20 seems like a bit much but I think range adjustment would certainly make sense. And rather than make stats vary by weapon types (which will only create lots of headaches and math debates), I'd say just lower range on cannons down from 10k.

Maybe 15km for certain kinds of phasers, 10km for more damage oriented phasers, 8km for cannons. I'd even be willing to suggest 5km for DHC but that would require altering some boss fights where the game penalizes people for not maintaining range and probably designing different kinds of engines that make it so that it's not terribly hard to close distances unless you're being double teamed by two enemies.

I do think damage should carry risk with it and range is a great way to do that, with a few accompanying tweaks. We might disagree on numbers. I'd love to be able to test it though.

Maybe the way to compensate there is to have "Tank" be a designated role with appropriate plot armor buffs, similar to team leader.

Nerfing Escorts via cannons, or buffing Cruisers via beams, would kind of break the game.

If Cruisers did comparable DPS with Escorts, nobody would fly an escort; we'd just be shifting the problem instead of solving it.

Not to diminish the idea, cause something needs to happen, but honestly, high damage attacks are meaningless. There's some guy in my fleet who can tank an elite tactical cube while sitting completely still in his heavy escort carrier (I don't know how he does it, so don't ask me). When my own escort is moving, I have such a high defense number that not much scratches it.

If these big burst attacks are timed or follow any sort of pattern, you could just have your escort tank dump power to engines before the attack or use evasive maneuvers. With the appropriate duty officers, you could do this for every attack.

You'd need some serious reworking of the game's mechanics, enemy AI and power balancing to even consider this approach.

Enrage timers are a really stupid idea because it only ENCOURAGES teams to go 100% DPS to burn down the target as fast as possible.

Additionally, you are going to royally destroy the ability for your PVE Queue groups to do any content unless they go in with a specific loadout the encounter is made for.
That works in other games because they are tailor made for stricter class systems.

STO has a class system that leans far more towards the EVE Style than any of the casual fantasy MMOs which means balancing the various ships and their abilities is almost impossible to do without completely destroying the system entirely.

Either Cryptic comes up with a new ship creation system similar to character creation with people being able to build their own ship exactly how they want with the bonuses they want.
EVE Translation: Tier 3 Ships

OR
Cryptic destroys the entire Tactical / Engineering / Science / Cruiser / Escort seperations and makes them all one skill system like EVE. The ships come with specific abilities and bonuses and thats it. No Boffs, No Doffs. just skills tied directly to the hull or what your player character actually skills into.

I'll happily take both systems but I suspect you wont because it means your pretty snowflake builds will quickly disappear into a single fixed loadout based on what Cryptic decides a specific ship bonus should be.

Oops, Cryptic decided the X ship you paid $20 on is actually a healer ship. Meanwhile Y has become a DPS boat with 20% bonus to beams for another $20. Turns out you liked beams so you just got stuffed twice.

Why are people so confused by the opening post here that they think enrage timers increase the value of DPS even more?

Don't look at the post as two ideas. It's one idea with two parts. You begin by making a damage soaking, defensive style of play a requirement due to mechanics of the encounters. Then, to prevent things from going to the opposite end of the spectrum where defense is king, you add enrage timers which ensures that DPS ships are still required and as just as important.

I'm not necessarily saying I agree that this should happen. I don't particularly enjoy the Tank/DPS/Healer paradigm, but I can see the validity in what's being proposed. From an overall balancing perspective it's easier to go that route (from the beginning at least). I don't enjoy the "we can't go until we have two more 'tanks'" gameplay that it leads to though.

Enrage attacks now? Have you people never fought Donatra or something? This isn't new. When you see that glowing green forming, if you are in front of it, it's time to RUN. DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! HIT YOUR BURNERS, PILOT!