[NGTM-1R]

Whats better, phaser cannons or that phaser beam thingy?

Cannons are generally more powerful than beam arrays or beam banks but require more work to bring to bear. Not until you get an Akira (Heavy Escort) or Defiant (Tactical Escort) does that really become a simple problem.

You will be laughed out of the room in an STF if you're not packing at least majority cannons with an escort, but by the time you're rolling Fleet or Advanced maneuvering is much easier.

In general, cruisers are beam array, science ships (excepting long-range, which are really tiny cruisers) are dual beam bank, and escorts are cannons.

[Retsof]

Got my first upgrade.  You are looking at the proud owner of the Quasar Class Science Vessel:  USS Celestial Joule.  (like my play on words there ? )

[Starman01]

P.S., It bugs me that they don't explicitly tell you the fire-rate.

They do I think it's the DPS value, Damage Per Second.

I'm now at captain rank, and since the captain escort don't look that good, I took myself a galaxy class cruiser. Looks really nice, but it stears like a pregnant manaty, I'm barely able to fire my foreweapons more than once on a target, and then I have to fight it off with broadside phasers or backweapons. Maybe I should have taken the Intreprid Class as Science cruiser instead, more shields and better turn rates. I hope the next rank brings me a nice escort ship again. Despite the low crew and repair rates, for battles they are most convinient.

[NGTM-1R]

You didn't just badmouth the Defiant.

[Starman01]

Actually, I did 

Meh, it's nice, but it's so tiny, somehow I do not like it. I want something big and looking powerfull. If I had already enough D, i would check out all, but sofar I can only earn 4K  of dilithium a day, that's not much

Maybe I will stick with my Akira-Class for a while, I always loved the design of this ship

[BloodEagle]

P.S., It bugs me that they don't explicitly tell you the fire-rate.

They do I think it's the DPS value, Damage Per Second.

I'm now at captain rank, and since the captain escort don't look that good, I took myself a galaxy class cruiser. Looks really nice, but it stears like a pregnant manaty, I'm barely able to fire my foreweapons more than once on a target, and then I have to fight it off with broadside phasers or backweapons. Maybe I should have taken the Intreprid Class as Science cruiser instead, more shields and better turn rates. I hope the next rank brings me a nice escort ship again. Despite the low crew and repair rates, for battles they are most convinient.

DPS isn't Fire-Rate.  And I can get the gist of it just by looking at the difference between Damage Per Second and Damage Per Shot (Hell, I can calculate it), but I shouldn't have to. 

There should be a field that explicitly tells me whether a weapon fires 0.5 times a second or 1.2 times in a second.

[Liberator]

Most of the space weapon can be refired the MMO standard 1.5 sec after the previous fire sequence.  I say fire sequence, because beams fire 3 times per sequence.  Torpedoes are capable of being fired one launcher every 8 or 10 seconds, except tricobalt which is once per minute.

[crizza]

Question, I have my second ship, but the bindings are...crap, I fire my three beams on 7,8,4, torpedos on 2 and...well, is there a way to clear the bindings and do redo them?
And after finally finding my way to memory alpha, I can get rid of my samples^^

[BloodEagle]

Hold Right-Click, and drag them.

[Retsof]

Okay, I like my science vessel.  I can jam your weapons sensors, grab you with a tractor beam, punch a hole in your sheilds, snipe your weapons, and finish it all off by mooning you and dropping a quantum torpedo in your face .

[NGTM-1R]

Question, I have my second ship, but the bindings are...crap, I fire my three beams on 7,8,4, torpedos on 2 and...well, is there a way to clear the bindings and do redo them?
And after finally finding my way to memory alpha, I can get rid of my samples^^

I don't even have weapons in my bindings anymore, abilities crowded them out.

[LHN91]

Installed, set up, had a half hour to play and I've been away from my desktop for the last 3 days. Might have time as of tomorrow night.

[BloodEagle]

Is there a way to tell your ship to auto-target / fire upon the nearest enemy AFTER you kill your current, without having to manually target something or hit the 'fire-all' button?

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Just hit Commander and picked up and Excelsior class heavy cruiser (yeah, I had some extra funds sitting around in my Steam wallet and the other heavy cruiser was ugly as all hell). 2 plasma beam arrays and 1 quantum torp launcher in the fore and aft weapons slots and I'm totally going to town. I used my free ship to pick up the heavy escort and I love the maneuverability and speed, but damn I felt fragile. Slapped some tetryon cannons on the front and did some pretty impressive damage, though.

