escort. One tactical console can add 30% or more to the damage output of weapons. So by stacking 3+ consoles that all increase one damage type will yield a far greater result then for example one for disruptor and 2 for phaser. The second reason is if you have 5 energy weapons of the same type and one torpedo, then all 5 of those will get boosted by each tactical console. Instead of one tactical console boosting 2 and one boosting 3. Which effectively removes one already limited tactical console.  This leads to point #2

2. Tactical consoles for energy weapons of the same type only. General nothing except tactical consoles that increase damage for energy weapons should ever be in your tactical slots.  For example antiproton mag regulator x3 . Not Anti proton mag, prefire chamber, torpedo chamber.   Unless your running a dedicated torpedo ship avoid using any tactical consoles that increase torpedo damage. 1 torpedo weapon getting a bonus is not near the amount you get from boosting the other 5 weapons you have.

3. Power lvs. This is a subject that is going to get its own post as well, however just for a basic overview . unless your running a ship thats using aux to bat, or a sci ship for its ability you generally want to keep 100 in your weapons at all times. Keeping your power lvs as high as possible is essential for damage, speed, ability and defense.  Pay attention to your power lvs and unless your running a build that need power to aux, 99% of the time you need to have weapon power at max all the time.

4. Small arch weapons on big ships. Simple fact if your not firing at your opponent your not doing damage. Putting cannons on a ship that cant keep a target in that 45 degree arc is like not having them at all. So use weapons you find the most easy to keep locked on to your target.

I will probably add more soon

Well, I already had 1 and 4 sorted out, so perhaps it's not as difficult as I think!

Ryukotsu wrote:3. Power lvs. This is a subject that is going to get its own post as well, however just for a basic overview . unless your running a ship thats using aux to bat, or a sci ship for its ability you generally want to keep 100 in your weapons at all times.

Keep the answer to this for the separate post if you like, but what happens if you ARE running a science ship for its abilities? Also, how can prioritising weapons power be good for defence? Surely shield power is what'sn eeded for that? (Except in the "best defence is a good offence" sense!)

Sci Ship for abillitys you would want to be running with your auxiliary as high as possible at all times.
In terms of priority however I would generally give them in one of these two orders

(defensive)
Aux
Engines
Shields
Weapons

Engines over shields for defense because not only does a higher engines setting allow you to maneuver much more easy, and faster but it actually raises your defense  stat higher. So oddly yes Engine power seem to give more defense then shield power.

Shield power mainly affects your regeneration rate. At a shield power of 100 your base regen will be doubled. That might sound really good however take this into consideration. Say your base shield regen is 125/ 6 seconds. We double that and your looking at 250/6 seconds.  Nearly all of the time if your in combat your going to be taking alot more then 250. The weakest weapon on my ship for example has a dps rate of 785. Meaning it deals that much every second. So shield power is not as important as most people would think. It does provide a very small boost to resistance ( a max of 36%). Over all tho esp on a sci ship that have great shield modifiers to began with, let your sci ability and hull resistance do the bulk of your defense. Now with all of that said Im figuring after ll your bonuses and skills etc even your lowest power lv should be close to 50.  Long as shields are around 50 your fine.

With 2 doffs that reduce sci ability cool down, you can trigger science team 1 for a shield heal, debuff clear, and small shield boost every 15 seconds that heals 6000+

So this one ability can give you a shield Regen of about 2500/ 6 secs
vs putting shield power to 100 (limiting more important systems) for a shield Regen on 200-300/6 secs

( offensive)
Aux
Weapons
Engines
Shields

This set I generally find better.

Science ships are amazing tanks, but I generally consider shield power a very low priority on them for the reasons stated, and on my sci ship as any one who has fought me will tell you, I can pretty much laugh at most damage that hits me. Crystalline entity on elite doesn't even drop my shields with its big energy wave. That's with shields as my lowest setting.

If you can have aux 100+
engines around 60+
shields and weapons around 50 with all the bonuses and boost from equipment youll be good


Oh and I almost missed one of your questions; How does weapon power prioritize defense, well to put it blunt, the quicker you end the fight the less you get attacked. So if you destroy whats attacking you faster, the less you will in turn be attacked by it. The longer an stf runs the worse everyone in the team generally does. Even dedicated tanks are doing so with the hopes everyone else on the team will be free to destroy everything quickly.

