Skills

Since this skill tree is shared amongst many builds, I made a separate page for it and the discussion of it. 

Build

Starship Weapons

Set Bonuses

Notes

When I set out to revamp the Tarantula, I leaned too heavily into theme and tanking, and the result was terrible. I had made a Tholian Turtle that was impractical for any content. The difference between a turtle and a tank is in how much threat you take. You can make a nigh-unkillable ship, but if you don't take any of the threat off of your teammates, the ship is no good. I ended up going all the way back to square one and working with my friends at STOBETTER and beyond to refocus the build. 

1. Simple & Passive

The META as of the writing of this build is to load up a ship with as many clicky consoles as you can, slap on the Vovin console and Unconventional systems, and push all the buttons. I personally have never been great at managing a ton of powers to click and use, especially across a wide array of builds. As such, a sub-goal with this build was to drop off as much active clicking as possible so I can focus on piloting. Now, I didn't end up dropping every clicky universal console, and we'll cover those more in a moment. However, the consoles that are active are pretty low-click maintenance. 

2. Fleet Power Network Array (FPNA)

This is covered elsewhere on our site, but the long and short of it is that this build would do really well with FPNA slotted. While the budget for this build would certainly allow for it, I chose to leave it off firstly due to the active portion, but also due to the fact that I just don't enjoy using it all the time. That being said, it can also be cast from a teammate's support build and so I do end up benefitting from it. However, this build is capable enough to run without it. It's been out long enough and unmodified, I certainly won't stop you from using it. But just like Vovin, I don't enjoy making a copy-paste build on every ship on every character. 

3. Tholian Tetryon

This is a Tholian ship, and as such I wanted to try and stick to the Tholian theme. There has been an abundance of Tholian gear released from events over the years, but not all of it is worth slotting. I also have all of the Tholian ships. 

The best pieces of Tholian gear are the Tholian Crystal Harmonics set. Two pieces benefit all tetryon weapons with some CrtH and CrtD, always welcome. Three pieces add a per-shot proc to all of my weapons that are tetryon, which when I have 7 of them firing, ends up being pretty substantial. Four pieces adds an un-reduceable clicky that makes Warp Crystals chase nearby targets. What do we give up for these 4 pieces, however?

First off, the warp core on its own adds an on-kill proc that generates 1-2 warp crystals. This is a solid warp core for any energy build and even some other types of DPS builds. The Tilly Warp core is great when combined with other pieces of the set for extra regen or the Mycelial Lightning passive. Fleet Plasma-Integrated warp cores are also great for energy builds. We're not trading off substantial stats with the warp core, so this is an easy slot. 

Next, the Interlacing Omni Beam is another piece of the set. Like most energy weapons, it comes with a 2.5% chance proc and isn't statistically better than any other tetryon weapon. When we look at omni-beams, we are limited to two: one that is part of a set, and one that is not. When it comes to set omnis for tetryon, there is the Antichroniton Infused which is an unexiting proc, and some cat1 with the 2pc set. The Competitive reputation has one that has an even worse proc, and the set adds a cloak which we will never use and some mines which are way off our build theme. That leaves us with the interlacing and the Pahvan omni. The Pahvan omni will outparse the interlacing omni just on their own simply due to the strength of the Pahvan omni proc. However, the damage from the omni itself will be much higher since we have so many tetryon bonuses, as well as being able to trigger the warp crystal proc we will get on all of our tetryon weapons. You could also just slot a regular Tetryon Beam array and just lose out on some firing arc, but we are already broadsiding so it't not a major loss. Based on what you have available, in this order: Interlacing > Pahvan > Tetryon [Pen] Beam array. Tetryon just doesn't have great toys. 

