U.S.S. Olimar

Fleet Akira Heavy Strike Wing Escort

Build Overview and Focus

I built a rather effective Kinetic build on my Tzentar, which happens to be a full carrier. On my record run, 200k of the damage output was from pets alone - on a build not dedicated to pets! Advanced Hangar consoles also came on the scene and a new build archetype was finally viable - the Carrier. While not a full carrier, I wanted to test out some of the revamped Pilot powers that aimed to be Bridge Officer-based Hangar Pets. This ship is also a good starship trait source, as well as a fast nimble ship unlike other carriers that have a yearly turn rate. 

Namesake

Named after famous pilot who was known for coming back from some of the worst crashes. He would use the resources and creatures around him to build up a small army that could help him accomplish tasks greater than he could on his own. With often up to 100 creatures accompanying him, he made quick work of many obstacles. 

Meta Analysis

Budget Analysis

T6 C-Store Ships (5)

Phoenix/Event Stuff (3)

Lobi Gear

Promo/Lockbox Ships

Lockbox Gear (Exchange purchases) (5)

Fleet Gear (1)

Dilithium Store Ships

Other

Change History

Build Breakdown

The main focus of this build is on hangar pets, with secondary focuses on Energy damage and Agility. The choice of ship means I am more agile than most carriers. Trying to stick on theme with a torpedo helps round out the build decisions. 

Skills

Skill Unlocks

Notes

This is a pretty damage-focused skill tree. Nothing I took here is too surprising. Some things that I want to point out that apply specifically to this build. 

Targeting Expertise - While this does get turned into CrtH/CrtD with Accuracy Overflow, this also gets turned into Bonus Damage for Reinforcements Squadron. This also means other sources of Accuracy (such as DOMINO) pull a little extra weight here. Since we were after the Tactical Ultimate, and this converts directly to damage output, no reason not to take all 3 points here.  is actually important for Reinforcements Squadron. While not all sources will benefit, for every point in Accuracy Rating, you will get 3% Bonus Damage with Reinforcements Squadron. This means for all 3 points we are getting 45% bonus damage to Reinforcements Squadron. DOMINO has 20 Accuracy Rating (for reference), which would give 60% bonus damage. 

Weapon Amplification - This does not get turned into Bonus Damage for Reinforcements Squadron as it is Weapons-specific.

Coordination Protocols, Offensive Coordination, Defensive Coordination - While this set of skills says it applies to hangar pets, in reality, it's more of a mixed bag than that. I was unable to get it to show up for my specific hangar pets, but it still applies to my teammates, Armed Loitering Munitions, Fleet Beacon, and Photonic Reinforcements. Just the fact that it applies to my teammates makes it worth it, but also having several of my stronger pets get the benefit as well makes it doubly worth it. 

Exotic Particle Generator - I could be convinced to spend this point elsewhere. I have no direct EPG usages, but I have even fewer controls or drains. The Reinforcements Squadron does use a Coolant Ignition upon activation which is modified by EPG. 


Unlocks

You'll notice I didn't take either of the Hangar Pet unlocks. Battery Expertise vs. Hangar Health is pretty easy in my opinion. 10% extra health for hangar pets really won't make a difference, but doubling the duration of batteries will. There's no other way to get Battery Expertise (except a small trickle on a warp core), and there are some pretty strong batteries from R&D. Whereas hangar pets are generally fragile to begin with, so 10% more health won't be worth much. 

Threat control vs. Hangar Weaponry is a harder choice. You would be fine taking either option, but it is only 10% extra damage for pets. This ship doesn't have the highest hull mod, so any reduction to threat is welcome. This does reduce your threat even if you do nothing else as it has -100% when Threatening Stance is off, which it usually is.

Accuracy unlock is the clear winner, especially since the benefit to Reinforcements Squadron. It is only 2 Acc, for 6% bonus damage but still worth noting. 

The rest of the unlocks are not unusual. Be sure if skimping on points, Team Frenzy on Focused Frenzy is very beneficial because it will let your pets and team take part. 

Build Goals

Hangar pets

I went for more variety offered by the Pilot seating and variety of devices and consoles rather than a full carrier. Are there better hangar ships than the Akira? Certainly. Are they as fun to fly? Probably not! 

