Science Build Introduction
Chapter 1: Introduction on how to science
Chapter 2: Equipment
Chapter 3: Consoles
Chapter 4: BOffs and Abilities
Chapter 5: DOffs
Chapter 6: Skill Tree, Specializations
Chapter 7: Traits
Chapter 8: Sample build on a budget
Chapter 9: Screenshots of the sample build
So you wanna be a space wizard – or how to science, chapter one: the introduction
Last updated: June 28th 2020 21:53 CEST
First of all, a disclaimer. This “guide” is neither complete nor perfect, and it does not cover every science option the game offers. It is not the “ultimate truth”. Try to understand the basics, what is done and why it is done. Then go experiment, make the build your own by modifying it to your liking and to match your personal playstyle. With that being said, let's dive in now.
Science builds focus on dealing damage with (surprise) science abilities (we will not look at specialized niche builds for fixed teams in elite content here, like healer or (de)buffer). These abilities need EPG (exotic particle generator) or exotic damage boosts, and the ones I have chosen in this guide also profit from ctrlX and DoT buffs, so we focus on that.
Criticals (crit chance = crit hit = crtH, and crit severity = crit damage = crtD) matter too for any damage based build, they boost your damage a lot.
There are other options for advanced/niche builds as well (like drainX and some more), but we want to go through the basics first.
Energy weapons barely contribute to your damage output and are mainly present for set bonuses. This also means your subsystem energy will be set to AUX, which will improve your science stats further, but leaving less energy = less damage for energy weapons. Torpedoes on the other hand are not affected by weapon subsystem energy, so they come in handy for weapon slots. Especially torpedoes with secondary damage (besides kinetic) based on exotic damage or a damage over time (DoT), which can be boosted by your science abilities and stats. Examples for those are the Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo, the Gravimetric Torpedo and the Dark Matter Quantum Torpedo.
For the ship, you want a science ship of any flavour. Two or three SCI seats are preferred, with at least one Commander and ideally one Lt.Com. - that will give enough space for high-rank SCI abilities for damage as well as Photonic Officer I or II for cooldown reduction. You also want as many SCI console slots as possible (ideally 5).
tl;dr: No cheating around this time, you'll need to read everything to understand the basics of science builds.
Chapter 2: Equipment - Let's have a look at possible loadouts.
Weapons:
Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo (projectile R&D lv15 or exchange, ideally with the Spr mod on ultra rare) and Gravimetric Torpedo (Dyson reputation). The kinetic damage is not what we are looking for, but the plasma DoT and the gravimetric rifts as those are buffed by the science stats.
Fill the other slots with something like the Dyson set (for more crit), the Delphic set (more crit), Delta torp+beam (more radiation damage), Chronometric set (ability to boost exotic damage), the Morphogenic set (more crit), or Dark Matter Torp (+ Lorca console for 2pc set bonus = crtD stacks).
Equipment:
Temporal Defense shield + either engines or warp core (buffs DoTs). Pair that with the Competitive Wargames engines if you want to be more agile, or the elite fleet isolated protomatter warp core, or any warp core that boosts AUX.
For the deflector, the colony deflector with EPG, ctrlX and ColCrit mods is great. A good alternative is the Bajoran deflector, re-engineered for EPG/ctrlX, or the Solenae deflector.
The Strategic deteriorating secondary deflector with [SA +Dmg] from the fleet research lab is perfect for these types of SCI builds, re-engineered for as many [EPG] and [CtrlX] mods as possible. This should also be one of the first items to upgrade to Mk XV.
Bonus:
Slot Exotic Particle Flood Battery consumables (Science R&D Lv10) in a device slot, for some additional exotic damage when needed.
Chapter 3: Consoles for fun and Science
Consoles:
One Exotic Particle Field Exciter (Science R&D lv15 or exchange – ideally with an EPG mod, but ctrlX is also fine, or anything else if you are on a tight budget). Fill the remaining SCI slots with fleet research lab consoles (Particle Focuser, either restorative = proc on heals, or exotic = proc on exotic damage – those are tricky though, as they proc on the last tick of abilities).
