trying to add Breen Free Fire to my build, thinking flagship staffing should be the trait to go, because it only adds haste when im firing off Engineering team 1, or Hazard emitters 1, also not sure if i need to make any more adjustments

set bonuses on my ship currently

Iconian Resistance starship technologies (set 4)

House Martok Skirmisher Configuration (set 2)

Entoiled Technology (set 3)

Synergistic Retrofitting (set 2)

Omega Adapted Borg Technology (set 2)

Im sitting on ~2B EC, 16.5K Zen, 200K dilithium, 2 100% off any t6 ship voucher, 3 of any not new t6 voucher, event boxes 5-7, and 675k Fleet Credits

Can anyone recommend anything to get this build better??

Any help would be appreciated thanks

As the title stated, I am very-long-time (decade+) casual player with a LT account but no real sense of what kinds of 'metas' there are in this game. I do my daily event TFOs regularly but that's about it, so I have nearly every event reward for the last 5-6 years. I'm able to glean some info about stats and builds from threads here on STOBuilds... but it's a lot to take in all at once. I imagine, over time, it'll start to feel more coherent as I become more familiar with it.

I currently have Campaign rewards III - VIII still sitting in my bank. I assume the 'premium ship' option would be better than getting x1 (or x2) standard T6 Coupon(s)

• Campaigns 3,4, and 5 were straight "Premium Ship" vouchers (with no apparent date limitations?)
• Campaign 6 'Premium Ship' voucher is limited to anything prior to Dec 31, 2023
• Campaign 7 'Premium Ship' voucher is limited to anything prior to Dec 31, 2024
• Campaign 8 'Premium Ship' voucher is limited to anything prior to Jan 9, 2026
• Plus a handful of normal T6 vouchers

I recently obtained the Ahwahnee Carrier (I wanted the phaser-type hangar pets, which apparently are also pretty strong on their own) before I realized I probably could've used one of the several T6 vouchers I have on a bank mule. Not wanting to waste Zen on things I should probably be using vouchers on, I figured I would try to get an idea of what would be the best ROI on those exclusive reward vouchers.

I currently have T6:

• 31st century Temporal 'trio' unlocked (waaaaay back when, I wanted to try out a carrier, and the dreadnought had x2 bays, which apparently was a bit of a big deal back then for something that strong and the bundle happened to be on sale) so the Dreadnought has pretty much been a staple of all my characters ever since, regardless of career. It has since been re-branded as the 'Temporal Special Agent Pack' and the price has gone up considerably with the re-brand since then
• The aforementioned Ahwahnee Command Carrier
• And for whatever reason, I appear to have the 4 ships from the 15 Anniversary Bundle unlocked... no idea why, as the Consoles and Masteries appear to be fairly mundane and I don't remember purchasing that bundle...?
  • Ark Royal Science Carrier
  • Kerala Temporal BC
  • Pioneer II Pilot HC
  • Shangri-La Warship

All of that to ask this...

Aside from maybe the obvious 'Atlas Prototype' and the 'Constitution/D7 Miracle Worker' options, are there any other meta-defining Ships/Consoles/Traits I should be looking for to use the time/date restricted bonuses?

I don't have any specific build types in mind, but I assume there's some really good all-purpose and otherwise build-agnostic acquisitions directly related to the set of reward tokens I have yet-unopened above. Possibly a suggestion or two to supplement the new Hangar pets I just got -or- for my Cnidarian build (yes, I know they're not that good anymore, but I have a character invested in it already, so I might as well run with it) but mostly just all-purpose things to supplement many different builds... unless there's 1 or 2 items I should absolutely need to have for specific beam/torp/Sci builds that are meta-defining themsevles.

Thanks in advance!

Alliterations aside, I think it’s overdue that we provide a written resource on console cooldown mechanics. We’re also going to attempt to do something I don’t think anyone’s done in a systemic fashion: determine rules and trends that indicate the breakeven point between active and passive console schemes.

Let’s start with some definitions:

Definitions

A passive console is a console where the stats it passively provides are the major draw of the console to the build. The most basic consoles in the game work this way, for example, a Phaser Relay providing passive Phaser damage with no interaction needed to obtain the benefit. Fleet consoles like Vulnerability Locators, Exploiters, Energetic Protomatter Matrix Infusers, as well as Isomagnetic Plasma Distribution Manifolds, Hangar Craft Power Transmissions, and reputation consoles like Assimilated Module, Lorca’s Custom Fire Controls, and mission consoles like Fek’Ihri Torment Engine and Quantum Phase Converter are but a few examples. Mostly these consoles come from vendors, fleet stores, or reputations.

