Show me your small fighters!

[Aryl]

So, I'm obsessed with small (Under 80 mass) ships. Give me a choice between a star destroyer and a space motorcycle, I'll choose the motorcycle every time. I'm a firm believer that fast and maneuverable is better than a giant tank. The majority of designs of fighters I see on servers are usually nothing but battleboxes. I'm interested in seeing some of the more creative (And effective) designes you guys have come up with.

This was the first ship I made, Apollo (Mass is 76). It was based off of the Freespace 2 fighter of the same name. I had no idea what the shit I was doing and had power problems for a while, it can deal with pirates alright (If you're the kind who likes... interesting dogfights).

This is the current model I'm working on (Mass is 62), still in progress though mostly complete at this point. I had to completely redesign it because I made the damn thing too small to fit more than 5 power and shield blocks into the first time. It packs MUCH more firepower, has less mass, is faster AND cheaper than the Apollo. The only user-controled weapons are two banks of lock-on missles, it relies almost completely on the two autoturrets on the wingstubs. They work quite well.



Current damage output on the turrets is 625/second, each. Zero power issues. I'm working on adding a kind of reactive armor that incorporates the effect of turrets using different shield generators, but right now I'm pretty happy with it. If I really feel the need to absolutely decimate some pirates, there are a few alternate versions with different loadouts (Damn the planets look neat in this game):

I'd love to see what small ships you guys have come up with, almost every ship on here is a huge towering behemoth.

Comments or suggestions are always appriciated.

 

[DarkFusion]

nice

 

[Vii]

They look bulky and menacing, and they look like they deal plenty of damage ^^

 

[malimber]

I posted my fighter desgin (mass 22) on the ships site. I like to compact turret desgin on your fighter. Not a fan of putting them on little ships. How do you find it in combat?

 

[Vii]

Unfortunately my rifter is a bit overweight at 636 Mass, but it is a frigate, however the turrets i have on it make exceptionally short work of the pirates. Heres a pick of my turrets
http://i.imgur.com/IoRFVDy.jpg

 

[Nootau]

Bobby Light Fighter Mk-III

Mass 32, Thrust 71
Length 16, Width 16, Height 4
Power 5400e/sec, Shields 12,000(680s/sec)

Weaponry
8x 10 long Anti-Matter Cannon Arrays(40%,5%,45%,5%)
Damage 107.3, Reload 403.3

Purpose
Cheap Bobby controled fighter.

Screenshot

 

[malimber]

I find turrets fairly ineffective. They tend to be derpy. How do people prefer thier turrets, aim at my target or aim at any?

 

[Visitor]

I am kind of amused by the fact that what passes for fighters for most people, is on the verge on becoming around \'heavy bomber/frigate\' on my private server, where real fighters are tiny things up to 30 mass.

 

[Vii]

This sounds like a challenge! Whats your server\'s ip?

 

[RamziesIV]

that\'s a pretty boss lookin fighter man, I know from experiance that those big ships if built properly can rip some shit up . I like the design alot, that\'s pretty unique.

 

[Vii]

It\'s based off of the rifter: http://wensley.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/rifter.png

 

[Trollerbobman]

Nice work.

 

[Vii]

Made her on a hardcore server, she\'s 45 Mass not including turrets

http://imgur.com/a/S56P7#0

 

[Nootau]

What system are you going by? I am going by Nameless\'s

 

[spoonikle]

Because small... actually means small. As well as my faction role plays Goa\'uld, so it had to be made.

( its hard to make a small deathglider usefull, but the new sheild buff helps



)

 

[KuramaFox]

Well, I tried to make the most iconic of Freespace\'s fighters, the Hercules. Its not perfect (one issue is that it actually doesn\'t look blocky ENOUGH, and should be a little taller). I really need to install the Freespace Open source project on my comp again sometime. Partly because there doesn\'t seem to be a single image of the fighter AT ALL on google from the rear. Which meant I had to do the engines from memories almost 2 years old.

At the least, I did almost perfectly replicate its gun spread though. The Hercules fighter carries 6 gun banks.







Now someone make a Sathanas or Lucifer.

 

[Twinchicky]

This is a fighter I built to be very slim (It\'s only 3 blocks thick!) so that two of it could dock neatly on the belly of my larger battleship. It doesn\'t look particularly great, but it functions quite well.

(NOTE: The AstroTechnoBeams on the bottom are usually SD-BB missile arrays, but this one was retrofitted after a \"little accident\" with my battlecruiser...)

SPECS:

Mass - 17.1(!)

Length: 12m, Height: 4m, Width, 14m

2480 power generated per second

Thrust: 55.8

4228 shields regenerating 320/sec



A view from underneath:



And from behind:

 

[violetriot]

Here\'s one of my very first designs, has the classic fighter look to it. Only about 20 mass as well.

 

[Aryl]

I didn\'t think anyone made ships smaller than mine, I rarely see them. I\'ll take this challenge.



I LOVE freespace 2, considering makeing the Colossus or Santhanas (However you spell it...).



I\'ve made mine a little bigger to make a 5x5x5 cube of power efficiency and you can walk around in it slightly now, I\'m just going to keep it as my main ship. The turrets and seperate shielding make it pretty effective against pirates, they can\'t seem to hit the same spot twice so the shields never individually take enough of a beating to fall. The missles are finally adjusted to be fast and still do stupid damage to ships.

Turret specs are the same, but the power regen is over 10,000 now and the shields have about 1,000 regen. I just wish making it slightly bigger didn\'t sacrifice so much turning speed

I usually set my turrets to shoot anything, whenever I use shoot my target they never work on anything, until I select a shop. Then they\'re just keep firing no matter what target I switch to, I have to get out and shut them down. The \"Any\" setting they just seem to shoot pirates, but they\'re pretty accurate at the moment. The turrets targeting could be better, but I\'ve gotten used to how to fly to make them hit frequently.



Has anyone experimented with making a \"minigun\" sort of AMC cluster? Mine just fire huge bursts of 16 shots, I\'m trying to change the settings so there is a neverending stream of shots, but I can\'t seem to get it right.

 

[Krazykat]

you just have to adjust their fire speed slightly, and have it cycle each barrel. A pain in the butt especially if you cant figure out the coords of each barrel