DPS-Boat (part I)

Guide (part I) How to build a DPS beam boat:

(Copyright @maverick8711 and DPS-League Channels)

 

This first part of the guide is a manual for absolute DPS-newbies, a few parts of the keybinds are not optimal for real high-dpsing however they will ease up adapting to all the changes regarding your built massively!

In the second part you will be told how to improve and optimize the keybind your own, such as be shown another weapon configuration.

 

1) WEAPONS:

For a universal pve high dps beam boat we only use single beam weapons of !!!THE SAME!!! damage type! (Antiproton, Polaron or whatever…)

The only exception of that is the Kinetic Cutting Beam in combination with the Assimilated Module (Omega reputation).

More important than using an expensive high end weapon type like Antiproton, Elachi disruptors or phased Biomatter weapons is using weapons with the right modifiers!

You should make sure, that your weapons have the [Pen] modifier. All combination of [CrtD]/[DMG] + [Pen] are good. The differences between them are pretty small. For more Informations check out Hellspawny’s Weapon Damage Calculator.
Checking the exchange you will find out the [CrtD]x3 and [DMG]x3 are the most expensive weapons!

For DPS beam boats avoid [Acc] modificators as good as possible as they are wasted modificators in this kind of build!

 

2) CONSOLES:

 

It should be unnecessary to mention that all tactical console slots should be filled with tac consoles of the weapon type u are using…

(Your goal should be geting the tactical fleet consoles from spire: [Console – Tactical – Vulnerability Locator Mk XIV [+”Damage Type or Weapon Type”])

 

More indespicable consoles to get the maximum out of your DPS-built are the embassy science consoles:

([Console – Science – Plasma-Generating Weapon Signature Nullifier Mk XIV [EPG or PrtG]])

Those consoles add an icredibly strong plasma explosion proc to your beam weapons, which increases by Mk and quality level exponentially!

(What means get them on Epic Mk XIV as fast as possible)

There are many different modifiers which u can see on the end of the description (in this case [EPG or PrtG]).

You should choose those modifiers wisely as they can have big impact on how your built works (for example Drain Expertise (Old: Flow Capacitors) on plasmonic leech).

 

Furthermore there are some universal consoles which are perfect to fill up your engineering console slots:

– assimilated module (Omega reputation system as mentioned in 1)

– Zero-Point Energy Conduit (Romulan reputation system)

– bioneural infusion circuits (lobi store => 200 lobi crystals => expensive =()

– tachyokinetic converter (lobi store => 200 lobi crystals => expensive =()

– plasmonic leech (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, available in exchange for a small amount of EC)

 

No need to give up if you can’t afford all this expensive stuff, for the start it’s better anyways to use some neutronium alloy to be able to tank all the “attention” enemies will pay you for hitting them as hard as you will do! 😛

 

3) BRIDGE OFFICER SKILLS:

 

This is the point of the story where you will have to use your brains, if u want or not! ;P

There are 2 ways of bridge officer and duty officer combinations which prevailed:

 

The FIRST way needs some expensive duty officers and 2 engi bridge officer skill slots.

It is called Aux to Bat. (a2b)

The important duty officers are engineering/technicians and cause “recharge time for all bridge officer abilities reduced when auxiliary to emergency battery is used”

and this already says it all:

If you use 3 of those doffs in (at least) blue quality and use 2 times the bridge officer skill “auxiliary to emergency battery (I)” and spam it

u can keep all your bo skills on global cooldown. (How to spam easily will be explained later).

The only disadvantage of this configuration is that most of the time your aux energy will be on 0, what will cause your heals to be pretty weak!

 

The SECOND one, which surprise, is also based on expensive duty officers! XD

Compared to a2b this method only ensures 2 emergency power to subsystem abilities (usually e.p. to weapons and e.p. to shields) to be running permanently! Therefor u don’t have your aux energy killed!

the necessary duty officers are 3 damage control engineers with the following description: “chance to reduce the time for all emergency power to subsystem abilities to recharge after use.”

It is possible to run this with blue quality officers as a cheapo-solution but it works better with purple ones! You could get one rare and one very rare Damage Control Engineer (Emergency Engineering Hologram) from your Replicator for 100k (rare) / 1000k (very rare) Energy Credits. This is normaly way cheaper than the Exchange.

 

The DECISSION which of these two solutions is the right one for you depends on the bridge officer layout of your ship!

If u have enough tactical bridge officer slots to carry 2x fire at will, tactical team and attack patter beta with u, u can go and fly with the SECOND alternative, if not you should use the FIRST one as u can run each of your skills on global cooldown (as if u had 2 of them with u!)

