[Bridger]

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/st...icer-abilities



Greetings, Captains! We’ve decided to make some changes to the Pilot Bridge Officer Abilities to bring them closer in effectiveness to some of our more popular Bridge Officer Abilities. Numerically, Pilot Specialization Bridge Officer Abilities are in a weak state. Most of them try to do cool things and fall short due to lack of raw power, and a couple need more intensive care. Help is on the way.

The design intent here is simple: raise the power level of Pilot BOFF Abilities such that they’re worth using alongside other more popular BOFF Abilities. Most Abilities got raw power in whatever area made them most special. Reroute Reserves to Weapons, Clean Getaway, and Deploy Countermeasures got more thorough rebuilds because they needed clearer jobs to do – situations where it’s obvious what the Ability can do for the Captain.

A couple of the changes are more experimental, in particular Reinforcements Squadron. We’re adding stat scaling to the fighters it calls as a special mechanic of the ability (details below). Watching how this interacts with gearing decisions will teach us a lot, and chart a course that could take us to more broadly supporting minionmancer playstyles in the future. Generally speaking, we expect these changes may need to shift slightly so they can settle comfortably.

Additionally, we’re making small tweaks to two Engineer Bridge Officer Abilities. Starship Shields are a core part of Trek and we feel they’re a bit squished by the elephantine cube in the room: the Borg are very good at what they do and it’s important they stay that way. Since they’re also severely warping the play space around the Shields mechanic, we’re giving Captains the tools they need to do some adaptation of their own. Emergency Power to Shields and Reverse Shield Polarity now grant conditional and unconditional immunity to Shield Drain during their respective effects.

These changes are currently slated to go live in an update this week on PC, and then hit Console when we've had some time to see how they work on PC, and address any issues that arise from feedback or otherwise.. More details are listed below. Take a look, theorycrafters, and let us know what you think of these changes. Remember, the best place to get your feedback seen is on our official forums.

Improved Engineer Bridge Officer Abilities:

Numbers provided are preliminary and may be changed before release!


Emergency Power to Shields

Now also grants Immunity to Shield Drain when your Shields are reduced to 20/35/50% total Capacity


Reverse Shield Polarity

Now also grants Immunity to Shield Drain


Improved Pilot Specialization Bridge Officer Abilities:

Numbers provided are preliminary and may be changed before release!


Energy weapons: Reroute Reserves to Weapons

Haste improved from 20/40/60 to 75/150/225
Engine power drain normalized at 8, was 8/6/4
If Engine Power reaches 0, effect ends, the shared category cooldown is reset, and remaining duration is subtracted from other Energy Weapon Firing Mode recharge times


Clean Getaway

Duration improved from 4/6/8 to 8/10/12
After 3 sec, each sec your ship avoids damage recover 1 sec recharge of boff and cap abilities


Deploy Countermeasures

Ability now additionally deploys holo images of your starship which taunt Foes and vanish after being damaged
Number of images and duration scale with ability rank (3/4/6 images and 13/18/23 sec duration)
Chance to Confuse removed


Reinforcements Squadron

Ships Receive Bonus Damage from your Acc and Crit Sev
This is something we're going to watch and tune as we gather data about how it performs in the wild
Current tuning is that fighters receive Bonus Damage equal to (3 * extra Accuracy) + extra Crit Severity
Summoned fighters are immune to core breaches


Form Up

Bonus Damage starts at max value, no longer ramps up over duration
Teleport range now 20 km for all ranks


Subspace Boom

Explosion damage significantly increased
Roughly speaking, base damage improved by 50% and Throttle scaling damage doubled
Large debuff to Accuracy added to the explosion
-50/-65/-80 for 5 sec


Lock Trajectory

Added a buff to Critical Chance during active effect
2/3/4%


Pilot Team

Now grants a modest bonus to Defense during the effect
7.5/15/22.5
Now grants Immunity to Placate during the effect


Hold Together

Scaling from high Throttle doubled


Fly Her Apart

Damage buff improved, happens during buildup as well as after
3/3.75/4.5% per sec Fly Her Apart is active


