Carrier Builds and how to not get your pets killed?

[Ms. Mediocre]

I've been thinking about crafting a carrier build from scratch; any ships, traits etc. I should look into? I've been having trouble keeping all of my hangar pets alive with Boff abilities, so any improvement over that method would be great.

Regarding ships, is there any way to obtain the T6 Discovery Connie other than lockboxes?
As far as I know it's the only ship with 5/3 weapons and 2 Hangar Bays, aside from the space brick that is the Suliban carrier, which I personally don't think looks great, like, at all.

[Maj_Cyric]

If a ship can be had from a Lockbox... then the only way to get it is from said lockbox, or buying one for EC off the exchange that someone listed to sell after they pulled it from a lockbox..

Player's wouldn't really buy lockboxes if the ships they give could be earned/gained by other means..

[Running-Target]

What is your captain, faction and build?
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Jem%27Hadar_Vanguard_Carrier
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Fleet_Orion_Blackguard_Flight_Deck_Assault_Carrier
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Tellarite_Pralim_Flight-Deck_Assault_Cruiser
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Suliban_Silik_Flight_Deck_Assault_Carrier
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Constitution-class_Miracle_Worker_Flight_Deck_Carrier
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Cardassian_Ghemor-class_Intel_Flight_Deck_Carrier

[Running-Target]

The point of a carrier is to throw your pets at the target and Let them do the dying instead of you while they whittle down your target. Many DPS players say that the hangar pets A.I. is terrible and that is pointless to run hangar pet builds. You can buy improved hangar pets in the fleet store or dilithium store.

You might wanna practice using a cheap Carrier before you commit real money to your build.

For shear number of pets, You can not beat the Jem'Hadar Vanguard Carrier from the Gamma Vanguard Pack (13,000 zen) but you need some of the other consoles and traits in that pack to make it great. I have used that on my Jem'hadar captain.

https://sto.gamepedia.com/Hangar_pet
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Category:Hangar_Bays

[MentalRaptors]

You simply can't prevent your carrier pets from dying, that's why you send them out in the first place. You can however boost the performance of said pets by carefully picking/adjusting your traits, active DOFFs and gear alongside a little DIL spending on advanced versions of the pets (totally worth it if you use frigates etc.). When it finally works out for you you can always go for the fleet versions for some extra damage and durability.

Please do study the links that have been shared here, as knowledge is king after all.

[Wisecasper]

It's entirely possible to have a build where hangar pets do most of the work and are invincible most of the time.
My carrier pets do.
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Trait:_Scramble_Fighters
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Trait:_Wing_Commander
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Trait:_Coordinated_Assault/Info
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Trait:_Superior_Area_Denial
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Trait:_Dominion_Coordination
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Trait:_Voth_Carrier_Synergies
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Trait:_Holographic_Mirage_Decoys
https://ibb.co/RYjfvsd Swarmer Matrix
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Enhanced_Carrier_Synergy
https://ibb.co/WFbnbkR Flight Deck Officer 1
https://ibb.co/6YbFf5q Flight Deck Officer 2

You can't have all the traits so pick your favourite

The Scramble Fighters restores 50% health and makes them invicible for 5 seconds every time the hangar launched command is run. With a 20 second cooldown that is shortened by the Flight Deck Officer and traits.

If you pick a carrier with:
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Starship_Mastery#Carriers
Quick deployment as its Tier 1 mastery that is another 20% off the recharge.

My recharge time is currently 14 seconds and my Frigates are invicible for 5 seconds of that and get +50% health each activation. The pets are right-clicked on my tray so they auto-activate following first click. You have to remember to turn that off if you are doing missions because you stay permanently in combat so the messages don't pop up if you don't. When the ships are firing on a hard enemy I press my beam overload button and my pets do some devastating damage even if my ship's not firing because it's out of range. In attack mode the hangar pets pursue anything your ship has targeted within 15km of them even if your ship stays out of range (10km).

When I got my very first carrier they would pursue up to 20km for some reason and then the AI was broken for a long time when they made the pets disappear if you fly to far from them so they can be relaunched, but recently they have been a bit more reactive.

For my first carrier the recall mode actually docked and repaired the ships recharging their shields. That doesn't seem to be working that way at the moment, I use some passive heals for them. Such as:
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Alliance_Multi-Mission_Systems_Set#Console_-_Universal_-_Protomatter_Field_Projector
or
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Rally_Point_Marker

For the fun of it you also have
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Trait:_Hivebearer

I've not tested whether you can have 8 swarmers from Hivebearer in addition to the 5 from the swarmer matrix. Might do.

