Good day, Joe and STOers! In the first part of this series, I looked at the Terran Eagle, the first ever Tier 6 version of the Aquarius support Raider for/from the Odyssey-class line of ships.
In this second part, I’ll be looking at a new version of the Nebula, the Terran Monitor Miracle Worker Carrier.
Similar to the Nebula class and its lineage, this ship has a 3/3 weapons layout, favoring Science seating and Science console slots. Unlike other Nebulas, though, it’s now a full Carrier, meaning it carries 2 Hangar Bays instead of the 7-8 weapons non-Science ships have or a Secondary Deflector like Science ships have. This already makes it an underdog candidate for a high-damage platform.
WELLLL…it really depends on what you mean by “high-damage platform.” It definitely won’t break any records. It has too few weapons for Directed Energy Weapons (“DEW”) to break records, and it doesn’t have a Secondary Deflector so the “Science” aspect is downgraded compared to Science ships.
It does make up for those things somewhat by being a Miracle Worker ship. Miracle Worker gets access to the Bridge Officer ability Mixed Armaments Synergy, which lets Beams, Cannons, Mines, and Torpedoes get a “Cat2” damage boost* to the other 3 types if 1 of them is activated. This can help make up for some of the ship’s deficiencies as far as reaching certain damage goals.
* Very basically, “Cat2” (short for “Category 2”) is a bonus modifier at the end of most/all other damage calculation. “Cat1” is effectively a modification earlier in the calculation where damage numbers are lower. For example, on 5,000 damage with both a “+10% All Damage” (Cat1) and “+10% Bonus All Damage” (Cat2), you’ll go from 5,000 to 5,500 first (+500 from Cat1), then from 5,500 to 6,050 (+550 from Cat2). If Cat1 and Cat2 behaved exactly the same, that 5,000 would instead be worth 6,000 (+500 from each modifier). This is overly simplistic, but it gets the general point across. For a bit more detail, see MCStu’s video on the difference.
It also has Temporal seating, allowing it to use Bridge Officer abilities like Recursive Shearing (essentially a staple damage-dealing Temporal BOFF power) or Timeline Collapse (damage, but more importantly it’s a control ability for the Personal Space Trait “Unconventional Systems“). I had intended to use at least one of these, but I didn’t notice the mistake in identifying my BOFF ability icons and went with Emit Unstable Warp Bubble II, instead.
But as you’ll see below, being at a relative disadvantage to other ship choices doesn’t mean it can’t get the job done in Advanced-difficulty content and even in Elite.
THE RUN
Like last time, I’m running “Infected: The Conduit” on Advanced difficulty. I’ve built up most of the gear to Mk XV Epic, and I have most of the “staple” Personal Space Traits and Bridge Officers slotted.
THE PARSE AND BREAKDOWN
At 164k DPS, the Monitor is currently the top damage dealer in this review series! To be honest, that’s more than I expected. I felt relatively slow and unable to properly line up my targets with my firing arcs. I wasn’t firing off as many abilities as I felt I could have, but that’s a me problem.
The parse sees the pets did ~71.6k DPS (higher than some of my “me and my ship only” runs!), which is ~44% of the overall DPS. That was shocking to me, but perhaps after you see the build and some of the build-specific stuff in it, that’ll make more sense to you. (I notice numbers, but I don’t analyze them. I’ll leave that up to those who know way more than I do!)
THE BUILD
Also as usual, I want to show the gear, traits, etc., I had equipped for the run. (As much as I try to keep up with my abilities on the ability tray, some things went unused not because I didn’t think they’d be useful, but because I was focused on moving around and firing other abilities, instead).
Since Tetryon weapons were not part of this build, I did not use the ship’s trait or console.
At the contributor’s request, I included the Terran Hydra Intel Destroyer’s Console and Starship Trait. As the Monitor is a Science Carrier, it can likely put out more damage on the Console than the Hydra (as there will be more hangar pets than Prometheus-style sections alone), and the Starship Trait gives an overall damage boost to the hangar pets (whether 10% bonus on a number of hangar pets beats out 50% on Multi-Vector sectors or Saucer separations, I don’t know).
I got Independent Wingmate since I knew I’d be using at least two Carrier-style ship in the series, and at the contributor’s suggestion I used Deft Cannoneer to give the ship a bit more turn rate on use of Cannon abilities.
Other than those things, the build is essentially a “DEWSci” build, mixing Directed Energy Weapons with a Science-heavy loadout. That should mean the Energy Weapons and Science abilities are operating as well as they can each do, combining on Science builds to get as much damage capability out of each damage style.
This ship went in a 3rd direction with the hangar pets. With Engage the H.Y.D.R.A.; Independent Wingmate; and the Hydra’s Starship Trait “Strike Group Command Authority”, it felt like this ship’s pets were ready to do some major damage.
