Guide to Ship Launched Fighters (SLF)

A comprehensive guide describing how to employ Ship Launched Fighters (SLFs), how to fly in them, multicrew capabilities, limitations, and loadouts.

Hangars and Fighter Types

Hangars

In order to use SLFs, you need to have a hangar bay equipped into your ship. Only certain ships can have a hangar bay mounted:

• Alliance Crusader (Class 5-6)
  
• Anaconda (Class 5-7)
  
• Beluga Liner (Class 5-6)
  
• Federal Corvette (Class 5-7)
  
• Federal Gunship (Class 5-6)
  
• Imperial Cutter (Class 5-7)
  
• Keelback (Class 5)
  
• Krait MkII (Class 5-6)
  
• Type-9 Heavy (Class 5-7)
  
• Type-10 Defender (Class 5-7)

Each hangar bay houses a certain number of fighter blueprints that it uses to be able to produce, deploy, and service a fighter belonging to that blueprint.
Class 5D Hangar - Houses one fighter blueprint and can produce up to 6 until needing a restock.
Class 6D Hangar - Houses two fighter blueprints and can produce up to 8 of each fighter for a total of 16 fighters before needing a restock.
Class 7D Hangar - Houses two fighter blueprints and can produce up to 15 of each fighter for a total of 30 fighters before needing a restock.

Generally speaking, the class 7 hangar is usually unnecessary since it would be extremely rare for your ship to go through 30 fighters before the ship itself would require services, but if you plan on using the fighters at long range or have a loadout designed for long operation, it can be useful. The class 6 hangar is a massive upgrade over the class 5 as you can house two different blueprints at once (and, with multicrew, have both fighters out at once).

Regardless of fighter blueprint, replacement parts for destroyed fighters always cost 1,030 CR per fighter. This makes fighter replacements incredibly cheap and disposable.

Fighters

There are four main fighter blueprints, most of which have several sub-blueprints containing slightly altered loadouts depending on your preferences. Unfortunately, ship-launched fighters are not customizable beyond the available blueprints and variants.

F63 Condor - All-rounder. Good speed, turning, passable durability (for an SLF). Hard to go wrong with. One of the few fighters with a ballistic, non-AX focused loadout.
Gu-97 - Extremely manuverable and can turn on a dime, but has paper thin shields and hull. Will get vaporized if focused by the enemy, but is generally harder to hit.
Taipan - Heavier shields and hull compared to the F63 Condor, but slower and less manuverable. Even still it is comparatively harder to hit than a normal ship and still has decent health for a fighter, so it tends to last longer unless focused by the enemy.
XG-Series - Guardian SLF's that need special prerequisites to acquire. I personally have not used them (except for flying in them) however there are three variants each with unusual weapons. In general the AI seems to have some difficulty employing them effectively. They have very little hull (less then the Gu-97) but midline shields for a fighter. I would just stick with a standard variant instead of going out of your way for these.

A few general notes about fighter loadouts:

Variants ending in "G" have gimballed weapons, while variants ending in "F" have fixed weapons. Gimballed variants sacrifice overall DPS for an easier time targeting, but are therefore vulnerable to chaff launched by enemy ships. Realistically speaking, since SLFs have superior manuverability to any other ship, you should have a much easier time using fixed weapons against them and should opt for them when possible. Even modestly skilled AI also has no issues landing large amounts of fixed weapon shots, so there's even more reason to favor them.

Ships with Chaff for utility can make good use of it to escape enemy gimball/turret fire if needed, or to protract an engagement that would otherwise get them vaporized. All SLF's can restock/repair their ship at anytime by boarding with their mothership, so they can spam chaff with reckless abandon. Same goes for heat sinks, though those are more used for heat control on ships equipped with beam weapons. SLF's equipped with point defense are the only SLF's that have any defense against seeker missiles, which will absolutely shred an unshielded fighter.

All primary weapons generate some heat when firing, but it can be pretty easy to stack up a lot of heat in an SLF. What you need to take note of is past 100% heat, you start to take minor module damage within the ship. This is okay for short periods until your modules start to malfunction, at which point you have a problem. If you really want to push the limits, past 150% heat you start taking hull damage. SLF's have very little hull to speak of, so doing this for prolonged periods of time (especially when damaged) can be lethal. But always remember, your fighter is very expendable (only costs 1,030 CR to replace) and if you survive, you can get a full repair by quickly docking with your mothership. So, don't be afraid to push the fighter's limits if you have to.