With two pieces slotted with no major losses, there are two pieces left we can slot. The Enhanced EAC shield has a once every 45s proc that is insignificant, and there are better shields for energy builds out there. The Tilly Shield adds some shield penetration based on shield power setting. The Revolutionary Shield adds some energy weapon damage. We ended up with the Khitomer shield simply because it can turn incoming damage into an outgoing damage source. This is more powerful on Antiproton builds, but works well enough here with our damage in as well as the Shield Absorptive Frequency Generator constantly healing us. If you have to drop a piece, which we do here, the shield is the piece to drop. 

The final piece of the set is actually a mission reward. While not super strong on its own, it does give us around 30% Cat1 Tetryon damage. It also has a clicky to hold the target. While this doesn't do a lot of damage, the hold that it provides will come up later. Not to mention, its contribution to the nucleating set really helps. 

4. Webspinner & Holds

The Tholian Webspinner was extremely powerful for a time as it provided bonus damage to targets that were held. This meant huge damage for exotic builds, as they were also able to boost the massive damage from the webspinner itself. Since then, the webspinner has been rebalanced several times and no longer does extreme damage, nor does the passive Cat2 help exotic builds. However, since we are using Tetryon, it's on Tholian Theme, and we actually have several holds, the Webspinner is able to provide some large damage support. We also use the Crystal Interlacer as a hold for bonus damage. 

Bridge Officers

Traits

Personal Traits

There are a ton of Personal Traits in the game, and honestly it all depends on what you find you need. I have a good mix of traits, but you could certainly go heavier on the damage traits by dropping some survivability, or vice versa. I'll break them down by category and you pull from the categories you feel you don't need and add to the ones you do. 

Maneuverability

On a faster ship, you may not even need these. On a big slow ship like the Tarantula, I wanted to dedicate a little space to Maneuverability. Deft Cannoneer is an odd pick, but one of the few sources of Inertia. The Tarantula has a really low Inertia score, which directly impacts your acceleration and turning. Picking up flat turn rate and inertia is pretty impactful. While the description says 0.1 Inertia, it's actually 10 inertia per stack (so 30 total). The wiki says the Tarantula has 35 Inertia, but I have 30 for base inertia. That means we are doubling our inerita for one trait which is really nice. It's really tough to nail down how much inerita actually helps, but it absolutely helps with acceleration. 

Thrill-Seeker and Go Fast! are also options if you need some speed, but are honestly very weak. Don't take Terran Targeting if you are worried about maneuverability as you'll go very slow when you take damage... which happens a lot as a tank. 

Survivability 

We put a lot of slots into survivability as a tank. 

Give Your All should be used on any build unless you literally have no engineering powers. There are no other sources of perfect dodge in the game, so this is a straight 20% damage reduction every time you use an engineering power. It's also free once you get R&D high enough. 

Grace Under Fire is locked to Engineering Captains, and honestly is take it or leave it. Intelligence Agent Attache performs a similar function, but with one significant difference. Grace Under Fire will reset Miraculous Repairs when you take a big chunk of damage, even past it's global cooldown. Once that triggers, though, it has its own lockout. Intel Agent Attache will reduce the cooldown of all of your captain powers, but not below the global cooldown. It does do this all the time. In the end, Grace Under Fire is free and has saved me more times than I can count, while Intel Agent Attache is not free and isn't going to get you Miraculous Repairs twice in a short time when you really need it. 

Whole Lotta X's is a newer trait, and kicks in right when you need it when your hull is low. It's a huge heal for 50% of your hull capacity. There are several traits that will keep you going for a while, but not used as burst heals. Repair Crews heals over time and adds damage resist, but can't pull up a lot of damage in a short time. Ablative Shell is a burst heal, but has a knack for triggering at the wrong time. It's still a good heal, but is outclassed for healing in a pinch by Whole Lotta X's. Regenerative Control Synergy is solid regen and is free from a mission, so I try to pick it up on lower budget builds. 

Damage

I can't begin to list all of the damage personal traits that could go here. You could easily fill 11 personal trait slots and still not use all of them. It's why we have a tier list. However, I did pick a few that work well. 

