The Galaxy-X in Action

Trying out the Breen set

In the last post I talked about why I chose the X as my new ship. Now that I have it, how is it working? I've been running it in the Tau Dewa Sector Patrol daily and the Dyson zone and here's what I can tell you:

• It does turn like a supertanker. This is a "feature" of all the Galaxy class in general. An RCS console and a decent level of that Engineering drive skill and it gets back to "regular cruiser" territory. I can tell you after flying an escort since level 20 it does feel very different. There is a learning curve but I am getting there.
• It is tough but it's going to draw a lot of fire and I have managed to blow myself up a few times. In an escort you can pick one target, devastate it, and fly through for another pass. With this ship, even with cannons, things don't blow up quite as quickly (if they move at all) and you're not zipping out of the fight and looping back around. Again, learning curve.
• The Phaser Lance: It is very cool. The 3 minute cooldown is a pain but on the multi-wave missions in the TDSP I can usually fire it a second time if I want. There are few things cooler than cloaking, sailing in close to an Apex Battleship, dropping the cloak and firing the lance - ZAP! Shield gone, significant hull damage, and all the agro the target can give you as you blaze away with rapid-firing cannons and heavy quantum torpedo fire.It puts the target on their back foot and they cannot recover in time to stop it.
• Being locked into phasers is really not a big deal. I run all plasma on my escort and have an all disruptor beam boat as well, and I don't see any problems going all-phaser with the X.
• It works great on the Voth too. Cloak, close in, wait for their magical reflecting invulnerability shield to drop, then decloak and LANCE! It is an instant aggro-puller though so the aftermath can be pretty rough if they are operating in a multiple-big-ship squadron like you see on the minefield-breaching attacks. It's worth it though.
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The only real annoyance is the tactical bridge officer situation. The ship only carries a lieutenant and an ensign station and that means 3 tactical skills only. That really limits the options.

• To maximize that de-cloak alpha strike I'd like to have Cannon Rapid Fire and High Yield Torpedo as an immediate follow up to the big orange can opener.
• Being slower and less maneuverable I'd like to have Cannon Scatter Volley and Torpedo Spread for general usefulness.
• Ideally I'd like to have two versions of the cannon skills to keep one up most of the time while the other cools down.

That's 4-6 slots to have the ideal setup and I only have 3, and I'm not even asking for attack patterns here! This is the single biggest problem with the ship and it's not one that can be mitigated with consoles or devices or exotic bridge or duty officers. For a combat focused ship I'd like to see a lieutenant commander tactical slot at least. Modern designs have at least one universal slot and that would be nice too - converting the science lieutenant slot to a universal would make a huge difference for this ship.

Other than that it's a fun and challenging ship to run. There's no consensus best build out there so it's interesting to see the different approaches taken. My current setup for the limited tac slots is Scatter Volley, Torpedo Spread, and Tactical Team. I can use those multi-attack skills on a single target even if it's not as strong as rapid fire and high-yield. That's this week's answer though - experimentation continues.