Squadron Reporting : Ship Talk #3 'Fighters' - Part 1

Thoughts on the Ships

General Thoughts on Stats

Descriptions and Roles



ps I know the pic says Focus instead of Role but the plural of Focus(Foci) just sounds awful when read over and over.

Structure and Propulsion

Continued Below

Welcome to another edition of Ship Talk. For those new to this where have you been? I have a whole 2 more of these written. Ship Talk is me taking the current on paper stats for a group of ships similar in either role or hull, analyzing them, and giving my own thoughts on how they compare to each other. You can find older Talks below because I'm nice to link them:This 3rd Edition is this one and it is all about the 'Fighters' or as close as we can get. This was supposed to be one big 8 ship talk but it's really too much for one sitting and reading so it will be broken into 2 pieces with Part 2 posted sometime this weekend along with the Vanguard Talk.A couple disclaimers before we go further. First, this Talk only has 8 ships which I consider to be the most 'pure' fighters we have access to now and I have to start somewhere on these. These 8 ships are: Gladius, Aurora LN, Mustang Delta, 300I, 325A, F7C Hornet, Avenger, and F7C-M Super Hornet. If your favorite isn't on that list I'll eventually get to it but I picked these for this Talk. The first part here will consist of the Gladius, Aurora LN, Mustang Delta and 300I with Part 2 being the 325A, F7C Hornet, the Avenger and the F7C-M Super Hornet.The 2nd disclaimer for this is that some comparisons will be unfair but the game isn't fair and I won't be either when discussing how these stack up to each other. Each has different strengths and weaknesses and those will be highlighted. Third, all of these ships in Arena Commander can be upgraded to be super death cannons in their own right and I'm not going to get into the 'what ifs' of that. Needless to say you can fit these to your taste but I'm going to be sticking to the out of the box configurations because CIG is still nailing down limitations for upgrading and swapping weapons. Also I don't have a computer to play AC :(.Disclaimers out of the way, the 4th Ship Talk will be focused on the hauler ships from large to small with more information on that at the end of the Talk. To be clear the following is just my thoughts and how I see these ships as they currently are and drawing logical conclusions based on those listed attributes.Right now we have a good set of ships that are flyable. We have others that are in the Hangar and/or almost ready to go while we have even more in concept and design. All of these ships have vital roles in our org's rise to the top but today we will talk about the most blasty of them. The Fighters, or as close to fighters we can get.As stated before this Talk focuses on 4 of the 8 of the ships currently available. These 8 ships are: Gladius, Aurora LN, Mustang Delta, 300I, 325A, F7C Hornet, Avenger, and F7C-M Super Hornet. For this Part 1 of Ship Talk #3 I will be sticking to the Gladius, Aurora LN, Mustang Delta and 300I . They all shoot things very well and have wildly different attributes which make them all a challenge to master but also allow a person to choose their perfect ship and outfit it how they want. So without further ado lets get started.First let me acknowledge again that these stats and listed equipment are all subject to change. However, unless something drastic occurs in testing I would expect these stats to still give a good general direction and capability for each ship. Below is a link to a composite picture I made with all the stats listed from the RSI site and ordered by power plant size of all things but it worked out well enough:First topic will be looking at all the descriptions and roles. Do they fit the stats? Has CIG gone too far? We'll find out here. First up is the Gladius. The Gladius is simplistic but still kicks ass despite it being an older design. It has been continually upgraded with new tech not unlike modern fighters. Used for short range patrol duties none will find the Gladius wanting as it has proven its worth many times over.Our next ship is TEST's own beloved Aurora LN. Again it is for patrol duty and you can find my expanded thoughts on this back in the last Ship Talk. Third we come to the Mustang Delta. Though something of a new player in the field of military aircraft the Mustang Delta comes with a nifty feature: a reduced cross sectional signature thanks to its Calvary Class Mass Reduction Armor.Finally we start getting to some larger ships. First up is the 300I. While a strange choice to add to this list it can hold its own. Sleek and silver the 300I can still deliver some punishment with its weaponry. Tour enemy wreckage in style and comfort.A quick note on all of these ships, each one has a radically different silhouette when viewed from the side, front and top. While this is obvious to everyone it is important to know what angle you present to the enemy and show them the last amount of 'skin' to shoot at.Quickly going across the structure stats we can see that the Aurora has the least amount of mass out of the ships while the 300I has the most here in Part 1. This is expected as the Aurora is a very bare bones ship while the 300I is meant for some luxury and comfort.Drilling deeper we see that the Gladius and Delta offer no cargo room at all. You will NEVER be able to make an emergency beer run in these ships which may discourage many of you from flying them. You can probably squeeze a bottle in one hand and fly with the other one but this is not recommended while flying to the Op. On the other hand the Aurora and 300I are ready to go for long beer fueled excursions in the middle of space with room for 16 Kegs each.Going further we see Power Plants. Power Plants is also how the list was sorted when I made these pictures because facts are awesome. the first 2 ships feature a class 2 PP while the Delta and 300I both get a class 3. This makes sense because the Gladius is an older design and probably never got retrofitted for a larger PP when they were adding newer and better weapons and the Aurora LN is meant to be a starter fighter for newbies. This can also cause some issue though because a Class 2 may not be able to support the upgraded array of weapons you would surely add to both ships so some corners may have to be cut.On the other hand the Delta and 300I both get a nifty class 3 PP to play with. On the 300I this is understandable as well because of its sheer size.Fr the Delta this is made possible by the removal of any and all cargo space and putting it in that area and carrying a class 4 weapon it needs it.For main engines you can either go fast or slow. This isn't entirely the engine's fault though because mass certainly has a large role to play. The Gladius uses a dual engine design of 2 TR2s. This can make for an incredibly fast ship despite a lower engine rating than say an Aurora LN with a single engine rated at TR3. I would actually expect the Gladius to be a bit slower than the Aurroa if only do to it having almost 2x the mass of the Aurora. The Mustang also features a dual engine loadout again of 2 TR2s and from here we see a marked increase in TR level with the 300I with the use of a TR4 engine.Next we come to Thrusters. There isn't much to talk about here except the 300I gets 50% more of them than the others. But it needs it trying to haul all those friends and beer around. Seriously though the additional thrusters coupled with the TR4 engine give it the ability to potentially do maneuvers and other things the others can not match despite its size and mass.All ships have a Class 3 shield with the exception of the Delta with a Class 2. This makes sense as the Mustang in general is supposed to be cheaper than the Aurora so some corners would have been cut with protection being one of them. However the Mass Reduction Armor may negate some of this by providing a smaller cross section for missiles or other weapons to lock on to despite its visual size......