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All have reasonable shields and excellent hulls... were developed to counter the thargoid threat.
The Challenger and the Chieftain, have the same amount of firepower (Chieftan has 2x large, 1x medium, 3x small whereas Challanger is 1x large, 3x medium, 3x small -- general rule of thumb is 2x of any size is equivalent to 1x of the larger size, so 1 large and 3 mediums is hypothetically as powerful as 2 large and 1 medium). They have the same agility. The Challenger is slower, but has better hulls and shields when equipped the same.
So it really depends on whether you want speed or tankiness in order to chose the best one. I personally have both the Chieftan and the Challenger but spend most of my time in my Challenger, so I guess that's my inefficient answer to which one's best? It's actually one of my most powerful ships and my favorite to fly in (I haven't gotten any of the Big Three yet).
Actually no.
It's barely better pre-engineering than a Corvette (only 15 more with military grade hull), but 328 more with HD/DP engineering on only the hull done on both ships.
Highest hull strength actually belongs to the Anaconda, maxing out unegineered at 5858 (compared to T-10's 5460 and Corvette's 5445), and 316 more than T-10 with HD/DP engineering (at 6640 vs 6324).
Not to contradict you, but hull amount and hull rating are not the same thing, but maybe it's my fault for not using the "proper" wiki terminology:
https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Armour_Hardness
Hull rating is the defense rating the ship has against any weapon's hull armor penetration. If the ship has a higher hull rating than the wepon that's fired on it, the HP damage decreases. That's even before considering resistances.
I don't know what number to look at on Coriolis to check that information, but thanks for the heads up!
That information is not available in Coriolis, unfortunately. But you can get it at https://edsy.org/ (a.k.a E:D Shipyard)
In that case, yes, the T-10 is unmatched in armor rating being the only ship with a hardness of 75, but shields 1007MJ.
The Corvette has a hardness of 70, but the strongest shields at 1486MJ.
The Anaconda has a hardness of 65, but slightly stronger shields at 1274.
I don't know how much that will affect their "battle effectiveness", other than hypothetically more time spent overall with shields before being depleted. I don't know if the larger shields will significantly change the feasibility or the time spent in a dogfight.
Anyway, OP wanted to know about large alliance ships, that would be the Type-10, and those are the highlight stats of that ship.
In that regard, yes. It is a/the only large Alliance ship, even though it's not labeled the "Alliance Type-10 Defender" it was commissioned to Lakon by the Alliance in response to the Thargoid incursions.
In terms of his question on the best of the three mediums: it's a tie as far as I can tell:
-slowest, least agile, least shields, least hardpoints but SLF fighter capable
-mid-tier speed, same agility as the Chieftan, same fire power as Chieftan but better shields and hull than Chieftan
-or highest speed, but least hull at mid-tier shields.
At that point, it just depends on his personal style of fighting and what best suits his needs.
The large one would be the Type-10 Defender. It is slow but has a really good hull (highest hardness factor in the game, I think) and the handling is really good for its mass, it accelerates and brakes very quickly across all axes (but like I said, it has a low top speed). It has the most large size hardpoints of any ship, although you don't get good hardpoint convergence here; this one was intended to be a turrets platform. As such, it is really good, but if you want something to use with fixed weapons, I'd pick a different ship. Also, it can get more expensive to outfit because of its size 7 FSD, and since it has weak shields for its size, you'll probably want to replace those lightweight hull alloys with something else, and add sufficient module shielding. This one also handles like a slug in supercruise.
As for "best of the three" (in regards to the medium ones) a lot of people will say different things. I've tried all of them and use them often. What "best" would be is a rather complicated question to answer because while they are all specialized combat ships, each model is designed for a different combat approach. Some people say that one model or the other is bad, but my personal tests have told me that those people are incompetent pilots (looking down upon the fools that don't know how to use the Crusader and call it bad because of it).
