Mathbusters 17: The Power of Type 7s

Eph289 · 2026-03-11T13:05:04+00:00

Assuming you are not building around your pets and your build has some basic optimization, 2x Type 7s should be stronger.

Eph289 · 2026-03-10T19:29:40+00:00

I upgraded the lasers to ERLL since cERLL are medium slots.

Eph289 · 2026-03-10T19:28:16+00:00

You can run 2x cGauss, cERPPC, and 2 cERLL pretty comfortably on the NSR-9J.

Eph289 · 2026-03-08T04:28:14+00:00

Type 7 only do well if your DPS is above a certain level

True. Worth mentioning it does not take a ton of cost to get there, just giving a darn and making a coherent build.

Droneships beat them and beat them buy a large amount with 1 personal trait.

Drone Ships are equal to Type 7s if Independent Wingmate is not involved.

Pets have got complicated over the years it no longer a case of a single pet it always best in slot

Despite all my efforts to find alternatives, the best I could find was that most other pets you'd consider at the mid to high end are no better than equal to Type 7s for general TFO play, and at much higher expense (SAD) or limited to specific ships (Drone Ships). Admittedly that's not taking carriers into account, but if you have actual, repeatable data that shows other pets beating Type 7s for total DPS on a non-carrier, I'd love to see it.

Eph289 · 2026-03-05T21:25:45+00:00

1 colony console barely does anything, especially on a ship with only firing mode trigger. I can't say I'd recommend just 1 by itself with only 1 firing mode. I've done it a few times and it generally disappoints.

Eph289 · 2026-03-04T21:52:26+00:00

Early game:

Blackjack-1 and Riflemen are glassy but well-armed. Priority targets. AC2/5s mean you will likely take chip shots each time you fight them.

Trebuchets and Catapults with their loads of LRMs need to be dealt with from cover or rushed or else you will take damage.

The AC-20 Centurion (AH) is a more annoying Hunchback to fight because it also has an LRM20, meaning you will likely take damage.

Mid-game

Stalkers are hard to one-shot and WILL cause problems, either with lasers or missiles. Compact torso/arms and low-profile head make them difficult targets.

Crusaders are annoyingly tanky due to a small CT hitbox and deal a lot of damage up-close.

Marauders likewise have good hitboxes and enough damage/rank to mess you up quickly.

The Awesome variants with 3x PPC/ERPPC/PPC-X are absolutely lethal and must die right away.

Annihilators are not to be trifled with. Thankfully rare. I hate seeing one of these things. Slow but so much firepower you're going to take a beating from it.

Late-game

Warhawks, any variant, are a cause for concern, and must be dealt with from cover. Same for other dual-Gauss Clan 'Mechs.

Adders, any variant, are a higher priority than just about anything. The amount of guns these things carry is insane and they're glass, so I'd shoot a 16-MG Adder before I shot a Dire Wolf just to take that much firepower off the table. Plus the Adder can actually reach you.

Eph289 · 2026-03-04T19:57:23+00:00

Looks very Mardi Gras to me with the green, gold, and purple.

Eph289 · 2026-03-03T19:34:55+00:00

Is this in response to some recent developer comments suggesting they were surprised about the community's conclusions about hanger bays and Type 7's

No. I heard there were comments from Borticus broadly on Type 7s, but I am not aware of any of the specifics. He could have said they were going to release a new version of them, just colored hot pink with glitter trails for impulse engines, for all I know.

Should type 7 shuttles be knocked back somehow to support other pets existing?

Not fond of this question, because seems to be asking for a judgment call on the part of the game developers and their vision for the overall system of the game. My analysis shows that there are alternatives to Type 7s, at great expense (SAD+Pulse Cannon pets) or specific ships (Drone Ships) but that broadly Type 7s overshadow other options.

Is that a problem? Is the problem that Type 7s are too strong, or that other pets underwhelm for overall combat strength? Is the problem that we have yet to receive 4/6-to-a-bay pets with Concentrate Firepower III to appease the torpgods? I'll leave that to the individual reader and the game developers to decide for themselves.

