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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Topics - Dark.Revenant

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1
In the fleet screen, Venture's description is:

Quote
Tough, dependable and not overly expensive, Venture-class cruisers are usually purchased by private corporations for escort duty or refitted by small non-aligned worlds for system defense.

It should be:

Quote
Tough and dependable, the Venture is usually fitted with a good missile complement but lacks the sustained damage output needed to do well in prolonged engagements. A built-in mining drone bay provides additional defenses - a particularly good thing because the civilian-grade power generators make the shields easy to overwhelm.

2
combatFreighterCombatUseFractionWhenPriority is set to 0.2 and a large-sized combat freighter (for example the Venture) is marked Priority.  No other ships are marked Priority.

Expected behavior: 20% of cruisers will be Ventures.
Actual behavior: 100% of cruisers are Ventures.

Expected behavior is established if (in the above example), all cruiser-sized ships are marked Priority.  In effect, the Priority is overriding the CombatUseFraction; a fraction of 0 means no Ventures, a fraction of >0 means all Ventures; 0.2 is essentially identical to 1.

3
Likely unintentional.  The Tri-Tachyon don't spawn the Wolf either.  The regular Wolf seems to be, bizarrely, a mercenary exclusive.

Oddly, the independents have the Hyperion and Scarab, but the mercenaries don't.

Also, I don't know if it's actually affecting anything, but the variant overrides for the Luddic Path are oddly weighted at 30 instead of the usual 10.

4
Fleet danger assessment is impacted far too much by the presence of d-mods.  This is most noticeable with the Remnant ghost, since it's comprised of powerful, officered ships that are covered in d-mods%u2014especially carriers, which are not as negatively affected by d-mods as other types of ships.  At one point it showed me a 2-star assessment, which I was skeptical of... so I saved and tried to fight it.  It was a one-sided slaughter; I had absolutely no hope of victory.

Internally, 0 d-mods is a 1.5x multiplier within the strength assessor in Misc, and each d-mod reduces that multiplier by 0.2, to a minimum of 0.5x after five d-mods.  Thus a ship with 5 d-mods has a 0.5x strength multiplier, i.e. 1/3 the strength of an otherwise identical but fully restored ship.  This is frankly way too much with the current d-mod effects.


Generally speaking, a ship with half the stats in a few major categories is roughly half the performance, if we ignore the finer points about armor cells and weapon/engine mounts.  I'd say there are about four stats that, if you were to halve all of them, would result in a half-strength ship: flux capacity, flux dissipation, hull, and armor.  Other major stats that would have similar impact include speed, maneuverability, range, shield/phase efficiency, and CR.  For carriers, the impact is split between d-mods that affect the mothership, and d-mods that affect the fighters.  This generally means that carriers are affected less by d-mods, since they get the same severity of d-mods as regular combat ships, but comparatively less of their performance is affected by them.

Specifically:
Compromised Armor: -20% to one stat.
Compromised Hull: -30% to one stat.
Damaged Flight Deck: -30% to one particularly major carrier stat.
Damaged Weapon Mounts: -30% to one relatively minor stat, -25% to one relatively minor stat.
Defective Manufactory: -25% to two carrier stats.
Degraded Engines: -15% to two stats.
Degraded Life Support: -7.5% to one particularly major stat.
Degraded Shields: -10% to one particularly major stat.
Erratic Fuel Injector: -20% to one relatively minor stat.
Faulty Power Grid: -15% to two stats.
Glitched Sensor Array: -10% to one particularly major stat.
Increased Maintenance: -7.5% to one particularly major stat.
Malfunctioning Comms: -40% to one carrier stat.
Phase Coil Instability: -33% to one stat and -30% to one relatively minor stat.
Structural Damage: -20% to two stats.
Unreliable Subsystems: -30% to one relatively minor stat.

