Escort: Harg'peng, or spec for another torp?
 

I've been searching the forum, but haven't found any thread that I felt answered this question to my liking, so I'm starting another.

I'm a tac officer running a Defiant (escort refit). My current weapon layout is this:

Front
2x Phaser Heavy Dual Cannons mk XI (purple)
1x Phaser Dual Beam Array mk XI (purple)
1x Harg'peng Torp
Rear
3x Phaser Turret Mk XI (purple)

Now, I used to have an all energy build, but decided to try torps. I'm finding that I'm liking the DMG of the harg'peng, i'm doing a lot more hull damage than having another DHC or dual beam.

The one thing that I like about the Harg'peng is that it doesn't take any skill points to use, so I can spec fully into beams, cannons, and phasers.

The one thing I hate about the Harg'peng is that it doesn't take any skill points to use, so it's base dmg is all i'm ever going to get, and can't use HYT.

So my question is, for pure DMG, am I better remaining fully speced for phasers, beams and cannons, and use my harg'peng, or should I spec in torpedoes, possibly lowering my other skills, and use a different torpedo?

Good question....
 

Since spike damage is your friend, I'd say the 'Peng is great mostly because it has a ridiculous time-to-target. I'd suggest a 'Peng, then if you're doing a pass, release a HY or TS from your tail torps. That could finish off your target pretty well.

On my MVAM I'm currently running a quantum up front with HYT2 though I am seriously considering changing that out for the 'peng and ditching HYT for something else... will probably do so when I get time to run the mission and pick up a 'peng this weekend.

What are the pros / cons of the 'peng, and how does it work? I saw them on the exchange for ridiculous prices, but I thought the tag included a "consumed on use" note, which made it seem like you have to farm or buy them continually.

Ha. Interesting. I think you're seeing the old ones from "The Doomsday Machine" before the current ones were in place. The biggest pros of the 'Peng are as follows. (In My opinion)

1. Great damage without being specced into it. (Not that you can, but you get my point...)
2. It has DoT plasma damage.
3. It can have AoE damage on impact.
4. It has a chance for a secondary detonation on the hull after, what, 10 seconds? (too lazy to go to the STO wiki)
5. This point - and one of the MOST important, and dare I say, underrated benefits of hte Hargh'Peng, is it's super-fast time-to-target; it simply zips to the target way faster than any other torp, thereby applying damage and spike damage faster.

A benefit that doesn't apply now was the lack of a global cooldown, but that's been fixed in the last patch, with an added 10 second cooldown, which is reasonable.


Hopefully this helps!

Feds get the 'peng from the Doomsday machine mission... Klinks can craft them.

Educate yourself... read the Wiki.

http://www.stowiki.org/Hargh%27peng_Torpedo_Launcher

Yep. The ones on the exchange are the modified ones from the original Doomsday Machine quest. They do about the same damage, but they go into your device slot, have a 360 degree firing arc and only 5 charges. Once they're gone they're gone.


Skilling up Hargh'pengs involves learning Projectiles and Torpedoes. There is no "Harghpeng" type of torpedo, so get the other two and (if you want) stack up +torpedo consoles.

The plasma damage isn't all that great unless you get a bunch of stacks on your target, but with the new global cooldowns you're looking at only having two stacks at any time. I think they do about 850-1200 damage over time, which doesn't actually amount to much.

I'm pretty sure all torpedoes can do AoE damage on impact. It's just that most torpedoes have a smaller explosion radius on impact, so it's rare. Trics have about the same explosion radius as Hargh'pengs (~3km). I think normal torps are 1km.

It's not a chance for a secondary explosion, it's a definite secondary explosion unless your target counters the hargh'peng debuff.
And the debuff lasts 12 seconds before it causes an explosion, so you can only have 2 debuffs on a target max. Before it was 4-5 from a single shooter.

Well, to be fair Peng initial damage is usually low because the target has shields up. It's the secondary explosion that usually gets them, so you're looking at travel time to target plus 12 seconds until you get your spike damage. Unless you're hitting nekkid hull initially.

They had a global cooldown, it was just the standard 3 seconds all torpedoes have. Now they've bumped that up to 10 seconds, so you can only use a maximum of 2 pengs. Which is probably a good thing. I had a Defiant-R loaded with 5 pengs (3 fore, 2 aft +2 turrets) and I was destroying everything in my path.

They should be much more balanced now.

No sh*t, sherlock. I said as much in my post.


I never made a qualitative comment about if the damages was "great" or not - I simply stated that it was a benefit.


Was this some attempt to needless correct me? The 'Pengs AoE is so blatantly higher that it was worhty of comment.


Like I said, I was too lazy to look at the Wiki - but thank you for oh-so-carefully trying to clarify something that I never stated was accurate in the first place!


What does this have to do with what I typed? Who said anything about damage being low? I was simply speaking about it's time-to-target and spike damage...what are you speaking to?


I didn't mean it had NO cooldown. I also think I said the same thing as you, which is in effect, the change is more fair.

I'm kinda laughing...was this whole post some attempt to correct me? lol If you would have actually read my post...you *did* read the part where I said "in my opinion..."

But thank you for trying to over-correct a post made by me as a simple rule-of-thumb. :confused:

So after doing a little more asking around, I decided to drop the Peng and go with quantum torps, fully skilled up for them. I onl y ended up having to drop some ground skills, so I didn't lose any damage from my energy weapons.

Peng does around 5000 dmg to the hull, quantum does almost as much. But HYT2 pushes that to about 15k for the quantum.

Yes, the peng's flight time is very fast, but as an escort retrofit captain, i'm decloaking, flying in guns blazing, then firing off the torps at almost point blank range just as the shields go down, so flight time is not important.

I may put a peng in an aft slot, but I'm still debating that. Or maybe fire off a peng from the front early for the DoT (shield impact most likely), do a quick 180 once the shields are down for a HYT2 from the rear with quantums.

Here's something to ponder.

You've now got skill points and a BOff slot devoted to that quantum... which is only 1 of your 7 weapons... or 14% of your damage dealing capability. Sure, with HYT the torps do a lot of damage if they hit hull, but what if they don't? If the shields are up those quantums are just a flash in the pan.

Whereas, the 'peng required no skill points and no BOff slot... and had the capability to do damage even if the shields were up.

What have you gained?

Again, just something to ponder.