[Terrell]

How do you guys even build carriers? Given how atrocious pet AI has always been in this game, I could never feel comfortable in them.

I purchased the Jupiter class CV when it launched, the U.S.S. Ulysses. However my forte has always been relatively nimble science vessels or cruisers, a lumbering behemoth like the Jupiter didn't sit too well with me. That and I found myself being outperformed on all fronts by Flight Deck Cruisers and Dreadnoughts which have the added pet damage along with a formidable own armament.

Has anyone here bought one of the new carriers? Do the new "squadron" sized fighter pets make much of a difference? Or is it just a sidegrade?

[Buckaroo]

I'm wondering the same thing if the "squadron" fighters will make much of a difference. I've always liked the idea of carriers, but they don't seem to be particularly well thought out and implemented in Star Trek Online. That and I'd prefer an actual Federation-style ship that's NOT the ugly look of the Jupiter (sorry for those that like the Jupiter).

[Artorius]

Well I do love me some gravity well. Someone on the zefilms vid yesterday said basically the same thing. Maybe I'll check them out after all.

Now if ony I could add my temp bombardment warhead. Because when you fire it off after gravity well, you can do ALOT of damage

[Terrell]

Now if ony I could add my temp bombardment warhead. Because when you fire it off after gravity well, you can do ALOT of damage

Your what warhead? I'm not familiar with this one, my ship is a gravity well III machine so anything that benefits from that piques my interest!

[Artorius]

Temporal bombardment warhead from the T6 Theseus. It's basically a glass cannon escort but it looks so sleek and sexy.

[Terrell]

Oh wait, I think I have that. It's the TOS/Timeship escort vessel correct? I got the expansion pack for the TOS expansion. Will have a dig through my stuff and see how it handles.

So many universal consoles now it's crazy lol.

[Sul-Matuul]

Carriers should get "most" of the damage output from their fighters etc. the weapons should really just be there to help out. But sadly in STO the devs have added in things like the Flight Deck Cruisers now which makes pretty much anything else with pets pointless to fly i feel.
Why use a ship with only 3/3 weapons when you can use a cruiser that is faster, has the same hangers, better mastery buffs and has more weapons? There's only so much help a secondary deflector can give you and these are not even full science ships so can't really get the max benefit of that either.

I just feel like as pretty as these ship are;; they are still decidedly meh. Another missed opportunity to create something new and interesting but we just got more boring rinse and repeat stats that are still overshadowed by other ships.

If Cryptic want me to buy new ships they need to start coming up with ideas outside of the box. Ship design is getting stale now in STO; they need some new ideas.
Give me a carrier with 4 hangers and only point defense guns.
Give me a ship with multi-vector attack mode that works like the Vanguard wingmen.
Give me the ability to craft my own custom ship with a points based system so i can have what i want on the platform i want.

In short....stop being so dull with ship designs.

[Arno12]

After a day of thinking about it, these ships are a big meh, sure they look cool but overall they are bland, space barbie can only go so far.

[Terrell]

For me personally, I've also never felt quite at home flying "alien" ships. I'm roleplaying a Starfleet officer, I should be flying a Starfleet vessell unless there are specific operational requirements like in DS9 when they commanded a Dominon Attack Ship for a spec ops mission.

Perhaps if I'm flying a Romulan Republic characterI wouldn't mind so much, with the Republic being in it's infancy and ships hard to come by, it would make sense for them to draft alien designs into their ranks until domestic designs can be constructed in numbers.

[Artorius]

ALso there's the new Galatic Alliance concept. SO that can give your fed character an excise to fly something alien and not specific starfleet.

[Sorotia]

Carriers should get "most" of the damage output from their fighters etc. the weapons should really just be there to help out. But sadly in STO the devs have added in things like the Flight Deck Cruisers now which makes pretty much anything else with pets pointless to fly i feel.
Why use a ship with only 3/3 weapons when you can use a cruiser that is faster, has the same hangers, better mastery buffs and has more weapons? There's only so much help a secondary deflector can give you and these are not even full science ships so can't really get the max benefit of that either.

I just feel like as pretty as these ship are;; they are still decidedly meh. Another missed opportunity to create something new and interesting but we just got more boring rinse and repeat stats that are still overshadowed by other ships.

If Cryptic want me to buy new ships they need to start coming up with ideas outside of the box. Ship design is getting stale now in STO; they need some new ideas.
Give me a carrier with 4 hangers and only point defense guns.
Give me a ship with multi-vector attack mode that works like the Vanguard wingmen.
Give me the ability to craft my own custom ship with a points based system so i can have what i want on the platform i want.

In short....stop being so dull with ship designs.

In the past I've made several suggestions on the STO forums and so far I guess they fell on def ears

Suggests ways they can improve the carrier dps...the pets dps...but they still leave Sci Carriers the complete meh they are

[Ricwin]

Carriers should get "most" of the damage output from their fighters etc. the weapons should really just be there to help out.

Give me a carrier with 4 hangers and only point defense guns.

Something I've been saying for years. 4 hangars, with 2 fore/2aft weapons, maybe 2 tac consoles, rest eng and sci.
My Jem'Hadar character has all of the carrier related traits (which have no doubt trippled in cost on the exchange due to these new ships) and a build setup for as much carrier pet damage as possible; its great when the gunboat frigates reach max level after a minute of combat but they still have woeful DPS.

I'm a huge fan of carriers IRL and in various games, but in STO they are so weak that I don't enjoy them at all.

[Bridger]

Something I've been saying for years. 4 hangars, with 2 fore/2aft weapons, maybe 2 tac consoles, rest eng and sci.
My Jem'Hadar character has all of the carrier related traits (which have no doubt trippled in cost on the exchange due to these new ships) and a build setup for as much carrier pet damage as possible; its great when the gunboat frigates reach max level after a minute of combat but they still have woeful DPS.

I'm a huge fan of carriers IRL and in various games, but in STO they are so weak that I don't enjoy them at all.

The game struggles already more than in enough when you have more than two Flight Deck Carriers on the map, so more ships with more pets will be a disaster.

[Sorotia]

What I think...giving synergy without just throwing more weapons on the carrier like the other two is changing the Carrier mastery starship package

Since Carriers are pretty Sci heavy I was thinking maybe they should get the enhanced particle generators trait

Obviously keep the quick deployment trait

Since Flight Deck Carriers get a bunch of damage resistance give Carriers a trait that boosts all damage resistance by +25 for their pets

Since Dreadnought Carriers are all about firepower give Carriers a trait that boosts their pets damage by 10-20% (Not sure about the numbers so obviously would need balance so it doesn't become OP)

[darthnovawave]

The game struggles already more than in enough when you have more than two Flight Deck Carriers on the map, so more ships with more pets will be a disaster.

I'm fully prepared to see another spike in rubberbanding if not an outright server crash tomorrow, unless these "squadron" pets are just graphically separate but functionally a single AI controller per 6 fighter set. There's always a chance this is just an unveil of Cryptic actually overhauling pet AI more broadly, but I'd be surprised if that is the case.