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[Serenitis]

Apogee has a weird as hell layout that really doesn't do it any favours.
The small mounts on the nose are hardpoints, and are not very useful because small energy weapons are mediocre at best. And fixed small energy weapons on a ship with the turning radius of a building are almost completely useless.
The large missile mount is pointed at some odd angle meaning you can't really use reapers for spike damage. Fortunately MIRVs are pretty good so this isn't a huge issue, more of a choice you don't have.
The medium mounts are forward facing but at the back of the ship so you "waste" a chunk of your already small range.

It would be better if the two smalls on the nose were replaced with the large missile, the two mediums were moved to the front of the ship, and the two small hardpoints changed to turrets facing aft in place of where the mediums were.
This would make it actually dangerous.
As it is, it is a fairly unimpressive ship best treated as a Mule+.

Aurora is decent, but really needs a mobilty system to work with the short range of energy weapons.
(It totally rocks with a burn drive btw )

[Megas]

All that big flux pool on Aurora means is I can spend OP elsewhere without putting any in capacitors.  It is a good blaster platform for those without skills.  Still, without missiles, all it can do is focus-fire two blasters and insignificant PD beams on one enemy.  This is frigate or destroyer level firepower!  The only way an Aurora can match other cruisers in attack power is to pile missiles on top of those two blasters.

Medusa can handle two blasters comfortably, if it has some points in capacitors.  (Max vents should be given for any dedicated combat ship with skills.)  Medusa can also use ballistics instead of missiles in its small universals for more sustainable firepower.  I concede that Tempest cannot use two blasters comfortably (player must vent spam like crazy to pull it off, and the AI just cannot do it.)

As for durability, shields is all Apogee and Aurora have, and the Aurora's is nothing exceptional.  If brought down, they will pop more easily than other cruisers.  Also, the Aurora (and Apogee if built for max DPS/brawling instead of sniping) must get close to the enemy to fight.


MIRVs are fine, just not overpowered like Reapers, and when you want the best, you want overpowered.  For those with max Missile Specialization, there is almost no reliable defense against Reapers for most ships; they are fast and tough enough to ignore PD, and do lots of damage even to (most) shields.  MIRVs are more easily blocked, and not as damaging.  MIRVs are more useful for AI, prolonged battles, or ships that cannot use Reapers effectively.


P.S.

Aurora is decent, but really needs a mobilty system to work with the short range of energy weapons.

Or some of its missile hardpoints changed to universals.  If it could use ballistics, then it can use beams like Phase Lance effectively instead of (being limited to) Heavy Blasters.  Even more energy weapons means it is not stuck being fat Medusa with big missiles.

[Aeson]

I'm calling BS on the lack of range of the Apogee's medium mounts due to mount placement. The sensor drones that the Apogee has allows it to fire heavy blasters mounted in its medium mounts at least as far beyond its bow as heavy blasters in the Aurora's medium mounts can fire beyond the Aurora's bow, if both ships have an ITU or both ships lack an ITU.

Auroras and Apogees are the same length (on my monitor, 4.5cm when at minimum zoom). The forwardmost medium mount of an Aurora is, on my screen at minimum zoom, 3cm from the stern of the ship, and a heavy blaster mounted in that mount has a range of 13cm with ITU. The medium mounts of an Apogee are, on my screen at minimum zoom, 1cm from the stern of the ship, and heavy blasters mounted in those mounts have a range of 16cm with ITU + 2 deployed sensor drones. Let's see what the effective range beyond the bow of each ship is. Aurora: 13cm - (4.5cm - 3cm) = 11.5cm. Apogee: 16cm - (4.5cm - 1cm) = 12.5cm. Sorry, but the placement of the medium mounts on the Apogee still leaves heavy blasters in those mounts with superior effective range to heavy blasters mounted on the Aurora when engaging targets off of each ship's bow. The only bit that's somewhat awkward is that the bow guns may be in firing range for a relatively significant amount of time before the medium mounts can come into play, but on the other hand, as long as the Aurora's ship system and missiles aren't in play, the fixed bow guns of an Apogee (two small and one large energy) are comparable in potential firepower to the maximum amount of firepower that an Aurora can bring to bear on any target (three small and two medium energy) under normal circumstances.

