[noybman]

What is the goal for a DPS tactical build? Move fast, turn fast, deal lots of damage. This means you are considering dual beams, or dual cannons.  The most amount of damage is dealt facing forward, or rear. With a few ships out there, you can get 5 fwd facing weapons. So the focus should really be facing fwd, and this means, you really need to focus hard on ensuring you can always face forward.


So sweeping strike, or sit-n-spin, turn rate matters.  This means your 3 biggest concerns are:

1. Movement/Turn
   
2. DPS (focus on cannons, OR beams, OR kinetic) Never split. it just doesn't do the trick.
   
3. Shields and Energy: this is a special case, You want as much as you can get of shield, and power.
   [indent] Your POWER levels affect shield regen, engine ability, and weapon power avail, thus DPS!
   Skills for actual SHIELD improvement are a must because most escort style ships have diminished shield effectiveness[/indent]
   

• Extra Note:  Science abilities, mostly useless, but there is some thought to go into warp plasma.
  
• Remember, you are moving a lot, so why not dump warp plasma in the process?  This is something worth remembering, but Im not advocating it.
  

Ship integrity matters quite a lot, it keeps you alive, but honestly, shields are more important. You are moving a lot, and try not to be hit. In a thick battle, you can always run for a quick regen.

I used the advice from these three sites, and I found something wrong with them all, so mix and match and use some common sense for your own needs.  When Im finally done with my build I will post it here, but in the meantime, read away and suggest away!

Not a bad reference guide.  --> outdated and incomplete, but a damn good reference to help you decide whether or not to spend points, or more importantly, if its worth spending more than 6 (7-9 is almost always diminishing returns).

Here's a tactical build.. with a few errors Can you spot the not?  I find myself in disagreement with:
Tactical Systems:
Threat Control -- WHY? You are a tactical officer looking to do damage, not take it. Avoid this at ALL costs. Let a carrier player with Engineering or Science Buffs be the "threat"

Engineering Systems:
Driver Coil:  there should be points here. Maxed-no, but yes... PUT points here. You are tactical and an escort, there is no such thing as too much ability to move. Better power levels and impulse ability? You use impulse in battle.
Starship Batteries: WHY? Honestly, if you think you need battery BUFF's, you are doing something really wrong. Despite there are MUCH better things to stick in your 'DEVICES' slots, that batteries are a joke. As mentioned above, put good points into power availability level skills. That is much more sensible. (IMHO)
Warp Core Potential: Too many points here, you definitely want it, but based on the diminishing results shown in my previous link, it looks like "5" is the magic number. 6 perhaps, but NO MORE.
*Captain Level Engineering Systems: Across the board you should be doing these, you need to stay alive, and you need to move. This is a YMMV (your mileage may vary) but consider maxing these all.
Starship Weapon Performance: This should really be a "6" point skill. Its almost unfathomable why you wouldn't. You want to do damage, and move, and shield heal, you need POWER! (and you shouldn't be worrying about batteries). I'm somewhat confident this player ran out of points, or they would have added more here. Aim for 6!

Science and Operation Systems:
Not much to complain about here. He/She got it right.
My recommendation is to consider 3-6 in some skill to support the fact that we ALL use science for something. The problem is, if you do, something above will suffer.
Starship Particle Generators: Its worth a look-see. Plasma can be deadly, and since you are zip zooming around, keep it in mind.
All other non-committed skills here can be worth a look, but sincerely, this is your last look (*after you've addressed all above).

Good No BS Skill applicability Advice  I found the advice here quite accurate. (from Tactical perspective only, which is the intent). Use this as a guide for all advice given.

Forum, worth a read.
Not worth a read unless you are uber geeking it

Please offer your thoughts.

[StrikeGroup.enjin]

A lot of good info, thanks for posting it.
Now that I've hit level 50, and read this, I realize I didn't do TOO badly on my skill choices. But I did grab a few skills it looks like I won't want. (I took some threat control, thinking about PVP damage resistance - however, Borg cubes love me. A lot.)
The respec token says I get to pick new traits (something else I could use guidance on). Does it also refund/respec skills?

[noybman]

no, there is a respec token for traits, for skills, and so forth so on. They want our money. Be careful when buying your respec token(s).
The captain traits are up there a bit - you can buy traits on exchange too, so getting some EC and planning that out can help. Also, for space activity, have a joined trill host has extra traits of a much wanted nature for us space focused captains.

[Thad.enjin]

Pretty close to what I came up with on my own. The only science skills I put into were for shield healing. There's two of them.cant remember the names. Also remember that your boff traits help too. Having human boffs helps hull regen (leadership trait). For my captains traits, since I avoid ground combat like the plague, I went with all space traits. You have enough slots for all space traits at VA. Since science and engineering abilities are very limited on escorts, be careful on your boff abilities. Good ones to look at are transfer shield strength and hazzard emitters for science and emergency power to shields and reverse shield polarity for engineering. The science and engineering team abilities have shared cool downs with tactical team, of which you should have two instances of and be running all the time so those are out. Hazzard emitters helps negate the plasma proc and in a pinch can be used to heal a buddy. Same with transfer shield strength. Some people swear by having emergency power to weapons but since you should be running at 125 weapons power at all times, I find it useless.

he was right with focusing on one weapon type. I typically run 4 fore dual heavy cannons and two aft turrets with the kinetic cutting beam in back as well. If you do the math on weapon power usage, having over 6 energy weapons usually just hurts because your weapon power goes down too much. So be careful with that.

generally its a good idea to run with base energy levels at 100 weapons, 30 shields, 50 engines and 20 aux. With the power level skills and good gear, you should have enough buffs to power to make up the difference. This will be different with each build, but it gives you a base to play with.

there is a ton of info out there for escorts, but they all say the same basics. Focus on weapons, turn rate, and shield capacity.

I could go on for a while, but its a pain to post from a phone....