In memoriam Katherine Pulaski

[~Maiax~]

I wanted to show you a shot of my alt's Avenger-class Battle Cruiser, taken from her least ugly angle, and in most favourable light I found.

 

Her registry name is U.S.S. Kate Pulaski*, after a TNG character, Katherine Pulaski, MD, who was of Polish origin (and a fine fierce woman, too).

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* - "Katherine Pulaski" is 1 char too long to fit into a STO name tab.

[Wupteedo]

Nice picture.  Thank you for posting, for it gave my alter-ego an idea to share.  (See Klingon Culture 101). 

BTW, she was my favorite Doctor on STO.  Wish she would of stayed on. 

[VADM Wulfric Richter CoS]

How do you like flying her? I wanted one since I began playing STO, but have heard that she is a bit squishy. But after flying Romulan ships with my alt, squishy is a relative term when you have a good cloak.

[davisjm0311]

Knightnblu wrote:

How do you like flying her? I wanted one since I began playing STO, but have heard that she is a bit squishy. But after flying Romulan ships with my alt, squishy is a relative term when you have a good cloak.

It's not a squishy ship. The Avenger has the bridge layout of the Assault Cruiser and one degree better turn than the Excelsior. The hull is slightly weaker than the other two cruisers I mentioned, but the maneuverability more than makes up for it. I'd be glad to help you set one up if you're interested. I can fly it pretty well too, but J.C. Adams is by far the best Avenger Captain we have in the fleet. 

[~Maiax~]

Thank you, Gentlemen. I could certainly use some of Mr. Davis' or J.C.'s wisdom, provided that I had any spare credits to put it into practice. In reality, the main and unaviodable factor in my ships' loadout is of economical nature.

As for her maneuverability, it's not as agile as my Vor'cha (Dual Cannons), and more agile than Ha'nom (Beam Arrays). I experimented a lot, and an optimal loadout is 5 Dual Beams + 3 turrets. With the Weapon Efficiency buff and 3 Fleet RCS Eng Consoles, she has a sufficient turn rate to fire them almost continously. For a lot of stationary combat, however, I utilize a 7 Beam Array broadside + occasional cluster torpedo. Weapon set to 125, Engines to 85.

As for her hull strength, which exceeds 60,000 in a present configuration, I can't really complain. As a cruiser, she has enough Eng boff slots (+2 Tac boffs for Tac Teams) to make her very long-lasting in combat. In fact, I am one of the few that never get killed in the Crystalline Entity event, while often drawing enemy fire, and still usually score 2nd-3rd place in damage inflicted.

[JC Addams]

My Avenger is based around beam arrays for broadsiding rather than cannons or dual beams, but I explain the why in the build if you want to take a look. I don't have the red matter capacitor either, it was something I thought I would be adding until the collectors edition went from $50 to $250.

http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=jcsavenger_5814

Any questions on it, feel free to ask...  With this build, I regularly put out around 10k dps, and have hit over 15k dps in an infected run with it. It's not terribly squishy, but not a tank either.

 

[~Maiax~]

Now, that's a build that costs millions of EC, hundreds of Lockbox keys, or weeks spent on Dilithium refining! I wasn't even aware of that Red Matter thing incursion into STO (I say incursion because I believe that new ST movies have really little to do with canon ST). How much are those disruptors - 45,000 Dil each?! Plus you have to buy a Cardassian cruiser beforehand.

Actually, I prefer beam arrays too, for two reasons:

1) When set to autofire, you have more time for reaction to new situations and to micromanage triggering abilities, rather than having to maneuver all the time;
2) Phaser arrays seem more canon and true to a Federation vessel than cannons, which I would rather see on a Voyager.

I wonder what are yours?

[davisjm0311]

It's a damn good build, I run almost the same setup. The really nice thing about it is that you have enough shield penetration so that most of your shielded targets die with shields at full.

[VADM Wulfric Richter CoS]

Thank you for the kind offer Mr. Davis. I will definitely look you up when I eventually get one. Mr. Adams, that is one heck of a build, sir! I find myself in agreement with Marci in regard to the cost of such a beast. Although I admit to trying my best to turn a recently purchased Bort into a beast worthy of PvP/E terror. I have, at present, about 30 mil EC into the build and about another 15 mil to go before it is complete, but it will be nothing compared to Mr. Adam's Avenger, and I seriously doubt that it would pose much of a challenge to Mr. Davis and his plasmonic leech.