Mathematically, on average for a non-carrier ship, each d-mod is equivalent to a 6% penalty to the ship's performance, going by the 4-stat theory.  This is consistent with Derelict Operations reducing the deployment cost by 6% per d-mod.  If a carrier's performance is evenly split between fighters and direct combat strength, then it's more like a 3.5% penalty for those carriers.  For shieldless/phaseless ships, flux capacity is barely a minor stat, so the overall pool of meaningful stats is lower and we can approximate about an 8% penalty per d-mod.

That 6% figure is far smaller than the roughly 13.5% penalty that the strength assessment algorithm currently assumes, and for carriers it's almost twice as bad.


If it were instead a 1.2x multiplier with 0 d-mods and -0.08x per d-mod, it would still conservatively overestimate the effects of d-mods, but that's fine because compound penalties tend to be slightly exponential when applied to a single ship.  The 5 d-mod remnant ships would be treated as 2/3 their original strength, rather than 1/3; in other words, it would show four or five stars of danger instead of two, which feels way more accurate.  This could be further broken down to react differently with regards to carriers, perhaps by decreasing the penalty to 0.065x for combat carriers and 0.05x for pure carriers.  I'd suggest a similar thing for Derelict Operations as well; the 6% DP reduction really ought to be 3% or 4% for carriers.

This has trickle-down effects to ship quality from the inflater parameters and, by extension, the faction doctrine system.  Right now, ship quality is rather important for auto-resolve strength, but ship quantity does way more for actually winning battles in-engine.  As an aside: officers are also slightly overestimated (+20% ship strength per level); it's probably closer to +15%, but that's close enough for a rough estimate because stacking bonuses tend to be slightly exponential when applied to a single ship.

5
Bug Reports & Support / [0.95a-RC15] Raid-for-blueprints exploit
« on: May 12, 2021, 12:30:00 PM »
It is possible, by judiciously refusing to learn the 4 most expensive blueprints known by a faction, to manipulate the ground raid blueprint picker into always providing duplicates of those expensive blueprints.



This can result in consistently over a million credits of looted value per raid, from blueprints alone.

Side note: getQuantityRange() appears to always produce the result of 3-4 blueprints, because bpUseScale is typically over 1000 and the top bracket looks for 8+.  I don't know if that's intentional.

6
The Codex strips any ship with d-mods.  Unfortunately, this means the Luddic Path skins, the Mudskipper Mk.2, and mod-added base hulls such as the Venom-X from Underworld don't show up in the Codex.

I suggest disabling this behavior and just adding HIDE_IN_CODEX to the old D-skins.

7
For instance, if a ship has no or few Fighter Bays in the main hull, but several Fighter Bays on modules, you’re making off like a bandit.

8
See subject.  Unsure if it happens 100% of the time, but it's noticeable often.  You see the true values when you close and reopen the weapon groups dialog.

9
As the title says.  This could make early game colonization a bit safer and more interactive, and help make small colonies later down the line require less babysitting.

10
Code
105881 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.A.new.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.A.new.<init>(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.String.<init>(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.P.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.oOOo.addIconFor(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.ui.oOOo.<init>(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.StandardTooltipV2$9.public.float(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.ui.impl.StandardTooltipV2$9.beforeShown(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.C.o00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.campaign.CampaignState.advance(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.BaseGameState.traverse(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

This crash is triggered when the player mouses over an NPC fleet when the following combination of conditions apply:
  • A ship-with-modules is present in the fleet
  • That ship-with-modules has a cloned or otherwise custom variant with the REFIT variant source (i.e. it's permanently inflated)
  • The game was previously saved whilst the fleet existed in the game world

There does not appear to be a workaround with regards to cloning or otherwise changing the IDs of the module variants.  I have not tried resetting the module variants to be stock variants, but that would defeat the purpose of the feature I was adding.

I can't begin to imagine what the root cause of this crash is, and I'm out of ideas to fix it on my end.

