My beginning of the game: Military start. + How to get unstuck

This is going to be a small guidance to players who want to just read how I started this game as a military player. I was stuck, and I had no way to use trades to get money. So i restarted. Got the same result with a start to focus on trading, restarted again. Got stuck third time, but this time, i didn't restart.
it will be a good read. Whether or not it is interesting, is up to you to decide. Good luck on the fields of battle!

Need To Know

Need to know:

• The baseline player guide is here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2287343910. That guide is written by user named "F D S." Most of your questions will probably be answered there.
  
  
• First thing you should buy is transport ship or Viper. However, if you wish to keep playing with Cobra, you need to buy Ion Cannons for that ship. You can do that in Parabellum shipyard. Click on hangar, then gear button next to Cobra. Then click on arrow up at the bottom right corner, next to weapons. Then scroll to hardpoint and click "Mount."
  
  You will need quite a bit of credits to do that.
  
  
• Energy weapons don't cost you anything, as you don't have to refuel them. Kinetic weapons cost you money to refuel, this includes chainguns, rockets, torpedoes, missiles.
  
  
• During this whole guide, keep in mind, i'm piloting a Viper in the fights.
  
  
• Trading is your way to get most money. I will cover an alternate strategy, but in the end, you still have to mostly focus on trading.
  
  
• You will not get ambushed by pirates, if you are flying only fighting ships. You don't need transports to do both fighting and passenger carring missions. This allows you to set your speed to minimum, and not even care about the time of arrival. The lower your speed, the less fuel you consume. As such, the less you spend on refueling.
  
  
• The amount of ships and the class of ships you will face is based on reputation level and how many ships you OWN (Hangared and not hangared total). This is the reason in the early game you want to own as little as possible and stay around 30-40 points in reputation.
  
  
• You can check the reputation by clicking on "Skills and Reputation" in the game.
  
  
• Your createst cost in missions should be fuel. So make sure you keep your shields up all the time. Use your speed booster to get up close, fire some shots and fly away. Holding down autoaim is perfect for that.
  
  
• [PC Only] If you can, assign any and all firing modes to your mouse buttons. it makes the game far easier. If you use old school mouse and keyboard, make sure that your movement is on one hand and you firing controls are on the other hand. You don't need the mouse in this game. I found it better when I deleted controls for "Fly Horizontal" and "Fly Vertical Axis". You can assign keys in settings - Controls.
  
  If you need to restore the Fly Horizontal and Fly Vertical controls, go to the Settings- Controls and then on top of the panel click on "Restore defaults."
  
  
• You can restart a mission as many times as you like. To do that, press pause, then "exit game" then "Continue game" button.
  
  
• This is a FREE PLAYER GUIDE! I have not spent any money on this game yet (26.11.2020 23:43 GMT+2), and it is going to be reflected in my choices.
  
  
  
• If you plan on paying, you may want to buy at the beginning of the game and AFTER you have created HGN account. You can do so by clicking on "Cloud Save"
  
  
• If you want to play both on mobile and on PC, you need to have an HNG account. You can register it in the game. This also prevents you from losing your game data, in case something happens to your device. Their website is here: https://www.homenetgames.com/
  I am not an official HNG representitive or affiliated with them in any way. This is purely my own opinion and my own thought.
  
  
• Why previous point was important: Items are cheaper on PC. In some of the steam games (like PayDay2, it may or may not have changed it in past 6 months I havent played it.) you can sell some items in steam marketplace and then use that money to buy items in this game.
  
  You can also buy the items directly from the game with your own money.
  
  Suggested ships will be listed at the end of this guide. Skip to "I'm a paying player, what should I buy."
  
  
• Any advertisement resulted from the 3 previous points is accidental. The main idea is to give players a heads up on how to obtain items besides buying it with their own money or how to save progress in the game.
  
  
• This game is as much of a strategy game as it is a spaceflight simulator. You may need to fail multiple times with different ways of trying before succeeding. Don't be discouraged.

Introduction+How to get unstuck.

Well, first thing first. I had to restart the game 2-3 times due to mistakes I made early and running into bankrupt, before figuring out how to play, without getting bored of trading.

When you click choose campaign. You can restart the campaign. However, that is not entirely neccessery. Because there are many ways out of a deadlock. I will list them here, before I go into my diary of broken dreams.

1)

Step 1

You can use only your combat ship, say the Cobra you're given at the start, to do "Transport passenger to X" missions for motus.

