Testimony to this can be found here:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...d.php?t=246230

No problem! Have fun
LOL! Ya, I've seen a few Escorts like this lately.

I think it was last night that I saw an Advanced Escort running the TOS beam arrays

He was doing less damage than science ships...

I would actually recommend against autofire in the Space STFs, as it can cause you to kill your target prematurely. Successful strategies for the Elite space STFs often involve not destroying generators / cubes / gates until you can destroy them all simultaneously, and I've seen more than one Elite run fail the optional because someone had autofire turned on.

Besides, I find that whether autofire is on or not, my finger loves to press the trigger on my joystick, so nothing is lost by turning it off.

The converse however is true: Do arm your cruiser as if it were an Escort. After putting 4x DHC, 4x Turrets on my BC, and judicious use of Aux to Dampers, I find that my cruiser is far more effective now, truly floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee as it were.

Without autofire theres just no way to maintain your DPS.

All you have to do is click elsewhere to stop firing at something with autofire turned on, just as easy as not pressing the spacebar to fire.

I run both a fed fleet escort and a klink bop in normal stf's. All the equipment is borg or very rare mk x or xi except for the crafted ap mags on my fed. Strictly speaking, normals only for now. For my tactical I do run a set up for single target, and aoe, and just rotate between the two. The only attack patterns I run are alpah and beta and the fleet. I have a tractor for holds, i also use the theta console on the klink, but i do use polarize hull. In normals survival is fine.

I give up one rear turret for mines and run dispersal pattern beta 2. When you drop 12 mines on the unshielded borg objects, you can see a significant amount of damage done. There is just so much hull out there begging for kinetic damage. I think considering that most of the hits will be on bare hull, it will out do the damage of one turret. Sometimes you need to drop a present behind you to finish off your last target as your moving on to the next.

and it looks awesome.

i posted this in another forum but anyone know of another way to get the rechargable shield battery other than buying it for 10 million lol

Random drop.

My Fleet Escort:

Forward Weapons: 3x Anti-Proton Dual Heavy Cannons [Borg], 1x Quantum Torpedo [Borg]
Rear Weapons: 3x Anti-Proto Turrets [Borg]

Engineering Consoles:

• Field Generator MK XI (+35% shield capacity)
• Plasma Dist Manifold +Weapon Power
• Impulse Capacitance Cell

Science Consoles:

• Assimilated Module (Borg Console),
• Enhanced Plasma Manifold

Tactical Consoles:

• 4x Antiproton

Devices:

• Subspace Field Modulator
• Red Matter Capacitor

Bridge Officer Skills -

Lt. Commander:

• Tactical: Torpedo Spread 1
• Cannon Rapid Fire 1
• Canon Scatter Volley 2

Commander:

• Tactical: Tactical Team 1
• Canon Scatter Volley 1
• Cannon Rapid Fire 2
• Attack pattern Omega 3

Lt. Science:

• Hazard Emitters 1
• Transfer Shield Strength 2

Lt. Engineering:

• Emergency Power to Shields 1
• Emergency Power to Shields 2

Ensign Engineering:

• Engineering Team 1

Gear:
Full Borg Set, though I may consider the Aegis shield now.

Skills:
Fully spec'ed in energy weapons.
Spec'ed to 9 for all power efficiency or system performance, except for Aux performance which is at 4. I like my ship to have a lot of power.

Power Settings:
Weapon: 85/123
Shield: 60/83
Engines: 25/55
Aux: 30/55

Things I do:

• Since I have two of them I try to keep emergency power to shields up all the time.
• When ever I activate Hazard Emitters or Transfer Shield Strength in the heat of battle I always fire the Red Matter Cap or the Enhanced Plasma Manifold. I found that having more power gave more bang for the buck than wasting skill points on science skills or using science consoles. Plus the Red Matter Cap gives a boost to all systems which helps with weapons, shield regeneration, and engine performance so the boost effects everything. The enhanced just gives you the shield power but it helps.
• TSS and HE help keep the IKS Kang up to health requirements as well as you can buff the Kang instead of yourself.
• Impulse capacitance cell is really handy in the STFs. It allows you to quickly jump in and help someone fight off probes, nanites, or protect the Kang. IN the fight I keep an eye on whats going on and mash the impulse capacitance cell to get over there quickly and help out.
  
  I have actually used the capacitance cell and Evasive maneuvers to handle probe duty on both sides of Khitomer at the same time solo.

And one last thing..... the biggest thing of all.... the "secret". DON'T SHOOT EVERYTHING THAT MOVES!
Shoot the things you are supposed to in the order you are supposed to shoot and don't attract agro.

Cure: Don't shoot the cube, Don't shoot the cube, Don't shoot the cube.
Kill everything else, then light the cube.

Infected/Khitomer: Don't shoot the gate, Don't shoot the gate, Don't shoot the gate,
Kill everything else, then light the gate.

I handle the objectives in the order they are supposed to be handled and walk around STF's like a Boss. Rarely get blown up unless the PUG it not organized. For example in cure... everyone goes for the cube on the right except for 2 ships that go for the cube in the center..... stupid stuff like that.

I stay out of range of the Gate in KA and Infected, but I don't mind hitting the cube in Cure cause its easy to tank.

I usually tank everything actually on normal and do just fine. Elite I'm more choosy about targets of course, but still don't worry if I pull agro on something extra, there are ways to loose Line-of-Site on the maps that can save your butt.

hmm I am also trying now a few builds with my fleet escort, cause I want to run elites now.

What I wonder is why you guys still use so low weapon power, afaik overshot is still there, aka you still can have more then 125 weapon power, its just not displayed.

I run

125/100 (running a real 137)
68/40
63/35
56/25

When you ask how this is possible:

Warp core Efficiency 9
Warp core potential 9
Shield Performance 9
Engine Performance 6
Auxiliary Performance 9
Weapon Performance 4

Also:
1 Preorder Borg Boff
1 tac saurian
1 sci saurian
1 Human F2P test reward tac
1 normal engi boff.. maybe gona save some money for another saurian

and also my cap is a
joined trill

and of course full borg set (ran aegis but borg is better vs borg :p) (also full MK XI borg weapon gear)

This was/is a SCI sship heavy build geared for maximum potential Aux power but also staying at 100 weapon power on a recon sci vessel, also turned out to be nice power settings for a escort.

Now I am experimenting with a few officer builds and weapon load outs.

I ran a build with DBA and BO3 which did some nice damage -> 10-13k non crit, also vaporized one shield facing of most ships (beside tac cubes and bosses) in one hit.

The tac officers had
BO3, TT1, HYT2, SCV1, CRF 2, ATO 3, TS1


Now I want to try a cannon heavy build... normally I prefer the normal dual cannons because they fire more often and with the skills running you can fire more often, but reading of how people get 5k crits its worth a try...

But I run into some CD problems... I dont see a rason right now to have more then 2 cannon skills as they have 30s recharge and 15s global cool down, I can cycle between those 2 quite nicely

So all those build with more then 2 cannon skills arnt rally my cup of coffee I know that the different level are there for what is more appropriate, but personally I would run with CRF 2 and CSV1 and then alternate in between leaving the option for TS3 and maybe something THY...

need to epxeriment a bit.. atill ahve 18 rare borg salbage left so I can afford a bit to experiment... only thing that will get expensive is teh TS3... :p