I am sorry for such a newbish question but I am a little confused.

I have a science toon c3 atm and curious if I have to use science ships? or can I grab an escort or a cruiser.

and can somebody kindly explain the usefulness of the three types of ships. the science is ovbious but i am confused as to which is the tank which is the dps and how to outfit them so forth.

Thank you folks.

oh and happy labor day.

You can use any ship you want, your career doesn't matter. It is important to know that a science officer works better with a science vessel, a tactical officer works better with an escort, and an engineer works better with a cruiser. You can mix and match all you like. I have an engineer flying an escort and it works great.

Science vessels and officers are for healing
Escorts and tactical officers are tanks
Cruisers and engineers would be dps

As for outfitting them, that's a loaded question. The simplest answer is to fly your vessel, learn its weaknesses, and try to compensate with equipment. For example, escorts have weak shields so using equipment that boosts shield strength and regeneration is a good idea.

thank you very much for the response. Helped tons

Wait a second. Are you sure you didn't make a typo? I thought that escort is for dps and cruiser for thank not otherway around or have I missed something?

You are right.

Escort = DPS
Cruiser = Tank, and healing.
Science = Buffs/debuffs.

You can put your character in any ship regardless of career. Like for an example, I put my Eng in the Long Range Science Refit, and love it. I can put out about as much DPS as a tac, and can tank pretty well too.

I have also seen in the game with great success a Science character in an Assault Cruiser, and in a Tactical Escort Refit. It just depends on your play style and what you want to accomplish. When you reach VA, you will have 7 respec tokens. You them wisely, but experiment a little. Work out the bugs in one ship, and if you don't really like it, try something else.

Here are a few quick recommendations.

Escort = Use cannons + 1 quantum torpedo. With turrets on your aft.

Cruisers = Use all beam arrays. You will need an EPS flow regulator. If you don't want one, then use 6 beam arrays, and a torpedo fore, and aft.

Science = I use 6 beam arrays, and I think it works great. But a lot of people say to have a torpedo fore, and aft. With a 2 DBB's up front.

This should give you some starting ideas. The big thing is just for you to play the game, try things out, and find what works for you the best.

Whoops, definitely a typo. Thanks for pointing that out.

Personally I think it's best to get away from the tank/heal/DPS concept when you're playing STO. The three classic roles are really fuzzy in STO, especially in space, and unlike a lot of other MMOs that blur the role lines (like having a tank class that sacrifices durability for DPS), the mixed setups aren't marginalized for the sake of challenging the pure setups, and aren't forced to specialize in a single role to be viable.

Honestly, the only combination I couldn't get into was Tac/science. It's not a bad setup (there's a few threads down in the shipyards about making it work), just counter intuitive. I felt like I was working against myself in both directions with it.

Agreed. The ship has the turning radius of an ocean liner... beams are best.

A correct. The EPS Flow Regulators now have absolutely no bearing on Weapon Powerlevel during energy weapon fire. When more then 1 energy weapon is firing, the weapon power drops during the weapon firing cycle. As soon as the firing cycle is over, the power drain by the weapon returns immediately. EPS Flow Regulators only useful for increasing the power transfer rates when changing power setting profiles.


In regards to beam arrays, the sweet spot for damage vs power drain is 6 beams. With more than 6 beams, you start to get diminishing returns on your DPS due to excessive power drain.

In response to the OP, you want to put your skill points into the type of ship that you intend to spend the most time flying. This will provide an increase in the turn rate, acceleration, hull regeneration, etc. of that ship type.