U.S.S. Hiawatha

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

  • Doble points in Hull Restoration/Hull Capacity are low opportunity cost for relatively high survivability gains. I also use this captain for tank builds so I took 2 points a piece on this ship.

  • 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 is using Gravity Well and other control-based abilities, having two points in ControlX would be better but not worth a respec. The 2 points in DrainX are for other builds in this captain that use the Quantum Phase torpedo.

  • 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.

Temporal Operative is useful for Entropic Rider and Atrophied Defenses. Intelligence primary allows the team-wide Intelligence Fleet active ability.

Notes

Torpedoes: Might as well start with the controversial one. "No torpedoes on nannies!!11" If we had a comments section, this would be likely the first one. Let's talk about why that's the conventional wisdom. The highest-end ISE torpedo runs want to feed a single DPS player (or their pets) all the Concentrate Firepower procs possible to maximize DPS from torpedoes, so nobody else will run torpedoes in a truly-coordinated run. That's the prevailing wisdom. 

1. I'm not building around super-high-end players. I don't build around the assumption that everyone is trying to funnel DPS into a single projectile user. I've supported players up to 1.4M DPS on this ship but we're not hitting the top of the leaderboards nor is that level of coordinated build efficiency and minmaxing something I'm trying to achieve. A more uncoordinated environment dilutes the effectiveness of Concentrate Firepower donation if others are summoning beacons, fighters, firing torpedoes, etc.

2. The Delphic Torpedo debuffs resists by 10 per stack and it stacks a lot so there's a considerable amount of additional debuff being spread around by me using this particular torpedo. Omega Kinetic Shearing is a guaranteed proc of Atrophied Defenses for a further -10 DRR alongside the Gamma Deflector for -15 kinetic DRR.

3. Torpedoes are fun and immersive.

That said, if you would rather build a support without a torpedo so as to better donate Concentrate Firepower, unslot the torpedo and Entwined Tactical Matrices (use Withering Barrage instead with cannons),  or deal with the loss of uptime on FAW. If you'd like to have a torpedo but the Delphic is out of budget, consider the Resonant Transphasic or Nausicaan Energy torpedoes. Both are free.

Plasma/Phaser: I chose these flavors because I had them already. The weapons were from various versions of the Chronos and Inquiry builds. If you don't have access to Pulse Phasers or Altamid beams, standard Disruptors and the Advanced Inhibiting Omni are easy budget substitutes.

Notes:

Drive Train: The Iconian 3-piece is basically a generic Very Rare Tactical Console for allied energy weapon players. 

Hangar Pets: The Type 7s have basically displaced any other supportive pets at a very reasonable price due to their ability to throw Attack Pattern Beta III and their innate ability is also a -DRR effect. 

Notes: 

Alternate energy types:  See the weapons section. 

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• See the weapons section for commentary on dropping torpedoes

• There are other universal consoles like Opening Salvo (T6 Titan) or Temporal Anomaly Projector (T4 Gemini) that do things like dropping enemy shields or even more debuffs. Could drop the Research Lab console for those. 

• If you really want to spend dilithium, you can bring team-wide engines and aux batteries. In practice, players should have their important power levels pretty well maxed so I don't consider this worthwhile especially when we're using team-wide starship traits

• If you don't want to use hangar pets at all out of fear of despawning the map or of taking DPS, just...don't slot a hangar. Easy enough.

Budget Tweaks:

If low budget, 

• Drop Kobayashi Maru Transponder if unavailable (T6X upgrade and event)

• Drop the second Deuterium Surplus (T6X2 upgrade)

• Drop the Cascading Subatomic Disruptions (T6X2 upgrade)

• Drop Sensor Suspension Burst (T6X upgrade)

• Drop the High Energy Communications Network, Enhanced Dominion Coordination Protocol, Hyper-Focusing Trinary Arrays, and Radiation Bombardment Matrix in favor of a cheaper alternatives like Hostile Acquisition, Temporal Anomaly Projector, and Polymorphic Probe Array which should be fairly cheap on the exchange. 

• Use regular Disruptors over Pulse Phasers/Altamid Beams. Replace the Altamid Omni with Advanced Inhibiting Array

• Most of the rest of this can be obtained even on a budget. 

Meta Notes

• If you want to go torpless, drop Torpedo Spread and take Withering Barrage over ETM with cannons instead. 

• Do not use Best Served Cold. It is irredeemably terrible.

• Could get some more K-13 science boffs for Control Expertise, but that's a decent investment for marginal gain

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• Psychological Warfare could replace Give Your All

Budget Tweaks:

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

• Drop Resonating Payload Modification  (Elite Captain unlock)

• Unconventional Systems -> Operative

• Coordinated Targeting Solution -> Bulkhead Technician

• Fragment of AI Tech -> Beam Training

• Inspirational Leader ->  Point-Blank Shot

• A Good Day to Die -> Innocuous

• Feel the Weight of Our Presence -> Crippling Fire

• Intelligence Agent Attache -> Beam Training

• Boimler Effect is hard to replace

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• I dropped Cold-hearted because typically our tanks are running it and it doesn't stack across the time. If you like it, then replace Carrier Wave Shield Hacking.

• If you're going torpless, drop Entwined Tactical Matrices. FAW uptime will suffer accordingly. 

Budget Tweaks:

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

• Drop Inertial Supremacy (T6X upgrade)

• Drop Superior Area Denial (T6X2 upgrade)

• Digital Compilation Field -> Jubilant Cadence if you have access to the Lafayette

I don't think you can make this work without Entwined Tactical Matrices or Withering Barrage

Notes:

• Electrified Anomalies at ~100 DrainX gives about 7.5 power at 50% uptime to allies within 5 km of Gravity Well or Ionic Turbulence. Greater than the Sum gives up to +20 power for 10 seconds depending on how many allies are within 5 km on using a Command ability. I'm using the latter because I believe it does more. 

• 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. 

Miscellaneous

This ship uses a single instance of Auxiliary to Battery as its primary cooldown mechanism with Boimler as secondary. While it's about 1.5 seconds off on Tactical powers, for my purposes I call that good enough.

LINK TO CDR SHEET