star trek online best space weapons

Guide to Ship and Space Combat Weapons in Star Trek Online

Ship customization in Star Trek Online is not limited to merely changing the appearance of your ship. You can also use a myriad of weapon combinations, as well as many different science, engineering, and tactical consoles. With several different variations in energy weapons alone, it can be tough to keep track of all the weapon types in the game.

This basic overview will introduce you to the different types of energy weapons, torpedoes, and mines in the game. How you equip your ship is up to you, and most need a bit of trial and error to decide which combinations work best for them, but we can at least give you a good idea of what you’re getting yourself into.

In Star Trek Online, Torpedoes are the perfect weapon for finishing off a wounded enemy. After you’ve drained their shields with your energy weapons, a well-timed salvo of torpedoes against the bare hull can do massive damage to an enemy ship. They are capable of damaging shields, but their effectiveness is greatly diminished when not used directly against the hull.

All types of torpedoes fit this basic function, the major difference between them is reload time and overall individual damage. Photon Torpedoes, for example, reload quickly and can be fired more often, but tend to do less damage individually. Quantum Torpedoes take a long time to reload but make up for it by doing massive damage with each strike.

Each type of Torpedo (Quantum, Photon, Chroniton, Plasma, Transphasic, etc) functions a little differently, so experiment with the different types to see which works best for your ship.

Mines, like torpedoes, come in a variety of types (Quantum, Chroniton, Plasma, Photon, Transphasic, etc). Each functions the same basic way: setting five mines of a certain level at a time before a short recharge window. After recharging, five more mines will be placed. These mines spread out and take a few seconds to activate, and then pursue any enemy ship which comes into close proximity.

Leading an enemy into a field of well-placed mines can spell massive damage for their ship. They’re also a good option for players who want to deal good damage to enemies but don’t want to worry about lining up torpedo shots. Simply set your mines on auto fire and enter combat normally, the ship-seeking mines will do the rest.

Energy Weapons

Energy Weapons in Star Trek Online fall into several different categories (disruptors, plasma, phasers, etc), but there are five basic types that are the same, regardless of the type of energy being fired from them. The basic trade off with energy weapons is firing arc versus damage. Weapons that do the most damage tend to do so only when firing straight ahead, while those that have wide firing arcs allowing for broadside (turning sideways to fire front and rear energy weapons simultaneously) tactics tend to have limited individual DPS.

Energy weapons tend to be best against shields, though the more powerful options can tear through a ships’s hull quite quickly.

The most powerful energy weapons are the Dual (Phaser, Disruptor, etc) Cannons . These weapons are

limited to non-science ships only, and have a tiny, 45 degree firing arc, pretty much limiting you to firing straight ahead. Dual Cannons do the most overall DPS, but you tend to take a beating on the forward shields while using them, as you can’t turn the ship and keep firing on the enemy.

Second in overall DPS are the Dual (Phaser, Disruptor, etc) Beam Banks . These beam weapons have a slightly wider firing arc, 90 degrees, and are accordingly a bit easier to keep trained on an enemy while you maneuver. You’re still limited to mostly frontal assaults with these weapons, however.

Third in overall DPS are the Cannons . These projectile-firing weapons have a much wider 180 degree firing arc, allowing you to fire straight ahead and to both sides with equal effectiveness. Cannons have limited broadside potential when combined with Arrays that overlap their firing arc, but this can be a bit tricky, as the angle has to be almost perfect.

Arrays have the second-lowest DPS, but make up for it with their wide 250 degree firing arcs. With Arrays equipped both fore and aft, it’s very possible to keep your ship sideways and be constantly firing all of your Phasers simultaneously. So, while their individual DPS may be low, the fact that you can fire twice as many at once makes them an invaluable addition to many ships.

Lowest in terms of overall DPS are the Turrets . Correspondingly, they have a full 360 degree firing arc. Many players who equip Cannons or Dual Beam Banks with forward-fire only equip Turrets in their rear slots to augment their overall forward-firing potential. You can slot Turrets anywhere you want, front or back, it doesn’t matter because they can strike at any angle.

Equipping too many energy weapons can drain your weapon power very quickly. Keep this in mind when setting up your ship.

Weapons are just one of the many types of components you can fit onto your ship in Star Trek Online. Most captains know that a good weapon setup can easily spell the difference between life and death in the cold, silent blackness of space.

Choose your weapons carefully, however, and you should have little trouble in your quest to seek out new life and new civilizations .

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Star Trek Online Ship Weapons Guide

As such, your ship’s weapons are an important element of your character’s effectiveness. This article takes a look at some of the basic concepts governing weapons in STO , examines the various types available, and explains how the different factors that affect your weapons’ damage appear to function. An understanding of these areas should help you make more informed decisions about which weapons to use and how to get the best out of them in the heat of combat.

Firing Arcs

• DPS & Burst vs. Sustained Damage

Weapon Tooltips

Shared cooldowns, weapon skills, weapon abilities, beam weapons, cannon weapons, cannon cooldowns, turret weapons, energy types.

• Weapon Power & Power Drain

Torpedo Launchers

Torpedo cooldowns, mine launchers, mine cooldowns, damage modifiers, dps comparison over range, general concepts.

Before examining the various types of starship weapons available in Star Trek: Online , there are several basic concepts that are worth considering and bearing in mind when selecting and using them.

The ‘Standard Issue’ phaser beam arrays and photon torpedo launchers that your initial ship is equipped with are effectively ‘Mk 0′ versions of those weapons.

For more information on how Marks figure into damage, see the Damage Modifiers section, below.

Starship weapons are mounted in weapon bays . Ships have two bays – one fore and one aft, each of which has slots for up to four weapons, depending on the tier and category of the ship.

(For details of how many slots the various ships have in their fore and aft bays, see Suricata’s excellent Ship Tier Charts .)

All weapon types except mine launchers can be mounted in fore bays. Only beam arrays, turrets, torpedo launchers and mine launchers can be mounted in aft bays.

There are currently no ships with port or starboard bays, and no way to adjust the facing of a weapon in a bay. All weapons must be mounted facing either in the same direction as the ship is pointing (fore bay) or in the opposite direction to which the ship is pointing (aft bay).

The various types of starship weapon have different firing arcs . In order for a weapon to be fired, the target must be within the weapon’s arc.

For example, torpedo launchers have a 90° firing arc – in order to fire a torpedo, your target must be within the front 90 ° of your ship (for launchers mounted in the fore bay) or the rear 90 ° of your ship (for launchers mounted in the aft bay).

Again, the exception is mines, which have no firing arc and do not require a target to fire, instead being dropped behind your ship.

This diagram shows the firing arcs of the other weapon types in STO when mounted in a ship’s fore bay:

It’s important to realise that, as space combat in STO occurs in three dimensions, weapon ‘arcs’ are in fact cones , extending above and below your ship’s facing, as well as to either side.

For example, a torpedo launcher mounted in the fore bay has the following firing arc, when viewed from the side:

It’s also important to recognise that, due to their limited firing arcs, you can generally only bring the weapons mounted in one of your bays to bear on a target at the same time. The notable exceptions are beam arrays and turrets.

The 250° firing arcs of beam arrays mounted in the fore and aft bays overlap for 70° on either side (and above and below the ship):

By turning sideways or positioning itself above or below a target, then, a ship can ‘broadside’ with beam arrays in both the fore and aft bays at the same time.

Turrets have a 360° firing arc, so can always be brought to bear on any target in range, whether mounted in the fore or aft bays.

