(Screenshot by @pottsey)
Updated: 27th Sep 2020
Who doesn’t like a good explosion? If explosions are your thing or like me you always bring C4 into a stealth mission then this could be the build for you.
Mines have always been a favourite of mine even going back 10 years when we could only run 2 mines launchers at a time. Over the past year we have seen a number of positive changes to mines so today I am going to take a look at the Vorgon Ytijara Dreadnought Cruiser. While this isn’t the highest DPS Minelayer, it works well over a wide variety of content due to the Vorgon console set bonus boosting mine speed.
The idea behind this build beyond lots of explosions is to passive tank so I can focus on piloting. While not essential the reason piloting matters is mines require a different piloting skill set which can have a massive impact on damage output.
- One key way to boost damage with mines is to predict where waves of ships are going to appear and predict flight paths. Most other builds fly directly into combat from any angle but with mines at times you want to fly into the flight path to maximise damage. Just flying up to the enemy and dropping mines doesn’t always work as the mines might miss the target. But stop in front of flight path and you should hit.
- Another tactic is pre dropping a mine field before enemy reinforcements comes in. If done correctly you will kill the reinforcements faster than any other weapon system. As long as you position the mine field in the right spot the reinforcements wont stand a chance.
- Don’t waste the starting timer. Apart from Carriers most builds don’t benefit from this countdown. Minelayers do as we can preload our damage so drop as many mines as you can while waiting for the starting timer, use Kemocite Laced weapons, Disposal patterns the lot. Then once the timer hits zero use Relocate Mines. It is not always best to use Relocate Mines right away. For example in ISA runs what I tend to is fight the Cube and those starting ships normally and wait to use the pre-drop mines once the Nanite Transformer shield drops. If you position yourself around the Nanite Transformer just right and hit Relocate mines, the mines circle the transformer in such a way that they will target and blow up 3 or 4 nanite gens, any leftover mines then retarget the Nanite Transformer. You can solo blow up the entire area in seconds.
- To give an idea on DPS with the starting 10 seconds pre drop in a PUG group my Styx Terran Dreadnought Cruiser gets around 200 to 250k focused around mines. With the Vorgon Ytijara Dreadnought Cruiser around 150k to 200k DPS. If you really want to push DPS as far as possible in ISA runs get a premade group that is happy to WFPs as long as possible. Pre drop the maximum waves of mines allowed before starting which could be 30 to 45 seconds depending on build. This will push you well past 300k DPS when added with some well placed strong pulling grav wells from team mates.
- Kemocite Laced weapons as long as you lunch the mines while Kemocite is active, the mine holds the Kemocite charge until they hit the target even if the timer has hit zero. Consider using Attack Pattern Beta in Combination with Kemocite.
Flanking does not work with mines.(Update: Flanking does work with mines from Cluster Torps. No other mine seems to work with flanking)
Full Build
https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/2ae4e4e3e9081fdc7c6b578062f95209
Please read the full notes. Highlights
- The missing console is a lobi, Covert Mine Layer Suite
- The missing Mine is the Black Ops Mine (counts as a Photon mine)
- The Missing Device is a Kobayashi Maru Transponder which drops pickups that boost mine move speed.
- If you don’t like Tricobalts blowing up your own ship use a 2nd Breen Cluster and replace the rear Tricobalt with a Web Mine or Bio Photon mine with Radius x3.
- While I have gone for Shield Pen in this build it works just as well to replace the Shield pen traits with DPS boosting traits.
- The Warp core is to help moving around sector space which I do a lot of.
Build variations.
For DPS, Colony Deflector, x3 Gamma Synergistic.
For hybrid, Colony Deflector, x3 Non-Baryonic matter.
For Tank, Non-Baryonic matter Shield and Non-Baryonic warp core, Borg deflector, Borg Engine.
With x3 Nurse Doffs and the Non-Baryonic matter hull regeneration from the set bonus I found that I can get away with swapping all my healing bridge officer powers out for combat related powers. If you really want to be sneaky there are two types of nurse doffs and the ground nurse doffs work in space. Freeing up all those space doff slots.
With the DPS setup I tend to run (Update: this is for the build I was running 2018, I do not use the heavy mine trait or Beam Overload in 2020)
Tactical, Beam Overlord 1 (to trigger heavy mine trait), Tac team 1, High Yield 2. Kemocite 2, Dispersal Pattern Beta 2.
ENG: x1 Power to Shields 1, RSP1, Engineer Team 3 and Power to Structural Integrity field 3.
Sci, Structural Analysis 1, Photonic Officer, 1, Grav Well 1.
For the Hybrid or tank variation I change to
ENG: x2 Power to engines 1, Endothermic Inhibitor 2, Structural Integrity Collapse 3, Either RSP3 or Emit Unstable Warp Bubble 3.
As I am an Engineer all my weapon mods are DMG where possible.
For consoles nothing is essential but I would strongly recommend the Covert Munition Deployment Console and Covert Mine Layer Suite Console. For Traits Hot Pursuit is extremely important as it can triple DPS output. Not being far behind in usefulness is Holographic Mirage Decory trait which helps keep mines alive.
If the Vorgon Crusier is not for you Escorts can fit an experimental Graviton Implosion Charges
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Graviton_Implosion_Charges which is like a mini grav well every 4 seconds pulling enemies near each other, great for mines.
The Styx Terran Dreadnought Cruiser is a new high end mine layer, possibly the best mine layer in game at the time of writing.
If you have any questions post in the comments below or send a message to @pottsey5g
Props on this theorycrafting. Great job!
Why no competetive gear?
And what DPS are you getting in ISA
I am not sure what you mean by no competitive gear? What gear are you thinking off?