Fighter Deployment & AI Crew

AI Crew Members

If you want to get any use out of your fighter flying solo, you will need an AI crew member to pilot it for you. Without crew to fly your figher or mothership, both enter an autonomous static mode that is almost entirely defenseless (though the mothership will try to engage nearby ships with turreted weapons while stationary). AI crew members can be hired from any station that has a crew lounge. AI Crew will have a one-time hiring fee (from 15,000-150,000 CR, depending on skill level) and will receive a small percentage of CR every time you turn in a combat bond or bounty voucher (percentage also dependent upon skill level). While it may seem like it burns a hole in your pocket to be paying an AI for flying an SLF, they can be well worth it as they provide great distractions to help you take down ships.

The following skill levels are available for hire from crew lounges:

Rank	Hiring Cost (CR)	Profit Share (%)
Harmless	15,000	2%
Mostly Harmless	30,000	4%
Novice	55,000	6%
Competent	90,000	9%
Expert	150,000	12%

The character generator is kinda... lacking most of the time, so you may want to shop around until you find someone who looks passable, because you'll be staring at them a lot for the following reason:
It is EXTREMELY important to note the following mechanic: NPC Crew will level up and increase in skill the more you fly with them and use them in combat. Hiring lesser-skilled crew and leveling them up will result in them taking a smaller percentage share of your profits then immediately hiring a similarly skilled member. It is pretty much needlessly wasteful to hire anyone but a harmless pilot and train them up. A Harmless pilot trained up to Elite only takes 10% share, which is already 2% less then the starting share for an Expert pilot.

Obviously, pilots with higher skill are smarter and more effective in combat, but even low skilled pilots can make decent distractions for you. Crew are also paid whether active or inactive so, having more than one is pretty wasteful. Also, if you ever unequip your fighter hangar or swap to a ship without a fighter hangar, your crew member will automatically be shifted to inactive. Make sure you verify you have your crew set to "Active" when planning to deploy with a fighter bay.

Deploying Fighters

All SLF's are launched using the roles panel (Panel #3, located between your legs). In order to launch fighters, your hangar bay must be powered (note, your bay does not need to be powered to build new fighters or dock existing ones, so if you are squeezing your power plant during weapons deployment, you can turn your hangar off if you deploy fighters before you deploy hardpoints).

Once you access the roles panel, select the fighter you wish to deploy. After selecting "deploy" you will be prompted for who will be flying it. If you have an AI crew member on board, you can choose to deploy the AI to the fighter automatically. Otherwise, you can deploy yourself to the fighter.

If you deploy yourself to the fighter and have an AI crew member, the AI will assume control of your helm. Otherwise, the helm will stay stationary and fire on any nearby targets using turreted weapons (And will also try to use shield cells to keep its shields up), but otherwise it will mostly be a sitting duck. If you switch back to the Helm while your fighter has no crew to take it over, the fighter will try to follow you but is incapable of docking on its own.

When flying without any multicrew members, you can swap between your fighter and your helm at any time. This can be useful if you want to take your much faster fighter out for a spin and scout around, leaving your helm stationary. Just be careful to keep tabs on the status of your helm in case it comes under fire.

Fighter deployments have the following limitations:

• Outside of multicrew, only one SLF may be deployed at a time, even if you have two fighters in your bay.
  
• If inside multicrew, one player can fly an SLF while you can deploy your AI crew in the other fighter.
  
• Players in multicrew can deploy fighters from the role panel at any time outside supercruise, as long as the fighters are available and the bay is powered.
  
• If your ship has enough seats and fighter bays, two players can each fly one SLF from your hangar if it has two fighters available.
  
• If in multicrew, the owner of the ship (helmsman) cannot fly fighters.
  
• Players can force an AI crew member out of an active fighter and fly it themselves if they select it from the role panel (warning in advance: this is buggy and in my experience sometimes results in ED's transaction server's kicking you or the fighter pilot out of the game briefly. Apparently this is a long-standing bug).

Fighter Deployment Tips

• If using a Hangar with two fighter bays (Class 6/7), you can instantly deploy your other fighter bay if your first deployed fighter is destroyed.
  
• Hangars with two fighter bays will assemble fighters in parallel, so if both go down quickly, they'll both be back up within the same timeframe.
  
• Each ship has a specific orientation for their fighter bay. Example: The Alliance Crusader will launch fighters forward and down, and has fighters dock to the rear of the ship. Conversely, the Type-10 Defender will launch fighters backwards but dock them forwards.
  
• Don't forget to redeploy your fighter if destroyed in combat. It can be a helpful distraction to keep pressure off of you for some time.

Flying Fighters

I'll just touch on generalized tactics here and some tips that might help you out.