There is, however, a trade-off for these advantages, as the damage output of the different weapon types is balanced against their firing arcs. In general, the wider the firing arc of a weapon type, the lower its base damage , and vice versa.

DPS and Burst vs Sustained Damage

DPS stands for Damage Per Second . As it measures the rate at which damage is dealt, it’s useful for comparing weapons with different firing speeds.

For example, consider two weapons: Weapon A does 100 damage and fires every 10 seconds, while Weapon B does 500 damage and fires every 50 seconds. Although the two weapons do different amounts of damage per hit, they both deal damage at the same rate of 10 Damage Per Second.

As a measure of a weapon’s ability to deal sustained damage, DPS is an important consideration when selecting which weapons to use. However, sustained damage is not the only important consideration in space combat in Star Trek: Online.

In some situations, the ability to deal as much damage as possible in a very short period of time – often referred to as burst damage – can be more significant.

For example, as shields regenerate every 6 seconds, whenever you knock down a target’s facing shield, you want to do as much damage as possible to the opponent’s hull in the few seconds before the next shield regeneration ‘tick’.

Likewise, when fighting a faster, more manoeuvrable opponent, it can be hard to keep them in your firing arcs. When you can bring your weapons to bear on such an opponent, you want to hit them as hard as you can before they move out of your firing arcs.

In general, the burst potential of a weapon in STO is balanced against its sustained damage – the more burst damage a weapon can deal, the lower its DPS will tend to be.

For example, quantum torpedoes do more damage than photon torpedoes of the same Mark, but have a longer recharge time and thus a lower DPS. In situations where you want to do as much damage as possible with a single shot, quantums will hit harder. However, when you are able to fire multiple torpedoes in a row, photons will deal more sustained damage over time.

When looking at weapons in-game, it’s important to realize that some weapon tooltips are dynamic – they display the damage and DPS of a weapon modified by your captain’s stats and current weapon power level – while others are static, and display the base damage and DPS of the weapon.

• The tooltips for weapons on your hotbar and in the weapons tray on the HUD are dynamic
• The tooltips displayed for weapons in your inventory, on your ship’s status screen and in stores are static

Understanding Damage Reports

In combat, Star Trek: Online shows you how much damage your weapons are doing with each attack in two places – the small yellow numbers that float up from your target and the Combat tab in the chat window.

The small yellow numbers show only one thing – the amount of hull damage each attack is inflicting. For more detail, you need to look at the combat log in the chat window. Although it tends to scroll too fast to be particularly readable in combat, it can be worth taking a look back through the numbers after a fight.

For each of your attacks, you’ll normally see something like:

• X is how much damage your attack did to the target’s shields.
• Y is how much damage would have been done to the hull if it hadn’t been applied to the shields.
• A is how much damage your attack did to the target’s hull.
• B is the total damage your attack did

The first line, with the X and Y numbers, is only shown when the target had an active shield up at the time of the attack. Y is only shown if the target’s shield or hull was resistant to the damage you did, and B is only shown when the target had an active shield at the time of the attack and/or the target’s hull was resistant to the damage you did.

For example, if you saw:

This means that your phaser array hit the front shield facing of a Bird of Prey for 200 damage (B). 180 of the damage was applied to the shield (X) and would have caused 162 damage to the hull (Y), so the Bird of Prey has a 10% hull resistance to Phaser damage (Y/X = 0.9). The hull of the Bird of Prey took 18 damage (A), which means that the Bird of Prey’s shield has a 10% bleedthrough (20 damage bled through the shield and was reduced to 18 by the 10% resistance).

Taking the time to look through the combat log can reveal useful information about both the effectiveness of your weapons against an opponent and the type of weapons an opponent used against you.

As Starfleet officers tend to spend each rank fighting similar types of opponent in PvE, it can be handy to know what weapons are effective against them and which damage types they’re likely to use on you.

Cannons, torpedo launchers and mine launchers all have shared cooldowns . Firing one of these weapon types will trigger a cooldown, and you will be unable to fire another weapon of the same type until the cooldown has expired.

For example, firing a torpedo launcher triggers a 3 second cooldown on all torpedo launchers on your ship – until this cooldown has expired, you cannot fire another torpedo launcher.

As well as preventing you from firing more than one of these weapons at the same time, cooldowns limit the maximum rate of fire you can attain with multiple weapons of these types, and thus the maximum number of these weapons that can be used effectively in the same bay. These areas are discussed in more detail in the appropriate entries in the Energy Weapons and Projectile Weapons sections, below.

Your captain’s skills can increase the damage your weapons do.

All starship weapons are affected by three skills, one from Tier 1, one from Tier 2 and one from Tier 3-5. In general, it’s fairly easy to see which skills will affect a given weapon.

For example, a Tetryon Beam Array is an energy weapon, so it’s affected by Starship Energy Weapons Training (Tier 1), it’s a beam weapon, so it’s affected by Starship Beam Weapons (Tier 2), and it’s a tetryon weapon, so it’s affected by Starship Tetryon Weapons (Tier 4).

Note that turrets count as cannons for the purposes of skills.

For more information on skills and how skill-based stats are calculated, see the Skills: The Numbers article. For more information on how skill-based stats affect weapon damage, see the Damage Modifiers section, below.

Several abilities affect the next attack you make with a specific type of weapon, or change the behaviour of a type of weapon for a short period.

For example, the Torpedo: High Yield ability increases the damage of the first torpedo launcher you fire in the next 30 seconds.

Although these abilities are not in themselves affected by your captain’s skills, the attack or weapon that they modify is affected as normal.

Energy Weapons

Energy weapons use power from the ship’s warp core to project beams or bolts of energy at their target, and come in six basic types:

Beam weapons are the most common starship weapons in the Star Trek universe, and are the default weapons of most Federation vessels. Beam weapons can be mounted on all ships.

• Beam Arrays trade damage output for a very wide firing arc, making them easy to bring to bear on an opponent and well suited to less manoeuvrable ships like cruisers. The overlapping firing arcs of beam arrays mounted fore and aft helps to compensate for their relatively low damage, allowing beam arrays in both weapon bays to be brought to bear at the same time by turning sideways to a target and ‘broadsiding’, as described in the Firing Arcs section of General Concepts, above.
• Dual Beam Banks are more focussed offensive weapons, offering better damage output over a smaller firing arc. They are the highest damage energy weapons that can be mounted on any ship, which makes them appealing for offensively minded science vessel captains, as well as effective compliments to cannons for escort captains.

Beam weapons have no shared cooldown, and all beams that can be brought to bear on a target can be fired simultaneously. While this can give multiple beam load-outs slightly more burst potential than cannons, it can also lead to significant weapon power drain (see Weapon Power and Power Drain , below).

Cannon weapons fire multiple bolts of energy rather than beams, and are dedicated military weapons. The only Federation ships that can mount cannons are escorts.

• Cannons are similar to beam arrays, trading damage output for a relatively large firing arc. It is possible to perform limited ‘broadsides’ with fore cannons and aft beam arrays, as their arcs will overlap for 35° on either side, but given the relatively high turn rate of most of the ships that can mount cannon weapons, this is of dubious utility – much greater damage output can usually be achieved by turning to face the target and using Dual Cannons or Dual Heavy Cannons.
• Dual Cannons and Dual Heavy Cannons both trade a very narrow firing arc for high damage, and are the most powerful energy weapons. At present, the principal difference between the two is fire rate – dual cannons fire twice as many bolts per activation as dual heavy cannons, but each dual cannon bolt hits for half as much damage as a dual heavy cannon bolt, giving them the same DPS.

