A brief plug for Supreme Commander: there are a good many under-appreciated games, and SupCom is one of them. With fairly high system requirements (insanely high at launch), it wasn't a mainstream success, but its sheer depth and complexity of play makes for a ridiculously fun experience. And now for some geek. There is actual data in play here. (A word of warning: these are numbers for SupCom, not Forged Alliance.) The Salem is, off the bat, more expensive than the Exodus or the Valiant, by 180 and 90 respectively. Though it is slightly smaller than its counterparts, its physics are the same (speed, turning, and so forth). Its vetrancy bonuses are significantly smaller, but that isn't particularly a factor, since the average Tech 2 unit has a life expectancy of thirty seconds. But let's talk DPS. We start off with primary weaponry. Raw DPS is 230 for Salem, 205 Exodus, and 200 Valiant: a clear win for the Cybran. With regards to cost, it still comes out on top; Salem has .084 DPS/mass, the Exodus .081, and the Valiant .038 (higher is better). Firing randomness is .3, compared with .25 Exodus and .35 Valiant, so it's pretty normal. The turret range is somewhat limited, though: yaw of ±135¡ compared with ±160¡for Exodus and ±140¡ for Valiant. So for now, it's a wash: the Salem is a bit more powerful, but a bit more limited. Its anti-air capabilities are also pretty good. DPS of 8, compared with 8.57 on the Valiant--the Exodus forgoes AA entirely. The projectile's lifetime is only 1.5 seconds, compared with Valiant's 2.5 seconds; firing randomness, turret pitch, and turret yaw are the same. THe tipping point, however, is number of projectiles: the Salem's DPS is spread across four weaker projectiles, whereas the Valiant has two stronger. Seemingly insignificant, but double the projectiles means that the AA is far superiour: air units are weak enough such that only one or two shots are needed to take low-tech units out (and high-level units are too fast to hit in any case). Therefore, four shots are better than two: it is essentially hedging your bets in terms of accuracy, since a miss with two shots of four still gives two impacts, enough to kill a T1 scout, whereas two misses with two guns means the scout keeps flying. Anti-naval warfare is clearly won by the Salem. The Valiant has a single 75-DPS torpedo, the Exodus two torpedoes for 75 DPS, and the Salem two torps for 116.66 DPS. All three ships have torpedo range of 32, compared with a vision radius of 55 and primary fire radius of 80. Relatively speaking, the torpedoes are a close-combat weapon. However, when in use, they are certainly powerful: with torpedoes, the Salem's DPS jumps to 346.66, compared with Valiant's 275 and Exodus 280: over 125% more effective. Anti-torpedoes are essentially a wash; I have never found them to be effective enough in stopping torpedoes except in large quantities. Simply killing the offending vessels is enough torpedo defense for me. However, the Salem does lose on this front: their anti-torpedo weapons fire once every 12.5 seconds, compared to 9.1 for the Exodus and 10.0 for the Valiant. Perhaps statistically significant, but not compelling. I chalk this up as a hands-down win for the Salem. Primary weapons are more powerful, and when combined with torpedoes, the ship only becomes better. Its AA capabilities are quite strong, and while its anti-torpedoes are weak, I do not think that matters much, if at all. Lastly, the Salem's trump card is that it functions quite nicely on land. It outranges Tech 2 point defense by quite a bit, and the anti-air is roughly half as powerful as the dedicated T2 AA land unit. Salems can (and, in battle, prove very good at) clear a protective fleet, the beachhead, and start shelling base installations to provide covering fire for a main assault force. Or, if you have enough of them, there is no need for a secondary force: Salems alone are fairly good at stomping their way through bases. Essentially, the Salem is akin to nanofabricating a cake and eating it too: it has more powerful primary guns, far stronger torpedoes, a pragmatic AA, and all this for only a few hundred extra mass. Lastly, but certainly not least, it has legs. A ship with legs: you just can't beat the intimidation factor of a fleet that wipes your navy and then proceeds to walk out of the ocean to carry the carnage home.