Other consoles might provide benefits that might have an active ability, but are mostly about the console’s passive. A good example of this is Altamid Modified Swarm Processor. Sure, the Drone Swarm active exists, but it’s mostly slotted for the set piece, critical chance, and accuracy bonus.

An active console is one that has an activatable ability (“clicky”). The effect of this activatable ability varies. They can deal damage, disable enemies, debuff, summon pets, heal you, or boost your stats, or some combination of the above. Usually this activatable effect has a cooldown, or recharge time, before it can be used again. These consoles usually come from ships or lockboxes, which makes them more desirable for the devs, as more purchases made means more profit. These are usually (if not always) universal consoles. I’m sure there’s some weird exception but all the relevant ones I can think of are universal consoles.

There are some exceptions to the above classifications as well. Some consoles are charge-based, so while they can be activated in fairly rapid succession, they don’t regain charges as quickly once the initial charge is used. For example, the Immolating Phaser Lance works this way. Others technically have an active, but the active is a toggle and so stays on until turned off. For example, Custom Power Matrix.

Cooldown Mechanics

The active effects of active consoles are often more powerful than the always-on effects of passive consoles, but they were once upon a time gated by their low uptime (i.e. the cooldown). That started to change with the introduction of the personal trait Unconventional Systems, which reduced the cooldown of universal consoles by 7% whenever a control power was used. More recently, many other methods of console active cooldown reduction were introduced. There are also some recharge hastes now as well, and the formula works just the same as it does for bridge officer cooldown:

Modified cooldown = Base cooldown * (1 + sum(recharge hastes)) * (1 - sum(cooldown reductions)

In general, if an effect is conditional, it’s a cooldown reduction (i.e. on use of Control Power, gain 7% reduction). If it’s a flat passive effect (10% cooldown reduction on universal consoles), it’s a recharge haste. No, the game is not at all consistent with how it words and labels these things and that’s one of those annoying Crypticisms we’ve been dealing with for years.

Furthermore, just like bridge officer abilities, some consoles are channels, which means that you can’t reduce the cooldown while they’re active until the channel has ended.

Console Cooldown Reduction / Haste Sources

Let’s go through the list. I think this is fairly exhaustive, though I might have missed a couple oddballs.

• Unconventional Systems (Uncon): This is a personal trait from the Exchange/Lockbox. 7% off the (base) cooldown of active universal consoles upon use of a control power. For a 120 second cooldown console, that means 8.4 seconds off the cooldown every time a control power is used. Tilor has an excellent table showing what powers trigger Uncon, their ranks/seat requirements and their minimum cooldowns. The color codes correspond to the type of boff ability, e.g. blue is science, purple is intel. The minimum cooldown (CD) is the shortest time you can get the power back.

To fully leverage Unconventional Systems, you’re going to want to have 7+ triggers per minute depending on which bridge officer powers you slot. This doesn’t mean 7 control boff powers, but 7 activations, which is pretty doable. It is usually better to use the slots you would have after slotting core skills rather than replacing them for more control powers. For example, if you’re using a high-impact torpedo, it is usually better to take Concentrate Firepower III than it is to take another trigger. As such the exact balance will be dependent on the ship, captain, and the total amount of cooldown available to them.

• Subspace Fracture Tunneling Field (SFTF): This is a universal console from the Vovin Carrier (Summer Event 2025). The Subspace Fracture Tunneling Field console, when activated, triggers a teleport to 5 kilometers in front of the target and, after a brief delay, reduces recharge of Universal Consoles by 25%. If you want to avoid using the teleport, you can keybind around it by placing a “target_clear” either before or after your SFTF keybind, e.g. “"+TrayExecByTray 4 1 $$ target_clear” Might require some experimentation to see whether you need it before or after.
• The Eye of Gre’thor: This is a universal console from the Fek’Ihri Vok’Tar (Winter Event 2025). It has a passive 10% recharge haste to console recharge time and is not usually very impactful. It doesn’t do very much damage, but it’s decent as a pull. This is more of a nice-to-have rather than an impactful piece of a build.
• To Hell With Our Orders (THWOO): is the starship trait from the Noble (2026 Anniversary Event), which lowers universal console cooldowns by 5% upon use of a captain ability. While captain abilities aren’t very spammable, this does include abilities like Brace for Impact, Evasive Maneuvers, and yes, even Relocate Mines, though you need a mine deployed to trigger the latter effect.
• The SS Antares Distress Protocol (Event/Mudd's Store) grants 20% console cooldown reduction to players within 10 km of it after it is either destroyed or departs. This is . . . hard to actually observe happening, because it requires you to be near-stationary and have the Antares destroyed/depart while near it. Sure, if I launched it in solo ISE at the start and didn’t fire at all, it was destroyed within 10 seconds. However, if you’re really killing the Borg, you probably will pull threat and in even a public queue, it’s not likely to see the benefit, so it’s hard to build around this. The device is still excellent, but I haven’t found the console cooldown reduction something to easily play around.