General Strengths/Weaknesses

As an SLF, you're insanely fast, zippy, and manuverable. You can make it extremely difficult for less manuverable ships (especially those with fixed weapons) to target you by virtue of your high manuverability and low profile. With correct positioning, you can stay out of the firing line of larger ships while dealing consistent (though not insignificant) damage. If the target manages to focus you, you can quickly engine boost away at over 500 m/s, outside the effective range of most weapons. Deploying chaff can also be an effective solution against gimballed or turreted weapons tracking you to extend the time you can attack or cover your escape. The chaff is free, so don't be afraid to use it.

Also as an SLF, you are extremely fragile and you cannot afford to be focused on by an enemy ship for long. If you are focused on by a larger ship, you're unlikely to survive whatever they shoot at you unless you dive out of range or in cover (asteroid fields can greatly help break up a sight line on your craft). If it looks or feels like the enemy is turning to focus on you, it may be time to break your attack and duck out, or else you risk getting flattened.

Seeker missiles will also decimate a fighter with down shields almost assuredly. Outside of having a fighter with point defense or being in close proximity to a ship with point defense, there's pretty much nothing you can do if you get an <<INCOMING MISSILE>> warning on your HUD.

On the upside, you don't really have to deal damage to be successful in your role as a fighter. If you can merely distract your target long enough for an ally to engage them, you've done your job. Some ships will get strung out and chase after a fighter despite having little to no means to effectively pursue them which brings the pressure off of your Helm and allied ships in the area. Even if you get destroyed, your cheap, 1000 CR fighter is highly expendable and another one is either already good to launch or will be within 70 seconds.

Combat/Systems Tips

• Fighter shields have a very fast recharge rate. Dumping 4 pips into systems on an F63 Condor can bring a collapsed shield back up and barely skip a beat to recharge. A full system bar on a condor can usually get a shield back up to around 75% rebuilt. Take advantage of your quickly recharging shields to extend your lifetime.
  
• AI pilots have a habit of disabling modules that run out of ammo. Namely, they love to disable the chaff module after they've used all the chaff, and this carries over between deployed fighters. Make sure you just check and activate it if you get into a ship with chaff.
  
• Condors with 4 pips in engines while engine boosting can easily maintain over 500 m/s. You can use condors as interceptors from long range and you can quickly duck in and out of fights combined with chaff, making you the ultimate annoyance to deal with.
  
• Fighter weapons will build heat with sustained fire (especially twin plasma cannons). Do not be afraid to push your heat bar past 200% to keep slapping down consistent damage. You'll assuredly melt a lot of your internal systems, but your fighter is highly expendable and can get a full repair from a quick dock. The benefit of dealing more damage usually outweighs the very minor setback of losing a single fighter chassis.
  
• All fighters have a maximum operating range of 30km from the mothership. Past 30km, a self-destruct countdown will initiate on the fighter. You will receive a warning from your Helm when passing the 25km mark that you are reaching the edge of radio range.

Docking/Maintenance Tips

To recall a deployed AI fighter, either issue a fighter recall order (Numpad 0 by default) or manually issue the order by using the roles panel (#3 panel: Select the deployed fighter, select 'Orders', use 'Recall Fighter'). The AI is fairly capable of docking with your ship, but you must either be holding still or traveling relatively slowly in a straight line for them to successfully dock.

Fighters have a certain distance at which they become 'attached' to the ship as they go through the docking animation. Once they've attached to the docking bay's skids, you can freely move and accelerate without losing the fighter's docked status while it gets recovered in the bay.

A fighter will fully repair hull and modules, as well as restock anything with limited ammo (chaff, heatsinks, point defense, etc) when docked. A docking fighter only needs about 5 seconds for a maintenance check-up, regardless of how damaged it is, before it can be redeployed.

You will destroy any deployed fighters if you enter supercruise or hyperspace before they're fully and completely docked. Even a fighter attached to your skids as mentioned above is not yet fully docked and will be destroyed the moment your supercruise countdown engages. You can charge your supercruise and orient yourself, but as soon as it engages it will destroy anything deployed. But by all means, if you need to make a hasty escape, don't be afraid to burn up to 2,060 CR of fighter chassis.

Provided your orientation is correct (top of your fighter is in line with the top of the Helm), docking skids will 'capture' your fighter at relative speeds of up to 100 m/s (ex: if the helm is traveling 200 m/s, you can dock with it at the right angle between 200-300 m/s). With practice and proper timing, you can burn into your launch bay at nearly full speed, slow down appropriately, and make a fast capture into the bay. If working with a human pilot, this can make combat-docking possible during a skirmish if you are both sufficiently skilled. Depending on the ship, a helm's shields can sometimes be large enough to protect a fighter as it is being captured in the dock.

