Hey, I got the Tholian Orb Weaver today, first special ship I've gotten so Im pretty excited about it!

I am a Tac captain on my Fed, which has the ship, and my KDF so I have little experiance with the high level sci skills, so I would like some suggestions on what boff powers would be most helpful. I know Grav Well is a must with the new fleet actions and Hazard Emitters for STFs, but beyond that Im kind of lost as to the most effective powers.

As a tac I didnt spec heavily into sci skills, so I am generally looking for the best bang for my buck.

Also some suggestions on sci consoles if possible.

Thanks for any feedback. First post by the way.

Really depends on the way you want to play it.

I dont know the stats for the ship but specing into graviton generators and particle generators is probably the best bang you can get since they influence more skills.

What do you use for your other captains? this info will help others recomend a build that may be closer to your usual style of play.

Science is a complicated specialty. Doesn't help that tacticals / engineers tend to feel that the "offensive" science skills don't complement their builds, so they don't spec into them as much as needed (as you so noted)...

Therefore, for a Tac jumping into a Sci boat, odds are that your splashes into science benefit healing / evasions (polarize hull, HE, sci team, TSS) and maybe confusion (scramble sensors, jam sensors, viral matrix). If so, then I'd recommend sticking with these powers and going with it, nothing like having a viral matrix III (cmdr power) land on a tac cube and basically shutting the whole thing down...

If you're going to respec, then be careful. While Gravity and particle generation are the two main "offensive" skills (necessary for GW III, CPB, TBR, etc.), these powers can be either a boon or a waste - I've had STFs go bad because some goon who doesn't know his powers TBRed a cluster right out of a gravity well and so far away from each other that it took too long to hunt everything down and blast it. That, and the science damage powers almost require their use on groups...

While I'm thinking of it, double check on if your current skills benefit energy syphon. A polaron build with ES III and maybe the breen or JH set can be quite evil in it's own way, while they're single target abilities, they can be devastating. I so enjoy a glance into the combat logs and seeing handfuls of "tactical cube does 0 damage to your shields with BFaW" after the polarons, energy syphon, and resists do their thing...

Recluse carrier sounds better

Anyone else think these tholian ships just made most of the Fed science ships worthless, if not all of them?

I lucked out and unlocked one this afternoon. I don't have a whole lot of experience in it yet, but...so far, I still prefer my Varanus (max level Gorn science captain). This may change, though, once I figure out what to do with it.

So far, I've used the universal slot for a tactical officer, since a single tac power really is not enough for any tier 5/6 ship, IMHO. That said, four tactical powers are rather difficult to make good use of...so I'm kind of torn here. I could go with a good, tanky Engineering officer, or mix it up for a variety of Engineering and Science heals, for the ultimate healing build (most likely, I think, but not really necessary when the people running in STF's know what they're doing). I could, theoretically, even put another Science officer in there, and end up with nearly every useful science power in the game, but I'd have all kinds of shared-cooldown problems, and probably limited usefulness.

Just not sure yet.

I don't know, I've seen quite a few of the carriers in Arena games and I haven't been too impressed to be honest. Could be people just finding their feet, though.

if I had one, I would use a dual beam on front, with two torpedos (three projectile doffs, with blue ones photon, purple ones quantum), back turrets.
use grav well and tyken (not so good, but if you have a nice little group, it can deal some damage too) often, get tractor beam.