[SCOOP]

hey,

I bought STO back when it was released with memory alpha as a location to craft and the old ESDs, played it for about a year but eventually stopped, cause I did not agree with many things devs decided to do.. Then, after STO went F2P, I came back for a bit, liked it and was impressed by the changes they made, especially to missions which are more interesting now than back in 2009 when most of them were more of an excuse to grind rather than trying to recreate the feeling of an actual star trek episode! I also joined the UFP at this point

Now, recently I started to get back into STO, leveled a new char all the way up to lvl 51 and still have a lot of fun! However, now that I am above lvl 50 I am suddenly overwhelmed by all the stuff I am supposed to have an opinion about so I thought that the most logical approach would be to ask you guys! I'll try to outline my general situation first and then will formulate the questions I have below so that it is easier for you to answer them..

My current main character is a lvl 51 tactical officer and I own the USS Excelsior 'Cruiser Retrofit' (https://i.imgur.com/tcrMEau.jpg).

I would want to play the Excelsior with all beam, no torpedoes in a slower, more 'overseeing role' where I rather response to situations with dmg, (de-)buff & heals et cetera rather than DPS only if possible which immediately leads me to my questions:

1. Back in the olden days TAC officers were supposed to command escorts. Is commanding a cruiser as a TAC officer a reasonable decision for end game content in STO nowadays?

2. Assuming that TAC+CRUiSER is a reasonable option for STO's end game content nowadays, do you think the USS Excelsior can handle it?

• Assuming she can indeed handle end game content, is it necessary to invest additional money? I understand that I can upgrade the USS Excelsior 'Cruiser Retrofit' with additional ZEN aka Fleet Ship Modules. There are in fact two options, one requires 1 FSM and the other 5. The one which requires 5 'Fleet Ship Modules' is the Fleet Ship version which is, I assume, the best possible option for the Excelsior?
  
  So if I wanted to play end game with her do I have to buy those 5 FSM, only the one for 1 FSM or no FSMs at all?

• Take a look at this screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/nioY06O.png Is this an additional option to invest even more money into the Excelsior in the lower half of the screenshot or does 'UPGRADE' simply indicate that there are the aforementioned two better versions available for either 1 or 5 FSMs?

3. Assuming that the Excelsior is not up to the challenge, which cruisers do you recommend for an all beams/no torps build?

4. Assuming that cruisers shouldn't be a tactical officer's first choice which ships do you recommend? I am not totally against an escort, all cannons build, for example!

5. REPUTATION! There is so much I can invest my time in I have seriously no clue where to start! I assume the point of such missions is to grind for space/ground sets? Depending on your answers to my questions regarding which ship to take where should I start grinding?

6. Captain Specialization, with everything above mind, where to start here?

7. Are torpedoes still useless nowadays?

I thank you guys for your time and hope you can help me shedding some light on those issues, cause I seriously have no clue what to do, haha xD

[Mack]

Hey Scoop! Welcome (back!) to the UFP Community!

1. Honestly builds are more dynamic today. You can build a cruiser DPS or still fly an escort if you wish so. To get an idea, feel free to visit the builds discussion forum here or contact our main man Bridger with any concerns!

2. You have two options here, you can update your current T5 Excelsior to T5-U via a starship upgrade purchase, or buy a T6 Excelsior (Advanced Heavy Cruiser [T6] ) and play that. You will be able to use the original Excelsior skin on that as well.

3. Ofcourse, I do like the Tactical Star Explorer [T6] myself, due to its dynamic Bridge Officer layout. This however doesn't mean that the Excelsior isn't up to the challenge!

4. It's fine indeed for you to fly cruiser as tactical!

5. The best option would be to start with queues which state 'choice of marks', and run them to grind marks for reputations you intent to begin. This can be made easier here at UFP by attending any of our STF events you can find here

6. I personally suggest to start with Strategist (Secondary) and then go for Pilot (Primary) for space, assuming you are a space over ground person!

7. I wouldn't say that, I still use front and aft torps in my build! It really depends on your build, hence!

[Asimov Gorov]

hey,

I bought STO back when it was released with memory alpha as a location to craft and the old ESDs, played it for about a year but eventually stopped, cause I did not agree with many things devs decided to do.. Then, after STO went F2P, I came back for a bit, liked it and was impressed by the changes they made, especially to missions which are more interesting now than back in 2009 when most of them were more of an excuse to grind rather than trying to recreate the feeling of an actual star trek episode! I also joined the UFP at this point

Welcome back to STO! I took a break a while ago from STO and RyanSTO helped me get back into the swing of things.

1. Back in the olden days TAC officers were supposed to command escorts. Is commanding a cruiser as a TAC officer a reasonable decision for end game content in STO nowadays?

2. Assuming that TAC+CRUiSER is a reasonable option for STO's end game content nowadays, do you think the USS Excelsior can handle it?

1. The differences between Sci/Eng/Tac have slowly reduced or [nearly] equalized. A tac cap. in a cruiser is very much a viable option for end game. In fact Tac cap. in cruisers is probably the most preferred config., in terms of number of players going by this config in game. I.e. you can indeed get a good build which can perform well with Tac+Cruiser.

