[Toanstation]

I'd say use the cannons, then. How you fly your ship (maneuvering, skill use, etc.) is a large part of the effectiveness of a build. Also, the build should be fun to fly; it's a game after all.

That being said, a beam boat is more of an AOE DPS than a single target DPS. If your goal is to single out a specific target and focus it down, it's going to be less optimal than a cannon or torp build.

[Dark]

Cannon Scatter Volley was the most highly considered BOff ability before we got a good handle on Weapon Power mechanics, it'll still serve you well on ships that can handle it.

Though technically if you get your effective overcap high enough, you'd do better with Dual Beam Banks (and Omnis aft) on ships that can field cannons effectively...

[ImperialPhalanx]

I'm sorry if this is a bit of a necro, but I use mostly Warbirds, would I use DBB or BB on a Mogai? I plan on getting the fleet variant once I figure out how.

Also, I'm try to re-equip my ships to your helpful specs. Is it better to purchase Purple lvl II weapons, or Common lvl XII weapons?

[Dark]

Oh boy, my writeup is pretty out of date.

The Kinetic Cutting Beam has fallen out of favor, though it's still a competitive aft weapon if using DBBs on a ship with 3 aft weapons since we can only field 2 omnis. My rundown of each energy type is considerably out of date - while everything listed still obviously exists, Antiproton has also fallen out of favor. The range thing is also a bit off, though we still get maximum damage at 2km or thereabouts at long range the drop off is mitigated by our skill tree.

The Big Thing right now is the Synergistic Retrofitting Set, generally just two pieces of it. It gives a really large damage bonus to Disruptors, Phasers, and Plasma, and the best two consoles have excellent abilities themselves. Then we have more readily available boosts like the Entoiled Technology set for Disruptors or the Trilithium-Laced Weaponry set for Phasers. The two most individually powerful weapons currently are the Terran Task Force Disruptor weapon and Prolonged Engagement Phaser weapon respectively, and combined with Sensor-Linked weapons being exclusively Disruptor or Phaser, the two best types are currently Disruptor followed closely by Phaser. After that it's Plasma tied with Antiproton.

Oh, and there's also the Spiral Wave disruptor weapons if you have the Cardassian ships, which are the most powerful general weapons due to having an extra innate mod (and the damage increase that gives). Of course, we're talking single digit percentages of "better" with most of the above.

In the current meta, with the relevant traits you actually get better damage out of cannons due to constant uptime of the relevant abilities. That's assuming the ship has the tactical seating to support it, since cannon abilities occupy higher rank slots. Though personally I still run beam boats for ease of use. If I can still hit 100k with beam boats, I'm not going into the headache of higher piloting requirements to crank out more DPS via front cones.

The T6 Mogai Heavy Warbird does have sufficient seating for cannons, so technically you should be going for DHCs/turrets for maximum DPS. Personally I haven't been able to stand the DHC front 45 degree cone since we first entered a Dyson sphere and things started spawning behind me. If not DHCs, then technically you should be going for DBBs with 2 Omnis aft. The 3rd aft weapon would probably be the Naausican array, so you can have the torpedo fore (and you should have the seating to grab torp spread, and it's entirely based on Disruptor bonuses anyway).

Again though, I haven't been a "forward firing cone" guy since 2013 when we arrived at the Dyson sphere, so I'm way out of date as to how ships like the Mogai should be handled.

With regards to upgrading, you want to start with purple Mk IIs since it's cheaper to get it to upgrade in rarity. Mk XIIs would be really costly to increase in rarity.

[ImperialPhalanx]

Okee dokee. I just got a ton of antiproton and plasma weapons on exchange, and I'm waiting for an upgrade weekend to upgrade them. But the antiproton damage seems a tad weak. I am a tactical toon, and I do have a console that ups antiproton damage, but it still seems a little off.

[Dark]

The only real relevance of energy types is what consoles/bonuses/etc boost them. The procs aren't taken into consideration because they were patched to be checked per cycle instead of per shot, making them so infrequent that nobody really cares anymore. Antiprotons are the exception because their critical severity bonus are constantly active, so all else being equal they should do more damage than other energy types.

[ImperialPhalanx]

Soo.... Antiprotons are still a good idea, but for the others it just depends on what consoles you have?

[Dark]

In a vacuum without any other factors, AP will be best. Other factors of varying accessibility will skew that appreciable.

Just off the top of my head, when we take mission rewards into account, Antiprotons already fall behind since there's only the core + omni array that boosts AP, whereas Disruptors have the Naausican set (and just the console alone is practically an extra tactical console in a non-tactical console slot). Likewise Phasers have the Trilthium set, and while it's also a console + omni, the haste bonus is signifigant.

Again off the top of my head, when we take event rewards into account AP gets the crystalline console which is similiar to the Naausican console, but Phasers get the Prolonged Engagement weapon which puts it ahead of all three as it's the 2nd most powerful individual weapon in the game.

When we take reputations into account, AP doesn't get anything significant (the Radiant is nice if you're all-in on AP, but is not spectacular) while Disruptor gets the Terran Task Force Disruptor weapon, which puts it ahead as it's the most powerful individual weapon in the game.

When we take the high end (lockbox or c-store) items into account, AP gets nothing notable enough for me to remember right now, while Phasers and Disruptors get Sensor-Linked weapons and the Synergistic Retrofitting set, and Disruptors get Spiral Waves.

With just free non-time restricted rewards (so mission and rep), AP already starts to fall behind Disruptors and Phasers. It's still better than all other options, though.

[Deltron]

Is CritD better thank Dmg for a tac officer?

[Dark]

No. Due to the Tac captain's abilities, they do better with [Dam] than [CrtD].

[Bridger]

The best energy types right now are Phaser and Disruptor, with the new Morphogenic Set Polaron might be number 3 or at least at the same level with Antiproton.

[Arno12]

This guide is a very helpful since I'm gonna spend more time on my Klingon-aligned Romulan Alien Tac-toon but Good Lord, Spiralwave Disruptors are expensive, think I'll just stick to Coalition Disruptors or Sensor-Linked Disruptors for now.

[Arno12]

Hey Dark sorry to bump but I have a question, I have a sensor-linked omni-phaser with [CrtD/Dmg] [Arc} [CrtD x2] [Dmg} should I re-engineer it to [CrtD x3]? or keep it as is?

[Generator]

Hey Dark sorry to bump but I have a question, I have a sensor-linked omni-phaser with [CrtD/Dmg] [Arc} [CrtD x2] [Dmg} should I re-engineer it to [CrtD x3]? or keep it as is?

The general rule for weapon modifiers is, Tacs want Dmg, the others CrtD. However, on the Practical level, I've been told that the difference is really small, to the point where you won't generally see it unless you're parsing and looking for it.

However, having said that, reengineering is pretty cheap. So if you got the dilithium and Salvage to change that modifier, go ahead and do it.

[Scarlett]

^ This. Solid advice.