Torpedo spread vs high yield?

[Astrostars2025]

I don't quite understand the difference, spread launches several torpedoes at multiple targets while high yield launches only a few at a single target? Wouldn't you be able to do more damage with spread?

[Moonfear]

AoE vs. single target burst

[wirednight]

Originally posted by Spaceman20290:

Wouldn't you be able to do more damage with spread?

There are a few things that go into this, that makes it more complicated.

The first is the type of torpedo you are using. Most torpedoes are kind of how you say if used against two or more targets but slightly less for single targets compared to high yield, but you kind of have to run the numbers for each, which includes reload times of the torps, cool down of the skills and traits and DOffs. Also torp spread can't miss. High Yield can.

But then you have certain torps that are different. For example the Plasma Torps when they shoot a HY vs TS torp are totally different then other torps, sending out slower larger torps that can actually be shot down, depending on what you are using.

Other torps, such as gravametric and the plasma torps mentioned before, also have a secondary effect when they hit. Depending on how they designed the torps, the secondary effect may or may not be amplified by HY or TS torps.

The in general rule of thumb is, HY torps do more damage to a single target while TS torps will spread their normal damage out. The animation isn't exactly honest on how many torps on a TS torp spread hit the target either all the times.

This may help though I haven't used it in a while:

https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/comments/f7xawt/torpedo_calculator_and_other_kinetic_things/

This gives you a good description of High Yield. If you look down to Basic Information you'll see what I mean about special torpedo secondary effect:

https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Ability:_Torpedo:_High_Yield

And this for torpedo spread. You'll see what I mean about secondary effects under the Overview section:

https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Ability:_Torpedo:_Spread

Edit: There's one more thing involved here. It's not always the best to even care about High Yield or Torp Spread depending on what you are running. Cruisers in general that turn like a 3-month old dead whale, but have energy to spare may be best to run no torps (or only one) and run only beams, and if you run that one torp, you don't necessarily need the skills to buff it out when those skills are better used to buff out your beam attacks.

On the other hand, if you're running a science ship that has a LCDR tactical slot, you may want both depending on the situation. I run both on my destroyer, though I only use the torpedo spread when it's in science configuration. The reason why is that the torpedos are really only secondary attack weapons, and are just there to offset my exotic space magic. But they are nice when you pop a grav well and pull in a bunch of ships, and just torp spread them all to hurry things along.

On a non-science torp boat (such as the Malen Romulan Bird-of-Prey) you probably will want both as well.

In general if I have to chose I always choose Torp Spread. The devs in STO tend to think in the mindset that "harder" means "lots of ships" instead of trying to challenge us with actually hard boss ships. For that reason alone, Torp Spread in my mind is better and more useful in a wider range of situations, even if it does slightly less damage then high yield to a single target.

If I may suggest, cap-bolinger tends to have a better handle on the science behind builds then I do. I can generally talk in generalities, but they can get into the nitty-gritty better then I can.

[VoodooMike]

Originally posted by Spaceman20290:

I don't quite understand the difference, spread launches several torpedoes at multiple targets while high yield launches only a few at a single target? Wouldn't you be able to do more damage with spread?

Torpedo modes are usually used to trigger special functions of torpedoes. Without that the answer is yes, it's basically always better to use Torpedo Spread than it is to use High Yield even against a single target - spread will do more damage to that single target than high yield with some very, very rare exceptions when using the lowest rank of the abilities.

[wilder125`]

that and high yield and spread both work in similar ways for the Kentari Nuke Missile launcher. spread increases the number launching at a single or multiple targets. high yield causes one very powerful nuke singular to launch

[Agnithrax]

To make it as simple as possible, are you a dps dropping high yield on the big bad or are you a tank knocking on their shields with a torpedo spread for all that tastey aggro?

[Dave of Infamy]

spread for agro high yeild to do crit is the way i have always looked at it

[Eggy]

At the very least, Torp Spread and Fire at Will are useful when engaging an enemy formation that has multiple ships that are badly damaged. They are also useful against swarming enemies like fighters.

[VoodooMike]

Originally posted by Agnithrax:

To make it as simple as possible, are you a dps dropping high yield on the big bad or are you a tank knocking on their shields with a torpedo spread for all that tastey aggro?

Except that you're not doing higher single-target DPS with High Yield with the exception of when using HY1 over TS1 in conjunction with photon or quantum torpedoes, or if the torpedo has a special firing mode involving HY.

