Engines: What the Galaxy-X needs...

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I saw the devs have shown an interest in adding consoles or things like the Connie Retrofit phasers.

After speccing, gearing and testing my Galaxy X, IMHO they have done a lot to improve it...

However, to make decent use of cannons, I think what it needs is its own special engines, on the order of the Connie Retrofit phasers.

IMHO, what's needed is:

Combat Impulse Engines [Turn]x2
Scales with level.
Allows travel at Warp 13 in Sector Space.

The lack of engines with multiple turnrate boosts is the big thing keeping this ship from its potential. Speccing into it and using 4 RCS consoles helps and it's a fun little power house once you've optimized the gear/spec/power adjustments but it really needs engines tailored to its role and the lack of Double Turnrate engines in-game is a big drawback. (Meanwhile, Warp 13 in SS would bring it into line with canon and be a fun little boost.)

Otherwise, people will tend to avoid cannons, which is half the point of the ship.

Heck, I might go a step further and suggest that the third nacelle be tied to the engine like the visual item sets we have, since the reason it could go Warp 13 was that third nacelle.

So if you remove the engine, you'd get something more closely approximating the Odyssey and if you put that engine on another ship, you get the nacelle on that ship.

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Well... there are a few problems with this idea.

First off, the third nacelle is part of the refit of the ship. Having it removed with a piece of hardware would be like ripping off your leg to take off a shoe. This presents the problem, also, of not being able to equip full sets onto the Galaxy X while still keeping it the familiar Galaxy X. The Aegis wouldn't be able to have its Reactive Shielding, the Borg wouldn't get their Tractor Beam, and the Breen wouldn't get their Energy Dampeners.

Second, if you remember, the Pasteur did Warp 13, and I didn't see any third nacelle on that ship. Heck, that was Olympic-class! That's a Commander-level Science Ship! Nothing special about warp 13. Plus, the Borg engine allows warp 14, so that point is kind of moot.

Third, why only 2 Turn mods? Why not 3? I find it odd, actually... you decide to try and invent an auto-scaling version of the engine I already HAVE on my Galaxy X. It makes no sense.

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what struck me most was why you would want it to be a combat impulse engine at end game levels. the way they have engines work, the power levels you should have at end game make combat engines useless. plus, if you tried to divert all power to engines to evasive out of harms way, you couldn't. that alone makes them useless at end game. you would be surprised how quick cruisers can move when needed.

oh and the whole warp 13 thing i think is just a rebalance of the warp scale, like they changed war 9.9 into warp 10, 9.99 into war 11 etc...

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I wouldn't mind seeing the tier 2 Connie with the Wrath of Khan phasers. Its odd seeing phaser strips on her hull.

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I wouldn't mind seeing the tier 2 Connie with the Wrath of Khan phasers. Its odd seeing phaser strips on her hull.

thats nice...

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Third, why only 2 Turn mods? Why not 3? I find it odd, actually... you decide to try and invent an auto-scaling version of the engine I already HAVE on my Galaxy X. It makes no sense.

I'd be in favor of the Pasteur also getting Warp 13 engines and the Excelsior Transwarp ability being tied to the engines. I figure the Pasteur Engines would be Efficient Engines [Speed]x2.

The reason for x2 instead of x3 as I'd previously suggested is that special promo items tend to be blue quality and level scaling. I figure [Turn]x3 would come without the Warp 13 ability and be craftable, non-scaling.

To fit [Turn]x3 into the budget of a blue quality scaling item, the engines would probably need a negative stat like -30% hull because blue items are only scaled for two active bonuses.

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Although... -Hull on a blue item with three bonuses to Turnrate would reinforce the fact that this is using a ship in an unintended way, kinda hotwiring a cruiser to be more like an escort.

