U.S.S. Alamo

Presidio Tactical Command Battlecruiser

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Eph289's Builds

Build Overview and Focus

Last Updated December 2023

Modern tanks focus not only on surviving and dealing some amount of damage but also supporting allies to help them achieve new records. The fact is that STO's content, even on Elite, does not require tank builds to be completely geared to survivability and/or damage. That niche does exist and we call those "heavy tanks," but the more meta-centric tanks are "support tanks." These ships are typically built on full spec Command ships (Commander Command), which allows access to Suppression Barrage, an amazing tanking tool, as well as Inspiration abilities. This tank falls into that build space and is thus outfitted for a combination of survivability, damage (to hold threat), and supportive concepts.

Platform selection

Since Suppression Barrage and Inspiration abilities are critical to this style of tank, I need a full Command ship, preferably on a Cruiser for the higher hull modifier and the Attract Fire Cruiser Command. That led me to the Presidio, which I already had for its starship trait back when that was the meta. The Clarke had not been released yet, though I do discuss how this build could be ported to the Clarke below.

Flavor/Theme Choices

Disruptor beams for added debuffs
Varied bridge crew vs all Superior Romulan Operatives/Pirates
Ferengi captain

This is a premium build, with the highest available budgets and resources utilized in its creation. See the build costs page for more detail.

Namesake

The Alamo was a mission (the church, not the assignment) compound in North America that was turned into a fort by Texan settlers rebelling against the Mexican government. Though vastly outnumbered, the rebels held off a superior force for several days before falling. The battle became a rallying cry for the rebel movement, which ultimately was successful. The U.S.S. Alamo honors their bravery and hopes to similarly inspire success in teammates while holding off vast numbers of enemies.

Meta Analysis

ISA: 159K / 85% atks in
ISE: 241K / 92% atks in
HSE: 250K / 85% atks in

Budget Analysis

Using the EZRA rubric, this build would cost 444 USD to replicate. That is far more than what I spent on STO to make it. If the cost looks daunting, don't worry! Lower-budget alternatives are provided below.

The biggest cost driver for this ship is the use of the Cold-hearted trait from an event ship; otherwise it requires an Epic Phoenix token which are exceedingly hard to come by. Low budget alternatives are provided in the detailed build section. I did some testing using all the low-budget gear options and traits, with mostly Mk XII/MK XIII gear (unless I already had it upgraded), and this ship was capable of over 100K DPS on Infected: The Conduit Advanced while tanking over 90% of incoming even in low-budget configuration.

Elite Captain/T6X upgrade, all fleet unlocks
10 T6 C-store ships (Arbiter, Narendra, Bozeman, Ghemor, Presidio, Gagarin, Ra'nodaire, Jem'Hadar Vanguard Dreadnought Cruiser, Sojourner, Endeavor, or cross-faction equivalents. This cost can be condensed if you have the Legendary Battlecruiser bundle.
1 Event consoles (Reiterative Structural Capacitor), 1 Event Trait (Cold-hearted), 1 Event device (Kobayashi Maru Transponder), 1 Event ship (Jarok Alliance Carrier)
1 Lobi trait (Boimler Effect)
3 Lockbox consoles, 7 lockbox traits, 2 non-standard doffs
Reputation + fleet gear; all Mk XV Epic
0 Lockbox, R&D Promotional, Legendary or Lobi ships

