Gravity Well: Bug or Feature?

[Jivebot]

So I made a KDF science toon during the Klingon recruit event and have been flying the Titan class. I decided to try my best at a Gravity Well build, whilst being too lazy to bother actually researching a proper Gravity Well build.

I've just been grabbing traits and BOFFs as i come across them that I think enhance the build.

So the Titan can switch back and forth between a Tactical and Scientific config. I was mostly keeping it in science mode, and put Gravity Well 2 in it's Commander Science station. I originally wanted to put Gravity Well 1 in it's Lt. Commander spot but when I saw they both shared the same cool down I switched that station to a Tykens Rift.

Eventually I got that BOFF that gives you a chance for a Second anomaly spawn but it hardly ever seemed to trigger so I was seriously considering switching that BOFF out for something more useful.

Last week I just felt like flying in Tactical config for a while, so I switched my Lt. Commander Tykens Rift for Gravity Well 1. After a while I got bored and went back to science mode, but was too lazy to switch that Lt Cmdr station back to Tyken Rift.

My very first use of the Rank 2 Gravity well resulted in my getting THREE seperate gravity well Anomalies in one shot.

Total "WTF" moment for me.

I now very routinely get 2-3 Gravity wells almost every time I fire a Gravity Well. But not EVERY time.

So I don't think it's simultaneously shooting both my Commander and Lt. Commander wells. Or am I wrong? But if so why doesn't it always happen? Right now my best guess Is it that somehow simply having that second well equipped ups that Gravity Well BOFF's chance to spawn new Anomalies.

Anyone know why simply having two gravity wells equipped seems to make extra wells spawn so often?

[ImperatorPavel]

It doesn't make them spawn more often. I have the additional gravity wells spawn from the duty officer fairly frequently, and I only run Gravity Well 3.

At very rare (a very rare version of the Gravimetric Scientist) it's 25%/20%/15%/10% chance to spawn an additional Gravity Well, so it's not guaranteed.

[Jivebot]

So weird. I had that boff two weeks and can probably count on one hand how often I got even one extra Well out of it, let alone two. Soon as I equip a second Well, they drop like halloween candy

[CBR JGWRR]

Gravity Well 2 is a useless ability; Gravity Well 3 takes the same Commander rank slot but is better. Same goes for any ability that is a Lt.Cmdr rank 1, Cmdr rank 2/rank 3.

The doff has a chance to spawn additional gravity wells; I can't remember the numbers, but with a VR doff you can reasonably expect a second gravity well at some point, and a maximum of five gravity wells from a single ability activation if you get lucky on all four checks.

It's a case of RNG does whatever it wants to.

[VoodooMike]

This kind of personal incredulity and lack of understanding of probability is how religions get started. Have you named your new God yet?

[cap-boulanger]

As someone who has done a lot of research on Gravity Well builds, here's a bit of free advice....

- the multiple gravity wells you are seeing, as mentioned above, are likely due to a Gravimetric Scientist DOFF.

- Gravity Well's pull radius is defined by your Control stat. It defaults to 20% of maximum range and scales up at a rate of 0.1% per 4 points, with a maximum range cap at Control = 400.

- Gravity Well's pull strength (labeled in the tooltip as negative repel) is also defined by your Control stat, but also by other things. Most notably, "Psychological Warfare" (a lockbox personal space trait) will give you +20%. There's also a DOFF (Amsoti) who will add a chance to knock engines offline to your Gravity Well, which in practice makes enemies get sucked in more because they can't counter with speed.

- Gravity Well's damage scales with, among other things, Auxiliary Power and your Exotic Particle Generator (EPG) stat. There is no cap.

- The best deflector available (for statistics purposes) is the Bajor Defense deflector, because it is re-engineerable and can go to CrtlX/EPG EPGx4. (You'll often see the Solanae deflector used in builds, but the Bajor one will slightly outperform it, and the Solanae is not re-engineerable.)

- The level 15 consoles from R&D - Science (Exotic Particle Field Exciter) and Engineering (Conductive RCS) may also be useful for this build, particularly as both can gain a full science or engineering console as a mod (for example CtrlX or EPG; you can also get things like Turn or ResAll or DrainX). The EPFE's base stats are already a shield capacity console and an EPG console in one; adding the mod makes it three consoles in one. (An EPFE [EPG] with max upgrades can yield a whopping +78.8 EPG stat.)

NOTE THAT these two consoles actually share the same pool of mods - meaning you can get a science mod on the Engineering console (or vice versa), allowing you to virtually "sneak" a stat bonus equal to an extra console of the opposite type (say for example a Conductive RCS [CtrlX], which would be an engineering console but with a whole science console worth of Control stat on it!).

NOTE ALSO you can only equip one each of these two console types.

- The Fleet Research Lab sells science consoles that give both CtrlX and EPG as mods. There's two versions of these consoles (the only difference between the two types of consoles, is the trigger condition for the proc)... always go for Restorative, as its proc is much easier and more convenient to trigger. Also be careful shopping though as these consoles have two mods; one is a full-strength mod and the other is reduced to 2/3 strength, but due to alphabetization in the vendor screen, the two with CtrlX and EPG look identical in the vendor screen, but the mouseovers show that they have opposite stats.

These consoles are basically the exotic damage science build's equivalent of the Fleet Spire's tactical consoles.

- There's three universal consoles that give +Bonus Exotic Damage (that I know of): Constriction Anchor, Delphic Tear Generator (you can get both of those on the Exchange), and Auxiliary Ejection Assembly (from the Kelvin Constitution or its Legendary equivalent).

