Hi all, first sorry for my English, I use the translator.
I wonder if you can guide me about the kinds of weapons to the STF Elite and ARENA.
Today I'm going with Tetryon but I'd like a more powerful alternative, and the truth I'm a little confused ..

Thanks for your help.

First things first:

Whats your profession?

what ship are you commanding? Escort? Cruiser? Science Vessel? A big fish?

OK sorry, Im Tactics and my ships is a Tactical Escort Retrofit.

Ideally as an Escort Captain you may want to go all Cannons and Turrets with one Torpedo of your choice. (I recommend Quantums due to their punch, but thats my preference speaking)

Some swear by photons due to their fast reload, though they are less powerful than quantums.

Consider some things when selecting weapons:

A) Though not a huge factor, but if your toon has the Accuracy trait it gives a very small bonus to that department. Especially since you are a Tact, which means you ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK

B) Use weapons that give more Accuracy with a combination of Crit Chance and dmg

C) why accuracy you say? because its pointless as a Tact to have very low accuracy and are not able to hit anything. :p

Now to Cannons 101:

You have Dual Heavy's, You have dual cannons, and then single cannons

Choose your teeth wisely: for forward weaponry setup, you have to choose your role - want to excel in BURST damage - go heavy - want to excel in steady damage output -> go dual cannons

(What is Burst Damage you say - Think of it as a drive by while blasting away with a heavy punch, but leaving you very drained afterwards due to wep cool downs - Its your typical Hit & Run tactic / Though all escorts should use Hit & Run tactics regardless of role)

Toss single cannons out, since they're somewhat pointless for a tactical escort - those are mainly used by cruisers. (Though if I'm not mistaken the single cannons have the fastest rate of fire / I might be wrong though - so if someone can confirm this I appreciate it -Not ingame at the moment)


One thing you must consider when piloting an escort is your energy drain - be mindful of that.

Most popular types of weaponry are:

Antiproton - Great against the Borg

Phasers - for their random knock out chance of shields and other subsystems (happens very very rarily)

Disruptors - My personal favorites (I like the bleed through)

Tetryons - ( Not to fond of these, but some folks swear by them - mainly used in PvP)

Polarons - ( The Phaser class BIG brother - -25 energy to all sub systems / RANDOM) when you fight the Breen you'll see.

Plasma - (Don't use against the Borg / they aren't horrible just not Borg material - They do have the cool stacking effect if you're lucky. That is the fire damage they cause stack on each other - unless the Dev changed that)

ok, I'll take note of your advice.
I'm used to wearing Tetryon, 3 double beam bank MX XII + Quantum Torpedo MK XII on the front and back 2 Beam Array Mk XII + Quantum MK XII too.
And it feels good, but I feel I need a little more power.
What is your advice to change the type of weapon?

^^ yeah, what Black said.

All Beams is very bad due to their enormous amount of energy drain, especially considering the fact that your profession is a Tact and not an Engineer. If you were an engineer in, lets say a Tactical Fleet escort, the burden may not be as bad - especially with the awesome skills the engineer class have.

I recommend switching weapon types from beams to cannons - If you are having trouble with energy on a consistant basis - equip a console that will assist with your energy output (also consider using Batteries that will help with energy)

There might be some folks in this forum that run a Tactcial escort Beam hybrid that works for them - They can point you to the right direction in that department.

Just consider the fact as a Tactical Profession commanding an Escort - Think "Offense" - Your offense is in fact your best defense - and if you use hit and run tactics you'll be more effective.

A) Change weapon type to cannons - to be the most effective - You can be a hybrid but you need to experiment with it to make it work.

B) I recommend owning different weapon sets and shields (You never know who you may encounter in PvP or what wep they are using)

C) Use the same weapons, though rainbows are very nice - the specialized weapon consoles for that particular weapon class and types give you more bang than the generalized generic type tactical consoles

(Rainbow - as in using different brand type weapons on your ship - example: using a polaron cannon, disruptor cannon, and antiproton cannon at the same time)

Thank you very much for your advice, I will take note of this and begin to try guns, sure I'll be pretty good too.

thank you very much for your advice ...

You're welcome mate, glad I could help

I run escorts with a real mix of weapons up front, so i'll tell you my loadout in case you want to give it a try too. I've found its VERY effective in PvE (cant speak for PvP as i dont play it, but i suspect it'd work until someone works out a counter for it)


At admiral level i load at front

DUAL HEAVY CANNON (or QUAD CANNON if you have them)/DUAL CANNON/TORPEDO/BEAM

in the rear i use

TURRET/TURRET/BEAM

with the cannon rapid fire skills this can give you a impressive alpha strike, often taking down a shield section in the time it takes to close from 8km to 1km at max combat impulse, i then launch my torps (preferably with high yeild skill as well) and pull away to circle to bring my cannons back into firing range.

thats where the beams come in handy, because of their larger firing arc, in combination with the turrets, they can keep a shield section low, or even down as i turn around for a second run with the cannons.

the alpha strike like this can quite often take out a frigate level ship in one run, escorts in 2-3 runs, sci in 3-4 runs and cruisers/dreadnaughts in 4. IF and only IF the opposing ship cant balance its shields quickly enough.

another benefit is while the cannons are not firing the drain from the beams/turrets is low enough to allow you to build up to almost full weapons power again, so each following run has almost the same impact, with the benefit of keeping the shields lower than turrets alone. its also effective in dealing with small craft like fighters where its hard to bring cannons to bear on them, as the beams have more punch than turrets too.

as for types, i prefer phasers simply because I use the special blue-beam banks from the TOS enterprise ship you can get from the store to start with, which level with you so it saves me money in buying upgrades each rank the chance to disable a subsystem fires fairly often, taking out one of the four systems too.

I suspect many will disagree with this method, or not approve of it, but i find it very effective. if you think it'll suit you please do give it a try, i'd be interested to see how it works in PvP, how people would counter it..