Park your transport ship in one of the stations(or if you're far enough in, into your own station in Bastille)

Find the task on one of the stations(check inbox-Independent job market) and accept it, then set your destination on the map, but set the speed to lowest possible (10min thrust, arrival time is multiple hours usually). Becuase you are not using transport ships, you will not get intercepted by pirates. Do this enough times to get your ships repaired and refilled.

2)

Step 2

is the more difficult one.
Make sure to equip your doom raider with Swarm missiles and laser cannons. Your B1 Doom Raider(blue ship) is your main offence against stations and capital ships.

Start doing missions that require you to destroy enemy fleets or outposts. DO NOT TAKE MISSIONS that require you to destroy the enemy CAPITAL ships. They cost you more than you will make most of the time.

3)

Step 3

Now once you've done this a couple of times you should have around 300-500 credits. Do all the missions you can do, exept trading missions(you'll see in a bit why) to get to around 2000 credits.

4)

Step 4

Get your transport out. Start doing the trading missions. Motus will give you a mission saying "X number of containers of Y(medicine/ship parts/some other goods) is requested by Z(Station). You will gain A amount of credits.[---] Motus is just a broker.)

Fill your transport ship with those goods as much as you can. Don't worry about not having enough to finish the quest. Go to the station and dock there. You will get paid for the items you have (usually double their market value per item) and the quest will complete itself.

Make sure that your speed is 14H or lower. At 15H you may get intercepted by pirates, and if they have interceptors, dodging that fight will cost you some HP, and as a result, credits. (Do dodge a pirate fight, you need to open up the map at the beginning of a fight, and set a destination to a station again. can be same one).

5)

Step 5

Now the tedious part:

You need to keep doing those as much as possible to get either a Rhino light transport or Bronto transport. Bronto is reccomended, as it will give you 14 cargo space. It's enough for quite some time,.

It took me around 4 hours of constant trading to get myself out of bankrupcy and back into the game.

Step 6

To avoid getting in to such situation again, focus on getting enough cash for 14x ship parts and store it on one of the transports or in Bastille warehouse.

Usable ships, including niche ones.

What ships can be considered for free player and why. I will also be mentioning premium ships down the line.

Interceptor Class

Interceptor class in general has weak armor and weak shield strength. They are best used in mass as cannon fodder. However, you still want them to get a shot off the enemy, so you should be looking for damage and speed rather than durability.

I-7 Hawk

This bird has both speed and firepower to deal with enemy ships. It's the only ship in Interceptor class worth considering, thanks to having 4x plasma cannons and the ability to equip more plasma weaponry or 2x Ion cannons, which cuts through shields like butter. Being very fast, it can also evade quite a bit of fire from the outer range of firing. Just don't get too close to any of the gunships or you'll get eaten alive.

Fighter class

I have already covered viper and Black swan in my gameplay section, but I'm going to risk repeating myself here and cover them again, as well as any other ship I have comments on.All the fighter class ships are decent, so you will probably see some coverage on all of them.

Cobra

This is your beginning fighter. It has decent durability, and versatility. You can equip ion cannons, rocket launchers or Plasma weaponry. Reccomended to equip Ion cannons the moment you can. Greatly increases Cobras damage output.

Manta

4x Plasma cannons
3x Ion cannons.

This is one of the strongest shield shredders out there. Plasma alone deals decent damage to shields. Add Ion Cannons on top of that and you have a shield shredder. The problem with Manta is that it's just a less expensive version of Viper, which is the best free fighter in the game at the moment.
It also has weaker shields.

Viper

So this is one serious bad-ass fighter. It has enough firepower to contend with Class IV Gunboats, is extremly agile and has good defences, both shields and hitpoints wise.
You can equip rocket launchers, or you can equip laser cannons or ion cannons.
With 4x Ion cannons and 3x laser cannons you have enough shield shredding and hull damage to take down any ship short of capital ships up close. It can also deal with enemy Corvettes quite well.

With 5x Laser Cannons and 2x Ion cannons however, this ship becomes a monster DPS ship. Anything that doesn't have a shield, gets either oneshot or 2 shot. Which makes this ship paired with ion viper a very lethal combination. It's also really really fast.

