Light, Medium, or Heavy Fighter?

[CitizenKing]

Kinda curious how the lowered turn rate feels for the increased firepower. Worth the trade off?

[Vince]

TL;DR - The changes in turn rate between classes is very noticeable. I think Medium covers a lot of needs in an all-rounder type ship but light fighters will give you the slip more easily. Heavy is great for taking down big things you know you don't need the high turning speed for.

Personally I started with a heavy fighter, the one that boosts friend drive, although doing it again I would probably get the upgraded version of the Nova for the added reputation. I liked it, but it seemed like a lot of "cat and mouse" since most of my opponents were smaller classes and could therefore out-turn me. Missiles can help make that less of an issue, but keep in mind you can only carry so many before needing to dock and restock.

My main driver as soon as I found it became a medium Union Star Chaser fighter that gives 20% hazard damage reduction (forget the name). The change in turning between Heavy and Medium is quite noticeable. The other noticeable stat difference is the high-engine charge time. It's 3 on most mediums that I've seen and 4 or 5 on most heavys and freighters. about 25 points into the high-engine charge skill makes it far less of an issue, but early on it's a decent time saver.

For one of the story missions you have to complete it in a light fighter, so I did dabble with it and the change in turning speed is even more noticeable. For me personally it was a bit "twitchy" and I didn't like that, but I can definitely see better pilots than I enjoying that added agility and how it can help in a dogfight.

I'd say stick with a medium as it's a very good jack-of-all-trades type ship for pretty much anything. At T3 you still get 2 Class 10 guns plus 4 class 9s, so in my opinion that is plenty of firepower for most situations. I haven't ran into much so far that can stand up to my Tempest. Light fighters can be a bit slippery in a dogfight, but one of my slots is a "sunder" type launcher specifically for when I get tired of chasing them around.

I think where heavy and bomber type ships come into play would be taking down boss type monsters where the turning isn't needed as much. I haven't encountered any yet but I suspect the endgame ones would take a lot more of a beating and being able to bring more Class 10 guns to a fight would make a ton of difference.

[N´wah]

had a fight with spoiler ship vs spoiler boss and as soon i had the feeling that 10k more hp is better than turnrate i sticked to heavy ships (also more energy and weapons)

[Xautos]

i've always flown with heavies in single player, both in this game and freelancer. in multiplayer in freelancer i always flown medium fighters, notable the drake was the best of the lot, it can get around a heavies and turn better meaning it can fire off another salvo when you turn while at cruise speed. the extra shielding and armour was often an issue along with the heavier weapons, codenames and nomad guns but when you learn how to avoid the initial opening attack, your medium fighter has a really good chance to turn the tables on the heavies.

i never use lights because there is just no point to them, their weapons, armour and shields are too light and all it requires is one lucky hit and that's it, it can't stand up in a fight as well as the other classes. Even the freighter class in this game is equal to bombers and heavy fighters, though i suspect the developer will do some much needed balancing at some point so each ship, weapon and so on have a different flavour with their own strengths and drawbacks.

[Wolwolf]

I'm a heavy fighter, this is mainly a things from the past where having more hull reapair was a thing when playing in radiated area in freelancer. And with the dodge it get pretty easy to leave the line of sight of your ennemies. Light ship are fun but they will fall short on you when you will have to fly the unknown space. I know I'm not the reference point as a humpback fitted combat ship while using turret mode in freelancer. Yeah freighter are good in battle too when correctly used. After all it all depend on your playstyle, chosse the one that fit best for your need.

[Xautos]

Freighters in freelancer were different, they had much less weapons energy, lighter shields and armour, not so great at turning, but they had big cargo holds. The Dromedary freighter from the lane hackers was the best of the lot, i used to love smuggling Cardamine from that hackers base to planet New Manhatten, that used to drive up my levels quickly and i could deck out a tier 3 sabre from the outcasts with equipment and then nomad weapons, since CODENAME weapons were a bit difficult to get the right type of stats you wanted.

it's a bit like the current CODENAMES in this game, it's either a direly awful reload speed of 1 or 2 or one of 8. in the end i settled on a none codenamed weapon at level 10 because there was no in between, not enough range, not enough damage, not enough reload speed, too much energy consumption and so on.

I will say this though, the Rhineland heavy fighter i like quite a bit, annoyingly effective in the hands of a really good AI pilot, since it's connected to the humpback.