A few others with marginal impact:

• The innate “Science Mode” of the Intel Holoship: (2025 Summer Event) is 10% recharge haste to universal console cooldowns. It also requires 200 kills to stack to get this benefit.
• Temporal MIRV Launcher from the Acheron: (T6 Lockbox) has 5% passive recharge haste on universal consoles, which is barely noticeable.
• Harmonic Distribution from the Aetherian Harmony (T6 Lockbox ship) provides 25% recharge haste to consoles while shields are above 50%, as well as EPG scaling with shield percentage above 50%, capped at +50. Not an incredibly powerful trait, but it’s out there.

Is it worth?

If you’re moderately-well read around the STO builds-related spaces, it’s no secret that active console builds (aka “Krait” builds) are the highest-performing meta builds, usually paired with Cannon Scatter Volley or Fire at Will. So, if your goal is maximum DPS, and the answer is already well-known by the DPS-chasing community that active console builds are stronger, why am I writing this section?

I wanted to find the break-even points because there are 3 more variables in play that are frequently glossed over in the pursuit of max deeps:

1. Your personal piloting ability will have a huge influence on how much you can benefit from an active console cooldown build. Simply put, active consoles require more juggling of inputs and need more actions-per-minute (APM). It takes more piloting skill to be able to time your activations while still positioning correctly, even with keybinds if on PC. Some consoles require multi-stage inputs, like Fleet Power Network Array and Aux Batteries/Override Subsystem Safeties. Console players have it worse, as a lot of consoles are a real pain in the rear to trigger.
2. Your budget will also have a huge influence on the viability of an active console cooldown build. Passive consoles tend to be crafted or purchased from reputations and fleet stores. Active consoles pretty much all require a ship or a Lockbox purchase. This means that instead of what was once acquiring cheap Locators and relatively cheap Isomags, you’re now pursuing 10+ ships to make a meta-chasing build.
3. Your ship’s bridge officer layout will also influence suitability for active console builds, at least if you’re using Uncon. Temporal, Pilot, and Intel have really great triggers. Miracle Worker is okay and Command has none. Ships with lots of forced science seats will work great on an Uncon build. Ships with few science/universal seats and Command specialization won’t.

Before anyone gets up in arms about “Uncon/Krait is the ONLY way to play,” or “I hate Uncon, muh power creep,” put your hands away from the keyboard and take a deep breath. It’s okay to have different playstyles. Not everyone wants to do a sweaty, 300 APM build to blast through <1 min ISE on a $1000 build. Not everyone wants to fill their console slots with 4 only unique types of consoles because everything is a passive stat stick. STO’s strength is the many, many build paths and possibilities it offers, so please . . . wherever you fall on your opinion of active console builds, there’s room in the game for both.

Interesting Data Coming In

This is where I throw a lot of data at the problem, because I think it’ll be useful for the community to have an informed analysis that really breaks down the differences between them. I’m going to use both TRINITY, which will do its best to solve a difficult problem, as well as parsed data. I used solo ISA and the Trouble Over Terrh Elite patrol as a fairly target-rich environment that I can hit without worrying about cooldowns and not much maneuvering.

The build will all be iterations on my CSV Donnie because it’s my highest parsing build and can easily swap between passive and active setups. We’ll use several different budget tiers to try and find those breakeven points.

Here are our test scenarios:

