STO....

STO waffle, these blogs are a way of trying to get my understanding of the game straight in my own head; Kind of.... Also, just to waffle about the game.

Progress goes on. The second but technically the third T6 token(or new currency reward option) campaign is ongoing. It looks like there will be 4 events with this campaign. I presume each will have a usable reward of some sort for ground or space. For an overall reward I think I'll be going with a Lobi store ship (Suliban maybe) to either keep or more likely sell for credits. I've never had anything over 100 million credits so to sell a ship for 100's of millions would be 'interesting'.

The current featured events (main)reward is a Drone. Despite it being a Discovery element I was interested to see what it could do. I expected a combat drone. The first time I saw the Dot-7 drone in action I was disappointed. Mainly because it wasn't a killing machine. I had expected a more active combat oriented pet.

It's a very specialized drone; specifically for players that put down a lot of deployables (shields, turrets, health regen etc). So that mainly means engineers. It, like it's on screen source, is a repair drone(Like R2-D2 but with less sass).

For combat I'll stick with my dino riders inspired T-Rex with it's frikin laser beams!

I'll still claim the reward but may only use it on an actual engineering character; But even then I don't think I'll use it.... I don't use the engineering class....

As for the anniversary event on Xbox I think I'm stuck in a cycle of habit with progression there. In a way just because I can do things on the platform without really questioning should I. Also because it's a bit different. Like a mirror image, the same but reversed(in a good way). I enjoy it's experience, where I've nothing really at stake.

Now for the real waffle. I also got my main tactical character into a fleet and bought the extra ground and space trait slots.

As he is also using the summer event ship as his main ship I decided to see what the fleet version could do better. So I got it as well and transferred the fit from the old ship to this new fleet version.

In retrospect I'm not sure I knew what I was expecting from it. Supreme DPS from an in game lifetime hearing 'fleet ships is best' I suppose.

Testing it out in some TFO's, leveling up it's mastery didn't take long. Seeing it in action was underwhelming. My character has Pilot as a secondary specialization so it was at least nice to see the Pilot directional boosts the ship has. But overall it felt 'meh'.

Doing a reverse boost backwards to take advantage of a torpedo volley is handy but it's not 'to die for'. So the new ship is' meh'. The same fit on both ships produces the same floating numbers in space (more or less).

It all highlighted a problem I have in game. I'm a casual player. I don't min/max or do the meta, searching for that 0.05% DPS edge.

I don't specialize, I generalize.

The only thing I think I know about the current meta is that it's changed from beams to torpedoes; And that's it. Maybe even that's wrong.

I upgraded some items because the numbers/stats increase seemed 'better'. Yet when I start to mess about with re-engineering tributes it gets messy. Meta says stat X is useless so I remove Stat X and replace it with Damage only to see my DPS chart output test drop by 6k.

I now get cross-eyed when looking at weapons stats/modifiers!

I generalize my bridge officers abilities to cover all the average eventualities.

Anyway there's noting I can see that the Fleet version of the Risian Corvette does that the free summer event reward version couldn't do. Generally speaking. So in my mind a solo player can still be on par or above average in game without a fleet, zen or spending cash. If you want to put your mind to it. Then again Starting off is a learning curve and the admiralty changes are a pain for Dil gathering now.

I'm still of a mind that the fit makes the ship. STO ships are all about what you can slot in them crew or gear. If you can upgrade or buy items that help then they are more helpful than anything a ship itself brings(minus any console/specific ability that it came with), be it T5, T5U or T6. I'm not even convinced about greater hull levels as a reason to take a ship. Specialist officer bridge seating for an officer to use certain abilities is a meta tweaking thing. Maybe I'm overgeneralizing. The variables only multiply from there(and multiply and multiply).

This game may have Tanks and Healers in the MMO dungeon group sense but it's all been flattened out to DPS. Noone selects a role for a TFO/dungeon. I think I got one TFO in the last year where there was someone doing dedicated healing and I was looking at them in a strange way. Tanks and healers are 'different' in this game. Abilities and traits use agro and incoming damage to heal or do more DPS so it's not Tanking in the 'real' dungeon MMO sense.... You can have 5 players all tanking. Using that incoming DPS to both heal and increase their own damage output... If you see what I mean.

Trying to make sense of DPS statistics is deceptive; To look at the percentage damage done is just numbers. You could be perfectly effective with 10k dps; But at the high end DPS players.... They skew you off the scale!

(take this next waffle with an extra dose of salt.)

From what I've seen, generally speaking, players with basic or mashed together gear(from mission rewards) range wildly from 0 to 12k DPS.
That average players with a few upgrades and an idea of ship gear are about the 10-14k DPS mark.
Above average are 15 to 20k(I usually sit on the 18 to 20k range, that's above average right!?!).

Most TFO's have some sort of combination of those player 'types'. With of course at least one player with excessive DPS. 30-40k going up to the really excessive 100k+ mark. That type of DPS is super PvP territory; And smacks of super meta/gear/trait/abilities etc tweaking of the highest order.

Tweak the meta!! I can barely remember the different weapon energy types!

High numbers and NPC quick kills are fun to see and strive for but my threshold for running that far is halted by the potential R&D or currency grind needed to gain/upgrade everything to get that high.

Re-engineering takes Salvage and Dil, which can be a goal and 'plentiful' but the knowledge on what to change.... A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

It's only now that I think I've done better than before... 26k DPS - was it worth the effort, tweaking and research into the game...... Yes and No.

No mainly becasue I feel like I've missed out on 'fun'. Yes because I've a got some good DPS numbers(see chart above......).

Getting to a really high DPS pinnacle is like Climbing Mount Everest. Getting there is visible and has been normalized but still takes time, effort, money and the right knowledge. I'd rather spend my time with more leisurely weekend hill walks...

However if I was of a mind to up my DPS game(knowledge), where better to look than the DPS League site. They have great guides like - PvE-DPS-Basics,  Cheap DPS Builds & Ship Builds.

For Youtubers CounterYolo Gaming and Timber Wolf are stat kings, AdiiiSTO & Teacher Kirby are all about practical knowledge. There are lots more but I'm only listing those I keep going back to for knowledge.

On a cool side note; I've never really watched the weekly TenForward live stream but I might for this:

Over a series of special episodes of #TenForwardWeekly in the next few weeks, four STO Team Members are going to design this year's Summer Event Ship, live - and then you'll get to pick which one becomes the final design!https://t.co/n75Wb7Kroi pic.twitter.com/77KP4THF5m

— Star Trek Online (@trekonlinegame) March 10, 2020