Hi peeps,

Well it's time for my annual, "lets play STO for a day or two" and I would like some advice from those people that I haven't managed to pi.. off with my usual "I hate Cryptic dogma"

So, here's the thing.

I want my Retro fit Defiant to look and sound like the TV version.

I have managed to find £8 squid in pennies that I am going to add to my pay pal account and then (I cannot believe I am going to do this), buy me the Sau Paulo.

So, I get my Sau P, take out the cannons and then add them my Retro.

Keeping in mind I want the TV look, what do I add to it? Quantum torpedoes and ?. I don't want to add any other weapons if it effects the look, but can use Torps no?

I will not be PVP, just PVE, so I know I will be gimping myself if I don't add other weapons, but what consoles should I add and skills that will at least enhance the cannons.

Sorry, but I haven't played in a long, long time, so I have forgotten everything. I don't even know how the DOFF system works, so I will probably have to look up how that works too!!!

So, any help you can give, would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

If you want to make it look and sound like the TV show I wouldn't bother with the Sau Paulo. I got it and pulled the quad cannon out almost immediately.

If I recall correctly the defiant had 2 forward phaser cannons, a phaser beam bank, and photon torpedo forward with a photon torpedo launcher firing aft. So I would go with 2 Phaser DHCs, 1 Phaser DBB, 1 photon torpedo launcher forward and 1 torpedo launcher aft. I don't think the Defiant ever had quantum torpedos.

For consoles I wouldn't bother with a torpedo console. The phaser console is the Phaser Relay and they do stack. For DOFFs get at least two, if not three, Projectile Weapons Officers.

As long as you're just doing PvE story content you'll be fine.

Optimum weapons layout for a Defiant is:

Fore: 3 x Dual Heavy Cannon, 1 x Torpedo Launcher / 1 x Dual Beam Bank
Aft: 3 x Turret

All using the same energy type. That said, even with phasers it won't look quite right. The DHCs in particular fire much larger bolts than the series Defiant's cannons. That said, I think you should consider trying that with Common phaser equipment (so you don't spend loads of money until you're sure if you want it or not) and see what it looks like, because it is pretty much the heaviest DPS loadout you can have.

If you decide you're okay with this build, then get 4 Phaser Relays (or the appropriate console for whatever energy type you're using) for you Tactical consoles. Get 2x Field Gen for your Science consoles, put your Cloak in an Engineering slot. For the other two Engineering slots, I used the Borg Console and an EPS Flow Regulator. You could use some form of armor console either. The one with a universal energy and kenetic resist, I think it's called Monotanium, but I'm not sure.

If you're not happy without how it looks, then you could try try:

Fore: 1 x Quad Phaser Cannon, 2 x Dual Phaser Beam Bank, 1 x Quantum Torpedo Launcher (you could put 2 Quantums and 1 DBB, either)
Aft: 2 x Phaser Beam Array, 1 x Quantum Torpedo Launcher.

That would look more "canon". You'll have 2 or 3 Torps it might be worth dropping a Phaser Relay for a Zero Point Quantum Energy console, I'm not 100% sure of the maths on it. Keep the other consoles the same.

Do bear in mind you'll be giving away a fair bit of damage with this build and you might cop some abuse if you bring it with you on an Elite STF.

It did. They were smaller than the ones the Enterprise-E fired though, and they were fired in pairs.

EDIT: Skills.

My space skills are:
Attack Patterns (increases the effectiveness of Attack Pattern Skills)
Weapons Training (increased damage)
Energy Weapons (increased energy weapon damage)
Projectile Weapons (ditto for torps & mines)
Targeting Systems (increases accuracy)
Manouvres (increases the likelyhood of enemy ships missing you)
Energy Weapons Specialisation (increased crit damage and chance from energy weapons)
Projectile Weapons (ditto for mines and torps)
Structural Integrity (gives your hull more hit points)
Warp Core Potential (increases all subsystem power-levels)
Electro Plasma Systems (increases rate of power transfer between subsystems, useful when decloaking)
Impulse Thrusters (increases speed and turn-rate)
Hull Plating (increases resistance to energy damage)
Shield Performance (increases shield subsystem power)
Armor Reinforcements (increases resistance to kenetic damage)
Weapons Performance (increases weapons subsystem power)
Shield Systems (increases shield HP)

Hey guys, thanks for responding.

Will take it on board and give it a shot.

Thanks again.

If it was to be like the TV show, I'd think:
Fore: Quad Cannons, beam array, quantum, and photon
Aft: beam array, beam array, photon

And don't forget to put the Ablative Armor in there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Defiant
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Defiant_class

Cheers bud. I'm going to try all these to try and get that "canon" Defiant look.

The Defiant had dual Quantum torpedo launchers, as well as quad cannons. It had a foward beam array. Here are pics of its weapons.
http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/..._torpedoes.jpg
http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/...er_cannons.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...radiselost.jpg

The beam array was a 360 degree firing arc array mounted near the bridge. Since that doesn't really exist, you'd have to go for the forward and aft beam arrays.

Forward:
Quad Cannon
Phaser Beam Array
Quantum Torpedo Launcher
Quantum Torpedo Launcher

Aft:
Phaser Beam Array
Photon Torpedo Launcher
Photon Torpedo Launcher

This is about as close as you're going to get. 100% canon would be to only use 1 photon launcher aft, because it only had a single launcher. But that'd be silly in STO.

For even more of a canon feel, make sure to have a tractor beam and the cloak equipped.

Thanks for digging those up. I couldn't find them when I first posted, but I didn't really have time to look.

Sweet!

Thanks Pal.

And thanks again to all.