All cannons have a 1 second shared cooldown – firing a cannon of any type prevents any other cannon from firing for 1 second – which means that multiple cannons must be fired in sequence.

There has been much discussion and debate over the relative effectiveness and optimal numbers of dual cannons and dual heavy cannons. Judging from the beta, it appears that the original intention of the design was for dual cannons and dual heavy cannons to have different optimum numbers. However, test results indicate that this is not presently the case, and that there appear to be some glitches in how multiple cannons function.

For the time being, the best option appears to be to mount dual cannons or dual heavy cannons in pairs, with two dual heavy cannons seeming to perform slightly better than two dual cannons. Adding a third will provide a slight increase in damage output, but not as much as using a different weapon instead (even a turret, the lowest damage weapon type, appears to add more damage output than a third dual or dual heavy cannon).

I’m far from convinced that multiple cannons are working right at the moment, so am going to hold off on going into the details of the testing I’ve done for now – my expectation is that there will be changes at some point, which would render it all obsolete. For the time being, if you are interested in detailed results of testing multiple cannons, I’d highly recommend the work of some of the posters to the Escort Class Starships and Tactical Officer Discussion sections of the official message boards and Legatus in particular, as my results so far seem to match his.

Turrets are unique in several ways. Although they fire bolts and are treated as cannons for the purposes of skills, abilities and range, they have no shared cooldown (and are not affected by the shared cooldown of cannons) and can be mounted on any ship.

They are also the only weapon type with a full 360° firing arc, but pay for this by being the lowest damage energy weapons.

Nonetheless, that 360° arc has its uses. A single turret mounted in either weapon bay will cover any gaps in the firing arcs of a ship’s other weapons, ensuring that at least one weapon can always be brought to bear on a target. They are also the only weapon type other than beam arrays that allow you to bring weapons in both bays to bear on the same target, and unlike beam arrays, don’t require ‘broadsiding’ to achieve this – turrets mounted in the rear bay can fire upon targets directly ahead of you.

The energy type of energy weapons has no effect on the base damage of the weapon. Instead, it determines which Tier 3-5 skill boosts the damage of weapon, which resistance the target uses to reduce damage, and gives the chance of a special effect or ‘proc’ on every shot.

Each of the six energy types has a different special effect:

I haven’t yet taken a close look at these special effects, but there are a few things I’ve noticed so far:

• The DoT (Damage over Time) effect that Plasma energy weapons have a chance to apply appears to scale with the Mark of the weapon (I’m not yet sure if it is also affected by your captain’s skills)
• The shield damage that Tetryon weapons have a chance to apply does not scale with Mark
• The power drain effect that Polaron weapons have a chance to apply doesn’t scale with Mark
• The special effect of Antiproton weapons comes from the descriptions of the Antiproton weapons available as rewards from the Admiral-3+ Borg missions – I haven’t yet been able to get hold of one of these for testing

Weapon Power and Power Drain

The damage done by energy weapons is affected by the current weapon power level of your ship – the higher your current weapon power level, the more damage your energy weapons will do.

In addition, firing energy weapons drains your current weapon power level. Power levels are replenished at a constant rate, and in general you can fire two energy weapons at the same time without suffering any significant loss in weapon power level (and thus damage). If you attempt to fire more than two energy weapons at the same time, however, you may drain your power more quickly than it is replenished, and your weapon power level will start to drop if you maintain constant fire.

Note that this effect is often more noticeable with beam weapons and turrets than with cannons, as the shared cooldown on cannons prevents them from being fired simultaneously, and thus spreads out their power drain.

There are essentially four approaches to dealing with power drain from energy weapons:

• Fire energy weapons in ‘bursts’, allowing pauses for your weapon power level to recover
• Equip items and use abilities that increase power transfer rate, which also increases the rate at which weapon power is replenished (examples include EPS Flow Regulator engineering consoles and the EPS Power Transfer ability of Engineer captains)
• Use items and abilities that increase your weapon power, either to give more power to drain or to replenish what your weapons have already drained (examples include Emergency Power to Weapons and Weapon Batteries)
• Change your weapons load-out to use fewer energy weapons

For more information on the effects of power levels, see the Ship Power Guide article. For more details on how your current weapon power level affects the damage of energy weapons, see the Damage Modifiers section, below.

Projectile Weapons

In contrast to energy weapons, projectile weapons launch physical objects – torpedoes or mines – which carry an explosive payload to the target.

There are some significant differences between projectile and energy weapons:

• Projectile weapon damage is not affected by your weapon power, and projectile weapons do not drain any power when fired
• The projectile type of a projectile weapon affects the weapon’s base damage and recharge rate, unlike the energy type of energy weapons
• All projectile weapons do Kinetic damage. All shields have an innate 75% resistance to Kinetic damage, so projectile weapons are far less effective at damaging shields than energy weapons

Torpedoes are fired much like energy weapons, but must fly to their target after being launched.

All torpedo launchers have a 90° firing arc, and can be mounted in either the fore or aft bays.

• Photon torpedoes are the basic type of torpedo, and have a chance to injure and/or kill some of the crew of the target
• Quantum torpedoes have better burst damage than photons, but offer lower sustained damage. They have the same chance to injure and/or kill the target’s crew as photons
• Plasma torpedoes have a 33% chance to apply a Fire damage effect to the hull of the target (whether its shields are up or not) for 10 seconds. Using the Torpedo: High Yield ability with plasma torpedo launchers creates a single large plasma ball that does extreme damage but can be targeted and shot down
• Transphasic torpedoes have the lowest damage and DPS, but this can be deceptive – they have better shield penetration than other torpedoes, and initial testing suggests that against a shielded target they are actually more effective than the other, higher damage types
• Chroniton torpedoes slow the target’s movement and turn rate for 10 seconds. I haven’t been able to get hold of any for proper testing yet, however
• Tricobalt Mobile Devices are extremely powerful, and can damage and briefly disable up to 10 targets in a 2km sphere. Like High Yield plasma torpedoes, though, they can be targeted and shot down. Torpedo abilities like Torpedo: High Yield and Torpedo: Spread do not affect tricobalt mobile devices

Depending on the range and the target’s speed and maneuvering, it can take some time for a torpedo to impact – Photon, Plasma and Transphasic torpedoes all take around 10 seconds to hit a stationary target at 10km range, while Quantum torpedoes are noticeably faster, taking around 7 seconds to cover the same distance (I’ve yet to time Chroniton torpedoes or Tricobalt Mobile Devices).

All torpedo launchers have a 3 second shared cooldown (with the possible exception of Tricobalt Mobile Device Launchers, which I haven’t been able to test yet). This means that multiple launchers in the same bay must be fired in sequence, and the maximum fire rate possible is one torpedo every three seconds.

As the various launcher types have different recharge times, the number of them required to achieve this fire rate varies, and in some cases isn’t very efficient:

• Max Number is the number of launchers of that type in the same bay required to attain the maximum firing rate of a torpedo every 3 seconds -any additional launchers in the same bay will be wasted
• Efficiency is the percentage of their normal DPS that each launcher will contribute to your total DPS output at the max number of launchers

For example, plasma torpedo launchers have a recharge of 8 seconds, so the DPS listed on their tooltip is based on them firing every 8 seconds. With three plasma launchers mounted in the same bay, each will actually be firing every 9 seconds, and thus the DPS of each launcher will be 89% of normal.

• Optimal Number is the number of launchers of that type that can be mounted in the same bay while maintaining 100% of the DPS of each
• Optimal Rate is the average rate of fire at the optimal number of launchers in the same bay

Unlike other weapons, mine launchers have no firing arc and do not require a target to to be fired. When a mine launcher is activated, a group of five mines is released. The mines move into an ‘X’ pattern and take a few seconds to arm themselves, after which they will automatically target and home in on any hostile target that passes nearby.

