Officer Spotlight: Sol Science Officer

You get the 80 or the 100% targeting skill, then even with a weaker ship first strike a bigger ship, take his weapons out, then when its his turn he'll be a lot less effective.

 

Warshoe,

Don't forget, the targeting skill of the Science officer is just % chance of hitting weapons on a successful hit. You have to hit the enemy first, and that is a whole different boardgame. Even taking that out of the equation, you have to overpower the opponents shields and then do enough damage to affect a system. My view is that if I have 100% chance of hitting the weapons, then I have 0% chance of hitting shield generators to allow my next shot do more damage, 0% chance to hit engines and give my opponent a difficult decision on where to spend power points [spend them on shields and he can't manoeuvre or fire back effectively, spend them on weapons and he lowers his defences to more damage and can't escape, spend them on movement and he leaves himself open to another attack.].

Larger ships generally have better sensors, so are better able to spot you coming and charge shields before you can fire. They generally have longer range weapons, so can fire on you before you fire on them. And they also generally have better shields so can absorb more damage when you hit them, meaning you aren't likely to penetrate and actually do damage. It is very much advised that if you want to go against a larger ship in the game, you do so with a large group of friends and split the XP. By doing so, you can then all go on and take on another ship. A weaker ship will probably still be creamed by a bigger ship, mainly due to the better shields on the big ship, but the priority is as follows. [As I understand it.]

1. Get in range. If you're not in range, you can't hit anything. Not maximum range of your weapons, as that is only 5% chance to hit the target at all. Get within maximum effective range. That will depend on how comfortable you are with your weapons and accuracy. With no skills, half max weapon range = 50% chance to hit. Closer the target is, the higher the chance to hit, the further away, the lower the chance to hit.

2. Hit the target. If you 'roll the dice' and miss, no damage to the target no matter what your science officer's targeting skill says.

3. Penetrate the shields/do actual damage. If your weapon damage is less than the shield value of the target, you take down shield power, but do no actual damage to the ship. Any weapon damage greater than the shield value will do actual damage to the target.

4. Allocate damage. Some damage just goes to damaging the hull. Bring the target to 0 hull points, it's gone. The rest is allocated to systems, which is where the SO's targeting skill comes into play. Have the skill at 80% and 4/5 shots hit the weapons. The first shot may not disable the weapons, depending on how much damage actually gets through, so you may not be able to take out a bigger ship's weapons as you seem to think. But you also have only a 20% chance of damaging the shields so they are weaker next time, or the engines so that the target does not have the full energy to do anything. If you get the skill to 100%, you can't hit anything but weapons. So you can't stop the target powering shields to max which will limit the effectiveness of your weapons, and you can't stop him powering engines and escaping - either to another part of the map, or off the map entirely.

 

I'm thinking that when you hit a weapon system with targeting it does hull damage too right? Coser are you one of the people playing the game right now? You seem to have a lot of insider info.

 

MLocke,

No insider info, I'm afraid. I am just a ravenous reader and have read everything on the forum several times along with everything that was in the KickStarter campaign. I am so looking forward to playing this game. I hope that I am one of those fortunate enough to play the open Beta as I am just dying to see if my playstyle is viable. I am basically wanting to play the same sort of captain in this game as I do a character in Fallout 4. [In fact, any game I play, I try and produce the same type of character wheterh it's Fallout, Skyrim, Darkest Dungeon, or Elite Dangerous when I played it.]

I probably ought to add a signature stating that I am nothing more than an interested player champing at the bit.

 

And just to show my reasoning on the weapon accuracy,

Sol Weapons Officer has an Accuracy skill that goes up to 30% at level 5, this should affect base chance to hit. I currently have no idea if it's as easy as "Add 30 to base chance to hit at all ranges" or if it's "Add 30% of base chance at each range". If it's the former, it means that minimum range is now 125% chance to hit, half maximum range is 80% to hit, and maximum range is 35% to hit. If the latter, that's 123.5%, 65%, and 6.5% respectively.

Helmsman has the Evasive skill, which can make it harder for the enemy to hit you. Vesuvius has already stated in the relevant thread that equivalent levels of evasive cancel out the benefits of Accuracy (from the Weapons Officer).

The Science Officer's Targeting skill states "% chance of targeting enemy weapons systems" where the Weapons officer's "Accuracy" skill states "% chance increase to weapon hits". To me this means that the Science Officer can target the enemy weapons, but if the Weapon's Officer [Gunner] can't hit the side of a barn then it doesn't matter what the science officer is targeting. [To hit the weapons, first you have to hit the ship.]

I am also not that fond of a science officer being so short-sighted. I would have preferred the Targeting skill to target the power generation ability of the enemy as that would be so much more effective in combat. You force the enemy to make critical decisions in a short timeframe, you force them to make mistakes you can capitalise on. Does he spend precious power on shields so you can't hit him as hard, but he will take longer to escape, or does he put all his power into engines and pray you can't take him out first, or does he put it into weapons and hope to hit you at least as hard as you hit him and even out the field again - or just damage you before he gets destroyed.

I don't know how many systems there are on each vessel. We can deduce that engines, shields, sensors, and weapons are all systems from the skill charts available, But if that's all and a shot you fire does damage to one random system, you have a base 25% chance to hit the enemy's weapons anyway. If something like life support is included, 5 systems = 20% chance. The only way that the Science officer's skill levels make any sense as they are written now is if there are 6 or more systems top choose from. If there are 5 systems and the skill is base chance, then level 1 makes no sense as even without the skill you have that naturally. If it's an additional 20% then the top level makes no sense as all you need to guarantee a weapons hit once you do actual damage to the enemy is 100%, so starting from 20% then you only need an additional 80% and the highest tier of the skill makes no sense as written - unless there is something that counters the SO's skill and reduces it again. (I suppose this may be a feature on Ma'Alaketh vessels as we currently have no information on these.)

