It's got a Universal Lt. Commander Slot, 10 consoles, a lot of hull to burn through, etc.

No other Starfleet Cruiser is as good, and you give up nothing for a very powerful Universal Boff slot, not even an Ensign Boff slot like BoPs.

It's clearly better than other cruisers. Whether it's OP or not, that's a different argument.

I'd love to see a nicer Sovereign, as I think the design is much nicer... but even the base Odyssey has more appeal, game-wise.

The fact that it doesn't have an "I WIN" button doesn't mean it's not a better ship than anything else in its "class" except the KDF equivalents.

Well, to me, the new Odyssey actually feels like an actual flagship. Keep in mind my last two ships were the anniversary Odyssey, and before that, my Sovereign, which I flew pretty much from the moment I hit RA until the 2 year anniversary. I have however, bought the Excelsior T5 and the MVAM Prometheus.

The anniversary Odyssey was a great ship for tanking. What I didn't like about it was the ensign science station (cost me Tac Team 1) and one less tactical console. I also didn't approve of the change of shield consoles from being engineering to being science, but I was able to adapt by putting my Borg console in an engineering slot along with a second RCS console. I did, however, greatly miss my blue mk XI quantum console that was in my Sovereign's third tactical slot.

When the C-store Odysseys were put on Tribble, I immediately picked all three for the consoles, and tried them out. The escort pet, while fragile during AoE heavy MU and Borg incursions, is great fun to watch in combat, regardless of how effective it is. I'd hoped the third tactical console slot would allow me to put the quantum console back in, but I needed the slot for the Odyssey consoles, once it occurred to me the escort was likely doing much more damage than the boost to my torps the quantum console would add.

Anyway, between that and the fact that with the ensign universal slot, I could get back the same Boff layout (and therefore, powers) I used on my Sovereign for almost 2 years, which excelled at tanking, even if one on one duels, I had problems actually killing anything in PvP . With that, and the pet, stuff seemed to die a bit quicker, in cluster missions at least. There was also the saucer sep and work bees to play with too. The ship felt like a definitive upgrade over the anniversary Odyssey. I did have to give up one of my RCS consoles and my armor console, but the boost from the three piece bonus partially compensated for that.

During PvP testing, although two of us in +1 Odysseys couldn't kill a Bortasqu' easily, I took pride in being exceedingly difficult to kill .

I got so spoiled with it that when I went back to Holo to do missions with my anniversary Odyssey, I immediately felt the "loss" from the upgraded version on Tribble.

Basically, it does feel like a flagship now, and worth every penny. I wish they'd restore the turn rate bonus from the three piece set to a full point, but I find turn rate isn't such a problem - I've been flying cruisers almost the whole time, so I'm used to it. The new bridge is a great piece of art, however flawed, as well.

And seeing how many advanced Odysseys I've seen since it went live; I can't be the only one feeling that way.

That is correct. The pet is the Aquarius Escort Ship.

Here is a Vid from me taking the Tactical Odyssey into The Cure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scHMa...ature=youtu.be

As you can see, it is both tanky and able to dish it out... So I am a bit lost as to why there are so many complaining about it. It would deal even more damage as a Cannon/Turret boat but I like the look of the beams. (I RARELY make such sacrifices lol)

People on Elites had patience... lots of them.... They only want a thing; doing the work. If you known how do it, even with powerless version (I flyed with base Odyssey without 2 consoles to minded the impact of have the three special consoles, and the missions were sucesseful). Only, try to not go as a mad against all without see the chat panel, where another players say you how do the mission. Nobody is free to error, if you do a mistake, say it, and say sorry.... everyplayer on Elite forget that mistake and will say to you "no problem", "it's only a game", dont worry"....


Thanks to everybody for the fun, sorry for my bad english.

... wait, what? Who even mentioned the MVAE?

The bonus is not weak if you are tanking. It's not as good if you're trying to DPS or play Sci. It's a very strong boost to survivability, though, enough that taking it down to one console would make the Ody overpowered because of the sheer number of console slots it has.

If you took the bonuses down to a single console, the Ody would need to lose a console slot or two to keep it balanced.

To respond to a few of the comments, but I'm using this poster's as the basis for ease of typing my own reply as he tried to address most of my actual points;;

My point regarding the nature of the ship in general was not as an "IWIN" button. If you read my initial post carefully you will see I referred to the original series Enterprise, which I also have, and which is terrible for almost everything but has character. That's what really matters, that it feels like the ship you are flying has a distinct identity. Compared to the free Odyssey I don't believe the Store one does, at least if you just buy the Tactical and compare ship to ship.

The real change is in the Aquarius, but as I tried to list, in may situations that proves unworkable, or even self defeating (without control it'll run off and grab aggro from mobs you don't want to engage yet).

My point to clarify was that you can do all of the mentioned with the standard Odyssey. The Universal Ensign is the only real change, and it's just a Tier 1 power slot. You cannot slot a Tier 4 Tactical Boff power on either vessel, despite one supposedly being a Tactical vessel. As a result I just stayed with my already optimized Bridge Officer arrangements.