With normal torpedoes High Yield fires multiple torpedoes with progressively reduced damage as the rank goes up... or for Plasma torpedoes it fires one big, destructible torpedo doing from 300% to 400% normal damage.

With Torpedo Spread you fire volleys of 2/3/4 torpedoes of normal damage at 3/4/5 different targets (the one you're targeting and up to 2-4 others). Thus you're doing 200%/300%/400% normal damage to multiple targets.

High Yield is trash unless the torpedo you use has some specific ability that is tied to it. The ability really does need a QOL pass from Cryptic so that it, at the very least, is better single target damage than Spread.

[cap-boulanger]

I generally use Spread only, mostly actually *not* for the reasons VoodooMike gave, although they are valid...

...but simply because, how often are you going up against a single large target, compared to how often you are going after multiple small to medium targets?

And then, think about this... for torpedoes where the High Yield mode (or in a few cases even their native mode) is a high damage, slow, ****destructible**** torpedo... what are the chances it'll get shot down before it even lands? In which case you are going through two cooldowns (the torp launcher and your BOFF ability) for absolutely nothing.

[cyäegha]

spread also has another inherent advantage in that each target it fires upon in one firing mode activation is considered a separate volley for the purpose of proccing stacks of supercharged weapons

and spread just looks cooler

[Wren]

spread will work and still do damage even if your single selected target dies before the torpedoes even reach it. I would go HY if you never find any enemy you fight dies very quickly at all though, since your DPS is not at the levels where spread is going to be a lethal screen clearer anyways

[PhotriusPyrelus]

Originally posted by VoodooMike:

Originally posted by Agnithrax:

To make it as simple as possible, are you a dps dropping high yield on the big bad or are you a tank knocking on their shields with a torpedo spread for all that tastey aggro?

Except that you're not doing higher single-target DPS with High Yield with the exception of when using HY1 over TS1 in conjunction with photon or quantum torpedoes, or if the torpedo has a special firing mode involving HY.

With normal torpedoes High Yield fires multiple torpedoes with progressively reduced damage as the rank goes up... or for Plasma torpedoes it fires one big, destructible torpedo doing from 300% to 400% normal damage.

With Torpedo Spread you fire volleys of 2/3/4 torpedoes of normal damage at 3/4/5 different targets (the one you're targeting and up to 2-4 others). Thus you're doing 200%/300%/400% normal damage to multiple targets.

High Yield is trash unless the torpedo you use has some specific ability that is tied to it. The ability really does need a QOL pass from Cryptic so that it, at the very least, is better single target damage than Spread.

Add on to all that the fact that the number of times you're facing only a single target in this game can probably be counted on one hand... As much as I wish it wasn't, HY is garbage.

[c.jackharkness]

use high yield on the undine rep one for the "green ball of death" that just about one hit kills , and spread on gravimetric . i do spread high yield spread in my boff layout and im torp spec .command boff abilities also upgrade your torpedo attacks/size .

[wirednight]

As I and others though have said, High Yield does have a purpose. It's generally a higher crit than spread but not enough of a difference to matter if you have to choose one.. But for my science builds, High Yield has the advantage that on most torps with secondary effects, high yield will guarantee a proc of the secondary effect, while torp spread is still a rather lower chance.

On a low-aux build, it's worthless for then. For a high-aux energy science ship where the secondary proc is more important than the torpedo itself is, high yield does have a use, hence why I tend to run it on my destroyers. When you're in destroyer form you lose access to your CDR science ability, which in most cases will be grav well. Certain torpedoes' secondary proc can be used as a cheap replacement for that loss. It's doesn't compensate for it totally, but it has it's uses.

Still as I said before, torp spread is generally more useful and the one I run with in science form.

The other issue of course here is that 99.9% of players run cruisers and escorts. The use of High Yield can be very niche. Even on Science Ships, if you're running a hybrid sci build (using energy weapons instead of a torp build) you're probably not running torp boosting powers at all, instead you're trying to boost your beam weapons.

[sandrastarling]

I believe I had used spread mostly because each torp had a 100% chance to cause some effect or another. In fact is you have two of the spread abilities you can keep pumping them out pretty well. I think I had Torpedo Spread I and II going on a ship and it worked pretty well. They seem to help each other refresh with the right set up.

Good luck.