I did it the first time with the hawk. It's such a small target that you hardly get hit. The SP missions arn't that hard anyway.

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that my idea for melting down coins to make a giant robotic parrot was a bad idea, I would have one kicka$$ giant robotic parrot.

I did it the 1st time in a Drake. I went from Drake to Hawk, but the Hawk felt really sluggish to me after the Drake, so I reloaded a save before the purchase. Finished the game with 2 Dragoon 2's and 2 Dragoon 3's as my weapon loadout. The L6 Graviton Shield, plus Advanced Countermeasures and a Driller Minelayer, rounded out the rest.

I think I used a shield battery once in the SP, on the "blow up the satelite" mission.

I'm currently going though the SP in a Dagger. Current weapon loadout is: 2 Advanced Scorpions, 2 Hellflurries, and a Pyro Mk I turret. I also have the L4 Graviton shield, Advanced Countermeasures, and a Razor Minelayer. Once I get my rep back with the Corsairs I'm gonna get 2 Pyro Mk I's to replace the Hellflurries. The "9-minute" mission may give me fits, but I doubt it. I may only carry up to class 4 guns, but the refire rate is higher than the Drake's loadout was, plus there's a 5th gun, so the damage output/second is almost identical. Only having the L4 shield and not being as maneuverable is what'll get me in the end, but I think I'm a bit more skilled now than the 1st time I went through.

We shall see.

never even thought of it this way...

I did it in a Drake. Much better choice than a Hawk in my opinion. It's got the same power rating, but is far more maneuverable. On the other hand, it has less armor and cargo space. But since the key to winning has a lot to do with not getting hit and not much to do with cargo, the Drake is the way to go.

Thanks for the info, I know what you mean about loosing some manuverability with the Hawk as I did trade in a more agile ship for it but it didn't seem like a real drop off compared to a HF.

The Drake seems to be the other one you guys are using. I may have to go back to a save game and give it a try as it is in the same system I purchased the Hawk at but I am not sure about loosing the shield batts/nano's as I tend to be a hard charger in combat situations.

I have to admit given everyones questions about how to get the most POWERFUL ship it is a pleasure to meet others who appreciate manuverability and skill over brute force and LOTS of armor.

I am still curious about the fact why so few of us seem to be crazy enough to do this. Certainly others have at least tried to get through the game using this configuration. Come on people lets hear your thoughts on this Idea.

The other question was and is, for those who have tried it or done it, do you think it made you a better pilot? Either in Sp or when you went to MP and had to survive until you got a better class ship?

Just some thoughts from the edge of space!

zenic, stop

It did force me to use a completely different style of fighting; I'm not sure if it made me a better pilot, more a different one.
With the VHF I would just fire off a bunch of torpedoes to a fixed target and engage the enemy fighters. The lack of a launcher forced me to use different tactics there (the cut engine-strafe / mine technique that someone posted here was a godsend). So now I like to switch between different types of ships more than before.

When I only flew VHFs, I'd "joust" a lot. Set up head-on pass after head-on pass and overwhem the enemy with sheer firepower. After doing the campaign with light fighters, I tried to avoid head-on passes, instead focusing on getting on somebody's six and staying there, while simultaneously using evasive maneuvers to avoid enemy fire. Even now that I'm flying VHFs again (Eagle and Hammerhead), I use those strategies with much success. But I'm not sure how evasive maneuvers would work in a Titan.

I'm trying again through the game with a Legionnaire - i'm just moving on into Kusari territory, not sure how i'm going to hold out there. The obvious move is to switch to Hawk sometime soon but i wanna see how long my ship lasts. The weapons loadout is quite impressive for a light fighter, but its shields and armour are truly, truly terrible

you can probably last the whole game. I've found my dagger to do quite well even against groups of lvl 20 AI ships. I'm currently in the process of exploring the entire universe in mp in a dagger, the only real obstacle are annoying superhighlevel player killers, but those can be avoided by using something we know as the "z-axis"

I have in a Star Tracker... with only level one weapons!

...and there's no way you can disprove it! Mwahahaaa!

Just did it in a Dagger, with Liberty plasma guns.

The weak powerplant is most noticable during mission 10, where you have to destroy one of those experimental battleships but the enemy fighters let you alone so that you just sit there firing until the thing blows up. Mission 12 was not a problem, despite the 9-minute time limit; I did it with 3 guns and a turret (lost a gun in Zone 21) but got out with one minute to spare.

The hardest mission for me was mission 11 because of those darn Patriots. The Dagger is too sluggish to keep pace with a truly light fighter and 15 shield batteries don't last long against those Nomad guns. Still, I took out all fighters in the patrol and the satellite, too. During the melee in Zone 21 I ran out of shield batteries and when I reached for the G key to apply nanos I got the H key instead; I took me too long to undo this fumble and so I lost the right wing tip and one of my Magma Hammers ...

For the last mission I bought the Driller mine dropper (the mines are bloody expensive but they have much more bang than the Seekers I had used until then). I am sure this helped a bit; for example, while being chased around the first power generator by two squads of Nomads I could continue to attack the structure by dropping mines at it. On the other hand Trent is leader of alpha wing and the other fighters in the wing also fire at the structure, so it is not necessary to do all of the work oneself.

Light fighters truly shine in multiplayer. One brute (class 9 and 10s) with 3 lights can DESTROY huge attack fleets. The muscle approaches the enemy 200 meters in front of the light guys, puts some hurting on em, and the light guys clean up the pieces.

In pvp, a 2 heavy 2 light CAN take out a 4 heavy wing. The heavies will usually concentrate on the big threats, so the light guys (with hard missile loadouts) can take out the other heavies.

My only grievance against light fighters is the lack of torpedos.