PERSONAL REACTION
So, I think this requires a bit of backstory.
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BACKSTORY
When Agents of Yesterday came out, I got the Temporal Special Agent Pack. Back in that day (he hunches over, cane in hand to balance himself), you didn’t have scaling Tier 6 ships. They were purely end-game, superior-to-Tier 5 ships. If you wanted a better ship at each 10-level increment, you had to change ships. The Temporal Special Agent Pack came with not only a Tier 1 Consitution-class ship (T6 endgame-intended ships are all Lock Box, Promo, or Legendary) but also 1 ship each at Tiers 2 through 6. This allowed you to swap out to ships with better stats and their special Console at each rank-up until you hit Tier 6.
One run of a 23rd Century TOS Starfleet character I did had the intention of using only the Temporal Special Agent Pack’s ships.
Fast-forward to Tier 4, which was the Gemini Temporal Cruiser (which had no “Temporal” seats or abilities as it wasn’t Tier 6).
Ooooh, gracious, I hated that thing! It turned like a loaded-down dump truck and seemed to move at impulse just as slowly. Suffice it to say, I was glad to hit Levels 45-50 where I could get a Tier 5 or Tier 6 ship.
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THE POINT OF THE BACKSTORY
As well as the Monitor did for me, it personally wasn’t satisfying for that very reason. I always seemed slow to the fight and slow to get turned to where I felt I was dealing enough damage to matter.
“But you clocked a 160k+ parse! You did fine!” Yeah, but I feel I didn’t do fine with it. It was like I hit the opposite problem of the Eagle: Instead of being too small to keep track of and too fast and too maneuverable, the Monitor was everything opposite that. The extra visibility was fantastic! However, if I can’t speed up and move like I feel I need to, that’s not as helpful.
But that’s a classic definition of a me problem. I didn’t like it, but that doesn’t mean you won’t. If you’re used to relatively sluggish and slow-turning ships and are able to make up for that fairly easily, or if that’s the flight/movement style you like, you’ll have no issues with this ship.
RATING
Again, I can’t judge for the meta. But as best as I know, being a “Science Carrier” it’s at a deficit compared to 5/3 ships, 4/4s that have 2 Hangar Bays, and 3/3s & 4/2s that have a Secondary Deflector.
Personally, I’d rate this a 6/10. This ship can pack quite a punch! I wish I could judge its console and trait, but I wasn’t geared up to use them effectively (maybe on an upcoming Tetryon build, which I believe I need to do for one ship…). But for all the damage it dishes out, its Engines are sluggish to respond. That gets to me more than a bad setup, but again, that’s a me problem.
If you’re used to slower-turning, slower-moving ships, I’d bump this to an 8/10. It’s not going to be a record-setting contender being a “Science Carrier”, but it’ll do what you need it to do with a pet-based build. Synergies with the Terran Hydra Intel Destroyer’s trait and console, along with having both Miracle Worker and Temporal Operative specialization seats, allow this ship to be a versatile platform for your run-of-the-mill mission or queue needs.
ELITE VIABILITY
One more thing I want to do is show that this ship can be used in Elite content, even if they aren’t record-breakers in their own right.
This video (with an ISE run and parse near the end) comes from EndeavourGameOn, used with his permission.
VIDEO, Ship Overview with Runs toward the End
NEXT: HAIL H.Y.D.R.A.!…for real, this time (and still not that H.Y.D.R.A!)
The next build in the line is indeed the Terran Hydra Intel Destroyer! This build will utilize both its own console along with the Tier 5’s Multi-Vector Assault Module to see what its own trait can do on a non-Carrier, giving us more separation capability than just the single-mode built-in Multi-Vector Assault Mode from “Engage the H.Y.D.R.A.” (limited built-in MVAM from this console is only available on Prometheus-class ships).
CREDITS…because I didn’t afford this OR do these builds on my own.
As with the Eagle, I continue to push that this series would not have been possible without reader support. I want to thank everyone here who put money into this project. Despite my slowness, it has forced me to update my build knowledge and push for better performance than I’ve been accustomed to for years.
Names are given in a semi-random order and using Ko-Fi names or Twitter handles with links where appropriate. (Those listed below, if you have a Twitter/YouTube/other Social Media or Content Creation link you’d rather I use, please let me know. I don’t care if it’s a Twitter DM, on Ko-Fi PM, whatever, just don’t let me go without giving you the proper credit you deserve.)
* Gina G
* Ri’Shad Shadowstar
* Stephen
* EndeavourGameOn
* KWolves21
* Pattee
* Spencer/CasualSAB
Joe and STO 