With the advent of armor, the Wolf has been removed from the position of ultimate “deck fighter” for use in attacking capital ships. The guns proprietary on the Wolf and Alpha Wolf have too low an alpha damage to be useful even against the lightly armored heavy fighters like the Sentinel. They’re useless against all gunships, corvettes, frigates., destroyers and carriers.
Search for a new deck fighter platform has been led to a combination of craft and cannon that leverages speed and snipe: the Murai Fury wearing 4S2 Strife Mass Drivers. This weapon does so much Alpha damage it should function against any future capital ship, including Javelin and Marauder Destroyers, Bengal Carriers and Vanduul Kingships. Unfortunately, the Fury has the frustrating limitation that it does not include a Q drive, so it cannot “make a jump or two” to reach targets in contested space while leaving its base in relatively secure environs. Use of the Fury as a deck fighter would require its carrier to leverage at least limited stealth. It can’t broadcast its position out to twenty kilometers like an Idris, or Liberator.
Even limited stealth requires S2 reactors. It’s a simple observation. There are no S3 and larger stealth reactors and there have never been, by design. S3 reactor equipped ships routinely have signatures from 17-35. This is not something CIG is likely to change.
So, I have spent some hours now reviewing what could possibly carry a wing of Fury yet possesses a seriously reduced signature. The results were surprising. I found only one, and I very nearly missed it. It is not what you might have guessed. If you want to guess, do it now. I’m headed into a lengthy reveal.
What stealthy ship can carry half dozen Fury “Deck Fighters” into theater, launch and retrieve them quickly, support the pilots between missions and provide them with what is essentially a mercenary’s or fleet ops officer’s home? There’s just one I have found.
AI says the MISC Starlancer MAX will fit 6 Fury’s. I checked the signature. In standard “silent running” mode it has a sig that drops to 7.0 with Revenants hot, and essentially 0.0 with just a single Eclipse stealth reactor running. (This is not surprising. Bigger ships tend to hide stealth reactor emissions better than smaller ships.) It can thus sit in empty space hidden, while its strike team lumbers off to do its business. This is a unique ship and thus important to be familiar with.
Suggested Fitout: 2 4S4 remote Centurion turrets +4S4 gimbled, 16S3 Arrester III, FR-86, 1 Eclipse, 1 QuadraCell MT, 2 Nightfall Coolers, 1 Hemera drive
Notes: problems with persistence have removed the ability to bed log in multi-crew ships for the time being, but AI claims CIG’s intention is to allow 2 players to log into each of the 4 double beds on the Starlancer. So it should have full accommodations for a wing of fighter pilots, once the issues with logging persistence are ironed out.
The Starlancer MAX includes complete comfort access, including expansive and beautiful living spaces, bountiful storage and a pool table. This is indeed a “Micro-Carrier”.
The ship is slow, but includes excellent 90/96 armor. It is completely vulnerable to active pinging so when opportunity presents, is best hidden in an asteroid field, on the surface of a celestial body, or inside nebulae, gas giant atmospheres, etc.
In order for Fury to precision target opponents from max range, they will likely need another friendly ship to illuminate the target with high power radar RF. Ideal for this may be a craft with the agility of a medium fighter but with an S2 radar and plenty of power pips available, like the Hornet Tracker. This is a new use case for the Tracker, given CIG keeps their current notion of providing precision targeting range based upon RF power on target. My suspicion is they abandon this for all the troubles it is going to generate.
I’ll add notes as this idea develops. I’m personally happy to revive the notion of deep strike fighter support, especially for use against the Vanduul. The death of the Wolf as premium deck fighter has really pained me. Maybe this can replace it, though I am still uneasy with the idea of fighters with no Q drive. Obviously, like any fighter attack force, these should be accompanied by bombers. This adds beds if CIG doesn’t allow doubling up in double beds.