I picked up the Alita (the base T6 of the Fleet Akira) through a WizKids Attack Wing Expansion. While it may not be optimal, of the four ships you can get from that expansion, the Alita was the most attractive for its trait and ship itself. The trait allows your hangar pets to also get a Beam Overload and Cannon Rapid Fire when you use them yourself. While this may seem like a really powerful trait, if you look through the list of Hangar Pets, there are actually very few that don't already have either Beam Overload or Cannon Rapid Fire built in. In cases where they have BO or CRF, slotting Coordinated Assault can actually be a damage output reduction, which is not what we want (Coordinated Assault's Beam Overload 1 overwrites Beam Overload 3!). 

There are a couple other benefits to the Alita/Akira as a hull (henceforth, just Akira - fleet is a strictly better upgrade). The Pilot seating allows us to use Fly Her Apart for both damage and maneuverability, as well as Reinforcements Squadron for a modest uptime 5 extra hangar pets. The Tactical lean of the Akira also allows for an Experimental Weapon slot, and since we are going to be using the Hydra's trait and console already (more on that later), we also have access to the Armed Loitering Munition, which actually counts as a hangar pet as well!

A Science Captain also has access to the Photonic Fleet ability, which summons more ships to fight with us. There is a trait for an additional ship from this, but it's either expensive or unavailable every time I look. 

Another Captain power to consider is Fleet Support. While this may not be very strong on its own, requiring you to be below 50% hull to activate the power, it has some solid upgrades available. With enough Command Specialization points, you can get Command Frequency and Improved Command Frequency, which adds ships and reduces cooldowns on Fleet Support as well as removing the hull lockout. Completing tasks on a Temporal Recruit will allow you to unlock the Superior version of this trait, which adds yet another ship to the summon. Finally, a recent event also added a device, the Flagship Distress Frequency Transponder. This device further upgrades the Fleet Support to call in a Flagship based on your faction. If it is already on the battlefield, it will summon another ship of the same class. This means a single activation of the Fleet Support summons 5 ships! We also have ways of doing this every 2 1/2 minutes (more on that later) which means that additional summons can overlap with the initial summons. 

With all of these additional pets sources, this ship is really good at defending an area. One major drawback with pets is that they can be slow to react in fast maps like ISE, stopping to engage everything on the way or slowly lingering as you warp off elsewhere. It's worth noting that the HYDRA console's activation will teleport a random selection of some of your pets right in front of you, so it is a good way to do an initial burst of damage as well as yoink your pets to your location after a fast relocation. Maps like Days of Doom (defend the starbase), Swarm (defend the lanes), and Counterpoint (pets mill about at either close base) are fantastic for this build. Counterpoint is probably the best as you are also able to take advantage of the maneuverability of this ship and still cover a wide area with your fleet. I'll cover more interactions with pets later on, but this is the bulk majority of our pets sources. 

Classic Federation Theme

I've always enjoyed the Akira since my first encounter with it in the Armada games, though its first appearance is in Star Trek: First Contact. Something feels right about having phaser cannons on it, though I wish we had an analogue to the Chain Reaction Pulsar weapon from Armada in game to go on it; Isometric Charge is close but simply didn't belong on this build. 

Unlocking the Alita using the WizKids code gives a special 7b hull material that closely matches the physical ship model that comes with the Attack Wing expansion. I felt it appropriate to use this hull material and as few other modifications to the model as possible to keep it close to the physical model that I have. While difficult to see, there are portions of the ship that are a polished silver where the 7b material really shines. 

Between my decorative choices and thematic lean, I clearly chose to go with Phasers for this build. While not all "vanilla" in color and sound effect, on the whole they do look mostly like regular phaser cannons since the WADBB is a pulse phaser at its core and not a direct beam. Choosing all phaser allowed me to choose [Phaser] mods on my Hangar Craft Power Transmission consoles as well as go for a few +Phaser bonuses. I'll cover all of this in more detail later. Since this is a secondary driving force to the Hangar Pets, nowhere near as many choices fall to the theme as they do to the hangar.