Change History

December 2023: Dropped 1 instance of Auxiliary to Battery to pick up Let It Go II. Picked up Greater Than The Sum, Cascading Subatomic Disruptions (T6-X2). Dropped Nausicaan console and Lorca 2-piece for Flagship 2-piece. Dropped Protomatter for Reiterative Structural Capacitor. Dropped Arbiter console for Approaching Agony. Replaced Discovery Wide Angle DBB with a Spiral Wave Beam Array. Dropped Locators for Dominion Targeting Synchronizer and Deconstructive Resonance Emitter. Replaced Duelist's Fervor with Boimler Effect. Replaced Tactical Team with Distributed Targeting. Was at 176/79% atks in ISA, 261K / 92% atks in ISE, 266K / 88% atks in HSE
December 2022: Replaced Super Charged Weapons with Superior Area Denial. Replaced Tachyokinetic Converter with Tachyon Net Drones. Added more Superior Romulan Operatives. Replaced Overwhelm Emitters with Rally Point Marker. Replaced Refracting Tetryon Cascade with Tethered Non-Baryonic Asteroid
April 2022: Replaced D.O.M.I.N.O. with High Energy Communications Network. Was at 187K / 76% atks in ISA, 254K / 94% atks in ISE, 203K / 90% atks in HSE
March 2022: Updated fighters from Elite Class C Shuttles to Elite Alliance Fighter Squadrons
October 2021: Posted build

Build Focus

This build combines energy DPS, tanking, supportive concepts and survivability as its primary areas of strength. There are other secondary concerns as well, but a blend of tank, support, and Elite-capable DPS are what this ship is intended to do.

Skills

Skill Unlocks

Notes

All weapon-centric builds benefit from the tactical ultimate, as weapon haste and bonus weapon damage from the Focused Frenzy active are appreciable when used on big targets. Applying the bonus to your team is also appreciated. I do not find the cooldown boost from Frenzied Reactions to be needed on a build with a good cooldown scheme.
Engineering skills
- Taking two Hull Capacity helps survivability and boosts Tyler's Duality as well. A point in Hull Restoration is useful for helping heals
- 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.
- Improved EPS Power Transfer is essential for recovering power while firing energy weapons.
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.
- A single point in Shield Regeneration has surprisingly large impact on shield regeneration based on recent research by Jay
- Since this character uses either Overwhelm Emitters, the Bajor Core, or Tetryon weapons on various builds, all of which scale with Drain Expertise, I take both points in DrainX. Two points in Control Expertise powers the Fragment of AI Trait on builds that use it on this toon.
- All energy builds should take maximum points in Long Range Targeting Sensors.
- The rest of the science skills are of little value on this build and are completely skippable.
Tactical skills
- Energy Weapon Training, Hull Penetration, Shield Penetration, Weapon Specialization, and Weapon Amplification are all worthwhile skills to take 3 points in as they boost energy weapon damage directly. Since I do have a torpedo and it does decent damage, 2 points in Projectile Weapon Training is a good choice.
- I like taking 2 points apiece in accuracy and defense. Defense is a small contribution to avoiding incoming damage but also helps reduce enemy crits when you're not moving and accuracy is just good all around, if not a stat that you'll need tons of.
- 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.

Miracle Worker/Strategist is the go-to specialization combo for optimal survivability. Temporal Operative is an option if you can survive the damage or are premade with very high DPS teams.

Build

Starship Weapons

Notes

If you're building an optimal tank, then Ba'ul Antiproton is king. There are two other examples of such builds on this site: the Bedivere and the Dragonscale. However, if you're building around debuffs, then Disruptor's chance to reduce enemy damage resistance by 10, combined with other proc chances like Resonant and Nausicaan, ends up being a preferred choice. My fleet was in need of more tanks and I was in need of a ship with Disruptor weapons so pairing the two made sense to me. The Terran Beam is not ideal for support tanking since it does a LOT of damage, swap it out for optimal play to a Spiral.

Survivability: The survivability analysis on this ship is well above the recommended 500K Effective Sustained HP to be an effective tank on Elite (590K total). (For reference, Stormbreaker is around 630K ESHP, so this ship is 7-10% less tanky). Here's the survivability analysis.

Starship Equipment

Notes:

Everything here is basically optimal for tanking. The Discovery 3-piece adds substantial regen as well as Mycelial Lightning, which is a valuable damage source. The Alliance Fighter Squadrons were chosen because they don't have torpedoes and buff the team through casting Focused Assault (albeit infrequently). Torp-armed hangar pets can steal Concentrate Firepower procs from torp boats and tanking is a selfless profession anyway.