Black Swan

Probably my favorite "So you have chosen...getting cheesed" fighter. You can equip 4x plasma cannons or rocket pods and it will have chaingun mounted on it. Chaingun deals damage to health, and has 1000 ammunition, making it quite long lasting and good against wide variety of ships. It's also quite versatile, as with plasma cannons, you can save up quite a bit from avoiding refills in the fight. Much harder to pilot, despite having matching speed with viper.

Heavy fighters.

I don't have a single heavy fighter in my formation. It doesn't mean there aren't any good heavy fighters though.

MK8 Triad.

Now this is one artillery fighter. You can equip Ion cannon or missile launcher, and you already have Chaingun and Laser cannons equipped, which are both anti-HP. Making it quite a devastating fighter to face. The downside is, that Viper or Black Swan can do the same thing better while also having better speed.

MK10 Quad

Now this one sadly isn't very versatile. While you can equip plasma and laser cannons, there really isn't any reason to do so. I'd rather equip another Chaingun to get more bullets to already equipped one, and use it as an artillery ship. Just make sure you use X9 Swarm missiles.

Bombers

Both bombers are surprisingly good

B1 Doom Rider

This is another ship you get at a start. But boy is it menacing. with 6 swarm missiles it can devastate 3 waves of enemy ships. Equip it with laser cannon and it's very good against enemy capital ships. Equip it with plasma cannon and it can hold it's own against enemy small ships. Overall, I like it. But I wouldn't overuse it. It gets quite expensive to replace the missiles.

B2 Executor

This one comes equipped with plasma cannon and torpedo launcher. You can also add another plasma cannon or a chain gun. With such versatility at such a cheap price there is a cost however. It can only equip 4 missiles instead of the 6 ones Doom Rider uses. Despite that, this ship is still very strong and good choice for any purpose short of just nuking the enemy.

Gunboats

Gunboats are already borderline overpowered. However, while both free versions are usable, there is only one gunboat that is worth considering buying

G2 Godzilla

Now this is one fearsome ship. By either using 2x laser cannon or 4x plasma cannon you can customize it to deal with whatever threat needs to be dealing with. Good against capital ships and enemy small ships alike. 2x Double Plasma turret also makes sure that it's rear hind is covered and deals considerable damage. It comes with a price though. It's heavy on depletable ammunition, which means it also needs constant reloading when sending against capital ships too often. As a result, it may be more effecient to spam vipers and Doom Riders.

Transport ships

Transport ships are your bread and butter in this game. So having a good one is a must. That being said, There is only 1 Transport ships I can reccomend for free player. But I'll cover all 4 of them. You can quickly tell how much cargo one transport holds by the number next to T.
T4 = 4 units
T6 = 6 units
T8 = 8 units
T12 = 12 units
T14 =14 units
T16 =16 units

T4 Gorilla

This is the transport ship you are given at the beginning. It gets the job done, but it's very lackluster. First chance you get, sell it and buy the T14 Bronto.

T6 Rhino

This one gets the job done. It can last for some time but it isn't the best. If possible, skip it.

T12 Mule

Another ship that gets the job done. But for just a mission or 2 more you can get the T14 Bronto. So it's usually worth skipping this one as well. However it is MUCH better than T6 Rhino. So if you haven't for some reason invested skill points in "ship dealer" then it's better to get T12 Mule than run with the beginner transport. Otherwise SKIP.

T14 Bronto

May I suggest getting this the first chance you can get it? No? Well I'll suggest it anyway. It's the only transport ship worth buying. With 14 cargo slots it gets most of the missions done all the way to the midgame. By that time, you either are running Motus missions like crazy and can buy 1 quite often, or you're stuck and need a way out.
If you're stuck, refer to beginning.
If you're filthy rich, then sadly this is the only transport to buy. So maybe invest more into those Gunships or Fighters or Bombers.

My real beginning of the game

Part 1

This is going to be a wall of text. Sorry.

I used a different starting strategy: I sold my transport in favor of getting more credits quicker from dogfighting missions.This also made it so that i completed the "get 600 credits" missions.

Then I continued the main campaign, until I had unlocked my access to inbox. Thats when I stopped doing the main campaign and focused on Delta and Motus missions, mostly passenger transport, Destroy enemy ships, Escort freighter and Destroy enemy outposts. My goal was to get 5000 credits for a viper, so I can deal with the gunboats in the missions.

I invested in ship dealer skill and charisma skill to get 1st viper as early as possible. When I had enough to buy a Viper(Fighter class ship), I sold my Cobra and bought Viper. This made sure the enemy count was always low and I could keep farming as effeciently as possible.

