Choosing a new ship: The Galaxy-X

During the recent ship sale/bonus zen overlap I went ahead and picked up the white elephant of STO, the Galaxy-X.It's not the most effective ship of its type but there is just something about it. Reading the forums there is a definite divide between those who dismiss it as an outdated design and those who still find it interesting. I definitely fall into the latter camp. Despite the mechanical limitations it's just a cool ship.

Now it did take me awhile to decide to take the plunge. My tactical captain normally flies a Patrol Escort, with a Mirror Universe Assault Cruiser (set up as a beam boat) as a backup for teaming or a change of pace. My then-upcoming engineering captain (who has now reached 50) flies an assault cruiser as well. So my main interest when I decided to pick up a new ship was to get a cruiser, while taking a look at my escort options as well. After an initial run-through, here's what I was thinking:

• The retrofit Defiant - it's not really stronger than my Patrol Escort, and the cloak just doesn't do that much for me. 
• The Heavy Escort Carrier - It has everything my Patrol Escort does plus a hanger bay and the photon torpedo point defense system. I really like it for my tac captain but I suspect my engineer would not get much out of it, and I'm really looking for something they can both fly.
• The Odyssey cruisers - It's fairly pricey but it's a very strong set of ships. I think it only makes sense to get the discounted triple-bundle and I'm going to wait until I have a science captain that can use them. Next!
• The Avenger - not on sale, so no reason to pick it up now - pick a ship that is on sale!
• Assault Cruiser Refit - this is the one I almost chose. It came down to this or the X, and the combination of new skin, the plasma-ejection-like console (an ability I am using a lot with my engineer), and the 180 degree torp launcher (transferable to other ships) all made this extremely attractive and it's probably the next one I will acquire. 

After working through all of that and discussing it with the kid of mine who is also playing the game, he finally said it out loud - "You know, you just kind of have to try it out", referring to the X's combination of cloak, phaser lance, different look and just plain different-ness. If it didn't exist, I would have gone assault cruiser refit. Because it exists, I have to check it out. 

I admit a lot of it was the look of the thing and the "rule of cool". I spend so much time in MMO's looking at my "avatar" that cosmetics matter. That was not the only attraction. A cruiser hull that can mount dual cannons, even with that horrendous turn rate, is interesting. The phaser lance, despite the rampant disappointment with it on the forums, is interesting. A cloaking cruiser, even if it's not a battle cloak, is interesting. 

My Andorian captain takes his new flagship for a cruise by the old home world

I also decided that I might as well go all-in on the thing so I picked up the Venture class too so I would have more visual options - hey, it was on sale too! My tac captain went with the all-Venture look for his (and it is quite pretty). Subsequently my engineer captain went with the Venture nacelles while keeping the rest of it all Galaxy and it looks pretty nice too. 

Next time: How does it play?