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[Koyocire]

1 Salvage rig, 1 Buffalo and 1 random combat frigate basically equals 3 Shepherds (in and out of combat), give or take. Surveying bonus is nice but not critical, as you'll always have some extra supplies in your cargo anyway. It's a great ship, but not necessary irreplaceable.

3 Shepherds are significantly better in combat than those 3...and are cheaper...and have better fuel efficiency.  I’ve been able to pull off some crazy hijinks with a handful of Shepherds.  The only part of the game I find difficult anymore is the early game, and for me at least, the Shepherd is definitely my crutch to get through it.

[intrinsic_parity]

I don't find tier lists like this all that useful because ships value changes drastically over the course of the campaign. I usually just mentally rank ships against other ships of the same class, and then decide how many ships of a certain class I want. There aren't really enough ships to fill out a full letter grade scale for each ship class (frigate/destoyer/cruiser/capital) so if I had to make a system for classifying ships value in my fleet, I would give ships a rank premium/good/mediocre (and everything else is not worth using), and then give a priority for each class of ship over the course of the campaign. Even with this system, there are some ships that have their value change over the course of the campaign.


A rough idea for my ship rankings in each class would be something like this (anything not listed is in the bad category or I forgot it because I don't feel like typing them all out):

Spoiler

AI frigates
premium: tempest/omen*/monitor
good: lasher/centurion/shephard/shade/afflictor
mediocre: wolf/brawler/vigilance/kite

AI destroyers
premium: hammerhead/drover
good: medusa/sunder(+)/harbinger
mediocre: enforcer/shrike/mule

AI cruisers
premium: apogee*/heron**
good: doom/aurora/eagle(+)/falcon (usually I reserve doom and aurora for myself, but Ill use extra ones for my fleet If I need it)
mediocre: dominator(+)/mora

AI capitals
premium: paragon
good: astral/conquest/legion/odyssey (odysseys are almost always reserved for me If I find them)
mediocre: onslaught

*I highly value ships that add extra sensor range

**I also rank the heron highly because there aren't really any other ships with long enough PPT, similar number of bays/DP and and a fighter centric ship system. The drovers PPT is too short and the drover is bit too squishy for last game IMO, and there are no other cruiser/capital sized carriers that fit the bill for me. The mora doesn't have a fighter ship system and doesn't have good campaign stats, the legion is a battle carrier that doesn't give the bay/DP value and the astral is wasted on non-bombers, so I almost exclusively use herons to provide fighter support late in the game hence the premium rating.

[close]

I rank player ships a bit differently:

Spoiler

early game player ships:
premium: tempest(-)/hammerhead (phase ships would also be here if I used them)
good: falcon/medusa/sunder(+)
mediocre: wolf/lasher/shrike

late game player ship:
premium: doom/odyssey/paragon
good: aurora(+)/eagle/conquest
mediocre: onslaught/legion/dominator

[close]

My general philosophy for fleets is something like this:

I add premium ships almost always unless I can't fit them in the fleet cap, I add good ships if I feel I could use more ships of that class, and I add mediocre ships only if I feel like I NEED more ships of that class currently and can't find any better ones.

Spoiler

early game:
I consider this to be the time when I am unwilling to drop my burn below 9 or 10. I'm looking for 6-8 frigates and 4-8 destroyers. My player ship preference is SO tempest or SO hammerhead early. Once I feel like have enough destroyers, I move on to mid game

mid game:
I consider mid-game when I start going for burn 8 ships and fill out my fleet with cruisers. Usually the fleet cap becomes and issue in this stage of the game. I usually keep whatever premium frigates and premium/good destroyers I have and retire everything else. I target havinge 2-3 cruiser sized carriers and 4-6 combat cruisers, but I sometimes will add extra cruisers if I am very combat focused. My player ship preference tends towards more firepower. I will sometimes use SO cruisers (falcon/eagle) or aurora/doom if I can find them.

late game:
I consider this everything after I start using capital ships (dropping my base burn to 6, or more realistically, burning tons of fuel with tugs to keep my burn up). I like to have 2 capitals at this point for general bounty hunting, but I will add more capitals for particularly tough fights or remnant farming. I usually retire almost all of my frigates and destroyers by this point and fill out the fleet with mostly cruisers. I'll keep a couple small SO ships for pursuits and derelicts but, other than that, between the fleet cap, officer limit, and ppt, I just can't find a use for them. My flagship preference is mostly odyssey/doom/paragon, but sometimes I'll fly my early game flagships to save supplies in easier fights.

[close]

Obviously these aren't hard demarcations (I don't remove my frigates and destroyers as soon as I get a capital ship), but more more the directions that my fleet tends towards. I might jump to mid/late game early if I get some good free ships from salvage (or I might store them for a bit). I also almost always have a SO tempest in my fleet through the entire campaign that I use for pursuits and also to solo easy battles like the derelict drone fights.