With 4x Ion cannons(see below) and 3x laser cannons it made most fighting missions a breeze. And since there was no need to use cluster missiles, I usually came out in 70% profit, without getting bored.

I kept investing into economic skill points, with the exeption of taking "Energetic Weapons Damage" the moment I finished off "Ship Dealer" and "Charisma" skill set. Constantly fighting also made sure I kept getting skill points at a rapid rate. (you also get a skill point after every 5 commodities/wares you've traded).

Once I had 2 vipers and 1 Bomber, I continued the main story till I unlocked the wormhole station. (This is right after you get introduced to wormhole.)

I pretty much stopped doing main story the moment wormhole station was unlocked for selling ship parts and focused on growing my fleet until I got enough vipers to deal with class V gunboats.

Now my main goal was to get a good transport ship. Those things are expensive. And since the missions get more difficult the higher your reputation is, I had to start accepting delta missions then going to inbox, clicking "Independent Job market" and choose another mission. This caused Delta reputation to drop by 5 points. Keeping the reputation around 40-50 points(40-50%) was crucial. That way I was hitting the sweet spot where missions were not hard enough to get damaged, and payed decently.

You can see you reputation under the menu "Skills and Reputations". Just scroll a bit down.

Once I had 6000 credits, I bought the Bronto and started doing the mission that says " 8 containers of Medicine are required by Steel heart..." or "6 containers of nutrients is required by CFF Deimos..." or anything else of that sort. When none of that type of missions were available, I took my vipers and bomber out, and did "Destroy pirate station" or "Protect Station from attack" type of missions. Once those ran out or if I found a trade mission, I went back to trading.

Since I kept the transports in my fleet, I always made sure I was around 14H travel time so I don't have the risk of running into the pirates.

I also made sure to speedboost to enemy group, check out what i'm up against, then, if neccessery, start the mission again (pause, Exit game, then continue campaign).
If I ever ran into Class III or higher Gunboats, I recalled the transport. Most of the times, those missions also had a frigate, so I had to divert the bomber with it's missile armed to deal with the capital ships. While me and the AI piloted viper dealt with the gunboats and whatever else the small ships were.

I always prioritize gunboats in a fight. I wait for them to come in range, then use booster and autoaim to swoop near to one, fire a couple of shots, hopefully killing one before I'm forced to retreat and use booster the Get the duck out of there until they stopped trying to hit me. Rinse-repeat. This made sure I didn't take too much damage.

If I was ever against lvl 5 gunships, i took command of the bomber instead. Here is a different tactic to be used. Instead of using the bomber to take care of capital ships, I used the swarm missiles to take care of the gunships or anything else the swarm missiles targeted. Main idea here is to get enemy numbers low as quickly as possible. Fire them 1 at a time, watching the enemy explode before firing another shot. This makes sure you don't waste anything you don't have to.
Otherwise, use only lasers. That way you don't have to refill after every fight.

=======================

Ship Setups during early to midgame.

For fighters I was using

2x Viper with following setup:

2x Ion cannon hardpoint
3x Laser(DEFAULT)
2x Ion cannon(Default)


2x Vipers with following setup:

2x Laser cannon Hardpoint
3x Laser cannon (Default)
2x Ion Cannon (Default).

For bombers I was using:

1x B1 - Doom Rider

Laser cannon Hardpoint
Seeker missiles in torpedo bay

Transport ships:

1x Bronto Transport

Until I got them, I was doing side missions, mostly those that required destroying enemy fleet, and the one mission that required delivering commodities to different stations. Fighting was there to keep me from getting bored while I was waiting for another Motus commodity delivery mission to show up.

When I got them I continued my main campaign until I ran into another snag. The missions where you have to attack the Theta alliance cruisers, is very difficult to do with only 1 bomber. So I stopped my main storyline in favor of farming credits again.


========================

Part 2)

With this extra income, here is what I purchased and Why.

Fighters:

1x Black Swan Fighter

2x Chaingun, Uranium Ammo.
4x Plasma cannon Hardpoint

Reason for this is being able to use Black Swan in missions, where I don't need the chaingun ammo, as well as giving the fighter some way to fight when it's Uranium Ammo has ran out. It's main purpose is anti-gunboat and boy does it rip them to shreds.

Bombers:

2x B2 Executor.

