U.S.S. Aquila

Notes

• All weapon-centric builds benefit from the tactical ultimate, as weapon haste and bonus weapon damage from the Focused Frenzy active are appreciable when used on big targets. Applying the bonus to your team is also appreciated. I do not find the cooldown boost from Frenzied Reactions to be needed on a build with a good cooldown scheme.

• Engineering skills

  • Two points in Hull Restoration/Hull Capacity are low opportunity cost for relatively high survivability gains. 

  • I always take a single point in Hull Plating, but other resistance skills and Damage Control are not worth it. Likewise, 2 points in Impulse Expertise is an appreciable boost to maneuverability. Warp Core Potential and especially Warp Core Efficiency help boost power to subsystems. Efficiency is particularly good at adding power to subsystems I am not allocating much power to.

  • I take a single point in EPS Power Transfer to recover power levels faster after drains or Full Impulse, but it's low impact on this build. 

• Science skills

  • Single points in Shield Restoration/Shield Capacity are low opportunity cost for relatively high survivability gains. Since I need skill points elsewhere, only 1 here for those. 

  • Since this character is using Gravity Well and Tractor Beam, having both points in ControlX boosts those as well as the Exotic Particle Generator skill adds value. Control Amplification further increases damage dealt by exotics like Isolytic Tears. DrainX helps amp Neutronic and/or Quantum Phase Torpedoes on builds which use them so I take both points on this character

  • The rest of the science skills are of little value on this build and are completely skippable. 

• Tactical skills

  • Projectile Weapon Training, Hull Penetration, Shield Penetration, Weapon Specialization, and Weapon Amplification are all worthwhile skills to take 3 points in as they boost energy weapon damage directly. Since I do have some energy weapons that deal decent damage, 2 points in Energy Weapon Training is a good choice. 

  • I like taking 2 points apiece in accuracy and defense. Defense is a small contribution to avoiding incoming damage but also helps reduce enemy crits when you're not moving and accuracy is just good all around, if not a stat that you'll need tons of. 

  • Coordination Protocols, Defense Coordination and Offensive Coordination are good team boosts so I always take those. They also benefit hangar pets on builds that have those. Improved Tactical Readiness is essential for reducing tactical cooldowns along with the rest of the cooldown scheme. 

• Unlocks

  • There are two crucial unlocks: battery expertise (improves duration of consumable batteries) and threat control which either increases or decreases threat based on threatening stance. 

Temporal Operative is useful for Entropic Rider and Atrophied Defenses as well as Phasic Artillery and Continuity. The passive EPG is nice as well for feeding Subspatial Warheads. Intel is an option and I use that on my Kinetic Scimitar, but I like the safety in Temporal as well as the lessened piloting need since flanking is not a consideration with Temporal. 

Notes

• Only a Pilot ship with the Eagle's console can effectively fire five torpedoes. For my fifth torpedo, I chose the Temporal Disruption Device. I'd previously explored using it on a Scimitar but it rarely fired and underwhelmed. That was not the case here but required additional reload support from doffs to make it work. That said, it did significant damage and if you're going for a 5th torpedo on a Pilot-torp build, then make it a good one. Alternatives could have included the Terran Task Force Torpedo or Morphogenic Torpedo with its 3-piece. Still undecided on this, but a longer cooldown torp seems better since it won't fire that often. 

• I could have used a Mine Launcher in the back and the Eagle's Experimental Weapon which can be fired under Battle Cloak and built around cloak. That said, this character is not Romulan and speccing hard into Ambush/She's a Predator didn't seem worthwhile without the addition of more Subterfuge Bridge Officers and would have just added to the piloting workload of an already-difficult to fly ship. Most offensive boff abilities cannot be cast while cloaked.

• The use of the Quantum Phase torpedo (which I'm normally a big fan of) was rejected due to the difficulty of making sure that torpedo is spread since I'm autofiring torps. I can't manually fire them fast enough to make it worthwhile on this ship.

• I tried using Maelstrom torpedoes on it, but they require some unique keybinding and I wasn't impressed with the results for a weapon that fires so little. If you're even higher DPS than this, doing a strategy where an ISE is completed in under 60 seconds, that might be more valuable, but for general use, I wasn't impressed. 

Notes:

The Adapted M.A.C.O set is underrated by many torpedo drivers, but if you don't need/want the Competitive Engines, then it's a solid option. If the Competitive (Prevailing) engines are desired, then I would use the Tilly Shield (Discovery Legends reputation), possibly adding the warp core from that set as well. 

