Ship Details (Part 4)

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FAQ (IOS) by light_rock_zz

Version: 4.6 | Updated: 02/03/2025
FAQ of the Month Winner: January 2020 | Highest Rated Guide

Ship Details & Strategies

Detailed Stats & Strategies for Below Ships & Apexes (Part 4)
Arietis	Atlas	Essin	Ex04239	Aurora	Von Braun	Gorthaur	Heechi	Prime X	Sakura

Arietis

Strong against: Dart/Pellet, Shuriken/Pellet, Dart/Boomerang/Pellet, Shuriken/Boomerang, Shuriken/Pellet/Laser
Weak against: Dart/Boomerang/Laser, Dart/Pellet/Laser, Lasers Only, Laser/Pellet, Laser/Shuriken

Ship Class: Close Combat
+

Main Weapon: Particle Disruptor

Average DPS = 34.375
Spread = -22° to 22° (Very Wide)
Weapon Class = Continuous Stream
Rate of Fire = 0.08s (Very Fast)
Projectile Speed = 900 (Fast)
Projectile Hit Circle Radius = 3
2 sets of 6 diverging projectiles constantly being fired on each side

Survivability (Daily Missions): A-
Survivability (Community Missions): A-

Because dart spreads are dangerous at close range, stand back about 1 times of Arietis' height so that you can retreat to safety.
(-) Arietis' very wide spread Particle Disruptor means it's impossible to pop turrets off.
- On a frontline Vulture , using Mega Laser is usually impossible since charging Mega Laser is only just enough to down its shield.
- While you can use Particle Disruptor to strip off the shield first and then charge Mega Laser , doing so is very difficult due to the amount of bullets already on field
  - Point Defence will also be low on Aura from getting close to the Vulture .
- Charging Mega Laser after stripping off the Vulture's shield is possible for upfield Vultures.
  - Get rid of the frontline Invaders, strip the Vulture's shield, and use Mega Laser .
  - Mega Laser will kill the unshielded Vulture immediately after firing it.
    - If the transition time is long (transiting between different Acts, or the next wave has a frontline Vulture ), you could immediately charge another Mega Laser .
    - If the next wave is just a light wave, flood the field with the Particle Disruptor.
(-) The very wide spread of the Particle Disruptor also means its hard to inflict the full 34.375 DPS on Invaders.
- This means Arietis is more like a 31.25 DPS +/-, without the turret popping capability as well.
(-) Arietis takes time (~1s, so yes, the transition is quite long) to transit back from charging Mega Laser to firing the Particle Disruptor again, which is a bummer since DPS is lost.
In Shuriken/MIRV missions, where there are fewer shuriken launchers, Arietis can be viable.
- Simply charge Mega Laser and make sure it hits the Eagles that carry these turrets.
- If there are 3 or more Eagles carrying shuriken launchers, you will have to fire Mega Laser twice that wave.
- Mega Laser clears bullets which allows you to get past the shuriken cloud.
- Using Point Defence to clear out the shuriken cloud will very quickly cause you to be severely backed into a corner.
- With shuriken launchers eliminated, aggressively use Point Defence to eliminate MIRVs before they can explode.
- It is a common mistake to push up aggressively to eliminate MIRVs .
  - Instead, slowly push yourself up after an Mega Laser is fired so that you can collect particles.
  - This gives time for the Aura to become bigger and eliminate the MIRVs before they can trigger.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A-

(+) Point Defence is meant to be used as an offensive tool, constantly spamming it so you can get up close to Invaders and deal maximum damage from the Particle Disruptor.
- A sit back playstyle downfield means much less damage done.
(+) Because of its close combat gameplay and utilizing most of its DPS, Arietis can go quite fast.
(-) Because of how wide Arietis' Particle Disruptor is, for Ravens , it is better to only utilize one side of the Particle Disruptor rather than going face-to-face with Ravens as more of the Particle Disruptor would hit.
- For Herons , you should utilize one side of the Particle Disruptor and also as much of the other side as possible.
(-) However, when faced with larger Invaders such as Vultures , the very wide spread Particle Disruptor means it is easy to leak some DPS.
- Use Point Defence to try and make sure the cornermost streams can hit the Vulture .
Always spam tap Point Defence when speedrunning.
Because of the close combat gameplay of Arietis, go right up to Invaders, even if the wave is ending with the last few Invaders.
- As you do this, you collect particles from dead Invaders. This sustains Point Defence even at the end of the wave.
- After you have eliminated the last Invader, quickly swipe back down to the bottom of the screen to charge Mega Laser .
- The field should had been mostly clear of bullets when you used Point Defence to get close to even the last of the Invaders on field.
- This does waste a bit of time going all the way upfield to as downfield as possible to charge Mega Laser safely enough.
- Estimating when the last Invaders are going to die, and thus swiping down at the right time takes a lot of practice.
  - This is an essential skill to master.
  - If the estimation is wrong, you will waste time trying to fire off small bursts of Particle Disruptor in order to kill the last Invaders.

Fun Factor: A+

(+) Arietis is one of the most close combat ships of its class, since maximizing the Particle Disruptor's DPS means getting very close to Invaders.
(+) Pretty satisfying Particle Disruptor sounds, which complements the Point Defence sounds it makes frequently from close combat gameplay.
(=) You will probably hear a lot of "dang dang dang" because there's nothing left for Point Defence to eliminate either because it's out of range of bullets, or there's just no bullets left to eliminate.
(-) Because Arietis' Particle Disruptor is so wide, it's also hard to handle properly.
(-) It can get a bit frustrating to finish off Invaders, especially if you have mis-estimated the damage dealt.
- It may take a few rounds of re-engaging touch to fire off small bursts of Particle Disruptor and releasing touch thinking you have done enough to kill the last Invader.
(+) Easy ship core position.

Trivia

The base form of Arietis was designed by Romano Molenaar, while the apexes were designed by Rogier van de Beek.
Arietis' Particle Disruptor used to be one of the loudest in the game before it was toned down in a subsequent update.
According to the dev, Arietis can be pronounced as ahree-aytis or aree-aytis.
Before the v4.0 update which introduced Apex forms, the Epsilon Apex of Arietis was teased on Twitter:
Arietis is featured in an old game preview video of Phoenix 2, appearing at 15s.
Apparently, Arietis was supposed to get a main weapon apex that reduced the weapon spread.

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Apexes

Lambda (PD Bullet Detonator) - ¢30.000

Value: S
Cost vs Utility: S

Survivability (Daily Missions): A [+]
Survivability (Community Missions): A [+]

(+) Makes Arietis much more viable for Shuriken/MIRV and Dart/MIRV missions.
(+) Eliminates Invaders faster because of the close combat style of Arietis, allowing it to more easily deal damage compared to some other Point Defence Bullet Detonator apexes.
(+) The fact that Arietis almost always depletes its Point Defence all the time also means it is nice to use Point Defence for damage as well.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): S- [++]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A+ [+]

(+) The close combat playstyle of Arietis closely synergizes with the encouraged aggression from Point Defence Bullet Detonator.
(+) Just by playing Arietis close up like in the base form of Arietis, this apex already helps out a lot in additional damage.
(+) For even more fun, go for some turret riding which fully maximizes all of Arietis' DPS and Point Defence Bullet Detonator apex ability.

Fun Factor: S [++]

(+) The close synergy between maximizing the Point Defence Bullet Detonator apex ability and the close combat style of Arietis severely enhances how much more quickly this apex's damage capabilities can be realized.
(+) Invaders going down a lot more quickly from the tons of damage caused by their own bullets is laughable, yet enjoyable as to how fast Invaders go down.

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Epsilon (ML Focused Beam) - ¢25.000

Value: B
Cost vs Utility: B

Survivability (Daily Missions): A- [No significant change]
Survivability (Community Missions): A- [No significant change]

(+) Increase in Mega Laser damage helps plow through larger Invaders faster.
- This means less MIRVs on field in Shuriken/MIRV and Dart/MIRV missions.
(=) Allows for desperate Mega Laser riding where the massive graze from thin Mega Laser riding can allow it to regain some Point Defence when threatened with too many shuriken launchers. This is particularly demonstrated in 5-4.
- The skill of thin Mega Laser riding is VERY difficult, however.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A+ [+]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A [+]

(+) Higher damage from Mega Laser means going a bit faster.

Fun Factor: A+ [No significant change]

_{Back to All Ships/Apexes}

Atlas

Strong against: Dart/Pellet, Shuriken/Pellet, Dart/Boomerang/Laser, Dart/Pellet/Laser, Shuriken/Pellet/Laser, Lasers Only, Laser/Pellet, Laser/Shuriken
Weak against: Shuriken/MIRV, Dart/MIRV, Shuriken/Boomerang

Ship Class: Attack & Retreat
+

Main Weapon: Autocannon

Average DPS = 31.25
Weapon Class = Continuous Stream
Rate of Fire = 0.03s (Very Fast)
Projectile Speed = 1200 (Very Fast)
Projectile Hit Circle Radius = 3
4 forward firing lanes of bullet shells that fire in alternating patterns

Survivability (Daily Missions): B-
Survivability (Community Missions): B-

(+) Personal Shield makes Atlas great for laser heavy missions to deal counter offensive damage by laser reflection .
(+) Atlas' focused Autocannon makes it great for taking out turrets.
(-) However, the Autocannon takes quite a while to take out turrets due to how rapid firing it is.
(+) While the Autocannon has technically 4 streams, the streams are so tightly packed it's almost like one stream of bullets. The continuous firing of the Autocannon also makes it easy to handle.
(-) Autocannon's highly concentrated and forward directed nature can make it hard to navigate around the field after you are trapped.
- Invaders not in front of you can be hard to destroy.
- Invaders with spread turrets can become a problem since their spread turrets can reach you but you can't reach them.
The Divide and Conquer technique of Missile Swarm is one of the most relevant for Atlas.
- At the start of the wave, fire off Missile Swarm and then quickly strafe over to the other side to prevent yourself from getting trapped.
- Hopefully, this will destroy a good portion of Invaders on one side.
- When you head over to the other side, hopefully you won't need to face so many Invader weaponries firing at you.
(-) Shurikens are one of Atlas’ biggest weakness. Eliminate these turrets if possible.
(+) Personal Shield is great when faced with a shuriken cloud headed toward you with very little space to escape.
- Allow it to activate, then exit Personal Shield and use Fade Out to get past the shuriken cloud.
- Note that Personal Shield Fade Out is not effective at crossing large distances, so make sure you figure out the shortest path to escape such shuriken clouds.
  - Usually, this is the area that is most downfield.
- Attract all the shuriken launchers to one side to thin out the shuriken cloud.
- Retreat until you hit the vertical border of the screen, before using Personal Shield Fade Out to escape the shuriken cloud.
(+) Personal Shield helps against defending against pellets released from Caged MIRVs .
- This is especially when Missile Swarm eliminates all/most of the Sparrows , allowing you to clear an entire wave of pellets released from Caged MIRVs .