Like all projectile weapons, mines do Kinetic damage, and thus are significantly less effective at damaging shields than energy weapons.

Mines offer several interesting tactical opportunities, but my testing with so far has been limited. There are a few things worth noting:

• Photon mines take 7 seconds to arm from when you activate the launcher (this may vary by type, but I need to do more testing to find out)
• Once armed, photon mines have a ’sensor range’ of 2.5km and will lock onto and home in on any hostile target that comes within that distance (again, this may vary by type, but more testing is required)
• Each individual mine appears to do around 20% of the damage of a torpedo of the same type and Mark
• Mines remain active for 60 seconds, after which they self-destruct
• It seems fair to assume that mines have similar special effects to torpedoes of the same type, but I have yet to confirm this
• Tricobalt device launchers, unlike other mine launchers, drop a single tricobalt device. It seems likely that this mine will behave in a similar fashion to a tricobalt mobile device, with a large area of effect

All mine launchers have a 9 second shared cooldown (with the possible exception of Tricobalt Device Launchers, which I haven’t been able to test yet). This means that multiple launchers in the same aft bay must be fired in sequence, and the maximum fire rate possible is one ‘mine deployment’ every nine seconds.

As the various launcher types have different recharge times, the number of them required to achieve this deployment rate varies, and in some cases isn’t very efficient:

• Max Number is the number of launchers of that type in the same bay required to attain the maximum deployment rate of one mine cluster every 9 seconds – any additional launchers in the same bay will be wasted
• Optimal Rate is the average deployment rate at the optimal number of launchers in the same bay

It’s worth bearing in mind that the efficiency and optimal numbers in the above table assume that every mine launched will hit a target, which is fairly unlikely in most situations. As such, the DPS efficiency of multiple mine launchers is perhaps less import than the deployment rate – the more mine clusters you can launch, the more chance you have of at least some of them finding a target.

There are several modifiers that affect the damage of your weapons in space combat – the base damage of the weapon, your captain’s level in the appropriate weapon skills, any bonuses to those skills, and (in the case of energy weapons), your current weapon power level and the range to the target.

Standard Issue and Mark Bonus

Before looking at how these modifiers are applied, it’s important to understand that the base damage of a weapon appears to be the sum of two factors – the ‘Standard Issue’ damage of the weapon type and a ‘Mark Bonus’:

• The Standard Issue damage of a weapon type is the damage of a ‘Mark 0′ version of that weapon type
• The Mark Bonus is roughly 10% of the Standard Issue damage of the weapon type per Mark of the weapon, up to 100% at Mark X.

(Note that it’s not actually a smooth +10%/Mark, at least for energy weapons. I’m going to be looking at the exact Mark Bonus in more detail soon, but for the moment, +10%/Mark is a good rule of thumb.)

Damage Calculations

Based on the testing I’ve done so far, the damage of your weapons appears to be calculated as follows:

• Your captain’s total Stat Bonus for the weapon is applied as a percentage to the Standard Issue damage of the weapon
• This is added to the base damage of the weapon
• For energy weapons, the total damage is then modified by +2% for every point of weapon power over 50 or -2% for every point of weapon

This is the current damage displayed on the dynamic weapon tooltips on your hotbar or in the weapons tray, and for the mathematically-inclined can be summarised as:

(Base + (SI x (Stat/100)) x (WPow/50)

Where Base is the base damage of the weapon, SI is the Standard Issue damage of the weapon type, Stat is the total Stat Bonus and WPow is the current weapon power level.

(For details of how your captain’s Stat Bonuses are calculated, see the Skills: The Numbers article. For details on the effects of power levels, see the Ship Power Levels article. For a table of the Standard Issue damage of the various weapon types, see below.)

When an energy weapon is fired, the current damage is further modified by the range to the target:

• For beam weapons, damage is reduced by around -4% per km beyond 1km
• For cannon weapons (turrets count as cannons for the purposes of range), damage is reduced by around -8% per km beyond 2km

(For more details on the effects of range, see the Weapon Ranges article.)

A couple of examples:

A captain with a total Stat Bonus of 40 for photon torpedoes equips a Photon Torpedo Launcher Mk VI, with a base damage of 2,202 and a DPS of 339.

The Standard Issue damage for a photon torpedo launcher is 1,383. The captain’s stat bonus of 40 is applied as a percentage, giving 1,383 x 40% = 553 bonus damage.

That’s added to the base damage, giving 2,202 + 553 = 2755 damage. That’s a 25% increase over the base damage, so the DPS will be 424 (339 x 1.25).

A captain with a total Stat Bonus of 77 for tetryon beam weapons equips a Tetryon Beam Array Mk IX, with a base damage of 190 and DPS of 152. The current weapon power level of his ship is 82.

The Standard Issue damage for a beam array is 100. The captain’s stat bonus of 77 is applied as a percentage, giving 100 x 77% = 77 bonus damage.

This is added to the base damage, giving 190 + 77 = 267 damage. This is then increased by 64% due to the current weapon power level (82/50 = 1.64) to 438 (267 x 1.64). That’s a 230.5% increase over the base damage, so the DPS will be 350 (152 x 2.305).

If the captain fires at an opponent 5km away, the damage will be reduced by -16% due to range (-4% per km over 1km) and each pulse of the tetryon beam will strike the target for 368 damage (438 x 0.84).

Damage Randomisation

As becomes clear in your first space combat encounters, there’s a degree of randomness in how much an attack actually deals. I haven’t done an extensive analysis of this yet, but it appears to be somewhere in the range of +/- 5-10% for each attack.

Standard Issue Damage Values

The Standard Issue damage of each weapon type appears to be half of the base damage of a Mk X version:

Notes on Damage Calculations

The above calculations appear to match both the damage displayed by the dynamic weapon tooltips and that actually done in combat in all the cases I’ve tested so far to within a few points of damage (which I suspect is due to rounding errors brought about by the game system only displaying integer values).

Bear in mind that the dynamic tooltips don’t include range modifiers.

When the Weapon Ranges article was published, Edgecase suggested a comparison of the ‘raw DPS’ of each energy weapon type over range, and this seemed like a suitable place to include one.

Besides, we haven’t had any graphs yet.

The following chart shows a comparison of the Standard Issue DPS of the various energy weapon types against range to target:

Please bear in mind that we are veering into ‘Theory Trek’ here – although the numbers used to create this graph are based on in-game test results, they include several assumptions and don’t take into account aspects of the STO combat system that are currently poorly understood (such as accuracy and any relationship it may have to range) – so this should only be used a guide for comparison.

Nonetheless, there are some things worth noting. Assuming weapons of the same Mark and equivalent Stat Bonuses:

• At ranges of around 7km and greater, Dual Beam Banks are more effective than Dual Cannons and Dual Heavy Cannons
• At extreme ranges of over 9km, Beam Arrays become comparable to Dual Cannons and Dual Heavy Cannons
• At ranges of around 6.5km and greater, Beam Arrays become more effective than Cannons

In general, then, players that favor beams – and particularly beam arrays – should try to keep a ship armed with any form of cannon as far away as possible. The longer the range, the less the DPS advantage of cannon weapons. Conversely, players who favor cannon weapons should try to close on beam-heavy opponents as quickly as possible.

Once at close range, though, the situation reverses – the cannon-heavy ship should try to maintain a range of 2km, while the beam-heavy ship (if it cannot open the range) should try to close to within 1km.

