This thread? Or this one? Or this one?

Yeah.

Advanced Escort is OK, but the Fleet (now renamed "Patrol") Escort, or an Armitage if you have one, is probably going to be a better option for you. Mainly due to the extra Engineering slot for a second copy of EPTS (Or Aux2Bat1). The Armitage technically has the highest potential for damage out of all Federation Escorts in PVE (even moreso than the Bug) due to the fighter bay.

Forget the Hilbert Guide, it's debatably OK advice for PVP but those setups are underoptimised for PVE in general and STFs in particular.

If you're thinking of going Escort in PVE, a good start would be to lean towards spike AoE damage, e.g.:

Tac Com: TT1, CSV1, TS3, APB3
Tac LtCom: TT1, CRF1, APO1
Eng LT: EPTS1, Aux2SIF1
Eng Ens: EPTS1
Sci LT: HE1, TSS2

And bring a Vent Theta Radiation Console with you for a "free" Eject Warp Plasma.

Weapon type should be: Antiprotons (best for you) or Disruptors (best for your team) or Phasers (only if using the Quad Cannon). You'll want at least one Fore Quantum launcher for TS3, though ideally I'll take 2 [Borg] Quantum Launchers with a few Projectile DOFFs along for STFs and 1 Launcher for Fleet missions.

There are other setups - the 4xDHC one lacks a bit of hull damage (notably spike damage) but makes up for it somewhat in shield stripping ability. Or you can run a few Tricobalt Mines in the rear for maximum Hull Spike damage, but they're far more situational and are best used when combined with Tactical Captain Buffs.

Havam is correct that you don't "need" a cruiser to tank in PVE. It might make it easier, but it's perfectly workable to stick an Engineer in a Fleet Escort and tank Elite STF Tac Cubes or Gateways, whilst retaining the ability to to severe amounts of damage against other weaker targets. I do it regularly.

Don't see this as a push to get you in an Escort though - Cruisers can work too, it's just that "more DPS" is generally seen as more desirable than "more survivability".

If you are seriously only looking to build an Assault Cruiser for PVE, than perhaps you would really enjoy the build I?m about to share with you. HERE It will dish out DPS like you have not seen in a long time in your Cruiser and this build is completely viable for an Engineering Captain.

Additional Details: If you want to play this build properly, you will need three Very Rare Technician Duty Officers and two very rare projectile Duty Officers in your Active Space roster.

Technician: Linked Here!
Projectile Officer: Lined Here!

I would also very highly recommend that you create a key bind that will first Re-distribute your shields, second, activate EPTSII, third activate EPTW and fourth activate Auxiliary battery. I also recommend the below weapon load out as I found that it is Trekish.

Note: Once Aux-Bat is activeated. Your EPTSII might laps in coverage. Just use Rotate Shield Frequency if you start to take too much damage.

Fore Weapon Slots:
Phaser Beam Array MKXII [ACCx2] [CrtD]
Phaser Beam Array MKXII [ACCx2] [CrtD]
Photon Torpedo Launcher [ACCx2] {CrtD]
Photon Torpedo Launcher [ACCx2] {CrtD]
Aft Weapon Slots:
4x Phaser Turret MKXII [ACCx2] [CrtD]

So how to play this build? Well, basically you want to place BO-I, CRF-I, DEM-III and TT-I all on active as EPTW-I activates. Then let loose your weapons on your target. If you setup the key-bind in the order that I recommended, your weapon power should only dip for a second. You can use EPS whenever you feel you need more power or Nadeon Inversion during your Alpha Attack as well. Just make sure you place as much of your attack active abilities on cool-down as you can before your Aux-battery activates because once it activates, all of your cool-down timers will be reduced by 30%. In a pinch, use photonic officer to increase this even further! Some will say that Photonic Officer is a wasted Bridge Officer slot, but that 30% cool down next time around will help recharge Phonotic Officer as well as Photonic Officer will help with all of your cool-down abilities, even Aux-battery. So it is a cycle in that regard.

So if you play this build correctly, it will play as if you really had two copies of all of your abilities. Thus, BO, CRF, TT, EPTS and EPTW will all have great uptime. Even your limited heals will have good uptime!!!

BTW, if you need key binding help, I can write a key bind for you and all you will have to do is put the abilities into the trey as instructed.

So just have fun! Remember to keep your bow on target because those torpedos will be on semi-automatic mode lol! I just have them autofire! That is all.

EDIT: Oh I almost forgot about Consoles:
Science you put field generators
Tactical you put Phaser Emitter relays, I think that is what they are… anyway, something to beef up phaser damage.
Engineering, at least two armor consoles, a Borg Console and whatever you want. RCS might be nice in PVE.
I had run this build with 3 piece borg and MACO shield. But, you can do 4 piece borg and get a free tractor beam if you wish.