As far as the mount arcs for the fixed bow guns on the Apogee go? The Apogee has a sufficiently high turn rate that it can usually keep its bow pointed at anything bigger than a frigate if it wants to. The fixed small mounts are only, in Serenitis's words, 'not very useful' because there aren't very many particularly useful non-PD small mount energy weapons, and PD weapons don't belong in mounts with extremely limited firing arcs. That said, a pair of Ion Cannons or IR Pulse Lasers work well enough in those mounts. Beyond that, if an Apogee comes close enough to a target to bring heavy blasters in its medium mounts into play and it has two sensor drones deployed, then it also gets to bring two ion cannons into play at essentially no cost.

[Megas]

Tactical lasers are a decent option if Apogee wants to fool the enemy to keep its shield up from beyond blaster/plasma cannon range.  Need the enemy to keep its shield up while your ship backs off to dissipate excess flux?  Threatening them with tactical lasers will help.

[SafariJohn]

Apogee's medium mounts are ~100 pixels farther back than Aurora's medium mounts.

[Aeson]

Apogee's medium mounts are ~100 pixels farther back than Aurora's medium mounts.

And it basically doesn't matter, because an Apogee has a 'free' +30% range to its weapon systems as long as it has two sensor drones out. Despite being ~100 pixels further back on the sprite, it can still hit things ~10% further ahead of the bow.

[SpacePoliticianAndaZealot]

Tactical lasers are a decent option if Apogee wants to fool the enemy to keep its shield up from beyond blaster/plasma cannon range.  Need the enemy to keep its shield up while your ship backs off to dissipate excess flux?  Threatening them with tactical lasers will help.

Seconded. You really can't go wrong w/ them, they are amazingly versatile IMO.

[Wyvern]

The Apogee is, imo, still a clear tier 2 cruiser.  Yes, the firing arcs are a bit awkward.  Yes, it's got weapon slots that are often not worth filling.  And yes, it can still take on entire fleets solo, thanks to its exceptional shield strength and good range.  It hasn't lost anything from ballistics getting unlimited ammo - all that change accomplished is to make low and mid tech cruisers actually be competitive; it didn't make the Apogee any worse.

My personal suggestion is to mount an autopulse laser and heavy blasters.  What you put in the rest of its mounts doesn't even matter most of the time - you can leave the rest empty and be fine.  Approach a target, hit it with the autopulse to drive up flux, and then while that's regenerating, turn broadside to get a heavy blaster closer to the target; you can outrange an eagle's main guns like that, and the flux costs are negligible for an Apogee.

It won't let you (reliably) take on an enemy flagship Onslaught with full combat skills - but then again, of the other cruisers, only the Doom can do that, and it's almost cripplingly-overspecialized.  (Speaking of: Why is the Doom listed at tier 2?  It's a clear t3 ship - very good at what it does, but only mediocre outside of that specialty.)  And that's the only thing the Apogee can't deal with - it has a bit of trouble with swarms of frigates and fighters, but it can still reliably win such fights with a bit of practice; the key is to be careful in choosing when you go for kills, versus when you just plink a target with one or two heavy blaster hits to make it back off.  Oh, and to prioritize broadswords - a few heavy blaster hits will take them out, but you have to actually make sure you do that or their machine guns will shred your shields.

[Gothars]

The Apogee will be one of two ships receiving high-res sensors in the update, probably making it very useful in finding other fleets. And another little buff, the sensor drones will always stay inside the shield so the AI can handle the ship better.

[Clockwork Owl]

The drones would go out suicide run with its LMGs when I last used it. I got annoyed with that...

[Megas]

Dominator can probably kill any standard flagship one-on-one, even a Paragon (albeit with difficulty), if configured properly.  I know I have killed flagship Paragon with a Dominator, but it is tedious due to its defenses.  I might have killed Onslaught, but I do not remember.  AI is still stupid at leaving itself open with Burn Drive.

Reaper Aurora can kill anything instantly with a Reaper swarm.  Onslaught will burn drive into said Reaper swarm.  Paragon is tricky - got to catch it while its shields are down.

Flagship Paragon is more dangerous than flagship Onslaught.