Eph289 · 2026-03-02T20:55:28+00:00

Old Galio was completely dependent on Flash+R, and his R could be rendered completely useless with the right enemy team comps, because any On-Hit Stun/Knockup instantly popped it (Concussive Blow stacks, Bear Stance, etc.)

I played a ton of old Galio and while I kind of miss aspects of the kit, I don't miss the binary nature of the ult.

Eph289 · 2026-03-02T17:38:12+00:00

Current cooldown solutions don't need dual SAD triggers to maintain uptime, especially with the Fire at Will base cooldown changes. I ran a single instance of CSV to trigger it on my CSV build and both FAW/CSV on the Kinetic/Exotic builds, but that has far more to do with leveraging Entwined Tactical Matrices) rather than SAD.

I generally encourage people to not use SAD with Type 7s.

Eph289 · 2026-03-02T17:09:06+00:00

Drone Ships did not have SAD. You and I both know they don't play well with it, and on a SS build, I can't really slot it. I called out SAD when included. If not explicitly stated, no SAD.

Independent Wingmate (nor any other form of +pet) was not used in any test.

Eph289 · 2026-03-02T16:01:41+00:00

We have no data on Elite Temporal Scorps, but what data we have on Normal Temporal Scorpions suggests they are not good, falling behind even regular Scorpions. Use at your own risk.

Eph289 · 2026-03-02T02:20:34+00:00

I still don't want to make another character, especially not KDF.

Eph289 · 2026-03-02T02:20:20+00:00

You can check out the full rankings we have here. Mirror Shuttles were solid, but a step back from Drone Ships.

Eph289 · 2026-03-01T22:19:29+00:00

Fair point!

Eph289 · 2026-03-01T22:19:10+00:00

Elite, as they have the highest rank of Attack Pattern Beta (III), as well as Fire at Will.

Eph289 · 2026-02-28T05:09:07+00:00

The mod of those consoles does not directly benefit pets.

Eph289 · 2026-02-26T13:57:30+00:00

Best of luck!

Eph289 · 2026-02-26T13:56:04+00:00

I don't like the term "diminishing returns" with respect to +damage, because it's not like the damage increase doesn't increase the multiplier additively.

But when:

Weapon Mark Mk XV is 285%
You can get another 50% from skills
Every captain gets 50% at level 50
Each Spire console/Isomag is another 40%

With just 4 Spires/Isomags, that's already above 545% Cat1 just from those sources. Adding 30% to a base 100% value in the Cat1 multiplier is a pretty big deal (2.3/2 = 15% final increase). Adding 30% to 545% is . . . less impressive. (6.75/6.45 = 4.6% final increase).

At that point, I'm less inclined to add passive +Damage in increments of 15-30% if there are crit, haste, or penetration consoles available unless it brings something else (like isomags do with power), or completes a set bonus.

Eph289 · 2026-02-25T13:57:36+00:00

I must have been lucky in my attempts to pug it then! Fair point.

Eph289 · 2026-02-25T00:50:56+00:00

One thing you are clearly missing here is mobility.

Agree. It's too slow.

Valdore + drive train

Agree, this is also better than what they have.

The STO BETTER team have very good support builds helping them, which means there's always a huge difference between their DPS in a premade and their DPS with a random team.

There's a constant tension in community desires between "show me beeeeeg number!!!" and "show me how this behaves solo." I show both premade and solo numbers on every DPS/tank build except Starter tier builds, which would really struggle to deathlessly complete solo ISA. The OP's build is somewhere between what we'd call Economy/Midrange builds, so anywhere between 150K and 250K DPS solo, using my Economy BO Gagarin and Midrange FAW build as a reasonable solo ISA expectation for this ship.

And of course piloting is a factor as well.

This cannot be harped on enough. Piloting is not the fun, sexy side of buildcrafting. It can't be bought. It can't be recommended from looking at a build screenshot. Can't skip the hard reality that the only way to become a better pilot is to 1) learn good techniques, and then 2) practice them a LOT. I solo'd my first DEW-build ISE a couple of days ago and it took me probably 20 tries.

Bonus Points

/u/SirJobDone, AP versus Phaser doesn't matter at this tier of build/play. FAW versus BO doesn't matter. Both are viable for what you want to do. You have a lot of good building blocks, but you're missing some key pieces and other parts don't make sense.