[Ishman]

I realize the astral is *really* boring to fly, but come on y'all, search your souls. You know it's the second best ship in the game, objectively.

Recall with 6 bombers is absolutely broken, only ridiculous fighter swarms stops it, as there's nothing vanilla with enough PD to counter it (Unless you face a radiant which has rolled 5 paladins and is using the buddy system).

For a less objective take on ships, I also feel like everyone severely undervalues how many sabots a gryphon can bring to the party. Tossing out 7,000 kinetic damage with one click, backed by locusts or hurricane/reapers/hammers from the large means you get to choose 6 ships that WILL die, and threaten another 6 before you autoforge a fresh set of sabots. All on a ship that can be chain deployed 5 times from 100% cr before even reaching malfunction threshold. Yeah, it's slow, it's paper, has bad weapon arcs for its ballistics, and the AI can't pilot it at all - but that's some great combat efficiency for something without fighters.

[Grievous69]

Well I was bored so I made my own list, and as OP I took campaign stats into account.

Spoiler

[close]

Sorry for the quality, also I should've probably inserted another row for some tiers, looking at it now it looks suuuuper wide.

[Burvjradzite]

Well I was bored so I made my own list, and as OP I took campaign stats into account.

Spoiler

[close]

Sorry for the quality, also I should've probably inserted another row for some tiers, looking at it now it looks suuuuper wide.

A good tier-list. Roughly, I disagree only with Centurion and Shrike. Stop hating Shrike!

[Grievous69]

I honestly don't hate it, actually it's pretty good for having frigate burn. But I've seen it die stupidly soooo many times, if it weren't for that it would easily be B tier, Pirate Shrike even higher. And that's another thing, regular Shrike is worse despite having MORE OP than the (P) version. It's just a Sabot Pod tax The Ship.

[Megas]

I honestly don't hate it, actually it's pretty good for having frigate burn. But I've seen it die stupidly soooo many times, if it weren't for that it would easily be B tier, Pirate Shrike even higher. And that's another thing, regular Shrike is worse despite having MORE OP than the (P) version. It's just a Sabot Pod tax The Ship.

Meanwhile, Sabot Pod is a rare, elite blueprint, and finding one to buy is not easy, which means Shrike may not find a pod early enough when Shrikes are useful.

I have gone through the game without finding Shrike and good enough weapons before it has become obsolete.

At least the (P) is much easier to find (loot one from pirates), and it does not need Sabot Pod.  Normal Shrike should just be Shrike (P) with +5 OP.

[SCC]

I guess I can post a list I just made up, too. I don't use many phase ships, so not all of them are rated. 5 is too good, 1 is too bad. I'm not a fan of spectra too wide.

5: Tempest, Omen, Drover, Falcon (P), Astral
4: Centurion, Lasher, Monitor, Shepherd, Hammerhead, Medusa, Apogee, Falcon, Heron, Doom, Paragon, Conquest
3: Brawler (all variants), Kite, Enforcer (next version), Sunder, Shrike (P), Eagle, Dominator, Aurora, Mora, Onslaught, Odyssey, Legion
2: Wolf, Vigilance, Condor, Buffalo Mk II, Shrike, Gryphon, Venture, Atlas Mk II, Prometheus Mk II, Condor, every combat freighter that isn't Apogee
1: Scarab, Hyperion, Mudskipper Mk II, Gremlin

Tempest might not be too good, just good, but I have a soft spot for it. It doesn't hurt that it's the second best playership in the overall campaign (that list goes 1. Conquest, 2. Tempest, 3. Aurora, 4. Paragon, 5. Astral).

[Thaago]

I honestly don't hate it, actually it's pretty good for having frigate burn. But I've seen it die stupidly soooo many times, if it weren't for that it would easily be B tier, Pirate Shrike even higher. And that's another thing, regular Shrike is worse despite having MORE OP than the (P) version. It's just a Sabot Pod tax The Ship.

Meanwhile, Sabot Pod is a rare, elite blueprint, and finding one to buy is not easy, which means Shrike may not find a pod early enough when Shrikes are useful.

I have gone through the game without finding Shrike and good enough weapons before it has become obsolete.

At least the (P) is much easier to find (loot one from pirates), and it does not need Sabot Pod.  Normal Shrike should just be Shrike (P) with +5 OP.

By accident (IE not having 2 sabot pods) I equipped 2 Shrikes, one with a sabot pod and 1 with a harpoon pod, both with heavy blasters. I would look at their battle contribution with Combat Analytics and could not tell which was which! Sometimes one would be higher, sometimes the other, but they both contributed well (average of about 100% which is decent for a light AI unit).

Before this accidental test I would have agreed that Sabot pods are the way to go, but accidental testing in real combat showed that sabot vs harpoon is roughly equal in terms of contribution. From watching them in action, Sabot is a better duellist, so if it gets isolated vs a destroyer that build will do better. The Harpoon was a much better finisher though: sinking 4 harpoons + firing the heavy blaster a bunch is a deadly burst into a high flux enemy. I would often give the harpoon one orders to escort me until we engaged the enemy, where I disabled the escort to let it off leash, so that it would be around allies to create opportunities for it.