11
General Discussion / Station Balance - Methodical Analysis
« on: July 31, 2019, 01:38:38 AM »
As I personally have never created a station in Starsector before, and yet am endeavoring to do so, I reasoned that I need a repeatable test procedure to measure stations.  This would help me determine the overall strength of the station, at least as a reasonable preliminary balance point.

After creating a test-bench and a methodology to go along with it, I began measuring the vanilla stations to establish a baseline to judge my own creations upon.  This led me to some interesting discoveries that, in some cases, confirm "metagame" assumptions about the stations.  In other cases, however, the test results directly contradict accepted "metagame" knowledge.

Test Method
  • Use a battle size of 500, and all other gameplay settings (such as max ships per fleet) are left at vanilla defaults.
  • Use the mods Ship and Weapon Pack, Underworld, Interstellar Imperium, and any applicable faction mod required to spawn the station being tested.
    • The rationale for this is simple: my goal for this was ultimately to make Imperium stations, so that mod contains the testbench and is included by default.
    • In addition, SWP is required for the procedural faction framework I used.
    • Since the Imperium and SWP mods are already included, I added Underworld because just about everyone who is playing with the former two mods will be using UW as well.
  • Spawn a 100%-CR station, no officer, no auto-fit, for the player side and assign full control of the fleet and station to the AI.
  • Generate a procedural faction with unweighted access to the ships, weapons, fighters, and hull mods available to all other factions (including derelicts and remnants) - using the following doctrine:
    • Warships 3 / Carriers 2 / Phase Ships 2
    • Officers 2 / Ship Quality 3 / Fleet Size 2
    • Ship Size 3
    • Aggression 3
    • Combat Freighter Fraction 1.0
    • Auto-fit Randomize 0.1
  • Select a fleet size, in FP (Fleet Points) according to the following logic:
    • If this is the first test, begin at the best guess of the tester (e.g. 100 FP for an orbital station).
    • Otherwise, adjust by some constant number of FP (typically 5% of the original guess): up, if the station won the last bout; down, if the station lost the last bout.
  • Spawn a 70%-CR fleet of the faction and size described above, no officers, using auto-fit, no D-mods, for the enemy side - and use starting command points equal to the fleet size divided by 40, rounding down.
  • Repeat the previous step up to 1,000 times if the fleet's size does not match the target size, choosing the single fleet that wound up closest to what we want.
  • Generate a random battle scenario using the same algorithms/parameters as a campaign station battle.
    • Non-hyperspace.
    • 50% chance of being in a nebula.
    • 48.8% chance of being in an asteroid field; 1-20 asteroids nearby if so.
    • 43.8% chance of being in at least one ring system; 6.3% chance of being in two ring systems.
    • Fixed standoff range of 6000 units.
  • The enemy is not allowed to retreat, must fight to the last, and must deploy all ships.
  • Repeat the test until a minimum of 10 bouts of mixed or unpredictable outcomes (i.e. a mix of Win and Lose) has been observed.
  • The final score is the sum of the fleet sizes of the last 9 bouts plus the fleet size the following bout would have been (had the test continued), divided by 10, rounded to a whole number.

The generated scenario isn't meant to be perfectly realistic to a particular in-game scenario, but rather something that won't be unfairly biased towards one particular fleet composition over another.  The following represents a typical max-strength fleet:


To speed up testing, a plugin automatically speeds the game up such that the internal game logic is running at 1/30 second intervals at the fastest possible speed, limited by the refresh rate and system hardware.

