I personally favor the Arrow, because it depends upon higher agility, and that suits me. Also, I prefer the Arrow because I believe that when we finally get to running the Sons of Orion storyline, we'll be doing deep incursions into Vanduul space that require some sort of carrier, and that we can fit a lot more Arrows on any given support platform than Gladius, which is a much larger ship.
I'm wondering about the Talon, because I just heard on Youtube that the flowing "wing" surfaces that make up half its target cross section can be shot away without affecting its performance. (It has 2,700 hull hp compared to the Gladius 2,500, so one suspects there is 200 hp useless "feathers"). If they can be shot away, they can also be deliberately cut away, and thus the Talon could fit a tiny space aboard a carrier like the Arrow.
I think a recent nerf cut the S4 Attrition range back to the same as the S3, so so maybe it will not be true in the future that larger guns give better ranges, but even if they're the same, more acceleration and higher turning yields even average pilots more kills. So I'm looking harder at the Talon for fleet ops. I'd love to hear a Talon pilot weigh in here. The Talon has two shields whereas the Arrow has only one, and its wings fold in instead of up, which might make it fit more easily into the Liberator. So what can a real Talon pilot tell us about those "feathers"?
EDIT: I know several players have been critical of the notion of supporting a tactical group with a Liberator because it doesn't have beds for a large crew, but rather jumpseats. Well yeah, I get this. I think CIG will realize the "jump seat" notion is broken, but even if they do not let me note something useful for this concept.
The Lib DOES have a docking collar, which means it can have multiple Lancer MIS fly formation and dock to embark and disembark pilots, and have them use the extra MIS beds. 6 MIS offer an additional 18 beds to any battle group. That's 3 Eclipse and 15 stealth fighters. The MIS also offers large cargo area to carry into theater S9 torps. So keeping a small fleet of MIS can stealth supply a Lib based force behind enemy lines, and support fighter and bomber pilots. Supplying big ships with adequate support in enemy territory requires stealth transports, and the MIS is a good choice given they can also attack.
From what we know, I think this should work; and certainly 6 stealth artillery and support craft bodes well for any battle group. Each MIS can rain down pairs of Arresters IIIs on fighter escorts from outside detection range of a Vanduul cap ship onto their escorts, and keep two batteries of 6 Arresters for the main target, each dropping 30,000 damage to their shields for a total of 180,000 points before the Eclipse strike. I think this is still a great solution for deep penetration raiding into AI lands, right up until CIG leverages Chat GBT. Then we're all fucked.
This requires a crew on par with that of a Polaris with proper stealth recon spotting craft, so what's the advantage? Well, one is that the players can provide their own rides, and each individually fly their own ships, so it should be easier to recruit for a battle group of this type. Also, this kind of group with so many stealth ships can recon much faster and more completely, so their situational awareness should be superior to a single Polaris. In the long run, a Polaris could be more effective with the same number of crew, but it is still a higher entry bar to buy and crew a Polaris.
A group like this probably doesn't want 15 identical fighters, but 15 fighter pilot positions is great for a single task force. Mix in a Mantis and a couple Raven's and you have dozens of missions that you can accomplish.
Obviously a single force like this can't take down a Kingship. They'll learn to manage Void Bombers, then pairs of Void Bombers, then Harvesters, then Marauders, and eventually, crews like this can be involved in landing teams that can take control of Kingships. What I'm proposing is we focus on building the teams that can manage the monsters. Libs I think, have a part.
Says my booze. Hic.