Starship Weapons

Notes

None of these weapons are too outstanding. You could easily go for some better procs (Pulse Phasers) or a different flavor, but I chose Phaser to synergize with some other consoles I have. The HYDRA console does Phaser Damage with it's clicky blast. DOMINO has +15% Phaser damage. I also wanted to keep my budget low on the weapons since the primary focus of this build is the pets and items that support that. 

Armed Loitering Munitions are the only really unusual inclusion here. Each one you launch lingers until it gets ready to time out or finds a shield facing down. Until then, it fires a little phaser weapon. I often see around 3 of these floating around. They also rank up just like Hangar pets, which is really fun. I'll cover the full details of Pets later on.

Starship Equipment

Notes

The primary goal here is the Iconian set. It's a toss up on the 3-piece vs. the 4-piece set. The 3pc is a passive proc that gives extra energy damage to your pets and your team. The 4pc is a clicky that gives all damage to your team. It's possible there is a teammate using these powers. It's also helpful to have the extra CrtH/CrtD from your Colony Deflector. I'd recommend at least the 3pc set, and depending on your resources and taste for grinding more Iconian Probe Datacores, the 4pc set is also just fine. I did try out the Gamma and Competitive sets, but neither of these actually benefit your pets, only your team. 

The Accuracy from the Targeting Lock Batteries doesn't enhance Reinforcements Squadron since it is Weapons-specific, but they do still enhance my own damage. 

The Hangar Pets are a major part of this build. I'll cover Hangar Pets as a whole later on. 

Starship Consoles

Set Bonuses

Notes

If you want more specifics on pet interactions, check out our Carrier Basics page for a lot of in-depth information.

Starship Traits

Super Charged Weapons grants a buff to outgoing damage to yourself or your pets that fire a torpedo. Most pets don't fire a torpedo often enough to get multiple stacks of this, but it is still a winning choice for a trait as it also enhances your own damage output. 

Strike Group Command Authority grants 30/40/50% bonus damage to pets based on the rank of pet you have launched. If you can manage to get a "separated ship" such as a Saucer Section or Multi-Vector Assault Mode, you get the full 50% bonus damage. However, the number of ships that support this option is quite limited. Generally, getting rank 1 or 2 SGCA is pretty easy on a carrier build. This build in general gets rank 1, however Fleet Support and Nimbus Distress Call grant rank 2. 

Coordinated Assault is essentially a poor-man's Superior Area Denial. It grants Beam Overload 1 and Cannon Rapid Fire 1 to your pets when you use Beam Overload and Cannon Rapid Fire (respectively). As mentioned before, there are a lot of pets that already have a rank 3 weapon enhancement, and so using this trait is a DPS loss. Check with the goal pets before you try to slot this trait on your build and make sure they don't have a better firing mode already. It does not apply to most of your pets, only the direct Hangar pets.

Team Synergy gets an honorable mention as it applies to your allies within 10km, however it is pretty weak so ended up getting dropped from the build. You have to slot Tactical/Engineering/Science Team as well, and the only one of these that boosts damage is Tactical team, and that only very small amount. 

I don't have Superior Area Denial, and can't really test it as such. Scramble Fighters is also an option, but is extremely rare and expensive, so I also don't have that. 

Personal Traits

Independent Wingmate applies to the first Hangar Pet that you launch and gives a big boost to its output until it dies and passes the buff to the next in line. Since this can apply to only one target at a time, you'll generally only see this on your hangar pet. I wasn't able to get it to show up on Fleet Support type pets, but doesn't mean it isn't possible. Since Independent Wingmate applies to the first pet you launch, and Reinforcements Squadron, Fleet Support, etc. all require you to be in combat, it is generally best to assume you will apply this to you hangar pets as you can pre-launch them out of combat. 


Wing Commander doubles the speed at which your pets rank up. This actually allows Reinforcements Squadron and Armed Loitering Munitions to rank up, normally they would time out before ranking up. This also benefits your regular Hangar as they tend to die and this gets them back up to rank 5 as quick as possible. Since this rank also affects Hangar Craft Power Transmission bonuses, it is important to pick this trait up. 


This one isn't in my table, but Friends in Unusual Places might be tempting in order to keep your Fleet Support and Distress Call abilities up more often. However, it counts as a debuff and regularly gets removed or cleansed! Also, with Intel Agent Attache, you are able to hit global with Fleet Support. Between Fleet Support and Nimbus/Delta Distress call, you are always hitting the shared cooldown of 2 minutes. Friends in Unusual Places, as a result, doesn't benefit us at all. 