Results
Low Tech Orbital Station: 124 FP
Midline Orbital Station: 135 FP
High Tech Orbital Station: 161 FP

Midline Battlestation: 207 FP
High Tech Battlestation: 245 FP
Low Tech Battlestation: 253 FP

Low Tech Star Fortress: 346 FP
High Tech Star Fortress: 354 FP
Midline Star Fortress: 358 FP

Damaged Remnant Station: 173 FP
Remnant Station: 370 FP

Shadowyards Orbital Station: 170 FP
Shadowyards Battlestation: 333 FP
Shadowyards Star Fortress: 394 FP

OCI Orbital Station: 205 FP
OCI Battlestation: 490 FP
OCI Star Fortress: 579+ FP

Note: the OCI Star Fortress is literally off the chart.  I couldn't generate fleets above ~600 FP, as the test method essentially broke down and couldn't scale high enough to produce an accurate score.

Analysis
Aside from the Remnant Stations and the High Tech Orbital Station, the tested FP scores are not that far off from the advertised FP scores in the game files.

As for balance between the tech levels, at least when it comes to a station soloing an AI fleet, the star fortresses are all basically balanced with each other.  As for the battlestations, Midline is a clear loser - perhaps because of the lack of armor and dissipation on the main module.  For the orbital stations, High Tech is the runaway winner thanks to how strong those shields are.

The big surprises are:
  • Midline is strongly competitive at tier 3, even though it is lagging behind at tiers 1-2.
  • High Tech is not utterly dominant (other than at tier 1).
  • Low Tech is strongly competitive at tiers 2-3.

However, let us not forget a few important facts about the vanilla stations that significantly color the overall experience players have with them, observed through gameplay and many hours of looking at AI tests:
  • Low Tech stations tend to incite AI glitches at an alarming rate, particularly with regards to shooting through/at invincible modules, wasting ammo and flux to achieve nothing.
  • Midline stations are disproportionately easy to dispatch by a clever player by taking out the protective spurs and sending precise shots through the shield gap towards the main broadside section.
  • High Tech stations are reportedly frustrating and dangerous to fight because of how their shields work and of the ship-loss risk the mine strike modules pose.

If we assume that 60 FP with this test methodology is a "level 1" threat (on a scale from 0 to 10), we have the following threat classifications:
Orbital Station: Level 2
Damaged Remnant Station: Level 3
Battlestation: Level 4
Star Fortress: Level 6
Remnant Station: Level 6

A level 0 threat is a truly beginner challenge solvable by the tutorial fleet, while level 10 represents a challenge that requires game mastery to overcome, because it isn't possible to overcome through sheer numbers.  While I think a level 20 officer on a station affects the station more than a bunch of level 20 officers in the player fleet affect the player's fleet (considering you're boosting 100% of the station and perhaps 37% of the player's fleet), there is definitely still room to include even tougher threats in the campaign world.

12
Bug Reports & Support / ShipAPI.getShipAI() CTD when used on shuttle
« on: June 19, 2019, 09:52:08 PM »
This log should be self-explanatory:
Code
228287 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain  - java.lang.ClassCastException: com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.movement.maneuvers.TransferCommandAI cannot be cast to com.fs.starfarer.api.combat.ShipAIPlugin
java.lang.ClassCastException: com.fs.starfarer.combat.ai.movement.maneuvers.TransferCommandAI cannot be cast to com.fs.starfarer.api.combat.ShipAIPlugin
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.entities.Ship.getShipAI(Unknown Source)
at data.scripts.everyframe.II_TitanPlugin.advance(II_TitanPlugin.java:698)
at com.fs.starfarer.title.Object.float$Oo.o00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.oOOO.B.super(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advanceInner(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatEngine.advance(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatState.traverse(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Tagged as not a mod-related bug because of the high likelihood that some vanilla script might use this method and would, therefore, suffer from the issue.

13
Suggestions / Annoying Suicidal Patrols
« on: June 26, 2018, 02:10:01 PM »
https://youtu.be/_V1gXc198Xs

In my eyes, the ideal workflow for transponder-off patrol interrupts would be that the patrol first asks for compliance as normal, but the patrol would decide how to respond to the player's action with the following logic:

* Comply, Hostile: Pull in allied fleets and evaluate confidence of combined fleets.
* Comply, Friendly: No change.
* Refuse: Pull in allied fleets and evaluate confidence of combined fleets.  Mark player fleet as hostile.

