I think guardian meant if you want to be able to twist and turn and still hit things a lot, the GMG weapons are best because of their high 8.33 refire rate while still doing reasonable damage. Thus for instance if you rake fire across the path of a ship due to strafing or other maneuvers, more of your shots will tend to hit than with the slower refire weapons. However, for the class 8 GMG weapons for your Valkyrie, I think you actually need to go to Aomori Station in Honshu or Gas Miner Ogashawa in Sigma-19.

I'd pick the Falcon over the Valkyrie, though. Between the Banshee and the Valkyrie, the Banshee.

--/\/

Nukenin, that mechanism is called 'caps lock key', innit? Perfect for single-buster-gun loadouts like the Valkyrie/Falcon config that you mentioned.

Gambit, the Banshee can work in much more hostile environments than the Valkyrie but it cannot dish out as much (no torps, less power, less weapon hardpoints), and as an escort you have to think about more than your own survival. The Banshee does have a bit more punch than the Drake but the difference isn't dramatic.

Memo to self: must fly Hammerhead. Surely can't be that bad, esp. as He-Who-Kills-Sabres-in-a-Patriot favours it? Worth a look. Mhmm ... Adv. Debilitators, Kraken Type 2s ... mhmm ...

Hammerhead is much more fun to fly than the other VHF's. Less durable, more responsive, only slightly less firepower. Easier to aquire, too.

----------------------------------------
Reaper: $200,000,000.
Rockets: $100,000
The look on that pilot's face when you launch a full pod of screamers up his tailpipe: priceless
-->In 60 years, I wanna be one of those cranky guys sitting on his porch with a shotgun, yelling at the fools to get off my lawn...

If you speak of the devil ...

NukeIt, could you share your experiences with the Hammerhead, especially insights regarding weapon choices? Never having really flown the Hammerhead, I am eyeing the Kraken/Debilitator combo since it works so well on the Dagger and the Anubis ... The GMG guns are nice and a better match for the Debilitators but they drain the juice like there's no tomorrow.

Having played a slew of ships over the past day, I've decided that the Hammerhead really is my favourite. I've just flown into Omicron Alpha to get a Ripper mine and try the Kraken--I've decided that the best loadout for my playstyle is still the Salamanca (2 Mk I's and 4 Mk II's--and the turret, though only for uniformity--the optimal turret would be the Skyblast B since you'd only really be using it in rear arc defense and not mixing with the other guns).

The Salamancas dish out decent damage, and are very energy efficient--which means you can keep steady fire from all guns a bit longer. I went back to a GMG Skyblast A/B loadout and decided the powerplant of the Hammerhead just doesn't drive that loadout too well (I think the Kraken loadout is a bit more energy efficient than the Skyblast series as well). I think I really like the graphic effect used for the Salamancas, so that may be biasing me somewhat.

The Hammerhead is very maneuverable and has a nice narrow profile--it's definitely the most compact feeling VHF. My one beef with the appearance is the two struts that extend forward to either side, with two of the class 9 hardpoints--if those were fixed weapon mounts it'd be okay, but putting pivot mounts there just looks flimsy.

I'm just a gunfighter who feels it's too much work to even use CapsLock to toggle pulse weapons on and off, so I'm not the best person to be recommending optimal loadouts.

--/\/

Ahhh, but the difference! A loadout with a shield buster is more energy-efficient overall (even with power-hungry GMG thingies) than a loadout of all hull guns and it allows you to kill more enemies more quickly.

And without a shield buster you can forget about torping enemies on initial approach since it takes too long to beat down a class 10 shield with Angelitos/Salamancas or GMG guns alone. Although it is not impossible it is difficult; if you fire continuously at the enemy as soon as it enters gun range then it will be just barely ripe for a torping before it passes you but this will be shaving it very close in any case. And you have to take plenty of enemy fire on your shield during such an action. On the other hand, with shield busters you can count on torping at least one bogie out of every incoming wing and almost every bogie who foolishly flies straigth at you during dogfight.

Without shield busters even the low-level VHFs in Omicron Beta or Omega-41 can be difficult for a Hammerhead (i.e. if you get half a dozen or more at the same time then you will probably have to use shield batteries) and an 8-wing of lvl 18/19 Outcast Sabres or BH Hammerheads can be a deadly threat. I'd rather use a Valkyrie/Falcon with shield busters than a Hammerhead without in such a situation.

