[Mayrheane]

I think part of my problem is I like to keep builds close to what I think they would use in canon. So on my Guardian atm I'm just messing about with 6x Elite fleet phaser arrays and two torpedo launchers. A photon in the rear and the wide angle Quantum in the front. Just a sucker for things like that, for instance I hate running plasmas on anything else but my Romulan ships.

I was a wee bit leik that sometime before Darky, slapped me senseless on how to build up meh science vessel... Joined by Arky when I was building both my klingy engineer and Tactical Rommy...

[Dark]

There's nothing wrong with flavor builds, just be aware it's not optimal.
Personally I like to make sure my builds are optimal to make up for my terrible piloting.

The only thing I don't like on Terrell's canon-ish Guardian is actually the photon torpedo aft. Replacing that with another array would mean the only real difference in that weapon loadout compared to a "optimal" beam boat is the torp instead of a KCB. You'd lose a bit of damage, but it's not that much. (I do love the wide angle quantum launcher, and also used it for a long time, knowing it was suboptimal. I only stopped when I notice things kept dying before my beautiful torpedo spreads would actually hit them.)

In fact, I don't think the layout is the culprit for performance issues. It's the Fleet Elite Phasers, which is basically a trap. Compared to Fleet Advanced weapons, they're still only at 4 mods for being UR, but lose a damaging mod for a negligable shield regen proc. Fleet Advanced weapons themselves aren't that great, being stuck with [Dam]x2 (the worst of the four normal mods on a weapon) and at best having [Acc]x2. [Acc] is useful in PvP, but unnecessary in PvE, especially since Accuracy Overflow does not work with Fire At Will.

Terrell, assuming you're not filthy-space-rich and can just buy [CrtD]x4 phasers off the Exchange, I recommend you start crafting. Just make Mk II Phaser arrays, with a decent skill they should all be VR. Keep crafting until you get [CrtD]x3 or [CrtD]x2[Pen] mods, then go stick an Omega Kit on there (preferably with a Research booster) and odds are good they may even go Epic.

Regardless of if they upgrade in quality or not (even if they pick up [Dam] as the 4th mod), switching from six [Acc]x2[Dam]x1 arrays to six [CrtD]x3 or [CrtD]x2[Pen] arrays should result in an appreciable increase in damage.

Oh, and 'cause I haven't said it yet - gratz, Cuda!

[DaUnknownAdmin]

...

Fleet Advanced weapons themselves aren't that great, being stuck with [Dam]x2 (the worst of the four normal mods on a weapon) and at best having [Acc]x2. [Acc] is useful in PvP, but unnecessary in PvE, especially since Accuracy Overflow does not work with Fire At Will.

Terrell, assuming you're not filthy-space-rich and can just buy [CrtD]x4 phasers off the Exchange, I recommend you start crafting. Just make Mk II Phaser arrays, with a decent skill they should all be VR. Keep crafting until you get [CrtD]x3 or [CrtD]x2[Pen] mods, then go stick an Omega Kit on there (preferably with a Research booster) and odds are good they may even go Epic.

Regardless of if they upgrade in quality or not (even if they pick up [Dam] as the 4th mod), switching from six [Acc]x2[Dam]x1 arrays to six [CrtD]x3 or [CrtD]x2[Pen] arrays should result in an appreciable increase in damage.

Oh, and 'cause I haven't said it yet - gratz, Cuda!

I can tell you from my experience of going from Fleet Advanced Phaser [Acc]x2, [Dmg]x2 to [CrtD]x3 did show a noticeable increase in my DPS. So for me it was definitely worth switching out beams on my other alts.

[James Ryoken]

Are you guys using a mod to calculate DPS or is it available in game and I just haven't seen it?

[Janeway]

Are you guys using a mod to calculate DPS or is it available in game and I just haven't seen it?

It's a program my good friend.

It's called CombatLogReader.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2g4f4e8iky..._java.zip?dl=0

[Emiiko Akorem]

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/sh....php?t=1254621

this is the tool thats used

[Dark]

This is the sticky on the official forums.

Essentially you use the /combatlog 1 command in-game to generate a combatlog.log file. Use /combatlog 0 to stop logging. Then you use CombatLogReader to parse the combatlog.log file into statistics.