Shout-out to Prototype Ablative Jevonite hardpoints which, while kind of difficult to get, give +100 Hull Capacity for 15 minutes and can be used from inventory, meaning that they don't take up a device slot. Definitely useful on maps like Hive!

If you can't get Elite Alliance Fighter Squadrons, Elite Class C Shuttles unlocked via C-store ships like the Earhart or Buran work just fine, as do the Mirror Shuttles from the Lexington.

Starship Consoles

Set Bonuses

Notes:

Alternate Energy types: If you want Ba’ul AP, swap those beams in and replace the Deconstructive Resonance Emitter with at least 2-piece Linked Sentry set. I would keep the existing torpedo since it's there for the debuff.

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

Ba'ul Antiproton is the king of tanking otherwise but Disruptor is more supportive/debuff-oriented
I could have slotted more Colony tactical consoles but this thing does fine without them

Budget Tweaks:

If low budget, the following changes will help reduce cost

Drop Cascading Subatomic Disruptions (T6X2)
Drop Dominion Targeting Synchronizer (T6X)
Reiterative Structural Capacitor -> Ablative Hazard Shielding
High Energy Communications Network -> M6 Computer (T3 Temporal Escort)
Tachyon Net Drones -> Assimilated Module
Adaptive Emergency Systems -> Trellium-D Plating
Flagship Tactical Computer -> Nausicaan Siphon Capacitor
Hull Image Refractors -> Zero-Point Energy Conduit (but this shouldn't be too pricy, so do try to keep it)

Bridge Officers

Meta Notes

Suppression Barrage is the current meta debuff for tanks over Reverse Shield Polarity. If you feel your version is squishy, drop Let It Go to pick up an RSP I alongside Suppression Barrage.
While tanks are fully capable of using Photonic Officer for cooldowns, A2B is here to power Cold-hearted. If I didn't have Cold-hearted, I'd use PO instead and convert those Engineering seats to EPTW III / RSP I / Auxiliary to Structural I.
I could have dropped FAW down to rank I to take a higher rank of Attack Pattern Beta and Distributed Targeting.

Traits

Personal Traits

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

These traits are pretty close to meta. Feel the Weight of our Presence was chosen for its higher reliability over Into the Breach, which has a shorter duration and requires YOU to land the killing blow. Fluidic Cocoon would probably be better than Duelist's Fervor but only by a small amount.

Budget Tweaks:

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

Drop Boimler Effect (Elite Captain unlock)
Ablative Shell -> Redirected Armor Plating
Context Is For Kings -> Operative
Fragment of AI Tech -> Superior Beam Training
Repair Crews -> Techie
A Good Day to Die -> Innocuous
Intelligence Agent Attache -> Beam Barrage

Downgrading all the survivability tools will limit your ability to run Elite maps

Starship Traits

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

Redirecting Arrays leaves a far bigger gap in uptime for FAW if timed properly, so I prefer not to use it.
With current tanking tools like colony consoles, Miracle Worker, and History Will Remember, Honored Dead is no longer necessary, even for Hive.

Budget Tweaks:

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

Drop Super Charged Weapons (T6X upgrade)
Drop Greater Than the Sum (T6X2 upgrade)
Calm Before the Storm -> Unconventional Tactics (Strategist specialization)
Cold-Hearted > Improved Going the Extra Mile (Miracle Worker specialization)

This build basically won't work without Emergency Weapon Cycle, Entwined Tactical Matrices, and History Will Remember. The whole point of this build is to help debuff enemies while tanking, so Cold-Hearted is pretty crucial.

Notes:

On my other tank, History Will Remember was not an appreciable DPS loss against something like Promise of Ferocity or Improved Critical Systems. I believe this ship would function similarly. Both are acceptable substitutes but I chose HWR because of its added benefits to survivability and tanking through threat increase.
Superior Area Denial is an excellent trait for ships using Fire-at-Will or Scatter Volley that also have a hangar. While it is extremely expensive, captains wishing to use this trait on multiple characters would benefit from saving up and acquiring it via the 12th Anniversary Bundle, which is how I did it.