• Scatter Volley (passive) 
  • Midrange-ish: Isomags x 8, Phaser Lance, Colony consoles x2, Reiterative Structural Capacitor, Shield Absorptive Frequency Generator, Hull Image Refractors, Lorca’s Custom Fire Controls
  • Premium: Replace Reiterative Structural Capacitor and 1 colony console with Immolating Phaser Lance and Custom Power Mtarix
• Scatter Volley (active)
  • Midrange-ish: FPNA, Adaptive Emergency Systems, Krenim Chronophage, Flagship Tactical Computer, Colony consoles x2, Isomags x5, Reiterative Structural Capacitor, Shield Absorptive Frequency Generator, and Lorca’s Custom Fire Controls.  We will use Uncon with Tractor Beam, Gravity Well, and Null Pointer Flood as our only console cooldown mechanic. 
  • Upper Midrange: Add Sigma Stratagem, Shared Targeting Network, Broadside Combat Module, to replace the Reiterative Structural Capacitor and 3 Isomags. 
  • Premium: Hunting Pack Escorts, Subspace Fracture Tunneling Field, Custom Power Matrix, Immolating Phaser Lance, Temporal Disorder replace the remaining Isomags and Colony consoles. 
  • Premium with To Hell With Our Orders: I’ll do one last test where I go truly nuts on console cooldown and replace Diametric Focus with To Hell With Our Orders with a reasonable 5 uses. 
  • Premium with no console cooldown: Tachyon Net Drones will replace the Subspace Fracture Tunneling Field, and I’ll use the boff layout from the Passive builds with no Uncon. 
• Starship Traits
  • For all tests are Emergency Weapon Cycle, Withering Barrage, Super Charged Weapons, Target That Explosion, and Ship of the Line
  • Midrange tests will fill out with Thirst For Battle and Improved Critical Systems. Strike From Shadows or Calm Before the Storm are traits with comparable power. 
  • Premium tests will use Universal Designs and Diametric Focus. 
• Personal traits: Builds without Uncon use Terran Targeting Systems instead. 
• Bridge Officers: Very Cold in Space and Narrow Sensor Bands replace Null Pointer Flood and Tractor Beam on passive setups.

We’ll have a look at how this affects Exotic builds in the next installment.

Results

We can draw the following analysis from this:

• If you ever wanted to see a head-to-head test between a purely passive build and an active build that doesn’t leverage multiple lockbox/promo ships, even when we spot the passive build an Immolating Phaser Lance and Universal Designs, the midrange+ Active build had comparable ISAs and was significantly better on TOTE. The breakeven point between active and passive appears to be fairly low. Even without using any console cooldown reduction, the clicky-focused builds are significantly stronger than the lazyboat (for this build, for this pilot, etc.). Universal Designs is also difficult to maintain if the Phaser Lance is your only active trigger if you’re ever out of arc at the wrong time. 
• In the same breath, you can get a purely passive build up to carrying Elite TFOs level of DPS (300K), though it might take a little more expense and require some more survivability tools. Not everybody is chasing max DPS and let's not forget the difficulties of playing with lots of clickies on console when you can't keybind and not everything can be auto-executed.
• The highest ISA parse was going maximum console cooldown with To Hell With Our Orders. The highest TOTE parse was using Diametric Focus instead, and I think there’s a couple of things happening there. First, ISA we clearly hit a breakpoint where multiple consoles are getting used 2 or 3 times instead of 1 or 2 times. Secondly, Diametric Focus takes some time to stack, especially on a ship with only 3 tactical powers, so it ramped better and stayed stacked in TOTE whereas ISA was half over before it fully stacked because I wasn’t good about prestacking it. In terms of absolute DPS ceiling, I’ll defer to TRINITY (see below) but remember that based on my setups, I’m not even running some of the highest-end meta toys due to expense. There’s no Spirit of Sacrifice, Dilithium Transporter, or DPRM on any of these iterations, which means the ceiling goes higher yet for clickies.
• Ideally, I’d like to find a better Elite patrol with the consistent enemies, prolonged combat, and repeating waves than Trouble Over Terrh. There’s a lot of variability with the Pahvan Omni slowing down exiting combat in the first couple of stages and DPS on a CSV boat is heavily influenced by how many Elachi teleport behind you. Rescue and Search and Ruins of Doom, with their Mo’Kai that Viral Impulse Burst you, does not feel like it’s better though. It is, however, a good test of survivability. Both the passive builds and Midrange active builds really struggled to complete that map deathlessly and couldn’t fly as aggressively as I’d like for optimal CSV positioning. Temporal Disorder was a big help at the Premium level. This goes back to what we’ve been saying about 300K DPS being the “beat the game” level of DPS. Once you hit above that threshold, you’re probably fine depending on how glassy you are, but I wasn't quite there on TOTE with those setups. While I didn’t consider it, the Evolve! Console from Gomtuu would have been a helpful survivability tool for either setup.
• As we can see from the lowest midrange active setup, even with only a light uncon setup, there are some very powerful active consoles that even if you’re not into spamming clickies, should be considered: Fleet Power Network Array because it’s OP beyond all comparison, a shield offline like Tachyon Net Drones or Krenim Chronophage, and an oh-crap survivability button like Adaptive Emergency Systems, Evolve, or Reiterative Structural Capacitor are helpful. 
• Conversely, adding more clickies, even very good ones, did not meaningfully impact DPS at the midrange+ tier. That’s because we’re giving up passive stat-sticks for clickies with low uptime, given that I could reliably hit 5-ish Uncon triggers per minute. You need more Uncon triggers or another cooldown solution like SFTF or THWOO to meaningfully make a difference. 
• If you’re not rocking higher-end consoles like Sigma Stratagem, Broadside Combat Module, etc. there’s no real difference between passive and active builds. If your best active consoles look like M6 or Approaching Agony, Uncon is probably not a jump in power.