Source: The Engines Cannae Take It

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10 thoughts to “star trek online ship weapons guide”.

Great article . With all the useless information out there this is a breath of fresh air. I learned more in this post than the last dozen or so I previously viewed. Well done ,I will be sure to tell my friends. Thanks

Great articles on your site. Definitely the best information out there that I have found. Could you revisit this article perhaps and fill in some of the information on higher level weapons that you were unable to test previously?

Must agree. Great article. Found the info I badly needed. Cheers mate

Love the article, but can you include the different effects of energy types or torpedo types? Like phasers to plasma and quantum to tricobalt?

Correction to my earlier post. I meant, what combinations would work best?

Great Article, hope there’s more to come.

You have incorrect information on Tricobalts.

Tricobalt devices are affected by Torp: High Yield effect, and (when there are multiple targets in the arc of the tricobalt torp launcher) can be affected slightly by Torp: Spread.

Confirmed in STF battles (Tricobalts are useful against borg)

It would be good if in the guide next to plasma, phaser, poloran etc you briefly wrote what each is actually made up of.

ie what actually is poloran etc….

Love this article. Can’t wait to see more updates.

Excellent article, especially the distance to DPS combat breakdown at the end. Thanks for taking the time to put this up.

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[Top 10] Star Trek Online Best Ground Weapons

Struggling against the Borg? Tired of the Undine regenerating everything away? Want to take the fight to the Bugs instead of running from cover to cover? Don’t worry, this list has you covered on what weapons to use! Our “Best For” list will go over Hybrid (damage and healing), Melee (run up to their face and PUNCH!), and Ranged (pew pew from safety). This list will include the Lobi Store items as well as items that can be gotten for free by playing the game. 

10. Lukari Paizo-Electric Wrist Apparatus (Best For Hybrid)

For weird and exotic, look no further!

The Lukari Piezo-Electric Wrist Apparatus is one of Star Trek Online’s reputation weapon sets. The reputation weapons require a certain amount of time to unlock, in this case Reputation Level 3.The Apparatus is unique in that it’s both a damaging weapon and a healing weapon, depending on which of the attack modes you select.

Unlike most Star Trek Online weapons, the Apparatus does not have a typical attack or secondary fire mode. Instead, it comes with an "Offensive Mode" and a "Healing Mode" that can be swapped when you select "Mode Switch". The main offensive mode uses electrical damage attacks, which do bonus damage to mechanical targets and have a chance to cause chain reactions to nearby enemies. Its secondary is a guaranteed chain attack that can stun, disable, and vaporize if enemies are exposed.

The "Healing Mode", on the other hand, works by causing a small area of effect regeneration field to appear around the player. When you do damage, a percentage of that damage is converted into area healing. It also gives you a stack of regeneration for each player (including yourself) that doubles when you get past the five max stacks.

The unusual nature of the weapon makes it not as popular as most of the weapons on this list, but it can be quite fun to be able to swap between disabling and healing. When built properly, it even lets you spam chain lightning on everything, easily burning down enemies. If built for critical damage, you can use the "Healing Mode" to rapidly heal yourself off its powerful secondary attack.

What Lukari Piezo-Electric Wrist Apparatus Excels In

• Has the ability to damage and heal depending on what Mode you use, which gives you the rare flexibility on Ground Combat to ignore class restrictions or have to rely on Kit Modules.
• Offensive Mode lets you proc chain lightning to targets that will disable or otherwise limit the ability of enemies to return fire. It can also be built for "spam" purposes, letting you blast down whole hordes of enemies easily.
• Healing Mode does damage, heals you and allies, and has a burst damage secondary mode. The burst damage can do great spike healing against Ground Combat bosses and will also heal your allies in a small area for the same amount. 
• Supplements healer playstyles just as easily as offensive ones.

Weapon Stats

• Electrical Bolt (Offensive Mode)

Electrical Damage - to target: 48.7 Electrical Damage (69.6 DPS)

+25% damage to Electronic targets

* 66% Chance to chain to a nearby target for 58.7 Electrical Damage

* 33% Chance to chain an additional time to another nearby target for 70.4 Electrical Damage

5% chance: to self: Apply:

• Protomatter Regenerative Influx (Healing Mode)

* to self: +9.8 Shield Regeneration 10 secs

* to self: +150% Hitpoint Regeneration 10 secs

+20% Critical Severity

Electrical Discharge - to target: 243.7 Electrical Damage (28 DPS)

25% chance: to target: Hold for 5 secs

To Electronic Targets

5% chance: to target: Disable ranged weapons for 5 secs

How to get Lukari Piezo-Electric Wrist Apparatus:

• To acquire the Apparatus, you’ll need to first unlock the Lukari Reputation then reach Tier III. After that, you’ll need to select the weapon project and submit 500 Lukari Marks, 5 Protomatter Microcontainers, 9,000 Refined Dilithium, and 40,000 Energy Credits to get the weapon.

9. Dual Nanopulse Mek’leths (Best For Melee)

THE LIGHT! IT BLINDS! These things are exactly this bright in game; beware dark rooms.

The Dual Nanopulse Mek’leths may seem like an odd choice for a ground weapon, but that’s because you don’t know how powerful these mini-lightsaber knives can be!

The Mekl’leth is a pretty classic weapon in Star Trek, though with Discovery and the changes to the Klingon aesthetic, we got these nifty little guys that do plasma damage to targets. They’re great against multiple enemies, because they’ll do 50% bonus damage to another target whenever you attack. A great strategy is to bunch enemies up using a kit module, then quickly target-swap while hitting the attack button once. You’ll melt through them like butter!

Another cool trick with these is that if you set autofire on the first attack action, the weapon will animation break, causing you to very rapidly attack a target, absolutely obliterating even high HP bosses. It doesn’t work against the Borg, sadly, making this not the best melee ground weapon, but it’s devastating against anyone and everyone else!

What Dual Nanopulse Mek’leths Excels In 

• Extremely rapid attack when you use the auto-attack feature that will shred anything in your path.
• Fantastic for burning down enemies that are clustered up due to the massive bonus damage you get when target swapping. 
• Looks like lightsaber knives, which is great for anyone who happens to enjoy getting a little Star Wars in their Star Trek!
• Easy to obtain via a mission quest. 

Weapon Stats 

Quickening Strike

Quick Physical Damage Attack

+50% Bonus Plasma Damage whenever you attack a target other than your previous target

__ Plasma Damage (50% Shield Penetration - based on level)

+2% Critical Chance

Overpowering Strike

Strong Physical Damage Attack

__ Plasma Damage (80% Shield Penetration - based on level)

How to get Dual Nanopulse Mek’leths:

• This weapon is very easy to get, you just need to complete the mission “The Khitomer Discord” and it comes as a mission reward. 

8. Mind Meld Device (Best For Melee)

Techno mind meld? Techno mind meld.

The Mind Meld Device is one of those weapons that’s just so insanely powerful that you struggle to understand how it hasn’t been nerfed yet. A Discovery Reputation item based on Burnham’s little trick from the show, the MMD gives you essentially a "souped up" melee attack set that usually comes standard when you have no weapons equipped.

What’s needed about this is that Star Trek Online’s melee system is actually fairly complex, with different chains and combos depending on button inputs. You can’t just mash 1 all day and win. You’ll need to use some thought based on the enemy you are fighting. For players who want more "Kirk" in their action sequences, this is absolutely the weapon for you!