Reputation Traits

Active Reputation

Duty Officers

Notes:

Three Technicians are needed to ensure 100% Suppression Barrage uptime.

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

These doffs are fairly well optimal for an A2B build but if your budget was truly unlimited

Replacing the Warp Core Engineer with Dal or Agent Nerul, who heals on use of Attack Pattern Beta, would be a substantial boost to survivability

Budget Tweaks:

If low budget

Downgrade the Fabrication Engineer to a skill-boosting one from K-13
The Warp Core Engineer could be replaced a Na'kuhl Space Warfare Specialist (chance of healing on Tac). They aren't usually that expensive.

Miscellaneous

Cooldowns

A2B is not ideal for a tank, especially one with a hangar, as aux power helps boost heals as well as recharge the hangar. However, in the spirit of team debuffs, Cold-hearted is sufficiently powerful that I am choosing a less optimal CDR strategy in order to take advantage of that ability. Three Technicians are definitely needed to power this build and using only a single copy of A2B won't work to sustain Cold-hearted stacks. I do use Attrition Warfare, but that happens in the background anyway and I don't really think about it since its cooldown is too long to really take advantage of, and this ship lacks spammable heals. The same is true of Calm Before the Storm.

If I was feeling adventurous, I could drop one of the Technicians and an instance of A2B and add The Boimler Effect, replacing Duelist's Fervor. That's a little less reliable and expensive so I've opted against it for now.

Link to CDR sheet for this build.

Ship Stats

Keybinds

With as many abilities and synergizing concepts as this ship employs, an efficient control scheme is essential. There are many ways to set up such a ship, so I don't pretend to assume that my way is superior. It works for me, especially with my background in RTS and MOBA games, where pushing many different keys quickly is essential:

Spambar: (Spacebar) Attack Pattern Beta, Suppression Barrage, Attack Pattern Alpha, Launch Fighters, Auxiliary to Battery, Vulnerablity Assessment Sweep, Go Down Fighting, Flagship Computer, Kemocite Laced Weaponry, and Fire at Will. Emergency Power to Weapons, Suppression Barrage, Vulnerability Assessment Sweep, Emergency Power to Engines are on a second bar but same key. I activate these as much as possible.
Torpedo combo: (1 key) Torpedo Spread I; Fire Torpedo, Energy Amplifiers Manual keybind to activate torpedoes. I generally leave the torpedo auto-firing, but sometimes STO is slow to fire the torpedo even when it's off cooldown and the spread is armed. I fire this every 10 seconds after FAW 3 is triggered to get my FAW from Entwined Tactical Matrices.
Long cooldown buff combo: (2 key) Kobayashi Maru, Tactical Initiative, Vulnerability Assessment Sweep, Temporal Negotiator, and EPTW again. Activate these abilities together for maximum buffs spike damage. In ISE, I start with pretty much all of them straight away.
Heals: (4 key) Brace for Impact, Hazard Emitters I, Rally Point Marker. I don't map ALL of my heals here, preferring to activate the others manually

Piloting

Tanking is generally a selfless job unless you really glory in seeing how much damage you can absorb. Your job as a tank is to 1) pull threat and 2) survive. If you can also debuff enemies and amplify your team's damage, that's nice to have. In order to do #1, you need to do three things:

