Overview: These ships specialise in exotic abilities, generating gravitic anomalies and bathing hapless foes in destructive radiation – if you love unconventional tactics, science ships may be your thing.

Characteristics: These ships generally have strong shields but a weak hull, so shield bypassing exotic damage will probably be both your weakness and your strength. They also possess medium manoeuvrability, and you’ll find your survivability increasing if you quickly move out of hazards and crossfires.

Science ships only have six weapon slots, making them the least heavily armed ship class. As such, relying on energy weapon volleys can be a poor idea. They do come with an innate sensor analysis ability that can make a ship vulnerable to your attacks though, so your guns are not useless. Furthermore, science vessels mount a special secondary deflector that can boost your exotic abilities, allowing you to deal a large amount of radiation damage.

One should also note that science vessels have access to the most powerful control and area-denial abilities in the game. Dragging a large number of foes together and disabling them with Gravity Well III can rapidly change the course of a battle.

Sensor Analysis: Toggle this ability to boost your damage and drain effects against the marked enemy target, or mark an ally to improve your healing capabilities. This is a nasty debuff that takes time to ramp up, so make sure you apply it to tough targets.

Secondary Deflector: These apply a boost to one category of science ability – there are support, control and drain focused deflectors, so you can choose one to suit your tastes. I personally prefer the deteriorating sub-type, adding a hefty radiation damage over time effect to your drain abilities. This can be combined with Charged Particle Burst to affect all enemies in a 5k radius sphere, or with Tachyon Beam to consistently apply it to single targets. Secondary deflectors can also have unique mods that enhance your Sensor Analysis and Subsystem Targeting abilities, applying extra debuffs or improving their bonuses.

Subsystem Targeting: All science ships come with built in subsystem targeting abilities – these are not hugely useful, but can be used to soften up a major target – if you’ve got a decent amount of drain expertise via your science consoles or skill tree. These are functionally identical to the tactical bridge officer abilities that share their name, and will put your other energy-weapon abilities (Beam: Overload, etc) on cooldown.

Multi-Mission Vessel: A sub-class or science ship that trades a little durability and mobility for a single hangar bay to fill with support craft of your choice. This can be a good choice if you want a little extra versatility, and the explosive plasma torpedoes from a wing of Scorpions can sync up nicely with Gravity Well. Pets can provide point defence against mines and torpedoes if you select the intercept behaviour – a decent option considering the fragile hull of most science vessels.

Scout Ships: Special mention goes to these hybrid vessels that blend secondary deflectors and sensor analysis with raider flanking. These unusual ships are flexible and capable of handing out serious damage despite their diminutive size. They can use their flanking to good effect against ships disabled by drain and control effects!

Suggestions: So here’s a few ideas to get you started on a science build.

• Set your auxiliary power high – most exotic abilities scale based on your auxiliary power, so make sure this is constantly high, either by setting the power level manually or by using Emergency Power to Auxiliary.
• Particle Manipulator – this trait is a freebie unlocked by reaching rank 15 in science R&D, and it should be in every science build. Expect a huge boost in exotic damage critical chance and damage for almost no cost.
• Combine abilities – almost all exotic abilities have an area of effect, so using something like Gravity Well to draw enemies together means you can hit them all at once for massive damage.
• Some torpedoes deal exotic damage and can work very well on a science vessel – the particle emission plasma torpedo is craftable or available on the exchange, and can be a lethal addition to your build.
• The Temporal Operative specialisation is a great choice, boosting every aspect of a science vessel and offering an “escape” when too many enemies focus on you after an exotic attack.

Should I fly One: Science vessels are great if you love showy effects, using energy discharges to mangle a whole battlegroup at once or disabling a capital ship with drain effects, radiation and astro-physical phenomena. On the flip side, they are poor when it comes to raw weapon fire since they tend to rely on exotic damage in combat. They also lack the speed of an escort or the durability of a cruiser, which can leave you in an odd place combined with your ability to damage a large number of enemies at once. Pick a science ship if you are willing to plan your attacks, combining abilities on your target to deal massive area damage before backing off to repair and recharge.