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A-

(+) Missile Swarm coupled with a potentially offensive Personal Shield means Atlas can go reasonably fast.
(-) As mentioned above, Atlas can run into maneuverability issues due to the forward firing of the Autocannon.
To prevent this, try to launch as many Missile Swarms as possible, even if small in size, to clear out space quickly.
- However, do not overkill if Missile Swarm cannot clear out the last Invaders in a wave.
Use Personal Shield to jump across lanes of either darts or pellets (the latter usually more likely) to quickly reposition yourself after killing a larger Invader.
- Try not to do this unless the path is really blocked, as using Personal Shield means losing the Autocannon DPS.
Before the start of the next wave, go as downfield as possible to avoid overeating particles and overfilling on Aura .
- After the next wave fully arrives, quickly place yourself in the middle of the whole field to launch Missile Swarm .
- Then, quickly retreat back downfield.
- The only time when you don’t need to do this is when you are faced with either Eagles or a Vulture in front.
- This can be tough especially when transiting from a wave that pumped in so many shurikens.

Fun Factor: A

(+) Watching lasers reflect off Personal Shield is definitely a sight to behold.
(+) Pretty satisfying Autocannon sounds. It sounds like a woodpecker.
(+) Easy to handle Autocannon.
(-) Gets stuck in corners quite easily due to forward firing Autocannon, and also Missile Swarm being not easy to fire off constantly.
(=) Average ship core positioning, it is in the middle but because Atlas is quite tall, it is not the easiest to estimate.

Trivia

The base form of Atlas was designed by Romano Molenaar, while the apexes were designed by Rogier van de Beek.
Atlas is one of the only ships whose main weapon's name is only one word, where most main weapon names are two words.
Prior to the v4.2 update, Atlas was deemed as the quake machine or the typewriter (the latter probably also due to how the main weapon sounded like), due to the excessive amount of screenshake caused by the Autocannon, and because it's so rapid and each shot has a small screenshake upon impact, it resulted in the screen constantly shaking by a very noticeable amount. Playing it for some time can probably result in headaches or dizziness. However, the screenshake from the Autocannon was hugely alleviated in v4.2 onwards and hardly visible now.
Atlas was featured in an old game preview video of Phoenix 2, at 10s.

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Apexes

Delta (MS High Explosive) - ¢20.000

Value: A-
Cost vs Utility: A

Survivability (Daily Missions): B- [No change]
Survivability (Community Missions): B- [No change]

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A+ [+]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A [+]

(+) Helps in denser waves, but the impact of this apex can be difficult to feel.

Fun Factor: A [No change]

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Alpha (PS Supersize) - ¢5.000

Value: A
Cost vs Utility: A

Survivability (Daily Missions): B [+]
Survivability (Community Missions): B [+]

(+) Useful against pellets released by Caged MIRVs , as more of these can be eliminated. This means less dodging between the mess of pellets.
(+) Much more effective in escaping shuriken clouds.
(+) Increase in laser catch rate for laser reflection , especially from laser spreads. This means a bit more laser reflection damage.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A [No change]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A- [No change]

Fun Factor: A [No significant change]

(+) Makes Atlas a bit more maneuverable, making Atlas easier to play.

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Essin

Ship Class: Balanced
+

Main Weapon: Cyclone Cannon

Average DPS = 31.25
Spread = -15° to 15° (Medium)
Weapon Class = Continuous Stream
Homing = Very Limited (Maximum Turning Rate = 10)
Rate of Fire = 0.07s (Very Fast)
Projectile Speed = 150 to 900 with an acceleration of 500 (Medium)
Projectile Hit Circle Radius = 7
Many slightly homing shurikens being continuously fired in a general forward direction, each with a slight randomness in the angle of release

Survivability (Daily Missions): B-
Survivability (Community Missions): B-

(+) Personal Shield shields against bullets and lasers alike.
(+) Launching Laser Storm just before using Personal Shield is very useful.
- You can stay safe and let Laser Storm and Personal Shield laser reflection do the work.
- You can then wait for more Invaders to be killed, or bullets to be cleared before exiting Personal Shield .
(+) Using Personal Shield Fade Out, you can clear a bit of bullets on your way out, which is useful for hopping bullet lanes.
(-) The Cyclone Cannon is a bit inconsistent due to the slight spread . This makes a few projectiles miss.
(-) The somewhat inaccurate Cyclone Cannon also means that it is not easy to pop turrets off.
- It is also somewhat difficult to go near to Invaders since Essin isn't exactly a very high DPS ship, even with Laser Storm active.
(+) Otherwise, pretty easy to handle Cyclone Cannon.
(-) Since Personal Shield is Essin's only defence, Essin has very limited defence against bullets, which is an issue in bullet heavier Laser/Pellet missions.
(-) Shurikens are one of Essin’s biggest weakness. Eliminate these turrets if possible.
(+) Personal Shield is great when faced with a shuriken cloud headed toward you with very little space to escape.
- Allow it to activate, then exit Personal Shield and use Fade Out to get past the shuriken cloud.
- Note that Personal Shield Fade Out is not effective at crossing large distances, so make sure you figure out the shortest path to escape such shuriken clouds.
  - Usually, this is the area that is most downfield.
- Attract all the shuriken launchers to one side to thin out the shuriken cloud.
- Retreat until you hit the vertical border of the screen, before using Personal Shield Fade Out to escape the shuriken cloud.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A-
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A-

(+) Essin is one of the most consistent ships around, due to it always dealing damage.
- Even while Personal Shield is active, Laser Storm continues to deal damage .
The constant stream of Cyclone Cannon also means consistency.
(=) Essin's Cyclone Cannon projectiles actually have very slight homing .
- However, this is hardly obvious since the spread of the Cyclone Cannon pretty much negates the homing .
To deal against the somewhat slow moving nature of the Cyclone Cannon projectiles, in early Acts, go right up to Invaders to maximize DPS and minimize DPS leak from the spread.
At the end of the wave, after eliminating the last Invader by going up to it, quickly head all the way downfield.
- This stacks the Cyclone Cannon projectiles, before dashing forward again for the next wave.
It is usually safe to simply activate Laser Storm at the start of a wave.
- Do not activate Laser Storm at the end of the wave, especially at the end of an Act.
  - Unless there are too many particles on field, so Laser Storm can be refilled completely without going upfield to do so.
- In early Acts, it may be a good idea to delay Laser Storm slightly to allow the Cyclone Cannon to strip off the shields of Invaders since Laser Storm isn't Shield Breaker in nature.
  - Consider this if you need to finish off the last Invaders with Cyclone Cannon, and the Laser Storm Aura size is now too big.
  - Activating Laser Storm would then waste some of it during the wave or Act transitions.
  - Ideally, you want to finish off the wave with Laser Storm for early Acts to avoid switching targets.

Fun Factor: A

(+) Essin's Cyclone Cannon is a spectacle to watch, watching actual shurikens (and not those boring red shurikens from Invaders) being thrown at Invaders.
(+) Laser Storm is also a spectacle to watch as well.
(+) Generally, easy to handle Cyclone Cannon. The slight spread makes some of it miss, but a good majority of it still hits.
(+) Essin's Cyclone Cannon impact sounds are pretty muted, but since it hits constantly, it's kinda quite soothing to hear the Cyclone Cannon keep hitting Invaders
(+) Essin is just a very fun ship to play, generally speaking.
(-) Ship core is a little more forward than usual, making it a little strange, but still quite manageable since the ship core isn't obstructed by the ship details.

Trivia

The base form of Essin was designed by Romano Molenaar, while the apexes were designed by Rogier van de Beek.
Essin used to have guns in the design of the pre-alpha version of Phoenix 2, as shown below:

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Apexes

Alpha (Main Weapon Improved Optics) - ¢5.000

Value: A+
Cost vs Utility: S

This apex improves the homing capabilities of the Cyclone Cannon by improving the maximum turning rate from 10 to 30.

Survivability (Daily Missions): B- [No change]
Survivability (Community Missions): B- [No change]

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A- [No significant change]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A- [No significant change]

(+) Slightly less leakage from the Cyclone Cannon.
(+) Switching targets is more effective, especially when it comes to strafing to avoid lasers.
(=) Doesn't really change the speedrunning style of Essin to go near to Invaders to deal more effective damage, but at least less of the Cyclone Cannon leaks.

Fun Factor: A [No significant change]

(+) A bit more fun to play since the Cyclone Cannon is slightly easier to handle.

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Gamma (PS Super Reflect) - ¢15.000

Value: A-
Cost vs Utility: A

Survivability (Daily Missions): B+ [+]
Survivability (Community Missions): B- [No significant change]

(+) Deals against dangerous Rocs and Condors with fast tracking lasers , since Super Reflect destroys them easily.
(-) Difficult to land Super Reflects since Laser Storm sounds can mask the sound of Invader lasers firing.
- To alleviate this, you can activate Laser Storm just before using Personal Shield for Super Reflect.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A+ [+]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A [+]

(+) Very powerful apex against waves with many lasers situated upfield, this apex can deal against heavy waves very effectively.
(+) Any laser heavy wave is bound to be vaporized, especially if the lasers are coming from upfield.
- Be always alert however, since sometimes the super reflected laser goes straight back to the turret and eliminates the source of the super reflected laser.
(+) On some occasions, it may even be beneficial to stress charge Super Reflect such that it destroys heavier waves faster.
- This usually applies on waves with laser MIRVs as you can sit on top of a laser MIRV as it is triggered to Super Reflect all of its 5 or 9 lasers .
- This requires experimentation, and a lot of skill to know when to charge a Personal Shield Super Reflect that has not cooled down completely.

Fun Factor: A [No significant change]

(+) Being able to completely destroy Condors and Rocs in one Super Reflect is extremely satisfying.
(-) Difficult to land Super Reflect due to how Laser Storm can mask the sound of Invader lasers firing.
- This is one of the harder Super Reflect apexes to play.