As far as engine power, the build I have for my Galaxy-X is based around the idea of hotwiring a cruiser to be more Escort-like and the result is weapons and engines pretty close to full power with shields and aux at minimum since turnrate is tied to engine power now. I think it actually provides some balance and makes some sense to pick the special engines for this based around the assumption that people will be running the engines at a high power level.

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they just need to give fed cruiser a klingon cruiser like turn rate and be done with it. currently its pointless to run with less than 8 beams, not just because of FAW, but the turn rate is so bad nothing else is usable.

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they just need to give fed cruiser a klingon cruiser like turn rate and be done with it. currently its pointless to run with less than 8 beams, not just because of FAW, but the turn rate is so bad nothing else is usable.

I think it risks making escorts redundant if you do that unless you also introduce a feature on par with Battle Cloak.

Overall, I just think having engines that specialize more in turnrate would help, particularly if there's some kind of tradeoff with engines that offer more distinct benefits but have less turnrate.

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I think it risks making escorts redundant if you do that unless you also introduce a feature on par with Battle Cloak.

Overall, I just think having engines that specialize more in turnrate would help, particularly if there's some kind of tradeoff with engines that offer more distinct benefits but have less turnrate.

escorts redundant? really? not with that huge lack of tactical stations cruisers have. i'm just asking for something that would make fed cruisers almost as good as klink cruisers. they shouldn't need some item to get to that level ether.

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The Gal-X needs engines like someone said to help with using its phaser lance. Their engine idea i agree with.

A rapid fire quantum torpedo launcher on the assault cruiser would also be nice. Look at First Contact.

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I think it risks making escorts redundant if you do that unless you also introduce a feature on par with Battle Cloak.

Overall, I just think having engines that specialize more in turnrate would help, particularly if there's some kind of tradeoff with engines that offer more distinct benefits but have less turnrate.

My thinking is rather skewed but I wouldn't want my ship to take so long to turn to where it seems like Pluto could complete one full orbit around the sun before you do a simple 360 degree rotation. The way the game is set up it doesn't have the feel or true aspect of a space game. It's more akin to submarines by how the ships maneuver.

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Even as a normal cruiser, without the cloak, spinal lance, and cloaking device, the bridge officer loadout's a good one. When you mix in the fact it can cloak, and has the lance, it looks very good. If we then gave it a boost to manouverability, it'd become OP. I know it can use DHCs, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. And I think it's wrong to assume the ship's broken because not all of it's weapon choices are effective. I don't think anyone'd get very far in an all turret bird of prey for example. But it has one of the highest crew compliments and hull strengths in Starfleet's ship roster, making it manouver like one of the more tactically able yet less durable ships would upset what little balance there is.

There are already many remedies to bad handling (lord knows, I've had my own experiences with the various Galaxy class ships). RCS accelerators help to an extent, speccing up in the appropriate skills also helps. And there are enough BO powers that enhance turnrate, such as Aux2ID, evasive manouvers, and many of the attack patterns. Also, lining up a good first attack with the lance and dual cannons is still possible with the cloak, even if the advantage is lost after (unless it's a really sweet one shot alpha strike, of which I see plenty).

I was always mystified as to why they put cannons on it in the first place, those attatchments added to either side of the bridge module could have been anything as far as I know.

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There are balance issues because they tried to make balance.... at the very least the made a poor attempt trying to make balance.

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Even as a normal cruiser, without the cloak, spinal lance, and cloaking device, the bridge officer loadout's a good one. When you mix in the fact it can cloak, and has the lance, it looks very good. If we then gave it a boost to manouverability, it'd become OP. I know it can use DHCs, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. And I think it's wrong to assume the ship's broken because not all of it's weapon choices are effective. I don't think anyone'd get very far in an all turret bird of prey for example. But it has one of the highest crew compliments and hull strengths in Starfleet's ship roster, making it manouver like one of the more tactically able yet less durable ships would upset what little balance there is.