If hostile:
* AI picks Engage: Prevent escape.
* AI picks Standby/Disengage: Standby and deliver a stern warning.  Perhaps additional rep loss.

14
Mods / [0.97a] SpeedUp 1.0.1
« on: April 24, 2018, 10:48:53 PM »

Ever wish the game would go by quicker while you're flying your lumbering Paragon up to the line of battle?  Ever wanted to push "fast forward" while your fleet mopped up the remnants of an enemy fleet?  Ever wanted to speed through a trivial Derelicts fight?  This mod is for you!

Hold the middle mouse button and the game becomes 2x faster.  You can also press the caps lock key to toggle fast mode at your leisure.  The B button toggles the slow-down effect of phase systems.  Control-capslock toggles the game to run in as-fast-as-possible mode.

Controls are fully customizable.  You can even set custom time scaling factors on separate inputs, if you like.

Change Log
Version 1.0.1 (February 3, 2024):
- Updated for Starsector 0.97a
- Removed default binding for 6x speed-up

Version 1.0.0 (May 10, 2023):
- Updated for Starsector 0.96a
- Now works in the campaign!  Thanks Histidine!
- Caps Lock for 2x speed-up in campaign
- F1 for 6x speed-up in campaign

Version 0.7.2 (December 12, 2021):
- Updated for Starsector 0.95.1a
- Fixed rare no-bullet-time bug

Version 0.7.1 (March 29, 2021):
- Updated for Starsector 0.95a

Version 0.7.0 (December 25, 2020):
- Added "onAtStart" option to flag a speed multiplier option as being enabled by default at the start of combat
- Added "capToFPS" option to limit a speed multiplier to a certain engine frame rate (0.0 to speed up regardless of frame rate)
  * Default toggle: Ctrl-Capslock
- Migrated version file to custom host (sigh)

Version 0.6.1 (July 11, 2020):
- Migrated version file to BitBucket

Version 0.6.0 (September 8, 2019):
- Minor optimization
- Added option to disable bullet-time effects (such as phase slow-down)
  * Default toggle: B

Version 0.5.2 (May 17, 2019):
- Updated for Starsector 0.9.1a
- Updated mod description with the default controls
- Added option to suppress indicator messages

Version 0.5.1 (November 16, 2018):
- Fixed certain key-combo misbehavior
- Now works when the player isn't piloting a ship
- Works in Starsector 0.9a

Version 0.5.0 (April 24, 2018):
- Initial release

15
General Discussion / Ship Tier List
« on: March 31, 2018, 01:33:38 PM »
Here, I categorize the ships of Starsector in terms of their general usefulness.  For most cases, an unbiased player would choose a higher-tier ship over a lower one for the same role.  The purpose of this experiment is to illustrate how well the current set of ships stacks up in the grand scheme of things, which might be a resource for players, but also serves to give insight to modders pertaining to how powerful their ships ought to be in order to avoid being too weak or too strong.


Rubric
S: Powerful to the point that it breaks the game.  Extremely OP; clearly better than everything else.
A: Unambiguously powerful, enough that it can be considered best-in-class.  Typically the best option for a given role.
B: Generally competent; might be specialized, but remains useful outside of its specialty.  A solid choice throughout the game.
C: Either a jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none, or an ultra-specialized option that excels in one area but sucks at most everything else.  Generally serviceable, but not exceptional.
D: Mediocre, either by being sub-par at everything or by being overshadowed at its own specialty.  Best as a starter option or last resort.
F: Complete and utter trash.  Worthless.
EX: Unique entity that cannot be evaluated comparatively.

+: Modifier indicating that the rank can increase under certain circumstances.
-: Modifier indicating that the rank can decrease under certain circumstances.
*: Modifier indicating that the rank can fluctuate up or down depending on circumstances.


