I was never a fan of the K'tanco, but at T3 the K'tinga has a lot going for it. You've got a resillient ship that can mount four forward weapons, and is reasonably manouverable.

The problem comes later on, I found to make my cruiser (when I flew one) do what I needed it to, I was running Aux2ID 2 nearly back to back, but doing this took up two potential heals although it did work quite well. The other problem I had is that you'll still get outmanovuered by escorts, and you've sacrificed some of your resilience to out manouver other cruisers more easily. This leaves you in the position of being outgunned and outmanouvered.

Edit: So with K'tinga I'd go DHCx3 and a torp up front with turrets out back, or turret and an aft torpedo. Later on, I used the same, but if you're willing to trade DPS, DBBs and Arrays will be easier to keep on target.

*reads the thread* Some good ideas here.

Not true at all. Its all about playstyle, not class.

If you want to do sustained DPS, hitting multiple targets over a longer period of time, then use beams.

If you want to do burst DPS on a single target and kill it as quickly as possible, then use cannons.

I am an engineer flying a battle cruiser with cannons and I can garuntee you that I will always out-DPS a battle cruiser using beams.

Player Class is completely irrelevant. A science officer can just be as effective at doing burst damage in a cruiser as a tactical officer. Yes, the tactical officer can do greater damage, but not as much as you think.

With my focus on cannons I almost always out-DPS BoPs and Raptors in PVP, and am almost always within the top 3-5 for damage dealt.

I use the following setup:

Fore;
2x Dual Disruptor Cannons
1x Dual Disruptor Beam Bank
1x Torpedo Launcher

Rear;
2x Disruptor Beam Banks
1x Disruptor Turret
1x Torpedo Launcher

The combination of the 2 cannons, turret, dual beam bank, and beam overload+cannon rapid fire boff abilities, give me massive burst DPS, while the two rear beams means that I am not entirely defenceless from behind and maintain a moderate level of sustained DPS while turning.

I use Tricobolt torpedoes in both front and rear, allowing me to fire a trico every 30 seconds. To be effective with a trico you really have to learn how to use it, and its all about sticking within 1km of your target, but once you learn how to use it effectively you can be very deadly with it - which is useful in a cruiser since you aren't able to use the high-grade torpedo tactical abilities.

As I said above, all three classes are just as capable with cannons, due largely to the limited tactical boff abilities. And as it stands, because an Engineer can maintain a higher weapons power setting due to EPS transfer, I would actually argue that an Engineer can out-DPS a tactical player using a battle cruiser with cannons over a period of time. The tactical officer will do greater burst damage, but the Engineer will do greater damage overall, more or less evening the two out.

I'm not a master of armaments, but basically what I did for pve was;

K'tanco;
Forward; Heavy Dual Cannons, Torpedo
Aft; Beam Bank, Turret

K'tinga
Forward; Dual Cannons, Dual Beam Bank, Beam Bank, Torpedo
Aft; Beam Bank, Torpedo

Vor'cha
Forward; Dual Cannons, Dual Beam Bank, Single Cannon, Torpedo
Aft; Beam Bank, Turret, Torpedo

Negh'Var
Forward; Dual Cannons, Dual Beam Bank, Beam Bank, Torpedo
Aft; Beam Bank, Beam Bank, Turret , Torpedo

Refit Vorcha
Forward; Dual Cannons, Dual Beam Bank, Single Cannon, Torpedo
Aft; Beam Bank, Beam Bank, Turret , Torpedo

Now, I know these builds aren't optimized for pvp, but they did work there as well. Overall though, this was just me arming the ships with what I felt was a "realistic" armament. It should be noted I also mostly used Disruptors and Photon Torpedoes. The Blue phaser from the Devidian series snuck in on a couple of times, but not often.

It should be said that almost any armament does ok for your average pve. Pvp and stf demands more planned out armaments.

I thought they changed it a while back that high engine power now affects turn rate, and not high aux?

They did, although you'll still occasionally see people who use no science powers rolling emergency to aux back to back, so not everyone got the message.

Maybe they had heals that rely on aux....just a thought