Targeting your Helm on approach is a great way to figure out how you need to align your fighter when docking. Generally speaking, an AI pilot will try to face the docking area of the helm towards you and will try to rotate the helm so your fighter's orientation is correct for docking (essentially doing most of the alignment for you). All you have to do at that point is fly forward.

Fighter Orders

Fighters that are being controlled by AI (and by extension, your Helm when controlled by AI) can be given orders to influence how they react to situations and hostiles. It is highly recommended that you know these binds and are comfortable issuing them, since they can be extremely useful to mold a situation as you need it in the heat of battle. The only other option for giving orders without keybinds is to issue them through the roles panel which is extremely slow and cumbersome, both requiring you to shift your focus to the roles panel and momentarily stop controlling your ship.

Fighter Orders

• Defend [NUM 1] - Fighter/helm will attempt to keep up with you and stay nearby. The fighter/helm will only attack ships that attack the fighter or helm first. Otherwise, the ship will avoid engaging anything on its own, even known hostile ships. This is the default mode when an AI crew member assumes control of a ship.
  
  
• Engage at Will [NUM 2] - Fighter/helm will attempt to attack and destroy any hostile targets within your ship's sensor range at its own discretion. This has the benefit of your fighter/helm automatically jumping in on fights you initiate (for instance, when you attack a target with a bounty or when a pirate attacks your ship). However, this can cause your fighter or ship to get strung out attacking low priority or faraway targets if you ignore it for too long. Make sure you periodically check what they're doing so they can be most effective.
  
  
• Attack Target [NUM 3] (requires a locked target) - Fighter/helm will engage the target that you currently have selected. This is dangerous to issue on ships that you are not lawfully allowed to attack. If you issue this order on a ship that is not wanted or otherwise lawful to attack, you will incur a fine or bounty if not inside an anarchy system when the fighter damages the selected ship. Make sure that you are issuing this order with the correct target selected. If you issue this order in mistake, give your fighter another order (such as defend) to prevent it from engaging.
  This command is most useful to order your fighter to help you engage a specific target or to keep a specific target busy.
  
  
• Maintain Formation [NUM 4] - Fighter/helm will attempt to stay with you and will hold fire.
  
  
• Hold Position [NUM 5] - Fighter/helm will remain stationary at its current position until given another order or engaged by the enemy.
  
  
• Follow Me [NUM 6] - Fighter/helm will attempt to stay with you. The helm's turreted weapons will still attempt to engage nearby known hostile targets.
  
  --------------------------------------
  
  
• Recall Fighter/Request to Dock [NUM 0] - If piloting the Helm, this orders your deployed fighter to dock with you. As mentioned earlier, you'll have to stop or travel slowly in a straight line for the AI to successfully dock with you.
  If you are piloting a fighter, this puts a docking request in with your Helm. The helm will slow down and try to orient its docking approach to your current position. If you are multicrewing for another player, you may need some coordination with them to get the docking bay in the correct orientation or wait until combat dies down to dock.

Fighter Strategy

You have a few options when deciding how to actually employ your fighters and i'll just hit on some important details here that didn't really fit into any other section.

Enemy AI Target Priority

Enemy pirate AI is fairly predictable in how it will react to hostile attention. Pirate AI will approach and scan your helm looking for valuable cargo. Depending on the pirate's skill level, they have a certain threshold in credits that your carried cargo (not including limpets) needs to be in order for the pirate to proceed to try and rob you.

Once a pirate approaches within about 1.5-1km of you and completes a manifest scan, they'll determine if they want to rob you. If they do, they'll give you 15 seconds to jettison a requested amount of cargo before turning hostile (they will turn away a short moment before they become hostile). Attacking or moving a significant distance away will instantly make the pirate hostile.

Pirate craft will attempt to engage the ship that damages them first if they have yet to be damaged (attacking something not fighting back) or if they were not yet hostile to you. If you order your fighter to attack the pirate craft before you attack it, the pirate craft will attempt to chase your fighter for a bit before attacking you.

Once a certain amount of time has passed (seems to be a minimum of about 20 seconds or so), the AI is eligible to switch to a new target if another nearby target is causing significant damage to them. This means your fighter can keep a larger craft tied up for several seconds before that larger craft shifts focus to you. Otherwise the AI will keep engaging its target until it either loses it or decides to try and flee the area.