Chaingun on Hardpoint Uranium ammo
Swarm missile Torpedo Launcher
Plasma cannon(Default)

These are pure capital ship destroyers. They work great when left to their own devices, and usually end up taking very little damage. Depleting torpedoes is a problem though, so activating them too early in the fight causes most of their missiles to miss the target. However, once you've gotten rid of first wave(4 ships out of 8/12 that spwan) of enemy small ships, they are pure terror. Activate them on capital with missiles active, pair with gunboats and see those ships gone.

Their downside is small torpedo armament. However, they are very versatile and quite a lot cheaper than B1 Doom Rider

=========================

Midgame additions:

I use 3x Bronto transport for Motus transport missions. You don't really need more than this most of the time. Brontos can survive their own in a firefight for quite some time, making excelent decoys.

I usually recall them in any mission that has a Class V or Class IV gunship. Anything else they can handle quite well.
They are also good in atmospheric fights, since their plasma turrets tend to hit multiple enemies, and deal quite good damage to unshielded enemies.

==========================

2x G2 Godzilla Gunboat

2x40mm Cannon - Antimatter Ammo
1x Missile Launcher - X9C Cluster Missile
2x Double Plasma turret(Default, can't be changed)
4x Plasma cannon Hardpoint.

The reason i took plasma cannon x4 instead of laser cannon x2 is to deal with shielded enemies as well as capital ships. Most capital ships have atleast 2 or 3 shielded guns, so plasma cannons are good against those. They also don't consume any ammo, which means you are effectively saving money by having those 2 gunboats take on the enemy ones with vipers, and not spend a single missile or cannon ammo.

Now I'm continuing my campaign and currently I have to destroy station defenders. I do not know what comes up next. But in next part, I will cover my planned purchases and reasoning for it.

Future plans.

Even though I am not certain what the game will bring, here is my thought proccess.

Mission Campaign

Since those missions to destroy enemy defenders is really bothering me, I'm going to finish them up first. I will be continuing the campaign only to a point where I can start trading with most of the planets again.
However most likely than not I can't start going any further until I have enough to take out at bare minimum 4 capital ships. Cause otherwise I'm going to probably get stuck in fights.

• I still have problems with capital ships, due to the bombers and gunboats being quite expensive to properly fit out.
  
• I need 2 more gunships to deal with enemy ships. Also 3 more bombers. I also plan to get 5 more fighters, 2 of them Vipers and 3of them Black swan.
  
• I am anticipating the expansion to be arriving sometime next year or two. And based on my experience with Galaxy On Fire 2, you want to be prepared for that in terms of both economic costs and ships you control/own.

Planned ship builds

:
Going to show my thought proccess behind purchasing ships. In hopes that you can learn something from it, when building your own fleet.

Fighters

1x Viper

2x Laser Cannon (Hardpoint)
3x Laser Cannon (Default)
2x Ion Cannon (Default)

Color: White-Red-Orange

1x Viper

2x Ion Cannon (Hardpoint)
3x Laser cannon (Default)
2x Ion Cannon (Default)

Color: Blue-Red-White

Vipers are pure DPS monsters. Their main job is to take down enemy small ships. They are fast, can get up close and personal and get away with it. In order to facilitate that type of flight, they need to have their weapons always available. Having them use Lasers and Ion cannons makes sure I don't have to refill them. Since their only other option is a rocket launcher, which is more for shooting from afar as initial barrage, I do not think these suit for Vipers.

I also use the colors to distinguish between 2 types. Makes it easier to understand which one you're flying in.

1x Black swan

2x Chaingun (Default)
4x Plasma Cannon (Hardpoint)

As explained previously, this will be addition to my lonely black swan. Their main goal: Complete and utter destruction of enemy gunships. They will be active during the battle against anything, but I will only allow them to use chaingun ammo, when I'm up against class V gunships.

2x Black Swan

2x Chaingun(Default)
2x Rocket Launcher Z9 Rocket

Now these 2 bad boys here will be designed strictly as artillery ships. Chaingun has quite long range and so do the Z9 rockets. They deal less damage than H7X guided rockets, but they can't miss. This means they are far more effective as both artillery barrage at the start OR as supplemental firepower in the middle of the fight.
The one misfortune of those ships is needing to have them in formation properly. Since currently ships are saved by Type and Order of Purchase, All I have to do is to make sure I buy and equip those 2 last. That way I should be able to recall them whenever they are not needed.