When built to take advantage of its bonuses properly, you’ll be able to hit critical damage well past 10,000 on enemies with Expose, even hilariously vaporizing them on occasion. Another thing that sets this weapon apart is the built-in gap closer enage. It does damage, exposes, roots, and triggers any melee procs that you have equipped.

Between being able to run down anyone you come across and the sheer physical (shield bypassing) damage you do, you’ll easily beat down any foe.

What Mind Meld Device Excels In

• Extremely high physical damage—it can immediately kill most targets, except high-HP bosses, in a single combo round. 
• Comes with a built-in gap closer that has a root and a slow built in as well as triggers any trait-based buffs you have.
• Is unique and fun through its combo mechanic, letting you switch it up if you need a single target, area of effect, or directed damage in a cone. 
• It has built-in expose attacks on all of its attack options, guaranteeing you’ll output maximum damage.

Suus Manha - Martial Arts Finishers are devastating, and Palm Strike is replaced by Engage 

Jab - Expose Attack

A basic melee attack.

___ Physical Damage (___ DPS) (50% Shield Penetration)

+40% Critical Severity

Punch - Expose Attack

___ Physical Damage (___ DPS) (80% Shield Penetration)

50% chance: -66 Run speed for 4.5 sec

Engage - Expose Attack

Charge at an enemy, damaging them and rooting them, or impairing their mobility with subsequent charges.

___ Physical Damage

-47.4% Run Speed for 4 sec

Root for 6 sec (30s cd per target)

How to get Mind Meld Device:

• The Mind Meld Device is gained through the Discovery Reputation as a Tier III item. Like the Lukari weapon, it costs 500 Discovery Marks, 5 P.stellviatori Spore Canisters, 9,000 Refined Dilithium, and 40,000 Energy Credits. 

7. TR-116B Sniper Rifle (Best For Ranged)

If only it had the teleporting bullets through walls option..

The TR-116B was originally used in DS9 by a Vulcan gone mad-it was that gun with the transporting bullets and see-through-walls eyepiece. In Star Trek Online, it forgoes the eyepiece and madness in favor of simply teleporting bullets into enemies. As one can imagine, this makes it extremely useful against the Borg, only beaten out by a later entry on this list.

It was originally only available for pre-order, making it both among the hardest items in the game to get and one of the most powerful, as shield penetrating weapons didn’t exist at the time. Only later, after several expansions, have competitors come to the forefront, but this venerable weapon is still quite powerful and always useful.

Elachi and the Borg are notoriously difficult to kill with regular energy weapons, making things like the TR an amazing weapon to have on hand. Its secondary attack is a sniper shot that does damage and knocks enemies back, preventing enemies like the Borg from walking up to you and Elachi from just roaming away.

All in all, it’s a great gun to have!

What TR-116B Sniper Rifle Excels In

• Perfect shield penetration, which is amazing against Borg and Elachi. 
• High damage per shot, making it great as a single target alpha strike style weapon.
• Easily obtained via crafting now, instead of the very expensive pre-order bonuses that are no longer available. 

TR-116B Rifle - Bolt

Kinetic Damage

__ Kinetic Damage (__ DPS) (100% Shield Penetration)

TR-116B Rifle - Sniper Shot

Exploit Attack

Damage and Knockback

50% chance: Knocks back +12 meters

Expose Attack

Rifle Butt Strikes

__ Physical Damage (__ DPS) (50% Shield Penetration)

How to get TR-116B Sniper Rifle:

• This weapon can be obtained through the Ground Weapons School of the crafting system. You’ll need a R&D School Duty Officer with Ground Weapons specialization.

6. Leck’s Throwing Knives (Best For Ranged)

Who knew that throwing knives would be so dang powerful in the 25th century?

Immediately after the TR116, we have the superior version in Leck’s Throwing Knives! I know, I know, it may seem a little weird that tossing a knife into a Borg drone somehow does better damage than transporting a bullet from a rifle into another room, but here we are.

These things do fantastic shield-penetrating physical damage that also has increased critical chance and critical severity. This means that when built to maximize criticals, you’ll be hitting high numbers with consistency and a rate of fire that the TR116 just can’t match.

These are actually very straightforward-just target an enemy, mash the button, and watch them fall over.

What Leck’s Throwing Knives Excels In 

• Better anti-shield weapon than the TR-116 by a huge margin, thanks to both an AOE attack and high single target DPS.
• When built for critical damage, it does silly amounts of burst damage to targets, even with nerfs. 
• Very easy to get and cheap to upgrade.

Throw Knife

Single Target Ranged Attack

130.6 Physical Damage (130.6 DPS) (100% Shield Penetration)

Exploit attack

Targeted Cone AoE Damage

8 sec recharge

How to get Leck’s Throwing Knives:

• A very easy to get weapon, you only need to finish Quark’s Lucky Seven to get it as a mission reward. This mission is both fun to play and fairly fast, so give it a shot! 

5. Zefram Cochrane Shotgun (Best For Ranged)

Evidentally shotguns were never planned for in the defense committees.

Next on our list is the flat out best shield penetrating weapon in the game. Better than Leck’s, better than the TR-116, better than the Mind Meld Device. In the Mirror Universe, Zefram Cochrane didn’t greet the Vulcans with a handshake, he greeted them with this shotgun.

In terms of stats, it’s actually fairly average. What makes this gun so dang good and applicable to every situation is the built-in cylindrical AOE damage. It acts like a pulsewave rifle, only far better. The raw DPS on it is comparable to Leck’s, but only with Leck’s you’ll hit every target in front of you, with up to three targets being hit. The secondary fire mode can hit five targets in the cone.

That means if you clump everyone up using a kit module like Gravitational Juncture, you can very swiftly destroy the entire mob using your gun's attacks. Plus, with the built-in repel feature, it will occasionally push mobs out of the juncture only for them to get pulled in again, which is useful if you need to disrupt or build distance between you and the mob ball.

Thanks to the burst damage and large area of effect influence, this weapon takes the spot as the best shield-penetrating gun in the game and is well capable of handling things like Undine and the Bugs, which are big HP sponges.

What Zefram Cochrane Shotgun Excels In

• High damage, area of effect damage on both primary and secondary attacks and a built in repel.
• Secondary attack has a 22 meter repel range, easily pushing things like Borg out of assimilation range.
• Damage output is comparable to Leck’s, letting you deal with high HP enemies easily.
• When combined with high control abilities, you can swiftly eliminate most targets at the same time.

Cylindrical AoE Physical Damage and Knockback

__ Physical Damage (__ DPS)

Damage reduces over range

50% chance: +6 Repel

Scatter Shot

Cone AoE Physical Damage and Knockback

66% chance: Knocks back +22.5 meters

How to get Zefram Cochrane Shotgun:

• The shotgun is gained through the Phoenix Prize Pack. It’s been recently updated to cost 1 Ultra Rare prize token, making this weapon fairly difficult to get as it is based on RNG.

4. Advanced Herald Antiproton Beam Projector (Best For Ranged)

Glowy floaty bits meets Jaffa Kree.

The Advanced Herald Antiproton Beam Projector is a weapon from earlier in Star Trek Online’s life that was widely considered the best in the game at the time. While it has been knocked off its throne for a while now, it’s still an excellent weapon that’s relatively easy to get your hands on.

What makes the weapon so good is that it has a chain mechanic attached to its primary fire mode. In addition to having a 5% chance to buff bonus energy damage, up to two targets can be hit by the primary weapon fire. This buff also stacks up to three times, giving you fantastic damage output.

This weapon is really best used by tactical captains, since they have so many inherent buffs to weapon damage and kit modules that improve their damage output, like Ambush. When combined appropriately, it’ll tear through anything that isn’t Borg.

