[Ariotex]

As the title says. I created a new Romulan Science Captain. I am looking to expand my skill set and finally learn how to do an exotic damage build.

I have never attempted exotic damage at all so i have NO clue even where to begin. As this is on my non-subscriber account I will not be getting free re-train tokens to use so I need to get things right from the beginning. As such I have not yet spent a single skill point on anything ..... although only level 6 so far.

Except for my AoY fed toon, this is on my all Rommie account and once I get high enough, I have access to the Aelahl Light warbird, the Kara Advanced and the T6 Scimtar pack, plus last years and this years winter event ships and the Krenim science ship from whatever event it was, but which ship to use at that time is a long ways off.

Any and all advice welcomed, from where to put skill points, which ships to use while levelling, what BoFF skills to slot etc .... literally everything.......including whether going Fed or KDF makes any difference. I know it makes no ship difference as I'll be using Rom or cross-faction ships later anyway. As far as I know the only difference Fed/KDF choice will make is what BoFFs I will be able to use.......and of course the toon will join a UFP Fleet once the choice is made.

Did I mention I have never attempted exotic damage in any way shape or form before ?

While I have a decent amount of EC (for me) it is less than 100M and at present, lobi and Zen is not an option. I do have other toons with high enough R&D skills to craft just about anything. Specific weapons type, I plan to craft Mk IIs, throw upgrades to them and then transferto this toon and upgrade as I level, so if a specific weapon type works best for an exotic damage build (or fits with a specific mission/rep set later) I would love that info (along with where to best put skill points) sooner rather than later so I can get to crafting. Crafting is quick, crafting with good mods can take a while........

[ZX Advent]

I've actually been working on this for the past couple of months so I can share what I've learned so far. Hopefully my experience will be educational to at least providing some direction for you to start your own research.

Since you said you've never done an exotic build before, it's probably worth noting what makes something an exotic damage source. Exotic damage is typically considered to be damage dealt from any non-weapon sources - BOff abilities, procs, etc. That said, not every source of exotic damage necessarily synergizes with the same stats/procs. For example, Plasma-Generating consoles you can obtain from the Fleet Embassy add a proc to your energy weapons that can cause a plasma explosion. Just remember to research abilities/consoles/etc before committing resources to them so you aren't wasting anything if it doesn't work the way the in-game descriptions imply.

A few key things to keep in mind with exotic damage builds:

• Exotic Particle Generator (EPG) is your core stat - it directly influences any exotic damage sources
• Aux to the Max - Auxiliary power also directly improves your exotic abilities
• Minimize Cooldowns - Some of the more powerful/useful abilities have relatively long cooldowns; anything that shortens them means more DPS
• Synergize - Use abilities/consoles/skills that complement each other for maximum effect (e.g. Gravity Well + Destabilizing Resonance Beam for max AoE)

I don't know how effective you can be with exotic damage at lower levels (if nothing else because of the lack of access to actually damaging abilities) but I can at least give you a few general objectives to work towards as you're leveling:

Science Skill Tree Priorities

• Shield Capacity
• Control Expertise + Control Amplification
• Drain Expertise + Drain Infection
• Shield Hardness
• Exotic Particle Generator
• Scientific Readiness

These skills will yield the greatest benefit from the Science tree for creating a framework towards what you'd like. Shield Capacity, Shield Hardness, EPG, and Scientific Readiness are core skills that will directly influence your survivability and damage. Control Amplification will give a damage resistance debuff to any targets affected by your Control abilities (Tractor Beam, Gravity Well, etc.). Drain Infection will place a DoT effect on any targets affected by Drain abilities (Tachyon Beam, Tyken's Rift, etc.). Invest in the other skills (Shield Restoration, Shield Regeneration, Long-Range Targeting Sensors, and Shield Mastery) at your discretion based on how much you value them, but definitely invest enough in this tree to get the Probability Manipulation ability. With the Probability Penetration and Probability Window upgrades applied to it, it becomes a valuable source of burst damage.

As far as the other Skill Trees are concerned, I would highly recommend maxing out EPS from the Engineering Tree and the CrtH/CrtD, Hull Penetration, and Shield Weakening skills from the Tactical Tree. The other trees offer auxiliary options at best for exotic builds, however, so feel free to choose abilities suited for your playstyle.

Traits

For your personal traits, I'd recommend at least these core traits:

• Conservation of Energy (Science Captains only)
• Particle Manipulator (Unlocked at Science R&D Level 15)
• Innocuous
• Operative
• Fleet Coordinator

These offer direct increases to damage (exotic or all) and your Critical Hit and Critical Severity stats. For the other four Space Traits, spec them in a way that complements your playstyle. For Reputation Traits:

• Particle Generator Amplifier (Iconian Resistance, Tier II)
• Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense (Nukara Strikeforce, Tier IV)
• Precision (New Romulus, Tier II)
• Advanced Targeting Systems (Dyson Joint Command, Tier II)
• Chrono-Capacitor Array (Temporal Defense Initiative, Tier II)

Again, these will offer direct bonuses to exotic damage and your CrtH/CrtD stats. The last one, Chrono-Capacitor Array, will reduce your cooldowns. As for Starship Traits, it will honestly depend on what you have access to.