Take ISA for example. If one player tanks and holds off the nanite spheres while everyone else destroys the generators. The run goes pretty smooth. Now , if one or even two people try and hold off the nanites, and the rest of the team doesn't destroy the generator quickly. Eventually there will be to many nanites, or your ability cycle get caught on cool down and they break through and heal everything, causing failed objectives and puts everyone in for a hell of a fight.

Healers generally dont have to worry as much since they most often produce very little aggro.

Even if your trying to run a dedicated tank, the main idea there is to piss everything off so they all go after you and leave the rest of the team alone. The higher the damage you do, the more aggro you produce. So even for dedicated tanking players they want to be dealing damage to make themselves a target. Not many other ways to produce aggro.

one other reason to run high weapon power, each weapon that fires reduces weapon power. which under 100 it can fall very fast. Other power lvs that not really a worry.

I get you. Engines being better for defence than shields makes sense - like how in a fantasy RPG more agility increases your defence because it means you have a better chance of dodging attacks. (At least, in the one I played it did.) If you were building a character with the strategy of taking no damage and wearing them down (something I used to favour in Runesword), an agile thief that nobody can hit at all does it much better than a knight with however much armour plating. So you're aiming to play your ship like the thief. River Tam's strategy, in other words!

Relying on my hull resistance for anything at all, in my ship, sounds instinctively like a bad idea... but I haven't actually tried your instructions yet, so I'll try it, step by step, and see if it actually works better than I expect! What you say does make sense - it's well known that science ships have lousy hulls but good shields, and that sounds like you should pour everything into making the most of that shield, but the corollary of having good shields is that they'll still be OK even if you're not spending power doing anything particular with them.

I like Science Team but I've not been doing it that systematically, I'll try and put your instructions in practice. One problem I have with using my abilities in a timely manner (besides the fact that I panic and keep hammering on my weapons, even while none of them are ready to fire, to the exclusion of everything else!) is that my hotkey combinations don't always seem to work right; I try to press Shift+4, which is Target Weapons Subsystems, and find I've called up the Nimbus Pirates, which is 4.
So if I want anything reliably, I have to go across and click it with the mouse.
Any advice?

So, let's see if I've got this. In summary, if you're fighting with exotic damage keep auxiliary at 100 or if you're fighting mostly with normal weapons keep weapons at 100; let shield power down to 50 and engines to 60 and make it up with Science Team (for which purpose slot DOffs that can reduce the cooldown on science abilities). I'll try those instructions out next time I play!

In summary yes thats pretty much it. equipment is important aswell then of course then youll have to work on piloting skills, since ship position is very important as well.

Yes I have advise you, Right click on all of your weapons and hot key them you something big like your space bar. That way they will set to auto fire and you dont have to worry about keep hitting fire over and over. If you do panic and start hitting fire over and over its a nice big spacebar. For target subsystem hot key it to something more easy.

Second thing, if your dealing with panic mode and anxiety about dying you should really set you main abillitys you need to things very simple and hard to miss. Set support and long recharge to multi-keys. example

: tactical team = 1  fire at will = 2  science team= 3 hazard emmiters = 4  Emergency power to x= 5

These are all examples of abillitys that have fast recharge time, and should be abillitys you are using pretty much constantly.

Photonic fleet = Alt+1   Nimbus = alt + 2  Gravity well = alt + 3  ETC

These are big , powerful abillitys that have a much longer recharge time, thus setting them to where you must press 2 keys at once to use will prevent hitting them in a panic. and if you do mis hit you will instead activate an ability thats useful at anytime, and has a fast recharge time.

If you would like you can pm me about the times your online and Ill try and be on around those times. Then we can work on it and go over things together. Since no matter the change you make it helps if you have practice, and if im seeing what your doing i bet we can get you much more comfertable without worrying so much or panicking . Ive worked with several people like this in the fleet before, and they sure seemed to improve quite a bit.


That reminds me of another common mistake.

Tactical team. This is a must ability for EVERYONE. It auto distributes shields which makes you survive in a battle much much more easy! It also clears boarding parties, and raises tactical abilities. It can also boost weapon power. The shield distribution alone tho makes a massive difference.