Skill Tree

There's not a lot on the skill tree that directly affects pets. We've already covered the unlocks and why we don't take them in the Skill Tree section above. However, we do take Coordination Protocols. Surprsingly, Coordination Protocols does not apply to every hangar pet. I don't intend to make an exhaustive list of what does and does not apply, but you can basically assume it doesn't apply and be pleasently surprised when it does. Armed Loitering Munitions and Reinforcements Squadron do get the benefit, as does any of your other Fleet Support. Your teammates also get the benefit of this skill, so it is still worth taking. 

Consoles

There's certainly more consoles here than I didn't cover, but I chose these three to put in the table as they are not as easily cut and dried. Many clickies will apply, such as debuffing the target or applying a buff to everything within a certain range. The HYDRA console and Swarmer Matrix console each have passives that apply to some of your pets. Your Hangar Pets will benefit from these passives, while your Fleet Support will not. As such, these are not as strong of a benefit as some of the other options on our list, but do provide a buff to not only damage, but also speed and turn rate which means more time on target. The HYDRA clicky is very strong as well, and is going to be one of the best options to slot. Swarmer's clicky isn't as strong, but certainly has a place on a carrier unless you have too many other options to slot. 

Many carriers have ship-locked consoles that are obvious choices, such as the Jorogumo's Tholian Tetryon Grid or the Jupiter's Fleet Coordination Matrix. You also notice that I have Sensor Suspension Burst on my build, but not in this table. There are many other strong Carrier consoles, and a good number of them you will find on the list of Support consoles. In order to not bog down the table with data, these are left off. They'll apply to your Hangar Pets and Fleet Support just like they would your team. 

Finally, the one console you can slot multiples of for a Carrier build is the Hangar Craft Power Transmission console. This takes up your Advanced Console slot for the ship (so no Locators or Exploiters), and is best used to fill out Engineering slots and Universal slots. This ship is certainly one of the lightest you can find on Engineering seats, with only 2 dozen ships with fewer Engineering Console slots. However, one thing to remember is that unlike Isomags, which have become popular on regular DEW builds, HCPT's scale with the rank of the Hangar Pet. This means a 5-Star Hangar pet will get 3x the bonus that a fresh hangar pet will (or a pet that doesn't rank up). That means each console gives 70.8% Bonus Torpedo damage and 23.7 current and max weapon power. However, for the purposes of this build, there aren't any ships with Pilot seating that have 5 Engineering console slots, and the only 3 ships with 4 Engineering console slots are out of my price range (2 Legendary, 1 Lobi ship). Therefore, you either get Pilot seating and 3 Engineering console slots, or you go without Pilot seating and get more Engineering slots. Since everything you can summon gets at least 1x HCPT bonus, and your Hangar Pets get even more, being a couple slots short on HCPTs won't kill the build. 

I may pull out a Terran Lexington at some point for 7x HCPTs, but none of the 5 Engineering Console + 2 hangar ships interest me or are in my price range.

Miscellaneous

There is a Duty Officer that gives a chance for Attack Pattern Omega to spread to your team. Since this is a Conn Officer, I only slot 2 of them. This ability, when it triggers, does apply to everything. 

The Iconian 3pc passive is a chance for extra energy damage. While it might apply to just about everything, I didn't try to test it for mines as it wouldn't do anything anyways even if the mines get the buff. The Iconian 4pc also applies to just about everything. The Gamma set was a bit disappointing for me, as I hoped it would apply to pets, but both it and the Competitive set don't apply at all. This makes the choice for any Carrier builds pretty clear-cut. The Iconian Set is the only one that applies to your pets. Otherwise, stick with options that boost your own ship from any of the other categories (DEW, Tank, etc.).

Bridge Officers

Notes

I'm on a Romulan character, so Superior Romulan Operatives are extremely easy to get and cheap. 

Commander Tactical Seat

Attack Pattern Omega 3 is not usually desired due to the fact that at best, it can only be up 1/2 the time. Attack Pattern Beta debuffs everything you shoot at and has 100% uptime. However, in this case, I took the Duty Officer (twice) to have a chance to spread it to my fleet. This gives extra damage to everything within 10km, so is pretty potent when it does happen. 