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Ex04239

Strong against: None in particular
Weak against: Shuriken/MIRV, Dart/MIRV

Ship Class: Full Offence (FO)
+

Main Weapon: Meson Projectors

Average DPS = 37.5
Capacity = 500ms
Weapon Class = Uninterruptible Burst
Reload Time = 0.4s (Medium)
Beam Width = 4
2 side-by-side forward firing beams that lasts a short while

Survivability (Daily Missions): B-
Survivability (Community Missions): B-

(-) No defense other than Mega Laser .
(+) Extremely easy to handle Meson Projectors.
- The Meson Projectors are among the most consistent main weapons out there with a very easy to catch rhythm.
(+) The high DPS of Meson Projectors, how easy it is to handle and the forward firing nature, makes it easy to take out turrets.
(+) Mega Laser also takes out turrets if necessary.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): X
Speedrunning (Community Missions): X

(+) The single, highest single target damage dealer out there among all ships.
- Ex04239 is powerful enough in single target damage, that it can even be among the fastest even in Unprotected missions.
(+) The highest DPS in its class, together with 2 extreme burst damage from both Missile Swarm and Mega Laser , means Ex04239 takes out almost all Invaders with ease.
- There's not a lot of dodging, and you hardly have to worry about deadly turrets.
(+) A half full Missile Swarm Aura and an Mega Laser kills a Vulture instantly.
(+) A good idea is to push forward with the Mega Laser in order to allow a full sized Missile Swarm Aura to lock on to Invaders behind the Vulture so that the Missile Swarm is not wasted.
Mega Laser should almost always be charged as downfield as possible.
- Only charge upfield is if the frontline Invaders are not able to turn behind to shoot at you, so you can shove Mega Laser into a Vulture's or Condor's cockpit.
- You may also want to charge upfield if you need to instantly eliminate a turret on a Condor or Roc that is very deadly.
  - If you are doing so on a Roc , after firing the Mega Laser , head over to the other side to launch an Missile Swarm such that it will destroy the 2 difficult-to-reach turrets on the other side.
Missile Swarm is generally a more effective means to get rid of difficult-to-reach turrets of a Roc than Mega Laser .
In the presence of a Vulture , change at the center of the field so that the Mega Laser will hit its cockpit to deal maximum damage.
Only fire Missile Swarm when nearer to the frontline Vulture to allow Missile Swarm time to lock on to the Invaders behind.
Don't be too near to Invaders as you use Missile Swarm to kill off the last Invaders of the next wave as while the Missile Swarm clears out the last of Invaders, this allows you to charge Mega Laser for the next wave.
- Don't be afraid if there is quite a bit of overkill damage since charging Mega Laser is more important.
If you do not intend to charge Mega Laser for the next wave, it is better to use the Meson Projectors to finish the job.
It is also better to go up close to Invaders if you are not charging Mega Laser for the next wave, as you can minimize the travel time of Missile Swarm to kill Invaders.
Charging Mega Laser where possible is not always a good idea even with the above technique of letting Missile Swarm finish off the last of Invaders.
- Sometimes, it is better to simply use Meson Projectors and Missile Swarm to finish off the next wave, even if the next wave is sufficiently dense or heavy.
- This allows Mega Laser time to cool down.
- Generally, if Mega Laser takes more than 2.5s to go off, it's a sign to let Mega Laser cool off and use the Meson Projectors and Missile Swarm to deal with that wave instead.
Offset Mega Laser to one side if needed, if the middle of the field does not have enough Invaders in the column.
Mega Laser can be fired twice against a Roc , where possible.
Depending on whether or not you have enough Missile Swarm Aura, it is not always a good idea to ride the Mega Laser to collect the particles.
- However, riding it partially to the midfield may be a good idea such that Missile Swarm can target enough Invaders so that it is not wasted.
- Of course, if you don't have enough particles, riding Mega Laser is always a good idea.
- The momentum is to always fire Mega Laser then fire Missile Swarm , unless in early Acts where one burst of Meson Projectors is enough to finish off that wave.
Do a speed sweep in early waves that have Sparrows .
- While 4 Sparrows on screen can possibly be completely destroyed with one proper sweep, it usually takes 2 sweeps.
- It's better to be safe and do 2 sweeps since doing an incomplete sweep means that the 2 remaining Sparrows may become too far apart, so you waste 2 more bursts to take both of them down.
- You should aim for only one sweep if it's only 3 Sparrows .
If there are only 2 Ravens on field on early Acts 1-2, just use the Meson Projectors to finish them off and don't bother firing an Missile Swarm since Missile Swarm takes time to travel to the other Raven.
Ex04239's Meson Projectors is a bursty main weapon , so you can charge Mega Laser as the Meson Projector fires.
- This is very useful for many cases, especially when the remaining Invaders in the wave have too low health left to justify an Missile Swarm to finish it off.
For waves that do not need Mega Laser , you can also fake charge Mega Laser so when the next wave fully arrives, engage touch again to maximize the burst of Meson Projectors.
- Do this when required, but bear in mind this also means not being able to let Mega Laser cool down.
Because Ex04239 kills so fast, when a Roc arrives, they may be a lot of particles in front of you.
- As such, always charge Mega Laser as downfield as possible unless you need to eliminate difficult-to-reach turrets urgently.
- As you fire off the first Missile Swarm , slowly grab the particles such that you don't overfill.
- In some cases, it can be possible to launch up to 3 full size Missile Swarms .

Fun Factor: X

(+) Extremely easy to handle Meson Projectors. This is why Ex04239 feels a lot more consistent and easy to speedrun with.
(+) Very satisfying and impactful Meson Projectors. The sound matches the high DPS of the Meson Projectors.
Ex04239 is probably one of the only times that you really start complaining about the random circling nature of Missile Swarm .
- Due to how fast Ex04239 is, the smallest amount of RNG from the annoying circling of Missile Swarm will really annoy you.
- However, it's not that this issue isn't present in other Missile Swarm ships either. It's just more obvious on Ex04239.
(+) Even if you are not really into speedrunning, the pure speed that stems from its DPS, Aura and Zen is extremely satisfying, even if you choose to take it quite slow.
- You could always destroy most of the wave very fast and then slow down at the end to let the bullets cool off before proceeding to the next wave.
(+) Instantly vaporizing a frontline Vulture is very satisfying.
(+) Ex04239 is one of the highest adrenaline ships to play, due to how much it has to move around the field.
(=) Average ship core position.

Trivia

The base form of Ex04239 was designed by Romano Molenaar, while the apexes were designed by Rogier van de Beek.
The Sigma Apex of Ex04239, being one of the most popular apexes, is commonly referred to SigEx0 in Phoenix 2 communities. There's another shorter form of the Sigma Apex of Ex04239, which this guide will not mention due to the fact it can be inappropriate.
Despite Ex04239's oddly specific code number, the devs have said that the number has no meaning behind it, and is simply for cadence.
It was initially thought that both E & X were supposed to be UPPER CASE before the v5.0 update (because it made more sense). Between the v5.0 and the v6.1.6 update however, the actual casing of the individual letters now appear in the shop under the Warp Gate tab, so it is confirmed that only the E is capitalized.
Before the v4.0 update which introduced Apex forms, the Phi Apex of Ex04239 was teased:
Ex04239 used to have guns in the design of the pre-alpha version of Phoenix 2, as shown below:
In a pre-release version of Phoenix 2 (which could never be played), Ex04239 was seen having Barrier as its Aura ability instead.
It was also seen having an unknown Aura ability in a pre-release version.
Ex04239 Phi is featured in the new game preview video for Phoenix 2.
Here's an adorable representation of Ex04239 made by a user Phoenix Private, which the dev liked so much that he saved it into his folder and found it one day to repost it:
Ex04239 Phi is the one of the apexes that you can play without buying it, which is in Campaign Mission #23. You are locked into using this apex for this campaign mission and cannot use other ships/apexes. In the initial v7.0 release of the campaign update, this ship was also misspelled as Ex04238 (Note the wrong last digit).

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Apexes

Sigma (MS Ion Warheads) - ¢35.000

Value: X
Cost vs Utility: X

Survivability (Daily Missions): B+ [+]
Survivability (Community Missions): B+ [+]

(+) Less bullets from Invaders from the stun effect from Missile Swarm .
(+) Able to reset deadly spinners and Doomsday weapons just before they fire, severely increasing survivability especially in waves with upfield Vultures , or against Condors and Rocs .
(+) The ease to launch Missile Swarm after Missile Swarm means it's easy to stun lock Invaders for a long time, so it becomes very difficult for Invaders to pump bullets onto the field.
- This severely increases the maneuvering capability of Ex04239, and thus, the survivability.
(+) Works to reset lasers too, but this function is seldom seen because Ex04239 kills too fast.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): HX [+]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): HX [+]

(+) Better maneuverability of Ex04239 in many bullet heavier missions.
- The maneuverability helps Ex04239 land more effective damage with Meson Projectors.
- It also allows Missile Swarm to lock on to more targets so that missiles don't just fly off for no reason.
(+) Helps in Mega Laser setups during wave transitions as Missile Swarm takes care of the remaining Invaders, so you don't get unexpected darts or boomerangs firing and killing you.
(+) Possible to use Ex04239 on Shuriken/MIRV missions, although it will still not be an easy task.
(-) The increase in minimum Aura size to launch Missile Swarm means not being capable to launch Missile Swarm in early Acts 1-2, which can become an issue in speedrunning in early waves.

Fun Factor: X [No significant change]

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Phi (ML Twin Laser) - ¢45.000

Value: A
Cost vs Utility: A

This apex fires 2 Mega Lasers side-by-side, with a tiny gap in the middle. The damage from both Mega Lasers add up to 200 damage. The width of each Mega Laser is 30, with a gap of 12 between them.

Survivability (Daily Missions): B- [No significant change]
Survivability (Community Missions): B- [No significant change]

(+) Allows Ex04239 to take out 2 Vulture turrets side-by-side, increasing survivability slightly.
(-) However, landing Mega Laser on the cockpit of an Armored Vulture with normal Mega Laser does more damage than the Mega Laser Twin Laser fired upon the turrets of an Armored Vulture.
- It is definitely a better idea to just kill the whole Armored Vulture than to pop off its turrets.
(+) This apex is however, useful against Unprotected Vulture , or larger Invaders.
- It can also be useful against Shielded Invaders, although a Shield Breaker ship is much more suited for the job.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): HX [+]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): HX [+]

(+) Increases the speed of Ex04239 further.
- However, to do so on Armored Invaders, make sure that both Mega Lasers land on the Vulture's , Condor's or Roc's cockpit.
- On very heavy Unprotected missions with fewer dense waves, Ex04239 Phi can become extremely potent since you can land the Mega Laser without consequences so long the damage leak is minimized.
(+) Increases the horizontal reach of Mega Laser . Easier to catch Invaders who try to escape the Mega Laser before it punches through the frontline Invaders.
- This is especially for earlier waves where Sparrows can be quite spread throughout horizontally.

