Is there a big ship I can stick cannons on?

[Burba]

So very briefly I do not have a lot of time to play so what ever the ship it is I am going to have to buy it with money. I am fine with that but I do not do loot boxes. I really like the Jem'Hadar Vanguard Dreadnought but cannons do not work too well on it. Is there a big battleship like that I can buy that can use cannons well? If not what is the closest thing to it I could put together?

[cap-boulanger]

Most big ships are not good platforms for cannons because they have a low "turn rate" and the cannons have a narrow firing arc. So it's a balance between the two.

Probably the best options would be something like the Legendary Defiant (while small, it has the same weapons slotting as most big battlecruisers, and a very high turn rate).

That said... why do you want a "big" ship specifically?

[jonnin]

you have to dump a lot of resources into upping your turn rate, like using the pilot specialty or having a turn console (you can get a big +turn on a reengineer of several items) and so on.

from the wiki:
Dual Heavy Cannons are restricted to the following ships:[1]
Battle Cruiser, Carrier, Destroyer, Dreadnought Cruiser, Escort, Strike Wing Escort, Fighter, Lt. Cruiser, Multi-Mission Science Vessel, Raider, Raptor, Warbird

most carriers and dreds are space whales that can't turn well enough to make it work.
how big a ship are you looking for? The bigger the ship, the worse it handles, in general.
what faction are you?

I would look for something with more than 10 turn rate. Below that I can't see any amount of TLC getting it viable.

If you don't mind pure cannons or turrets, which are low damage weapons with large fire arcs, you can do it on anything. You can fix the damage to be good enough, though you won't be a powerhouse.

if you gonna spend money you can convert real money to credits and buy box ships off exchange. if you wanted to. If you grabbed during a key sale its roughly 12-12.5 mil per key at 100zen each. so 1000 zen for a 1.2 billion ship price tag.

[cap-boulanger]

Originally posted by jonnin:

if you gonna spend money you can convert real money to credits and buy box ships off exchange. if you wanted to. If you grabbed during a key sale its roughly 12-12.5 mil per key at 100zen each. so 1000 zen for a 1.2 billion ship price tag.

You may want to check your math on that.... 1.2 billion is not 10x 12 million.

Also...

"you have to dump a lot of resources into upping your turn rate, like using the pilot specialty or having a turn console (you can get a big +turn on a reengineer of several items) and so on."

I will just point out here that almost all +turn modifiers are multipliers, so the difference in the base turn rate of the ship is never cancelled out; in fact it will get even bigger. A ship with a base turn of six or eight is never going to compete with a ship with a turn rate above fourteen with any kind of similar build.

[jonnin]

you are right, missed a zero, 10k zen.

Yes, I know they multiply. That is why I said 10+ turn probably the lowest you want to go.
And, I did not say compete with, I said viable. No space whale is going to out-cannon a pilot escort.

[wirednight]

Dual-beam arrays are almost better for a large slow ship than cannon if you are insisting on a forward-firing large ship. You can supplement them with 360-beams on the back, and regular beams as well for those moments when you have to turn and those quick fighter type mobs aren't giving you the forward arc you need.

[x1Heavy]

I just tank the crap out of everything with a big ship.

I simply do not possess the monitor and so on to pirouette through the hordes with a cannon ship. Although theres a maxed out quad cannon thats pretty good in inventory.

[D.T.]

To keep it as short as I can... I am in love with the damage output using DHC's on my Legendary Galaxy Dread (from the Mirror Universe bundle, link provided below.) I can get a single bolt from a DHC hitting upwards towards 180k, with all 5 DHC's on the front and loads of extra weapon power to sustain the damage fall-off from weapon drain. It's pretty remarkable, and I'd argue it rivals some top end dps builds despite it not being 100% uptime or sustained. I still average over 60K critical per bolt while only having a select few buffs up at a time. The turn rate isn't an issue thanks to the consoles it comes with as well as a couple points spent in turn rate from space skills. The saucer separation further increases the turn rate and flight speed. It slightly changes stats to give more weapon power at the expense of max hull and shield capacity, as well as Aux and Shield power.

