So, I’ve been asking myself again what is the best “deck fighter”, meaning what would go best inside the Idris or Liberator for fighter cover, flying over Eclipse. One of the updates from 4.3 has delivered what may become a new Meta. The Esperia Talon has had a huge boost to 24,930 hp and enhanced stealth. So looking a little more closely:
The Talon has a 15x24x8 deck print. (I thought the Talon was much longer than this, and the difference is huge. I would have guessed she is longer than the Eclipse when in fact she is 10 meters shorter.) The ship has VTOL and you can manually extend and retract the wings. When retracted it is narrower than wide by quite a margin, so perhaps 12 meters. This means you can probably fit 2 wide and 4 long inside the Liberator. Park 2 solo Retaliators next to your Liberator and you have 12 extra beds, and 12 extra torpedos.
For the Idris, best estimate is 18 Talons and 12 Eclipse. That’s 3 rows of 3 Talons and 2 rows of 3 Eclipse faced out each end of the Idris bay.
The Talon has S4 weapons so you can arm her for digging through armor. So for example if you have 8 Talon, you might arm 6 with Deadbolt IV to precision strike cap ship hardpoints, and equip the last Talons with Rhinos, specific to kill enemy fighters. This degree of specialization is rare, and powerful. With Deadbolts hammering, enemy hard points should go down extremely fast. With invisible Rhinos and Rattlers against enemy fighters, they likewise should die quickly.
The Talon has the same agility as the Gladius—10 gee strafes that make it near invulnerable to turrets.
The Talon has -40/-40/-40 armor, so can readily fly with a signature of 2.1. She has a 1 km “envelope” she can fly inside where she can hit turrets, point defense, etc. and cannot be targeted. Someone here will know better but I don’t think AI turrets even fire without a target on scanners.
The fragility of the feathers don’t matter that much in space, and with 25k hp, she can lose some feathers.
There are other interesting combinations to try. You might fly just Talons off the Liberator, and have 10-12 fighters attack a pair of Void Bombers, then have a Polaris destroy a target with its torpedoes.
Maybe a new meta for carrier based attack? Who here has flown one? Reports are she’s as much fun to fly as a Gladius, and much harder to hit.
The Talon has a 15x24x8 deck print. (I thought the Talon was much longer than this, and the difference is huge. I would have guessed she is longer than the Eclipse when in fact she is 10 meters shorter.) The ship has VTOL and you can manually extend and retract the wings. When retracted it is narrower than wide by quite a margin, so perhaps 12 meters. This means you can probably fit 2 wide and 4 long inside the Liberator. Park 2 solo Retaliators next to your Liberator and you have 12 extra beds, and 12 extra torpedos.
For the Idris, best estimate is 18 Talons and 12 Eclipse. That’s 3 rows of 3 Talons and 2 rows of 3 Eclipse faced out each end of the Idris bay.
The Talon has S4 weapons so you can arm her for digging through armor. So for example if you have 8 Talon, you might arm 6 with Deadbolt IV to precision strike cap ship hardpoints, and equip the last Talons with Rhinos, specific to kill enemy fighters. This degree of specialization is rare, and powerful. With Deadbolts hammering, enemy hard points should go down extremely fast. With invisible Rhinos and Rattlers against enemy fighters, they likewise should die quickly.
The Talon has the same agility as the Gladius—10 gee strafes that make it near invulnerable to turrets.
The Talon has -40/-40/-40 armor, so can readily fly with a signature of 2.1. She has a 1 km “envelope” she can fly inside where she can hit turrets, point defense, etc. and cannot be targeted. Someone here will know better but I don’t think AI turrets even fire without a target on scanners.
The fragility of the feathers don’t matter that much in space, and with 25k hp, she can lose some feathers.
There are other interesting combinations to try. You might fly just Talons off the Liberator, and have 10-12 fighters attack a pair of Void Bombers, then have a Polaris destroy a target with its torpedoes.
Maybe a new meta for carrier based attack? Who here has flown one? Reports are she’s as much fun to fly as a Gladius, and much harder to hit.
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