Fun Factor: X [No significant change]

(+) More damage = More fun

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Aurora

Strong against: Shuriken/Pellet, Shuriken/MIRV, Dart/MIRV
Weak against: General - No Lasers, Dart/Boomerang/Laser, Dart/Pellet/Laser, Lasers Only, Laser/Pellet, Laser/Shuriken

Ship Class: Double Defence
+

Main Weapon: Quantum Nuke

Average DPS = 36.5
Blast Damage = 16 (High)
Blast Radius = 200
Weapon Class = Uninterruptible Burst
Projectile Speed = 400 to 200 with a deceleration of 1200 (Very Slow)
Reload Time = 2s (Very Slow)
Projectile Hit Circle = Elliptical: 16 in length, 40 in height
Very slow moving forward travelling projectile fired once every 2s that explodes with a large blast radius

Survivability (Daily Missions): S-
Survivability (Community Missions): A

(+) The Bullet EMP + Teleport allows for a super charged Arrival EMP Teleport.
- The best usage for Aurora is to Teleport in the middle of the action, then fire the Bullet EMP after arriving (since Teleport Arrival EMP gives a little grace time).
In light waves, Teleport in front of the Ravens (or Heron ) so that the Quantum Nuke will hit them.
- Continually missing the Quantum Nuke will make you eventually run out of Aura since you have to keep clearing the field of MIRVs , pellets and even shurikens emitted by Sparrows .
(+) Especially in Shuriken/MIRV missions, Teleport to the middle of the field, and then wait until you are almost going to die.
- Then fire Bullet EMP to make use of the full 360° of Bullet EMP.
- You can even Teleport to explode all the MIRVs emitted from MIRV Bloomers.
  - If you can, try to graze off the pellets released by the MIRVs and slowly push back.
  - This earns you additional Bullet EMP Aura if done correctly.
  - At worst, you still collect some particles.
- The latest time you should ever fire Bullet EMP is before you reach the lowest 1/3 of the screen.
(+) Thus, Teleport is used more as a positional tool to allow the most optimum usage of Teleport.
In other waves, medium ones and above, there's little reason to care about aiming because Invaders are almost everywhere.
- Just don't be at the side of the field since that hurts your chances for the Quantum Nukes to hit for no reason.
- You just need to care when it comes to the end of the wave, where you need to chase down the last few Invaders.
(+) The Quantum Nuke's huge blast radius does massive AoE damage to many Invaders on field at once.
- The best result is in dense waves where the total amount of damage dealt is insane.
(=) The Quantum Nuke deals decent damage against front heavy waves since the blast radius is enough to damage Invaders hiding behind larger Invaders in front.
- However, against larger Invaders themselves, it might take a bit of time to burn through them.
(+) You can Teleport right into any mess of bullets in the middle of the field, even if everywhere, MIRVs are exploding.
- Look out especially for pellets coming from behind, and fire Bullet EMP just before they get way too close to you (a good guide is before they touch the visual body of Aurora itself).
- Doing so allows you to grab particles to increase the radius of Bullet EMP as well.
- If the Bullet EMP Aura is too small to clear all bullets downfield, be careful as you retreat.
- A small size Bullet EMP may not be able to reset MIRV Bloomers and Spreads.
NEVER go behind a Vulture to take Ravens behind as that is very likely to backfire instead.
- Eliminate the Vulture in front as fast as possible first since it has more dangerous turrets.
- The blast damage from Aurora is more than enough to wipe out Ravens hiding behind the Vulture .
(+) A very good technique if you are low on Aura is to pre-charge Teleport .
- While the time slowdown is active from a ready-to-use Teleport , you can carefully graze off the many bullets (particularly from MIRV Bloomers) to charge your Aura .
  - Each graze is quite significant as Bullet EMP is a huge Aura .
- Just be very careful not to exceed the time slowdown period.
- Just as time starts to speed up, Teleport to your new location.
- Use the time slowdown to decide your Teleport arrival spot.
- Don't try this unless you are relatively close to some bullets otherwise you are just wasting your time.
(-) Unfortunately Aurora doesn't do too well against Condors and Rocs .
- A long battle is to be expected.
- You might need to probably use the graze then Teleport technique mentioned above quite a lot during these battles.
- That's not to say that Aurora can't deal against them, but it may take quite a lot of skill.
- In such long battles, go for high priority turrets to eliminate, so that you will have an easier time surviving.
  - Shurikens are much less a concern (since you can just Teleport away from shuriken launchers), while MIRV Spreads and Doomsday Super MIRVs are first priority to eliminate.
(-) You can use Aurora on Shielded Shuriken/MIRV or Dart/MIRV missions, but one missed shot means Invaders have a chance to regenerate their shields.
(-) Fast paced missions are difficult to play on with Aurora.
- It becomes difficult to aim the Quantum Nuke at Invaders.
- Missing one Quantum Nuke can become all the difference between surviving or not.
(-) In laser heavy missions, Bullet EMP may not always reach far enough to reset all lasers, which is a huge problem.
- If there is not enough Aura to reset most lasers , it is also difficult to aim the Quantum Nuke to destroy the Invaders to clear the wave faster.
(-) Difficult to aim Quantum Nuke due to how slowly it moves.
(-) Very difficult to pop turrets off since the Quantum Nuke fires infrequently and 2 Quantum Nukes are needed to pop a turret off.
- Fortunately, the number of Invaders and turrets left on field are usually few after the Quantum Nuke takes care of small Invaders easily.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): B+
Speedrunning (Community Missions): B+

The impact damage of a single Quantum Nuke is 25 while the blast damage is 16.
- As blast damage is also dealt to the Invader which the Quantum Nuke hits, the damage dealt is 41.
Use Teleport as your positioning tool to get right in front of the Invaders you want to destroy.
- Fire off Bullet EMP in front of them where necessary to temporarily stun them so that you won't die being shot at point blank range.
Always aim to have the Quantum Nuke hit the largest Invader on screen.
Clear from front to back. In other words, clear the most downfield Invaders first.
The Quantum Nuke's blast radius is enough to affect downfield Invaders if it explodes at the center of the field.
Next, if multiple Invaders of the same largest size appears, hit the one that is most central.
- Down the other smaller Invaders first, before switching your focus to hit the other Invaders of the same size.
- For example, if we have 2 Eagles and many Ravens , focus down on the more central Eagle for the blast damage to affect as many Ravens as possible.
  - If the Eagles separate to the left and right sides of the field, alternate between hitting the left and right Eagle.
  - Doing so allows the Eagles to go down at the same time, while downing all Ravens before the Eagles go down.
- Generally speaking, it becomes difficult to focus fire in later Acts.
  - For example, if the wave is a upfield Vulture and 2 downfield Eagles , then just get rid of the Eagles first.
- If the largest Invaders are all the way upfield, focus fire on the next largest Invader at the center of the field or downfield so that all Invaders downfield are eliminated first.
Against a frontline Vulture with many upfield Ravens behind it, Teleport on the Vulture such that you are just slightly above the turrets of the Vulture.
- You want the Quantum Nuke to explode just slightly above the turrets of the Vulture , but not too far up (which makes the Quantum Nuke miss the Vulture).
- Focus fire on the left side of the Vulture , between its 2 left turrets, 2 times before all the Ravens on the left go down
- Then focus fire the right side of the Vulture between its 2 right turrets, such that the right side of Ravens go down.
(+) Scoring a critical hit makes the blast damage of the Quantum Nuke take out Unprotected Ravens immediately.
- Unfortunately, you can only react to this as fast as possible to re-adjust your plans.
(-) Because of random Invader movements and random critical hit chances, speedrunning with Aurora can vary a lot.
- Expect time gaps of approximately at least 10s apart even with a very similar run, hitting the same Invaders in both runs.
Aurora's Quantum Nuke blast damage has a cap on how many Invaders can be affected (but the blast damage is still dealt equally to all of them), as confirmed by the devs.
- If the number of Invaders within the blast radius of the Quantum Nuke exceeds the cap, then only the Invaders closest to the blast epicenter will be dealt the blast damage .

Fun Factor: S-

(+) Aurora's Quantum Nuke is definitely the most fun thing going for it.
- The satisfaction of watching so many Ravens being blown to smithereens just makes your day.
(-) It's random as to whether the blast damage will kill on the first impact for other Ravens .
- This depends on whether the damage dealt by the blast damage is a critical hit. (YES, Aurora's blast damage can deal critical hits.)
(+) Watching Ravens blow up just by hitting that Vulture in front makes fun of these cowardly Ravens.
(+) The feeling of diving right into the action and then releasing a huge Bullet EMP to clear so many bullets is incredibly satisfying.
(-) It's quite easy to miss a Quantum Nuke since it is difficult to handle, especially in early waves.
(+) Easy ship core position.

Trivia

The base form of Aurora was designed by Romano Molenaar, while the apexes were designed by Rogier van de Beek.
Aurora is the only ship with a High Impact main weapon that has blast damage .
Aurora is the only ship with a max DPS of 36.5.
- In fact, it is the only ship with an inaccurate DPS, as the Quantum Nuke itself does not deal 36.5 DPS.
- Instead, the DPS is an average of the Quantum Nuke's impact damage and the blast damage dealt to an averaged number of Invaders affected by the blast damage.
- By some calculation, it appears that the figure of 36.5 DPS is derived from the assumption that the Quantum Nuke hits an invader and the blast damage affects 3 invaders, including the one the nuke hit.
Aurora is one of the only ships whose main weapon characteristics continue to change even from level 5 to Ultimate level. Specifically, the reload time of the Quantum Nuke is slightly shorter at Ultimate level compared to level 5.
Aurora used to have guns in the design of the pre-alpha version of Phoenix 2, as shown below:
Aurora was the 4th "Horsemen" in early versions of Phoenix 2, as the Quantum Nuke previously traveled much faster and was a lot easier to hit. It was also very reliable in clearing.
Before v3.0, Aurora's nuke had a hit circle radius of just 5. It's minimum speed also increased in level, from 200 to 230 to 260 to 290 to 300 (today, the minimum speed is fixed at 200). It's blast damage also increased by level from 10 to 10.5 to 11 to 11.5 to 12 (today, the blast damage stays at 16).
Aurora is the only ship that suffered an extremely targeted nerf.
In v3.5, the limit of blast damage to 8 targets was removed.
- This means Aurora now got a buff after suffering from a nerf to the Quantum Nuke.
- The removal of this restriction appears to only significantly affect Aurora, since other ships with blast damage main weapons don't quite benefit.
Before the v4.0 update which introduced Apex forms, the Lambda Apex of Aurora was teased on the Phoenix 2 FaceBook:
The devs had some fun and made a little GIF on Discord showcasing what it was like to have Aurora's Quantum Nuke firing rate increased like crazy. The result is dizzying when nukes after nukes exploded on a test Eagle with infinite health.
- Because the GIF is extremely disorientating, here's just a little image of how crazy the firing rate looked like, and the massive spill of the nukes exploding.
- You may also see the original shorts clip below.

