After much testing, Othy, Bubble and I have realized that the following skills literally do nothing in STO.
Power Insulators, it doesn't work vs borg tractor, Target, Charged Particle, Tykens , Siphon Pods, Tachyon Drones, Tetryon Glider and god knows what else. It seems to only work vs Target Subsystem as far as we can tell. Full ranks cut a 56 drain to 27.

Subsystem Repair been broken since launch.

respecced ty for heads up

On the other hand, inertial dampeners DO work... at least we made progress...

Le sigh...

I've suspected as much but I've been too wrapped up Doffing (/shame) to look into it so thank you guys for doing the work.

Eventually I want to test the effectiveness of Tractor Beam on a cloaking Bird of Prey. More often than not I find that while the Tractor Beam engages (graphics extend, cool down begins) the cloak is not canceled.

One theory is that Tractor Beam in some way relies on the Red Alert status to break cloak. Obviously this doesn't effect Battle Cloak. The regular cloak always breaks as soon as Tractor is engaged which is why I wonder if the power relies on the target going to Red Alert. However, since you can decloak a ship that is already cloaked I suspect it may have more to do with something else.

The other theory is that the transition animation, where the ship begins to fade as cloak is engaged, breaks the lock and cancels the effect.

I suspect that this has something to do with it since The Garumba also breaks a Tractor Beam's hold when it transitions.

Otherwise I'm at a loss. Maybe it's lag. Maybe it has something to do with the activation time, speed, or defense rating (Tractor Beam can't technically miss, can it?) Maybe AP:O and Polarize Hull negate the Tractor Beam and allow the cloak to work but I don't know if that's true and also I'm sure that on many occasions where Tractor Beam has failed without either of those skills coming into play.

I find that a ship which is already cloaked can be easily brought out of cloak if they are close enough, or Aux power is low enough, to actually be seen (as an outline since they are in fact cloaked). I think that the way the game displays a cloaking ship versus a cloaked ship might be what is breaking the Tractor lock but I am not certain.

Here is a idea..Lose the TB...then you dont have to worry about it on an escort...right?

I have had cloak engage while I had polarized hull running.. I think it always worked this way. But I honesty don't remember for sure... if not they either changed it on purpose or accident at some point. It is also possibly lag related. I know a time or two I have seen the tractor animation kick in as I was in the 4.8k type range and then cloaked with the tractor on as I broke 5k could be some sort of lag buffer allowing a small amount of play there that can save your bacon.

Your too funny Mikey.... tractor on an escort is fine. I think Steve has figured out how to make one work... I'm sure if you have cruiser related advice he might listen too you.

I thought that it does at least defend against us Tyken's. I guess whomever was using it on me just had a really crappy one.

Thank you for sharing this information!

This makes it even worse that all my HE consoles became Power Insulator consoles.

My test show Power Insulator does work against power drains, in particular target subsystem and the acteon assimilator.