Notes: 

For beams or cannons, energy type and subtype doesn't matter all that much and an astounding number of keystrokes have been spent asking whether Phaser or Disruptor is better, should I fill up with Spiral Wave Disruptors or Sensor-Linked, etc. when difference between them until one starts hard-core chasing numbers is minimal. That is NOT the case with torpedoes, where I will say that conservatively there's about a dozen usable types of torpedoes for high-level play and the rest of them are basically trash. This is where the torps-are-weak crusaders have a point--the average torp is not strong, and 3 whole subtypes are basically not worth slotting (Transphasic, Chroniton, and Tricobalt). This is my personal list of strong/decent torpedoes. If it's not on this list, I personally wouldn't slot it (though I may have missed one)

• Photons: Gravimetric (especially with Sci Builds!), Enhanced Bio-Molecular, Adv. Piezo Photon, Terran Task Force

• Quantums: Neutronic, Quantum Phase, Delphic Distortion, Dark Matter, Advanced Radiant

• Plasma: Particle Emission Plasma (especially with Sci Builds), Romulan Hyper-Plasma (Plasma torp builds only), Omega (Plasma torp builds only), Altamid (Plasma energy builds only), Nanopulse (Plasma torp builds only) 

• Energy: Morphogenic Polaron, Adv. Diffusive Tetryon (Tetryon builds only with set), Nausicaan Energy (Disruptor builds only with set), Agony Phaser (Phaser builds only)

• Other: Temporal Disruption Device (weird Tricobalt/Chroniton hybrid that's somehow good)

Consoles: While it pains me to give up my healing console, the Tachyon Net Drones from the Bozeman are REALLY good and there's an argument to be made for slapping them onto pretty much any kind of build. Support, tank, energy, projectile, maybe even exotic. It's hard to pick apart the active in the parser but if you tally up all the pieces, it hits really hard and also takes enemy shields offline. 

Budget Tweaks:

• If Imperial Rift warp core is unavailable, use the Discovery one instead. Potentially take Discovery Shield and Romulan Engines instead

• Agony Redistributor -> Ordnance Accelerator

• Delphic Torpedo -> Quantum Phase

• Altamid Omni -> Advanced Inhibiting Omni

• Phased Space Membrane -> Deconstructive Resonance Emitter (should be cheap-ish)

• Micro-Quantum Torpedoes Phalanx Array -> Temporal Disentanglement Suite

• Tachyon Net Drones -> Assimilated Module

Meta Notes

• This ship avoids using A2B so that it can take advantage of the Phased Space Membrane, whose duration expires when aux goes down. 

• Torpedo High Yield III has a lot more damage potential than Torpedo Spread III if you have Subspatial Warheads. If you don't have that trait, might be better to stick with Spread III, but note that the FAW for ETM will conflict with the FAW from TS and puts them on cooldown. 

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

If going full glass-cannon with unlimited budget

• Whole Lotta X's -> Terran Targeting Systems

• Give Your All -> Adaptive Offense

Budget Tweaks:

Try and keep the ones at the bottom, but the default traits are not very good for torpedoes at all. 

• Drop Boimler Effect (Elite Captain)

• Whole Lotta X's -> Redirected Armor Plating

• Context Is For Kings -> Operative

• Self-Modulating Fire -> Innocuous

• Resonating Payload Modification -> Astrophysicist

• A Good Day to Die -> Elusive

• Intelligence Agent Attache -> Particle Manipulator (super strong on scitorp builds, pretty weak here)

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• These are pretty well close-to-meta traits at this price point. If your budget is unlimited, replace Strike From Shadows with Terran Goodbye at the high end. 

Budget Tweaks:

 Try and keep the ones at the bottom. Torpers really need Entwined Tactical Matrices to function

• Drop Universal Designs (T6X2)

• Drop Subspatial Warheads (T6X)

• Rapid Emitting Armaments -> Angle on the Bow if available, Improved Command Frequency if not

• Superior Area Denial -> Promise of Ferocity if available, Unconventional Tactics if not

• Strike From Shadows -> Onboard Dilithium Recrystallizer

• Ceaseless Momentum -> This one is very hard to give up, but if it's truly out of your budget, you don't have a lot of good options. Improved Critical Systems would be okay; so would Programmable Matter Enhancements.

Notes:

There are 3 items in this build that come from the 12th Anniversary Bundle. While it is extremely expensive, captains wishing to use those items will find it more cost-effective to buy the bundle on sale rather than shelling out individually.

Miscellaneous

This ship uses Photonic Officer with the Boimler Effect as its primary cooldown mechanism. As evidenced from the chart above, without Boimler Effect triggering, this build will not have most of its powers on global cooldown. Thankfully, with a high number of short rotation powers (10 over a 15-20 second rotation), there's an  91% chance or higher of at least 1 activation of the trait during a rotation. 

Link to CDR Sheet for this build