- setting your captain's specializations to include Temporal (either as primary or secondary) can increase your Critical Hit Chance with exotic damage by up to +50% (my GW build currently runs at 72% criticals!).

- "Improved Gravity Well" trait (from the science variant of the Andorian/Dewan/Lethean Pilot Escort trio) is awesome. It both increases duration AND reduces cooldown.

[Jivebot]

Originally posted by cap-boulanger:

As someone who has done a lot of research on Gravity Well builds, here's a bit of free advice....

- the multiple gravity wells you are seeing, as mentioned above, are likely due to a Gravimetric Scientist DOFF.

- Gravity Well's pull radius is defined by your Control stat. It defaults to 20% of maximum range and scales up at a rate of 0.1% per 4 points, with a maximum range cap at Control = 400.

- Gravity Well's pull strength (labeled in the tooltip as negative repel) is also defined by your Control stat, but also by other things. Most notably, "Psychological Warfare" (a lockbox personal space trait) will give you +20%. There's also a DOFF (Amsoti) who will add a chance to knock engines offline to your Gravity Well, which in practice makes enemies get sucked in more because they can't counter with speed.

- Gravity Well's damage scales with, among other things, Auxiliary Power and your Exotic Particle Generator (EPG) stat. There is no cap.

- The best deflector available (for statistics purposes) is the Bajor Defense deflector, because it is re-engineerable and can go to CrtlX/EPG EPGx4. (You'll often see the Solanae deflector used in builds, but the Bajor one will slightly outperform it, and the Solanae is not re-engineerable.)

- The level 15 consoles from R&D - Science (Exotic Particle Field Exciter) and Engineering (Conductive RCS) may also be useful for this build, particularly as both can gain a full science or engineering console as a mod (for example CtrlX or EPG; you can also get things like Turn or ResAll or DrainX). The EPFE's base stats are already a shield capacity console and an EPG console in one; adding the mod makes it three consoles in one. (An EPFE [EPG] with max upgrades can yield a whopping +78.8 EPG stat.)

NOTE THAT these two consoles actually share the same pool of mods - meaning you can get a science mod on the Engineering console (or vice versa), allowing you to virtually "sneak" a stat bonus equal to an extra console of the opposite type (say for example a Conductive RCS [CtrlX], which would be an engineering console but with a whole science console worth of Control stat on it!).

NOTE ALSO you can only equip one each of these two console types.

- The Fleet Research Lab sells science consoles that give both CtrlX and EPG as mods. There's two versions of these consoles (the only difference between the two types of consoles, is the trigger condition for the proc)... always go for Restorative, as its proc is much easier and more convenient to trigger. Also be careful shopping though as these consoles have two mods; one is a full-strength mod and the other is reduced to 2/3 strength, but due to alphabetization in the vendor screen, the two with CtrlX and EPG look identical in the vendor screen, but the mouseovers show that they have opposite stats.

These consoles are basically the exotic damage science build's equivalent of the Fleet Spire's tactical consoles.

- There's three universal consoles that give +Bonus Exotic Damage (that I know of): Constriction Anchor, Delphic Tear Generator (you can get both of those on the Exchange), and Auxiliary Ejection Assembly (from the Kelvin Constitution or its Legendary equivalent).

- setting your captain's specializations to include Temporal (either as primary or secondary) can increase your Critical Hit Chance with exotic damage by up to +50% (my GW build currently runs at 72% criticals!).

- "Improved Gravity Well" trait (from the science variant of the Andorian/Dewan/Lethean Pilot Escort trio) is awesome. It both increases duration AND reduces cooldown.

What about the Imperial Rift set? At a glance it seems built for Science ships, and has alot of "Auxilliary boosts weapons" and "Control Weakens Enemy Damage Output" which all seem like good things to have. Am I still better off with Bajor Defense Set? It looks more Shield/Engine oriented overall. Does that bonus you described offset that?

[ImperatorPavel]

Originally posted by Jivebot:

Originally posted by cap-boulanger:

deleted cause wall of text, see post above

What about the Imperial Rift set? At a glance it seems built for Science ships, and has alot of "Auxilliary boosts weapons" and "Control Weakens Enemy Damage Output" which all seem like good things to have. Am I still better off with Bajor Defense Set? It looks more Shield/Engine oriented overall. Does that bonus you described offset that?

Usually I use 2pc Imperial Rift (Core/Shield) along with the Bajor deflector and Gamma engines (Gamma engines don't drain Aux power for full impulse, and provide some Control).

That's assuming you have the Imperial Rift set. It isn't currently attainable if you don't have it from that particular event.

[cap-boulanger]

Originally posted by Jivebot:

Originally posted by cap-boulanger:

- The best deflector available (for statistics purposes) is the Bajor Defense deflector, because it is re-engineerable and can go to CrtlX/EPG EPGx4. (You'll often see the Solanae deflector used in builds, but the Bajor one will slightly outperform it, and the Solanae is not re-engineerable.)

What about the Imperial Rift set? At a glance it seems built for Science ships, and has alot of "Auxilliary boosts weapons" and "Control Weakens Enemy Damage Output" which all seem like good things to have. Am I still better off with Bajor Defense Set? It looks more Shield/Engine oriented overall. Does that bonus you described offset that?

I was not proposing using the entire Bajor Defense set. Only the deflector. (You do know you can split up sets?)

In fact I didn't even address the impulse, warp, or shield, partially because I'm currently in research on those... I WAS using a 3pc Temporal rep set, but with the starship upgrades, I can now reach 400 Control without the activated effect from the Temporal rep set bonus, so may be able to swap them out for something else.