We also can take Cannon Rapid Fire 2 and Beam Overload 2, leaving the Commander seat for an Attack Pattern. This is because of the Weapons Expert duty officer that gives a chance to make each of these enhancements rank 3! Since we need them only as triggers for Coordinated Assault, and less as selfish damage buffs, this is a great place to rely on the chance of higher rank and get the benefit of Attack Pattern Omega for the fleet. 

Tactical Team is not my first choice, but it does give a little benefit to myself. If you run Team Synergy, then it is able to spread its damage bonus to your entire team and fleet. However, Team Synergy just for one "Team" power seems a little weak. Distributed Targeting would also be great here as it would buff anything shooting at the target (such as my pets), but at the time it was a little out of my price range for the negligible benefit it would provide. 

Lt. Commander Engineering/Pilot Seat

This is taken entirely as a Pilot seat, mostly for fun. Most of the benefit to my own damage is from Fly Her Apart 2, which sacrifices a little hull for some speed and extra damage. The benefit of a higher-rank Reinforcements Squadron was easily outweighed by a higher amount of Bonus Damage from a higher rank of Fly Her Apart. The extra accuracy from Attack Pattern Lambda 3 vs. rank 1 was certainly not worth it, and of the 3 powers, Attack Pattern Lambda is the only one that fits in an Ensign seat. 

Reinforcements Squadron has been covered a bit elsewhere, but is the only Bridge Officer-based Hangar Pet. Call Emergency Artillery might be close, but really has no form or function like Hangar Pets and acts more like a Projectile power than anything. The biggest piece of Reinforcements Squadron is that it is enhanced by your Accuracy Rating and Critical Damage. 1 point of Accuracy Rating is worth 3% Bonus Damage for the Reinforcements Squadron, while 1% CrtD is worth 1% Bonus Damage. I did test this with the Jorogumo's Precision Multi-targeting, and +100 Acc from that is +300% Bonus Damage to Reinforcements Squadron! As such, there are little pieces of +Acc that we pick up in the build. 

Reinforcements Squadron is also the primary motivation for picking up Attack Pattern Lambda as it gives +35/50/65 Acc. Overflow accuracy is still converted to CrtD/CrtH, so it even increases our damage a small amount. Otherwise, this is an Ensign engineering seat and options like Let It Go and Endothermic beam are solid debuffs that would help. 

Lieutenant Engineering Seat

This is the easiest seat to fill. Emergency Power to Weapons enhances our weapons, while Emergency Power to Engines helps us go fast and cooldown Evasive Maneuvers faster with the DOff. Having both powers allows us to use Improved Critical Systems with 100% uptime. 

Lieutenant Tactical Seat

On a build that sports a single torpedo, in general you will get more damage out of a Torpedo Spread than a Torpedo High Yield.  The torpedo on this build is mostly for the extra damage from Super Charged Weapons, as well as set bonuses. As such, it is relatively unbuffed and gets far more utility out of hitting multiple targets. As you rank up Torpedo Spread, you can hit additional targets so it is better at higher ranks. Kemocite is a great filler as it does damage and debuff in AoE all at Ensign rank. 

Lieutenant Science Seat

Photonic Officer 1 is our primary cooldown tool. None of our powers are hard to cooldown, Since our primary damage is from pets, build space isn't spent on our ship cooldowns. Reinforcements Squadron is fully cooled down by Photonic Officer. If we wanted to cover more cooldowns, Boimler's would be a simple addition to the personal traits.  

Hazard Emitters is a good heal and cleanse. If running Team Synergy, Science Team would be able to apply to the entire team in the same slot. There is also a couple of options for Duty Officers that can spread Hazard Emitters to nearby allies. 

Traits

Personal Traits

Friends in Unusual Places might be tempting in order to keep your Fleet Support and Distress Call abilities up more often. However, it counts as a debuff and regularly gets removed or cleansed! This means your cooldown will keep bouncing between reduced and regular, and it ends up not worth the slot. Intelligence Agent Attache is enough for cooling down Fleet Support, but also cools down your other Captain Powers. Rogue Scientist Aboard was tempting since it has a chance for Attack Pattern Omega and Torpedo Spread, but once every 60 seconds is too low to be worth slotting. 