Capital Ships
Astral
Two Herons beat out an Astral for raw damage, two Moras beat it out for staying power, and both alternatives are still cheaper.  The Astral fires back with the welcome addition of two large missiles, but sacrifices the flexibility of having two independent targeting orders.  So, under normal circumstances, with a balanced fighter complement, the Astral is just competent, but not mindblowing.  However, if you happen to equip most of its bays with bombers and abuse its recall system, the Astral transforms into the best ship-deletion vehicle in the game.

Atlas
If you want to move cargo, the Atlas is simply the best option in the game.  It only takes up one fleet slot, it carries more cargo than anything else in the game, and is efficient in terms of supplies per month.  The only reason you might pick something else is to avoid the penalties to sensors and avoid slowing down your fleet, but both of those concerns are usually moot by the time you're purchasing one of these.  However, if you don't need more cargo, the Atlas is useless.

Conquest
The Conquest has tremendous firepower, but can't direct the majority of it onto a specific target.  The Conquest has great speed, but can easily over-commit and get blasted to bits for its trouble.  In the AI's hands, this ship is liable to engage in some suicidal blunder and/or waste its potential, limiting its overall usefulness.  With the right loadout in the hands of a skilled player, however, the Conquest comes alive as one of the better ships in the game.

Legion
The Legion is the gold standard by which capital ships should be designed.  It's got decks; it's got guns; it can bulk up either decks or guns at the cost of the other.  It's tough, but it goes down if you have the right tools or enough ships.  It's slow, but it can get to the fighting relatively quickly thanks to its burn drive.  The Legion is just all-around solid and works well in any configuration.

Odyssey
The main thing the Odyssey has going for it is speed, and yet the Conquest, Onslaught, and Legion all match or even beat it for (burst) speed due to their powerful mobility systems.  As a result, we're left with a fragile capital ship with good - but not great - firepower, good - but not great - speed, and an awkward layout that takes more skill to use than most other ships.  The Odyssey ends up being a somewhat overpriced jack-of-all-trades, but it is notably the only capital ship capable of reliably engaging in hit-and-run skirmishes.

Onslaught
In terms of pure full-out assaults, the Onslaught is the king of damage, unmatched by anything in the game.  An Onslaught burning towards you with all guns and missiles firing is terrifying dangerous for any victim.  Straightforward "point toward the enemy and make them die" behavior makes the Onslaught good in both player and AI hands.  Poor flux capability is outweighed by the best armor and hull stats for any ship in the game.  It's extremely strong, it's extremely tough, and it's even on the cheap side for a capital ship; the Onslaught does it all.  Well, except for a major weakness: the Onslaught is extremely vulnerable to being flanked.  As made famous by the "Sinking the not!Bismarck" mission, even a single persistent frigate can spell the Onslaught's doom.

Paragon
It should be no surprise to anyone that the Paragon is ranked very highly.  In most circumstances, the Paragon is an indisputable "A tier" ship, capable of covering all its bases, immune to flanking, extremely tough, and very powerful.  While specific ships might be able to beat the Paragon in a specific category, the Paragon as a whole is great at everything and has no noteworthy weaknesses to compensate, making it the best capital ship in the game by default.  If that wasn't enough, the Paragon has an actual niche that it excels at: range.  Anything slower and shorter-ranged, such as a pinned-down capital ship or some battlestations, is basically screwed if it has to fight a Paragon, making it conditionally even better than "A tier".

Prometheus
If you want to increase your fleet's range, the Prometheus is simply the best option in the game.  It only takes up one fleet slot, it carries more fuel than anything else in the game, and is efficient in terms of supplies per month.  Oddly, unlike other mainline civilian ships, it has actual defenses that might be able to fend off a couple frigates during a retreat, though this isn't enough to raise the rank.  The only reason you might pick something else is to avoid the penalties to sensors and avoid slowing down your fleet, but oftentimes the Prometheus is the only viable option for getting across the Sector.  However, if you don't need more fuel, the Prometheus is completely useless.