Fighters can be great to tie up a less manuverable craft, but if more than one craft starts to shift focus on your fighter it won't be long before it gets flattened. You'll want to try and work quickly and clear out targets off the fighter while they're busy focusing on it, giving you clear shots. Alternatively, if you attack first, the fighter can be used to be unobstructed supplemental damage.

Some pirates are also content to shoot endless hatchbreakers at you during a holdup and won't actually attack until they are shot at. This can be somewhat exploited if you can keep hatchbreakers off you to stop additional targets from dogpiling you while you are busy.

Long-range Fighters

This requires human pilots to do, or a wing of ships with fighter bays. The idea is to park your helms a good distance form the center of a fight (15-20km is good), and then simply use the helms to deploy fighters at long range to engage targets solo. This is where the wing or multicrew comes into play: a single fighter isn't a threat on its own, but 3-4 of them can be problematic for any single ship.

By keeping your helms 15-20km away, your helms are almost completely out of most sensor range. This means even if your fighter goes down there's not an easy way to trace its mothership since it is unlikely to be on sensors. You can simply launch your backup bay and fly at full speed to be back into the fray quickly. A helm with a Size 7 bay can supply up to 30 fighters in this manner before needing a break, so this can be a good long-term and low risk way to attack ships from standoff range.

Disadvantage, radio range is only 30km and you are probably killing things much more slowly than if you used your helm in conjunction.

Supplemental

If in a wing with multiple fighter bays, you can all order your fighters to attack the same target to give your fighters a better chance at actually killing it. Most harder targets, however, can take one or two fighters down during the fight, so it may not be best to leave the fighters unsupervised unless it is a sufficiently small or defenseless ship.

F63 Condor

F63 Condor

A well-rounded fighter that has dependable speed, agility, and durability. With a top speed around 300 m/s and a boost speed around 575 m/s, it's quite fast and can easily keep pace or close on an engagement at a distance. It has 25 shield health and 25 armor health, making it able to at least take a few glancing blows without severe damage. It has a very good turning rate which makes keeping inside the blind spots of larger ships quite easy if you can manuver well.

Hull	Shields	Pitch	Yaw	Roll	Top Speed	Boost Speed
25	25	53°	23°	117°	~330 m/s	~577 m/s

Variant	Hardpoints	Utility
Aegis F	2x Fixed Plasma Repeater	Point Defense
Rouge F	2x Fixed Multicannon	Chaff
Gelid G	2x Gimballed Beam Laser	Heatsink
Rouge G	2x Gimballed Pulse Laser	Chaff
Gelid F	2x Fixed Pulse Laser	Heatsink

Of note, this is one of the few fighters that can mount non-AX ballistic weapons, (but lacks a fixed beam variant), making the Rouge F variant more effective against hull compared to most other fighters. The multicannons on the Rouge F variant also do not have limited ammo, unlike most ballistic weapons and the multicannon counterpart of normal ships.

Chaff on the Rouge F makes these variants excellent at overstaying their welcome or evading fire when things get too heated. In spite of this, while it can maintain firing without any downtime, it can struggle to deliver enough damage to shielded opponents due to its kinetic loadout and may have a hard time damaging hull on thickly armored ships due to its small weapon size. The Aegis F addresses these shortcomings somewhat by dealing more consistent damage all-around, but its much easier to overheat the ship with sustained fire and it lacks chaff to protect itself against incoming fire. The point defense also does not see much practical use on the Aegis F as it is rare for AI to target fighters with seekers.

The Condor is sold at any shipyard that is controlled by a faction aligned with the Federation.

Taipan

The Taipan is the toughest SLF in terms of raw protection afforded to each fighter, with a chunky 30 shields and 45 hull, for a total of 75 health (for reference, a stock Eagle has 72 hull and 78 MJ shields using a stock 3E shield generator). In comparison to the F63 Condor (50 total health) and the Gu-97 (30 total health), this makes the Taipan capable of taking a fair shake more damage compared to the other fighters, requiring more than a glancing blow to disable. Unfortunately, this makes it less manuverable then either option and its non-boost speed is a lot slower as a result. This tends to work to its disadvantage as it is easier to focus on and take out compared to the other crafts.

