U.S.S. Bedivere

Notes

Jayiie's Skill tree has been optimized to be used on as many build types as possible. As such there are some questions that naturally arise when talking about it. I will try to capture these discussions as succinctly as possible here.

Tactical ultimate

The Tactical Ultimate is still taken. Because of the skill investment for energy weapons in the skill tree, this only takes a small amount of investment. Even with the intent of going full min-max, if everyone takes the coordination protocols this is comparable to getting a Mk12 damage console which effects everything, as well as a hull plating node. These are worthwhile investements, and given how flexible Jayiies skill tree is designed to be very good at covering multiple roles such as support, tanks, and energy kinetic and exotic dps builds.

Hull Restoration vs Hull Capacity

This is very simple, while also not. Given the choice between a Improved Hull Capacity (+25.5%) and Hull restoration (+25%) against Advanced Hull capacity (+30%), I personally prefer to take the former, splitting the point difference. Since my character is an engineer, this 25% Hull restoration actually has some very useful applications through Miraculous repairs.

As well by taking some extra points into engineering, this has allowed me to take the 10th Engineering Unlock skill which adds +10 Hull Capacity, which is comparable to the +15 taken from the last point of Hull restoration. Due to how the skill works this is a +3.3% Max Hull vs 4.95% Max Hull buff respectively.

EPG vs Control Amplification, DrainX and CtrlX

This time around I've opted to put more points into CtrlX and EPG while taking Control Amplification, and instead dropping points from DrainX. If this wasn't on an engineering captain I wouldn't consider this a loss. However both Nadion Inversion and Intrusive Energy Redirection both scale with DrainX and are innate captain abilities, thus wanting for the skill.

Aux Power

Optimizing to hit 130 Aux power has been challenging. To do this I required Defensive Subsystem turning for the +4.8 Power to Aux. Combining this with the passive on most science ships as well as the Neutronic Eddies has allowed 130 to be hit passively. This has then allowed me to drop EPS Manifold Efficiency freeing up a 10th starship trait. On other builds this has the effect of allowing more aux power for more damage / better scaling on various powers.

Shield Regeneration

This is still a tank first skill tree. Shield regeneration is statically anomaly and adds a huge amount to shield regen in just the first point (more Information on shields can be found here). As such, I have taken the single point. with the most recent tree revision I've opted to spec out of DrainX and Drain Infection for that last point in EPG. Should you want to not take shield regeneration I would suggest the next DrainX point.

Starship Weapons

Notes

Introduced with the Angel's Wake Lockbox, Ba'ul Weapons offer in place of antiproton weapons inherent 20% Critical Severity a reflection mechanic that deals 5% of the dealt damage. When combined with the Linked Sentry Set 2 piece, these weapons gain an additional reflection as well as increasing the reflection damage from 5% to 10%.

Additionally, Ba'ul reflections are unlike other reflection procs, such as the Refracting Tetryon weapon effect. Ba'ul carries with it other on hit procs and status afflictions. This includes:

• Kemocite Laced Weapons (when triggers on source triggers on reflections)

• Suppression Barrage

• Entropic Rider, and by extension Atrophied Defenses, from temporal specialization

• Radiant Detonation Matrix reputation trait

• Energy Refrequencer reputation trait

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

Heavy tanks fill a role in the game, albeit not one which is focused on assisting other players setting personal DPS records. Heavy tanks are by purpose designed to be very durable DPS builds. Able to act independent of the team, much of the games elite content often requires this solo action. To better fill the role of a more support oriented tank, there are many consoles that could be used in place of the damage increasing ones. See the support version of this ship for details.

Bioneural Infusion Circuits, Aligned Antiproton Shielding, and to an extent the Fek'ihri Torment Engine are all viable candidates for removal and replacement as you see fit. See this list here for options.

Notes on the Fek'ihri Torment Engine

The Fek'ihri torment engine inclusion is not mine, nor do I claim to have discovered it. In my original post however it was merely a footnote and has incurred great questions.

The Torment engine is placed here specifically to take advantage of the Ba'ul reflections proving Entropic Rider. This console provides a 50% damage buff to this DOT, as well as providing additional sources for Atrophied Defenses from Temporal specialization. This damage buff is significant and important, and with both the increased proc chances as well as increased damage Entropic Rider can in come cases out damaging a ship born weapon. Recent HSE Parses have Entropic Rider doing 50k DPS, with FAW1 consuming only 36k DPS comparative. This is a huge source of damage, and aids to help generate aggro as DOT damage tends to generate more aggro than simply doing more weapon damage.

Budget Tweaks:

This ship is incredibly expensive. As such there is a multitude of budget oriented options to take.

Damage Consoles

• Isomagnetic Plasma Distribution Manifold - Previous iterations of this ship had a few lobi consoles and some event consoles as filler for damage buffs, and used only one locator. With the introduction of the Advanced consoles, Isomags have replaced all of these and has allowed me to slot 3 of them for even more damage than I had before.