[Dave of Infamy]

i use the t6 jupiter and i have the elite delta flyers i find they are less squishy than normal fighters granted theres only 4 in a wing but they do far more damage too

[Hijal]

1. Use elites, nothing less. They survive for longer and will in general just not suck too.
2. Setting your carrier up to put heals out as quickly as possible can help a bit. Slot your Boffs so you have multiple heals at your disposal and setup your skills/equipment to reduce cooldown times on them as much as possible.
3. Make sure your skills are done correctly so that your hangar pets have health and amage bonuses.
4. Get consoles that help your pets live longer and fight better.
5. Having a ship with more wings helps ensure you have at least something on the field at all times.

More HP = last longer and more likely to get heals before they pop.
Kill faster = less time for the enemy to kill your fighters off.
Faster moving pets = more likely to get out of the way of the really nasty aoe/cone attacks.

A very strong directional or AoE blast can and will happen however and there is little you can do for your fighters in these situations. The best you can do is pull your fighters back if you know they are gonna get hit by something like that -- asuming you have enough advanced warning and/or time to get them to clear the area to avoid the blast (which happens rarely unfortunatly). Don't hug big targets that have attacks like these so it gives your fighters enough space to make a u-turn and burn away from the blast and with some luck they might clear it before they get hit but more often than not your losing them like is outside of your control. It just happens so you gotta get used to it.

[Maj_Cyric]

Originally posted by Dave of Infamy:

i use the t6 jupiter and i have the elite delta flyers i find they are less squishy than normal fighters granted theres only 4 in a wing but they do far more damage too

Those do have quite the lengthy launch time though.. I bought the Elite Delta Flyers ones to compare them with the Elite Kelvin Timeline Assault Drones on my Kelvin Intel Dread.. Yeah the D Flyers are very tough for launch craft.. But a ship's core breach will kill any launched craft and when ships are melting all around you as your ship is at full throttle, they can/do die very quickly..
I do use them on my Atlas Prototype Dread if/when I drive it though...


Granted i'm also not using traits or other to boost/buff my launched crafts since they are just added to outbound DPS... How much tougher would they get when used by a player with all the traits/skills/gear etc that boost them?

[Dave of Infamy]

Originally posted by Maj_Cyric:

Originally posted by Dave of Infamy:

i use the t6 jupiter and i have the elite delta flyers i find they are less squishy than normal fighters granted theres only 4 in a wing but they do far more damage too

Those do have quite the lengthy launch time though.. I bought the Elite Delta Flyers ones to compare them with the Elite Kelvin Timeline Assault Drones on my Kelvin Intel Dread.. Yeah the D Flyers are very tough for launch craft.. But a ship's core breach will kill any launched craft and when ships are melting all around you as your ship is at full throttle, they can/do die very quickly..
I do use them on my Atlas Prototype Dread if/when I drive it though...


Granted i'm also not using traits or other to boost/buff my launched crafts since they are just added to outbound DPS... How much tougher would they get when used by a player with all the traits/skills/gear etc that boost them?

this is true there is a trait (of which i cannot remember the name though) which reduces the time of launching pets so that can help, i also like to use grav well 3 on my build i use only beams no torps send in the ship turn to broad side and let rip, soon makes short work of even the bigger ships on pve/missions

[VoodooMike]

Originally posted by Second Blackjack:

I've been thinking about crafting a carrier build from scratch; any ships, traits etc. I should look into? I've been having trouble keeping all of my hangar pets alive with Boff abilities, so any improvement over that method would be great.

It can be pricy to be a carrier captain if you're starting from the ground up. Your aux power affects the relaunch time, and one of the best ways to deal with the frailty of hangar pets is to be launching them constantly to replace those you lose.. High aux helps.

Here's a list of some of the stuff you can use to improve your carrier game and whether its cheap and easy or horrifically expensive to obtain.


Doffs
-------

Flight Deck Officer (reduce launch recharge) - can have up to three... they cause a chunk of the recharge to drop off any time you launch pets. This isn't a % change, this is a one-time reduction in the current time, and it applies to all timers, meaning if you launch pets with bay 1, the countdown on both bay 1 and bay 2 will drop by <x> seconds (depending on the quality of the doff).


Consoles (usually cheap)
-------------------

Swarmer Matrix - from the latest lockbox. +30% damage, speed, turn rate for your pets.. single largest boost to pet damage you can get. Also has a click that launches temporary fighters. The bonuses also affect destructible torps... not sure if it transfers to hangar torps like the scorpion fighter heavy plasmas.


