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[sotanaht]

I'm just not seeing the Apogee in T2 in the base game.  It doesn't excel at anything as far as I can tell, and the firepower is definitely lacking.  What kind of configuration makes it T2 worthy?

[Wyvern]

The Apogee was significantly stronger when you got bonus damage from high flux.  However, it's still a good ship even now.  (The reason I've started using a Dominator instead?  It can also take on most things, and it costs significantly less supplies to deploy.  The Apogee is still more durable, though, and fares better against frigate or fighter swarms.)

My current favorite configuration uses 2x heavy blaster, an autopulse laser, and 2x tactical laser in the turrets.  Yeah, doesn't focus fire well... but it doesn't need to; you burn through most of the autopulse's charges, then rotate to bring a heavy blaster to bear, and do it all from extreme range where most things can't retaliate effectively.  (The tactical lasers are only there to help against fighters, really.)

You will, of course, want ITU and augmented engines and stabilized shields and combat 10 for extra speed & shield strength & weapon speed (useful for making heavy blasters able to hit fighters reliably).

You can only get both heavy blasters aimed at a single target if it's something big - generally cruisers and up - but that's okay; even just one heavy blaster is plenty of DPS against any smaller targets.

I wouldn't take it up against a combat-10 Onslaught, but anything else goes down without much trouble.

Plasma Cannon sniper used to be a pretty good use of an Apogee, too, but the plasma cannon is much less potent now than it was; this is still doable, but it's not quite as powerful a build as it used to be.

For me, the Apogee was tier 1 - overwhelmingly potent against almost anything - and is now tier 2.

[Megas]

Tactical lasers on Apogee is most useful for forcing the enemy AI to keep its shields up at greater range.

I think Apogee is good, but overrated.  Its firepower is somewhat lacking, and while it can kite big threats, it is vulnerable to swarms of small ships.

[Wyvern]

Tactical lasers on Apogee is most useful for forcing the enemy AI to keep its shields up at greater range.

I think Apogee is good, but overrated.  Its firepower is somewhat lacking, and while it can kite big threats, it is vulnerable to swarms of small ships.

The version I suggested above isn't vulnerable to swarms of small ships; anything small enough to outrun it is also small enough to die in just a few heavy blaster hits - or to be forced to back off after taking even just one on shields.  Yes, you have to maneuver to keep some distance and limit your exposure; you can't just charge into the middle of a large pack of frigates.  But even there, it takes a lot of frigates to threaten an Apogee.  (Versus like, oh, maybe three or four to threaten a Dominator.)

The one gotcha is Broadswords - you have to prioritize not letting them get into machine gun range, using whatever combination of maneuvering and precision blaster shots gets that job done.  Fail at that, and one wing of broadswords + a frigate or two will rip you to shreds.  Fortunately, this is fairly easy - broadswords aren't all that fast, and die in no more than two hits.  You just have to actually remember to target them so your turrets will take them out.

[Megas]

When I wrote swarm, I meant lots of ships, like five or more.  Also, if mods are included, it is not just frigates, but also destroyers and occasionally fast cruisers with mobility systems.

[Wyvern]

When I wrote swarm, I meant lots of ships, like five or more.  Also, if mods are included, it is not just frigates, but also destroyers and occasionally fast cruisers with mobility systems.

@ Wyvern:  Small fast ships as in frigate and destroyer hordes, with possible fighter support, as used by Gedune and some other mod factions (maybe Blackrock and/or Nomads, at least in Exerelin).  If I use standard ships in simulator, Apogee is not quite fast enough, even with Helmsmanship 10 and Augmented Engines, to stay away from everything and it dies.  Plasma cannon cannot blast several frigates/destroyers at once (i.e, you blast one, the other six or more ships flank and destroy you), and few burst beams will not do much to them.  Aurora and Doom are barely fast enough to stay away as long as they can maintain +75 speed zero-flux boost.