You must deal decent DPS. This a general guideline, not a rule. All the +threat items in the game don't matter if you don't maintain sufficient damage to hold aggro. This is lessened if using History Will Remember.
You must deal that damage in an AOE all the time. Simply put, Beam Overload or other single-target abilities are not going to cut it. You need to damage as many enemies as possible at once. AOE attacks like Fire at Will, Torpedo Spread, and various AOE boff powers are your friend and you need to have them up a lot. Personally, I think Entwined Tactical Matrices is a far superior method of extending Fire at Will than Redirecting Arrays.
You must have at least some method of +Threat on your ship. The Attract Fire cruiser command is nice to have if for no other reason than for resists. Much more important is using Strategist specialization, Threatening Stance and the Threat Control skill unlock. You don't need +Threat doffs, and you don't need the Threat-Enhancing Plasma consoles from the Embassy. Just Threatening Stance and Threat Control is enough and when it's not, Diversionary Tactics is a guaranteed aggro pull.
You must be close to your enemies. Hug the biggest, baddest guy and try not to completely eat his warp core breach--you might need your heals for other damage. Threat tends to be pulled to the closest target so be prepared to scrape paint.

In order to do #2 (survive), you need the following:

Continuous heals for sustained damage. These could be any number of things: colony tactical consoles, common boff abilities (Hazard Emitters, Brace for Impact), or traits (Energy Refrequencer). I use boff abilities, colony tacs console, and some personal traits along with the Stamets-Tilly 3-piece. Suppression Barrage falls in this category as well as a continuous debuff.
Burst heals to handle times when there's lots of incoming fire. This includes long-cooldown effects like Reverse Shield Polarity II, which is the most accessible and one of the most powerful defensive tools to absorb damage, as well as the Bio-Molecular Shield Generator. Other tools that I use include the Protomatter Field Projector, but Engineering Captains can also use Miraculous Repairs. You'll know when to use these--it'll be when the incoming fire starts to overwhelm you. On ISE, that's typically when you're fighting Tactical Cubes, Gateways, and/or 5+ spheres.

You're aiming to pull 75-90% of the incoming attacks for the entire team, so be prepared. On a fast ISE run, that could mean less than 3 million damage absorbed. On a slower run, you're looking at closer to 7-8M. This is by no means the most optimized tank build in the game, but it certainly does the job for DPS channel or fleet runs, especially in ISE. I’m very well pleased with this build and feel it fits nicely in the build space of intermediate-but-semi-affordable tanks while providing ample debuffs for team support. I've used it to tank while boosting at least two other players in my fleet to new records thanks to Inspiration abilities and extra debuffs.

ISE Piloting Tips

Before the map starts, I will launch Fighters, set Threatening Stance, and set the Attract Fire cruiser command. Use Full Impulse when the map starts to hug the center cube. I prebuff Emergency Power to Weapons at 20 seconds prior to countdown and Engines at 5 to avoid misfires with resetting Evasive Maneuvers.

I start with flying very close to the first 3 cubes. I will use all of my longer cooldown buffs in the first fight as well as Interphasic Instability and D.O.M.I.N.O. Trigger Evasive Maneuvers to fly over to the left transformer and fire off all major abilities while at 1/4 impulse or stopped within 2 km of the transformer. FAW should take care of most targets. Once 2-3 of the generators are down, target the transformer with Focused Frenzy and Fire On My Mark. I rotate to face inward toward the gate. When the transformer is low health, fly towards the ball of spheres and give them a torpedo spread and cycle or two of firing. Once they start thinning out, Evasive Maneuvers again (reset due to Emergency Power to Engines) along with Deuterium and head to the right side. Rinse and repeat, then Evasive Maneuvers to fly between the Tactical Cube and Gateway. If there's a large ball of spheres here, this is an important time to use Diversionary Tactics to taunt enemies. This is also the single hardest part to stay alive at, so save big heals like the Bio-Molecular Shield Generator for here. Seriously, this part can be rough depending on how fast your team wipes the Nanite Spheres. Focused Frenzy and Fire On My Mark should be available here again. Lastly, don't forget to summon your Delta Alliance Beacon/Nimbus Pirates, etc. In an average ISE run, I can get two off: one at left transformer and one at the end.

