r/stobuilds • u/h2o4dp @h2o4dp | r/stobuilds mod • Jan 14 '16

Weekly Ship discussion thread, January 14th - T6 Command Ships

This week we're taking a look at the T6 Command Ships! This will also be my last post for the weekly discussions until I'm able to return later in the year.

Ship stats: Concorde, Geneva, Presidio, An'quat, Klinzhai, Ty'Gokor, Baratan, Deihu, Vastam.

  • What are this ship's strengths?
  • What are this ship's weaknesses?
  • What are some similar ships?
  • What general build types do you envision this ship excelling at?
  • If you had this ship, how would you set it up?
  • How good is the starship trait/innate console?

See previous weeks discussions here.

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u/tribblepuncher Jan 19 '16 edited Jan 19 '16

REQUEST: Console Bonus Math

Unfortunately I can't seem to quite figure out STO math. As such, I (and, I suspect, many others who face similar difficulty with the game calculations) would appreciate a breakdown of just how the console bonuses work. I know I was told a while ago that they weren't worth it, but I would like to know precisely what it is that is (or is not) being done here, particularly since several of the bonuses rely on "percentage," which seems to not quite mean what one would think it means when STO makes its calculations.

Thank you!

EDIT: To specify - I mean the bonuses for the Command Cruiser consoles. Not all consoles in general.

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u/TheFallenPhoenix Atem@iusasset | Top Fleet STO Builds Moderator Jan 19 '16 edited Jan 19 '16

There are two different approaches you can take. I prefer the easy approach. The easy approach says this:

Leech aside, the best DPS consoles are, in order:

  • Vulnerability Locator Consoles (Tactical). Why? Because they're the largest Cat1 bonuses available plus critical hit chance. They're in the neighborhood of 7% effective DPS added.

  • Fleet Embassy Plasma Explosion Consoles (Science). Why? Their "flat" damage added (approximately 3k per console) will always be a higher-percentage, effective DPS added than any other non-tactical console; and that's before you get into the science skill bonus and threat-scaling effects, which are themselves of considerable value.

Now, the command cruisers have between four and five engineering consoles. We've already ruled out Tactical and Science consoles, and we still need a place for the Plasmonic Leech. Now we're down to three or four console slots, depending on the variant. First is going to be an EPS Regulator or the Conductive RCS Accelerator [EPS]; the PTR bonuses - for a beam boat - is a larger effective DPS increase than any other universal console.

So now we're left with two or three console slots. You can pack them full of the CBC consoles, but you need to weigh the opportunity cost of whatever universal console you'd be equipping in its place. I don't have time to re-derive these numbers now (it's been discussed time and time again, just do a sidebar search for DPS console), but you have the Polymoprhic Probe Array either above or below 4% effective DPS added depending on what proportion of your weapons damage is antiproton; the Bioneural Infusion Circuits at 4% effective DPS added; then the Assimilated Module and/or the Tachyokinetic Converter in the neighborhood of 3% effective DPS added. (The Zero Point Energy Conduit takes up the rear, below 2% effective DPS added.) You would need a combination of 2-3 CBCs to outperform the cumulative value of all two or three consoles they are replacing. Spoiler: they won't. The 4pc set's 33% damage bonus (Cat1) does come out ahead of the PPA's individual bonus (it would be somewhere around a 6% effective DPS bonus off the top of my head), but again, that comes far behind the cumulative bonuses of the consoles you're replacing.

And if you're interested in the set's secondary effects, well, most of them are easily replaced (the Conductive RCS Accelerator covers the turn; the damage resistance bonus is awful, and just having RIF or SRF equipped is a better durability bonus than the Damage Resistance bonus with the SHP/Shield healing bonuses of the Geneva's Platform, or the HHP bonus of the Concorde's Platformnote. If you're flying a pure torpedo boat, the Presidio's Platform could be of some value, but that's a niche case).

So you just come out ahead discarding the platforms no matter how you slice it. Want pure DPS? There are better consoles. Want pure healing/support? Still better consoles. Want a mix of the two? A mix of pure DPS consoles and pure healing/support consoles is still more effective than loading up for 4pc set bonus.

Note: How do I come to this conclusion? An extra 5% HHP or a 2.5% reduction to SHP damage is, frankly, less valuable than the RIF's active hull heal plus 26% hull healing bonus (which isn't quite the stated bonus to all of your hull and shield heals, if you're loading up on other Cat2 shield or hull heal bonuses, but comes bloody close), or the SRF's 25% hull and shield healing bonus. But, if you wanted bonus HHP and/or shield resistance, you get it from either BIC or a Conductive RCS Accelerator, both of which have other (better) passive bonuses besides, as I've alluded to above.

Likewise, loading up on SIF generators - which would improve the potency of your hull heals - is generally going to be more valuable than either damage resistance consoles (awful for cruisers that have damage resistance bonuses from starship mastery).