My build is centered around stacking a lot of crit d and antiproton, thanks to Surgical Strikes III giving +30% crit chance on top of what I already have. The extra flat damage and crit damage from that boff ability is immense at max rank, despite the firing cycle being halved. I sit at roughly just over 27% crit chance before any buffs have been applied as well. The higher your crit chance, the better off you are going for stacking crit d. Otherwise I'd recommend sticking with DMG mods for your weapons. When I started this build it was just to see what I could pull off on my engineer in space, since he was my very first character years ago. I didn't have but around 12% base crit chance in space when I got the ship and started trying this build, but thanks to Surgical strikes III, photonic officer 2, and 3 Doffs that reduce cooldowns on energy weapon skills (both cannon AND beam doff cooldown officers work on surgical strikes III), I have about a 75% uptime with surgical strikes. It's a 10 second buff, with a global CD of 15 sec. Photonic officer II + 3 Energy weapons doffs reduce that cooldown pretty much every time down to global. Meaning 10 sec uptime, 5 sec downtime, then 10 more sec uptime, over and over.

I couple this with one of my favorite traits, also despite it probably not being the most optimal for the build. The Carrier Wave Shield Hacking trait will completely shut down enemy shields for 5 whole seconds when using Tractor beam, or an intel skill that targets/affects the enemy in some way. It has a 10 sec cooldown as well. The uptime of this trait is closer to 25%, but it is able to be used at will. The trait doesn't start its cooldown until the effect ends and enemies shields have been restored (assuming they aren't dead first, in which case you'd still wait for it to end as normal). I found this trait on the exchange for a few million EC, and it will allow you to take out really tough enemies with a lot less effort and a lot more precision.

You could find just about any Intel ship with a commander intel boff seat, and as long as it runs DHC's you can have similar results. The only downside is the build suffers against multiple targets at once. But with the high DPS available, all I have to do is prioritize. I always take out the most dangerous ships first, which is very quick, and the rest fall like flies afterwards. I pop borg cubes on advanced in seconds, and can take out massive chunks of HP from boss dreadnoughts in advanced space TFO's.

It's all about preference, play style, and understanding of the games mechanics.

*Link
https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Legendary_Galaxy_Dreadnought_Cruiser
Edits* Elaboration, clarification, details.

[Omega Man]

Kelvin emitters look like cannons but have the wide arc of a array, so they would be better if you want to go for a big ship with cannon looking weapons.....you can get them from the exchange, i think they were 3 million a pop last i looked.

[VoodooMike]

Originally posted by wirednight:

Dual-beam arrays are almost better for a large slow ship than cannon if you are insisting on a forward-firing large ship. You can supplement them with 360-beams on the back, and regular beams as well for those moments when you have to turn and those quick fighter type mobs aren't giving you the forward arc you need.

How are they better in any way? With CSV you have the same firing arc with cannons as you would with DBB, but higher overall damage... and for PVE content you're almost always using CSV on cooldown.

On a ship that has maneuverability issues that make cannon arcs an issue it'll always be Beam Arrays not DBBs that get mounted (with the possible exception of the 180-degree DBB from the discovery set to get set bonuses).

[jonnin]

Originally posted by VoodooMike:

Originally posted by wirednight:

Dual-beam arrays are almost better for a large slow ship than cannon if you are insisting on a forward-firing large ship. You can supplement them with 360-beams on the back, and regular beams as well for those moments when you have to turn and those quick fighter type mobs aren't giving you the forward arc you need.

How are they better in any way? With CSV you have the same firing arc with cannons as you would with DBB, but higher overall damage... and for PVE content you're almost always using CSV on cooldown.

On a ship that has maneuverability issues that make cannon arcs an issue it'll always be Beam Arrays not DBBs that get mounted (with the possible exception of the 180-degree DBB from the discovery set to get set bonuses).

cannons also fall off faster at range, or used to. Maybe they normalized it since?

[VoodooMike]

Originally posted by jonnin:

cannons also fall off faster at range, or used to. Maybe they normalized it since?

That hasn't been the case for years. When it was the bigger issue was the firing arc, back before CSV had its own arc rather than abiding by the weapon's own.

[jonnin]

Originally posted by VoodooMike:

Originally posted by jonnin:

cannons also fall off faster at range, or used to. Maybe they normalized it since?

That hasn't been the case for years. When it was the bigger issue was the firing arc, back before CSV had its own arc rather than abiding by the weapon's own.

