The Phoenix Division

Here is my current science officer build for a fleet patrol escort.
Weapons = 3 Dual Heavy Cannons and 1 Dual Beam Bank in front; 3 Turrets in back.
Deflector = Borg.
Engine = Borg.
Shield = Aegis (I'd rather have M.A.C.O.).
Devices = Subspace Modulator (hull defense), Auxiliary Batteries (for science abilities).
Engineering Consoles = 3 Armors (defensive mix against everything), Borg Console.
Science Consoles = 2 Field Generators (yes, they stack!).
Tactical Consoles = 4 Consoles for my damage type.
Pay close attention to my abilities. Consider the types of tactics I am likely to employ. Attack pattern omega gets me free of tractor beams and increases my damage and speed. Tractor beam gives me the ability to hold ships while my weapons pound them into space dust. Cannon Scatter Volley allows me rid a carrier of its fighters. I also have plenty of nasty science officer tricks to make other players cry.

If that doesn't work fast enough, I have plenty of defensive abilities ready to utilize to keep me alive.
My duty officers are primarily geared toward increasing the likelihood of benefiting my shields. The other two are in there to enhance some of my science abilities.
This skillset is optimized to give me powerful survivability, good power levels, and the best offensive capability I can have. This skillset lets me switch between any escort class starship with minimal problems.

Performance skills should only go to 6. The benefit is too little to be worth going all the way to 9. You could dump some skills, like Batteries and Hull Plating, if you need those extra points somewhere else.

Fifteen of the 21 skills you have filled (72%) are filled to nine. Why are you not following the advice you gave me? Wouldn't your advice provide you with more enhanced skills?

Spomek wrote:

Performance skills should only go to 6. The benefit is too little to be worth going all the way to 9. You could dump some skills, like Batteries and Hull Plating, if you need those extra points somewhere else.

Fifteen of the 21 skills you have filled (72%) are filled to nine. Why are you not following the advice you gave me? Wouldn't your advice provide you with more enhanced skills?

My advice was to keep performance skills at 6, which I did. The reason is the skills provide a flat bonus to power levels. Once you get past 6, the extra power just isn't worth the skill points. I also said you could drop batteries and hull plating, which are also skills I don't have.

However, I do have quite a few skills maxed. These are mostly for the three core needs of escorts:

1. Weapons - Escorts are designed for quick kills. Anything to improve weapon damage and accuracy are necessary.
2. Movement - This works for both defense and offense. Faster speeds mean higher defense as the enemy misses more. Better maneuverability also means it's easier to keep all weapons pointed at the target.
3. Survivability - Nothing leaves an escort more vulnerable than losing power or being temporarily removed from the fight by holds or stuns. Skills like Power Insulators and Inertial Dampers are critical for escort survival.

My advice was to keep performance skills at 6, which I did.

I see now what you were talking about, those skills in the Captain and above columns that end in "Performance." lol

Thanks for the clarification.

I've made a minor alteration to my bridge officer abilities that should make my escort somewhat more deadly. Here is another look at my skillpoints: http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillpl ... Sciscort_0

My previous bridge officer ability setup wasn't quite optimal, at least when it came to the Engineering abilities. It turns out that running two Damage Control Duty Officers can reduce the global cooldown on Emergency Power to X abilities to 15 seconds, which makes it optimal to run two of of those abilities. Constantly hardened shields (Emergency Power to Shields II) and increased weapon power (Emergency Power to Weapons I) are two things escorts need. I put these two abilities on a keybind. All my other bridge officer abilities remained the same in this change. I haven't yet decided what duty officer will replace my last Shield Distribution Officer.