I have to say it looks great; however, I'm having a tough time trying to find a good BO setup for it.

My Science Captain is pretty much all Science speced and the Recluse almost forces you to put a Tac in the universal Commander slot.

My setup in the Vo'Quv had the perfect blance between Science and Tactical skills.

With my Vo'Quv I could use Target Subsystems Shields 3, Cannon Rapid Fire 1 and Tactical Team 1 and still had Gravity Well 3, Tyken's Rift 1 and a bunch more Science skills to play with.

The Recluse has me stumped because you either have 5 Tactical Skills and 4 Science Skills or 8 Science Skills and 1 Tactical skill.

If the Recluse had a Lt. Commander Tactical station it would have been a much better vessel for me but with only its ensign Tactical station it's looking like I'll be back in my Vo'Quv very soon.

If anyone has any good BO setups for the Recluse feel free to share, I'd like to get a return on that 50 million Ec I dropped on the thing

I guess I could come up with a pure Science BO setup, at least that way I'd be able to keep using my GW3 and TR1.

Pure sci (cc+support):
cmdr: HE1, ES1, TR2, GW3
lt cmdr sci: PH1, TSS2, HE3
ens sci: TB1
ens tac: TT
lt cmdr eng: EPtS1, RSP1, Aux2SIF/EPtS3

Or, using the tac skills you mentioned using in your Vo'Quv:
Cmdr tac: TT1, CRF1, TS3, AP:B
Ens tac: TT1
lt cmdr sci: PH1, TSS2, HE3 (or TSS1, HE2, GW1, if you, like me, like to run gravity well whenever possible)
ens sci: TB1
lt cmdr eng: EPtS1, RSP1, Aux2SIF/EPtS3

AP:B will stack with your sensor scan, and benefit you, your teammates and your fighters, allowing some pretty serious damage.

I've come up with a pure Science Build that I think will work pretty well with the Recluse.

Universal Commander: ST1, TBR1, HE3 and GW3

Lt. Commander Science: ST1, TR1 and TSS3

Ensign Science TSS1

Ensign Tactical HY1

Lt.Commander Engineering: EPTA1, EPTS2 and ET3

It seems that the power drain that comes from the Thermionic Torpedo Launcher can be quite substantial and High Yield 1 works pretty well with it.

I'm planning on going Beam Boat with the Recluse and I'll be loading up like this:

Fore weapons 2 X Fleet Tetryon Beam Arrays and Thermionic Torpedo Launcher

Aft Weapons 3 x Fleet Tetryon Beam Arrays

Try has I might I just can't make the Recluse has versatile as the Vo'Quv but it's still a very powerful vessel in its own right.

The other Downside to the Recluse is that its Widow Fighters are quite fragile and you have to slot the Tholian Tetryon Grid console if you want to get the most out of them.

I hear that we may be getting the Breen Capitol ship soon and I hope that it has a more versatile BO setup similar to the Vo'Quv.

I'll pick up the Capitol Ship just because it's a Carrier

I'd just like to point out that in testing under practical conditions, Widow fighters performed worse than plain old blue-quality Peregrines. And the tetryon grid console contributes a negligible amount of damage.

Maybe they buffed it since then, I don't know. If you discard the Widows you can't get them back.

Yeah,

Sadly I felt like I was becoming a liability in Elite Space STF's that I'd normally walk through with my Vo'Quv so I switched back.

The Recluse is much better suited to a Tactical Captain IMO.

The widow fighters were just too soft and could not generate enough damage to justify using them.

I've added the Recluse to my Collection of Carriers but unless it gets some better Hanger support craft I doubt I'll use it again.

The Torpedo is still pretty sweet and it can be slotted on any vessel so I guess picking up the Recluse did net me a nice new toy.

you can put any fighter in those hangers, right?
Like a Peregine and Slaver?

Im saving up to buy a recluse so I want to know as much about the thing as possible. If the Widow fighters are as bad as you say, what would you suggest as a replacement? (this will be my first Carrier)

EDIT: also I main a Klink if that helps any

the best thing about the recluse is the universal i tend to switch out boffs for the situation engi for when i wanna tank or sci for surpport but yeah if u want dps go for tact

also for fighters if u want pure dmg go for skull fighters, but if ur fed go for rom fighters