U.S.S. Perihelion

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 130 Aux, I take extra points in Defensive, Aux Subsystem Performance and Warp Core Potential to cap out power. Need Neutronic Eddy Generator to make this work but that's a good choice anyway.

• Science skills

  • Single points in Shield Restoration/Shield Capacity are low opportunity cost for relatively high survivability gains. Since I need skill points elsewhere, only 1 here for those. 

  • 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 a single point in Drain Expertise add minor benefits

  • 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; a single point is fine here. 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 2 points 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. 

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, which saves me a console slot. CrtH from the Synthetic Good Fortune starship trait makes up for missing the console. The Advanced Inhibiting Weapon has a guaranteed -10 damage resistance rating effect on any target slower than you--basically all the important ones. 

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: 

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 off of +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, SIA, and Active consoles (clicky) most.

Alternate Exotic types: 

Please see my Dranuur for an anomaly-focused ship with Temporal or my Damar for a build that leans harder on TacSci with Intel, losing some console capability. 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 700K DPS. Alternately, please see Tilor's Iktomi for an example of a very clicky-focused ship.

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• Pilot-Sci is not innately meta but these are pretty much the strongest options for most items

• Could drop Hull Image Refractors for another universal console like Plasma Storm. 

Budget Tweaks:

• The first thing to drop would be Plasma Storm (T6X upgrade). Replacing the Genesis Seed with a Nukara Particle Converter is another viable idea.

• If the event consoles (Neutronic Eddy Generator, Temporal Vortex Probe) 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). This probably means you're going to need Emergency Power to Auxiliary unless you have another source of Aux power to max it out. 

Meta Notes

• Building a PBAOE-focused ship is not peak meta. Photonic Shockwave and Subspace Boom aren't exactly amazing and neither is Charged Particle Burst (though it's hard to quantify its considerable distribution of the Deteriorating Secondary Deflector). Arguably dropping Subspace Boom for a higher damage power like Delayed Overload Cascade or a low-cooldown Pilot Team would be ideal, but Photonic Shockwave at least has utility as a control power.

• Fly Her Apart II is also an option, but since this build lacks meaningful hull regeneration I opted against it. 

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

• Ablative Shell -> Intelligence Agent Attache if using a tactical captain. Engineering captain powers have little effect on exotic damage. 

• Give Your All -> Pseudo-Submission and hope the placate is enough/tank is good

• Alien trait would go to Unconventional Systems to reduce the cooldown on universal consoles

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

• Ablative Shell -> Techie

• 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 -> Universal Designs

This would be a fairly large departure from how this build is structured

Budget Tweaks:

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

• Drop Ceaseless Momentum (T6X upgrade)

• Rapid Emitting Armaments -> Programmable Matter Enhancements

• Strike From Shadows -> Onboard Dilithium Recrystallizer

• Synthetic Good Fortune -> Improved Command Frequency

• Improved Photonic Officer -> Unconventional Tactics

• Spore-Infused Anomalies -> Electrified Anomalies or Improved Critical Systems if available, else Carrier Wave Shield Hacking should be cheap.

Notes:

I considered fitting Cold-hearted on here, but it will be a little slow to stack with only 2 energy weapons that fire in the fore arc. Also, there were plenty of other traits I wanted to fit. I am explicitly using traits and abilities to build up Synthetic Good Fortune so it was essential for this build.

Miscellaneous

This ship uses Improved Photonic Officer as its primary cooldown mechanism. There's a few seconds of bleedover for a few powers, but that's hardly a large concern. 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