Would dropping down your shields to 50 be better than 55? AFAIK, the efficiency boost makes it such that you get a better (or nearly as high of a) power setting when you have it at 50. And if not, then you actually get less than an actual +5 bonus due to a loss of efficiency bonus. But that just might be my build and skills.

Interesting. I'll have to give it a shot. I know I always have to have at least 2 heals since I'm horrible at timing them and either end up overhealing or waiting too long heh.

Single cannons mind you.. Every ship can mount those.. Of the Cruiser family, only Battlecruisers and the GalX can use DC/DHCs, and I wouldnt recommend that, unless youre extremely skilled at evasive-reversing

And the abomination called the "Galaxy X"

Thanks! Single cannons still out dps beams, right?

From what i have seen the XI purples or even blues are equal or better still.

Yes Cannons have a higher DPS vs Beam Array's, but Arrays have 270° firing arc and Canons only have 180° arc.

That is why you broadside with Array's and go bow first with Cannons, with rear turrets backing you up for max 180° dps.

So I played around with this idea a couple days ago...put 4 single cannons, 3 turrets and a peng on a Sovereign. It was just for fun, and by no means a serious build, but here's what I found out: DEM really is as effective as they says it is with cannons, the proc rate with cannons is incredible, and cannons do indeed slightly out damage beams when you can get all the weapons on the target. So, all the stuff we know is true.

I used plasma, and ships caught fire just about every time I fired on them. However...the plasma proc is so weak that at this time, its completely not worth the extra points. The only thing I felt was lacking was a forward torpedo...I miss having that quantum punch in my forward arc.

I'm on my phone at the moment, so I can't get to a DPS calculator. But at 125 weapon power, what difference would there be between running 3 forward cannons and a fore torpedo with aft turrets, 4 cannons and 3 turrets + aft torp, and e cannons and turrets with a torpedo fore and aft?

Shh, it doesn't exist.

Doing this in a cruiser, it's useful to have at least one copy of Aux2ID and at least on Klingon Cruisers, the RCS console, it needs a "little" to work with in the first place or it's not much use though.

I'm really intrested in how this build would be on a Galaxy R, since seperated that'll even out turn the 'celsior. The key word there is "seperted" however. I love my Excelsior as well though, I'll report back my findings soonish.

i have my klingon engineer back in the vorcha using cannons, and due to the crippling 135 ceiling im forced to use a torp or 2, draining down below 80 is just too much. But it’s going pretty well, since i am always pointing forward with 4 turrets in back.

in arena matches im using 2 dual cannons and 2 photon torps up front, and 4 turrets in back. in cap and holds i switch to single cannons up front, since i am often alone at a cap location. Getting ambushed by an escort 1v1 is a likely occurrence here, and when a cruiser duals an escort the firing arc maters more than the damage output, your not going to out maneuver an escort.

firing a photon every 3 seconds is kind of comical, and can be kind of useful if i can get my opponents shields beaten down enough. its looking like a 3rd dual or single cannon is probably better overall though, but i still testing and swapping around.

Since i lucked out and this character got aux to struc III, i use 2 copies of DEM II, otherwise i would use DEM III and II. That helps damage a bit, but its certainly no replacement for the old EPtW III days.

also, one of you out there was flying an excelsior with a full single cannon and turret Antiproton loadout and was clearly using at least DEM the whole time. it was eating my hull for lunch, it was ridiculous! i was half dead and still had 75% of my shields left. Somehow all those criticals were directly hitting my hull or something, i was only doing 1/10 the hull damage back with my disruptors. i though DEM just added a base number of hull damage for every single hit, that’s why rapid fire cannons work so well with DEM. it seemed that all the tactical captain damage buffs, APB, and critical hits all enhance that supposed base damage value. im never going to figure out how DEM works