Hull	Shields	Pitch	Yaw	Roll	Top Speed	Boost Speed
45	30	41°	18°	90°	~279 m/s	~530 m/s

Variant	Hardpoints	Utility
Rouge F	2x Fixed Plasma Cannon	Chaff
AX1 F	2x AX Multi-cannon	None
Aegis F	2x Fixed Pulse Laser	Point Defense
Rouge G	2x Gimballed Pulse Laser	Chaff
Gelid F	2x Fixed Beam Laser	Heatsink
Gelid G	2x Gimballed Beam Laser	Heatsink

While slower then the F63 Condor or the Gu-97, the Taipan can still maintain a very respectable boost speed, allowing it to quickly travel if all power is dumped into engines. While the Taipan has a harder time staying out of reach, it has a much easier time taking punishment compared to other fighters. It is, however, still a fighter and will get flattened if appropriately focused by a larger craft. Still, the survivability tradeoff may make the Taipan an attractive alternative to the Condor for pilots who want something that can survive as a distraction longer or for newer SLF pilots wanting some additional protection instead of manuverability they're not yet used to.

Uniquely, the Taipan has a variant which mounts Anti-Xeno (AX) multicannons. It should be noted these multicannons are less effective against normal ship hulls then the actual multicannon hardpoints of the F63 Condor Rouge F variant. If you want a multi-cannon equipped fighter at full strength, the F63 Condor is the only SLF which sports ballistic, non-xeno weapons.

The Aegis F (Fixed Pulse/PD) variant has somewhat okay sustained damage on shields on account of lower distributor draw, but lacks defensive options.The Gelid F (Fixed Beam/Heatsink) variant has very high damage potential and great accuracy, making it a quantifiable threat by itself against smaller and less skilled ships (Eagles, Adders, and the like of lower rank, like Expert and below) . The Taipan's heat sinks can help it burst out damage temporarily since it also works to charge the weapon's capacitor while the sink is being deployed. The Gelid G has much less damage potential but gimball assist for pilots less comfortable with fixed weapons, but it is generally a straight downgrade.

The Taipan is sold at any market that is controlled either by an Alliance-aligned minor faction, or a minor faction with no allegiance.

Gu-97

An SLF that trades durability for manuverability. The Gu-97 is almost uncomfortably manuverable and can spin around with ease. With a skilled pilot, this makes it great at out-manuvering almost any ship and staying within their blind spots, but it has almost no health to speak of (15 shield HP and 15 hull HP), meaning it gets splattered almost instantly by any focused weapons fire. This makes it difficult for a lot of crew to employ, as even missiles will make short work of it. As far as speed goes, the Gu-97 is slightly slower overall compared to the F63 Condor.

Hull	Shields	Pitch	Yaw	Roll	Top Speed	Boost Speed
15	15	78°	36°	144°	~312 m/s	~540 m/s

Variant	Hardpoints	Utility
Aegis F	2x Fixed Pulse Laser	Point Defense
Rouge F	2x Fixed Plasma Cannon	Chaff
Rouge G	2x Gimballed Pulse Laser	Chaff
Gelid F	2x Fixed Beam Laser	Heatsink
Gelid G	2x Gimballed Beam Laser	Heatsink

Due to extremely high manuverability and being made of glass, this fighter relies heavily upon pilot skill to stay out of reach of larger, slower ships. Any ship that can spin around fast enough and get a bearing on the Gu-97 for even a few moments unobstructed can almost certainly turn it into scrap, requiring the SLF pilot to make careful, calculated use of chaff/heatsinks or make careful manuvers to avoid damage. Usually, this fighter is scarcely fielded due to its fragility.

The Gu-97 is sold at any market that is controlled by a minor faction aligned with the Empire.

XG-Series

The XG-Series of fighters compises the XG-7, XG-8, and XG-9 fighter chassis. These are experimental, guardian-tech fighter frames with unique weapons. I haven't personally used them so i'll lay out a general gist of what I know about them here:

They have similar manuverability and protection like the Gu-97 (that is to say, highly manuverable and lightly protected). Most of the weapons employed by the XG series makes them more effective against Thagroid ships then human craft.

XG-7 "Trident" - All-rounder. Equipped with fixed plasma autocannons. These individually have low damage, but deal absolute damage which ignores damage resistances on shields and hull, making it equally effective against both. The cannons have a unique charge-up period before firing, which requires you to hold the trigger for a moment before seeing results. This can make it kind of akward to use.

XG-8 "Javelin" - Close-range brawler. Equipped with a Shard Launcher projectile weapon that fires a spread of plasma bolts similar to a shotgun blast. Each bolt individually has low damage, but if used at close range where every projectile can hit, can deal sizable damage to shields and hull. Uniquely, this weapon has limited ammo which requires the pilot to regularly restock with the mothership by docking, which severely hampers this ship's effectiveness in prolonged engagements. This is in addition to the weapon requiring reloads between groups of shots and close-range requirement. AI pilots will also routinely require ammo and do not typically try to fire this weapon at as close of a range as they should.

