That's a huge topic... My personal preference are consoles that provide in rough order of importance:
- +Weapon subsystem power
- +Shield/Engine/Aux subsystem power
- +Critical Chance [CrtH] or +Critical Severity [CrtD]
- +Damage
- +Accuracy for beam weapons (because accuracy overflow on beam weapons provides +CrtD)
- +Flow Capacitors (because they further increase Plasmonic Leech's power)
Based on the above criteria, these are the consoles that I equip on ALL my ships:
- Vulnerability Locators (fill every single tac console slot on your ship): +31.9% damage, +1.6% CrtH
- Assimilated Module: +5 Weapon Power, +9.2% CrtD, +0.92% CritH
- Plasmonic Leech with with 9 skill in Flow Capacitors: +20 Weapon, Shield, Engine, Aux power
- Tachokinetic Converter: +7.6% CrtD, +0.76% CrtH
- Zero Point Energy Conduit: +1.8 Weapon, Shield, Engine, Aux power, +1.8% CrtH
Other consoles that are worth a mention for their build-specific usefulness include:
Bioneural Infusion Circuits: +15.2% CrtD. Provides a huge critical severity boost, but it is a very expensive console hence only really worth it if you have already the above 5 consoles and lots of spare Lobi crystals.
For ships that uses Beam Arrays or Dual Beam Banks, it is worth considering slotting in Nukara Console for +3 Shield Power and +10% Accuracy to beam arrays. This is especially true if you're also using tetryon beams. Combined with the Hyper-Dual Refracting Dual Beam Bank gives a set bonus of +7.6 Tetryon damage and +15.2 Flow caps.
For ships that use Plasma weapons, Romulan Embassy consoles that provide +plasma damage.
For ships that use Phaser or Disruptor weapons, it is worth considering slotting the Hydrodynamics Compensator and Multi-Energy Relay consoles from the undine weapon set for their +20.1% Phaser and Disruptor Damage. I have not tested them out in combat due to suffering from network issues but on paper, they've increased my Vesta's phaser beam array damage by +20 even though I had to drop one Vulnerability Locator (-31.9% damage). yeah, I'm still trying to puzzle out how -11.8% damage results in +20 damage.