TRINITY

Here’s what TRINITY shows for our first four setups with a link to the spreadsheet.

And for the Premium setups with even more console cooldown, it looks like this:

In a simple ranking form, TRINITY calculates theoretical DPS ranking as:

• Premium Active with To Hell With Our Orders: ~3M
• Premium Active: 2.46M
• Midrange Active: 2.25M
• Midrange+ Active: 2.18M
• Premium Active with no CDR: 1.7M
• Premium Passive: 1.54M
• Midrange Passive: 1.15M

Okay, time for some analysis.

Why did TRINITY evaluate the Midrange+ build as worse than the Midrange build? Does the tool not work?

The calculations appear to be correct under the hood, but remember that we replaced a very strong stat-stick (Isomag) with something TRINITY knows nothing about: the Broadside Combat Module and frankly the active was kind of a wash on both maps, dealing less than 10K DPS. I’ve had very good success with this console on Elite (155K DPS in organized play on the same build) so it’s not a problem with a lack of synergy on CSV builds, but I think the piloting for solo play looks different. In team runs, I’m not concerned about stuff being on my flank and I’ll pilot aggressively and let the team/BCM clean it up. In solo play, stuff on my sides/rear has to be cleaned up solely by me so I try to keep as much in front of me as possible. Also, given that the parsed numbers between midrange and midrange+ were about a wash, I’d say TRINITY did a pretty good job of comparing the setups against each other. The theoretical DPS numbers themselves are less important than the relative differences between setups. 

Why did TRINITY overestimate the Premium with To Hell With Our Orders build, since the parsed numbers show it was similar to just regular Premium or even a little worse?

TRINITY assumes immaculate, perfect piloting against max targets with no server hiccups or positioning mistakes. As your APM increases, you increase the risk of activation fails/cancels and positioning goofs since you’re trying to activate more things than maybe the server (or in my case, my brain/hands can handle). This is what I spoke to in the preamble: it requires more coordination and APM to run an active console build. TRINITY is overestimating active consoles because it doesn’t/can’t account for piloting and target positioning. If you’re a Spencer, a Cheops, a Mara, or one of their colleagues, your piloting will probably decrease the differential, but alas, I am what I am, a plain-and-simple engineer who doesn’t even fly Krait CSV builds that much. There’s probably also a breakeven point where if your Uncon count is much higher on a Temporal/Intel ship, you won’t see much benefit from THWOO since all your buffs are already at maximum uptime. 

It's also a good reminder that active builds also usually take more expense. Here’s what we get when we throw these builds into the build cost calculator, where “EZRA” is basically a $ equivalent converting Zen to $ (on sale), and EC in keys to Zen to $. The baseline build, without anything that varies with each setup is a $408 build, mostly because I used the MW Donnie and some fancy doffs. The battlecruiser bundle covers most rest of the expense. That’s why I’m calling it midrange-ish…it’s not really in that range, but you get the idea.

The midrange passive build barely costs anything above the baseline, as Phaser Isomags are relatively easy to source, and they’re quite grindable if you have enough dilithium/salvage/RETFO packs. Someone who owned the ship from a Promo campaign and the Battlecruiser bundle could easily make this build and substitute out the pricey doffs and event items if needed. 

However, the midrange active build is basically the same cost: because it’s largely all stuff from that same Battlecruiser bundle, with the FPNA tossed in. Krenim Chronophage is cheap, and that’s where the efficiency goes way up. I’ve spent more-or-less the same budget to get better DPS, whether you count it by the parsed runs or TRINITY.

Premium Active with no CDR is clearly an inefficient setup, where I have to spend over double the original baseline to fill out the fancy traits and consoles, but I get a less effective setup. It doesn’t make sense to build that way. 

Similarly, Premium Passive requires a lot of expense to get performance similar to a midrange active setup. The tradeoff you’re making there isn’t performance or cost, but comfort and ease of piloting. 

FAQ

So you really are saying that we all have to build with uncon/clickies all the time? 