The traits I chose here are certainly on the lower end of the budget. You'll see several traits that are free. When we look at traits that benefit Hangar Pets, there aren't a lot. I'm also not including any Personal or Starship traits that summon additional pets as most of these are pretty terrible as far as damage sources due to uptime or simply a lack of damage. 

Wing Commander is probably the most important trait since it doubles the speed at which your pets rank up. This actually allows Reinforcements Squadron and Armed Loitering Munitions to rank up, normally they would time out before ranking up. This also benefits your regular Hangar as they tend to die and this gets them back up to rank 5 as quick as possible. Since this rank also affects Hangar Craft Power Transmission bonuses, it is important to pick this trait up. Each rank of your Hangar Pets gets 40% more of a bonus from Hangar Craft Power Transmission. This ends up getting you to the full 3x Multiper on HCPT twice as fast. Pets also heal when they rank up. 

Independent Wingmate is pretty optional, as it only affects a single hangar pet. The first pet that you launch gets a large bonus to its damage output, and if it dies, it passes that buff to the next one in line. Since you can launch hangar pets during a briefing, it will often end up on the first Hangar Pet you launch. Most of our damage comes from a wide array of hangar pets and fleet support, so buffing a single one is not as impactful as a trait that buffs everything. 

Feel the Weight of our Presence is often used on a support build as it is a -DRR to enemies within 12km. We quickly hit the -12.5 DRR cap with 5 players, 6 hangar craft, 5 Reinforcement Fighters and a smattering of other pets. This means the trait pulls double duty as enhancing your pets as well as supporting your team. 

Holographic Mirage Decoys is a holdover I had from doing a Mines build, and is not essential to the build. This does give a little extra durability to your Hangar Pets, but is not essential. 

The last trait that really affects any of our hangar pets is Accurate. Reinforcements Squadron scales with our innate accuracy, so the +10 Acc from this is +30% bonus damage to the Reinforcements Squadron. You can spring for Superior Accurate, which is +15 Acc. This is absolutely not essential, but is an option. 

The other traits are up to you, you can find a good list of traits for DEW builds or support builds to fill out the rest of your traits. In my case, I kept it simple and stuck with what I had available. 

Starship Traits

Coordinated Assault is essentially a poor-man's Superior Area Denial. It grants Beam Overload 1 and Cannon Rapid Fire 1 to your pets when you use Beam Overload and Cannon Rapid Fire (respectively). As mentioned before, there are a lot of pets that already have a rank 3 weapon enhancement, and so using this trait is a DPS loss. Check with the goal pets before you try to slot this trait on your build and make sure they don't have a better firing mode already. It does not apply to most of your pets, only the direct Hangar pets.

Super Charged Weapons grants a buff to outgoing damage to yourself or your pets that fire a torpedo. Most pets don't fire a torpedo often enough to get multiple stacks of this, but it is still a winning choice for a trait as it also enhances your own damage output. 

Strike Group Command Authority grants 30/40/50% bonus damage to pets based on the rank of pet you have launched. If you can manage to get a "separated ship" such as a Saucer Section or Multi-Vector Assault Mode, you get the full 50% bonus damage. However, the number of ships that support this option is quite limited. Generally, getting rank 1 or 2 SGCA is pretty easy on a carrier build. This build in general gets rank 1, however Fleet Support and Nimbus Distress Call grant rank 2. 

Improved Critical Systems is a selfish DPS trait, however we do benefit the Reinforcements Squadron a little as the CrtD it provides gets converted to Bonus Damage for Reinforcements Squadron. It's not a lot, but it is a reason to place this one level higher on the list than selfish DPS traits.

Emergency Weapon Cycle is purely a selfish DPS trait, reducing weapon power cost and increasing the rate at which our weapons fire. You are welcome to use whatever DEW traits you have, but this is at the top of every DEW build there is. 

As some other options, Team Synergy gets an honorable mention as it applies to your allies within 10km, however it is pretty weak so ended up getting dropped from the build. You have to slot Tactical/Engineering/Science Team as well, and the only one of these that boosts damage is Tactical team, and that only very small amount. 