Thank you all for the nice input. I guess i now have a good basis if i should choose an escort.

Now this cruiser setup sounds really nice...and a bit more complicated as well.
Its also the first time i have seen something similar and one question remains: would it not be better to use beam banks instead of arrays here?

I have to check how many respecs i have left and may be visiting the testserver should i still have access to it (last time was 2 years ago...heh).

If possible i will be testing both options and see which one i like more. Since you used this setup i guess it works just fine...

Edit: One problem i can clearly see is that both, choosing an escort or preparing this kind of setup will take some time until i have all the equipment etc. ready. Maybe in the end it will just come down to cost...

There are four problems with Aux2Bat builds:

(i) They use up at least two DOFF slots (often three) for Technicians.

(ii) The cooldown reduction is applied once as a "spike", not constantly for N seconds. This means that if you activate an ability with a shorter cooldown (TT1, for example) then use Aux2Bat, there will be a lag time until you can use Aux2Bat again to reduce its cooldown a second time. Basically, stuff like Tac Team will be up for 30 seconds (TT1>Aux2Bat>TT1), then down for ~15 seconds.

(iii) Aux Power is reduced drastically whlist Aux2Bat is in effect. Your levels drop to 5, or sometimes to 0. Whilst this is handy for certain powers (damage from TBR, etc) it will cripple the effect of many healing powers such as Aux2SIF, HE1 or TSS2 for approx 10 seconds out of every 30 (a third of the time!).

(iv) Aux2Bat shares a cooldown with EPTX. You can run 2xEPTW and 2xEPTS normally and maintain full uptime on them all, but you can't achieve the equivalent of that with Aux2Bat. Its effectiveness on a Cruiser is therefore somewhat limited.

That said, there are certainly places to use Aux2Bat. Reducing Tactical Power Recharge is a good one, it's very handy on an Escort (I've an Armitage build that makes great use of it to increase APB3 uptime!) but Aux2Bat1 will work just as well as Aux2Bat2, etc.

I'm not going to argue with that, but the build I shared does work rather well for PVE. In PVP people can easily take advantage of low points in EPTS uptime as you said. However, this is just a PVE build that will allow the player more up-time with his very limited offensive skills while maintaining a reasonable uptime on heals and things like that. One will of course have to pay attention to Aux power level before using HE in this build... but meh, it is PVE and really, with an Engineer at the helm healing isn't really going to be an issue.

Yes, you can use DBB rather than Beam Arrays. The Spike damage with BO is more. I just like Beam Arrays better.

I'd agree for a DPS build.

However the OP stated they wanted to "tank".

The problem is that at endgame PVE for tanking stuff like Donatra, Gateways and Elite Tac Cubes: against these foes, even a large-hulled Cruiser with lots of Armor Consoles will be dead fairly quickly without shields (unless you're exploiting weapon arc blindspots) and Tac Team is the best means of keeping your shield facing up under fire.

Aux2Bat negatively affects survivability: reduced healing potential, and reduced Tac Team Coverage (unless you still take two copies of TT1, like I do on my Engineer's Armitage, and even then sometimes the reduced healing potential is too much of a hindrance) might be too much for a tank (either Cruiser or Escort) to handle.

Basically, in my experience there's not a huge amount of survivability difference in a Cruiser and an Escort, properly flown by an Engineer in STFs. You can "tank" on either, though the Escort will have a greater potential to inflict damage. But if you dispense with Tac Team and make your heals half as effective as usual, then you will likely start to struggle on either ship.

If the OP wants to stay in a Cruiser, I'd suggest a more conventional build in either an Assault Refit, a Tac Ody or an Excelsior.

Don't sweat the costs. Just get the highest Mk whites you can get off the exchange. They'll do fine until you can get better gear. There are story missions you can replay to get cannons, but they're only Duals, not Dual Heavies (except for the Plasma-Disruptor hybrids from Past Imperfect). No missions give turrets.

This.

A List of rewards can be found at http://www.stowiki.org/Episode_replay

Once you start doing Elite STFs, you'll soon build up more Borg Techs than you know what to do with, and can convert them to Weapons at the DS9 vendor...

Eng in a cruiser works fine. It won't be a gunship but you put dual EPTW1 and dual EPTS2 or 3 on it and you can get the job done, even on elite, and have some excellent heals for your teammates besides. Don't have to switch to escorts unless you specifically want to. Besides, there's a certain satisfaction that comes when the lethal bigbads unload on you, and you just shrug it off and keep blasting away.