I can also ground them. Their main goal is to help with tough campaign missions, where I may need to try different strategies before continuing on with the most optimal one.

Bombers

1x B1 Doom Rider

1x Torpedo Launcher: Swarm Missiles
2x Laser Cannon (Hardpoint).

Again will use differentiating coloring between this type and the other type I'm going to build.
This is my one more ship to deal with capital ships. While capital ships do have shielded modules, most of their modules can be destroyer by any fighter firing a couple of ion blasts into them. With gunships filling that role with their plasma cannon, I can delay the purchase of the next 2 Bombers by significant margin, like atleast 4-5 days or in this case, atleast till the very end of main campaign.
And Swarm missiles are auto-targeting, meaning they are fire and forget. Makes it far easier to use as a beginning artillery barrage before the main assault. Especially effective when you fight swarms of enemy ships all at once.

2x B1 Doom Rider

1x Torpedo Launcher: Swarm Missiles
2x Plasma cannon (Hardpoint)

Like mentioned before, those ships can be delayed quite a bit. So I will be buying a couple of more gunships and fighters before them. Their main focus would be taking down enemy highly armored ships. But, if the previous purchases can do their job, I will probably use them in conjuction with other bombers to deal with capital ships.

Gunboats

G2 Godzilla

2x40mm Cannon (60x Antimatter ammo)
Missile Launcher (G8 missile)
2x Double Plasma Turret
2x Laser Cannon(Hardpoint)

Now here is the most interesting part. Those gunships are going to be used specifically against the enemy capital ships. 2x Laser cannon ensured better damage against pure hull modules, G8 guided missile has a lot more damage than X9C Cluster missiles. Even though they are not fire and forget, like X9C, the main job of this ship is to take down any capital ship I want. It also makes good boat against enemy Gunboats.

These are also going to be the most expensive ships, so I will probably start with those first.

===================================

Ending

Once I have this core fleet ready, I will probably start focusing on getting capital and gunship killers, as well as gathering credits for upcoming expansion. Slowly, but surely adding more ships for various purposes.

I'm a paying player, what should I buy

• Automatic Docking.
  
  This will make docking much easier and faster. Also makes it more comfortable to play
  
  
• T16 Rex Transport ship.
  
  This megahauler will allow you to start off on a much easier game path. You can start doing Motus "X containers of commodity required on station..." missions right away. You only need 1 of this for most of the game down to midgame and probably even lategame. So far the highest container count I've received was 18.
  Oh, and it is a one time purchase. Once it is unlocked, you can buy it for ingame credits.
  
  
• B3 Apocalypse Bomber
  
  This guy...well... it's just broken just from the stats alone. Insanely effecient bomber you can also use against enemy fighters. Torpedo launcher tops it off as you can equip swarm missiles to totally devastate the enemy before they even get into your firing range. Also, you won't have any trouble with gunships.
  
  
• Mamba fighter.
  
  I think the developers mislabeled Mamba as a fighter. Based on it's stats, it's a gunship. Not to mention having 40 rockets or 6 more missiles at you disposal makes sure that you can use it as capital ship destroyer, heavy artillery, or just straight out oneshot menace against anything that dares to fly close enough.
  
  This bad boy alone is enough till mid reputation tier fights.
  
  
• Mega pack
  
  Megapack is definetly worth a buy. Not only do you get all the premium ships, you also get audotocking and more diverse ship color customization. This will allow you to build a fleet of ships that blazes you through the game with ease. Not to menion, making missions a lot easier. And selling some of the ships for credits is always a possibility.

Honorable mention:

I9 - Eagle.

This one is actually worth buying if you have quite a bit of money lieing around. It's a bit weaker version of Viper, but more than makes up for it with it's speed and maneuverability.

Useful Links

Guides:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2290315878
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2287343910

Forum discussions:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1449750/discussions/0/3003299213532700427/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1449750/discussions/0/2986411348908022723/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1449750/discussions/0/2986411348894692170/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1449750/discussions/0/2970650017884360374/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1449750/discussions/0/2970649384349688149/

[nosajimiki]

You've overlooked the MK-2 Brutus which is IMO the best free anti-capitol ship in the game. It's smaller and more maneuverable than bombers or gunships making it easier to survive multiple passes without getting hit, and the rail gun holds enough ammo to do more total damage than any bomber, and the ammo is cheaper than torpedoes to replace