There are already many remedies to bad handling (lord knows, I've had my own experiences with the various Galaxy class ships). RCS accelerators help to an extent, speccing up in the appropriate skills also helps. And there are enough BO powers that enhance turnrate, such as Aux2ID, evasive manouvers, and many of the attack patterns. Also, lining up a good first attack with the lance and dual cannons is still possible with the cloak, even if the advantage is lost after (unless it's a really sweet one shot alpha strike, of which I see plenty).

I was always mystified as to why they put cannons on it in the first place, those attatchments added to either side of the bridge module could have been anything as far as I know.

giving it a turn rate buff, even as high as 8 or 9, would bring it from the level of 'underpowered gimmicky crap' to 'as good as the klingon cruisers'.

the turn rate of 6 is horrible, and an advantage to anyone trying to drop one of its shield facings. turn rate consoles do almost nothing for ships that start out with a turn rate that bad. put that console on a ship with good maneuverability and it will make a much bigger difference though, they need to do something about that.

compare the negvar to the gal X, they have the same hit points, the same weapons available, and the same cloaking ability. but 1 has a tactical ENS station and the other has a engineering ENS station.

the advantage the gal x has is the spinal phaser, which can be somewhat dangerous if you can luck out and hit bare hull. happened to me the other day, only lost about a third of my hitpoints, seems like it should have been more. it also has 4 accessory slots as opposed to klingon cruisers having 3.

the negvar's advantages are that it has a turn rate of 9 with all the advantages that maneuverability provides, including realistically being able to use dual cannons. also a third tactical console which will allow it to deal more damage with every shot it fires. might as well mention that it has a crew of 2500 too, i know that doesn't seem to make too big a difference.

then there's the vorcha, which has a tactical ENS station, and gives up 3k hull hit points and 1000 crew for an even better turn rate of 10. other than that its the same as the negvar.

giving the gal X, and every other fed cruiser, a turn rate buff of a point or 2 would merely even the odds a bit. the klingon cruisers are clearly better as it stands. they have better turn rates and don't have to give up console slots and station powers on items and abilities that boost turn rate.

[Archived Post]

giving it a turn rate buff, even as high as 8 or 9, would bring it from the level of 'underpowered gimmicky crap' to 'as good as the klingon cruisers'.

the turn rate of 6 is horrible, and an advantage to anyone trying to drop one of its shield facings. turn rate consoles do almost nothing for ships that start out with a turn rate that bad. put that console on a ship with good maneuverability and it will make a much bigger difference though, they need to do something about that.

compare the negvar to the gal X, they have the same hit points, the same weapons available, and the same cloaking ability. but 1 has a tactical ENS station and the other has a engineering ENS station.

the advantage the gal x has is the spinal phaser, which can be somewhat dangerous if you can luck out and hit bare hull. happened to me the other day, only lost about a third of my hitpoints, seems like it should have been more. it also has 4 accessory slots as opposed to klingon cruisers having 3.

the negvar's advantages are that it has a turn rate of 9 with all the advantages that maneuverability provides, including realistically being able to use dual cannons. also a third tactical console which will allow it to deal more damage with every shot it fires. might as well mention that it has a crew of 2500 too, i know that doesn't seem to make too big a difference.

then there's the vorcha, which has a tactical ENS station, and gives up 3k hull hit points and 1000 crew for an even better turn rate of 10. other than that its the same as the negvar.

giving the gal X, and every other fed cruiser, a turn rate buff of a point or 2 would merely even the odds a bit. the klingon cruisers are clearly better as it stands. they have better turn rates and don't have to give up console slots and station powers on items and abilities that boost turn rate.

I use the Negh'var, and to keep cannons targeted on anything more nimble than a cruiser as often as is useful (i.e. you do more damage than you would with beams), you really need to run Aux2ID or have an RCS accelerator, otherwise you're still better off with beam banks and arrays in that the extra shots counter their weaker damage. Cannons are useable, but not optimum unless you buff the manouverability further still. Also, if you buff all cruiser turn rates, you'll have the Excelsior becoming almost an escort, but without doing all of them, it'd loose worth compared to the slower heavier ones.