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Apexes

Lambda (Teleport Extended Clearance) - ¢30.000

Value: C-
Cost vs Utility: C

Survivability (Daily Missions): S [+]
Survivability (Community Missions): A [No change]

(+) Helps in lengthy Roc battles where particles become very scarce.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): B+ [No change]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): B+ [No change]

Fun Factor: S- [No change]

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Tau (Main Weapon Homing Module) - ¢40.000

Value: D
Cost vs Utility: C

Makes Quantum Nuke projectiles have minor homing capabilities (Maximum Turning Rate = 20). Here's how the Homing Quantum Nuke looks like:

Survivability (Daily Missions): S- [No change]
Survivability (Community Missions): A [No change]

(+) Easier to sit back and just let Aurora do all the work for you. It is an extremely lazy apex.
(-) Sometimes, the homing Quantum nuke ends up missing due to the imperfect homing capability.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): B+ [No change]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): B+ [No change]

(-) Attempting to control the homing Quantum Nuke can become counter-intuitive as this might make the nuke miss instead since it has a different idea of what it wants to hit than what you want to hit.
- Shouldn't be a problem if you go point blank with Invaders.
- Then again, if you do that, there's just no point in getting this apex.

Fun Factor: A+ [--]

(+) Sit back and relax as the homing does quite a bit of the job for you.
(-) Can stupidly still miss Invaders even it is homing onto them. Sometimes it makes you wonder if aiming yourself is just better.
(-) It can even miss Rocs entirely.

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Von Braun

Strong against: None in particular
Weak against: Shuriken/MIRV, Dart/MIRV

Ship Class: Blitzkrieg
+

Main Weapon: Daisy Cutter

Average DPS = 37.5
Homing = Minor (Maximum Turning Rate = 20)
Blast Damage = 2.8 (Medium)
Blast Radius = 80
Weapon Class = Uninterruptible Burst
Projectile Speed = -200 with an acceleration of 500 (Very Slow, then Medium)
Reload Time = 1.2s (Slow)
Projectile Hit Circle Radius = 5
2 slightly homing huge missiles simultaneously fired from both sides of the ship

Survivability (Daily Missions): D+
Survivability (Community Missions): D+

(-) Absolutely no defense.
(=) Kappa Drive allows you to dodge through tight gaps, but there's absolutely no way to clear them, so you have to clear fast.
(+) Fortunately Missile Swarm is a very good solution to clearing fast. Its high burst damage clears Invaders out really fast.
(-) Unreliable turret popping capabilities. The random targeting nature of the Daisy Cutter makes it difficult to focus down on deadly turrets.
- Missile Swarm is also not reliable to pop off turrets.
(-) Extremely difficult to handle Daisy Cutters.
- Random targeting, and subpar homing capabilities make it miss Ravens and Sparrows very easily.
Von Braun's Daisy Cutter takes care of the bigger Invaders, while the constant Missile Swarm spam deals with the smaller Invaders.
- The spillover of Missile Swarm from smaller Invaders helps out in dealing damage to bigger Invaders.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): S-
Speedrunning (Community Missions): S-

Von Braun is a very unique ship that relies heavily on Kappa Drive .
- Keep Kappa Drive engaged at all times.
- Only dis-engage Kappa Drive momentarily to release a burst of Daisy Cutter.
- This requires knowledge on how long it takes to recharge one burst of Daisy Cutter.
- It takes roughly 3s while Kappa Drive is engaged to recharge one burst of Daisy Cutter.
(+) Kappa Drive generates a lot of Missile Swarm Aura to clear out Invaders quickly.
Wave memorization and positioning are of utmost importance to Von Braun.
The only most frustrating part is Wave 1-1 where hitting 2 Ravens / Sparrows could be difficult.
- After hitting 2 Sparrows or 1 Raven , if there are 2 more Invaders, use Kappa Drive and then Missile Swarm to finish off the rest
- If one Invader remains, then just use another burst of Daisy Cutter to finish the last Invader off.
In every wave, be positioned on the field such that Von Braun is on the body of the largest Invader on field (of course, not on top of its turrets).
- This allows the Daisy Cutter to hit with 100% accuracy.
- 1 Daisy Cutter missile kills an Armored Raven .
- If there are more than one Armored Ravens in that wave, position yourself just slightly off to one side of the Raven.
  - One of the Daisy Cutter missiles should hit the Raven , while the other would accelerate towards the other Raven at the center of the field.
  - If the Ravens are side-by-side, just pick any Raven and it does not matter if both Daisy Cutter missiles hit one Raven.
  - Use Missile Swarm as soon as possible to eliminate the other one, using Kappa Drive where required.
  - This usually happens on early Acts.
- 2 of the Daisy Cutter missiles are required to kill an Armored Heron .
  - Thus, be on top of the Heron itself, at its cockpit.
- The Daisy Cutter takes 0.8s (in slowed time) after touch is engaged to spawn the Daisy Cutters.
  - After 0.8s, the Daisy Cutters are able to make contact with Invaders, allowing you to deal damage to them quickly
  - It takes 1s (in slowed time) or 0.5s in actual time to accelerate. In this window of time, you can move around and sort of Missile Barrel the Daisy Cutters before they detach.
Against Eagles , go as close as possible to them.
- Allow both missiles of the Daisy Cutter to hit.
- Then, fire off Missile Swarm to finish off the Eagle and the rest of the Invaders in the wave.
Don't worry about Aura overfill for Vultures and below.
- Kappa Drive generates a lot of Missile Swarm Aura so overkill is very normal.
- The powerful Daisy Cutter or the Missile Swarm Aura generated makes up for the wastage in Missile Swarm Aura.
If the Vulture is the last of the Invaders to go down in that wave, do Missile Barreling on the Vulture to destroy it very fast.
- Alternatively, go on top of the Vulture so it goes down very quickly due to zero travel time.
4 Daisy Cutter missiles and a full Aura of Missile Swarm destroy a Vulture very quickly.
- Thus, you can pre-fire one burst of Daisy Cutters downfield.
- Then go close to the Vulture to fire off the second burst, and finish off with Missile Swarm .
Use Missile Swarm to do Missile Barreling on difficult-to-reach turrets of Condors and Rocs to destroy them instantly to make surviving easier.
- If possible, use the first Missile Swarm to deal damage without doing Missile Barreling.
- Then use leftover particles from the previous wave to use a second Missile Swarm do Missile Barreling.
- Otherwise, Aura overfill can be a problem for Condors and Rocs if you just do Missile Barreling straight away.
- If the difficult-to-reach turrets are too fast firing, quickly do Missile Barreling to immediately to get rid of them.
Try to stay on one side of Vultures , Condors and Rocs .
- This allows the Daisy Cutter and Missile Swarm to get rid of the turrets on one side of them.
- Then go on top of these Invaders so the Daisy Cutter hits immediately, taking them down very quickly.
While Von Braun relies a lot on pre-firing and making sure the Daisy Cutters are allowed to drop below their spawn point, there is a very specific scenario where you must release touch at the absolute right time.
- If you are faced with a Raven that is extremely upfield, releasing the Daisy Cutters early will make the Daisy Cutters miss the Raven due to its backward movement.
- Thus, you waste time waiting for it to accelerate forward after being dropped.
- In this case, you need to be very precise with your timing and only drop the Daisy Cutters when the Raven is right on top of you.
- This use case is very relevant if you need to finish off the last Raven on field
For even more tips on how to speedrun with Von Braun, refer to this website:
https://p2myth.club/docs/Cookbook/Von%20Braun

Fun Factor: A

(-) Extremely frustrating Daisy Cutter that misses Sparrows and Ravens very easily.
- Early waves are usually very frustrating. Going near to Sparrows and Ravens makes the Daisy Cutter miss easily when they run off a bit.
- Even firing downfield is unreliable to hit Sparrows and Ravens due to their movement speed.
(+) Von Braun is THE missile ship.
- Really fun to watch all kinds of missiles fly around the screen, including big missiles from Daisy Cutter, and the constant spam of small missiles from the Missile Swarm + Kappa Drive combo.
(+) Very quick to vaporize Vultures .
- Condors and Rocs also go down rather quickly.
(-) Because Von Braun has Kappa Drive engaged almost all the time, the gameplay of Von Braun is pretty slow, which is ironic for a speedrunning ship.
- And when the missiles of Daisy Cutter miss, even more time is wasted.
(=) The blast damage is not significant, particularly when maxed, as one Daisy Cutter's blast damage no longer kills a Sparrow .
(+) Pretty intuitive ship core position, since it is in the middle of the chevrons marked by the 2 wings.

Trivia

The base form of Von Braun was designed by Romano Molenaar, while the apexes were designed by Rogier van de Beek.
Von Braun is the only ship that shares the highest DPS of 37.5 with other ships, but also has blast damage . The 37.5 DPS does not account for the blast damage.
Von Braun's main weapon , Daisy Cutter, is the name of a missile used in real life to clear foliage and vegetation.
Von Braun's name may be a reference to the German aerospace engineer and space architect. More specifically, Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun was the leading figure in the development of rocket technology in Germany and a pioneer of rocket and space technology in the United States.
The Daisy Cutter missiles are one of the only main weapons in the game that start off with a negative speed by going backwards, and then accelerate forward.
Von Braun Beta is one of the only apexes in which the design of the main weapon projectile itself is also different from the base form.
Before the v4.0 update which introduced Apex forms, the Beta Apex of Von Braun was teased on the Instagram page of Firi Games:

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Apexes

Delta (MS Armor Piercing) - ¢20.000

Value: S
Cost vs Utility: S

Survivability (Daily Missions): C- [++]
Survivability (Community Missions): C- [++]

(+) Being able to eliminate Invaders significantly faster due to Von Braun's reliance on Kappa Drive to generate lots and lots of Missile Swarm Aura improves survivability.
(+) Particularly, Armored Sparrows go down significantly faster.
(+) Sometimes, Sparrows will go down even if Missile Swarm isn't locked on to it because the missiles that fly off may hit the Sparrows and destroy them.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): X [+++]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): S+ [+]

(+) Able to clear off early waves significantly faster with much less Kappa Drive time means significantly faster early wave times.
(+) Even in later waves, the Missile Swarm Armor Piercing deals so much more damage to Invaders, reducing the number of Missile Swarm fired to eliminate even later waves.
(+) Very useful when doing Missile Barreling, since it is very difficult to do so on Invader cockpits
- This is particularly so since it is better to stick to one side of larger Invaders to go on top of these Invaders more safely.
(+) Able to take down smaller Invaders in denser waves such as Ravens and Sparrows much faster so that the way is cleared for Daisy Cutter to hit larger Invaders.

Fun Factor: A+ [+]

(+) Much faster gameplay, so less Kappa Drive time.
(+) Killing Invaders faster is more fun.

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Beta (Main Weapon Improved Thrusters) - ¢10.000

Value: A+
Cost vs Utility: S

This apex improves the homing capabilities of its Daisy Cutter by increasing the maximum turning rate from 20 to 40. This is how the improved Daisy Cutter looks like:

Survivability (Daily Missions): C- [++]
Survivability (Community Missions): C- [++]

(+) The capability to take down Ravens much more reliably improves survivability against rogue Ravens, particularly those with laser spreads.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): S- [No significant change]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): S- [No significant change]

(+) Allows early waves to be a bit faster.
- However, in the hands of skilled Von Braun players who would hit the Daisy Cutter at point blank range, there's just not much benefit for them.