Beam Training & Superior Beam Training are essentially free traits. The bonus beam damage is solid since our primary damage is entirely beam damage. The K-13 upgrade is optional, but if you run a lot of beam builds, it's pretty nice since it just increases the effectiveness of the slot without any real drawbacks. 

Fleet Coordinator is used on any teamed content damage dealing build. A full team of 5 gives you +10% bonus all damage with no drawback. That's tough to beat on a Personal Trait. If you are flying solo content or premade teams, you may see less performance here, but honestly most players are queuing up for public TFOs and will get all 5 stacks of this.

Symbiotic Ice is also solid, adding an extra Cold damage kicker on to every beam shot. This even works on the extra shots from Fire at Will, but does not work with the extra shots from Broadside Beam Support. Absolutely not required on this build, but is a great place to pick up its utility. 

Fragment of AI Tech has been a favorite of mine lately due to both boosting Control Expertise, and turning Control Expertise into damage itself. While it is just Cat1 damage (not bonus), it can be quite a bit of it. I get 21% Cat1 Energy all the time, and max out the 30% when I hit Quantum Singularity Manipulation. The 50 CtrlX also helps boost my Gravity Well pull, so it serves more than one purpose here. 

Past that, damage is up to you. Terran Targeting Systems and Context is for Kings are not good choices on a tank due to how much incoming damage we are taking, while Fluidic Cocoon would be a great option since we are taking a lot of incoming damage. 

Utility

Anymore, it's rare to see a build without The Boimler Initiative on it. It's not exactly accessible on multiple characters, but being able to spend Lobi or Energy Credits feels like it is more accessible. It basically handles all of your cooldowns... until it doesn't. I don't like relying on it as my only source of cooldown reduction because there are certainly times when Boimler lets you down and everything is on cooldown all at once. Photonic Officer makes a solid base for cooldown reduction, and Boimler fills in the gaps. With Custom Power Matrix also on the build, and Attrition Warfare, we do just fine for cooldowns.

Intelligence Agent Attache is a different portion of cooldowns, reducing the cooldown on Captain powers every time we land a critical hit (with a very reasonable lockout). Even on an Engineering captain, this makes a difference. Coupling this with Grace Under Fire, Miraculous Repairs is up about as often as we can get it. EPS Power Transfer is also a really strong power, boosting all of my power levels on top of Isomags and OSS. Evasive Maneuvers, Nadion Bypass are also honorable mentions that certainly benefit from this trait, but aren't the main reasons for it. 

Starship Traits

Starship traits are wide ranging - from essential to how you build the ship, to extra damage for what you are already doing. I'll cover the essentials, and the rest you can replace with utility or damage traits that you already have access to. 

Entwined Tactical Matrices is very key to a Fire at Will build, tank or DPS or otherwise. You have to slot Fire at Will and Torpedo Spread to make this work, but this is essential to the build. 

History Will Remember is also a key to Tank builds. This turns incoming damage into threat, hull, and damage - all of which we really want on this build. While not absolutely essential, I'm not sure I'd make a tank without it if budget allows simply because of the extra Threat. 

These two are essential to this build, the rest you can swap out with what you have available for damage dealing traits. A couple you don't see often, I'll cover why I picked. 

Most of these traits are general +Damage traits, you could swap in what you have. Broadside Beam Support is a little unusual, but since we are broadsiding, have 7 beam arrays, and plenty of weapons power, we get a solid boost to damage just for positioning well on this one. If you use Phasers, this will be even stronger. 

Good Day to Die is a rare trait, coming from an expensive and poor anniversary pack. I did a lot of dil grinding to get this bundle since I wanted the Legendary Excelsior. The Legendary Vor'Cha it comes with also has this trait that turns incoming damage into extra damage. Absolutely don't chase this one, it has the lowest cost-benefit out of all these traits and can be replaced by other traits you have available. It is fun to be able to utilize this trait.

Reputation Traits

If you don't need the healing, Automated Protomatter Conduits could be swapped out.

Active Reputation

Duty Officers

Ship Stats