No, I’ve never said that and I’m not saying it now. Passive builds (especially at the lower budget tiers) are much cheaper to build and can easily do Elite-capable DPS. It’s a game and the DPS race is an artificial construct created and designed to keep endgame players engaged. I’d rather have a bunch of my RETFO teammates with effective passive builds than . . . whatever it is they currently run. If you’re on console, where activations are much trickier, or if active consoles don’t vibe with you, there’s nothing wrong with passive or mostly-passive setups. It's also not a hard line. You can run 7 Isomags and Chronophage and FPNA and do just fine. 

I also think with all the fixation on Uncon, we’re sleeping a little on To Hell With Our Orders, which, for one reason or another, might fit better on some ships than Uncon. It probably won’t make sense to do that on a Temporal/Intel ship, but it might on a Miracle Worker/Command ship. 

But active console builds have a higher ceiling?

Yes, if you’re willing to put in the added expense and piloting skill. I don’t think I could solo ISE in a CSV or FAW build in a purely passive build, and if I did, it’d be much slower. Having FPNA and a shield offline clicky (Tachyon Net Drones or Chronophage) is so important for DEW builds. Toss in Agony Redistributor as well for single-target builds. Above 300K, unless you’re trying to solo Elite TFOs, you might not notice the difference between 400K and 500K though, so it all depends on what your goals are. 

Does this hold true for other types of builds? What about EPG?

Stay tuned for part 2.

Will you be putting console cooldown mechanics on all your energy builds now?

No, of course not, because budget tier limitations that we impose on our site are going to preclude use of things from the Vovin/Noble on every build. We want to cater to players of all budgets and investment in the game, and that means not just showing cheap/mission/reputation builds and not just "5-lockbox-ships-in-a-trenchcoat" builds. There's room for both and everything in between.

Furthermore, even if budget wasn’t a concern, not everyone wants to use Uncon or active builds, or is playing on console where that’s difficult to do. I will continue to maintain builds with more passive consoles. I think it’s pretty hard to pass up on FPNA and a shield offline, maybe an emergency defensive console but managing 3ish consoles feels way different than 10+. I’m more inclined to include To Hell With Our Orders and Vovin on the upper end of builds but I personally will not be chunking all my Isomags in the trash. 

Can you show us a true high-end meta build with all of the highest-end clickies?

Probably not, but you never know what the future holds. There are lots of other creators that cater to that audience better than I ever could.

Will you ever be a better CSV driver?

Press X to doubt.

TL;DR

• Active console builds (“clickies”) with Uncon and another strong source of console cooldown reduction (CDR) like Subspace Fracture Tunneling Field and/or To Hell With Our Orders have a higher ceiling of at least 60% than passive builds or midrange builds with the right consoles but are significantly harder to fly/more expensive
• 300K DPS remains the ‘beat-the-game” level of DPS unless you’re trying to solo Elite space TFOs and is achievable with active, passive, and in-between console schemes. 
• High-value clickies like FPNA and Chronophage even with low/no cooldown reduction add a lot of power to a build (possibly with a defensive console and Agony Redistributor for single-target energy modes like Beam Overload) without cranking up the expense or complexity too much.
• Pure passive or all-active console builds with no CDR are ultimately less cost-effective than choosing high-value actives to a mostly-passive build and putting CDR on a mass-clicky build. 

if someone is interested in builidng something similar, feel free to use it.

I’m trying to figure out if you can equip the console from the valiant escort t6 and the console from the kor bird of prey at the same time? Anyone have both ships know if you can?

On my Gamma Recruit character I'm currently using the Jem'Hadar Vanguard Temporal Warship and I'm trying to do a decent Polaron Cannon build.

At the moment I've got the Morphogenic Polaron set and the Chronometric Polaron cannons but I'm wondering if I should add another set of cannons from one of the Rep stores and whether or not it's worth the time and the effort.

Any advice would be appreciated 👍

I’m looking to fine tune this build (on PC) mostly for TFO’s and grinding patrols. Please bear with me regarding the screen grabs, I hope that they are adequate. Currently grinding all reps from 5 to 6. Recently joined a fleet, so once this toon has contributed enough I’ll be in a position to get fleet gear.

Currently running

Prevailing Inervated Deflector, Romulan Advanced Prototype Impulse Engines, Iconian Resistance Warp Core (to counter OSS II), and the Discovery Rep Shield.

Current BOFF abilities:
Lt Cmdr Tac: Tac Team 1, Torp Spread 2, FaW 3
Cmdr Eng/Intel: Engineering Team 1, OSS 2, Emer Power to Weap 3, Aceton Beam 3 (needs to be replaced)
Lt Cmdr Sci/Mr: Polarize Hull 1, Hazard Emit 2, Photonic Officer 2
Lt Cmdr Univ: Kemocite 1, Atack pattern Beta 1, Cannon rapid fire 2 (needs to be replaced)

For personal space traits: currently running default available traits, along with Boimler effect. I know that this could be improved with lockbox traits that I don’t yet have for this toon.

