I forgot to mention on the hornets, if you want a big ballistic cannon or top unmanned turret, you have to remove the long look radar. . .
That's fine with me. With 4 big, fast guns, be they the Hornet's Sledges or Badgers, or the Sabre's 4 Panthers or Broadswords; I think you can probably kill stuff fast enough. The question in my mind concerns the function of stealth and radar. If the Long Look will actually allow you to target at distances from 4-7 km, then it's worth flying Sledges. If you can't hit stuff out there, then what is the point of the radar?
It might be that eventually, comrades can cross-link radar and spot for one another, so a stealthy or defensive flying ship can get in close (say 2 km) and light up a target that is then hit hard from afar by others at 6 km. That would make the Lancer Mis, Andromeda and anything wearing long range ballistics really effective, but I have not heard such stuff yet. (BTW, the biggest advance in the only "fifth generation" fighter--the F-35 Lightning II--is they can so link their radar. They actually create a "synthetic aperture" with the distance between any two fighters tracking the same target. That is amazing)
Most pilots don't seem to know what targets appear at what distances even flying the same ship each day. There ought to be a difference between a pirate flying a very hot Buck, and a player flying a Ghost, or Sabre, or 3I5P. And yeah this will all change every time someone changes out an engine, but for now it would be great to know if you can lock standard targets like pirate Bucks at 5 km, and whether one can actually hit them with a Sledge.
To be honest, the Panther hits so hard compared to the Broadsword that the choice is easier for me to take the laser and more limited distance. For the Hornet though, the Sledges really appeal. I saw vid of a Hornet flying 4 Sledges and the guy was cutting his opponents to shreds with them. If you can fly the armor, engines and reactor of a Ghost, the radar of a Tracker and actually hit opponents at 4-7 km with the Sledges, that would just be a devastating combo.