L.S.S. Pioneer

Notes

• Since this is an exotic build, using an ultimate is not really worth it. The Tactical ultimate only benefits weapon damage, which is a very low percentage on this build and the other 2 ults are garbage.

• 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. 

  • Since I don't want to use Emergency Power to Auxiliary to reach a max of 128 Aux, I take extra points in Defensive, Aux Subsystem Performance and Warp Core Potential to cap out power. Need EPS Manifold Efficiency to make this work but that's a good choice anyway.

• Science skills

  • Long-Range Targeting Sensors is for other builds that use energy weapons more. Could be skipped on this build.

  • Since Control Expertise and Exotic Particle Generators are primary offensive stats for this build, I want those maxed out and take Control Amplification. Drain Infection and two points in Drain Expertise add minor benefits. The Drain Expertise is more useful on another build that uses Charged Particle Burst. 

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

• Tactical skills

  • I do use multiple projectiles, so 3 points in Projectile Weapon Training is merited. Energy weapons are a very low contribution but I max it for other builds on this character. I only take 2 points apiece in Hull Pen, Shield Pen, and Weapon Specialization as those only benefit weapons and thus aren't a major damage component. Maxing Weapon Amplification is essential to optimize gains from the Imperial Rift 2-piece set, which scales Exotic CrtD based on that stat.

  • I like taking a point in defense. Defense is a small contribution to avoiding incoming damage but also helps reduce enemy crits when you're not moving. I only take 1 point in accuracy; weapon damage and output is not a focus on this build. 

  • 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.

Notes

This ship’s primary role is Exotic DPS using bridge officer powers, exotic torpedoes, and other non-weapon effects. The primary offensive statistics for this ship are the Exotic Particle Generators skill (EPG), Critical Chance (CrtH), Critical Severity (CrtD), and Auxiliary power (Aux), +Exotic, Damage Resistance Reduction (DRR), and +Bonus Exotic Damage. Secondary offensive statistics are Control Expertise (CtrlX) and +Projectile Damage as well as Weapon Amplification, since that skill boosts Exotic Critical Severity through use of the Imperial Rift 2-piece. 

The Dyson Proton Weapon is purely there for set bonuses and contributes very little meaningful damage. The Black Ops mines are selected because 1) they benefit from the 2-piece Dyson set, and 2) they stack Resonating Payload Modification at a very high rate, up to 12 stacks per set of mines for a substantial debuff. Aside from the Gravimetric and Particle Emission Plasma Torpedoes, weapons on a science ship are there to complete set bonuses, so why not have some fun with it? I have 3 torpedo launchers, a dual beam bank, a beam array (sort of), and a mine launcher. A little bit of everything!

Now to the serious answer. For set bonuses, the Protonic Arsenal 2-piece brings excellent crit, so that’s a no-brainer to slot the Proton Weapon. Same with the Dark Matter Torpedo combined with its dual beam bank. The Dual Beam Bank's "spooled up" passive applies to ALL damage, not just its own, so it effectively adds 20% Cat2 damage to the build.  Lastly, the mine launcher does decent damage, but more importantly will stack Resonating Payload Modification higher than 5 stacks and in this case even up to 12 per set of mines for these specific mines as mines count separately from your torpedoes for the purposes of stacking and the DOT from blade mines racks it up to 5 stacks per mine. They also trigger a number of DOT-based effects, so it does pretty well for an afterthought weapon.

TRINITY analysis indicates that [Dmg] is the optimal mod for this ship for all weapons but either [Dmg] or [CrtD] are very close in performance. 

Notes:

Drive Train: The Imperial Rift 2-piece is best-in-slot for exotic builds. The 4-piece is competitive, but not quite as good IMO unless you can guarantee a good use of the active. If it's not available, use the Temporal 2-piece instead. I prefer using the Regenerative Crystal Shield to automatically distribute shields. If you're fond of the Prevailing (Competitive) Engines, drop the shield for the Imperial Rift/Temporal one. 

Notes: 

With enough universal consoles, the Dragonsblood Flame Reactor, and the Subspace Fracture Tunneling Field, I don't need a mule console like the Immolating Phaser Lance for sustaining Universal Designs. 

Exotic Subflavors: In my opinion, there are 4 main flavors in the Exotic space right now. All of them are pretty similar overall and all can be combined to a certain extent, but there are subtle differences:

• "Clicky" builds are going to lean more on universal consoles with powerful actives, the Cutting Tractor Beam console to boost damage of those, and the Unconventional Systems trait to reduce cooldowns. This also pretty much forces a lower-cooldown "Control" bridge officer power than only having Gravity Well, so you'll see Tractor Beam/Tractor Beam Repulsors as a mule. The downside is that acquiring all those clickies is expensive and some of them are quite finicky. This is the highest-end sci meta, but is very expensive and only works superbly on certain maps.

