Hello, Joe and STOers! It’s about time for me to start wrapping up the 13th Anniversary ship review series with the first of the final two ships: The Terran Styx Dreadnought Cruiser and the Mirror Crossfield Science Destroyer.
The Styx in particular is the next up for review. Here, Endeavour provided me the challenge of a Tetryon-based Cannons: Scatter Volley build that could maneuver decently for the ship’s size.
I’ve put off the review for long enough, now. I had time to run a test of Infected: The Conduit on Advanced solo, and I don’t think the results will disappoint. I did need to do the test on Tribble due to needing certain ships for their Traits and more Ultimate Tech Upgrades than I was willing to use on Holodeck (the name of the live PC server).
But who am I to know what you feel is disappointing? Let’s take a look!
THE BUILD
I tried to incorporate some of the best tech around: Isomagnetic Plasma Distribution Manifolds; Starship Traits like Terran Goodbye and The Ruin of our Enemies; Personal Traits like The Boimler Effect, A Good Day to Die, and Terran Targeting Systems.
And yet…there are shortfalls.
The Tetryon weapons I used aren’t optimal. Although they’re Mk XV, the Epic modifier isn’t the best (I believe that’s [CrtD/Dm]), and they’re an older reward that uses the [Chance] proc to change what the weapon should do (whereas nowadays, they just use a different proc and leave the modifiers alone).
I also likely should have gone for at least the Temporal Disentanglement Suite off the Krenim Temporal Manipulation Set to go alongside the Antichroniton Infused Turret to get a bit more Tetryon damage, but at the time I figured I needed more survival from the Protomatter Field Projector…which I feel I didn’t use to great effect. Bleh!
Maybe this is as much a lesson in what not to do for your recorded runs?
- Don’t use less-than-optimal gear if you can help it, and don’t upgrade suboptimal gear to Mk XV Epic.
- If you’re running a Console intending to use its activatable ability, don’t forget it in your action bar!
THE RUN AND PARSE
Despite the challenges of…well, not doing what I’m supposed to do…I pulled over 110,000 DPS in a solo run of Infected: The Conduit on Advanced.
So, among the reasons I tested on the Tribble test server was I have practically no Endeavor Perk Points over there (I have a grand total of 2, and only 1 of those is in Energy Weapon Damage [Space], which is effectively nothing on its own). Not only did I want the free Mk XV Epic upgrades (by copying over Ultimate Tech Upgrades as much as needed) and the best ships’ gear without committing an arm and a leg for what may be just a few tests, but I wanted to see what this could do as a baseline. Then from there, Endeavor Perk Points would affect things like raw damage, Critical Chance, Hull Strength, etc., for a better run.
I kind of find it interesting that my 100k comes from all the items above Kemocite-Laced Weaponry. I don’t know what it really means, I just find it interesting. Almost 7% of that ~100k above Kemocite comes from Entropic Rider (from the Temporal Specialization) and the Immolating Phaser Lance.
I’d imagine the damage would have been higher if I’d used the Protomatter console to stay alive during one or both of my deaths. “You’re not DPS’ing if you’re dead!”
THE REVIEW
I’m biased. Back when it was released in 2019, it became one of my favorite ships. It was slow, but the pets packed quite the wallop, meaning I didn’t have to do near as much work just to get through space content. (I also generally like ships with Hangar Bays as they help under-developed characters handle content a lot more easily.)
It’s also quite the tough ship. It’s not the tankiest hull, ranking at 57th highest base hull according to Fleffle’s sortable spreadsheet [when you use it, be sure to copy it to your Google Drive first!]. However, that’s out of 438 results (counting Fleet versions as there are statistical differences), ranking in the top 15% of all ships’ base hulls. That’s quite strong before any modifications.
The base turn rate is 7, but I was able to jump it to 18.4 before activating any abilities. Most likely, that’ll be a bit higher if you’re a longer-term player with Perk Points in Turn Rate. Regardless, while it may feel a bit slow to turn at first, any bumps I gave it plus whatever Deuterium Surplus, Evasive Maneuvers, and the Innervated Impulse Engines give will more than make up for that slow base turn rate.
Being a 4/4 setup hurts, in my opinion. A 5/3 would have let it have a 5th Dual Heavy Cannon, but considering our turrets did just under half the overall damage, it’s probably not as big a loss as it’d seem to be.
The final big thing I want to hit is the hangar pets. With 4 total Beam Arrays and a Beams: Fire at Will on-board, these Terran Empire Frigates are nice AoE monsters (and being Frigates, they’re somewhat durable). Once you get to the Elite versions, though (available through your Fleet’s Starbase if the main Starbase holding is at a high-enough Tier), you get Attack Pattern: Beta (Dilithium-bought ones get a version of it, too) and Suppression Barrage, which would help with knocking off some damage resistance rating and some survival.
Personal Ranking: 9/10. The slower turn rate will turn some people off, but I feel it’s essentially perfect in every other way. You can make it fairly nimble, you can slap a variety of builds on it. Honestly…aside from Exotic-style Science builds, I believe the Styx can do everything fairly decently: Beams; Cannons; Torpedoes; and Tanking. It may not be the best in everything (well…except Tanking, even 5 years on from its release), but it can do it well enough to get through your Normal and Advanced content with no issue and perhaps your Elite content with a bit more work.
