How to Parse DPS
What is DPS parsing?
STO can produce a file that shows how much damage is inflicted every time a player's or NPC's weapons strike. Third party software reads this file, adds up all those numbers to find the damage each player did, divides that number by the time spent in combat, and produces a player's average damage per second (DPS).
Why do players parse DPS?
1. To compare gear and skills - Cryptic puts out a lot of new gear and skills all the time, but most of it isn't better than previously released gear and skills. Parsing provides information that can be used to evaluate parts of one's build. For example, plasma, phased biomatter, and antiproton weapons all deal some extra damage as their proc, but in different ways. Which one does the most extra damage, and is it enough to care about? Without parsing, it would be impossible to tell.
2. To get into the DPS channels - There are channels for people who can do more than 10,000, 30,000, 50,000, and 75,000 DPS in ISA. Groups form there to run PVEs, and they succeed far more often than pugs do. Also, it's fun to talk with people there.
3. To nerd out on numbers and statistics and charts - A parser will not only tell you how much damage you're doing, but also your crit rate, your heals per second, the damage each weapon does, the damage each pet does.... And it gives charts.
4. To compete with other players - You can upload your parse and compare yourself to thousands of other players on the DPS league tables. It turns PVE into PVP.
Which parser should you use?
There are a few third-party programs out there that parse DPS. Some are specific to STO and some are not.
I use STO Combat Meter (SCM) and it's what I used for this guide. I like the user interface and it's the parser you have to use to get into the DPS channels and to view the DPS league tables.
So... how do you parse?
1. Download and install SCM.
2. Run a mission. Type "/combatlog 1" in the chat field (without the quote marks) to start the log at the beginning of the mission. Fight some (STO will not create an empty log). Type "/combatlog 0" to close the log at the end of the mission.
3. Open SCM.
Click "browse" and set the path to the Combaglog.txt file (A). Go to the folder that houses the executable for STO, then to the logs folder, then the GameClient folder, and it should be there. On my machine, the path is C:\Program Files (x86)\Star Trek Online_en\Star Trek Online\Live\logs\GameClient, but it may be different on your computer.
4. Click analyse (B ). Your DPS and other key statistics are below the bar graph (C). If you want to see a line graph click "DPS Chart" (D).
In this round, my DPS was pretty low in the beginning but climbed up after the first third of the round, which made sense to me since I knew I messed up the initial cube and was slow in moving to the left transformer.
For more detailed statistics, click "Player Combat Analysis Report" (E).
This provides some more details, like how much damage each weapon did, your critical hit rate, how much damage pets and procs did, the percent of your shots that were flanking.... It's just more information to help you with your build and your piloting.
Why does everyone parse DPS in ISA?
Infected: The Conduit (Advanced) - ISA - is the standard mission used to compare DPS and to qualify for the DPS channels. When someone says their DPS is a certain number, they usually mean that it's their DPS in a round of ISA because DPS varies depending on the mission being run.
ISA is standard for DPS parsing because teams stick close together (the Combatlog.txt file is less accurate for players farther away from the parsing player), combat is nearly constant with only one small break and little travel between enemies, enemies always spawn in the same places and numbers, the mission is easy enough that players with relatively low DPS can still beat it, and cannons and torpedoes can compete with beams because enemies are close together (good for cannons) and there are unshielded targets (good for torpedoes).
If you want to get into the DPS channels, parse a round of ISA (a PUG or a fleet run) from the beginning to the end. If you get over 10,000 DPS, click "Upload results" (F). You will get an invitation in the next couple of days, and you can join by clicking the gear next to the chat field, going to Chat Settings, clicking the Channels tab, finding DPS-10,000, and clicking "Join." (The channels' moderators can only send you an invitation; you still have to join the channel to participate in it.)
If you want to check out your place in the DPS league tables or look at parses from other people's rounds (to get an idea about what builds are producing those big DPS numbers), click "The Official DPS League" (G).
Can you parse ground combat?
Of course! It works the same way, but the numbers will be smaller.
If you want to get into the ground DPS channels (DPS-G-200 and DPS-G-400), parse a full round of Nukara Prime: Transdimensional Tactics (Elite) - aka NTTE - and upload your results. These channels are less chatty than the space DPS channels, but they're a great place to find teams for elite ground tours to earn dilithium, salvaged tech, and reputation marks quickly.
How high should my DPS be?
Increasing DPS has both costs and benefits, and how far you go depends on what those costs and benefits are for you and how much you care about them. The benefits include making the game less frustrating, getting rewards faster, and the fun of pushing that number up. The costs include time (to learn the game, grind gear, and run ISA), money (to get ships and fancy gear faster), and play-style diversity (while any type of build - healers, tanks, etc. - can do decent DPS, at a certain point you'll have to focus on damage output to get really big numbers from your ship).
A good goal to set is 10,000 DPS. This DPS is high enough that advanced content can be beaten, but low enough that any career or faction or (T5/T5U/T6) ship or play-style (cc, tank, etc.) can achieve it. 10K requires a basic knowledge of STO, like how to set up a build, how to manage weapons power, how to get into firing range quickly, and how to get keybinds and controls set up to use BOFF and captain skills effectively, all of which are good things to know no matter how you play the game.
10K is also fairly cheap. For example, I recently parsed my ground toon's space DPS. He has no reputation or fleet space gear and uses hand-me-downs and cheap stuff from the exchange for gear, and I got 19K DPS (and I didn't even switch to space traits). What did it was knowledge of the game's mechanics, not-terrible MK XIV weapons (phaser DHCs and turrets), and the experience of having run ISA several hundred times.
Last, 10K DPS will get you into the most populated and talkative DPS channel, where you can do your CCA runs quickly at the next Crystalline Catastrophe event.