Particle Generator consoles are the ultra-low-end filler while you earn your fleet credits for the particle focusers from the fleet research lab.
Delphic Tear and Constriction Anchor are the most powerful consoles for SCI builds, so save some EC to get them off the exchange (or ask in fleet if someone is willing to provide them cheaper – I usually have some around). Use some fillers in between that improve your build otherwise – either EPG/ctrlX bonus, more survivability (e.g. some hull regen, or any healing console you might have access to, like Overloaded SIF Linkage, Protomatter Field Projector, Reiterative Structural Capacitor or Hull Image Refractors), or something buffing agility if you prefer that.
Chronometric Capacitor is a good console when using the Chronometric set, and its free (Mission: Time and Tide).
Additional good consoles are:
- Conductive RCS Accelerator if (and only if) it has the EPG mod (expensive)
- Temporal Disentanglement Suite - costs a valuable science slot, but offers a good crit boost and is a free mission reward (Mission: Butterfly).
- Assimilated Module (crit), Omega Reputation = cheap!
- Bioneural Infusion Circuits (a lot of critD plus some ctrlX plus some HullCap)
- Tachyokinetic Converter (crit)
- Plasma Storm (little EPG boost, powerful ability, but expensive)
- DPRM (awesome buffs, increases survivability, but very expensive)
- some set-specific consoles, mentioned in Chapter 3
- some ship-specific consoles that boost science related stats, e.g. from Temporal ships like the Verne
Chapter 4: The skill, the BOff and the Ability
Now let's get to the BOffs and the main abilities we want to use as the core of our build:
- Gravity Well 3 and Subspace Vortex 3. These are probably the most potent science skills.
- Torpedo Spread 3 (or 2, if you are limited to a Lt. Tac seat) will be powerful as we get multiple gravimetric rifts with our torpedos.
- Use at least Photonic Officer 1 (better PO2) for cooldown management – it's important to get as much uptime on the abilities as possible.
- Use multiple science abilities to proc your secondary deflector on as many targets as you can. Abilities like tachyon beam, charged particle burst, structural analysis, and destabilizing resonance beam do this quite well.
- If your ship has a temporal seat, use channeled deconstruction and entropic redistribution (of the highest level you can). Entropic redistribution often crits extremely high, and also does AoE damage. It's a great ability to use.
- If your ship has a command seat, use concentrated firepower at the highest level you can. The free torpedo high yields do huge damage and let you take down huge bosses (like the Korfez endboss, tactical cubes, etc.) much faster.
- If your ship has an Intel seat, use overload subsystem safeties. This will overcharge your exotic abilities since your aux power becomes really high. Ideally, use this in conjunction with your other buffs before you drop your grav well.
- For engineering slots, you can always use the free power buffs from "Emergency power to X". For science builds, slot Emergency Power to Auxiliary with the highest version possible, and either Emergency Power to Engines (for mobility) or Emergency Power to Shields (for survivability). That way you always have one power active and one at cooldown.
- The remaining slots can be filled depending on your playstyle. For example: Tac team, hazard emitters, sci team, eng team are usually pretty useful. You might also want to slot an ability that procs another ability/trait/buff.
