though a close second would be the venture. the cruiser that wants to be a carrier but fails at both being a cruiser with any power and a carrier.. and is slow as snot to boot. i have capital ships that are faster.
As much as I'd hate to say it, if you think the Venture is bad and not worth the cost then you are doing it wrong. The only problem with it is that it's marketed as a close support cruiser when it has no right being one.
It is golden once you strip it and rearm it as Fire Support. 2 Pilum LRMs with expanded missile racks will allow them to be linked and have enough ammo to last any fight. 2 Dual Flak Cannons will tear through any strike craft or missiles that try to assault it or the retreating fighter wings. A single Heavy Blaster is more than enough to deal with any nimble threats that break through the lines and hunt it down.
It costs the same fleet points as 2 Fire Support Frigates, provides the same firepower, has a carrier cap of 25 and more importantly has the hardpoints, armor and flux to defend itself should it come under fire. It's far from a front line cruiser but park it's butt near the closest objective and have it rain fire down on the enemy fleet. At which point it's slow speed doesn't even matter.
The only problem with this is that I can't find a damn thing to do with the 2 small missile mounts and I don't like having empty slots. Maybe when Converting is put into place to allow for hardpoints to be removed or altered that problem can be fixed. After all, if you could fit a T-Lance on it... *drools*
Now, with that out of the way and ignoring the obvious problems with ships dealing with capacity that has no bearing on the game (Crew, Cargo and Fuel transports for example) I'm going to throw my lot in with the Eagle as my least favorite ship. It's got a good balance of energy and ballistic weapons, decent shields and isn't costly for it's class. But the problems sit with the stock variants only changing the missile loadouts and the Flux problems that arise if you put on heavier hitting burst weaponry. It's all using medium hardpoints so it requires a drawn out fight, breaking the shields and beating down on the armor, it's too heavily reliant on missiles and it's so slow that destroyers and fire support will pick apart your targets before you reach them. It requires fleet actions as it can't deal with more nimble Strike Frigates and Destroyers, yet that same fleet renders it useless.
It's a slow brick that can't have an effect on the fleet battles. Though the hound is far too vulnerable to strike craft and missiles and the Brawler is picked apart outside of a fleet, both of them can find a specialized use at certain fleet sizes and against targets. That is why the agle earns my vote for Worst Ship Ever.