Fun Factor: A+ [+]

(+) Significantly less frustration in taking down Ravens and Sparrows .
- Particularly, Ravens are almost a guaranteed hit if you are all the way downfield.
- Sparrows may still miss, but if their movement happens to be not too fast, the Daisy Cutter will hit.
- This makes the end of every wave much easier and early waves much more bearable.
Recommended for casual players who enjoy Von Braun's many missiles but don't want to take Von Braun speedrunning too seriously.

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Gorthaur

Strong against: Dart/Pellet, Shuriken/Pellet, Dart/Boomerang/Pellet, Dart/Boomerang/Laser, Lasers Only, Laser/Pellet, Laser/Shuriken
Weak against: Shuriken/MIRV, Dart/MIRV

Ship Class: Double Defence
+

Main Weapon: Barrage Cannons

Average DPS = 34.375
Spread = -22.5° to 22.5° (Very Wide)
Weapon Class = Continuous Stream
Rate of Fire = 0.05s (Very Fast)
Reload Time = 0.15s (Fast)
Projectile Speed = 730 (Fast)
Projectile Hit Circle Radius = 3
2 successive sets of 14 projectiles each in a general diverging pattern, with some randomness in spread

Survivability (Daily Missions): B
Survivability (Community Missions): B

(-) Barrier and Personal Shield don't complement each other.
- In fact, Barrier is an obstruction to Personal Shield's laser reflection function since barriers will block the lasers needed for laser reflection.
(+) Personal Shield is used as a counter offensive tool against lasers , particularly in its mission type Gorthaur is strong against where lasers are abundant.
(-) The wide spread of the Barrage Cannons make it very difficult to pop off turrets, affecting survivability.
Before the next wave starts, as the current wave starts to die down with the last 1 or 2 Invaders, deploy your barrier upfield.
- However, knowledge of the next wave is key as you want all Invaders to be enclosed by the barrier .
- No turrets should leak bullets outside the barrier .
When the next wave comes in, get rid of as many downfield Invaders as you can.
Fight as close to the barrier as you can when faced with an onslaught of bullets.
- Otherwise head inside the barrier to go close to Invaders and maximize the Barrage Cannons' damage.
As you fight for a while, the inner lining starts to fade off, and Invader lasers are ready to fire the first round.
- As the lasers are going to fire, literally throw yourself inside the barrier .
- It is difficult to catch the timing as using the laser cue sound is too late you will not be able to fully maximize the laser reflection damage.
- This needs practice as going in too early means you waste DPS.
At this time, the inner lining should have faded off and all/most tracking lasers are locked onto you, thus hitting your Personal Shield and dealing laser reflection damage.
- It is very awkward nevertheless as you run into the danger of destroying yourself if you don't throw yourself in properly.
(-) Unfortunately, you won't have long left before the barrier fades, after you reflect off the first round of lasers .
- This is when Gorthaur starts to struggle as it has very little means left to defend itself, especially after using Personal Shield for damage.
(+) At the end of the wave, go upfield to finish off the last Invaders.
- This also allows you to place a Barrier for the next wave.
(-) Gorthaur needs help from laser reflection to survive.
- Without many lasers on screen, the barriers will break and Gorthaur would be left with very limited protection.
(+) Use Barrier to block off faster bullets like darts and boomerangs when the upfield barriers have faded.
(+) Use Personal Shield to block off slower bullets like pellets and shurikens.
- As you exit Personal Shield , you can also use it to cut across dart lanes.
(+) Both Barrier and Personal Shield are effective at blocking out boomerangs .

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): B+
Speedrunning (Community Missions): B

Go as close to the barrier as possible to optimize the wide spread of the Barrage Cannons to hit the Invaders.
Gorthaur speedruns differently, based on whether you are speedrunning in a bullet heavy mission or a laser heavy mission.
In a bullet heavy mission,
- Keep barriers as small as possible to be able to stay near to Invaders where possible.
- Deploy many barriers of different sizes upfield where possible. Doing so allows you to adjust where you are on the field and stay close to Invaders you want to get up close and personal.
  - The easiest way is to deploy a barrier upfield whenever possible.
  - This usually results in different sizes of barriers .
  - If all the barriers are becoming too small, deploy barriers at a different vertical height.
  - Doing allows different layers where you can sit at different safety points.
In a laser heavy mission, when using barriers , there are 2 possibilities:
- If there are a lot of laser spreads, then deploy a large barrier downfield.
- Before the lasers fire, head upfield and beyond the barrier to get as close to as many laser spreads as possible to deal maximum laser reflection damage.
- If there are more tracking lasers , it is possible to deploy a massive barrier somewhere in the midfield.
- Get close to the edge of the barriers to let the tracking lasers come find you.
- Just before the lasers fire, throw yourself inside the barrier so that Personal Shield is deployed inside the barrier and the tracking lasers will all fire at the Personal Shield.
In the case where there is a balance between bullets and lasers , it is usually safer to go with the bullet heavy option of deploying smaller barriers since the Barrage Cannons tend to deal more damage than laser reflection .

Fun Factor: B+

(+) Personal Shield can be fun to use when there are potentially many lasers to reflect.
(+) Popping inside the barrier to watch all the lasers converge on you and then reflecting off your barrier is strangely pretty satisfying.
(+) Gorthaur's Barrage Cannons are quite satisfying from the compounded sounds from each projectile hitting the Invaders.
(=) Average handling of Barrage Cannons. There's a gap between bursts and the bursts are scattered randomly.
(=) Average ship core positioning.

Trivia

The base form of Gorthaur was designed by Romano Molenaar, while the apexes were designed by Rogier van de Beek.
Gorthaur is the cheapest Rare ship to fully upgrade (to 6-6-6) and get both its apexes, coming in at only ¢25.800 (¢1.500 for buying Gorthaur, ¢9.300 for fully upgrading, ¢5.000 for the Alpha Apex & ¢10.000 for the Beta Apex), assuming you buy everything with your own credits (including buying to unlock the ship itself).
Prior to the v4.4.1 update, Gorthaur Beta was one of the most powerful Barrier Reflector apexes.
- BOTH Personal Shield and Barrier Reflector were able to reflect lasers even when the lasers were only incident on the Barrier.
- This means the laser reflection damage was TWICE the supposed damage, since no lasers are supposed to reflect off Personal Shield .

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Apexes

Beta (Barrier Reflector) - ¢10.000

Value: S-
Cost vs Utility: A

Survivability (Daily Missions): A+ [+++]
Survivability (Community Missions): B [No change]

(+) Improves survivability of Gorthaur in laser heavy missions since Personal Shield is not able to reflect as many lasers as the bigger Barrier Reflector.
(+) In the case where there are not enough barriers to sustain laser reflection , Personal Shield is able to be the last backup option.
- With the laser reflection damage from both sources, it should be enough to keep up laser reflection damage all the time, even in heavier waves like Rocs .

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A+ [++]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): B [No change]

(+) Significantly more laser reflection damage from Barrier Reflector.
You can still go right in the face of Invaders to deal effective damage from the Barrage Cannons.
- Deploy the barrier downfield first before heading upfield to deal damage.
- Be careful on laser heavy missions with slightly more bullets such as Laser/Shuriken missions, as you no longer have protection from barriers upfield.
- There's no more need to use Personal Shield since deploying Personal Shield wastes DPS from the more damaging Barrage Cannons.
  - If possible, head above all the laser spreads and to a spot probably between some tracking lasers to continue doing close up damage with the Barrage Cannons as all the lasers fire.
  - If not, head back downfield into the safety of the downfield barriers .
Deploy barriers downfield at different layers such that as many laser spreads upfield are being caught, yet the lasers don't get blocked by the barriers' inner linings .

Fun Factor: A+ [++]

(+) Resolves the awkwardness between Barrier and Personal Shield , since Barriers previously blocked the function of laser reflection from Personal Shield.
- Barrier takes over the laser reflection job from Personal Shield for this apex.
(+) Significantly more laser reflection , resulting in much more satisfying speedy destructions of Invaders.
(-) Not able to use Personal Shield for laser heavy missions for this apex. However, this is not a huge issue since Barrier Reflector does the job so much better.

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Alpha (PS Focus) - ¢5.000

Value: A
Cost vs Utility: A

Survivability (Daily Missions): B+ [+]
Survivability (Community Missions): B+ [+]

(+) Much more resilient against boomerangs or pellet MIRVs .
(+) Allows Barrier and Personal Shield to be used in alternate turns comfortably (i.e. Barrier, Personal Shield, Barrier, Personal Shield, and so on) to relentlessly block them off (unless the barrier is too small to last)
- Deploying Barrier at the right time, just before boomerangs or MIRVs approach in close range allows enough time for Personal Shield to cool down after being used before the Barrier.
- This allows Personal Shield to be available for the next wave of MIRVs and/or boomerangs .
- Even if the barrier is of minimum size, 2 such barriers deployed will allow Personal Shield to recover and be used again to block off these dangerous threats that many ships struggle with

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): B+ [No change]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): B [No change]

Fun Factor: B+ [No significant change]

(+) Makes bullet heavy missions much easier to play with.
(+) Constantly alternating between Barrier and Personal Shield is fun.

