Spoiler
The Stalker is already a lot stronger than the Apogee, much more than a mere 2 more Deployment Points would imply it is.
It really isn't.
While Stalkers are good, you're underselling the strengths of the Apogee (and neglecting the Stalker's sacrifices). The conversion from an Apogee to a Stalker results in considerable compromises: The Apogee has 20% more capacity, .3 more efficient shield, 70% more effective shield HP, 250 more flux dissipation, 10 more OP, and a Plasma Cannon Large Energy Hardpoint. The latter part seems to be undervalued in your analysis of the Apogee, as it practically defines an Apogee's role.
Both Apogees and Stalkers are easy recoveries in my fleet, and they both easily pull their weight. If your Apogees aren't, well, then use more plasma cannon I'm kind of curious as to how you're building them.
I've been running Overridden Apogees using a plasma cannon myself for a good portion of my second 0.95 playthrough, I reckon they'd still be good even without Integrated Safety Overrides.
In the current patch tough, I'm quite confident an Apogee, overridden or not, with integrated hullmods or without them, with or without an Officer will still lose to a Stalker given an equal amount of resources. The apogee has an amazing shield (I forgot the shield ratio chance between the two ships, that's on me), better base flux dissipation, a large energy mount and even 10 more OP (I forgot about that one aswell, you'd
think the Stalker at least had an equal amount of OP given the fact it
supposedly got stripped of many exploration components for more
DAKKA) but that is not enough for it to compete.
The Plasma Cannon is a good large energy weapon, but the Apogee more or less is forced to install Safety Overrides to properly fire it continuously AND stay in range with the enemies it's supposed to be engaging. A Plasma Apogee with no SO and ITU will still have subpar range, a really hard time hitting anything smaller than a cruiser (unless it has aux thrusters) and won't even be able to fire it continuously.
I have not run a "sane"
Apogee since my second campaign playthrough before I found plasma cannons (my memory may be a bit warped I'll put a (?) if I'm not sure on some stuff) but I remember bits and pieces of the following
setup:
Integrated Hullmods: Hardened Shield, Expanded Missile Racks
Addittional Hullmods: Expanded magazines, Stabilized Shields, ITU, Solar Shielding (?)
Weapons: Autopulse Laser, 2x IR Pulse Laser in the front hardpoints, 2 Heavy Burst lasers (or did I degrade them to just burst PD lasers? I honesly can't remember), PD lasers on the other small energy mounts, Hurricane MIRV on the large hardpoint, Harpoons on the small missile hardpoint (?)
Rest of the OP goes into vents. You can definetly
cut Solar Shielding, the
Harpoons and maybe even
degrade those medium energy mounts in the back further to normal small PD laser
to also instally ECCM.
Spoiler
I would also argue with the fact a mostly kinetic weapon cruiser with near-high tech shield stats, Improved Ammo Feeder AND enough leftover ordinance points to field max vents and almost max capacitors is not worth 25DP, because it most certainly would be since, unlike most cruisers in that DP range, the Stalker would be able to deploy top-shelf weapons and reasonably have enough flux stats to fire them all basically indefinitely with the help of the skill.
The Stalker would be directly competing with the Champion and Dominator at 25 DP, and indirectly competing with the slightly cheaper Eagle. Fighting a Dominator would be rough due to its heavy weapon advantage and equivalent missile capability, Eagles have equivalent firepower & range with all the capability to dictate engagement range, and Champion's a particularly one-sided matchup with the Champion matching or exceeding Stalkers in practically every attribute.
I'd be perfectly fine with a Stalker having 40-50 more OP competing with either Champion Or Dominator in DP value.
The really good turret angles and ship skill put it in a very nice role of a
frigade buzzsaw that both Champion and
Crabbinator can't do themselves due to the former having garbage for mount options (The one I like the most being PDAI Champion with tactical lasers, HVDs and HIL using ITU, stab shields, turret gyros and flux distributor (?) ) and the latter
being a steel, crab shaped brick with the majority of its weapons on front mounted hardpoints.
Spoiler
You're going to want either heavy maulers or Hypervelocity Drivers in the back mounts since they sit in the back and need to be the offensive weapons with the most range. I will go with two Drivers.
26 Ordinance Points
Only necessary for long-ranged Stalker builds. Otherwise the slots are better suited to Flak Cannons; while the Revolvers are ok at incidental PD their Mining lasers and mini-Thumpers are insufficient against serious missile threats.
HVDs (and, to a lesser degree, Heavy Autocannons and Heavy Maulers) are more or less vital on those two back slots since Medium ballistic mounts generally have much better Ordinance Points efficiency than small ballistic mounts and/or better range. Relegating such mounts for point defence that does not even have a decent frontal angle is seriously underselling their value and the ship skill.
Spoiler
We still don't have any point defence and just two Hypervelocity Drivers and one Heavy Mortar sound really pathetic for a 20FP cruiser, so we're going with the rather expensive option of 4 Railguns plus Dedicated Point Defence AI plus Advanced Turret gyros for both the Railguns to become the best ballistic point defence in the game and all the weapons in the ship to stay locked into even the fastest of targets.
33+28+12+6= 79 Ordinance Points
Ah, that's your problem.
All right, you just spend more OP on your PD guns than your actual offensive capacity. While not wrong per sey, you must understand that sacrifices will have to be made when you start spending more than 1/3rd of your total OP budget (and no less than 2 hullmods) specifically on your PD array.