Coolant Ignition

Damage scales with Engine Power
Currently 0.5% additional per Engine Power
Initial detonation now has a large burst of Damage
Roughly 4.5x tick damage


Attack Pattern Lambda

Confuse lasts longer, also applies Placate to Foes that are not Players, but has a long CD per target
Duration improved to 15 sec
Cooldown 60 sec per Foe
Now applies to all weapon types
Higher ranks dramatically improve Acc and Perception
35/50/65 Acc
250/500/750 Perception



Jonathan Herlache

Systems Designer

Star Trek Online

[Tain]

ooh, I like

[Solace]

Oooooh okay, some nice buffs there, especially RSP thats just made tanking in ISE/HSE insanely better

[Bridger]

Oooooh okay, some nice buffs there, especially RSP thats just made tanking in ISE/HSE insanely better

That type of tanking is more or less dead.

[darthnovawave]

Well, good to see that updates to the specialization powers didn't die with Borticus leaving. Hopefully these changes will make pilot seats somewhat useful. Some of the changes sound good, but I'll wait and see what the reviews are once it hits the game.

I wonder if these shield drain immunities are the big play towards making shields seem useful again. With Suppression Barrage being the favored survival button right now, I'm not sure this does much to tank meta, but it might change things up to make shield tanking more practical. It would be nice if Engineering powers more broadly get some attention next, since Engineering seating isn't viewed much better than Pilot seating right now.

[Bridger]

I like the changes they did to the Shield Powers and it for sure will help less experienced people but for me I still see no reason to put those abilities on any of my ships.

[Solace]

That type of tanking is more or less dead.

Oh for real? Damn I've been out of the game for longer than I thought lol

[Bridger]

Oh for real? Damn I've been out of the game for longer than I thought lol

Too much Power Creep HSE is done in 90 seconds by us noobs.

[Jestersmith]

[Sorotia]

I'm guessing something is going to be pilot in the anniversary pack, either the prometheus or something else

[Sunfire]

As someone who stubbornly clings to RSP and EPtS due to flavour reasons I like this. I also fly a Legendary Defiant, so I'll take the pilot buffs too.

[darthnovawave]

I'm guessing something is going to be pilot in the anniversary pack, either the prometheus or something else

They leaked a T6 Aquarius raider as part of the bundle on Ten Forward Weekly back in December. Odds are high that something like that would be Pilot.

[darthnovawave]

Now that the changes are live, anyone tried anything out? I gave RRtW3 a try on a quick ISA pug run for an endeavor today and was a bit underwhelmed, but not sure if it was due to the power, bad luck of the draw with my pug group, or maybe I am just that rusty aiming dual heavy cannon arcs since I haven't flown a non-CSV cannon build in a while. Might try giving it a few more tries this weekend if I have a chance, but just curious about other experiences, or experiences trying out any of the other revamped powers.

[Brunocsf]

Now that the changes are live, anyone tried anything out? I gave RRtW3 a try on a quick ISA pug run for an endeavor today and was a bit underwhelmed, but not sure if it was due to the power, bad luck of the draw with my pug group, or maybe I am just that rusty aiming dual heavy cannon arcs since I haven't flown a non-CSV cannon build in a while. Might try giving it a few more tries this weekend if I have a chance, but just curious about other experiences, or experiences trying out any of the other revamped powers.

I tried out RSP in infected conduit and the new buff to it is really nice. Being immune to shield drain is a decent help. Also as the Emergency power to shields is also immune to shield drain now, I think they added a new visual effect for as long as the Emergency power is active. It looks like RSP effect but it's blue.

[Petrarch]

I tried out RSP in infected conduit and the new buff to it is really nice. Being immune to shield drain is a decent help. Also as the Emergency power to shields is also immune to shield drain now, I think they added a new visual effect for as long as the Emergency power is active. It looks like RSP effect but it's blue.

It's the original effect extended and made a little brighter, it used to flash like that when activated then subsided again quickly. It's kind of irritating when coupled with the sound effect. To paraphrase what one person on Reddit said which amused me greatly, Cryptic are continuing to work on the effects because there are people who can still see their ships in combat.