What do players think about bringing stealth support vessels into the combat theater? What do people think of staying with the Liberator and switching to Anvil Arrows? They would be effective filled with Deadbolts, but they would have a huge disadvantage against fighters. Also, Arrows cost 50% more than Fury, which is not an insignificant issue.
Search for a new deck fighter platform has been led to a combination of craft and cannon that leverages speed and snipe: the Murai Fury wearing 4S2 Strife Mass Drivers. This weapon does so much Alpha damage it should function against any future capital ship, including Javelin and Marauder Destroyers, Bengal Carriers and Vanduul Kingships. Unfortunately, the Fury has the frustrating limitation that it does not include a Q drive, so it cannot “make a jump or two” to reach targets in contested space while leaving its base in relatively secure environs. Use of the Fury as a deck fighter would require its carrier to leverage at least limited stealth. It can’t broadcast its position out to twenty kilometers like an Idris, or Liberator.
Even limited stealth requires S2 reactors. It’s a simple observation. There are no S3 and larger stealth reactors and there have never been, by design. S3 reactor equipped ships routinely have signatures from 17-35. This is not something CIG is likely to change.
So, I have spent some hours now reviewing what could possibly carry a wing of Fury yet possesses a seriously reduced signature. The results were surprising. I found only one, and I very nearly missed it. It is not what you might have guessed. If you want to guess, do it now. I’m headed into a lengthy reveal.
What stealthy ship can carry half dozen Fury “Deck Fighters” into theater, launch and retrieve them quickly, support the pilots between missions and provide them with what is essentially a mercenary’s or fleet ops officer’s home? There’s just one I have found.
AI says the MISC Starlancer MAX will fit 6 Fury’s. I checked the signature. In standard “silent running” mode it has a sig that drops to 7.0 with Revenants hot, and essentially 0.0 with just a single Eclipse stealth reactor running. (This is not surprising. Bigger ships tend to hide stealth reactor emissions better than smaller ships.) It can thus sit in empty space hidden, while its strike team lumbers off to do its business. This is a unique ship and thus important to be familiar with.
Suggested Fitout: 2 4S4 remote Centurion turrets +4S4 gimbled, 16S3 Arrester III, FR-86, 1 Eclipse, 1 QuadraCell MT, 2 Nightfall Coolers, 1 Hemera drive
Notes: problems with persistence have removed the ability to bed log in multi-crew ships for the time being, but AI claims CIG’s intention is to allow 2 players to log into each of the 4 double beds on the Starlancer. So it should have full accommodations for a wing of fighter pilots, once the issues with logging persistence are ironed out.
The Starlancer MAX includes complete comfort access, including expansive and beautiful living spaces, bountiful storage and a pool table. This is indeed a “Micro-Carrier”.
The ship is slow, but includes excellent 90/96 armor. It is completely vulnerable to active pinging so when opportunity presents, is best hidden in an asteroid field, on the surface of a celestial body, or inside nebulae, gas giant atmospheres, etc.
In order for Fury to precision target opponents from max range, they will likely need another friendly ship to illuminate the target with high power radar RF. Ideal for this may be a craft with the agility of a medium fighter but with an S2 radar and plenty of power pips available, like the Hornet Tracker. This is a new use case for the Tracker, given CIG keeps their current notion of providing precision targeting range based upon RF power on target. My suspicion is they abandon this for all the troubles it is going to generate.
I’ll add notes as this idea develops. I’m personally happy to revive the notion of deep strike fighter support, especially for use against the Vanduul. The death of the Wolf as premium deck fighter has really pained me. Maybe this can replace it, though I am still uneasy with the idea of fighters with no Q drive. Obviously, like any fighter attack force, these should be accompanied by bombers. This adds beds if CIG doesn’t allow doubling up in double beds.
What do players think about bringing stealth support vessels into the combat theater? What do people think of staying with the Liberator and switching to Anvil Arrows? They would be effective filled with Deadbolts, but they would have a huge disadvantage against fighters. Also, Arrows cost 50% more than Fury, which is not an insignificant issue.
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