As I said, there are a lot of great players out there who has more (and better) advise to give than me.
However;
The beauty of SEIV is that there are no such thing as the Ultimate shipdesign. There is a counter strategy for every type of design, the whole point is to guess what your opponent is using.
Both the Talisman and APB (12 levels) are very expensive to research. By the time you have both you should at least have Battleship. Then you can use the Heavy Mount and get a real punch. What else you put on that ship should be dictated by your opposition and what other ships you use in your fleet.
For Your particular game, maybe you should go for PPB first (If you haven't already). Personally I would never use The talisman for anything smaller than a Cruiser. My standard Cruiser with PPB would be: MasterComputer (if there are psychic players around), 6 engines, Talisman, Multiplex tracking, ECM, 2 PD, 4 PPB (Large mount) + 130 KT of the best Armor/Shields available.
I expect the next post to be from Fyron who will tell how much this design sucks.
