Yeah, roughly thinking along these lines - a ship that's very powerful, but also slow and fairly vulnerable and requires a lot of forethought in positioning or it gets overwhelmed. I really like the notion of pairing medium universal slots with high energy focus as the system; the tradeoff for using ballistics in those is good stuff. 3 large and 4 medium slots is probably too much, though - that's more primary weapon slots than an Eagle, and all of those are medium!
One of the large slots probably needs to go, and perhaps it could be light on small slots as well, making it tough to get any sort of PD without sacrificing firepower... hmm.
Agreed. The Large Missile was me reaching a little...
Honestly, I like the idea of two Large Energy because it would give the Paladin more of a chance for use. The opportunity cost is too great for the Paladin to overcome in a single Large Energy setup.
2 Large Energy, 2 Medium Omni, 1 Medium Energy (maybe rear-facing), and a pair of small energy on the side? There's also a conspicuous lack of missiles, unless the player uses them in the Omni slots. But, maybe that's the pros/cons you have to weigh?
2 Large and two Medium [something] is still pretty strong, and with HEF, you're going to be able to really alpha-strike. If a player could get at/near flux parity with its weapons, this thing would be awesome in a firefight.
@Mondaymonkey
I've been a forum mod for years and I get it, but if the admin of the site is participating, I think we're ok...
To your point, though, I changed the thread title to accommodate the new direction!
@Embolism
I agree. The Apogee would be a good fit for a Paladin if it was a turret but alas. The Apogee is very good exploration vessel in regards to defending itself but as a warship, it lacks converging fields of fire. I wouldn't change the Apogee one bit at this point, though I like the thought of having another Light Cruiser (and perhaps another hypothetical glass-cannon Cruiser).