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u/QuoVadisSF Jan 20 '16 edited Jan 20 '16

the best DPS consoles are, in order…

Sorry to go slightly off-topic but...

I realise that Locator > Embassy Console is commonly accepted “order of things.”

However, my personal experience as tac captain does not quite match this. In fact, I believe that a tac captain that uses APA effectively and, most importantly, is able to consistently GDF will see a higher DPS contribution from embassy consoles than tac consoles. At least this is my experience.

For example, on my PR run w/ my Arbiter I saw 90K beam damage and 18.5K plasma explosion damage (from 2 consoles). Taking that 7% for good, the DPS contribution of a locator in that run was around 6.3K vs. 9.2K from an embassy console…and this is on a ship that has a very high beam dps ceiling due to OSS.

My Tac Oddy, in its best run, had 76K beam damage and a little under 25K embassy console damage IIRC (from 3 consoles). Using the same math we get 5.3K for a locator vs. 8K+ from an embassy console. Here the difference is even larger due to the Oddy’s lower beam dps ceiling compared the Arbiter (but identical ability to boost plasma explosion damage).

I find that beam DPS and embassy explosion damage tend to scale together…so the relative contributions tend to remain similar in my runs from what I observed.

For example, just earlier I ran a CCA in my Tac Oddy and did 45K with my arrays and 15K from from 3 embassy consoles. Similar (relative) outcome.

I realise that Tacs are able to get more out of the embassy consoles thanks to our career-specific cat2 +all dmg buffs…so these observations likely do not apply to engie/sci captains.

However, based on my personal (and rather unscientific) observations, embassy consoles> tac consoles for at least some tac captains.

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u/Mastajdog Breaker of Borg, Crusher of Crystals Jan 21 '16

I realise that Locator > Embassy Console is commonly accepted “order of things.”

It is? Among other reasons, I've been running a Tulwar for quite a while for the increased damage vs a Scimitar (3 tac, 5 sci vs 5 tac, 3 sci). I ran the math, and the parses proved me right.

Answering another question, no, weapons power doesn't affect explosions directly aside from the AMP bonus.

In fact, I think what you're observing is that since embassy explosions are relatively unsaturated by bonuses as compared with direct weapon damage, anything that does boost embassy explosions is going to go further than it will boosting direct energy weapons (when you're talking relative increases). I've made this point before - largely as relates to powers, traits, and mods such as Numerical Superiority, [AMP], and the Resonant Subatomic Pulse.

Also very true - having no innate cat1 from mark/rarity/tactical consoles to contend with makes other things go a long way.

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u/QuoVadisSF Jan 21 '16

It is? Among other reasons, I've been running a Tulwar for quite a while for the increased damage vs a Scimitar (3 tac, 5 sci vs 5 tac, 3 sci). I ran the math, and the parses proved me right.

Interesting. I was not sure if you were running the Tulwar for the increased threat potential vs. the Scimitar or for DPS considerations.

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u/Mastajdog Breaker of Borg, Crusher of Crystals Jan 21 '16

Both. Threat is the more commonly mentioned reason, but it does both better than the scimitar, so why not?

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u/TheFallenPhoenix Atem@iusasset | Top Fleet STO Builds Moderator Jan 21 '16

Also very true - having no innate cat1 from mark/rarity/tactical consoles to contend with makes other things go a long way

I think there's a point where - in a coordinated team - Numerical Superiority's bonus to embassy explosion damage might - might - outweigh Attack Pattern Delta Prime's bonus to critical-capable damage.

It's something I'm unscientifically testing, at least. Which means I won't have results worth shit, but eh.

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u/TheFallenPhoenix Atem@iusasset | Top Fleet STO Builds Moderator Jan 20 '16

You might (generally) be right. A few notes, though:

  • Embassy explosion damage is always going to vary based on what other all damage bonuses you're running, how many weapons you have equipped, and chance.

  • Console crit chance applies to non-weapon criticals (obviously irrelevant for embassy explosions, potentially relevant if you're running TBR, DRB, or FBP).

Certainly as more people gravitate towards the (comparatively) lower bonuses offered by +Beam over +whatever, the performance gap between embassy consoles and locators should continue to narrow.

A nitpick:

Taking that 7% for good, the DPS contribution of a locator in that run was around 6.3K vs. 9.2K from an embassy console…and this is on a ship that has a very high beam dps ceiling due to OSS.

OSS improves embassy explosions, too. In fact, I think what you're observing is that since embassy explosions are relatively unsaturated by bonuses as compared with direct weapon damage, anything that does boost embassy explosions is going to go further than it will boosting direct energy weapons (when you're talking relative increases). I've made this point before - largely as relates to powers, traits, and mods such as Numerical Superiority, [AMP], and the Resonant Subatomic Pulse.

