I, like many people, looked forward to the Apollo for years. I've had the ship in and out of my fleet, and was over the moon when it was announced it was coming out in 2024. cough Anyways, I was over the moon when it was announced it was coming out in 2025. And I rushed to see it as soon as I could in the PTU. The outside? Immaculate. She's grown tremendously, looks fantastic, and is a perfect blend of sleekness and RSI greebling. Then we walked up the rear ramp. Why on this earth was that the only solution for a docking collar? The big door opens, a massive ramp extends, and all my friends and I could talk/think about was the possibilities in verious events and gameplay that you could do with this ship. And then it all came crashing down in abundance, when we got to the top of the ramp and found what is essentially a funnel waiting for us. It not only makes the entire entrance feel completely off, as a giant entrance narrows to a small door, then widens back up into a big hallway. "Ok, maybe this was the only option with the modules" we thought. So we continued in, and found a gigantic open area... that has absolutely no purpose. There's no cargo grid, no desk, nothing obvious for any future gameplay, it's just a massive over-sized and largely unusable space. And it only got worse when we walked to either side and found big cargo rooms, and realized we'd never in a hundred years get anything beyond a 1-2 scu crate through that airlock. Then we continued through the rest of the ship. Unlike many, I have no issue with the size of the medical modules. They feel appropriate for the size of the ship, they look fantastic, and from the start of the medical modules up to the bridge, I had absolutely no issues with the ship. Even the bunks on the bridge felt like they made sense with a separation from flight/crew and medical facilities. But then we started talking, and wondered, why couldn't the docking dollar go where the table is on the bridge, and fold into the body of the ship, like on the Zeus? Or make the bunks bunk beds and make that wall the docking collar? Further, why couldn't the docking collar have attached on an angle to one of the cargo rooms? The more I think about what could have been with the Apollo, the more dismayed I am. Instead of feeling like the arrival of a phoenix, large, proud, and blowing the Cutty Red out of the water (finally), this feels like a weird down/side-grade at best. You get more med beds, higher tier beds, modules, etc. But the Apollo can't easily drive a vehicle that isn't a hoverbike into the massive hold/lobby area, because there's this artificial restriction in the form of a docking collar. The ship is massive, and if you cut off a third of the ship, and had the ramp lead straight into the medical modules, you'd essentially have the same functionality. That's a horrible use of space, and makes the Apollo, a ship in a gameplay loop that is already struggling, even harder to use. The ship rivals an MSR in size, and yet, there was no where else we could put the docking collar, and save the Apollo's capabilities? I understand leaving space for drones. Maybe that's the reason. But the point of the drones was you didn't have to leave the ship to recover the injured. Now you do. And CIG has neutered the ability of the Apollo to carry a vehicle to facilitate that shortfall. Instead of being able to land your "medivac" and quickly mount a vehicular rescue, retrieve the patient, and bring them back to the flying hospital (the job a drone was supposed to do), now, you have to land your giant ship, and run. Unless you want to fenagle with a tractor beam to get a vehicle in and out, or ride a hoverbike that you can't bring the patient back on, and are also inherently bad at not blowing up the ship they're being transported in. This feels more and more like an artificial restriction on a ship that was supposed to be the cream of the medical crop. The ship second only to the Endeavour hospital in terms of medical capabilities, but with a high degree of medical rescue capabilities. And yet, in its current form, it feels like a ship CIG wanted to make sure wasn't "too overpowered" or "too popular", and prevent it from becoming daily driver material to all but the most dedicated of medics. And we all know the Apollo is coming out in the next patch in current form, it won't be fixed, and will limp along as an artificially-crippled medical ship for years to come. It's honestly a travesty. I am someone who enjoyed medical rescues and medical gameplay, and genuinely was eager to get my hands on the Apollo. But with that one decision to put the docking collar on the rear ramp, instead of legitimately anywhere else, has completely crippled the ship for me. There's so much of the ship that is borderline unusable, a giant space perfect for a rescue vehicle of some kind to fit, that would actually give a reason for the ship to be so large, but no. You can't get it through the door. You can put something on the ramp, but you can't actually get someone into the safety of the ship, and the giant open lobby area has no use whatsoever. CIG, can we make the docking collar fold into the ship? Make it deployable? Move it? Please, for the love of medics everywhere, make the Apollo a ship that lives up to its potential, and isn't artificially restricted. Tl;dr: Docking collar bad, please fix, Apollo should be great. (sidenote: don't rationalize away CIG actively restricting your favourite ship as "well, it's a hospital." It's an inter-planetary flying clinic/hospital/ambulance rolled into one, and should perform as such)