A T5 fleet attack cruiser for example has only 1 lt. cmdr. tac, so its likely to be flown with tactic team 1, attack pattern beta 1 and faw 3.

 

BEAM ARRAY: FIRE AT WILL (faw)

 

This is the most important skill of this kind of built and it effects in combination with the bridge officer layout of the ship you chose wich of the 2 methods is the best for your ship!

The most important thing is to keep faw running as often as possible!

In general it is always smart to use the highest possible faw u can fit into your bridge officer layout!

 

It is also pretty useful for your dps output to have your emergency power to weapons as high as possible (eptw3) as its damage buff increases significantly!

(in the end its alsways a question of how many heal buffs u need to survive, in some builds it might be smarter to carry “reverse shield polarity” with u as u dont do any damage when your dead!

In general for pve damage dealing theres no need for any buffs which dont heal u or increase your damage output (except gravity well, what is pretty useful in some queues like infected for example)

 

useful damage buffs for these builds:

– faw

– any attack pattern except delta!!!

– emergency power to weapons

– directed energy modulation (not a must, but if u have space for it, y not?!)

 

4) TRAITS/REPUTATION:

 

It should be clear that any traits/reputation stuff increasing crit chance, crit severity, debuffing armor/resistance or increasing energy levels should be used!

 

5) KEYBINDS/MACROS

 

Ok, we now have an acceptable built, the last thing we need is some help to fly it!

Keybinds/makros:

STO, especially in these kinds of builds includes too many buffs which should/could be cycled permanently to click them all by hand, especially if u use a2b.

U can try, but even if u make it u will not have the time to pilot your ship as it

in the following we will learn a method how we can lay the lines 4 of your skillbar on your shift button to make it easier for us to keep all the buffs cycled we want to. It would be better to separate the Abilities more but this is an easy way to start with.

 

First of all create an empty .txt file, copy the following into it and save it:

 

Shift “+TrayExecByTray 3 0 $$ +TrayExecByTray 3 1 $$ +TrayExecByTray 3 2 $$ +TrayExecByTray 3 3 $$ +TrayExecByTray 3 4 $$ +TrayExecByTray 3 5 $$ +TrayExecByTray 3 6 $$ +TrayExecByTray 3 7 $$ +TrayExecByTray 3 8 $$ +TrayExecByTray 3 9 $$ Lootrollneed $$ GenSetEarlyOverrideFloat Hud_Statustarget_Space_Bufflist scale 2”

 

Space “GenSendMessage HUD_Root FireAll”

 

– Give the text file any name (in this example we call it abc) and put it into the live folder of your STO installation folders.

– Now go ingame and place your ship into the earth sector. Type the following in the chat window:

 

/bind_load_file abc.txt

 

– Press enter

– now if you press Shift any ability in line 4 of your skillbar should be activated (from right to left)

 

CAUTION: if you use a2b it is necessary the both a2b skills should be on the left end of line 4 as they should be activated last.

If you somewhen want to remove your keybinds and reset them, simply type

/unbind all

in your chat.

Now you are free to put whatever you want into your spambar (line 4)

 

here are some buffs u SHOULD put in there:

– (both) tactic team (with a2b one is enough, without you should always have 2 of them with you)

– (both) fire at wills (faws)

– (both) attack patterns

– both e.p. to subsystem

– launch pets (if u fly any carrier)

– directed energy modulation (ONLY IF U FLY a2b)

– go down fighting

 

buffs u MUST NOT put in there:

– distribute shield power (will interrupt your firecycles, block other keybind skills from activation and work against tac teams effect of transphering shields to where they are needed!)

– attack pattern alpha

– any fleet (tactical fleet, intelligence fleet…)

– fire on my mark

– any heal buffs

– sensor scan

– subnucleonic beam

Those buffs have long cooldowns and high impact, they should be activated manually in the right moment.

(If you are not likely to die in the next few seconds and have enough enemies arround u to keep firing as long as its running)

 

 

Now that we have come to the end of part 1, you should take some time to try and apply what you (should) have learned.

As we always want to optimize this guide we would really appreciate any feedback from you! (Even if it’s simply what you benefited from it!)

For any questions or feedback feel free to contact us via ingame mail. You could find our @handles here.

 

Thx for your attention!

 

Copyright @maverick8711 and CombatLogReader DPS-League Channels (DPS-Bronze, DPS-Silver, DPS-Gold, DPS-Diamond)