Bridge Officer Abilities

I haven't messed too much with Engineering-based exotic damage abilities, so I'll talk mostly about Science-based bridge officer abilities. Some nice ones you can use early on (Ensign/Lieutenant slots):

• Tractor Beam
• Feedback Pulse
• Tyken's Rift

Feedback Pulse is the easiest to use and will yield the most exotic damage early on, however this ability requires you getting shot. You usually have no shortage of people shooting at you in solo missions, but it's generally not a good idea to depend on taking damage to deal damage. On their own, Tractor Beam and Tyken's Rift are not exactly great but their shortcomings can be overcome when they're used in tandem. Create a Tyken's Rift when you're in range for Tractor Beam and then immediately tractor them after your rift has spawned. This will maximize the power drain and kinetic damage effects of the rift as well as apply both Control Amplification and Drain Infection simultaneously (assuming you have these skills unlocked). Works great for single-target engagements.

Once you get a ship with Lt. Cmdr/Commander Science seating, you can start experimenting with some more devastating abilities like Gravity Well and Photonic Shockwave. Gravity Well is almost a required ability to run for any Captain, regardless of their career path. Once you get closer to end-game, I'd highly recommend teaching your BOffs Destabilizing Resonance Beam and (if you have the EC to pick up the manuals on the Exchange) Subspace Vortex. My bread and butter ability combo right now is using Gravity Well, Subspace Vortex, and Destabilizing Resonance Beam. It crushes anything in front of your deflector into a tiny ball of death.

Gear

One of the nice things about exotic builds is there isn't really a "cookie-cutter" way to outfit your ship. Optimize your loadouts as best you can as you're leveling according to the priorities I talked about above until you get closer to end-game when you can start getting reputation and fleet gear. Once you're there, it will really boil down to the ship and abilities you are wanting to use to deal damage with. Some gear to consider though:

• Deteriorating Secondary Deflectors (adds a radiation DoT to most Science BOff abilities, enhances innate Sensor Analysis ability)
• Temporal Defense Initiative Starship Technologies Set (TDI Reputation, 2-piece set)
• Starfleet Elite Force Set (Task Force Omega Reputation, M.A.C.O. 2-piece set)
• Chronometric Calculations Set (Obtainable from the "Time and Tide" mission, repeatable)
• Delta Operations Set (Delta Alliance Reputation, 3-piece set)
• Exotic Particle Field Exciter (Craftable, Level 15 Science)
• Exotic Particle Focusers (Fleet Research Lab)
• Plasma-Generating Weapon Signature Nullifiers (Fleet Embassy)

I'm sure there are more than what I've listed, but these are some I find myself going back to rather frequently. Maybe someone else can offer additional recommendations?

Specializations

Honestly, the only specialization that will directly influence exotic builds is Temporal Operative. Start with this specialization once you unlock the system and at least max out the Tier 1 and Tier 2 space skills. There are some interesting skills available in Tier 3 that you might find useful, but feel free to start spec'ing a secondary specialization after this. For a secondary specialization, the meta right now is leaning towards Strategist, but there are some useful skills available in the Command and Intelligence Officer trees that you may prefer. Personally, I can't seem to let go of Pilot... XD

Duty Officers

Lastly, your Duty Officers. Honestly, I'm still learning about the various Duty Officers out there myself to see if there are better selections than what I have, but at this point you are nit-picking your build. There are some cool ones out there that may yield different effects for some of your BOff abilities (reversed Tractor Beam Repulsors, chance to spawn additional Gravity Wells, etc.), but I personally prefer a straight "Drake" set of DOffs.



Hopefully this helps give you some direction. I know it's taken me a while to get a handle on all of that. Good luck to you!

[Ariotex]

Wow, a lot of information to digest. Thank you SO much ! ! !

Just one more quick question. Weapons type for the ship. Does it really matter ? From everything I have been able to find, along with what you have posted it seems like actual weapons damage is going to be a small part of things.

I am kind of leaning towards Plasma for two reasons, first is that I'm a Rommie and plasma would just be fitting, second is that I have been crafting Plasma beams for a while now and already have almost a complete set of nice Epic plasma in both beam arrays and DBBs. Not much luck on turrets yet but I've been working on those.