With the queue system and random people between 100k and 150k DPS with the Vorgon Cruiser and between 150k and 250k DPS with the Styx on average in ISA. Those are average numbers so it is possible to get higher. DPS can be pushed more with a pre made team working with you. Say a full team of Gamma Synergistic set for kinetic damage boost, strong grav wells and good timings.
It’s great to be part of a community again after flying solo for so long.
The competetive engines are a must kinda for the speed, and no way the cat1 from gamma rep is worth it over that. 3p DSC is kinda just really bad TBH
(for kinetics, kinda similar to mines I run colony/comp engines (fortified)/delta core/comp shield (innervated)
With mines speed and turn rate are unneeded. I found the short burst from Power to Engines and Evasive covers what is needed and for the rest we can teleport mines and move them via Master of Mines
Gamma Synergistic isn’t just about damage the hull cap set bonus also boosts your healing rate. For damage though I haven’t found a better set. With this build a large part of your damage comes from when you are not taking damage or not in combat. I found the 100% uptime on Gamma Synergistic provides more damage than the low uptime on innervated shield which only works while you are in combat. Though it does depend on the content being played.
The idea behind the DSC is it means I can turn all those healing bridge officer powers into damage powers. When running DSC I swap to Endothermic Inhibitor 2, Structural Integrity Collapse 3, Emit Unstable Warp Bubble 3 which all boost damage.
Saying that it might be worth using 2 DSC and 1 Innervated Shield for the best for both worlds.
Cool build Pottsey. You rock the show on mines. They work so much better than I imagined and cut through elite maps like buttah. 🙂
Agreed, this is really cool as it’s something you don’t see done often. I can tell from first hand experience it’s a very effective build.. very well done!
If you dont mind my asking, what makes the Styx such a better mine layer? Im not asking for a full build or anything, but what makes it significantly better than the competition (this build e.g)?
It’s a little subjective depending on the content you are playing. In short you produce a lot more mines and the mines hit harder. With the downside the mines move slower. It’s better for ISA and pushing max DPS runs. But at times in other content the Vorgon faster mines pull ahead.
– You don’t have 3 Vorgon Consoles for the Mine speed Boost allowing higher crit/Severity consoles to be used.
– 1+ tactical console
– It is the only ship in game with 4 rear slots and can run x2 Concentrate Firepower alongside x2 Kinetic Magnet. (although I run 1 Magnet)
-It has better hanger pets
-It makes a great Hybrid Torpedo/Mine boat. Match the Tactical console, mines and torpedo to the same damage type and use Concentrate Firepower and you have the best of both worlds.
-For a full Mine boat Concentrate Firepower means you can have 1 Transphasic Cluster firing every 15 seconds and 1 Advanced Temporal Defence which produces Chroniton Clusters in High Yield mode. Fit the Temporal torpedo with a Kelven Torpedo and Ceaseless Momentum. The Kelvin with its 3 second recharge will give a consent 5% Kinetic damage and can create a barrage of Cluster torpedoes up to every 2 seconds. (I tried missiles but they where so fast they caused less Clusters to be fired, the 3 second Kelvin was perfect)
Awesome, thanks, I’ll have to give it a try on tribble 😀
Should mines be set to autofire?
The majority of the time I would set mines to auto fire. Normally you would want to build up mines even when there are no targets so you can teleport a swarm of mines once the enemy warp in.
The exception I can think off, is if you want to fit a selection of different mines but only use a single type of mine with Alpha/Beta disposal pattern. Tractor Beam mines and BlackOpps mines do not get destroyed when the target dies and redirect to a new target. So you might want to turn auto fire off to make sure you use those with Alpha/Beta disposal pattern. Personally for ease of use I just leave autofire on.
The modulating mine builds up damage the longer its in space. It makes sense to drop that one with Disposal Patten while in the TFO waiting start timer if you really want to maximise DPS. Though I use Autofire in my day to day runs.
Hi, there i have been working with this build, but not on the ideal ship but the Kar’fi carrier, and as a science captain but its fun sofar. thx for that.
I do have a question about the choice of mines, what do you think of the new black-ops mines?, im in doubt if i should slot those, nukara web mines or just the fleet ones.
Im also still not sure about the 3 piece set from competitieve or Gamma rep.
What are your thoughts?
The Black Ops Mines are a lot better then they look at first glance as they do not disappear when the target dies. For a limited amount of time they redirect to a new target and then explode. My general rule is fit 3 primary mines and then if I have a 4th slot fit the Black Ops mines. Black Ops outperform Web mines so unless I am in PvP I don’t use web. For PvP I fit both Black Ops and Web due to both having hold.
With the new Relocate Mine Power combined with the new trait Holographic Mirage Decoys I find the 3 competitive set is not that useful anymore. The Holographic trait keeps the mines alive so you don’t really need the resistance set boost and Relocate Mines with the All Hands on Deck trait means I don’t really need Seeking Mine Subroutine. The Competitive mine itself is still very good.
The problem with the Gamma set is they are Chroniton based which relatively speaking is very low damage. Apart from the console I no longer use any of that set.
Ah ok thx for answering that, so your build in the link is now somewhat changed.
I have been playing with Grav well, quantum torp, and the relocate mines into the bubble, its fun, im at 66k in ISA so its not to bad.
Ill go take a look of i can get that all hands on deck trait ship
Would never thought about playing with mines until i read your build, so thx !
Btw would you mind updating the build in the link?
Im up from 60 to 110k now so its geting better and better, still running the synergistic set with the colony deflector.
Waiting for a lobi sale for the mine console. 🙂
what do you set your sub systems at for a mine build?
Voth Rampart is better then Styx mine layer imho