2. T6 Excelsior is a good choice if you love Excelsior as Mack has pointed out. I'd like to add: If you buy a T6 Excelsior with (3000) Zen and then buy the Fleet T6 Excelsior, the Fleet T6 Excelsior costs only 1 FSM (and some 20k Fleet Cr.). But if you directly buy the Fleet T6 Excelsior then it will cost 20k Fleet Cr. + 5 FSM. Usually people buy the standard T6 ships to get the special [Epic] console, which in the case of T6 Excelsior is [Console - Universal - Tactical Maneuvering Matrix] (a lot of these Zen ship consoles are really not super-worthy). These special consoles do not come with Fleet version. Generally, the fleet version of ships are better (but in rare cases the vanilla Zen ship does as well).
Even though T5 ships can be upgraded to T5U bringing them somewhat closer to base stats of equivalent T6 ship, generally, a normal Zen T6 ship outclasses a equivalent T5U due to boff slots as T6s often come with neat specialization Boff slots. A ballpark rule: T5<T5U<T6<Fleet-T6.

3.,4. I've ever only concentrated on cannon based escort builds (Went from T5Defiant -> T5Jemmie -> T6Phantom -> T6Ajax Eng. Pilot Ship, I love escorts+cannons! T6 Temporal Escort was fun too, but I like my A2B too much so need that Lt. Cmd. Engg Bof slot which is not available on Temporal Escort), so I'll skip a cruiser choice question . I also want to mention that with the upcoming rebalance, it may not be a cardinal sin anymore to mix beams with cannons/turrets as the firing cycles will all be equalized. Think forward cannons and rear - omnis as omnis usually have better stats. than turrets.

5. It takes 40 days to level all the reputation en-masse (without sponsorship from another toon and not going bonkers over hourly missions). Always exploit daily mark-bonuses so you get that +55 mark bonus. Doing a Borg sector alert awads Omega + one other reputation. Doing a Tholian sector alert also awards Nukara + one other reputation. So you're up to 4 already. These take <5 min each. A Tau Dewa sector-system patrol + Delta Sector-system patrol has you covered for Rommie and Delta reputation. Takes ~5 min, just pew-pew at waves of ships. We're up to 6 reputations now. Then you can go to Dyson/Defera/... ground/space battle-zones to finish up the other 4 reputations or as Mack suggested pug an easy/advanced PvE queues. You can even split the 10 reputations into 5 X 2 and take 80 days. STF events for PvE queues can be great as well Doing reputations is important as they unlock skills/traits that come in handy, and also award you Dili besides set-packs. Any end-game ship (Excelsior will work fine) will be enough to accomplish this.

6. Cap. specialization of Intel/Command/Temporal depends on ship in space especially. For example, T6 excelsior has no specialization Boffs so you'd be stuck using only specialization-traits, captain abilities (like Science Team...) and specialization-abilities (like Intel. Team...).

Please feel to bug us with more questions

Good luck leveling up.

[Rellimie]

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[Dark]

The ship tier differences sum up as:

The T5 version has 12 BOff abilities and 10 consoles.
The T5-U (upgrade button) has 12 BOff abilities and 11 consoles. Starship Mastery maxes out at 4.
The T6 version has 13 BOoff abilities and 10 consoles. Starship Mastery maxes out at 5, unlocking a Starship Trait.
The T6 Fleet version has 13 BOff abilities and 11 consoles. Starship Mastery maxes out at 4.

From a build perspective, it's recommended to get the T6 Fleet if you intend to upgrade, as it gives an extra Tactical console. Ideally you'd get the T6 from the C-Store to unlock the trait (Improved Weaponized Emitters isn't great, but something is better than nothing) and then use one FSM to get the T6 Fleet. As mentioned, going straight to the T6 Fleet would cost 5 FSM, so it's not going to save too much.

The ship does have a flaw in the seating, with only room for 3 Tactical abilities. Usually we want Tac Team (for instant shield redistribution), an offensive enhancement (Fire At Will being standard, Beam Overload isn't too bad with the rebalance) and an Attack Pattern (generally Beta since we won't have room for Omega). Being able to only field 3 will mean it takes some advanced building to get all three on minimal cooldown - Tac Team is easy with two Conn DOffs, but getting both FAW/BO and APB to minimum would require expensive shenanigans, so we may as well drop Attack Pattern Beta and just go 2xFAW (or 2xBO).

It also has the ability to field a truly redundant amount of Engineering abilities at 8, but thankfully the Lt Cdr seat has a Command spec, so you can carry Overwhelm Emitters (not bad, plus it goes with the T6's Starship mastery trait) and Rally Point (one of the better Command abilities) leaving a more reasonable 6 Engineering abilities.

It's not one of the best ships, but it certainly isn't bad. It really is one of the last few cruisers that fail to recognize the necessity of Tac seating though, and if you look at the newer high end offerings almost all of them give the ability to field 5 Tac abilities, allowing for 1xTT, 2xFAW, 2xAPB.

The new (to you) Specialization system does let you offset the terrible turning rate with the Piloting spec though, so it'll still feel better than before.

[SCOOP]

Thanks for all the awesome answers, guys!

After a lot of back and forth I eventually went with the Endeavour Class aka Tactical Star Cruiser (T6) thanks to Mack's advice earlier:

3. Ofcourse, I do like the Tactical Star Explorer [T6] myself, due to its dynamic Bridge Officer layout. This however doesn't mean that the Excelsior isn't up to the challenge!

I also strongly agree with Dark who pointed out that:

The ship does have a flaw in the seating, with only room for 3 Tactical abilities

I was also very tempted to get the Valiant class aka Tactical Escort (T6) to upgrade it later on to fleet grade which I might do at some point in the future. Tbh, I am a bit too lazy nowadays for the rather fast and demanding playstyle of the uss defiant

Lastly, commanding a 132 year old ship design sounded kinda off to me and non-canon.

The U.S.S. Excelsior was commissioned in 2285

In 'The Search for Spock' that one admiral told Scott & Kirk that the Enterprise was in service now for 20 years which is why it won't get a refit..

Is that section 31 code or something?

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