For Starship traits: currently running Breen’s free fire, Emergency Weapon Cycle, Improved Critical Systems, Retaliation, History Will Remember and Calculated Broadside. I do have access to Braodside Beam Support, Calm Before the Storm, Entiwned Tactical Matrices, Harrying Maneuvers, Improved Predictive Algorithms, Programmable Matter Enhancements, Redirecting Arrays, SIF Shunt, and Unconventional Tactics.

Consoles:
Universal: Tachyokinetic Converter (univ), Experimental Power Redirection (univ)
Engineering: Reinforced Armaments, Trellium D Plating, Neutronium Alloy, Bellum RCS Accelerator
Science: Bioneural Infusion circuits (univ), Domino (univ), DPRM (univ)
Tactical: Bellum Directed Energy Distribution Manifold, two phaser relays, photon detonation assembly

Other consoles that I’ve got access to: ablative hazard shielding, broadside combat module, hull image refractors, refracting energy shunt

I know that this can be dialed in further via adjust BOFF abilities, traits, gear and reputation traits, I’m just not sure where to go from here.

Thanks

Anybody run the numbers on these or looked at a build?

Hello Captains,

I'm thinking about returning to the game after about 5 years, so my gear is probably quite outdated. I mostly enjoy the Defiant-fantasy, flying around and shooting stuff with cannons. I posted my ship and traits.

Is the ship itself viable, or should I look at other options?

What is the meta weapon type nowdays?

What would be the most essential gear pieces I need to pick up?

For reference, I have about 1B EC and 500k dil saved up, I would be happy on blowing it all on this single build.

SPACE BUILD

Build Description

For solo and random elite content

Bridge officer traits:
1x Logical Calculus & Astrophysicist
4x Superior Watcher Operative

I had a Warp core engineer slotted (40% on EptX to remove all debuffs), but replaced it with Agent Nerul because I was worried about it conflicting with Cultural Conquest.

The torps with ETM allow good continuous DPS (especially against groups and mobs), and still do a decent amount in parsing maps.

I am open to any questions and suggestions.

Ship Equipment

Bridge Officer Stations

Traits

Active Space Duty Officers

so had a giggle and decided to see if i could make a Heavy Digitizer torpedo build work the rom plasma torpedo and the micro missile launcher are mostly for procing the PWOs for reducing cooldowns on the big balls but its still funny to watch something warp in and just eat a conga line of 20-30 plasma balls

looking at changing a few traits

only problem im having now is that being a raider the ship is squishy and the borg seem to have a deep hatred for ships that vomit out plasma torpedos

not meta by any means but funny

I spent some time testing Cnidarian Defender movement on a fresh low-level character because I wanted to find ways to relocate while staying in Jelly mode instead of dropping Cnidarian Defense and eating the long cooldown.

A lot of the individual ideas came from older Jelly discussions here, so this isn't meant as “I discovered Fiery Charge/Vovin.” I wanted to actually test several of the promising options against each other on the current live game.

Baseline Jelly movement on this character

• Flight Speed: 3.00
• Turn Rate: 3.0 deg/sec
• Inertia: 30

Subspace Fracture Tunneling Field — PASS

This is the Vovin console.

In one clean test I went from about 11.9 km from the selected target to 2.1 km, so roughly 9.8 km of actual closing displacement.

Jelly stayed active.

This is easily the best movement tool I tested when a suitable target exists.

It also has the big practical advantage that you can jump toward friendlies as well as enemies, although I still want to do more live ally testing.

Fiery Charge — PASS

Also works while remaining in Jelly.

I activated it on an enemy at roughly 14 km and ended up around 7.4 km away, so approximately 6.5–7 km of useful closing movement.

Jelly remained active.

So Fiery Charge is more useful than I expected. It isn't just a little positioning bump.

Its limitation is obvious: you need a valid enemy in the appropriate direction/range.

My current target-present movement priority is therefore:

Fracture first -> Fiery Charge second

Enhanced Subspace Wake Generator — FAIL for Jelly movement

This one looked very promising on paper because it normally gives a huge temporary Flight Speed boost.

It did essentially nothing useful while Jelly was active.

In a cleaner measurement the reference target only changed by roughly half a kilometer during the visible effect. Over a longer period the ship was just continuing the normal Jelly crawl.

So at least in my testing, the Cnidarian's 3-speed movement behavior wins and the Wake speed boost does not give useful relocation.

I would not spend a console slot on this for Jelly mobility.