[Wyvern]

Flagship Paragon is more dangerous than flagship Onslaught.

Strongly disagree.  A flagship Paragon is too slow and doesn't have the range - aside from its lances which don't do hard flux and are easily dodged or blocked by other enemy ships.  It may be harder to kill with reaper swarm, but it's much less dangerous, and it's much easier to kill with long range non-missile weapons.  Essentially any decent cruiser can take down a Paragon - I wouldn't hesitate to engage one with even just a Falcon, let alone the stronger cruisers like Eagle, Apogee, or Dominator.

A flagship Onslaught, by contrast, has superior range and mobility; it is difficult to disengage and vent flux, and the Onslaught is durable enough that - reaper spam from an Aurora or Doom aside - you need to lure it into making multiple mistakes before you can take it out.  It is possible to kill one one-on-one with a Dominator (or Eagle or Apogee, though the Apogee would be especially difficult due to its lack of a mobility system), but you need to play absolutely perfectly; any mistake and the Onslaught will just rip you to pieces.

[Thaago]

I'm with Megas on this one - Flagship Paragons are 10 times nastier than Onslaughts. You can engage one with a cruiser and not get instantly popped, but good luck actually doing anything to it without kiting for a loooong time. The vanilla variant is decent, but its a good thing that its not using any of the really nasty variations.

Onslaughts have overwhelming firepower, but they go down super easy to reapers. Or bombers. Or just keeping its attention with a destroyer/cruiser while other ships flank it. Also: EMP the damn thing in the engines with anything. As long as you don't try to solo an Onslaught, its a cake walk. If it DOES catch you all alone then your going to be in for a rough time... so don't let it.

[TJJ]

It's still unclear to me whether this tier list is supposed to be relevant when piloted by the AI, or human?

Regardless, I don't consider the paragon tier 1. (Pretty sure I've said this before!)
It's too slow, and the majority of its weapon options too short range to give much power projection.
It's a slug that, on the battlefield, can largely be evaded.
It might be the toughest capital, but its overspecialised nature IMO precludes it from being "best in class".

In vanilla I don't think there is a tier 1 capital ship;
Onslaught has mobility and power projection, but is vulnerable to attrition & out flanking.
Conquest has even better mobility & power projection, but lacks survivability.
Odyssey lacks in every department, and its flight deck is ill recompense.
Astral is a bad joke with the current effectiveness & supply cost of fighters.

I think the best way of evaluating the worth of capital ships is to consider the group of smaller ships necessary to fulfill a similar role.
/snip away from PC atm, so can't elaborate my thoughts on this statement.

[Megas]

EMP does not work on Combat 10 flagships; they usually shrug it off, and even if EMP knocks-out something, it is repaired quickly.  Their engines are very hard to impossible to take out thanks to max Evasive Maneuvers (-80% damage to engines, or something).

Paragon is tier 1.  Piloted by the player, it can destroy the entire simulation fleet, deployed as much and fast as possible, singlehandedly.  It is hard, and it needs Hardened Subsystems to have enough time to fight before losing too much CR.  Onslaught lacks the defenses to do it.  Other (standard) ships lack defenses, firepower, and/or peak performance.

Onslaught probably can focus-fire more guns than Paragon, but its defenses are nowhere as good, meaning it is easier to take out.  (Player does not need to work as hard to destroy a skilled Onslaught, but the player probably cannot tank everything with his skilled Onslaught from an entire simulator fleet.)  Also, AI Onslaught can use its Burn Drive stupidly, possibly giving you an opening.  That said, Wyvern is right: one mistake against a Combat 10 Onslaught and you are either severely mauled or dead.

The reason enemy Combat 10 Paragon flagship is dangerous:
* If you need to get within weapons range to attack (because you pilot high-tech ship like Medusa or something else with poor shot range), you are dead fast unless you are Hyperion or a big battleship of your own.  Needlers, Heavy Blasters, Autopulse Lasers, and beams all coming at your ship will pile a whole lot of damage very quickly.

* Fortress shield lets it tank very well.  The only way to bypass it reliably is Hyperion teleport cheese.  If you cannot get around the shield, you can pound on it a long time.  Meanwhile, it may be regenerating hull as it chills out in its bubble.  It is a royal pain to take out.