Yes, Galaxy class ships have a harder time keeping shield facings up with a concerted effort from someone, but it's still quite doable with things like tactical team, reverse shield polarity, and the others due to the ammount of engineering slots on hand. I've seen Galaxy pilots of the R and the X tank amazingly well both in Arena/Cap & Hold, and in Ker'rat. Also, this problem won't go away if you make it manouverable enough to use DHCs, since then rather than being forced by your turn rate to present the same shield facing, you'll find yourself volunteering the same shield facing to bring your weapons to bear. A Galaxy X DHC build would be no more viable from a defensive standpoint than it is now, though a "traditional" cruiser build would gain surviveability, but that's one thing the Galaxy already has in abundance.

Again, I feel a lot of this comes down to "it can equip DHCs, so it should be good at using them" which I disagree with personally. I think a smaller buff to 7 to Galaxy turn rates and fixing the spinal lance so it's worthwhile would bring the Galaxy-X up to par. That said, even as it is now, it's capable of one shotting another ship in an ambush. But my point is, rather than trying to make it turn better which it isn't (and hasn't ever been) good at, maybe it should be made better at what it already does well. Lance sometimes, tank lots. But 8 or 9 would just make it a Negh'var with a spinal lance. It should be it's own unique thing.

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I use the Negh'var, and to keep cannons targeted on anything more nimble than a cruiser as often as is useful (i.e. you do more damage than you would with beams), you really need to run Aux2ID or have an RCS accelerator, otherwise you're still better off with beam banks and arrays in that the extra shots counter their weaker damage. Cannons are useable, but not optimum unless you buff the maneuverability further still. Also, if you buff all cruiser turn rates, you'll have the Excelsior becoming almost an escort, but without doing all of them, it'd loose worth compared to the slower heavier ones.

getting into a duel with an escort is never going to go well with an unbuffed turn rate cannon battle cruiser, but shooting other cruisers works fine. if your going to use canons you should use those, but even if a fed cruiser uses them they are still barley able to use torpedoes, let alone dual cannons. even a buff of 2 to the excelsior's turn rate would just make it even with the vorcha's turn rate of 10, still far from escort territory. 10 would be a awesome turn rate for a fed cruiser, it would be easier to fly it everywhere and since they cant use dual cannons it wouldn't cause a major imbalance. personally i think the sovereign should have the top fed cruiser turn rate of about 10.5, excelsior 9, galaxy X 8.5 and the star cruiser and galaxy 8. currently the excelsior just has 8, sov has 7, and all the rest have 6 wile the negvar and vorcha have 9 and 10.

Yes, Galaxy class ships have a harder time keeping shield facings up with a concerted effort from someone, but it's still quite doable with things like tactical team, reverse shield polarity, and the others due to the ammount of engineering slots on hand. I've seen Galaxy pilots of the R and the X tank amazingly well both in Arena/Cap & Hold, and in Ker'rat. Also, this problem won't go away if you make it manouverable enough to use DHCs, since then rather than being forced by your turn rate to present the same shield facing, you'll find yourself volunteering the same shield facing to bring your weapons to bear. A Galaxy X DHC build would be no more viable from a defensive standpoint than it is now, though a "traditional" cruiser build would gain surviveability, but that's one thing the Galaxy already has in abundance.

you could have seen me in action lol, despite its shortcomings my fed engineer is almost always in a galaxy R and 9 matches out of 10 i can still get the most kills, least if any deaths, and top damage and healing. unless there are a bunch of others plying that really know how to play and have ships that are as good as their builds are. i know if i was flying an excelsior of sov i would be even more effective.

