by Jeff Francis on May 28, 2010
Welcome
back, cadets, to the latest installment of Starship Basics.
Since starship combat is the very heart of
style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek Online,
it would have been nice if Cryptic had fully explained all the various
aspects of starships and space combat within the game to the players.
Alas, Cryptic must have been infiltrated by shape shifter spies from
the Dominion, since many aspects of starship combat are not clearly
explained, leaving the players scratching their heads, exclaiming,
“What does that do? How does this work?” Well, Ten
Ton Hammer is here to help with the Starship Basics guides. Plus,
learning the ins and outs of starship combat are now agonizer free!
(Unless you’re from the Mirror, Mirror universe, in which
case the agonizer is mandatory.)
In the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/features/guides/starship_basics_introduction"
target="_blank">introduction
to
Starship Basics, we discussed the basic ship terminology and stats.
Following that introduction, the second article in Starship Basics
focused on the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/features/guides/starship_basics_weapons"
target="_blank">weapons
that a starship can bring to bear on their
enemies. For this session, we’ll turn our attention to the
shields and the impulse engines, both of which are crucial to starship
survival.
Shields
Your ship shields are probably the second most important item for your
ship after weapons. Shields absorb damage from enemy attacks, thus
allowing your shiny new ship not to get any nasty holes shot through
it. Your ship has shields on all four sides: fore, aft, left, and
right. Whenever a shield is dropped, any damage taken is applied
directly to your ship’s hull. In addition, most shields have
a “bleedthrough” percentage, usually 10%, which
means that an enemy attack will result in that percentage of damage
bypassing the shields and impacting the hull. Shields have two defining
characteristics: the amount of damage that they can take and the
regeneration rate of the shield. A shield will regenerate over time;
the only problem is surviving long enough to allow them to do so.
Like every other starship equipment item, shields are rated from Mark I
to Mark X. The higher the rating, the better the shield. There is more
than one type of shield that a starship captain can choose from. Here
are the shield options:
In addition to the various shield types, there are also other modifiers
that may impact the shield’s performance. These modifiers are:
Rarer shield drops could have from one to three modifiers attached to
them. Modifiers can stack, so if you see [Pha]x2, that means a
reduction in phaser damage by 40%.
Impulse
Engines
Impulse engines are the ship’s engines that you use in
encounters, not for warping around the galaxy looking for tribbles. The
impulse engines impact three things that define your
starship’s movement: the normal flight speed, the turn rate,
and the full impulse flight speed. Normal flight speed is just that,
the maximum flight speed that you can attain in combat. The turn rate
is how quickly your ship can turn, which is vital in keeping your heavy
weapons bearing on the target. Finally, full impulse flight speed is
the maximum speed you can fly in full impulse mode, which is what you
use when you’re traveling from one fight to another within a
system or when you’re exploring for crafting materials.
As with every other component of your starship, there are different
types of impulse engines. In addition, impulse engines are also ranked
on a scale from Mark I to Mark X. Just like all items, the higher the
mark number, the better the item is. The various impulse engine types
are:
Impulse engines can also have modifiers which enhance their
performance. As with weapons and shields, impulse engines can have from
one to three modifiers, depending upon the rarity of the drop. These
modifiers can stack. Impulse engine modifiers are:
As you can see, both shield and impulse engines have a huge impact upon
your starship. Your style of combat, and what kind of foes
you face on
a regular basis, will determine what type of shield to pick. Do you
want a higher capacity one to take lots of punishment, but recharge
very slowly, or go with one that has a lesser capacity, but recharge
more quickly? If you want to dart back and forth against your foes,
you’ll be more comfortable with a quickly recharging shield,
plus impulse engines that allow you turn quickly and get away when
things get too hot. If your style is more of the plodding toe-to-toe
slugfest, higher capacity shields and engines that thrive on incredible
demands of power would be more to your liking.
Remember, in
style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek Online,
your character build is really your starship in that you’ll
be doing most of your fighting in space. Your choice of ship, weapons,
shields, and engines will all be determined by your play style and how
you wish to accomplish your goals. All you need to do is to choose a
path and then boldly go killing where nobody has killed before, all
while drinking a mint julep in your captain’s chair!