• TacSci builds are going to emphasize torpedo spreads with the Entwined Tactical Matrices build. This'll require 1-2 extra boff powers devoted to Tactical powers, possibly with Kemocite or an attack pattern on top and works well on things like the Fleet Nautilus that have excess Tactical seating. This also leads to a synergistic choice of the Morphogenic 3-piece. 

• DSD builds emphasize the Deteriorating Secondary Deflector more. While most any high-end sci boat will be running Structural Analysis and DRB, this lean goes beyond that. This means you'll see powers like Tyken's Rift or Charged Particle Burst. Mathematically, this means an emphasis on Cat2 damage or -DRR, because the DSD is super-heavily-loaded with Cat1 already. This kinda works better with the clicky focus because Delphic Tear is a thing. This is the cheapest build to start building effective exotics with. 

• SIA builds emphasize Spore Infused Anomalies above almost all else. This has some hard decisions against a TacSci lean because that's 2-3 boff powers going to Tac that could be going to more anomalies or more triggers for Spore Infused Anomalies. It also has some conflict with the clicky focus because SIA doesn't scale with +Exotic or +Bonus Exotic damage consoles like Delphic Tear or Causal Anchor or Temporal Vortex Probe. This build incorporates pieces of all flavors, but emphasizes the DSD, console, and SIA most.

Alternate exotic types: 

Please see my Damar for a TacSci-focused ship with Intel or my Equinox for a build that blends consoles and PBAOEs along with the DSD. Repeated testing has shown that the DSD/SIA focus is stronger but if you like Tac-Sci, both are very viable up to and above 1M DPS. 

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• Hull Image Refractors -> something like Cascading Subatomic Disruptions or another Exotic Particle Amplifier -> EPG

Budget Tweaks:

• The first thing to drop would be Bio-Electric Wave Capacitor (T6X2 upgrade), then Plasma Storm (T6X upgrade + Lobi ship). Replacing the Genesis Seed with another Particle Focuser is another viable idea.

• If the event consoles (Subspace Fracture Tunneling Field, Dragonsblood Flame Reactor) aren't available, swap in the Chronometric Capacitor (Mission Reward; Time and Tide) and the Proton Particle Stabilizer (Dyson Reputation). Alternately, the 8472 Counter-Command Relay is another option (Mission Reward; Surface Tension). 

Notes

• Delayed Overload Cascade could replace Subspace Vortex, but it's finicky to use well and doesn't trigger By the Book

• Subspace Vortex is at low rank because it sometimes fails to activate, whereas Very Cold in Space III has slightly less damage potential but ends up more reliable.

• I did a lot of tweaking in the Exotic calculator to come up with the highest-damage combination of damaging science powers. 

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• The meta would be to fly a Tactical captain, specifically a Romulan Alien. This would result in swapping Grace Under Fire for A Good Day to Die

• Give Your All -> Duelist's Fervor and hope the tank is good

• Alien trait would go to Intelligence Agent Attache on a tac

Budget Tweaks:

 If low budget, (try and keep the ones at the bottom) 

• Drop Resonating Payload Modification (Elite Captain unlock)

• Context Is For Kings -> Operative

• Enlightened ->  Astrophysicist

• Grace Under Fire -> Innocuous

• Unconventional Systems -> Projectile Training

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

To truly make a meta exotic build with unlimited budget, you'd need the following along with boff/console/trait tweaks above

• Ceaseless Momentum -> The Ruin of Our Enemies

I did some testing to see if Ceaseless Momentum was worth replacing with Exotic Modulation since the kinetic damage was an increasingly small part of the ship but setups with Ceaseless consistently performed better on a number of solo maps.

Budget Tweaks:

 If low budget, (try and keep the ones at the bottom) 

• Drop Five Magics (T6X2 upgrade)

• Drop Ceaseless Momentum (T6X upgrade)

• Strike From Shadows -> Onboard Dilithium Recrystallizer

• Universal Designs -> Improved Command Frequency

• Improved Photonic Officer -> Unconventional Tactics

• Spore-Infused Anomalies -> Electrified Anomalies or Improved Critical Systems if available, else 

This build is planned around By the Book, but you could substitute it for Improved Gravity Well

Notes:

Strike From Shadows is nice for the placate/universal damage. The Ruin of Our Enemies is an option but can be very fickle to stack up outside of specific maps and team compositions. "By the Book" tends to exist outside the main meta, but I've had lots of success with it as long as you can stack 7 anomalies. I lose a little Gravity Well uptime compared to Improved Gravity Well but everything else (Very Cold in Space, Tyken's Rift, Subspace Vortex, Chronometric Inversion Field, Timeline Collapse), all stay active for longer. Strictly speaking, Timeline Collapse doesn't benefit from the extension, but the others gain significant damage from having their duration extended. 

Miscellaneous

This ship uses Improved Photonic Officer as its primary cooldown mechanism. Don't need Boimler Effect or anything else. If Improved Photonic Officer is too expensive, consider picking up Torpedo Astrometric Synergy and the Chrono Capacitor Array trait, dropping Omega Kinetic Shearing and Particle Generator Amplifier

Link to CDR sheet for this build