Again, I feel a lot of this comes down to "it can equip DHCs, so it should be good at using them" which I disagree with personally. I think a smaller buff to 7 to Galaxy turn rates and fixing the spinal lance so it's worthwhile would bring the Galaxy-X up to par. That said, even as it is now, it's capable of one shotting another ship in an ambush. But my point is, rather than trying to make it turn better which it isn't (and hasn't ever been) good at, maybe it should be made better at what it already does well. Lance sometimes, tank lots. But 8 or 9 would just make it a Negh'var with a spinal lance. It should be it's own unique thing.

a turn rate of 7 would only be as good as the sov's is now. so that's still barley anything. about the lance, my galaxy had a shield facing down, 70% hull, and i got decloak lanced right before i was able to hit RSP and it only brought me down to about 35%. didn't have any armor consoles or buffs running or any points in the tier 5 refit cruiser ether. he actually knew what he was doing too, so i doubt his build was terribly optimized to use the lance. that things damage is still not nearly worth loosing the 3rd tactical console.

im not just claiming fed cruisers need a buff, im just trying to closing the gap between the klingon cruisers and federation cruisers. they shouldn't arbitrarily have better stats, i dont know why everyone is ok with that.

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I think some Starfleet cruisers do need a buff somewhere to gain parity with their KDF counterparts, but I still feel they should be buffed elsewhere, rather than be made the same, as it'd help maintain the seperate play styles/faction identities a little better. And I do genuinely sympathise with the frustration Galaxy-x drivers must feel since 2000 cryptic points isn't a joke, and I'd want it to at least have parity with what it's flown against.

I suppose essentially, I want balance while maintaining the unique way ships function and behave.

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I think some Starfleet cruisers do need a buff somewhere to gain parity with their KDF counterparts, but I still feel they should be buffed elsewhere, rather than be made the same, as it'd help maintain the seperate play styles/faction identities a little better. And I do genuinely sympathise with the frustration Galaxy-x drivers must feel since 2000 cryptic points isn't a joke, and I'd want it to at least have parity with what it's flown against.

I suppose essentially, I want balance while maintaining the unique way ships function and behave.

believe me, i would love for klingon and federation ships to play vastly differently, and more or less be balanced with their vastly different styles, but the way weapons are in game makes that more or less impossible.

i used to mod the game ST Legacy extensively, and managed to make it look almost exactly like the shows through the different eras, and did so keeping each factions ships playing differently. it actually played very much like STO for the first few tires, just with no abilities or anything. Never did quite finish the last version, STO was to fun.

The last few tires are completely overboard with insane amounts of energy weapons flack, being able to fire 8 beams is stupid, why aren’t we firing 1 beam with the power of 8? that’s what they did in the shows, and that’s how i set things up in my modded legacy. Also, cannons are not machine guns, don’t care for that rapid fire effect. Things would feel like startrek if it were me balancing things, not generic space strategy that’s startrek inspired

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believe me, i would love for klingon and federation ships to play vastly differently, and more or less be balanced with their vastly different styles, but the way weapons are in game makes that more or less impossible.

i used to mod the game ST Legacy extensively, and managed to make it look almost exactly like the shows through the different eras, and did so keeping each factions ships playing differently. it actually played very much like STO for the first few tires, just with no abilities or anything. Never did quite finish the last version, STO was to fun.

The last few tires are completely overboard with insane amounts of energy weapons flack, being able to fire 8 beams is stupid, why aren’t we firing 1 beam with the power of 8? that’s what they did in the shows, and that’s how i set things up in my modded legacy. Also, cannons are not machine guns, don’t care for that rapid fire effect. Things would feel like startrek if it were me balancing things, not generic space strategy that’s startrek inspired

If things were done properly to canon then pretty much everyone would be flying a Sovereign for the most part. She is the power house of the Federation. The major problem with STO, I think, is that it's really more about the BO powers than the ship itself.

Edit: minor wording corrections

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If things were done properly to canon then pretty much everyone would be flying a Sovereign for the most part. She is the power house of the Federation. The major problem with STO, I think, is that it's really more about the BO powers than the ship itself.