So, I'm afraid there is no information there that is not already in the forum, just a logical mind. And I SO wish I was playing already! Between this, Fallout 4, and Injustice: Gods among Us, I'd lose my job and die of sleep depravation.
What a way to go!

 

Actually you have different chance of hitting a certain subsystem depending on the side you hit the enemy ship:
http://forums.spacewars.com/threads/general-q-a-ask-here.1/page-5#post-714


Forward Arc:

1% chance/damage point to hit the sensors

1% chance/damage point to hit a weapon in that arc

1% chance/damage point to make a critical hit (2x superstructure damage)

1% chance/damage point to crew casualties (1% per damage)

1% chance/damage point to hit shield generator in that arc

Forward/Port and Forward/Starboard Arcs:

1% chance/damage point to hit a weapon in that arc

1% chance/damage point to make a critical hit (2x superstructure damage)

2% chance/damage point to crew casualties (1% per damage)

1% chance/damage point to hit shield generator in that arc

Aft/Port and Aft/Starboard Arcs:

1% chance/damage point to hit a weapon in that arc

1% chance/damage point to make a critical hit (2x superstructure damage)

1% chance/damage point to crew casualties (1% per damage)

1% chance/damage point to hit shield generator in that arc

1% chance/damage point to damage engines (1 unit per damage)

Aft Arc:

1% chance/damage point to hit a weapon in that arc

1% chance/damage point to make a critical hit (2x superstructure damage)

1% chance/damage point to hit shield generator in that arc

2% chance/damage point to damage engines (1 unit per damage)

 

Thanks. I was a little hazy on where that was, and the exact figures. (Posting from work). So logically, that means that if you don't get any of those, it's just superstructure damage anyway. I'm fine with that.

I can now see maybe putting one point into Targeting, but no more. exchanging a 1%/damage point for a blanket 20% seems like a good deal, but I don't want it to skew my targeting by more than that. Maybe if it changed to each level adding another base chance on top, I'd go for it in a big way.

I.E. rank 1 hitting from the rear changes it to 2%/DP weapons, Criticals, and Shields, 4%/DP on engines. Rank 2 changing it to 3% Weps, crits, and shields, 6% engines, and so on up to rank 5 giving 6% and 12% respectively, then I'd say it was a 'must have' skill.

Mind you, given that it's per damage point? .................. so the smallest plasma beam for Sol does 3 points of damage. That means it's 3% to weps, crits, and shields, 6% to engines, giving a 15% overall chance of a 'special' hit. The most damage a Plasma does is 8 so an overall of 40%, now that's quite decent.

 

What I can see as a drawback for weapon-targeting is that there are ships with "invulnerable" weapon(s), will it make you miss on a potential crew/sensor/etc. damage?

 

Potkeny, your later quote is a good clarification on what I was saying, thank you for that.

What I was trying to say was that a weapon with 3 damage has 3% chance to damage weapons, OR 3% to damage shields OR etc. Adding all those chances up gives a 15% chance to do something in addition to the 3 superstructure damage that is inevitable.

As to your query, I would have thought that you would ONLY be able to hit those sort of weapons with the 100% skill. Not that I am a fan of that, as I have said before. If an enemy has "invulnerable" weapons, it will not bother me as losing a small chance to hit them won't bother me at all. IF I had 100% Targeting skill, I would certainly be upset that there are some circumstances where that certainty was nullified. Either way, a very intelligent question, and one I am now kicking myself that I hadn't asked - mind you, as I was not interested in getting Targeting, it's probably not something that would have come up for me.

I hope Vesuvius comments soon to clear this up before the open Beta as I think it will be interesting for other players, and the answer may well change how some people would plan on playing the game.

 

Lets take a more powerful ship like the Mercury light cruiser. Even if you're an Agile Flyer ( I call it a Fragile Flyer) and some ally took its forward shields down, All I need to do is power 1 power to each of my three forward weapons, and with high chance of targeting weapons I could possibly take out both forward plasma beams and its missile weapon. The Mercury is essentially useless then. AND it will have to spend repair points on its weapons repairs instead of other things like hull.

 

It'll be a little hard as an Agile Flyer, as that's a Genari ship and Genari's don't have Science Officer, their weapon targeting goes up to only 40% (Tactical Officer has only two tiers of that passive skill), so that tactic is probably more suited for Sol Captains

 

I think i like this commander class the best out of them all.

 

I don't think targeting skill is working properly yet but its the first skill I'd go for against human players.

 

Targeting is incredibly powerful- think about it. One on one, if you have the higher initiative, you could hit the opponent first, disable his weapons for that round. You make him effectively useless. Or, a group of higher initiative ships takes on a big ship like a dreadnought, firing and damaging all of its dozen or so weapons. The dreadnought becomes useless. I don't know if the skill works properly yet, but its definitely an advantage for a sol science officer.

 

Targeting is working, I confirmed it, playing pvp on battle royale.

 

What make Sol even more powerful is the Shield Overcharge. No doubt about it. Genari doesn't have it to level 5, and even the first level is huge when you take in the idea that some Sol ships have 20 shields, put the overcharge in and you could boost it past 30 at max level.

At its craziest: Yamato II with 27 3x shields, +6 with Overcharge 5 and that is another 3x6 = 18 +27 total 45 shield points!!

 

Been trying both races and seeing their advantages. I like the shield boost especially when you have a three times shield. Shieldboost 2 Ends up multiplying it three times making it six more. Definitely worth it for sol use over genari.