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Heechi

Strong against: Dart/Pellet, Dart/Boomerang/Pellet, General - No Lasers
Weak against: Shuriken/MIRV, Dart/Boomerang/Laser, Dart/Pellet/Laser, Lasers Only, Laser/Pellet, Laser/Shuriken

Ship Class: Defensive
+

Main Weapon: Quantum Seekers

Average DPS = 25
Homing = Very Good (Maximum Turning Rate = 800)
Weapon Class = Uninterruptible Burst
Spread = -20° to 20° (Very Wide)
Projectile Speed = 220 to 10 with a deceleration of 350, then an acceleration of 6000 to 800 after 0.4s (Fast)
Reload Time = 0.8s (Slow)
Projectile Hit Circle Radius = 5.5
20 homing projectiles fired from each side of the ship, curving towards their targets

Survivability (Daily Missions): C
Survivability (Community Missions): C

(-) The way Heechi's Quantum Seekers works is very interesting.
- Due to the curved nature of the Quantum Seekers, it tends to hit Invaders upfield instead of those right in front of you.
- This usually works to your disadvantage as you will have to keep up with the Quantum Seekers shot at closer range.
(-) For frontline Vulture waves, the Quantum Seekers can hit Invaders hiding behind the Vulture.
- However, a fair portion of the Quantum Seekers still hits the Vulture instead.
- This means that it still takes a long time to eliminate the Invaders behind the Vulture .
(+) Being able to quickly generate barriers works well to defend it from an onslaught of darts and boomerangs .
- The Fade Out time of barriers work very well here and stacking continuous barriers prolong your safe time inside the barriers.
(-) The lackluster DPS of the Quantum Seekers poses a huge problem.
(-) The Quantum Seekers are inconsistent, splitting themselves across all Invaders on field.
- This ends up killing Invaders too slowly, so it's difficult to grab particles fast enough to keep barriers up.
(-) You end up trying to rely on Kappa Drive to save you mid-wave as you struggle to generate enough Aura to sustain barriers . By then, it might be too late.
(-) Quite difficult to determine when the burst of Quantum Seekers is going off since the visual cue is not very visible and the burst interval is quite short.
Kappa Dodging is of essence in later waves.
(-) Needing to deal with frontline Invaders means that the angle of the Quantum Seekers fired varies wildly, making it much harder to dodge.
The best solution would be to let darts from spinners or spreads through.
- Deploy barriers precisely, just before MIRVs and boomerangs are about to approach the edge of the barrier .
- Remember to deploy earlier for boomerangs because they move very fast.
(-) Zero laser defence. Using Heechi on laser heavy missions is extremely difficult.
(-) Because of the constant barrier spam, and the danger to go upfield to deploy barriers, you are wasting the inner lining of barriers.
(-) If instead, the downfield is dense and the upfield has only large Invaders, it is difficult to survive since the Quantum Seekers might not choose to target the smaller Invaders to sustain the barrier deployments.
(-) Practically no turret popping capabilities at all.
(-) Good luck facing Condors and Rocs .
- The best way to survive these longer battles is to graze to get off minimum sized barriers .
Only use Kappa Drive if you do not have enough particles for a barrier deployment.
- Otherwise, let particles come to you.
When met with Doomsday Lasers , keep your barriers very small, and simply spam deploy the smallest possible barriers.
When met with Doomsday Bombs , deploy barriers as usual, but have a large enough barrier on standby to deploy after the Doomsday Bomb goes off.
- Try to spam the smallest possible barriers that are not in range of the Doomsday Bomb(s) .

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): D
Speedrunning (Community Missions): D

(-) There's no way you are speedrunning with the low DPS Quantum Seekers and defensive Aura and Zen .

Fun Factor: C+

(+) The massive amounts of Quantum Seekers are very fun to watch. Their unique curved path is also a sight to behold as well.
(+) Fun to constantly spam barriers .
- To see concentric circles of barriers or very thick barrier walls is a sight to behold.
- It can even become an obsession of how many barriers can you keep on the field at one go.
(+) Easy to handle Quantum Seekers, just let them do their thing.
(-) Can't control what it hits, so there's frustration if the Quantum Seekers don't hit what Invaders you want.
(-) Slow Kappa Drive gameplay due to the constant need to spam Kappa Drive to keep up barriers .
(=) Average ship core position.
(-) Boring ship otherwise.

Trivia

The base form of Heechi was designed by Romano Molenaar, while the apexes were designed by Rogier van de Beek.
Heechi doesn’t use thrusters to fly unlike most ships. It simply floats about.
Heechi used to have guns in the design of the pre-alpha version of Phoenix 2, as shown below:
At the v7.2 update, the Beta Apex of Heechi was improved such that the angles of the Quantum Seekers fired with respect to the vertical were reduced.

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Apexes

Beta (Main Weapon Quick Charge) - ¢10.000

Value: B-
Cost vs Utility: S

This apex makes the following changes to the Quantum Seekers (Overall DPS is unchanged):

Quantum Seekers fire 4 times as much, reducing the interval time between each burst of Quantum Seekers to 0.2s, with each burst containing 5 projectiles.
The angles of the Quantum Seekers fired with respect to the vertical are reduced from ±63.5° to ±33.5°.
Increases the maximum speed of Quantum Seekers from 800 to 900.
Decreases the time it accelerates after fired from 0.4s to 0.3s.

Survivability (Daily Missions): C+ [+]
Survivability (Community Missions): C+ [+]

(+) Significantly more responsive damage from Quantum Seekers.
(+) Eliminates downfield Invaders much faster, rather than spreading the damage inefficiently across all Invaders on field.
(-) Can't use Kappa Drive between bursts of Quantum Seekers anymore due to the extremely short interval between bursts.
- This means being less able to deploy last minute barriers .
- Thankfully, the improved destruction of downfield Invaders mean it is easier to survive rather than being faced with bombardment of more Invader weaponry for a longer period of time.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): D [No significant change]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): D [No significant change]

(+) A very minute couple of seconds improvement, but nothing significant.
- This is likely due to the shorter acceleration delay after the Quantum Seekers are fired.

Fun Factor: B- [++]

(+) Fun to hear the constant bombardment of Quantum Seekers like a busy archery range with quantum weirdness.
(+) Much more responsive Quantum Seekers due to the faster acceleration of projectiles, and the better angle that is more oriented towards Invaders.
(+) Much less frustration from downfield Invaders since they get destroyed much faster.
(+) Much less draggy gameplay due to reduced usage of Kappa Drive .

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Delta (Barrier Reflector) - ¢20.000

Value: A
Cost vs Utility: S

Survivability (Daily Missions): B+ [+++]
Survivability (Community Missions): C [No change]

(+) Opens up viability of Heechi in laser heavy missions where it was previously not viable in such missions.
(+) The need for Heechi to stay downfield closely synergizes with Barrier Reflector apexes' playstyle of deploying barriers downfield.
- There's no need to change how you play Heechi, yet you benefit massively from their apex.
- This is unlike other Barrier Reflector apexes where you need to charge the playstyle drastically.
(+) The new source of laser reflection damage from barriers are able to usually supply Heechi with the particles it needs to constantly keep the barriers up.
(-) Heechi may still struggle against Rocs .
- You may need to sacrifice firing the Quantum Seekers to engage Kappa Drive to generate the smallest possible barrier to block off tracking lasers .
- Graze off any bullets, or even lasers from laser MIRVs where possible just to desperately get the minimum sized barrier before the tracking lasers fire.
(-) Buller heavy waves with few lasers may still be a problem
- At least, some laser reflection damage helps you cut down the time needed to survive through such waves.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): B+ [++++]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): D [No change]

(+) The new source of laser reflection damage severely boosts Heechi's speed.
(+) Kappa Drive allows it to quickly deploy large downfield barriers to catch as many laser spreads as possible where required.
Use Kappa Drive to pull in particles to deploy bigger barriers where required, but be careful not to overfill on particles.

Fun Factor: B+ [++]

(+) Capability to use downfield barriers for a much more useful reason in laser heavy missions.
(+) Watching Invaders die to their own lasers is very fun.
(+) A much better visual spectacle as both Quantum Seekers and laser reflections fill the screen with pink-ish visuals.

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Prime X

Strong against: Dart/Pellet, Shuriken/Pellet, Dart/Boomerang/Pellet
Weak against: Dart/Boomerang/Laser, Dart/Pellet/Laser, Lasers Only, Laser/Pellet, Laser/Shuriken

Ship Class: Attack & Retreat
+

Main Weapon: Vulcan

Average DPS = 31.25
Weapon Class = Uninterruptible Burst
Spread = -5° to 5° (Very Narrow)
Rate of Fire = 0.03s (Very Fast)
Projectile Speed = 1200 (Very Fast)
Reload Time = 0.4s (Medium)
Projectile Hit Circle Radius = 5
10 successive projectiles fired forward with a slight sine wave firing pattern

Survivability (Daily Missions): A+
Survivability (Community Missions): A+

(+) Teleport is a great saving grace which gets you out of sticky situations.
- There is leniency since both the Vulcan and Missile Swarm are burst fire.
(-) Prime X's Vulcan is JUST short of damage to kill one Armored Raven .
(+) Missile Swarm takes cares of the smaller Invaders like Ravens and Sparrows , and sometimes even Herons .
At the start of a wave, head to the middle of the field to fire Missile Swarm straight away.
Then use the Vulcan to clean up the smaller Invaders that were heavily damaged by Missile Swarm .
(+) Focus the Vulcan on bigger Invaders.
- Particularly, the Vulcan is very good at popping turrets off, as 2 bursts of the Vulcan eliminate one Vulture turret.
- Since the time between bursts of the Vulcan is short, it is quite fast to pop off turrets.
- After one turret is popped off, you can quickly swipe over to another turret.
- Or you can also Teleport to another turret while the Vulcan recharges for another burst.
- This means very quick and efficient target switching.
(-) The Vulcan has a small spread, so try to stay within 2 heights of Prime X away from a Vulture's turret.
While Prime X cannot deal with lasers , the same turret popping strategy can be done for bigger Invaders to eliminate the lasers rather quickly.
For Ravens and Sparrows equipped with lasers hiding behind a Vulture , Teleport over to a top corner and use Missile Swarm to quickly dispose of them.
- You can also avoid the lasers fired at you by hiding at one corner as the lasers fire and use the opportunity to fire off Missile Swarm .
- Just be careful not to get too near Ravens that have dart turrets.
  - You can Teleport to a space away from these Ravens .
While T3 and T4 dart tracking turrets are firing at you, quickly Teleport behind them and burst out Missile Swarm to instantly destroy a dangerous turret.
- This is often useful for Condors and Rocs .

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A-

(-) Prime X has a burst time of 0.75s which means each burst does 31.25 × 0.75 = 23.4375 damage.
- This is just not enough to kill an Armored Raven , which makes it a pain to optimize in earlier waves.
Look out for Missile Swarm damaging Ravens at all times.
- Any damage to Ravens means that one full burst of the Vulcan will kill it.
Optimizing the Vulcan in early waves is key.
- A good thing is the Vulcan is consistent.
- But the bad thing is a few Vulcan projectiles will inevitably leak as you switch targets, since a full burst cannot kill an Armored Raven .
Try to Teleport near to Invaders so you can get better Missile Swarm coverage and not waste it.
After Missile Swarm is released, quickly retreat so that you don't take up too many particles and overfill.
Destroying key turrets and frontline Invaders quickly are important.
- This gives you more freedom to move around for Missile Swarm to target more Invaders.
(+) Prime X is one of the most consistent speedrunners due to its consistent Vulcan and Missile Swarm .
- It may not be the fastest, but in the hands of the skilled, it can place you high on the leaderboards.

Fun Factor: S-

(+) The pacing of Prime X is fun to catch. The Vulcan has a nice rhythm to it.
(+) The Missile Swarm - Teleport "Tele-frag" kit is quite fun to pull off, and gives Invaders a "peek-a-boo!"
(+) Prime X is a very kinetic ship, meaning it moves around quite a lot.
(=) The Vulcan is quite satisfying to hear, although it is a bit short to enjoy fully.