XG-9 "Lance" - Long-range support. Equipped with a Gauss Focus Cannon with high damage-per-shot and good range, but reduced effectiveness against shields and limited ammunition. This weapon makes it more suited to anti-thagriod combat.

Each of these ships requires you to bring Guardian materials to a technology broker for unlock and equipping to your hangars. Once they've been equipped, they cost the same amount of credits to restock spent chassies like any normal fighter and do not require any additional guardian components as long as they stay equipped. You will be required to provide a small number of guardian components each time you want to re-equip a XG-Series craft to your fighter bay if you cycle it out for another for any reason.

Hangar-Capable Ships & Overview

This section is a very brief and highly opinionated overview of the hangar-capable ships.

Keelback

Cost: 3.2 Million CR
Size: Medium
Role: Hauler

The little fighterbay that could. The keelback is a medium-sized cargo ship and is notable for being the entry-level hangar capable ship. It is the cheapest craft capable of housing its own fighter bay, however at its heart it is a hauler and is designed with that in mind. The fighter bay is mostly a formality so you can dispatch an angry buzzing condor to get potential attackers to go away.

With only two medium and two small weapon mounts, its compartments leave a lot to be desired, however it is fairly manuverable for its size despite not being very tough. This can work if you want a cheap, low-risk ship to fly fighters from at a distance or to get comfortable using them, but it is not a frontline ship by any means and having to house a fighter bay with one of your class two internal slots severely cuts into potential cargo capacity.

Alliance Crusader

Cost: 23.8 Million CR
Size: Medium
Role: Combat

One of the three alliance ships (other two being the Chieftan and Challenger), with this one in particular being the one that is fighter-capable. This is perhaps the easiest fighter-ready ship to get your hands on that is also combat oriented. It has three small, two medium, and one large hardpoint which makes its offensive power fairly balanced. It also has good manuverability for its size and a decent spread of internal compartments, three of which are restricted to military-only (so hull reinforcements and shield cell banks only). Capable of housing a size 6 fighter bay (at expense of any other size 6 module), it is a good option to be able to spit out fighters without risking too much manverability.

Alliance ships do have some glaring flaws in general though: The cockpit canopy is very large and exposed to forward fire, so it tends to suffer from canopy breaches fairly often. Its drives (all four of them) are also much more exposed to attack from every angle due to their placement and can make them easy to disable. If deciding to take hull damage, module reinforcements and AFMU's are recommended to offset module damage.

Federal Gunship

Cost: 35.9 Million CR
Size: Medium
Role: Combat

It's one of the three federal bricks, or what I colloquially refer to them as, a "fedbrick", the other two being the Federal Dropship and Federal Assault Ship. The fedbricks as a whole are not very remarkable as there are other ships within their class that are more combat capable. It does house two size 6 internal compartments which gives it a leg up over the Crusdaer which only has one, but it is slower and slightly less manuverable then a Crusader. It has seven hardpoints (two small, four medium, one large), but some difficulty supplying everything as well since it shares similar internals to alliance ships.

Krait Mk II

Cost: 44.3 Million CR
Size: Medium
Role: Exploration

The Krait Mk II differs from the Krait Phantom with its fighter capability. It is quite manuverable and fast with a good spread of internal and core modules, making it fairly well suited to harass targets alongside its fighters. It does, however, suffer from a lack of smaller hardpoints (two medium, three large) as well as having extremely weak hull compared to other ships in its class besides the Keelback.

It is a fairly lightweight ship, so it can have strong shields for its size, however its armor hardness and base armor is quite low compared to the other medium ships, making them rather flimsy if they take direct fire.

Type-9 Heavy

Cost: 76.6 Million CR
Size: Large
Role: Hauler

The heaviest hauling ship there is. The figher bay is, again, more of a formality and so you can throw the equivalent of a remote-controlled distraction at an opponent stupid enough to engage it. The Type-9 has terrible manuverability, speed, and hardpoint configuration (two small, three medium), but somewhat makes up for it by simply being difficult to shoot to death casually as it has a high hull hardness and decent base armor. Its very high hull mass and low base shields makes it rather difficult to get a tough shield on it, but it sports two size 8 internal slots which can be useful for a shield generator and cell bank to keep opponents off of you.

Beluga Liner

Cost: 84.6 Million CR
Size: Large
Role: Passenger

The biggest and most expensive passenger ship there is. Like all the non-combat ships the bay here is merely a formality and for launching distractions. Nobody seriously employs a beluga as their combat ship.