I'm really, really liking this game.

[Liberator]

I've flown nothing but cruisers, and I'm continually appalled at an escorts ability to completely obliterate the same ship I've been carving on for 2 minutes, many times more than one.  In the Khitomer Space TFS for example, I'll engage the probes going for the gate and get maybe one of them, meanwhile the escort drivers have cleaned up one of the nanite generators and then come and  clean out the other 5 i missed, in the time i took me to kill one or two of them.  And this is on a sovvy with 6 MK X AP beams and a Tricobalt on the front and quantum on the back.

I understand that this is offset, by and large, by the ability to sit there and take it.  But damn it!

[NGTM-1R]

You might want to look at your weapon power settings, I get reasonably good damage out of my Sov.

Either that or you have old old modules. The AP ones appear only to be craftable.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

I've flown nothing but cruisers, and I'm continually appalled at an escorts ability to completely obliterate the same ship I've been carving on for 2 minutes, many times more than one.  In the Khitomer Space TFS for example, I'll engage the probes going for the gate and get maybe one of them, meanwhile the escort drivers have cleaned up one of the nanite generators and then come and  clean out the other 5 i missed, in the time i took me to kill one or two of them.  And this is on a sovvy with 6 MK X AP beams and a Tricobalt on the front and quantum on the back.

I understand that this is offset, by and large, by the ability to sit there and take it.  But damn it!

I find it's kind of a luck crapshoot for me. I'm currently addicted to war zones, so I've been killing a lot of Borg lately. Flying my heavy escort is much more point and shoot, blow defensive cooldowns, don't die. In my heavy cruiser, I just find it way more fun. Swoop in, torp spread, turn around and punch emergency maneuvers while purging some warp plasma, which has the lovely side effect of screening heavy torps without me having to manually shoot them, use the plasma snare and tractor beams to limit the number of shield quadrants I have to deplete, broadside beams while alternating between my fore and aft quantum torps. Even got jumped by a Klingon ship (can't remember what it was) and I ended the fight at like 80% hull. Completely wrecked the guy and I don't think he expected me to survive a Borg Sphere and him. Of course it's all anecdotal; I've been flying nothing but cruisers until I picked up the Oslo heavy escort and I'm sure I'd have more refined tactics if I'd been flying them all along. But my assessment is that the escorts are way more vulnerable to snares. If I get tractored in the Oslo, I'm done. I also have a way easier time surviving getting jumped by those *&%^ing ninja cubes in the cruisers. How can something so big be so good at sneaking up on you? 

Damn if I don't love my Excelsior. It was my favorite ship as a kid, even built a huge model of it.

[Liberator]

I have 6 STF acquired Mark X AP beam array with energy diverted to weapons, on an unshielded target at about 5km I hit for about 550 - 700, more if i get closer, but closer makes me vulnerable to tractor beam/heavy plasma combos.

[crizza]

I guess I will sooner or later buy the Defiant class.
I like my escorts, but I really want massive forward firepower...
Other suggestions?

Edit: Is it possible to change my account type vom perfect world to cryptic?
I just want to pay with paypal and not any other thingy

[Commander Zane]

I've flown nothing but cruisers, and I'm continually appalled at an escorts ability to completely obliterate the same ship I've been carving on for 2 minutes, many times more than one.  In the Khitomer Space TFS for example, I'll engage the probes going for the gate and get maybe one of them, meanwhile the escort drivers have cleaned up one of the nanite generators and then come and  clean out the other 5 i missed, in the time i took me to kill one or two of them.  And this is on a sovvy with 6 MK X AP beams and a Tricobalt on the front and quantum on the back.

I understand that this is offset, by and large, by the ability to sit there and take it.  But damn it!

I fly a Nomad Starcruiser with its weapons power at 90 (When warp core proficency is in effect), and usually I'm the one that's attacking the runaway Probes in Khitomer Accord, the Nanite Probes / Spheres in Infected, or the Borg-Klingon ships in Cure.

These ships aren't much of a problem for me, the Probes especially. Remove a shield quadrant and High-Yield II that side with Quantum Torpedos and it pops. Tractor the second Probe right on top of the first and it does half of the work for you. The Spheres and Raptors can be hairy, and it's a good thing someone usually jumps in since I wouldn't be able to defend the I.K.S. Kang against four Raptors alone. Oddly enough the Negh'Var is easier to destroy than a Raptor...

Playing those missions on Elite are a different story though. Even the Probes are freaking tanks.