Trivia

The base form of Prime X was designed by Romano Molenaar, while the apexes were designed by Rogier van de Beek.
Prime X is one of the only ships whose main weapon's name is only one word, where most main weapon names are two words.
Romano Molenaar made some art that included a generic pilot drinking from a bottle that is in the shape of Prime X, and the dev vectorized it. Here are the final results:
Here's a rare full body shot of a generic pilot with the Prime X bottle, although not colored:

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Apexes

Tau (Teleport Extended Clearance) - ¢40.000

Value: B-
Cost vs Utility: C

Survivability (Daily Missions): A+ [No significant change]
Survivability (Community Missions): A+ [No change]

(+) The increased clearance of Arrival EMP allows you to delete more pellet MIRVs in Shuriken/MIRV and Dart/MIRV missions.
- This allows you to more easily find a safer spot to go to so that you won’t be greeted with too many MIRVs exploding in your face.
- It particularly helps in long battles such as during the Roc at 5-4 in the video shown below.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A [No change]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A- [No change]

Fun Factor: S- [No change]

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Epsilon (MS Armor Piercing) - ¢25.000

Value: S+
Cost vs Utility: A

Survivability (Daily Missions): S- [++]
Survivability (Community Missions): S- [++]

(+) The faster capability for Prime X to clear out Invaders, especially in denser waves, makes it easier to survive.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): S- [++]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A+ [+]

(+) Significantly faster in destroying Armored Invaders.
(+) Clearing out Invaders faster in dense waves also mean less target switching.

Fun Factor: S [+]

(+) Missile Swarm feels a lot more capable and responsive in dealing damage.
(+) The faster destruction of Invaders means more kinetic gameplay, with the pace being picked up.
(+) Is just a great quality of life apex for Prime X.

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Sakura

Strong against: Shuriken/MIRV
Weak against: Lasers Only, Laser/Pellet, Laser/Shuriken

Ship Class: Defensive
+

Main Weapon: Edge Projector

Average DPS = 37.5
Weapon Class = Uninterruptible Burst
Projectile Speed = 1900 after 1s (Stationary, then Very Fast)
Reload Time = 1s (Slow)
Projectile Hit Circle Radius = 4
11 projectiles that simultaneously spawn side-by-side for 1s before accelerating forward together and then dealing damage

Survivability (Daily Missions): A-
Survivability (Community Missions): A-

Sakura relies on spamming the smallest barriers possible to keep it alive.
Ironically, big barriers are its downfall.
- Energy is thus sometimes, ironically your enemy.
Use Teleport to get you out of sticky situations.
- When you land at your new spot, deploy your small barrier where required.
- Then go behind the barrier .
- The Fade Out of the barrier blocks off bullets.
A large barrier traps more bullets inside and makes it hard to get behind your barrier.
- Large barriers also waste more particles.
Be careful of your exit on the way out as MIRVs can explode outside and pellets will head towards where you exit.
Only deploy your barriers when spinners or MIRV Bloomers fire.
- Deploying early will destroy your barriers too quickly and deplete your Aura energy quickly.
Stay downfield.
- Only Teleport a bit further upfield to grab enough particles to deploy another small barrier .
(-) Very difficult to aim the Edge Projectors.
(+) Don't worry too much on aiming.
- The high DPS of the Edge Projectors will do its job.
- Just ensure you are not at the left or right edge of the field.
(+) 3 bursts of Edge Projector (with all/almost all projectiles landing properly) kill an Armored Eagle .
- Use this to your advantage to eliminate them quickly before they flood the field.
2.5 bursts of Edge Projector kill an Armored Heron .
(-) Very difficult to pop off turrets. Aiming to get rid of turrets is also difficult due to the way the Edge Projector fires.
- It takes 3 bursts of Edge Projector to take out 2 turrets on one side of an Armored Vulture .
(-) Using Sakura on generic Armored missions can be tricky.
- Use the smallest barriers when faced with laser fire, as the smallest barriers will block out a full laser burst.
- The high DPS of the Edge Projectors should be able to sustain Sakura a steady flow of particles for a constant stream of small barriers .
- Grazing dart lanes will also work well to get barriers ready for a laser burst.
(=) Sakura does fine on Rocs , since its double defenses last pretty long.
- The high DPS of the Edge Projectors means the Roc battle doesn't last too long.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): B-
Speedrunning (Community Missions): B-

(+) The highest DPS of 37.5 in the game means Sakura has good damage output.
(-) No other offensive means. This means the pure DPS of the Edge Projectors is it's only way to go fast.
(+) If the Edge Projectors spawn right on top of Invaders, they will deal damage immediately after they are fully spawned, and do not need to be "launched".
- Thus, you can get up close enough to Invaders to deal damage quickly.
- This is especially for the last few Invaders of the wave, which saves a lot of time.
In initial waves (Acts 1-3), you can deploy your barriers in the midfield.
- This also allows you to visualize if the Edge Projectors will hit the Invaders or not.
- You can then decide if you want to move to another position to take out other Invaders.

Fun Factor: B+

(+) Sakura has probably one of the coolest main weapons in the game, producing neatly aligned and well coordinated swords.
- The hilts of the swords even contain a mini Sakura.
(=) Cool Edge Projector impact sounds like actual swords going "shing", but constantly hearing it can get a bit piercing to the ears.
(+) The projectiles of Edge Projectors don't actually do piercing damage although they look like it.
(+) The random scattering of swords after they hit their targets is really cool.
(-) Not able to control the Edge Projector easily.
(-) Unfortunately, aside from the cool looking Edge Projector, there's nothing much else going for it.

Trivia

The base form of Sakura was designed by Romano Molenaar, while the apexes were designed by Rogier van de Beek.
According to the dev, Sakura's main weapon is a clear reference to Senbonzakura, swords that are made from sakura blossoms.
Sakura used to have guns in the design of the pre-alpha version of Phoenix 2, as shown below:
Sakura's Edge Projector used to be High Impact before it was changed to in Armor Piercing the v3.0 update.
Sakura Phi is one of the 4 apexes that have an additional hidden change to it, reducing the number of projectiles for its main weapon from 11 to 7, as well as changing the hilts' design to that of a phoenix.
The dev initially viewed Sakura as a strong ship. To quote "the delayed fire would make it challenging, but we assumed Teleport would be one of the better and more advanced abilities".

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Apexes

Epsilon (Double Teleport ) - ¢25.000

Value: A
Cost vs Utility: A

Survivability (Daily Missions): A [+]
Survivability (Community Missions): A [+]

(+) Can be invincible in Shuriken/MIRV missions.
The first Teleport allows you to safely go upfield.
- This allows you to grab JUST the right amount of particles needed for a minimum deployable barrier , which is ideal for Sakura.
- Even if there are not enough particles upfield, simply leave yourself upfield for a while after the first Teleport (let the completed 2nd Teleport charge run), then observe the Aura size.
  - If you Teleport to a spot with lots of shurikens, or have lots of MIRVs exploding at once, by letting the Teleport charge run, the grazing from the slowed time will give you enough Aura for a minimum barrier .
  - The slowed time allows enough reaction time to use the second Teleport to Teleport away before you die.
- Once it’s enough, quickly Teleport back down to place the barrier before it gets any larger.
(+) Capable to deploy barrier upfield like stronger barrier ships.
- This allows Sakura to take advantage of the double Fade Out from both the inner lining and the outer barrier .
- Remember that the window of time to deploy the large barrier after the first Teleport and the 2nd Teleport being ready is very small.
- Be careful not to deploy barrier before you Teleport the 1st time, and not be too slow, making you miss the instantly charged 2nd Teleport.
- This dumping of upfield barriers is a very safe move.
- Furthermore, you can dump the barrier anytime you wish, after one burst of Edge Projectors has spawned.
- Try to only charge Teleport after you see one burst of Edge Projectors go off.
- Otherwise, one burst of Edge Projectors may appear while you were upfield deploying your barrier and be wasted.
(+) Able to contain threats very effectively.
- Double Teleport is able to precisely place barriers wherever you want and quickly get out.
- This means you can find a spot with the highest density of bullets and place a barrier inside there to contain the threat.
- Place barriers around high tier turrets to stop their threat briefly.
- While diving in to place a barrier to contain dart tracking turrets, you can Teleport in, place the barrier, and quickly swipe out of the barrier.
  - This means you won't be shot at point blank range.
  - You would also have time to decide your arrival location of the second Teleport .
  - This takes practice but is extremely useful.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): B- [No significant change]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): B- [No significant change]

(+) Using Double Teleport , you can use the first Teleport get near to Invaders such that the projectiles of Edge Projector spawn right on top of them and deal damage instantly.
- Use the second Teleport to get out safely.
- This especially helps for Invaders with dart launchers/spreads or shuriken launchers/spreads.

Fun Factor: A [++]

(+) Once you catch the rhythm of using the first Teleport to go into the thick of the action, deploy a barrier and Teleport out, it's a fun gameplay loop that can be easily abused.
(+) You can even do some fun things like swiping outside the barrier or into other spots to confuse tracking turrets.

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Phi (Teleport Explosive Arrival) - ¢45.000

Value: A+
Cost vs Utility: A

This apex also tightens the spread of the Edge Projector, reducing the number of projectiles per burst from 11 to 7, making each projectile deal more damage. The projectile hit circle radius is increased from 4 to 8. Here's how the new Edge Projector looks like:

Survivability (Daily Missions): A- [No significant change]
Survivability (Community Missions): A- [No significant change]

(+) In Unprotected missions, Teleport Explosive Arrival can kill Unprotected Ravens instantly.
(-) Difficult to use on Sparrows since this will likely make the Edge Projectors miss other Sparrows.

Speedrunning (Daily Missions): A [+++]
Speedrunning (Community Missions): A [+++]

(+) Teleport Explosive Arrival instantly kills Unprotected Ravens and Sparrows .
(+) The increased damage of each projectile of Edge Projector means only one projectile is needed to kill a Sparrow .
(+) The tighter spread of Edge Projector means that one burst of the Edge Projector can kill an Armored Raven if the burst fully envelops it.
(+) Good synergy between the Edge Projector and Teleport Explosive Arrival.
- Teleport onto 2 - 3 Ravens , but offset about slightly more than 1/2 of Sakura's height below them.
- By doing so, you heavily damage the Ravens .
- Then, the Edge Projector spawns right on top of these Ravens , taking them out almost instantly.
- This requires good timing as Teleporting at the wrong time means some time is needed before the next burst of Edge Projectors spawn in.
- A good time will generally be just as the previous burst of Edge Projector is well formed, and ready to launch.
(+) Doing a Teleport Explosive Arrival helps on a Heron since one burst of Edge Projectors is never enough to kill a Heron.

Fun Factor: A+ [++]

(+) Because one sword of the Edge Projector now kills a Sparrow , it is much less annoying to deal against Sparrows.
(+) Teleport Explosive Arrival is fun on Unprotected Ravens .
(+) Near instant destruction of Armored Ravens if you land Teleport Explosive Arrival and have the Edge Projector spawn in almost immediately after, which is very satisfying.
(+) The hilts of the upgraded Edge Projectors are cool.

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