Cruisers
Apogee
The Apogee has had, throughout the entire release cycle of Starsector, the most bizarre weapon layout of any ship in the game.  This is primarily due to the fact that the Apogee was designed during a period of the game where refitting wasn't possible.  Later, when refits were made available and the slots were changed around, the Apogee remained one of the few ships to come out with no changes at all.  However, just about everything else about the ship has changed dramatically with each release, which should be a good indication of its role in the game.

Basically, the Apogee is the ultimate jack-of-all-trades.  It can do just about everything: tank, hit hard, help you explore, help you see further, escort smaller ships, hang back with long-ranged weapons; you name it.  The main drawback is that the Apogee isn't particularly good at doing any of these individual things, leaving it in an awkward middle spot; just about every other cruiser beats the Apogee in some major capacity, meaning it's very rarely the best choice for a given job.  Still, the Apogee has the rare distinction of being one of two flyable ships in the game (alongside the Conquest) to have both a large missile and a large non-missile slot, giving it unique loadout min-maxing flexibility.

Aurora
Some ships skirt the edge of being outright broken.  The Aurora is one of those ships.  It's faster than all the other cruisers, both in terms of burst speed and consistent speed.  It has a punishingly powerful array of forward guns and missiles.  It has a very strong shield, top-tier flux stats, and OP for days.  The only drawback is relatively poor range, but when you're riding around in a cruiser that can outpace most destroyers, the sub-par range doesn't matter as much.  Under normal circumstances, Aurora is among the best ships in the game, but certain builds can shore up the Aurora's few weaknesses and capitalize on its many strengths, throwing it straight into crazy town.

Brilliant
Despite not being a player-usable ship, the Brilliant manages to put the fear of death into late-game fleets.  While a single Brilliant isn't really anything special, they're surprisingly easy to mass and can cover for one another.  A decent layout, a very flexible loadout, and all-around competent stats leaves us with a solid ship with no notable weaknesses.

Colossus
Colossus is the rare civilian ship that can measure up to the capital-class civilian ships (Atlas).  Most players will find the Colossus to be the best bulk cargo option if they don't want to slow down their fleet as much.  As with other dedicated freighters, it's useless if you don't need more cargo space.

Colossus Mk.II
The only redeeming quality of this modification is the built-in hammer barrage and burn drive, making the Colossus Mk.II a decent kamikaze unit.  Aside from that, though, it's terrible.

Colossus Mk.III
The Colossus Mk.III is hot garbage.  Unlike the Mk. II, this verison doesn't have an useful niche.  If it had more OP, perhaps it could manage some modest capability, but alas.

Dominator
Unlike many "B rank" ships, the Dominator is not a generalist main-line ship.  It has one category of jobs that it does better than any other cruiser: facing the enemy and blasting them with all of its guns.  When placed in the right situation (such as having an anvil to hammer against), the Dominator is incredibly potent, capable of deploying capital-grade firepower whilst enjoying capital-grade durability.  When flanked by faster ships or left unprotected, however, the Dominator is hopelessly outmatched.  Moreso than perhaps any other ship, the Dominator is made or broken by how well it is utilized.

Doom
Yes, the Doom is a phase ship and is at least somewhat useful by default.  However, due to its cruiser designation, it's not quite fast enough to make good use of phasing; it's often more of a burden.  The Doom also has the worst of the ship systems installed on phase ships currently, and a generally anemic weapons package capable of making a small number of really powerful strikes via opportunistic use of torpedoes.  In the grand scheme of things, the Doom is far from a bad cruiser, but it really isn't worth the capital-class costs associated with operating it.