[Grievous69]

Yea I've heard you mention that story once, tho I still don't get how the analytics work since I don't use it. What exactly does 100% damage mean? If it's just 100% of its own hull than that's not really that amazing. You can throw Harpoon Pods on everything and it'll just unload on overloaded ships. Does it make a difference that it helps kill ships faster? Yes. But I don't care much for it since most overloaded ships already die pretty fast.

[FooF]

I realize the astral is *really* boring to fly, but come on y'all, search your souls. You know it's the second best ship in the game, objectively.

Recall with 6 bombers is absolutely broken, only ridiculous fighter swarms stops it, as there's nothing vanilla with enough PD to counter it (Unless you face a radiant which has rolled 5 paladins and is using the buddy system).

For a less objective take on ships, I also feel like everyone severely undervalues how many sabots a gryphon can bring to the party. Tossing out 7,000 kinetic damage with one click, backed by locusts or hurricane/reapers/hammers from the large means you get to choose 6 ships that WILL die, and threaten another 6 before you autoforge a fresh set of sabots. All on a ship that can be chain deployed 5 times from 100% cr before even reaching malfunction threshold. Yeah, it's slow, it's paper, has bad weapon arcs for its ballistics, and the AI can't pilot it at all - but that's some great combat efficiency for something without fighters.

The Astral is perhaps the best force multiplier in the game but it is no battleship that can solo medium-sized fleets. You have to have ships in front taking hits or running interference. Likewise, a Cruiser can easily solo an Astral in fleet actions so the fact that it is relatively vulnerable puts it in my "A" class rather than "S." The Paragon has no such limitations and is excellent at everything, save its cost.

Also, I like the Omen but a lot of people are calling it S-tier. It shreds fighters, is cheap to deploy, and typically keeps itself safe but I don't consider it OP or in the same league as the Tempest. Someone convince me why it's S-tier...

[Grievous69]

People tend to often forget downsides when something seems very strong to them. Like people see a 4 Tach lance Paragon (which isn't even that great always) and immediately call it broken despite its flaws. There are very few truly broken ships in the game. This is why I have lots of ships in A tier. With the right build, most of the ships can be really really useful in battles, but that doesn't mean they're perfect.

[Thaago]

FooF, I'd call Omen S tier for late game (ant tournaments...) because its arguably equal to the tempest in value (just a very different role), but is only 5 DP instead of 8. In an endgame battle where the player is DP limited that matters a surprising amount. It can pretty easily have 10k shield hitpoints in a 360 bubble, making it significantly tankier than a Tempest as long as it doesn't get hit with shield piercing weapons, and as you said murders fighters and can disable bigger ships. Best bang for buck anti-fighter in the game, has improved sensors, ECM built it, and is cheap. And in late game fights I don't really need Tempests - they don't have long enough PPT and are liable to get popped, plus cost the same DP as a Shrike which is more reliable - but I do need anti-fighter/lockdown escort frigates.

In parts of the game where the Tempest still shines, I'd call it significantly better than an Omen - in those stages I'd put omen at A.

[intrinsic_parity]

For me, Omens are s-tier early because of their sensor and ecm bonuses in addition to being tanky and amazing against fighters. I mostly stop using them in end-game because the sensor bonus become useless and at the end of the day, they are frigates that don't have enough health or PPT to survive late game battles. I will say that omens survive much more consistently than other frigates in late game and I think they are the best late game frigate but the PPT really hurts, and they still routinely die which is not acceptable for me.

[Eji1700]

People tend to often forget downsides when something seems very strong to them. Like people see a 4 Tach lance Paragon (which isn't even that great always) and immediately call it broken despite its flaws. There are very few truly broken ships in the game. This is why I have lots of ships in A tier. With the right build, most of the ships can be really really useful in battles, but that doesn't mean they're perfect.

Everyone has different definitions of broken which often muddles things.

For all intents and purposes a paragon basically ends the game currently.  If you get one it's trivial to load it up with an even half decent loadout and steamroll almost all the remaining content.  Is that "broken?"...i dunno...probably not.  There's obviously supposed to be an average player path through the game, and it ends with something like a paragon taking down stations and fleets.  Does it have flaws?  Sure...but the amount they actually matter in vanilla is pretty minor given that nothing in the base game actually exploits them.

That said, is it too good?  I think so, but i'm also highly in favor of stretching out the early and middle game as they have some really interesting choices that don't get emphasized because of how easy it is to skip them, especially once you know what you're doing.  I also have to fight the urge to just mass produce them the moment I get a colony that can because...well why not?  Same issue with other ships that appear to be above curve (drover being an obvious outlier because it's clearly not supposed to be that game warping).