But that is kind of the counter to my and Marci's argument about the expense, isn't it? Something given has no value. You have to work for it. That is one of the reasons why I am so proud of the Perseus. It isn't much in the PvP/E world, but I worked my guts out to craft that ship as she exists today, and I wouldn't trade her for anything.

I admit to only playing STO for about four months. In those terms, I am still wet behind the ears on a lot of topics. But such mighty builds provides meaning to the end game because it yields a goal worthy of pursuit and pride in the accomplishment. You will find yourself thinking outside of the box to come up with unique twists such as adopting rarely used, but inexpensive weapons such as the destabilizing tachyon beam accX3 that I use on the Perseus. I got them for about 300K EC each. Or the nanite disruptor beam accX3 I got for my Bort at around 1.5 mil EC each. I also check the Fleet's bank regularly to find things or to deposit lock boxes, interesting weapons and items, etc. The key is patience. Bide your time, be watchful of the markets, use what you have to the fullest, and upgrade when you can.

Eventually, we will get there.

[davisjm0311]

It can get expensive. I put around 500 million EC into my Tactical Builds(Excelsior, Defiant, Avenger) to get them where they currently stand. My Science Captain has been fairly inexpensive to set up since I either already had what I needed or it only cost Fleet Credits.

[~Maiax~]

I'm confined to go much, much cheaper, that's for sure. But I'm glad anyway, I have a great and competent starship for PvE.

And one correction to my previous statement: The Kate Pulaski can equally well mount Dual Cannons and operate them efficiently, since I equipped her with a [W -> E] warp core, thereby raising her Engine rating to 95. And I just have to remember to slow down to half impulse (lower Defense) when I follow the target in close quarters.

[JC Addams]

My galor was pure luck. I normally won't even bother with lock boxes, but Mr Davis had me a little envious because he had pulled a lot of nice things, so I bought a key and the galor was my first reward out of it. Had I not pulled a galor, I probably would be running phasers or disruptors (likely nanite disruptors), I was running phasers at the time I pulled the galor. As far as the cost for the beams, the galor comes with 4, so I only had to purchase 3 more. I have nanite disruptors on my galor.

Marion Frances was a gift from Mr Davis. The rest were either bought when I caught them on sale, or farmed through the various means, such as rep farming, fleet marks, exploration (the tech doff ten for example). EC was collected from running the Japori and the EC mission. The lobi console was a bought item, from when running the missions gave 15 lobi per day. It wasn't an overnight build to be sure. I believe it was 5 months of concentrating on it to build it, but it was nothing but pure game play, and a little luck and help, that built it. I suppose it's still considered a pay to win build to many, but my lifetime membership is the only thing I've spent cash on, and that pays for my zen. To be honest, I never kept up with exactly how much I spent while building this ship. I do know at the time, there were lots of superior operative romulan boffs being put on the exchange cheap, and I would buy them up (meaning under 100k) and at the advise of Mr G, I would repost them for 7M (or occasionally donate them to Mr G to pass along to our members)

The red matter capacitor is an item you get when you have he collector's edition of the game, along with a few more uniform options. I never knew it existed until one day I saw Huckabee post it with one of his builds, then started looking it up. I don't have one, but had it on the page because I was planning to buy the collector's edition.

The reason I prefer beams to cannons is said in the build. I don't like to have to keep my nose facing an opponent to attack, I like to dart around and change directions. The avenger works for me because I rarely face my back to an opponent, but will often turn back and forth to keep different facings at my opponent. With my avenger, I have 4 beams and a torp spread 3 facing you, or I have 7 beams facing you... just how I like to dodge and weave. 

[~Maiax~]

Ah, this Galor cruiser on the first opening - it was a rare stroke of luck indeed! My first (and last, at the same time) lockbox contained lousy 5 Lobi + 5 duty officers (1 green). Never again have I wasted my hard-refined Dilithium this way.

[davisjm0311]

Here are my 3 main builds if anyone wants to check them out.

 

FCAPT Davis' Energy Drain Vesta

FCAPT Davis' JHAS

FCAPT Davis' Excelsior

[~Maiax~]

Mr. Davis, J.C., thank you for sharing your designs with us. It certainly takes a lot of knowledge and experience to create such as those you presented. However, I still claim that it requires even a whole lot more of real cash to achieve those. With my monthly income of $275 (precisely so), I can kiss such builds goodbye.

Not that I'm unhappy with mine, mind you - I take my pride in being able to make sensible designs at very low costs, but I can now clearly see I'll never be in your league. Perhaps for the better that I'm in the European timezone, so I don't get trashed at each and every fleet war games. :-)