The general idea as a electronic warfare tools is a good one,
Sadly the ingame version feels stupid because those ships do damage to others.
But thats a flaw of the entire holotech in trek, its just magic.

Take away the damage of the holoships, make them copies of the ships that generated them while cloaking the original ship.
Sorta like collecting the emissions of the original ship and projecting it to another place to evade incoming fire.

ide rather not have holographic ships at all. Some1 was talking bout sensor ghosts before, would be nice if we got a skill that instead makes enemy ships target random points in space (for all i care it should be small radiating spheres that draw their fire) or replace it with something else in general. but thats NEVER going to happen. im just ... hoping ... idle ... but hoping ... rly cant help but dislike photonic fleet

From a gameplay perspective, it's a good skill.

From an RP or "real-world-logic-applied-to-Startrek" perspective, it sucks.
I wouldn't mind a more "Scramble Sensors" like effect where the enemy randomly targets holographic ships that are actually harmless. This could even be a power worth the damage losses, since if the enemy is wasting 2/3 of his shots on the holos, you'll last longer and can focus more on other offensive options.

Just to note guys, I believe the idea for photonic fleet came from voyager.

There was an episode where they literally projected several photonic ships that fired on the enemy. (Khazon i think)

It might be silly but it is canon.

I LOVE it on my science alt. Wish I had it available on my tactical main :p

They didn't do any damage, though.

I actually like Mustrum's idea - it's at least closer to canon. It would be fun if the player ship would "split up" into four vessels, and three would be holographic copies. The players in the enemy team would have no idea which is the real one and would have to guess if it's the player or just a holographic illusion based on the target's movement or employed abilities. A little like in the shell game.

Yeah, I've gotta agree that photonic fleet doesn't make much sense outside of the game. I once tried to rationalize it by imagining that my ship was launching drone ships armed with phasers, torpedoes, and a holocloak, but then you have the problem of why you'd need the holocloak in the first place.

That being said, I do really like the photonic fleet as-is. I usually pilot sci ships, so I naturally need whatever dps help I can get. It always makes those "destroy 6 enemy ship squads" missions go faster, since I can just activate the fleet when I meet the last BB and get out quicker. I think Munstrum's suggestion makes a lot of sense (and it'd certainly be awesome in PvP), but I don't want to lose my firepower in the daily emblem grind.

Me, too. I love Photonic Fleet. One of my favorites. For my science alt, this is one of the abilities I've concentrated on.

I like the Photonic Fleet power, those Galor class ship are tough to take down and every bit helps! I just don't like the recharge time though

(wonders how one RP while playing)

If it's really a problem, change the name from "Photonic Fleet" to "Request Reinforcements," and remove the flicker effect from the ships. Problem solved.