The secondary fire mode is a blast attack that also buffs bonus damage and has a built-in knockback of 8 meters. Not fantastic against the Borg, but useful against bugs, Klingons, or other melee-prone enemies.

What Advanced Herald Antiproton Beam Projector Excels In

• Built in bonus damage mechanic when attacking that amplifies your damage output considerably.
• Has a built-in chain attack for up to two targets, letting you put out huge damage on mobs and otherwise take advantage of kiting to melt enemies.
• Blast attack has a knockback and the same bonus damage feature, letting you cycle between primary and secondary fire to get to that critical three-stack bonus.

Herald Antiproton Cascading Beam

Chaining Antiproton Damage

__ Antiproton Damage x2 (__ DPS)

Chains to up to 2 additional targets (33% less damage per chain)

5% chance: +7% Bonus Energy Damage to Self for 20 sec

(Stacks up to 3 times)

Herald Antiproton Blast

Targeted AoE Antiproton Damage and Knockback

__ Antiproton Damage (__ DPS)

66% chance: Knocks back +8 meters

12 sec recharge

How to get Advanced Herald Antiproton Beam Projector:

• The weapon can be bought in the Lobi store for 50 Lobi. Lobi are gained by opening the lockboxes, which in turn reward 6-20 Lobi per box.

3. Boolean Heavy Assault Cannon (Best For Ranged)

Khan really was kind of epic in that scene wasn't he?

The weapon that knocked the Herald Projector off its throne is still extremely powerful. It’s been nerfed multiple times in the years since its release, but it’s still a heavy hitter, only beaten by our #1 on the list. For a fun little bit of lore, did you know that this was designed to be a turret and that Khan was so strong he wielded it like a one-handed gun? Yeesh!

While it can’t quite live up to the infamous scene anymore, it’s still extremely powerful. It has a built-in knockback to the target and those near the target, a -15 all damage resistance to enemies, and built-in critical severity bonuses.

It doesn’t have an AOE component in its primary attack, but the sheer power of its primary attack is what gets it into the top 3 spots. Combined with the burst power of its secondary, it can shred just about any non-Borg enemy.

What Boolean Heavy Assault Cannon Excels In

• Shredding enemies that normally have high damage resistance thanks to its inherent damage resistance debuffs.
• Fantastic and disrupting groups of enemies thanks to the built-in knockback to the target and those near the target.
• Has high burst damage and DPS because of its secondary attack. 
• Secondary attack knocks targets back 25 meters, which is huge when fighting melee enemies.

Heavy Damage and Knock

___ Disruptor Damage (___ DPS)

20% chance: Knocks back +25 meters

5% chance: -15 All Damage Resistance Rating for 7.5 sec and Knocks back +5 meters to all foes within 5m of target

1.5 sec recharge

Focused Blast

Cylindrical Damage and Knock

Knocks back +25 meters

How to get Boolean Heavy Assault Cannon:

• Like the Herald weapon, this one is another Lobi store item. You’ll need 50 Lobi to unlock this, but it is well worth it for those who enjoy heavy damage and the heavy cannon look. 

2. Discovery Full Auto Phaser Rifle (Best For Ranged)

Note: weapon does not scale.

Consider the Boolean Assault Cannon, but with a stun and a slow. That’s the Discovery Phaser Full Auto Rifle! It comes with those features built in, along with extremely high DPS, the second highest DPS in the game, in fact.

It's not just content to have a stun on the primary weapon fire, it also comes with a secondary weapon fire that hits up to five enemy targets in an AOE cone. This is on a five-second cooldown, which can be reduced further with kit modules and captain traits, with the right combination making it more or less an "infinite fire" button.

So you can see why it made it to the top of the list!

The only thing this weapon doesn’t have is an exploit attack to go with its expose attack-if it had that, it’d easily be #1 by a huge margin. Terrible against the Borg, absolutely fantastic against every other enemy in the game.

What Discovery Full Auto Phaser Rifle Excels In 

• Mass Crowd Control of enemies without even needing kit modules or captain powers. 
• Hugely debilitating against melee enemies of all kinds, since in addition to a stun it also has a -50% run speed for 4 seconds debuff, which refreshes on attacks.
• Second highest raw DPS in the game, with the potential for crits off the (not even exploit) primary attack that can vaporize. 
• A secondary weapon power that hits up to 5 enemies at once on a very short cooldown even without reductions in play. 

Energy Damage

45.8 Phaser Damage

5% chance: Stun and -50% Run Speed for 4 sec (half duration vs player)

+6% Critical Chance

Full Auto Sweep

Cone AoE Phaser Damage

29.3 Phaser Damage x5 (15.3 DPS)

5 sec recharge

20.1 Physical Damage (26.8 DPS) (50% Shield Penetration)

How to get Discovery Full Auto Phaser Rifle:

• As you no doubt have noticed the trend by now, this too is a Lobi weapon! More or less making this a “cash shop” item, but still well worth it. For the price of opening just about 10 lock boxes (50 Lobi), you’ll get a weapon that can be deployed with a ruinous effect on enemies.

1. Portable Phaser Cannon Special Issue (Best For Ranged)

Note: weapon scales in opposite direction. How is she holding it up? Magic!~

And now we come to Number One! What could possibly push the Discovery Rifle off the pedestal? The latest and greatest in Lobi weapons, of course!

Shack’s weapon from Lower Decks has a unique mechanic called "ammo" that you gain when firing the primary mode that then lets you use the secondary mode. Why is this important? Because you can still shoot your primary fire mode while also firing your secondary fire mode. This just makes it a far better version of the Boolean cannon, despite not coming with the inherent damage resistance debuff.

It’s a bit of a hybrid between the Discovery Rifle and the Boolean in the sense of having the Rifle's benefits and the Boolean's raw firepower in a faster package. It has a bleed effect and a "pass through" effect in its secondary mode. The secondary mode also comes with a -75% run speed, a stun, and a chance to give you ammo anyway.

When fully upgraded, there is nothing in the game that comes close to competing with this thing. Even without buffs, kit modules, or traits, it can still output nearly a thousand DPS, which is insanely high for

If you want to have zero issues ever with ground combat, this is the gun for you. Even Borg won’t adapt fast enough to survive it!

What Portable Phaser Cannon Special Issue Excels In

• Best burst damage and DPS in the game, despite having no exploit or expose attacks. 
• Ammo Mechanic is self-sustaining, meaning you don’t have to even pay attention to it. 
• Secondary mode gives you all the benefits of the #2 and #3 weapons with zero drawbacks. 
• Even without a high-end build for your captain or away team, you’ll still demolish anything the game even tries to throw at you.
• Makes Borg run away in fear.

Portable Phaser Cannon Beam

Heavy Damage

__ Phaser Damage initially

__ Phaser Damage each 0.35 sec for 1.05 sec

5% chance: Next Secondary Skill activation within 10 sec has max Ammo

Portable Phaser Cannon Blast

Repeats power once per Ammo. Current Ammo = _

Ammo recharge: 12 sec

Fire a Blast from the Portable Phaser Cannon, hitting target Foe and up to 4 others within a cylinder, with effects based on how long you hold the button.

*0-1 sec: _ Phaser Damage

*1-2 sec: _ Phaser Damage and -75% Speed Running for 5 sec

*2+ sec: _ Phaser Damage and +3 Stun for 3 sec

6 sec recharge

How to get Portable Phaser Cannon Special Issue:

• As mentioned, this is a Lobi weapon. It costs 50 Lobi to get, which is well worth the price for its power!