Chapter 5: More BOffs and even more important, DOffs
Let's have a look which specific BOffs could improve the build even more with some additional passive stat boosts that can be the final adjustment to improve the build:
- Holo Weyoun brings +10 EPG
- Romulan SRO (for Romulan captains available in all slots, for everyone else just in Tac slots via fleet embassy BOffs) buffs crits
- Kentari Engineer (fleet colony - buffs damage, hull repair, power levels)
- Hierarchy Science BOff (damage, stealth, power levels)
- Gamma Vanguard BOffs (damage, crtH, crtD)
DOffs:
Generally speaking, the only mandatory doffs a sci-torp ship should have is 3 Projectile weapons officers (either torp recharge variant or 1-2 +crit severity variant) and 1 gravimetric scientist (either recharge or the standard gravity well aftershock variant). My own preference is to use one Projectile officer for quicker recharges and 2 for more crit severity on builds with quick recharging torpedoes (10s or less default), or two Projectile officers for quicker recharges and 1 for more crit severity on builds with slow recharging torpedoes (>10s), in both cases combined with one gravimetric scientist of the recharge variant.
I suggest using one Photonic Studies Scientist too, but it’s up to you how to fill the rest.
Expensive, but very useful additions useful for final tuning of a higher end build:
- 1 Xindi Biochemist with the space variant “Reduce Threat after activating Exotic Damage” (look for “Kil’thik’zi” on the exchange). Exotic damage pulls a lot of threat, and science ships usually have weaker hulls, so you don’t want to tank too much damage. Threat management with this DOff can increase your survivability.
- 1 "31 of 47" or "32 of 47" DOff (Liberated Borg from Borg Lockbox). Both will increase exotic damage and additionally DoTs (31 of 47) or crtH (32 of 47).
Chapter 6: Of Skill Trees and Specs
Moving on to the captain. The career is not that important, both Tac and SCI have their own treats, and even an Engineer is suitable. The skill tree however is more important and differs from typical energy DPS or tank builds. If you don’t want to retrain every time you switch, having a dedicated captain for SCI builds is a big plus.
Skill Tree:
This differs quite a bit from the typical skill tree for energy weapon builds. You want to have:
- 3 points in exotic particle generator
- 3 points in long range targeting sensors
- 2 points in shield penetration
- 2 points in control expertise
- control amplification
- 1-2 points in science, tactical, engineering readiness
Specialization:
Temporal Operative is great as both primary and secondary. Miracle Worker can be nice as primary, not so much as secondary. Strategist and Constable can be viable choices for secondary too.
Chapter 7: Trick or Trait
Personal Space Traits:
Particle Manipulator (Science R&D lv15); must-have trait because it's the most powerful for science builds with a HUGE boost of crit! You can easily get +50% crtH (capped) and +40% crtD (or more) for exotic damage abilities.
(Superior) Astrophysicist, Conservational Energy, Enlightened are what I would consider the more important ones. Fill up with Inspirational Leader, Context is for Kings, Pseudo Submission, Terran Targeting Systems, Into the Breach, Adaptive Offense, Ablative Shell, Invasive Control Programming, and if there are still slots left (some traits can be expensive), use some free traits that enhance survivability.
Reputation Traits:
- Particle Generator Amplifier (Iconian T2)
- Precision (Rom T2)
- Advanced Targeting Systems (Dyson T2)
- Aux Power Config - Offense (Nukara T4)
- Aux Power Config - Defense (Nukara T4)
- Hull-repairing Nanites (Omega T2)
- Torpedo Astrometric Synergy (Terran T4)
- Torpedo Prefire Sequence (Terran T2)
Improved gravity well – save for this one if you don’t have it yet!
Temporal Anchor, Spore Infused Anomalies, Improved Photonic Officer, Exotic Manipulation, Honored Dead, Retaliation, Checkmate - those are some that come to my mind. Others might be useful too.
Starship traits can get expensive when you need to own a ship for them, so use what you have available that ideally builds up some synergy with the build.
Chapter 8: A sample of how a science build might look like
I took the Somerville for a sample loadout, as it was available cheap in several charity sales and codes have been available in player organized giveaways. You can adapt this loadout to other ships once you get the basics of how everything works together.
The options chosen are for a really cheap budget build. I was able to get around 100k DPS with it in Elite Japori (6:19 runtime). After switching in the more expensive options, the DPS increased to almost 200k (3:14 runtime).