I'll agree that a plasma cannon / burst beam Apogee isn't well suited to fighting that sort of fleet.  But that doesn't mean that the Apogee can't - currently running SS+, Templar, Neutrino, Shadowyards, and Interstellar Imperium.  Just tried one Apogee (with player skills) versus every frigate in the simulator.  Victory was relatively easy - only had to vent once while anyone was in range to shoot at me, at the cost of basically all my armor and a tiny sliver of hull.  No, you can't stay away from everything.  But you can kill or force to back off everything near you, vent while you've got an opening, and repeat as needed.

For reference, the variant I used was 2x heavy blaster, autopulse laser, 2x burst PD, ITU, augmented engines, hardened shields, stabilized shields, 45 vents, 17 capacitors.

That enough of a swarm for you?

[Nanao-kun]

I run just fine with fleets. Rather than boring maximum efficiency soloing fleet stuff, I like to see ships blasting at each other around me.

[Serenitis]

Had a fortunate capture recently: A Zenith^SS+

Fortunate for me. Not so fortunate for everyone else.
It is essentially a steamroller. It squashes everything, and it just doesn't stop. There are no brakes on the pillage train now.

I'm not seeing how this and the Apogee (glorified mule ) are the same tier. Maybe it just really suits my play style, while the apo just really doesn't.
They have vaguely similar loadout capabilities, but the Z has much better turret placement and arcs. And can turn a lot more freely so the harpoints are far easier to use.
Yay! Preferences!

[Wyvern]

I'm not seeing how this and the Apogee (glorified mule ) are the same tier. Maybe it just really suits my play style, while the apo just really doesn't.
Yay! Preferences!

Definitely a case of preferences; I've tried the Zenith and found it to be far too vulnerable to flanking and just generally fragile compared to the Apogee.  Sure, it can get more firepower lined up against a single target, but the Apogee is just plain safer to fly, thanks to improved range and the second strongest shield in the (vanilla) game.

[Schwartz]

Bump 'cause I use this!

Could as well add it to the 'List of useful threads' sticky IMO.

Also I'd put the Asura^BR in T1 and the Morningstar^SRA in T3, but that's just me.

[ahrenjb]

I've certainly found it to be useful. It will likely require some adjustments after the next patch, and there are a couple of mods I would like to see added, but it's still a good resource.

[Squigzilla]

This is a nice reference, but I'd rather not see it stickied. When a new player picks up the game, a large part of the fun comes from trying out each ship to see which ones suit their playstyle the best. Having a big tier list locked at the top of the forums takes away much of this exploration.

[Histidine]

Hmm, I'd bump Lilith and Cimeterre down to Tier 3 (frankly, Cimeterre has annoyed me enough that I'd put it in Tier 4 just out of spite).

Lilith is okay, but it's not really much better than Wolf (tier 3). And while the Cimeterre has a pretty decent built-in weapon, it also suffers from a long list of defects:

• Slow, unmaneuverable
• Lacks enough weapon mounts (PD or anti-shield capability, pick one)
• Doesn't have enough OP even if it did have enough mounts
• Flux dissipation and armor are merely so-so
• Meh ship system - only moves forward, making it virtually useless for running away or dodging. Not to mention it doesn't work when your engines are dead.

This is a nice reference, but I'd rather not see it stickied. When a new player picks up the game, a large part of the fun comes from trying out each ship to see which ones suit their playstyle the best. Having a big tier list locked at the top of the forums takes away much of this exploration.

The list just tells you "how good" the ships are though. It doesn't detail what they do or how they actually behave.

[Abradolf Lincler]

I'm just not seeing the Apogee in T2 in the base game.  It doesn't excel at anything as far as I can tell, and the firepower is definitely lacking.  What kind of configuration makes it T2 worthy?

Lacking? I can solo some of the biggest fleets with my Apogee. If it were up to me it would be T1.

My setup

Edit-made the image easier to read.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[zenstrata]

I was confused when I first read this post because it lists quite a few ships which do not appear in the game.  Then I realized after hunting around a bit more, that there are ships in this list which are from Mods only.  I suggest making it a bit clearer to people which ships are from mods, and which ones are in the game stock.  The current system with the little initials next to it isn't bad, but i was still confused because I never play the mods, so I had no idea that there were different ships in them.

I actually spent several hours in-game hunting around for the ships listed in this thread before I realized they were not in the game and only appeared in mods...