[ZX Advent]

Your weapons damage isn't necessarily negligible. Where your exotic abilities will yield considerable burst damage, your weapons will comprise the majority of your sustained damage. That said, the actual damage type you settle on will depend largely on how many Tactical Consoles you can slot that will buff a specific damage type as well as any other consoles or set bonuses that may yield type-specific buffs as well. My advice: start from your consoles/ship equipment and work your way backwards to your weapons.

For example, I run Polaron on my T6 Intrepid (even though the proc is worthless) because the Chronometric Capacitor console buffs Polaron damage and the two weapons that make up this set are Polaron. On top of that, the weapon from the Delta Operations Set is a Polaron beam array. With three out of the five energy weapons on my loadout already required to deal Polaron damage and an open slot for a Vulnerability Locator console, it made sense to slot the other two similarly.

I've seen some posts floating around on /r/stobuilds and elsewhere of people rocking primarily torpedos, but I've yet to experiment with this. I will offer though that if you're trying to stick with Plasma, the craftable Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo may be worth your time and should synergize well with any other Plasma-related gear (Science or otherwise) you use.

[Ariotex]

Decisions, decisions......

I just realized that using a Romulan for my first ever science/exotic damage specialist probably wasn't such a great idea due to the extreme scarcity of science ships available.

Not going to give up just yet though. I looked over the stats for both the new Rom T6 Laeosa and the Cross faction T6 Eternal. I am thinking that by the time I am high enough level to use it, I could likely save up enough to purchase one of them ...... or maybe get the Temporal bundle so all my toons get pretty, new ships to play with.

For anyone that has tried them, or could just look at stats and give good judgement. First, are either of the two really good ships to use for an exotic damage build, and second, is the Laeosa a much better ship than the Eternal ...... enough to make it worth buying the single ship instead of the bundle (assuming that when the time comes I can afford the bundle that is).

@ZX, I have a few toons that can craft that torp so I'll give it a try when I get high enough level to use it, and while I'm not too sure about a full on torp boat, I'm thinking that having both the Particle emission torp and the hyper plasma torp from the rep set might be a good combo to use with a good shield drain and a boat set up for max plasma damage.

[Strathkin]

I have a Romulan Eng & Reman Sci officer. While I admit it may be true they have less true SCI ship's : Remember the ship's value regardless of what it's called is in the # of Sci Consoles, Sci Bridge Stations (Rank & Bridge Officers it can slot).

What I mean for example is the Command Ship's that were some of the first to be released after the Intel... They have Tac, Eng & Sci variants but all 3 variations are primarily ENG focused being far more heavily armoured but still very good Sci Ships; sometimes it just requires creativity to convert a ship into a more effective Sci focus to give it a 4th or 5th Sci boost with Universal console's that increase Sci attributes.

Still there are some worthy Sci ships such as:

• Laeosa Research Warbird with Commander Sci & Lt.Com Universal and 5 Sci Consoles : 3/3 Weapons;
• Flambard Science Dreadnought with Lt.Com Sci & Lt.Com Universal and 5 Sci Consoles : 5/3 Weapons;
• Deihu Class Command Warbird with Lt.Com Sci & Lt. Universal and 4 Sci Consoles : 4/4 Weapons;
• Jaeih Class Science Pilot Warbird with Lt.Commander Sci & Lt. Universal and 4 Sci Consoles : Weapons 5/2;
• Eternal Class Multimission Science (Temporal) with Commander Sci & Lt.Com Universal & Ensign Sci with 5 Sci Consoles : Weapons 3/3;
• D'Khellra Warbird Battlecruiser [Tac] is option with Lt.Commander Sci & Lt. Universal and 3 Sci Consoles : Weapons 4/4 & 40 Base Power for All Subsystems

Not a huge list but still a few Nice ship's with 3-5 Sci Consoles.

Still I it was nice to see they added the Laeosa Research Vessel as the first real true Romulan Sci Vessel, aside from the 31st Cross Faction Eternal. How your Andorian doing with their Andorian T5U Ships I think I saw in the STO forum?

[Ariotex]

Wow, would have taken me forever to look all that up on the ships, thanks. I was only looking at "true" science ships with a secondary deflector slot so I could have the added bonus it gives and not even paying much attention to console slots and BOFF seating. Lots more to mull over. Of course at the moment my Sci toon is only level 24 so I got time to research and think things over.

And yes, that was me with the Andoriaan toon also. I've been tinkering with different things to keep the game interesting and stay away from the "grind". I've gotten through most of the mission arcs running it as a cannon boat, mostly with the Andorian fleet stuff, patiently waiting for K13 progress to see if the retro stuff would be any better. Although rainbows can be pretty, I really like the look of the all blue full frontal cannon attack. Although not really any more potent than beams, it just looks more like you are raining down death and destruction on the enemy. And, the ship itself has a really nice look. Never gonna be a top DPS ship, but it is what I really want, a FUN ship to play/fly. Now if they would only make T6 version ........