I don't have Superior Area Denial, and can't really test it as such. Scramble Fighters is also an option, but is extremely rare and expensive, so I also don't have that. Relaunch And Repair is also an option, but we are pretty solid on Captain Cooldowns with Intelligence Agent Attache, and the heal is pretty minor. For what it's worth, Preferential Targeting and Superweapon Ingenuity won't enhance the Beam Overload used with Coordinated Assault. 

Reputation Traits

Active Reputation

Duty Officers

The Emergency Conn Hologram is something I recommend and slot on every build. The maneuverability afforded by simply using an Ensign Engineering seat, often unused, and a Duty Officer slot is second to none. Evasive Maneuvers having essentially minimum cooldown is very helpful to make sure you are where you need to be. Just be sure to save HYDRA console until after you have repositioned to teleport several pets to you in your new location. 

Vincent Kish is pretty optional, but since we aren't using a max rank of either of our Energy Weapon enhancement powers, this gives us a chance to do a little extra damage just by using them. Opportunity cost is small, but benefits can be pretty worth it. 

If you run Attack Pattern Omega, this Conn Officer variant will spread a weaker version to your entire team. We use one Conn Officer for the ECH, so we can only slot two more. If you don't run Attack Pattern Omega, you don't need these. Really, without this duty officer, I wouldn't be running APO on this build but would probably rank up my enhancement powers and drop Kish. 

Fill out the rest of your duty officers with Flight Deck Officers that reduce hangar bay cooldown. This is the best way to keep fresh pets on the field, and better rarities reduce the cooldown even further. 

Miscellaneous

Ship Stats

Piloting

Piloting this thing is akin to a lazy DEW build. At least 1/2 of our DPS comes from hangar pets, which are going to do what they are going to do. Prioritize keeping them up, fresh, and on the field. After that, prioritize keeping your weapons on target so you get many critical hits for Intelligence Agent Attache. I won't do too much detail on piloting since the general piloting strategy is the same as any DEW Cannons build. A carrier build excels in an off-support situation, or in defending an area instead of lots of traveling and movement. Leviathan TFO is a perfect example of a mission not to use a carrier on. ISE struggles due to the required pace at which you move around the map. 

Parse Breakdown

On my 500k run, a good portion of my total damage was from pets. 1/3rd was from the sum of my pets. About half of that (83k) was from the Elite Scorpion fighters. The Fleet Support, as a whole, did 52k. Armed Loitering Munition did 21k, and Reinforcements Squadron did 11k. Photonic Reinforcements did 7k. While this may not sound impressive, as a whole they did quite a bit of damage. There is also a Heavy Plasma Torpedo which is mostly unaccounted for, as Scorpions and Fleet Support both can supply the heavy plasma torps, but the Akira itself is not using a plasma torpedo. This does make it difficult to determine how large of a contribution Fleet Support did vs. the Hangar Pets, but both are my top damage sources. 

This does mean, however, that about half of my damage comes from my regular weapons. The agility of the Akira and the console space I spent on Phasers paid off here, with the EBM and HYDRA being top finishers. Having a support with Concentrate Firepower is a lot of added strength due to how many extra High Yield torpedoes I can take advantage of. 

As I port this over to a full carrier, a few things to note. I might be able to make my pets stronger with two full hangars, but there is an immediate disadvantage in that the maneuverability of a full carrier is notoriously awful. This means I am out of position more and my regular weapons (of which there are fewer) are on target less. This Akira, then, ends up in a vein similar to the mishmash that is DEWSci - DEWCarrier. 

Portability

In general, this build is an illustration of the breadth of Hangar Pets. I would advise you to take the elements of this build you enjoy and apply them to a better carrier platform. Flight Deck Carriers are expensive, but have the best layouts for hangars. There are about a dozen ships with Pilot and a Hangar bay, but my experience has been that Hangar Pets have way more potential than Reinforcements Squadron. The biggest benefit the Akira has over many other platforms is its maneuverability and flexibility. 

Having all of the elements of the Fleet Support (Superior Command Frequency, Intel Agent Attache, and Flagship Distress Call) make for a very powerful presence and each missing piece really diminishes the potential. However, this aspect of the build fits on any ship and is a very strong addition to any carrier.