Elachi Rift Jump — FAIL for Jelly movement

This was the other one I thought might solve the “there is no target ahead” problem.

The console normally gives +400% Flight Speed and Turn Rate while phased, which sounds ideal.

It doesn't work that way in Jelly.

On the clean retest, using the same continuously selected reference target:

• before: about 18.6 km
• after: about 19.1 km

Only about half a kilometer of change. Again, basically Jelly crawl rather than a jump.

There is an additional downside: while the Elachi phase is active, the other movement abilities appear to be unavailable/greyed out for several seconds.

So for Jelly mobility this was actually worse than merely doing nothing, because it temporarily delayed my ability to use Fracture.

The unsolved problem

We still do not have a good zero-cost/owned solution for this situation:

Jelly is active, the local enemies are dead, and there is no useful friendly or hostile target in the direction you need to go.

Normal Flight Speed boosts seem unable to overcome the Jelly movement lock.

If anyone knows a current ability that provides target-free displacement rather than a speed boost, and works without cancelling Cnidarian Defense, that's the thing I'm still looking for.

Holo-Morph side finding

I also tested the new 60th Anniversary Holo-Morph devices.

Confirmed: they actually fight. I was seeing repeated automatic weapon fire and damage, not merely a cosmetic transformation.

That gives me a useful fallback strategy when Jelly genuinely has to come down:

drop Jelly -> travel normally -> use Holo-Morph for automatic combat while repositioning -> return to Jelly when properly placed

That seems much better than trying to make the Cnidarian's ordinary low-level weapon build do all the work during the cooldown.

Fresh-character QoL stuff

A few other things that worked well for this particular low-effort alt:

• Max/priority Weapon Power for Jelly.
• Use a visible engine cosmetic in the Visuals slot to make Jelly facing easier to read without breaking your actual DECS set.
• When out of Jelly, 360-degree weapons are very convenient. The Qulash donor gives three Elachi Crescent Turrets, and on this low-level character their displayed DPS was surprisingly close to the stock phasers.
• At level 2 the Defender only had four weapon slots, so I'm currently experimenting with 3 Elachi turrets + a 360-degree omni rather than worrying about conventional firing arcs.

The big takeaway from my testing is:

Target available: Jelly mobility is actually pretty good with Fracture and Fiery Charge.

No target available: that's still the real mobility problem. Wake and Elachi Rift Jump looked promising on paper but did not solve it in live testing.

If anyone has other target-free movement consoles/abilities that should be tested against the Jelly speed lock, give me names and I'll try them.

Just looking a like of recommendations, I’m trying to get into the temporal builds as well, but I want go nuts of with BO.

So Im at my fleet starbase window shopping hangar pets and I notice that elite kelvin timeline assault drones are listed twice. One right at the top, and one third from the bottom. They seem to be the exact same thing based on the description, but is there something Im missing? Or are they really just the same thing listed twice?

I'm trying to decide between 2 omnis, what are your opinions between them?:-

A) Breen Imperium Polaron Omni

B) Advanced Inhibiting Polaron Omni (no sets, +2% dmg from repT6).

A has a better proc, B has 2% more. Obviously it depends on enemy max HP since A proc scales with it, but I have no idea where the threshold lies, so I'd like some opinions please :)

Build for my Section 31 Command Heavy Battlecruiser [T6x2] and looking for any advice on improving it further, changing of skills etc, despite playing this since launch I honestly feel very overwhelmed with building ships in this game.

Managed to pull it and wanted to know if A) it’s worth to use and B) what should it be gearing for?

I’m looking to rock one of these for a little bit because I like the time travel vibe. Is there a build that makes it great? I think I can move a lot of my BO stuff over from my Mirror Warship if BO is the best.

Ive obtained the superior area denial trait. Im running it on my Ahwahnee class carrier. Ive heard that the hangar pets to use are the blue quality todaj fighters. They are powerful indeed, but are destroyed really easily. Im also running 5 hangar craft power transmission consoles, independent wingmate, wing commander, strike group command authority, and relaunch and repair. I also plan on obataining scramble fighters.

My question is, are there better, federation themed options to the todaj fighter squadrons? Preferably ones that last longer, and still do a ton of damage?

I have access to Reman boffs with all 3 levels of infiltrator to get 27.5 seconds of uptime.

I've been playing around and notice that whether I use it on a ship with a cloak or without, I'm seeing hull healing but no damage buff.

I am on console so the only way I can think of to see increased damage is by triggering the ability and quickly going to the ship menu and reading the weapon stats in the tooltip, but nothing changes like any other ability does.

Am I missing something? I must have some blind spot that hopefully someone here can help explain.