Of course, outside high-level systems like Omicron Alpha/Beta/Gamma it doesn't matter what loadout you use - the Hammerhead will blow up everything in a second or two and the shield won't even get dented.

I took my full Salamanca Hammerhead on a ~$150K ship kill mission in Omicron Alpha, to boost my faction with Outcasts so I could try a Kraken loadout. I didn't kill any of the evil level 19 BH Hammerheads on the first pass, and did need to pump shield batteries. Just the once though--once the dogfight turned into a furball, I was evading just enough to keep my shields afloat.

I ended up reverting to the save right before that, because the Krakens weren't really doing it for me.

Oh, and I suffered the consequences of doing lvls 28-38 mostly against Red Hessians in Omega-41 flying for the Outcasts. I think you did warn me... I just didn't really truly realize what I'd done until I was trying to fly through the Tau systems *after* paying a bribe to get friendly with Outcasts. I was flying trade lanes with a Bowex convoy right behind me--every time they'd come out the trade lane behind me, everything would turn red. I had to actually stop and fight a bunch of IMG ships (or was it BMM?) at some point too. All just to try and discard the Krakens. (Though I did get a Ripper mine out of the visit to Alpha, and took my HH to the Alpha unknown system and fought there for a few minutes, just to do it and get a bunch of useless nomad weapon drops.)

Oh, last night I took my fully 'Tarantulated' Drake up against Sabres. Only level 15s/16s in Tau-37, mind ye, but still... of course, being me, I still jousted with them in the initial head-on pass. The great thing about those fights was even when I used shield batteries, they were dropping more than enough to keep me returning back to Falkland with a full 23 batteries. And always the same fin being slightly damaged, never any damage beyond that.

I had tried on this Drake a full Vulture loadout from the Farmer's Alliance base (never needed to do faction work for them after all). Those were incredibly energy-efficient--I could really sustain fire from all four guns for a LONG time. But the 3.03 refire rate just made misses all the more painful. Fortunately I had kept the Adv. Tarantulas and Tarantulas in my inventory, so I just switched back to them for the Outcast fights in Tau-37 and always have a save with the "Vultured" Drake if I want to try it again.

I flew the Falcon I have (with the Adv. Debilitator) up to Falkland to compare--very nice. (With the Falcon's GMG guns/Adv. Debilitator loadout, I can be my lazy gunfighting self and just keep firing the Adv. Debilitator along with the GMG guns.)

--/\/

I don't think you can compare missions to encounters in the wild ... During missions the enemies come in nice, tidy waves and you get enough time to finish off one wave before the next wave arrives; swarms are rare and if they occur they tend to consist of lower-level ships. Also, nano/batt drops seem to occur more frequently during missions than in random encounters (that can get remarkably untidy on occasion ).

There are some systems where even the highest-difficulty missions are tamer than the local fauna. Offhand: Tau-37, Hokkaido ... Can't say much about Omicron Alpha/Gamma since I rarely fly missions there (as opposed to pro bono 'mining' excursions ). In SP mode I found the anti-BH missions in Omicron Alpha/Gamma easier than dealing with swarms of hostile lvl 18/19 Outcast Sabres in the wild for extended periods of time, but like elsewhere you get the juicy missions only in MP mode.

IIRC you get at most 6 of the lvl 19 BH at the same time during SP mode missions and even that not very often. By contrast, swarms of 8 lvl 18/19 ships are the norm rather than the exception in the wild.

The missions usually have higher-level AI's in them, and they're all after one target(you), and you usually don't have the advantage of choosing where to fight...but you see it coming when you take a mission. You know exactly what you'll be up against(if not how many), and you can plan ahead to be better prepared. Say, maybe torps for that base, or a disruptor for that fleeing asassination mark.

Regular patrols will ambush you at bases and jumpholes, try to play pirate with you, and even run away when they get too damaged. Not to mention that, unlike missions, there's nothing to stop another 3 or 4 groups from dropping in to join the fun. You might never see them on your tail until you already have a cruise disrupter planted firmly in your posterior(especially in the reduced sensor zones).

----------------------------------------
Reaper: $200,000,000.
Rockets: $100,000
The look on that pilot's face when you launch a full pod of screamers up his tailpipe: priceless
-->In 60 years, I wanna be one of those cranky guys sitting on his porch with a shotgun, yelling at the fools to get off my lawn...