Type-10 Defender

Cost: 125 Million CR
Size: Large
Role: Combat

A heavily modified Type-9 designed to be even heavier and slower. The Type-10 is one of the slowest and is THE least manuverable ship in the game. It makes up for this deficiency by excelling at being a complete brick. The Type-10 has the highest hull hardness of any ship as well as the highest base armor. This makes it exceptional at taking hull damage when properly reinforced, though focused fire against modules will tend to be its downfall as it has difficulty concealing its vulnerable sides from attack.

It sports a size 8 internal compartment which can be used for a shield, as well as a size 6 and 7 internal compartment for a hangar of your choice. Its hardpoint layout is very wide (4 large, 3 medium, 2 small), so it has difficulty turning and focusing its fire on a target, however the layout is quite effective with turrets as each large mount has a wide range of motion which can offer good coverage and has the most hardpoints of any ship currently in the game.

The Type-10 can be a good bruiser in the midst of a fight, being able to take punishment without allowing the opponent an easy way to hide from view if using turreted weapons, on top of being able to focus problem targets with fighters. Its major downsides come with its sluggishness and speed in general; without turreted weapons it has high difficulty turning and focusing on more manuverable ships than itself and it tends to be in danger if it can be focused by something that can stay outside its view. Turrets also lack upfront damage in general.

Anaconda

Cost: 147 Million CR
Size: Large
Role: Combat/Multirole

The Anaconda is one of the "big four" large ships which is the most multirole out of all of them. Among these roles, it can support a fighter bay and has a generous hardpoint and internal layout which allows good flexibility. It has decent armor and shields with a low hull mass, so it can be fairly well shielded and still maintain a respectable hull strength as well.

Federal Corvette

Cost: 188 Million CR
Size: Large
Role: Combat

A heavily armored warship of the Federal Navy with a terrible jump range and locked behind an insane rank requirement with the Federal Navy. Not many ships are as heavily armed as the Corvette and it is currently the only ship in the game with two size 4 (huge) hardpoints. It sports fighter-ready capabilities and has frightening manuverability for its size, as well as rather strong shield capability and a decent hull, allowing either to be reinforced.

Its internal layout has three size 7 internals, allowing a good degree of flexibility even if one of the size 7 or less slots is taken by a fighter bay.

Imperial Cutter

Cost: 209 Million CR
Size: Large
Role: Combat

The Imperial Navy equivalent of the Corvette. This posh ship is most well-known for having the toughest base shields in the game. This makes it popular to stack the heaviest shields on, in addition to giving it a fighter bay. The heavy shields of this ship means it can generally be left unattended while you fly off in a fighter.

[Skeleton Man]

the japari park ship “Friends Made Today” must have tally marks in the high five digits at this point

[NothingFancy]

My Corvette The HMS Warcrime is my baby

[Skeleton Man]

Having more point defense around is good, but i've found the effectiveness of point defense seems to drop as soon as one or more players get into the game. I suspect it has something to do with latency, so the point defense has a much harder time actually hitting the missiles in flight for some reason. I currently have a Rouge F condor (multicannon/chaff) and a Geild F taipan (beams/heatsink). The Condor is good with hull and survivability with chaff, while the Taipan can melt sheilds pretty well, though I like the fixed plasma taipan a little better.

[Shiro]

kk, thanks for helpfulness anyway. The guide is decent. I somewhat leaned towards getting some of PDT variants (as it not only protects fighter from seekers, but also can actually somewhat protect mothership)... so I guess having Taipan Aegis + Condor RogueF, or Condor Aegis + Taipan GelidF could work?

[Skeleton Man]

I play in open but I greatly avoid PvP since I don't really find it engaging and it is dominated by over-engineered ship builds designed for ganking. The extent of my PvP is making other ships that happen to drop in the area we're bounty hunting in go away, so unfortunately I don't really have any good data for you.

[Shiro]

ah ok. Complains I heard were about normal mode ("Open") PvP, where "SLFs can cause lags to your opponents". I'm trying to gather SLF usage info regarding possible PvP, so if I can try to fight "fair" (with minimal lags towards honorable opponent) or "dirty" (cause maximum lags to whoever just ganked me) that would help significantly

[Skeleton Man]

I usually play with friends and we don't typically notice network conditions being extremely laggy even with fighters deployed or undeployed.

[Shiro]

hm you do sound like more than one player in same instance is a novelty for you...

[Skeleton Man]

I haven't heard anything similar to this but I would image that has to do with two or more players being involved in the same instance anyways, not specifically the fighter.

[Shiro]

What about lags? Heard NPC-crewed SLFs could cause lags to other players, how to avoid that?