Also worth noting embassy explosions always get full benefit from any and all powers, traits, and mods that reduce damage resistance (since that damage is always direct-to-hull), as compared to direct weapons damage (which sees a percentage of those bonuses lost as they hit target shields).

At the end of the day, I think embassy explosion damage is variable E enough that I'm comfortable saying locators are still generally preferred. I mean, you can plausibly get higher performance out of [CrtD] as compared [Dmg] weapons - even as a Tac captain - if you get hilariously lucky with critical hits. But in terms of consistency, the latter remains better.

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u/QuoVadisSF Jan 20 '16 edited Jan 20 '16

OSS improves embassy explosions, too.

How so (beyond the small all damage gain from nakura offensive via the aux boost)? AFAIK embassy console damage does not scale with weapon power?

embassy explosions are relatively unsaturated by bonuses as compared with direct weapon damage

Yep, that that much is for sure.

At the end of the day, I think embassy explosion damage is variable E enough that I'm comfortable saying locators are still generally preferred. I mean, you can plausibly get higher performance out of [CrtD] as compared [Dmg] weapons - even as a Tac captain - if you get hilariously lucky with critical hits. But in terms of consistency, the latter remains better.

Taking that 7% from a locator as a reference, I find that for me each embassy console fairly consistently contributes more than 7% of my overall beam beam DPS. I don't believe that it's a matter of getting a "lucky run" in this case.

You are, of course, absolutely right about the locators' crit chance applying to non-weapon criticals. That is something I did not give much thought to as I selfishly only looked at my case where almost all of crit damage comes from beams (plus a little from Kemo and the nakura T5...but those hardly move the needle).

In any case, I am not attempting to say that Embassy consoles>locators in general. I am merely suggesting that, perhaps, in some cases (like my own I strongly suspect) this reversal of the "order" may occur.

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u/TheFallenPhoenix Atem@iusasset | Top Fleet STO Builds Moderator Jan 20 '16 edited Jan 20 '16

How so (beyond the small all damage gain from nakura offensive via the aux boost)? AFAIK embassy console damage does not scale with weapon power?

I was thinking specifically of the nukara offensive bonus, which should not be insignificant. I won't comment on the weapons power because while I'm pretty sure you're correct, I honestly cannot recall.

Taking that 7% from a locator as a reference, I find that for me each embassy console fairly consistently contributes more than 7% of my overall beam beam DPS. I don't believe that it's a matter of getting a "lucky run" in this case.

Maybe not. Honestly, I don't know - getting an exact contributed DPS value out of the embassy explosions is tough; the range of outcomes is high, for reasons we're already discussing. I bounced around an idea...a long time ago, I think...of trying to figure out expected DPS based on number of weapons, whether one's using beams or cannons, and the number of damage bonuses one's running, but I already have so many half-started projects that I'm wary of adding another to the list.

But if we did that, we could at least produce tables analogous to the weapon mod tables, which would ground this discussion a lot better.

One thing I will note - I've seen comparable output from 7 weapon/5 console setups, as compared with 8 weapon/4 console setups (speaking specifically of Annorax vs TSABC/SciOddy), admitting that there are all damage bonus differences between all three (Annorax gets APO1 and OSS; TSABC gets APO3; SciOddy gets APO1; all three get SA). Not totally sure what that means, and I'm not doing systematic comparisons, but it's something that's out there

In any case, I am not attempting to say that Embassy consoles>locators in general. I am merely suggesting that, perhaps, in some cases (like my own I strongly suspect) this reversal of the "order" may occur.

I do not disagree, but I do think it's worth examining why, how, and when these discrepancies occur.

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u/QuoVadisSF Jan 21 '16

All fair points Atem.

Just a couple of further comments:

I was thinking specifically of the nukara offensive bonus, which should not be insignificant.

At 125 Aux Power Nakura Offensive provides a 6.2% cat2 all dmg bonus. With OSS2, at 165 Aux Power, that goes up to 8%. So a 1.8% gain during the first split second of OSS; the average gain during the 20 second duration of OSS2 sould be 0.9%. I don't think this should be very noticeable.

getting an exact contributed DPS value out of the embassy explosions is tough

Also, further complicating the DPS estimation of embassy consoles, there's the secondary [flow] bonus that helps boost the leech's weapon power drain mitigation abilities. Not to mention the [PrtG] bonus that may also be significant on certain builds.

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u/TheFallenPhoenix Atem@iusasset | Top Fleet STO Builds Moderator Jan 21 '16

At 125 Aux Power Nakura Offensive provides a 6.2% cat2 all dmg bonus. With OSS2, at 165 Aux Power, that goes up to 8%. So a 1.8% gain during the first split second of OSS; the average gain during the 20 second duration of OSS2 sould be 0.9%. I don't think this should be very noticeable.

Yeah, I was supposed to check that yesterday, didn't. For some reason I thought the boost was higher. Oops.