I've really tried to like them, I have, but they're next to useless against decent escorts.

On the otherhand, with eight beams I can quickly reduce an escort to ashes, thanks to the near constant firepower. Even the drain isn't much of an issue, simply due to non-stop assault on the targets shields.

Doubly so against BoP's, since they can decloak anywhere and chances are they'll be in the firing arc of all 8 beams.

Am I doing something wrong? With the 8-beam set up I'm usually doing the most damage and getting most kills in a PvP match.

Experiment with your damage vs drain numbers.

Supposedly, going past 6 beams on a ship causes you to start hitting reduced damage due to combined weapon energy drain.

That having been said, I've had good luck in the past using torps on my cruiser against all manor of enemy ships, including BoPs.

Mind you, I use an assault cruiser. The Refit exploration cruiser may be just that much too slow to benefit from how I play. That ship requires very different tactics than what I use.

The Galaxy-R is more for assault then assault cruiser because of it's huge turn, speed, and + weapon power bonuses.

It is very good in PvP especially if you plan on using a power hungry beam build.

A lot easier to avoid enemy firing arcs and plasmas too.


That being said the fact you can't full impulse atm really sucks badly almost to the point where you'll want to go back to a Sovereign until it's fixed.


Cruisers should be able to fire torpedoes at least 180 deg. The fact that isn't allowed is the reason why most offensive Cruiser captains have dropped torpedoes altogether.


Also remember BURST damage is KING in PVP not "OMFG I'M #1 ON THE SCOREBOARD!".

You can actually be top damage on the scoreboard and have no real usefulness in PvP.

Sustained damage is easily ignored, healed, or even avoided by just running away if you're getting too low.


*BURST DAMAGE* is king in PvP which is where Torpedoes *can* shine.

The scoreboard is pretty meaningless honestly. Its best that you realize that and understand why.

The best way to illustrate this is to consider a 1 on 1 between two cruisers. They can fight each other from the start of a salvage map to the end and would easily hit top damage and healing. But they aren't going to kill each other. So were they MVPs for their teams? Clearly not.

Look at it another way, with beams you may be able to rack up 100k damage before you get a kill. With torpedoes you may only get 50k, but you still get a kill.

Of course its not easy to use torpedoes on a cruiser, but torpedoes are the nails in the coffin, as it were.

Hmm i like torpedoes, always had. Currectly 2 photon tubes front of my galaxy-R

A forward torp + an aft torp + HYT, you'll always get a chance to use them in your cruiser. Torps are only useless on cruisers if you only have a single mount.

Your potential burst with 8 beams is pretty good, but only with nadion inversion and weapons batteries... otherwise the drain is too killer.

You PvE'r you !

******** ! you pve much more than me !

i think you would do better with 6 beam arrays, but what i would do is put a DDB in the front to nuke as much as you can in the forward ark and i would put a tricobalt torp launcher in the rear for a major shot in someones face. and you will still be able to put out a great broadside.

this way you have major dmg in front, behind, and broadside. = win win win

the point of this build is go in blazing then broadside and if someone get s in the front or back of ya you still will put major pressure on them

Broadside is fine, but enemies with clue will try to get behind you ! Thats why aft HYT is important !