-The Chieftain gives you the highest top speed and agility. This is the original model, and you might say it handles more or less like a medium-size Vulture. With the right mods, you can get an extremely tough hull while retaining the ship's outstanding agility and top speed. The top speed is enough to give chase to the fastest ships out there, though not necessarily to match them. All hardpoints are top-mounted (with excellent convergence) except the one at the nose (easy to aim, but doesn't converge too well with the ones at the top). Hardpoints: 1medium (nose) + 3 small (top) + 2 large (top)
-The Challenger gives you the most firepower (with two separate clusters of tightly packed hardpoints, for excellent convergence across each cluster). It also has a bit more optional internal space than the Chieftain, but is is slower and somewhat less agile (though not significantly so, at least in terms of agility). A really good pick if you want more firepower and overall durability than the Chieftain offers. Also, this one's an especially bloodthirsty beast when used with fixed weapons. Hardpoints: 3 medium (nose) + 3 small (top) + 1 large (top)
-The Crusader has the least firepower, and the lowest speed and agility. Mediocre pilots call it bad because of that. The thing is, the Crusader can deploy two fighters simultaneously, and it still remains the most agile medium size ship that can do so. Its hull is vastly superior to that of the Krait MK2, in comparison. The Crusader also has a neutral handling style and responds just as well to any type of maneuver (the Krait does not, it has weaker vertical thrusters, does not change its trajectory as swiftly, and wants to "drift" sideways when turning). It also is a great ship to use with fixed weapons: you have pretty much the same setup as with the Chieftain but with one large hardpoint downgraded to medium. The Crusader is also faster than the Fed Gunship (and the Gunship only has one extra seat, unlike the Crusader's two). The Crusader always gives me the most time on target of any medium size ship that can launch fighters (this compensates the reduced firepower, in my opinion). Hardpoints: 2 medium (1 nose + 1 top) + 3 small (top) + 1 large (top)
All the medium size ships have really good handling overall, as well as heat capacity and dissipation rate. They'll have no trouble handling weapons that produce a lot of heat.
If you'd rather emphasize shielding over their intrinsic armor tank trait, you can convert them with Guardian Shield Reinforcement Packages.
Word of warning: these ships are not like most other hull tanks, in the sense that these have very tough hulls but they still remain lightweight. The Alliance ships are NOT good for ramming, unlike other hull tanks (the Crusader can get away with it sometimes because it is the heaviest of the three, but still).
All of the aforementioned medium size ships are top picks for using with fixed weapons, if you consider that a plus.
Also, if you do not have access to engineers that can modify armor, you'll probably want to change that since all the aforementioned ships emphasize armor intrinsically.
This is the best explanation of the 3 that I have seen so far. I've been on the fence about which one to get. Now I believe it will be the Challenger.
According to the stats it has the same agility of the Challenger at a rating of 138. To me it feels just as agile. If it is any different, we're talking percentages so small you can't really tell the difference without going into full computer analysis mode.
And what is that supposed to show? It tells me nothing of agility, other than overall mass; but regardless the ships have the same official agility rating even with the difference in mass (both at scores of 138), so building them the same should always result in equal agility, or at least like I said, percentages of difference so small they're not even noticeable.
While it is true that, in terms of base DPS, 1L=2M, and 1M=2S and against shields it may well be that two mediums even outperform one large, when it comes to actual final DPS on the enemy hull, that truism will depend on the weapon, because of that forgotten stat...armor hardness.
With Plasmas and railguns, which have the same armor penetration regardless of size, no problem. But with beams and MC's, which are the most common builds, armor penetration gets cut considerably with each downsize step.
For example, a size 3 beam has an armor penetration rate of 50 That means that against a conda (or even another chieftain) which has an armor hardness of 65, the beam will make:
(base DPS) * (penetration rate of the weapon) / (armor hardness rate of the target ship) =20.3 * 50 /65 = 15.6 DPS.
Meanwhile, if we calculate DPS for two medium size beams, ehich have a penetration rate of 35: 2 * 12.5 * 35/65 = 13.4 DPS
https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Armour_Hardness
In summary, there's a small penalty on downsizing hardpoint size. Not a dramatic one, but it's enough to be considered. So make sure your biggest hardpoints are dedicated to anti-hull damage (kinetic and explosive), leave the smaller ones for thermals, plasmas and railguns.
Note: I have not mentioned the other, unconfirmed, rumored size penalty hypothesis that says there's a hardcoded hull damage penalty between ship and weapon sizes (they say it's about 33% per size difference). I have not mentioned it because it's well, not confirmed by devs, but you might want to consider that as well.