HSE (Hive Space Elite)

I’ve successfully flown HSE on this build without dying and while you can't always save your teammates dying from Warp Core Breaches or Feedback Pulse, it's hard to knock this build for it. I'm not the best HSE pilot but the build is fine. This ship is less survivable than the Stormbreaker so if you're looking to dive right into the middle, it might be kinda rough. The hardest part is the first fight. I stagger my big heals in 15-20 second intervals to give the team time to clean up. Once Give Her All She's Got expires, I use Brace for Impact, Reiterative Structural Capacitor, Give Her All She’s Got, and Subspace Field Modulator. As those are winding down, use the Bio-Molecular Shield Generator. If the health bar is still going down after that, use the Sensor Interference Platform as a last resort. Hopefully by that point, the spheres and first few tactical cubes are cleared out after the first full minute of combat. Push into the formation gradually at first and then as only a few targets are left, attack more aggressively. Suppression Barrage is very helpful on this map.

When fighting the queen, I find it better to stay farther away from her as Aceton field is no joke and neither are her confuses. Hopefully your teammates will use Subnucleonic Beam to clear out the queen’s Feedback Pulse, but that’s not really a problem as long as your big heals are back off of cooldown.

I’ve found that if you can solo HSA without dying and 100K DPS, you’re probably in good shape for HSE. It’s a good way to practice getting a feel for the map, placement/positioning, and knowing when you can ride your regen/HP and when you need to pop a big heal to keep from dying.

Parse Breakdown

Numbers are from record ISE:

Nausicaan Energy Torpedo: 49K
Terran Beam: 27.8K
Elite Alliance Fighter Squadron: 22.2K
Mycelial Lightning: 21.7K
Romulan Disruptor Beam Array: 20.8K
Resonant Disruptor: 19.8K
Disruptor Omni: 18.3K
House Martok Disruptor: 15.3K
Delta Beacon: 14.4K
Spiral Disruptor: 10.4K (remember this is an aft weapon)
Nausicaan Disruptor: 8.7K (remember this is an aft weapon)
Digital Compilation Field: 7.2K (from another player)
Tachyon Net Drones: 5.5K
Deconstructive Resonance: 4.5K
Concentrate Firepower: 3.7K
Cascading Subatomic Disruptions: 3.4K
Anti-Time Entanglement Singularity: 2.4K
Distributed Targeting: 2K
Kemocite: 1.9K
Let It Go: 0.9K
Non-Baryonic Asteroid: 0.8K
Counter-Offensive: 0.7K
Interphasic Instability: 0.4K

Heal breakdown (Heals-per-second)

Greater Than The Sum: 1449.2 (this also counts healing to allies so is a little disingenuous. Still very good)
Bio-Molecular Shield Bubble: 543.7
Energy Refrequencer: 337
Rally Point Marker: 147.5
Ablative Shell: 43.2
Hazard Emitters: 13.5
Brace for Impact: 2

Portability

There are only three other full-Command ships that could run this build while dropping A2B yet still retaining Cold-hearted. The easiest option is the Clarke, which came out well after I built this ship. To run this on the Clarke, switch an A2B out and take Boimler Effect, and pick up a Gravity Well. That said, you do lose Attract Fire. Alternately, you could consider the Legendary Walker and the Undine Kiwavi, since Command/Pilot is a rather rare combination. Neither is able to slot all of the same powers, as the Legendary Walker is light on Tactical seating and would function better under A2B. If sticking with A2B and keeping all the tactical and engineering boff abilities, most full-spec Command ships can't run this build as they have too many forced science seats. Though highly expensive, the Section 31 Command Battlecruiser is capable of running this exact build, though it loses the hangar, while the Elachi Ornash Battlecruiser doesn't have the hangar or the Attract Fire command. The Legendary Vor'cha Command Support Battlecruiser is another hangar-less option that does at least have 5/3 weapons. That said, at the C-store price level, the Presidio and its cross-faction equivalents the Vastam and the Ty'Gokor are probably the best.

Build Breakdown

Put breakdown here

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