In fact, and I rarely say this about ships outside the financial perspective…I’d say this one ship alone makes the 13th Anniversary Bundle well worth the purchase price. If you’re fairly new, you get an extremely versatile platform that’ll be more than capable of taking on any content you want. That you get 4 other near-Lock Box/Promo-level ships (including the current leader in the Torpedo meta, the Terran Eagle Pilot Raider) + 1 actual Promo ship is icing on the cake. Normally 17,500, once it hits 35% off that’s 11,375 Zen. If you can do a 20% Zen Charge Bonus, that’ll take $100 before taxes ($50 + $20 + $20 + $10 would be 6,300 + 4,800 + 1,200 = 12,300 Zen, and I can’t drop $10 or that’d drop me to 11,100 Zen, so you can’t do $90). You’d get 6 ships, for an average per-ship cost of $16.67 (again, pre-tax). It’s a lot up front, but it’s likely one of better cost-per-ship Bundles we have (I’d do the math on others, but time right now is a luxury I don’t have much of), especially compared to $30 full price for a single T6 C-Store ship.
CHANGES TO MAKE
If I had to make some changes to this build, I’d go with at least the following:
- More Haste. Consider going with maybe 1 more Haste-giving console and/or ability, like the Dynamic Power Redistributor Module and Temporal Trajectory Shifter. Perhaps some of my death problem was not dishing out damage quickly enough. Boosting my Haste would let me potentially get another volley or two of Scatter Volley off before I lose the effect. Plus, “DPRM” is a fantastic console for both quick healing and haste, so it’s a 2-for-1 Console (and likely replaces the Protomatter Field Projector).
- More Healing. One of the more potent shield heals that’s recently become available to all ships is the Ablative Hazard Shielding console. Spencer explains why it’s worth getting if you’re having issues with heals (whether solo or in a group). I linked it to where Specner talks about the Console.
3. Better setup. The weapons I used were from a leftover budget build; upgrading these seemed easier than grabbing proper Tetryon DHCs and Turrets. Because of these “leftovers,” they use an older [Chance] modifier that present-day weapons wouldn’t use (it used to be that a consequence of having a different proc on some gear meant you had to put up with the [Chance] modifier. Because it’s technically a modifier, that replaced any other ones like [Dmg], [CrtH], etc., it could have been otherwise). As well, the DOFFs tend to make little to no sense for what was used. Finally, some BOFF and Console abilities went completely unused (which could be fixed by assigning them a button on the action trays, but I also have to remember they’re around to use them while I’m tunnelvisioned into trying to maintain firing angles).
4. Better Piloting. I noticed a lot of my weapons registered 0 Flanks. That seems odd, but I’m also not surprised that it’d likely be a low number anyway. When I fly Solo, I don’t tend to focus as much on optimal positioning as making sure I don’t take on more NPCs than I can destroy relatively quickly. Even if the actual run showed Flanks, I’d bet the number’s not high.
5. Better Cooldown Management: The Boimler Effect, Photonic Officer, and Universal Designs help cooldowns a lot, but unless an ability is on my “spam bar”, I don’t tend to remember I have it until it’s too late, then I lose the optimal up-time on most of my non-spammed abilities. I’m also slow to process things (at least, relative to the better players of any game), so there’s some natural hinderance with which I’m sure others can do a better job.
UPCOMING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE
I know, not everyone wants to hear from a “Professional Noob.” Some want to hear from someone who knows the meta better, who pilots better, and who can react much quicker than I.
So I’ve tasked the person behind this build, EndeavourGameOn (yes, the person who’s leading the charge on the Jamestown appreciation [model kitbashed by Pundus]!), with coming up with his own take on this. He has to stick to the same general theme (Styx Tetryon Cannons: Scatter Volley with some maneuverability added, and tested in Infected: The Conduit on Advanced on the Tribble test server), but he’s otherwise free to unleash whatever he wants on it. He’ll report back on his blog; when I do, I’ll post to X (and perhaps BlueSky and Mastodon…if I can ever remember to cross-post my stuff to those places!).
FINAL PART: MIRROR CROSSFIELD BEFORE YEAR’S END
And lastly, I’ll be working on the Mirror Crossfield Science Destroyer as a Pulse Phaser build (with one cheat due to costs: The Pulse Phaser Omni is instead an Obliviating Phaser Omni since they use the same visual). I’m hoping to take a week to get it built and tested, then before Christmas have the blog on it out. fingers crossed
I’ll also hope to have my last 2023 update on the F2P account. You may be surprised at the progress, or you may be wondering what’s taking so long. ha ha! Regardless, though, I hope you’ll find it enlightening how a new account can come around in about a third of a year.
Provided by Viewers like You
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t re-thank the donators who got me the funds for this Bundle. Although I’ve taken a long while on this journey, I feel I’ve learned a lot about ship setups for the themes I’m trying to do.
Thank you all! 🙂
* EndeavourGameOn
* Spencer/CasualSAB
* Stephen
* Pattee
* Ri’Shad Shadowstar
* KWolves21
* Gina G
Joe and STO 