And there we have it! The top 10 best Star Trek Online ground weapons for you to enjoy! One of the greatest things about Star Trek Online is that you can essentially make any build, and any weapon, work, so feel free to experiment and have fun!

You may also be interested in:

[Top 10] Star Trek Online Best Ship Weapons That Are Powerful

[Top 15] Star Trek Online Best Ships (From Early Till Late Game)

Star Trek Online Best Race - Which To Choose

• Star Trek Online Best Ground Weapons That Are Powerful

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Star Trek Online

Originally posted by cap-boulanger : I've literally been cussed out for using them in a TFO

Originally posted by cyäegha : Originally posted by cap-boulanger : I've literally been cussed out for using them in a TFO

Originally posted by PhotriusPyrelus : Originally posted by cyäegha : i'm surprised anybody actually goes to the effort to bother ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about what particular flavour of beam anybody else is using like, the real-world difference between using the very worst and very best phaser subtype is within the margin of error outside of the top 1% of parses

Originally posted by cap-boulanger : Originally posted by PhotriusPyrelus : It was probably the SCREE SCREE sound. But, like, just turn your sound off for one TFO.

Originally posted by vorik : harpeng torpedo and the transphasic cluster torpedoes are somewhat flashy I suppose (I like how the transphasic cluster of 16 torps just start chasing the target). I think the Eladri(sp?) beam weapons were flashy? those Black Ops Mine clusters look real cool up close, but they are tiny so aren't all that showy. Though destructible, the Romulan Plasma Torpedoes are just big green balls of mediocre death... you could probably match rainbow beam weapons... I like my Fluidic antiproton beams (yellow purple i think), and they look a little different from normal antiproton beams (red orange i think), iirc. blue covariant phasers i think, green plasma beam weapons, i think elachi ones were these wavy purple pink things, oh they were like boomerang-shaped blasts. i wouldn't mind beam weapons that matched my Star Wars Old Republic special edition yellow-black khyber crystal :)

Originally posted by cap-boulanger : Originally posted by vorik : harpeng torpedo and the transphasic cluster torpedoes are somewhat flashy I suppose (I like how the transphasic cluster of 16 torps just start chasing the target). I think the Eladri(sp?) beam weapons were flashy? those Black Ops Mine clusters look real cool up close, but they are tiny so aren't all that showy. Though destructible, the Romulan Plasma Torpedoes are just big green balls of mediocre death... you could probably match rainbow beam weapons... I like my Fluidic antiproton beams (yellow purple i think), and they look a little different from normal antiproton beams (red orange i think), iirc. blue covariant phasers i think, green plasma beam weapons, i think elachi ones were these wavy purple pink things, oh they were like boomerang-shaped blasts. i wouldn't mind beam weapons that matched my Star Wars Old Republic special edition yellow-black khyber crystal :)

Originally posted by cap-boulanger : You can certainly do a type-matched build that is rainbow-colored, especially with phasers.

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The Demon Slayer Event!

By Ambassador Kael | Sat 27 Apr 2024 08:00:00 AM PDT

The Iconian War was the most devastating event in the history of all four quadrants of our galaxy. An ancient, highly advanced, race, long thought extinct, rose from hiding and made war upon the universe. The only bright spot of the hard fought victory was its ability to bring the universe together – it is likely that, without the Iconian War, we wouldn’t have the Khitomer Alliance today. With that in mind, we are giving Captains on PC a chance to return to this war and experience it again – or for the first time – from May 2 nd at 8am PT to May 23 rd at 12pm PT.

The Demon Slayer Event will be the next part of our current Event Campaign, and will include the following three Task Force Operations:

• Herald Sphere
• Gateway to Gre'thor
• Brotherhood of the Sword

Upon completing 14 days of progress in the Demon Slayer Event, players will receive the following, alongside 3 Featured TFO Reward Boxes, and 20,000 Dilithium (Note: The Featured TFO Boxes and Dilithium Ore are only rewarded once, to the first character on your account that claims the Grand Prize.):

Herald Defiler Mace

This massive energy-infused weapon has been seen wielded by the Herald Defilers. The weight and power of the weapon requires using it with two hands. Melee Critical Hits with this weapon deal additional Antiproton damage with each hit, and have a chance of pulling other nearby Foes closer to you. There is a brief cooldown on this effect.

Space Weapons: Omni-Directional Herald Antiproton Beam Array and Wide Arc Herald Antiproton Dual Heavy Cannons

The Omni-Directional Herald Antiproton Beam Array offers a 360-degree firing arc, in addition to being able to utilize the standard functions of Beam Array weapons.

This weapon shares an equip limit with other crafted and weapon pack Omni-Directional Beams.

Beam Arrays are the most common and versatile weapons available. They fire a series of average damage beams across a wide arc. Energy weapons are equally effective against starship shields and hull. Herald Antiproton weapons have a chance to give you bonus damage for a short duration.

The Wide Arc Herald Antiproton Dual Heavy Cannons offer a wider 90-degree firing arc, in addition to being able to utilize the standard functions of Dual Heavy Cannon weapons.

Only one Wide Arc Dual Heavy Cannon may be equipped at a time.

Dual Heavy Cannons fire a quick, very high damage burst in a very narrow firing arc. Energy weapons are equally effective against starship shields and hull. Herald Antiproton weapons have a chance to give you bonus damage for a short duration.

Bonus Rewards

After claiming the Grand Prize, you will unlock the option of earning additional Dilithium Ore each day that you continue participating in the content associated with this event. Each day you earn the Daily Progress you will be automatically granted a bundle of Dilithium Ore.

This bonus reward will begin at 8,000 Dilithium Ore for the first day’s completion, then scales up with each subsequent bonus completion that you achieve. The more you play, the more you continue to earn!

Zen Buyout Option

For players interested in instantly completing this event – whether that is due to worries over finding the play time to complete it, or simply wanting to move immediately into earning Bonus Rewards – we will be offering a method for buying out.

Within the Event UI, an option will be presented that allows you to purchase the remaining progress that you need, for a scaling amount of Zen. The base price for this service will be 2,000 Zen, but every single Daily Progress that you earn will reduce that price on a percentage basis. Thus, if you have already earned 7 Daily Progress (half of the 14 required), this price will be reduced for you down to 1,000 Zen. The more you play, the cheaper the Buyout Option becomes, dynamically!

Event Campaign

This Featured Event will be the third of a series of upcoming Events that will participate in the latest installment of our multi-event system known as an Event Campaign. For 2024, we're changing things up a bit. You'll need to participate in six events in total in order to earn the Grand Prize. However, the Grand Prize is changing, as well. Instead of having to choose between a Tier 6 Infinity Promotional Ship of your choice, Two Free T6 Zen Store Coupons, or 1500 Lobi, you will receive  all three . No more difficult choices, just get all of the rewards at once!

• Players may earn 50 Event Campaign Progress for each day they participate in an eligible event.
• Buying out an eligible event will include up to 700 Event Campaign Progress.
• Each event’s buyout only grants as much Event Campaign Progress as is relative to the amount paid, after pro-rated discounts are applied. This means that paying half price, (because you participated in 7 out of 14 of the required days so far) will grant you 350 Event Campaign Progress. Essentially, you get what you pay for.
• Complete the entire campaign to unlock a Tier 6 Infinity Promotional Ship of your choice, Two Free T6 Zen Store Coupons, and 1500 Lobi.

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In Star Trek Online there are various types of weaponry available to players for both space and ground combat .

Types of Weapons [ | ]

• Ship Weapons
• Ground Weapons