Unique Ships List

Veil's forward directed, consistent damage dealing Fusion Laser allows it to pop off all the turrets of a Vulture (while Condor and Roc is also possible, it's not likely), and then charge MB while you watch the Vulture self-destruct. These 2 characteristics of Veil's Fusion Laser allow it to focus just enough damage to a turret before moving on to the next turret, unlike many ships that overkill a turret, destroying the invader before you could pop off its last turret. This uniqueness factor only applies if you are not speedrunning.

Jn'Dur should never use barriers upfield unlike other barrier ships (except Heechi and Sakura) as the slow moving main weapon's damage will be wasted on the next wave after you go upfield to eliminate the last few invaders in the current wave. Instead, barriers should be spammed at the bottom of the screen to fill up as much as horizontal space as the main weapon can reach the extreme side of the playable field so that you can freely navigate left and right to eliminate the last few invaders.

The slow moving main weapon also makes charging MB very interesting, as you need to flood the field with its main as much as possible before starting to charge MB to completely eliminate as many Ravens as reachable by MB. The 30 MB damage together with some damage from the main will then obliterate all these Ravens. The main is also able to strip invaders (up to an Eagle) of their shield from the SB type advantage before MB damage comes into effect, thus dealing more effective damage. It becomes an interesting calculated decision whether to flood the field with the main or charge MB. Generally speaking, a light wave requires no MB and should be used to flood the field for the next possible dense and/or heavy wave. While several other SB ships are also viable to have their mains strip the shield before an offensive Aura or Zen goes into action, Jn’Dur absolutely requires this as the effect of stripping the shield compared to not doing so is a very huge difference. Huge numbers of Ravens will continue to survive even after MB without flooding the field with its main, and then regenerating their shields afterwards, especially if they are behind large invaders.

Razor’s powerful Phase Disruptor should come into action to strip off the shields of invaders. As the burst goes off, you can release touch to charge ML. This strategy works so well on a frontline Vulture as the combination decimates the Vulture immediately after the ML. It can also work if there are Eagles in front accompanied with some Ravens and/or Herons to the side where you can sweep through all of them to strip them all and charge ML after the sweep is complete, which is an ideal case in speedrunning. The powerful burst of Razor which tears down shields quickly compared to other SB ships, coupled with its powerful ML which deals insane amount of effective damage make it deal an insane damage of 295 over a span of just 3s. This inverse strategy of firing ML after the main, instead of charging ML at the end of the wave for the next wave, is what makes Razor pretty unique.

The AIM-540 MANTIS missiles are the only main weapon in the game which actively seeks out turrets, if you do not count apexes. Particularly, this ship loves to strip invaders of all their turrets. Even Ravens can be stripped of both of their turrets (if you let them recover their shield after being hit once). It even happens for Herons and Eagles, the latter being slightly more common due to their larger health and Heron's middle turret being harder to hit. Even if you count apexes, no apex is able to strip all turrets on such a small invader, or have such a high chance to strip all their turrets before getting destroyed by your main weapon (or whatever damaging Aura and Zen), since charging Zens for these apexes is harmful for the next wave. In contrast, for X-81, it makes a lot of sense to stop firing your main weapon to charge ML.

The most important implication of the active turret seeking main weapon is the ability to completely strip the last surviving invader on field, more often than not a Vulture, of all their turrets. Once that happens, you can simply find a safe spot to charge ML and leave it charged as you stare at and humiliate the invader as it self-destructs in shame. Particularly, you can pull this off on any wave with a Vulture at the very back of the wave, provided you destroy all the Sparrows first since the AIM-540 MANTIS missiles will ignore Sparrows until every other invader is destroyed.

If anything, this ship is the ultimate insult to invaders which destroys their self-esteem by forcing them to self-destruct. It can only get more hilarious when the last invader re-generates its shield but self-destructs in the end anyway. In the middle of a wave, if you see an invader with completely no turrets left, you can then shift yourself to the other side of the screen and deal with the rest of the invaders so as to avoid scenarios where a AIM-540 MANTIS missile gets blocked by that useless invader, and then laugh as that invader self-destructs moments later. This uniqueness factor only applies if you are not focused on speedrunning.

The Nightfury ability on Mirage is a satisfaction like no other. Firing this gigantic laser and clearing bullets from a huge chunk of the field is very satisfying. Not to mention, the animation of the screen diming before the Nightfury is a sight to behold. Even the charging of the Nightfury is unique and awesome sounding. The Nightfury is a phenomenon that more than anything words can put it, and has to be experienced by yourself.

Tempest Delta

This uniqueness only applies if you are playing this apex in particular in MIRV/Shuriken missions.

The thin and focused ML allows Tempest to ride up along with the ML, which is a playstyle very desirable for Tempest due to its spread main weapon. The ML is thin enough for you to graze bullets on the left and right sides of the ML. The insane amount of bullets around you in MIRV/Shuriken missions will mean enormous amounts of grazing as you ride up the ML, consequently leading to a huge BEMP which you can fire off to clear the whole field once you reach upfield - which is really satisfying.

The thin riding ML skill is a very unique skill that is exclusive to Focused ML ships, but in particular, it benefits Tempest the most. It is difficult to pick up due to the small error tolerance, but when pulled off very well, it's extremely satisfying. For Arietis Epsilon, it also completely refills your PD but it's not as satisfying. For Razor VI Sigma and Lorilou Epsilon, it's nothing but just extra damage.