I've cut the parts we agree on; yes I support your thread about AI changes. But to answer he next part;

Not the exterior Odyssey model; it's model in your user interface. On the load out screen opened by pressing U. I ran out of text space, so didn't include that screen shot, but here it is;

http://s19.postimage.org/8agfqghsj/Odyssey_Bug.png

That should be my main ship, but when the Aquarius launches you get this image appear instead, apparently of the rear docking module and nacelles, but rotated 90 degrees anti clockwise. It'd seen this mentioned on Tribble threads, and included my own experience of it to show how the new ships have been rushed out with indecent haste.

I don't disagree with the visual and role play elements of it, although if the ship is outright destroyed which it so often is against Borg Cubes, you'd still have to get a new one anyway. But what I dislike is the implementation mechanics; how it should work, assuming the AI was improved anyway, was that upon launch and the ship sliding out, the 5 minute timer starts then. It can be redocked if you wish by clicking a second time, and relaunched again at any time during those 5; It's still the same ship after all (and keep the same damage on it natch, no healing if it gets back to dock, unless from your own powers used on it), but if destroyed you can't have another until the 5 minute timer is actually up. This allows you to replicate the Follow command for Birds of Prey etc, and thus returns a level of aggro control over it, and allow you to move it from area to area. And show a new one sliding into the docking bay at 5 minutes timer elapsed if it does get destroyed to maintain the rp element too...

As it currently is though, the timer only starts when you notice the Aquarius is no longer in play, or decide to remove it from such by recalling it, and now it's stuck in there for some reason for that 5m timer...it's been implemented entirely the wrong way around, making it a penalty for having it still alive, or out of control (which in turn is out of your control) rather than a timer until you are rewarded with brand new ones (like the BoP again).

Yes, this was my assumption. Currently the figure on the tool tip is that the Aquarius takes 2450 crew, or almost your entire compliment. I was pointing out bad implementation again.

My build is actually fine, and as mentioned earlier the Odyssey genuinely is a strong ship on it's own. But again, my point was the Tactical doesn't really sing out more than the default Odyssey, unless the Aquarius is in productive play. And I don't mind if the Odyssey actually lost a lot of power if the Aquarius opened it up elsewhere and gave it a more distinct character. But it's often not, and doesn't.

My actual experience then of the Tactical Odyssey is more akin to "Why are there holes in my bridge? Why won't my doors close? Why is everyone staring at the same graph? Ok, now the Aquarius just died in a cube explosion; I'll click to begin the wait to get it back again... in the meantime, does this feel worth spending the 2000c on? Do I feel like spending another 4000c to get the other two consoles to make the gameplay at least feel much stronger, if not different?

No. No I really don't feel like that at all."

Sounds like you were looking more for a skin-change rather than more abilities to me. I do not feel that would be all that required though. I get your point that the two ships feel rather similar. They ARE meant to be practically the same ship but let me ask you about the MVAE then.

The MVAE is basically an Advanced Escort in appearance and nearly the same in BOFF loadout. Its big claim to fame is that unlike the AE it can break into 3 parts and change the way your core ship handles this way. Is that really a change that is significant enough to give reason to purchase it over just using the AE though?

What I am saying is that any single Odyssey is a bit underwhelming but they are fairly obviously meant to be put together. When it can launch the Pet, the Work Bees, and Drop its Saucer it becomes a notably different animal from the original. The Saucer Separation model is probably the most changed of the lot because it alters the ship a lot. (Though I wish the animation was a wee slower and more steamy like the Galaxy because it is more Dramatic that way.)


Now if the Aquarius got an AI fix then it would be a lot more useful. I do think that having commands for all our pets like Carriers have would be a massive improvement. Even having the thing be a bit smarter about its attack patterns would help a lot. Heck, if the ENEMY ships would be smarter about how they attack you then THEY would be better.

I never used the U command while my pet was out so I have never seen that nor did I notice the odd Tool Tip. These are minor things but obviously little bug fixes that need to be taken care of. At least they do not break the ship like more major bugs can lol.


The bridge may well be fixed up... I would recommend AGAINST getting a single Odyssey when the better deal is the Pack by far. Basically I think even Cryptic realized that they were not REALLY worth 2K a piece so they bundled them. Any one console is kind of Eh... All three together provide a more serious effect. Every 3 minutes or so your cooldowns are over. You can fluently flip between launching your pet or losing that saucer. The Work Bees help you to either stay alive or help you to be a Support ship, which a Cruiser should be anyway. The Extra Tactical slot does help the Tactical one deal more damage but without being able to lose your Saucer (which should have been ITS power and the Engineering should have had the Aquarius if you ask me) it does not provide the full potency that you would want.

What you are describing is known as Buyer's Remorse and I understand your reasoning. I think of all the Odysseys to buy, if you only get one, I would take the Saucer Separation one because that one changes the Odyssey the MOST of all 3 variants.

I admit to being surprised you got that optional with that many beam cruisers.

The freebie Prometheus is better than the MVAE version for STFs and I'd imagine most other cases too. You can use the MVAM console if you want a cool looking visual but the pets are worthless in most cases. No need to buy the MVAM other than the visual.

How is this $50 worth of ship? From here it sounds like you got bamboozled badly.