Ok. I haven't studied cannons in years, so that makes sense :)
I played with them briefly when the pilot ships came out, but never a tweaked build. I kind of liked dogfighting but went all in on science the put the game aside for a long while. Maybe time to come back to that

[Burba]

Originally posted by D.T.:

To keep it as short as I can... I am in love with the damage output using DHC's on my Legendary Galaxy Dread (from the Mirror Universe bundle, link provided below.) I can get a single bolt from a DHC hitting upwards towards 180k, with all 5 DHC's on the front and loads of extra weapon power to sustain the damage fall-off from weapon drain. It's pretty remarkable, and I'd argue it rivals some top end dps builds despite it not being 100% uptime or sustained. I still average over 60K critical per bolt while only having a select few buffs up at a time. The turn rate isn't an issue thanks to the consoles it comes with as well as a couple points spent in turn rate from space skills. The saucer separation further increases the turn rate and flight speed. It slightly changes stats to give more weapon power at the expense of max hull and shield capacity, as well as Aux and Shield power.

My build is centered around stacking a lot of crit d and antiproton, thanks to Surgical Strikes III giving +30% crit chance on top of what I already have. The extra flat damage and crit damage from that boff ability is immense at max rank, despite the firing cycle being halved. I sit at roughly just over 27% crit chance before any buffs have been applied as well. The higher your crit chance, the better off you are going for stacking crit d. Otherwise I'd recommend sticking with DMG mods for your weapons. When I started this build it was just to see what I could pull off on my engineer in space, since he was my very first character years ago. I didn't have but around 12% base crit chance in space when I got the ship and started trying this build, but thanks to Surgical strikes III, photonic officer 2, and 3 Doffs that reduce cooldowns on energy weapon skills (both cannon AND beam doff cooldown officers work on surgical strikes III), I have about a 75% uptime with surgical strikes. It's a 10 second buff, with a global CD of 15 sec. Photonic officer II + 3 Energy weapons doffs reduce that cooldown pretty much every time down to global. Meaning 10 sec uptime, 5 sec downtime, then 10 more sec uptime, over and over.

I couple this with one of my favorite traits, also despite it probably not being the most optimal for the build. The Carrier Wave Shield Hacking trait will completely shut down enemy shields for 5 whole seconds when using Tractor beam, or an intel skill that targets/affects the enemy in some way. It has a 10 sec cooldown as well. The uptime of this trait is closer to 25%, but it is able to be used at will. The trait doesn't start its cooldown until the effect ends and enemies shields have been restored (assuming they aren't dead first, in which case you'd still wait for it to end as normal). I found this trait on the exchange for a few million EC, and it will allow you to take out really tough enemies with a lot less effort and a lot more precision.

You could find just about any Intel ship with a commander intel boff seat, and as long as it runs DHC's you can have similar results. The only downside is the build suffers against multiple targets at once. But with the high DPS available, all I have to do is prioritize. I always take out the most dangerous ships first, which is very quick, and the rest fall like flies afterwards. I pop borg cubes on advanced in seconds, and can take out massive chunks of HP from boss dreadnoughts in advanced space TFO's.

It's all about preference, play style, and understanding of the games mechanics.

*Link
https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Legendary_Galaxy_Dreadnought_Cruiser
Edits* Elaboration, clarification, details.

I think that is the Fed ship I bought. I am going to try this as well. Close as I can any how. I am a bit of a noob and I am sure I will be using weaker gear but I am sure it will still be a blast on normal. Thank you.

[cap-boulanger]

Originally posted by Burba:

Originally posted by D.T.:

*Link
https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Legendary_Galaxy_Dreadnought_Cruiser
Edits* Elaboration, clarification, details.

I think that is the Fed ship I bought. I am going to try this as well. Close as I can any how. I am a bit of a noob and I am sure I will be using weaker gear but I am sure it will still be a blast on normal. Thank you.

One suggestion I would make, if you're building on a Galaxy-X... switch the energy to phaser. That way, your tactical consoles will also boost the lance.

I still think you'd be happier with a ship with a higher turn rate, but....

[Burba]

Originally posted by cap-boulanger:

Originally posted by Burba:

I think that is the Fed ship I bought. I am going to try this as well. Close as I can any how. I am a bit of a noob and I am sure I will be using weaker gear but I am sure it will still be a blast on normal. Thank you.

One suggestion I would make, if you're building on a Galaxy-X... switch the energy to phaser. That way, your tactical consoles will also boost the lance.

I still think you'd be happier with a ship with a higher turn rate, but....

Well I already own this ship. I am still on the lookout for another C-store ship that would be fun to use with cannons. As for why a big ship? Big ships are awesome. Big guns are awesome. Big ship with big guns is very awesome.

I am not really looking to be the most effective I can possibly be. I am just looking to have as much fun as possible. And for what ever reason I have less fun with the smaller ships. So I fly the big ships.