Space Traits (most are reasonably priced)
-------------------

Wing Commander - doubles the speed at which hangar pets gain stars (which improves their damage and such) after launch.

Holographic Mirage Decoys - negates the first damage a pet takes and gives them 2 seconds of invulnerability after doing so. Useful for keeping fighters alive longer if you've been having issues.

Hive Defenses - this used to be obnoxiously expensive but should be ok now that its part of the infinity choices. Pretty high chance when taking damage to summon a wing of 3 hurq swarmers.... can have up to 9 out at a time. It's one of the best space traits of all... use it even if you're not a carrier.


Rep Traits (situational)
----------------------

Omega Kinetic Shearing (Omega Rep) - torpedoes also cause a stacking DOT that bypasses shields. This shouldn't work with hangar pets, but it does if they fire torps. This is especially nice if you use elite scorpion fighters that are constantly hurling heavy plasma torps.


Starship Traits (usually the most expensive things)
-------------------

Scramble Fighters - not from a ship, a rare drop from a doff box.. about 80M on the exchange. This used to be necessary to keep ships alive as it give 5 seconds of invulnerability to all hangar pets any time you launch pets (or trigger the launch command - even if your squads are full) as well as healing all of them by 50% and giving them +25% damage for 5 seconds. Mostly good for damage now as pets are now affected by the 10 second invulnerability lockout (they weren't in years past).

Superior Area Denial - from the mirror universe flight deck carrier... so... 200M+ on the exchange. When you use FAW or Scatter Volley, all your hangar pets get the first rank of both. If your pets use beam banks this is a major DPS increase (its crazy on the flyers from the disco connie that use 6 beam banks each).

Hivebearer - from the lobi store hurq science vessel. Any time you launch hangar pets you also launch a hurq swarmer... also, any time one of your hangar pets die, you launch a swarmer. Extra pets, though they're mediocre pets.


Pets (ones worth having that don't require a specific ship.. always use elite if you can afford it)
------------------------

Elite Obelisk Swarmers - these rip stuff up.. primarily beam based but very frail. These go together well with the various defensive traits and such, and quite well with Superior Area Denial. Pew Pew

Elite Scorpion Fighters - obtained through rom rep, these fill the sky with green balls (heavy plasma torpedoes). These can be fun because they will re-target if their original target dies.

[The Arkady]

Originally posted by Second Blackjack:

I've been having trouble keeping all of my hangar pets alive with Boff abilities, so any improvement over that method would be great.

Don't bother trying. if you focus on bringing extra dps, once you get that build right, your pets will hardly ever die simply because things faced with your armada die too fast.

[El Rushbo]

I always found Insult to Injury to be an amusing trait, snare them in a tractor beam or other control power and your hangar pets will use Transport Warhead on the target. Good way of ignoring shields. Keep them recalled and docked with your carrier until you get in close, then use antimatter spread and launch the swarm at your target. A Repair Platform console can also be useful to fix your hangar pets if you're in a spot you need to defend.

[MonkeyMummyMoney]

Carriers should be played close to... Necromancer from Diablo 2. Your pets? Completely expandable. They aren't meant to last long nor are the intended to do a whole lot of damage. Think of them as meat shields above all else, something to keep the enemy off you while you lay down the real damage.

To be fair there are a bunch of different ways you can play a carrier, from the sound of it you picked the only really wrong one.

Granted, they could do a better job fleshing out carriers. but there are still some interesting things you could do with them.

(I remember a few years back someone was toying with the idea of a Mosquito carrier build. Basically they would just swarm the target, sap it's energy and transfer it to their carrier. It would basically turn carriers into vampires. I never worked on such a build, I quit playing right around then and If I recall correctly I don't think there were any pets or abilities that really allowed for that, but don't hold me to it. This was a while back so I could be wrong.)

[ClayboTGW]

The Jem Hadar carrier has the 2 fighter escorts that don't die.. well I never had them die and it also comes with 2 bays of Frigates that do die but not as bad as the smaller shuttle pets, plus your aft section splits off and follows you around but it to will die you need a jem hadar character at 1st but jem hadar ships have a extra unlock which will unlock it account wide for all your characters and on a Jem Hadar character you also gain the ability to summon a fleet support battle ship without needing to be below 50% hull strength, And if you are a sci officer you have Photonic fleet that summons 2 battle ships... plus the 3 device summons Delta, The swarmers and the nimbus prirates.. all in all I can summon and entire battle fleet of around 18+ ships when needed.

[Wisecasper]

I use the single attack ships on my Jem'h and they rarely die and have front and rear firing arcs