Edit: minor wording corrections

not exactly, people greatly overestimate the sovereigns capabilities, and greatly underestimate the galaxy. but that's understandable, the ENT-D was always writen as the underdog of every episode, they thought that was good story telling, regardless of what its capabilities are.

the sovereign is a very large, very advanced heavy cruiser, its the excelsior of its time. it was designed to fill the hole that had opened over the years were a formidable heavy cruiser should be, because the previous designs that filled that role were too old and too outdated to fill that role any longer. the galaxy is a luxury battleship, designed maybe to decadently, but its weapons were by far the most powerful and dangerous in starfleet.

a per canon sovereign should be very maneuverable, like 10 or 11 turn rate. fire 1 fairly heavy beam from its main arrays in a 285 degree arc, fire up to 2 much lighter shots from smaller rear arrays in the aft 75 degree arc, and fire 2 or 3 torpedoes almost contently. in combat it could fairly quickly wear down most any opponent, but it doesn't have the super heavy weapons that a D'derderex, Neg'Var, or Galaxy does.

a galaxy, compared to a sovereign, should fly and turn much slower, turn rate of around 8. it should fire 1 extremely power shot from its main arrays in a 320 degree firing arc, fire up to 2 much lighter shots from smaller rear arrays in the aft 40 degree arc, and every couple of seconds fire 5-8 torpedoes from ether fore or aft. no small ships could withstand very many shots from its main array, and the fact that its a weapon that heavy with a firing arc that large almost isn't fare. its in league with the klingon's Neg'Var under slung super heavy disruptor cannons that shattered DS9's shields and the romulan's D'derderex super heavy disruptor cannon that destroyed DS9 in a decloak alpha strike in that one episode. the galaxies main arrays are in league with them, though it is in 3rd place as far as output goes. but the fact it can leverage its full firepower in almost every direction is why starfleet uses arrays like that and why they are so dangerous.

those 2 ships could be balanced against each other in game, the could probably be made to deal about the same damage over time, just going about it slightly differently. a galaxies superior spike damage could be balanced by the fact that its a sitting duck most of the time and vulnerability to an escorts sneak attack wile a sovereign would be much harder to pin down and catch off guard.

i would start from there and balance everything else with those 2 ships as a starting point, and BO station setups would get a massive overhaul

oh ya this is a Galaxy X thread... well the lance is redundant because the main array is all the fire power the ship needs, and the 3rd Nacelle... not necessary ether.

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I've just had a thought: It seems really odd, that the Galaxy X, a super upgraded Galaxy, is at the same tier as the Galaxy R, which for all intents and purposes is just a Galaxy, but a bit better. At some point, we can expect Tier 6 though. If the Galaxy X was bumped up to tier 6, it could be what it's "meant" to be in my eyes without suddenly kicking game balance when it's already down so to speak.

It could be given a decent manouverability buff to represent a far more advanced RCS system, greater sector space speed for the third nacelle would be "default" becasue it'd be at a higher tank then, and the lance could be reworked a little to be useful, lastly it's baseline stats moved into line with tier 6 cruisers, in whatever shape they take.

This would also allieviate the problem of "I paid 2000 AT for endgame content that's not endgame anymore". Thoughts? Have I lost the plot, or is this a decenti dea?

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I think some Starfleet cruisers do need a buff somewhere to gain parity with their KDF counterparts, but I still feel they should be buffed elsewhere, rather than be made the same, as it'd help maintain the seperate play styles/faction identities a little better. And I do genuinely sympathise with the frustration Galaxy-x drivers must feel since 2000 cryptic points isn't a joke, and I'd want it to at least have parity with what it's flown against.

I suppose essentially, I want balance while maintaining the unique way ships function and behave.

My feeling is just that it would be nice to have the option to sacrifice something else for turnrate, even if that came in the form of a [Turn]x3 engine that lowered hull.