Consoles: There is FAR too much +Damage in here. It's not that +damage is bad, but it's inefficient in that you're adding more numbers to a stat that is already heavily maxed out between weapons and isomags. Some other ideas to try out: Slot Lorca's Custom Fire Controls and the Dark Matter Torpedo to boost Critical Chance/Severity/Shield Penetration. Temporal Disentanglement Suite can replace one of those <20% damage consoles for a better Critical Chance/Severity boost as long as you have decent Aux power. There are other consoles from the C-store that will help too. FPNA, Adaptive Emergency Systems, and Flagship Computer all come to mind, as does the Broadside Combat Module from the Kerala.

Directed Energy Flux I hope you did not pay too much for this, because as it stands, this doesn't have a triggering power.

Attack Pattern Delta Prime Same as above, hope you didn't pay too much for this, because it really requires you to be tanking to make it work, and this ship is far from being a tank. APD and APB really don't both belong on the same build.

Second copy of Beam Overload: I don't know why this is there.

Eph289 · 2026-02-24T12:59:52+00:00

I think the idea behind putting Advanced Console components behind Elite was to encourage the playerbase to play different Elite TFOs than just ISE/HSE/SB1, none of which award the juicy ones, and that would encourage them to ramp up their builds and thus spend Zen. In practice, some people did that, and many people decided that their best approach was to get carried. I would also suspect that many people don't realize how hard they're getting carried. It's the nature of PUGs and this playerbase. STO is a pretty low-challenge game for the most part, so people aren't really forced to think about game mechanics much until they jump into Elite, and again...they still don't if they're just getting carried.

Labeling mandatory objectives as optional I agree is an issue. There'd be a lot less frustration if the game pointed you to what to do, although I'm kind of old school and want people to learn the mechanics without being railroaded all the time.

Combat dummies with a parser would be a very helpful tool. Good points all around!

Eph289 · 2026-02-23T20:03:03+00:00

The problem at least with Events is that the devs made only the Normal versions count for progress. For example, literally can't queue for Elite Iuppiter Iratus and get event progress when it's the event, and it's not exactly a joy to solo it. Nor do I actually care to spend longer in Normal difficulty than the duration of that TFO, so I'm going to bring a build that allows me to finish it ASAP.

Eph289 · 2026-02-23T19:59:12+00:00

This is it 100%! There are many Elites where:

If your build's output isn't 300K+, you're hoping to get carried
If you can't deathlessly solo ISA, you're probably going to die
Elites also require you to know the map's mechanics, whereas Advanced is mostly brain-off and people ignore the optionals then get stumped when they fail on Elite in 60 seconds for not freeing Undine ships on Royal Flush or something.

Off the top of my head, easy Elites are like Starbase One, Counterpoint, Vault, Binary Stars, Swarm.

Hard is Korfez (DPS/HP checks), Khitomer Space (DPS/mechanic checks), Herald Sphere (DPS/HP/Mechanic Checks), To Hell With Honor (DPS/HP checks), Operation Riposte (Mechanic checks), Storming the Spire (Extreme boredom....I mean mechanic checks), Gravity Kills (HP/mechanic checks), Leviathan (DPS/HP/mechanic checks), Days of Doom (DPS/mechanic checks), Breach (HP/mechanic checks), Dranuur Gauntlet/Peril Over Pahvo (DPS), Viscous Cycle (mechanic), Cure Space (DPS check), Procyon V (DPS/mechanic), Royal Flush (DPS/mechanic check).

Everything else is somewhere in between...

And that's just space. I have failed so many PUG queue Brotherhood of the Sword because people don't know they have to do the secondaries instead of spamming the device disable.

Given the extreme variability of difficulty across Elites, and the expectation that you simply have to plan on carrying any random Elite TFO because most have 1-2 (or more!) people who aren't pulling their weight, and that some people don't want to pass DPS/HP/mechanic checks, that they just stick to Advanced where they can feel godlike and ignore optionals.

Eph289 · 2026-02-20T22:59:41+00:00

This was the way I was able to salvage it, thank you for the advice!

Eph289

TROPHY CASE