Eagle
The Mario of Starsector, the Eagle is perhaps the most well-rounded ship in the game.  A good mobility system to get out of trouble, good shields and armor, an exploitable weakness that the pilot can cover for, and plenty of guns in various configurations to deal with whatever threat may face it; this ship has it all.  Most notably, the Eagle can be configured for just about any purpose, which it will carry out reliably, even in AI hands.  There is a reason the Eagle has become basically the de-facto default pick for a cruiser; it's a jack-of-all-trades, but it's actually good at all of its roles.

Falcon
The Falcon is basically a scaled-down Eagle, almost crossing into destroyer territory.  What it has going for it is increased speed without sacrificing the range afforded by the cruiser class; otherwise, what is said about the Eagle generally applies to the Falcon, too... with a caveat.  The Falcon, unlike the Eagle, cannot afford to get in close and have a brawl, owing to its weaker shields, weaker armor, and lower hull.  As a result, the Falcon is especially dependent on long-range weapons and/or hullmods to work well.  If you don't have those available, the Falcon's usefulness sharply drops off.

Gryphon
Standard Gryphon builds are nothing special; they're serviceable, but have limited use, since the ship will fold quickly when thrown up against stiff resistance (such as a capital ship).  Most of the time, in AI hands, the Gryphon is best used as an anti-fighter screen, a LRM spammer, or a close support harpoon/sabot machine to punish enemy ships that make mistakes in a fleet engagement.  For most of these roles, you're probably better off picking some other ship in the late game.

In the player's hands, everything changes.  The right build and tactics turn the Gryphon into an overpowered auto-winning behemoth capable of deleting multiple capital ships by itself.

Heron
For cruiser-sized carriers, we have a nicely balanced pair of choices: toughness or strike power.  The Heron is the "strike power" side of that choice, featuring a ship system that supercharges fighter damage, making it a solid choice for assault fighters and bombers.  To compensate, the Heron is a fast bastard that likes to stay away from the action, forcing bombers to make longer attack runs.  In fact, with the right captain, the Heron is infuriatingly speedy, capable of slipping away from most other ships.  The Heron lacks notable weaknesses, but doesn't reach the heights of power that the top-end carriers can pull off, putting it right around the middle alongside the Mora.

Mora
The Mora is the "toughness" side of the aforementioned choice, featuring a ship system that makes the ship practically immortal for a short time.  The Mora's lack of a direct fighter-boosting system is offset by its crazy staying power and actually decent weapons package; replacement fighters and bombers rarely have to travel very far to reach the target.  With the right captain, the Mora is so tough that it basically can't die, making it the safer alternative to the Heron.  The Mora naturally synergizes with its fighters, making it just as viable a choice as its more tuned competitor.

Rampart
The Rampart is shockingly good for a Derelict ship.  It succeeds where all the others fail: having enough guns to offset the lack of shields.  The Rampart is especially helped by the fact that it's extremely similar to the Dominator, right down to the same hull, armor, flux stats, ship system, and nearly the same speed, turning, and acceleration.  It still gets a D, though, because it has built-in D mods.

Starliner
The Starliner is completely useless for any practical purpose, having recently lost the mere modicum of combat capability it once had, and crew quantity not being a problem by the time you can purchase it.

Venture
The Venture is a glorified starter ship that works best in a support role.  Given the rather crappy built-in mining drones and lack of brawling stats, it's best not to rely on this ship later in the game, except for a particular niche, where it works well as a makeshift Gryphon: missile spam.


Destroyers
Bastillon
x

Berserker
x

Buffalo
x
Buffalo (A)
x
Buffalo (P)
x

Buffalo Mk.II
x

Condor
x

Drover
x

Enforcer
x

Fulgent
x

Gemini
x

Hammerhead
x

Harbinger
x

Medusa
x

Mule
x
Mule (P)
x

Nebula
x

Phaeton
x

Salvage Rig
x

Scintilla
x

Sunder
x

Tarsus
x

Valkyrie
x

To be continued...

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