STO can produce a file that shows how much damage is inflicted every time a player's or NPC's weapons strike. Third party software reads this file, adds up all those numbers to find the damage each player did, divides that number by the time spent in combat, and produces a player's average damage per second (DPS).
Why do players parse DPS?
1. To compare gear and skills - Cryptic puts out a lot of new gear and skills all the time, but most of it isn't better than previously released gear and skills. Parsing provides information that can be used to evaluate parts of one's build. For example, plasma, phased biomatter, and antiproton weapons all deal some extra damage as their proc, but in different ways. Which one does the most extra damage, and is it enough to care about? Without parsing, it would be impossible to tell.
2. To get into the DPS channels - There are channels for people who can do more than 10,000, 30,000, 50,000, and 75,000 DPS in ISA. Groups form there to run PVEs, and they succeed far more often than pugs do. Also, it's fun to talk with people there.
3. To nerd out on numbers and statistics and charts - A parser will not only tell you how much damage you're doing, but also your crit rate, your heals per second, the damage each weapon does, the damage each pet does.... And it gives charts.
4. To compete with other players - You can upload your parse and compare yourself to thousands of other players on the DPS league tables. It turns PVE into PVP.
Which parser should you use?
There are a few third-party programs out there that parse DPS. Some are specific to STO and some are not.
I use STO Combat Meter (SCM) and it's what I used for this guide. I like the user interface and it's the parser you have to use to get into the DPS channels and to view the DPS league tables.
So... how do you parse?
1. Download and install SCM.
2. Run a mission. Type "/combatlog 1" in the chat field (without the quote marks) to start the log at the beginning of the mission. Fight some (STO will not create an empty log). Type "/combatlog 0" to close the log at the end of the mission.
3. Open SCM.
Click "browse" and set the path to the Combaglog.txt file (A). Go to the folder that houses the executable for STO, then to the logs folder, then the GameClient folder, and it should be there. On my machine, the path is C:\Program Files (x86)\Star Trek Online_en\Star Trek Online\Live\logs\GameClient, but it may be different on your computer.
4. Click analyse (B ). Your DPS and other key statistics are below the bar graph (C). If you want to see a line graph click "DPS Chart" (D).
In this round, my DPS was pretty low in the beginning but climbed up after the first third of the round, which made sense to me since I knew I messed up the initial cube and was slow in moving to the left transformer.
For more detailed statistics, click "Player Combat Analysis Report" (E).
This provides some more details, like how much damage each weapon did, your critical hit rate, how much damage pets and procs did, the percent of your shots that were flanking.... It's just more information to help you with your build and your piloting.
Why does everyone parse DPS in ISA?
Infected: The Conduit (Advanced) - ISA - is the standard mission used to compare DPS and to qualify for the DPS channels. When someone says their DPS is a certain number, they usually mean that it's their DPS in a round of ISA because DPS varies depending on the mission being run.
ISA is standard for DPS parsing because teams stick close together (the Combatlog.txt file is less accurate for players farther away from the parsing player), combat is nearly constant with only one small break and little travel between enemies, enemies always spawn in the same places and numbers, the mission is easy enough that players with relatively low DPS can still beat it, and cannons and torpedoes can compete with beams because enemies are close together (good for cannons) and there are unshielded targets (good for torpedoes).
If you want to get into the DPS channels, parse a round of ISA (a PUG or a fleet run) from the beginning to the end. If you get over 10,000 DPS, click "Upload results" (F). You will get an invitation in the next couple of days, and you can join by clicking the gear next to the chat field, going to Chat Settings, clicking the Channels tab, finding DPS-10,000, and clicking "Join." (The channels' moderators can only send you an invitation; you still have to join the channel to participate in it.)
If you want to check out your place in the DPS league tables or look at parses from other people's rounds (to get an idea about what builds are producing those big DPS numbers), click "The Official DPS League" (G).
Can you parse ground combat?
Of course! It works the same way, but the numbers will be smaller.
If you want to get into the ground DPS channels (DPS-G-200 and DPS-G-400), parse a full round of Nukara Prime: Transdimensional Tactics (Elite) - aka NTTE - and upload your results. These channels are less chatty than the space DPS channels, but they're a great place to find teams for elite ground tours to earn dilithium, salvaged tech, and reputation marks quickly.
How high should my DPS be?
Increasing DPS has both costs and benefits, and how far you go depends on what those costs and benefits are for you and how much you care about them. The benefits include making the game less frustrating, getting rewards faster, and the fun of pushing that number up. The costs include time (to learn the game, grind gear, and run ISA), money (to get ships and fancy gear faster), and play-style diversity (while any type of build - healers, tanks, etc. - can do decent DPS, at a certain point you'll have to focus on damage output to get really big numbers from your ship).
A good goal to set is 10,000 DPS. This DPS is high enough that advanced content can be beaten, but low enough that any career or faction or (T5/T5U/T6) ship or play-style (cc, tank, etc.) can achieve it. 10K requires a basic knowledge of STO, like how to set up a build, how to manage weapons power, how to get into firing range quickly, and how to get keybinds and controls set up to use BOFF and captain skills effectively, all of which are good things to know no matter how you play the game.
10K is also fairly cheap. For example, I recently parsed my ground toon's space DPS. He has no reputation or fleet space gear and uses hand-me-downs and cheap stuff from the exchange for gear, and I got 19K DPS (and I didn't even switch to space traits). What did it was knowledge of the game's mechanics, not-terrible MK XIV weapons (phaser DHCs and turrets), and the experience of having run ISA several hundred times.
Last, 10K DPS will get you into the most populated and talkative DPS channel, where you can do your CCA runs quickly at the next Crystalline Catastrophe event.
