Apex Legends commits itself to a higher tempo gameplay than its current competitors. One of the ways it goes about achieving this is by encouraging a higher density of players to land at specific locations. One of the ways Respawn does this is via ‘Supply Ships’.
A Supply Ship is what it sounds like. It’s an aerial VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) ship that carries very high quality supplies, weapons and equipment. It’s very likely you’ll find a few pieces of Epic (purple) quality gear on a Supply Ship. If you manage to find an unlooted Supply Ship, there is a fairly good chance you’ll walk out a set or two or decent armour, quality attachment upgrades, a high-tier weapon and a huge amount of meds and ammo. This naturally means that they’re highly coveted in terms of the advantage they can bestow to a lucky squad, which in turn means lots of fighting over them.
Apex Legends Supply Ships
In this picture the Supply Ships are circled in blue and their landing destination is circled in green. As you can see, the ships will spawn somewhere on the map, then move towards their predetermined landing location on the map. Each match will always spawn two, the first will spawn at the very beginning of the match and can be accessed before it lands via the starting Dropship.
Due to their rewards and the ship being accessible before landing, this makes this particular first ship one of the most consistently popular landing locations in the game. This can be a problem as the Supply Ships are quite small and basically becomes a scramble to the first gun, so make sure you’re pretty familiar with how to land quickly if you’re intending to land on the first ship, because this is the main deciding factor between leaving the ship with loot, or returning to the lobby in 20th place.
The second ship will spawn midway through the game and is generally inaccessible until it lands at its designated location, means you’ll have to wait for it to land and deploy its ziplines before raiding it. In some circumstances, you can use a balloon to glide onto it, but it has to be relatively close to the balloon as the Supply Ship flies at a considerable distance above the ground. It’s generally worth making a detour of camping out the second Supply Ship, especially if you’re lacking good armour or weapons as it’s almost guaranteed you’ll find an upgrade here.
Like Hot Zones, Supply Ships are another clever way in which Respawn has designed their game to encourage conflict within their game. Respawn’s aim is to make a battle royale focused on fighting, aggression and action and less on passivity and raw survival. Supply Ships is one of their ways in which they try to encourage players into closer proximity (and therefore drive a conflict) of one another. While of course noting this on a design level is interesting (if you’re into that), knowing this on a practical level helps with sussing out potential enemy positions, movements or strategies as you now know their intended purpose on player psychology (especially that first ship).
Apex Legends is out now for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. You can find our Apex guides this way, or check out our Apex Legends review:
“Even the most jaded of battle royale fans will find their interest rejuvenated by Apex Legends thanks to Respawn’s attention to detail, superior gunplay, and fantastic innovations, though the loot boxes and progression system certainly need addressing.”
MORE APEX LEGENDS:
– Apex Legends Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Pinging, Characters, Hop-ups & More
– Apex Legends: Best And Worst Ultimates
– 10 Apex Legends Tips For High Kill Games
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