I'm ok with Apogees being 18 OP. It has a strong shield, but its slow speed and short ranged weapons means that it cannot "punch up" effectively, nor can it hunt most targets that it can kill, so its almost entirely a defensive line ship. While the large energy is a good weapon and lets it give either strong anti-armor support (but no hard flux) at 1000 range+boosters, or close ranged firepower, most of its killing power comes from having a large missile mount (massed squalls are a thing now that they have so much more ammo). Also Apogee's shield bubbles are just so darn big that they get in the way of allies and catch a lot of stray shots.
Eagles are all around decent and their jets make them harder to pin down than most cruisers, and their shield/capacity are pretty good (people rave about the apogee's shields; Eagle's base capacity shield is 80% as strong and they usually have enough OP to get some caps), but they lack finishing power. They always have, but the problem has become worse because so many other ships have come out that are missile heavy.
I've found that they are actually pretty good against ordos and remnants though, because those are reckless enemies that will come to them, which mititgates the range issues on the medium energies. Having aggressive doctrine also really helps Eagles because they will close with slower energies in order to use their energies effectively.
The other thing that Eagles sometimes do is act
really dumb, because their firepower is majority front focused, but they have a burst mobility system. So they'll sometimes try to swing their nose from one target to another, lose their system, and then just sit there not shooting anything because its too slow to get back on target.
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For energy weapons to matter on Eagle (without SO), they need to have long enough range to end near where 700-800 range ballistic end.
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This I disagree with because I don't very much value range matching/max range kiting, but it is a problem for Eagles when they are trying to hunt down fleeing enemies, making the energy mounts more of a defensive emplacement. Good versus swarming enemies, good vs ordos/remnants, good vs capitals because the Eagle can just close the distance anyways if its going to use its flux for non-kinetic damage. Bad vs lone destroyers the Eagle is trying to hunt, bad vs peer cruisers that its trying to duel and can't get close enough to (though its part of the player's job to make duels not happen).