I can't figure out why, as I've seen people with similar setups get 3-5k DPS more but I can't figure out where the problem lies. Is it my weapons? My equipment? My Boffs? No idea. Here's my setup.

Flying: JHEC. I love this ship completely. Heavy Eng stations makes for a perfect Aux2Batt + Technician setup which gives me monstrously low cooldown times along with high power levels to combat power drain. Aux2batt makes RSP worthwhile, because the cooldown ends up being reduced to only 60s give or take!

I was chatting to a guy with a similar setup after we ran a few STFs and I was parsing him at 13-15k per run. I'm wondering why I can't get near that, is it just pilot error? I'll admit aux2batt has taken some getting used to using effectively!


Weapons:
Antiprotons (Maxed energy weapon crit skills)
Fore = 4 DHCs (Fleet [dmg]x3[acc])
Aft = 2 Turrets, 1 Kinetic cutting beam

Equipment:

Maco XII set

Consoles:

Eng: Monotanium XII (purple), Tachyokinetic, Borg, Zero-point Romulan.
Sci: Field generator x2
Tac: 4x Relays XI (blue)

Doffs:

3x purple technician (30% reduction in cooldowns when using aux2batt)
2x purple conn officer (16s reduction for TT plus big buff to attack patterns)

Boffs

Commander Tac: TT1 , Beta 1 , Scatter Volley 2, Omega 3

LT. Com Eng: EPTW1, Aux2Batt 1, DEM2
Lie. Eng: EPTS1, Aux2Batt 1
Lie. Eng: ET1, RSP2

Ens. Sci: HE1

Try a run without the cutting beam using a turret instead. It uses the beam firing cycle which could be gimping your DHCs to less power than they should.

Try getting the system engineer doff that gives weapon power drain resist when using DEM.

Romulan +Crit boff is nice.

Lastly make sure you get close to your targets when possible.

KCB instead of a turret is a good thing imo, esp. on an escort (on the vesta it is something to think about due to the lower fore weapon punch). it gives you around the same dps as a turret (in my tests I was using SCV so while the turrets hit three targets, the kcb hit one, and it dealt the same dps in the end), and gives a minor boost occasionally..

crit boffs might be nice, tho you can reach 10k without them

flying close... heck yeah especially with a carrier. just put them fighters on intercept, and spam the scv no way you gonna get hit by a high yield (and even if hit, aux to bat makes sure you are running a defensive buff anyway)

also OP, try to always target multiple things with your scv (possible targets that can be hurt, so its not just random dps). use the elite scorpion fighters in your hangar, and try to run them on attack my target mode, unless you are attacked by something that shoots high yield (if you run APB you gonna get 2k+ dps from them, and if you change to disruptors they should give you around 3k)

get the doff that gives you 10% dmg against borg instead of the doffs that buff TT (tho they are good enough too)

there is no reason why you should not deal around 8-10k if you are a tac (well if you are a tac you really should deal 12-3k overall dps, with loads higher burst dps)

The other player may have been running a Plasma build, with the Romulan weapon set bonus and the embassy consoles. He may have also been using a Polaron build boosted by the Jem Hadar set. Another thing you could do is check your critical hit rate since you are using Antiproton, and make sure you have maxed the necessary skill and chosen the right rep passives. You might also raise your EptW1 to a 3, as I don't usually get much out of DEM unless using the DEM doff.

At the end of the day your performance revolves around your spike and alpha strike damage, and a parse over a longer period of time will probably give misleading results.

Commander Tac: TT1 , scatter 1 , torpedo Spread 3, beta 3
drop them, they are useless in an aux2bat doff setup
in stf you should use a special warfare guy (don't know the exact class) with 10% bonus damage on borg in space, or at least a dem doff.
add a projectile doff

drop one dhc and use the romulan plasma torpedo, at least the omega plasma torpedo (both available though your reputation system)

if available, use the rule 62 multipurpose combat console

1) The KCB might have a beam firing cycle, but that's where the similarity ends (the damage is more like a 360 degree dual beam bank.)

2) The KCB is generally significantly better than any single turret in PvE, even with CRF - it also shines in STFs with all that bare hull.

3) The KCB + Console (or Torp) 2 piece set proc is generally frequent enough to counteract any "gimping" that might occur (and in my experience there is nothing that could be construed as gimping).

10k dps in what? Not all stfs parse the same.

10k dps ? well against borg hulls, 2x photon launcher, 4x photon console, 3x torpedo doffs, APB3 + HYT3, pew pew pew. And that's while you are AFk

there is around 1-2k difference between them. ise is highest, then cse then kase. the difference does matter, but if you are doing 10k in ise, you wont be doing much less in cse if you know your stuff

with 3 purple torp doffs quantum is better. also it is too circumstantial as against shields you wont be that effective. plus TS3 is better than HY3

Not really, in order to spit torpedo every second you would have to proc 2x on single launcher. which is very unlikely for quantums, but you can pray..maybe it helps. We are talking DPS here, not spikes. every missed quantum, would reduce DPS and there is not that high difference between mk XII quantums and photons.

Also, there is not likely to be many targets without shields to take advantage of spread. I was talking purely for taking out gates, and such. AFK at 10Km, just shoot torps, 10k dps (you can do more with buffs), problem solved.