• Aligned Antiproton Shielding - As an event console this is currently impossible to acquire if you don't have the ship already. Easiest complement to this console would be the Temporal Anomaly Projector from the Angels Wake Lockbox.

• Timeline Stabilizer - I regret to suggest people use the Dampening Wave Emitter, but if you don't have access to the TLS there is no other way to get the 3pc. The DWE does apply some large damage reductions to things caught by the active and has an....acceptable passive it's still a bad console, but it does fill the 3pc on a whim

Durability Consoles

• Dynamic Power Redistributor Module - I put this under a durability console since this does fill the role of the durability solution on this ship. Obvious best replacements would be the Protomatter Field Projector from the Event Lukari Ho'kuun. Should this be unacquirable the next option would be the Reiterative Structural Capacitor. This is from a previous event, and was available in the Phoenix store for a time before being placed into the Mudds Market for an exorbitant price not fitting its utility. Final option to put here would be Shared Processing Integration which provides a fraction of the healing potential but doesn't come at the extreme cost of the other options.

• A console I haven't used much on this build (as I don't need it) is the use of Hull Image Refractors. A recent change to this console increases the utility as instead of stacking based on the healing received it stacks up to a certain value. This does mean that the console doesn't get to the crazy 500k temp HP numbers we've seen, but it does become more forgiving in allowing more heals to be present. With this ship reaching its maximum hull capacity at 200k, this means you can get to 200k temp HP on this ship. Noting that temporary HP carry's no resistances, to those on a budget it can be a very good source of inflating potential HP pools without huge cost expenditures.

Often Superior Area Denial gets brought up into these discussions. However the buff to self lasts 20s with a 5s lingering debuff, which can give a total debuff time on target of 25s, which is more than enough to overlap betwen FAW activations, so having a CSV to trigger the trait doesn't seem needed. Eventually you will either need to drift CSV to have it line up with FAW and have a dead power for 5s, or you use it and have the torp unable to get rid of the TS granted by CSV and throw off FAW cycling. In the end I decided to use CRF since this was an easier power to use ans spam (and also allows colony console activations and heals to become spread out rather than lumped together improving the potential healing capabilities).

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

The easiest change to bring this ship into a more supporting role would be moving from Auxiliary Power to Structural Integrity to Auxiliary power to Emergency Batteries (Aux2Bat). This would allow the use of Cold Hearted Starship Trait to further reduce targets damage resistances.

For a  layout utilizing Unconventional Systems, it is possible to adapt the bridge officer layout to include this but will come at the cost of triggers for 8 of 27 or some other aspect, such as protomatter triggers. With increased console cooldowns this might not be an issue but having attempted to tank HSE at the same speed as I do it isn't possible without protomatter consoles (without relying on healing from other players).

At best two more triggers can be picked up at the cost of lowering durability and maneuverability. These would be:

1. Tactical Team -> Science Officer slotting Tractor beam

2. Auxiliary Power to Structural to Emit Unstable Warp Bubble (mission reward from "Broken Circle")

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

There isn't much to change here in terms of utility. Obviously if playing on a tactical or science captain Grace Under Fire isn't available. As such these would be best swapped to A Good Day to Die (not confusing at all there's a starship trait, mission, and personal trait with the same name) for tactical captains and potential something like Bio-tech Patch or Conservation of Energy for science captains.

Budget Tweaks:

For budget players who want to save some EC, there's a few standard traits that could be used:

• Bulkhead Technician - Innate trait - this provides +10% Maximum Hull capacity and can be used as a stand in for durability consoles

• EPS Manifold Efficiency - Engineering Captain innate trait - this provides +10 all subsystem power for 30s when using EPtX or batteries. A useful filler.

• Living Hull - Episode Reward from "Surface Tension" - +15% hull regen in combat is equivalent to 3 stacks of repair crews

• Redacted Armor Plating - Episode Reward from “The Renegade's Regret” - +30 all DRR when hit from behind or sides

• Regenerative Control Synergy - Episode Reward from “Of Signs and Portents” - Grants +45% hull regen when using a control power for 10 seconds

• Give Your All - Engineering RnD level 15 - grants a dodge (flat 20% reduction)

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

To better fill the role of a heavy tank, there are options to improve it in this role. The inclusion of a A Good Day to Die, a starship trait that increases both healing and damage, would grant the ship more damage as well as increase healing; as an interesting note, the increased healing form this trait also improves the effects of the protomatter consoles.

To fill the role of a more support orientated tank, obvious changes would be diluting the builds damage potential for group effects. As previously mentioned Cold Hearted is the easiest inclusion, but is limited to a previous event ship. Unified Engineering is a decent replacement for more team support

Budget Tweaks:

Defensive Traits:

• The Best Defense - +25% Healing when using APB, APO, and APD - not hugely relevant on a build which heals via regen or incoming classes healing (protomatter consoles) but its free from the episode "House Pegh".