Railguns are not point defence. They're a cream-of-the-crop ballistic weapon with 0.8 efficiency, amazing DPS, decent range, good turret traverse and
perfect accuracy which I've
just so happened to turn them into
the best small ballistic point defence in the game with PDAI and Turret gyros.
Those 4 railguns have more than double the Kinetic DPS of those two hypervelocity drivers and are the reason why the Stalker is among the best anti-frigade/destroyer cruisers in both vanilla and the modiverse,
especially when the Accellerated Ammo Feeder kicks in. It's going to not only win flux wars against actual enemy ships, but it's also going to be an incredibly potent fighter clearer now that all small weapons even get perfect tracking AND to more damage to fighters.
Your variant that's sunk 32OP into a large saturation weapon with limited ammo and 4 vulcans that deal frag damage which aren't gonna do squat to fighters with shileds/armor (and sabots for that matter, does your point defence have over 1000 range too?) wishes it was that good. It's totally worth the extra 14 Ordinance Points and leaving a large slot empty.
Spoiler
Now we need the obligatory Integrated Targeting Unit for that juicy 40% range plus Stabilized shields for those shield flux stonks.
Yes to ITU, no to Stabilized Shields. Unnecessary expenditure for a ship that has neither demanding shields nor a heavy dependency on them.
Quote
Spoiler
So, what would you cut for a large missile weapon that won't even be able to come with Expanded Missile Racks or ECCM, without butchering the only weapons benefitting from the ship ability?
By redesigning it to fit a specific role and trimming the fat, I end up with this.
*a picture with a Locust, 2x HVD, Heavy mauler, 4x Vulcan 2x Light Machinegun is shown*
Even had enough OP left over that I could fit cheap guns in the suboptimal small slots. Enough caps left over that one can redirect get a Hurricane MIRV if one wants, either with a Story Point to add EMR or a Missile Spec Officer (or both)
Or if you want a midrange build, Heavy Mortar + 4x Railguns + 2x Flak Cannons, can also snugly fit a Locust or Hurricane (Squalls are still bad, unfortunately).
Stabilzed shields are still good here. They cost 9 ordinance points to install but cut the shield upkeep by 90, effectively translating in making you able to
install 39 max vents instead of 30 (or 49 vents instead of 40 if you have special modifications). It comes in really handy to install better weapons and also if you've got an officer with Shield Modulation, as the extra flux margin will translate into more constant hard flux dissipation while the shields are up.
Stabilized shields is a must have on litterally every single ship in the game where it has the same or a better
OP to Flux Dissipation Efficiency than actual vents. I'd be willing to accept a flintlock pistol duel over this.
If you have enough OP to, and I quote,
"fit cheap guns in the suboptimal small slots", then you definetly want to avoid doing that and trying to squeeze in something more useful into the ship. Solar Shielding comes to mind since it not also applies to shield and not only the (arguably really good)armor and hull of the Stalker. Unless you actually plan on putting that large missile hardpoint to use with something
actually impactful.
In that case: Hurricane MIRV. It's not an option. It's
the only option on a side mounted hardpoint for
ANY ship.
I've already thrown the glove and opened the set of dueling pistols for this one. It's non-negotiable.
Hurricane MIRV or it stays empty.
I really appreciate having a friendly discussion over ship setups by the way (says the guy proposing a flinklock pistol duel over the use of the Hurricane MIRV
), sharing eachother viewpoint and possibly learning something new every time really is stimulating (altough very time consuming to write)!
Hey, I really appreciate the support and feedback! That said, I disagree with some of your points.
First, the Infernus' shield IS important, though admittedly the 180 degree arc isn't so great. I'll drop the arc to 90 degrees and reduce the upkeep, but bump the armor.
Second, the Infernus is intended to have unusually good flux stats and unusually bad ordnance points. You have to be very choosy with where you budget your precious ordnance points! Frankly, I like it this way because it lends to a wide variety of interesting builds. It's a ship that lends to S-Mods very well, as well. In fact, there's a whole custom start for a build-your-own-Infernus that can address most of the issues with the standard ship!
Third, the Stalker has a bunch of weird *** going on for lore reasons. Many of the Underworld ships are sub-par in various ways, on purpose. The Stalker is almost too good for what it is, but the asymmetric janky kind of good-but-not-perfect balance of it appeals to me.
Fourth, don't sleep on the large missile slot. Even a harpoon pod can strike a finishing blow. It's your only missile slot, so make it count.
FirstI mean, 180° front shields are great
in general while a vacuum, but a 90° omni (or a 90° front one, which I feel would further disincentivize the use of side mounted offensive weapons even further) would allow for an entire
Onslaught to fit beside it while in a battle line!
SecondI guess that's it for my argument. If being OP starved
like Dark Souls 3 Dragon forms look like malnourished deers is the design choice of the Infernus then that's how it ought to be! I sadly am not playing with Nex (which tends to needlessly BLOAT my campaigns in endgame, I might just nerf colonization by a factor of 4 or something in the future) so I can't really fully appreciate that starting option, as much as it pains me to say it.
ThirdThe Stalker is almost too good for what it is
It's over Retryakin, I have the high ground! I do guess that settles it then! Altough I really could see it being worth 25FP with some tweaks. I personally think it's too similar in role to the Barbarian right now, but then again the Barbarian
is basically married to Safety Overrides that it might aswell
settle in and have kids and already come with it integrated into the ship to start with, at the cost of a few maximum ordinance points.
FourthI never heard of this "Large Missile Hardpoint" you speak of, only of an empty stump that magically fits a Hurricane MIRV whenever I got one in the inventory