What's your favorite non-top-tier ship?

Excluding the Viper, Merlin, Swordfish and Panther, what is your favorite ship? Once I get a Merlin for my next ship, I'm wondering what I should get after that.

So, tell me what your favorite non-elite ship is and why. Also, any strengths and weaknesses.

Piranha, but I think it's a top tier disguised as a mid-tier.

Cobra and Timberwolf are tied for second place depending on what I'm trying to do. Krait is my next ship to get.

I'd agree 100% on the Piranha, which is soo close to the Swordfish (equal on most stats, turns a tiny bit less quickly, cooling rate not quite as fast, yet shields bounce back faster than the 250) yet such a large drop in price.

I simply can't find a way to be effective in the Krait apart from odd burst here & there, but in Grey Man's hands its a weapon to be feared.

Thanks longshot! I definitely recommend the Krait if you nail down the lead on the beam cannons. With twice the recharge speed of the nighthawk it is a lot easier to hit targets of opportunity in dogfights. She's a glass cannon though. One shot from another ships beam will finish you off from full health unless your armor is fully upgraded.

I find myself gravitating to the Barracuda, its heavy & slow. But it tears up light and medium fighters like confetti and heavy fighters don't put up that much more of a fight. It can even go head to head with bombers for a short time at least.

Put one of these into the middle of the fray and your kill numbers will shoot right up.

[TP] SuPerKen wrote:I find myself gravitating to the Barracuda, its heavy & slow. But it tears up light and medium fighters like confetti and heavy fighters don't put up that much more of a fight. It can even go head to head with bombers for a short time at least.

Put one of these into the middle of the fray and your kill numbers will shoot right up.

Superken is preaching the Gospel, people...listen up!

Sidewinder. If you fudge it and can't kill him before his friends arrive, you can at least run away really really quickly. The ship makes for a fairly good sweeper, along with hit and run tactics and ambushing. It is sorely lacking when taking other players on on even terms in a dogfight though, as it explodes after a few hits and a light bump. If you do use one, you gotta be sneaky Charlie, sneaky.

Other people may be fairly skilled at using them, but I've never taken to Heavy Fighters. A flying coffin comes to mind. That probably means I should learn how to use one first though. :/

Lol, a flying coffin is exactly my experience of a Sidewinder, which means I too need to learn to use one One on one the Sidewinder can out-turn anything which means it should pretty much never lose once its out of the opponent's gunsights, but yeah it does have eggshell armour.

Btw call me crazy if you wish, but the lowly Hammerhead is still my favourite. Even if I did spend one CA game chasing Jiel around my carrier for 5 minutes & never laying a scratch on him.

G5 / Kingfisher. It can take a bit of punishment, has enough acceleration and boost to let you dart around the asteroids before dive-bombing on the enemy like it's namesake, and the guns are hefty enough to take good bites out of other Medium and Heavy craft and turrets.

Sidewinder. If you fudge it and can't kill him before his friends arrive, you can at least run away really really quickly. The ship makes for a fairly good sweeper, along with hit and run tactics and ambushing. It is sorely lacking when taking other players on on even terms in a dogfight though, as it explodes after a few hits and a light bump. If you do use one, you gotta be sneaky Charlie, sneaky.

And while the F-3 / Mamba is my go-to light-craft, I really do like the sound of Jiel's description, lol!

Barracuda. You might not get as many kills unless you're Ferc but the disruptive value of Missile Locked at the top of other player's screens seems to have turned the tide in more than one game.

Also after a few pops you can force the other team to spend as much time hiding among the 'roids as actually hunting other players.

Piranha, hands down, but I'm loving my new Sidewinder. Flying the Sidewinder always just makes me want to play Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" on repeat. <3

Pretty sure that the Barracuda will be my next ship though. Ramming into one with my Piranha never seems to end well, need to learn to tell the difference on the fly. x.O

Barracuda and Mamba on top. I like em more than the top tier ships.

SIDEWINDER!!!!!! and Mamba

My fav ships are the Nighthawk and the Cobra at the moment

My least fav ships are the Merlin, the Viper, the Swordfish and you guessed it... the Panther

lol, game would be boring without the panther

G5 is better than Viper and Merlin now imho. Looks to me like there won't be any top tier ships soon, or rather that they'll all have the capability of being top tier in their own way for specific purposes. Which is a very good thing.

The new G5 may actually be more gangster than the A-80.

Krait, Cobra, Nighthawk (in no specific order) I just love the beam cannon

Ferc Polo wrote:The new G5 may actually be more gangster than the A-80.

Wouldn't go quite THAT far. G5 is absolute murder on turrets, but for killin' its the honey badger all the way. Nothing quite so satisfying as the ultimate combo of missiles->guns->headbutt.

A close second would be the feeling of a torp spammer detonating a nuke, and you simply raise an eyebrow and mosey off to have a few words with him about the use of nukes in a S&D match.

Irishpanda wrote:

Ferc Polo wrote:The new G5 may actually be more gangster than the A-80.

Wouldn't go quite THAT far. G5 is absolute murder on turrets, but for killin' its the honey badger all the way. Nothing quite so satisfying as the ultimate combo of missiles->guns->headbutt.

A close second would be the feeling of a torp spammer detonating a nuke, and you simply raise an eyebrow and mosey off to have a few words with him about the use of nukes in a S&D match.

The G5 can hunt A-80s. It's one of the few ships equipped to do so. It has always been our worst H2H foe, now it's much quicker.

G5 is pretty gangster.
What about that Cobra then, I mean...
Smokin' Jesus titty cinnamon! That is a monster!

Cobra still needs something to be fully balanced. The laser/MG just doesn't beat the Krait for dmg or utility. It's almost like the Cobra isn't sure what it wants to be. Does it want to hunt fighters with MGs or heavies with lasers? And if it's sniping lights...why not use the FH-25 or M10?


I like the Cobra since its update...but still don't see the reason to fly it. Not with the Sidewinder and Mamba so well balanced now.

Well that just the thing isn't it, with the viper you don't have to chose if you want to use MG's or beams. It's really starting to be a good multi role, it has almost as much laser power as the Krait and huge heat sinks if your just using the MG's.

I do enjoy the heatsinks on the MG...but if I want that much MG power I fire up the JUSTICE BUS!

Wait till the Justice Bus gets it's upgrade... what ever that's gonna end up being.

Quad MGs with a close spread and a rocket storm secondary seems to be on the menu.
This will be fun... and then op... and then nerfed... and then fun again.