• Going the Extra Mile - +Hull cap and +healing - free from completing Miracle Worker Specialization

Offensive Traits:

• Improved Critical Systems - Temporal Agent Recruit Reward, grants CrtX on use of EptX abilities.

Notes:

Most tanks nowadays use Entwined Tactical Matrices for 100% uptime on FAW. However this requires the use of a torpedo. It is possible to forgo the torpedo to open up another fore weapon slot and not take other players Concentrate fire procs but comes at the cost of 100% uptime, instead lowering to only 75% with Redirecting Arrays. This would also help free up BOff stations for more support or unconventional systems triggers. In the future I plan to implement these support changes to the platforms but that will be another post itself.

Now that I have the Phaser Lance and Universal Designs I did attempt to use it here but I wasn't satisfied with how it played. That is an option if you choose but I preferred the setup here without it. In its place I've opted to go with Ship of the Line for my 7th starship trait, which is a really easy non-micro damage solution.

Notes on Tethered Non-Baryonic Asteroid: 

Something that I've noticed since the implementation of the Intel reworks and the recently buffed Surgical Strikes builds is how some people fly these types of builds. While not wanting to correct people, during ISx runs some individuals will leave stragglers at one transformer or the other. This can in some cases ruin runs; often making people very angry and upset at anyone and everyone.

In order to preemptively prevent this, the asteroid can be used to drag the remaining stragglers into the middle, usually to the existing gravity well.

Normally the Bedivere has enough damage to clear up stragglers and move at the same time as these types of builds but there is the average occasion I'm put onto a team where this happens. After many runs with it the asteroid has finally filled the 5th trait slot here.

Miscellaneous

Any ship with commander command seating will work here. Obviously the higher the hull mod the better. The problem with porting 1:1 will have less to do with the ship bridge officer layouts and more with the unique consoles now-unlocked to the Odyssey and Flagship lines.

In order of highest to lowest hull mods from a non-inclusive list:

• Hur'q Vedcrid Hive Dreadnought Carrier - 4/3 but with 2 hanger bays and a 1.7 hull mod this could be an incredible platform for tanking.

• Legendary Ross Command Exploration Cruiser - From the same pack this 1.55 hull mod ship is better suited to a support role than heavy tank (damage) role, mostly due to the Cmdr/Lt.C engineering seat. Its also a Galaxy so it gets some style points.

• Fleet Cardenas Command Dreadnought Cruiser - 1.54 hull mod so very beefy, and gets access to a decent seating layout. No lt.C tactical means it wont be able to get FAW3 for the role of a super heavy tank but it is very possible to do it on this, but is also better suited to support tanks. The KDF counterpart is a duplicate of its stats if you wanted to try something non-fed.

• Legendary Bortasqu' Command Battlecruiser - 1.5 hull mod, as a battlecruiser this lacks the attract fire aura but also picks up a Lt.C Tactical / Intel. This also has the added benefit of being 5/3, and is arguably a better platform than the Verity.

• Fleet Justiciar Command Star Cruiser - 1.5 Hull mod, very similar in layout to the verity but lacks the hanger bay

• Voth Rampart Command Flight Deck Carrier - 1.47 hull mod and probably the closest to the Verity in terms of boff seating. Access to MW and very flexible seating would definitely make this a contender for the heavy tank role.

• Kelvin Constitution Heavy Command Cruiser - 1.45 hull mod, access to both command and temporal as well as versatile seating (lt.C uni) means this is flexible in both support and heavy tank roles.

• Merian Command Science Dreadnought - 1.45 Cmdr Science ship with a hanger bay. This platform is more suited for support tanking but it could be very potent with the access to a secondary deflector for the purposes of heavy tanking.

• Legendary Vor'cha Command Support Battlecruiser - 1.45 hull mod, very very very good ship, many roles this can fill from DEW DPS to tanking to torps.

• Styx Terran Dreadnought Cruiser - 1.45 hull mod, More than capable of being both a heavy and support tank, and possible attempt to fill both roles at once with access to APB3 hanger pets.

• Friendship Command Flight Deck Carrier - 1.4 hull mod is the same as the Hull mod on the verity, but this ship has the same Lt.C Intel that the Styx has and also has two hanger bays.

• Presidio / Ty'Gokor / Vastam Tactical Command Battlecruisers - Lower hull (1.375 Hull mod) but not as expensive as a platform as a the others on this list, can fill both heavy and support roles as seen here.

• Endeavour / Martok / Khopesh Tactical Flagships -  Any of them will work as they share the set powers and roughly the same layout, but will suffer having access to only Lt.C command powers.