I've used the Gunship's railgun mode to save myself from a poorly judged barrel roll collision a few times, but I'd never thought to use it to attempt pursuing ships to crash - full marks for deviousness!

Fantastic, thanks Saerosxx. So that appears to be a 15% boost to primary weaapons when prioritising them, or a 15% loss when prioristising another system. ( Avg of low power and prio power = (290+390)/2 = 340.5. Low power as % of average = 290/340.5 = 85.4% High power as % of average = 390/340.5 = 114.53% )

I almost certain I can see a difference in full normal speed (W held down) in my Strike when prioristing Engines. It's most noticeable when switcing from e.g. Weapons prio to Engine prio, since Weapons prio reduces power/regen from shields/engines, so the effect is more noticable when switching. I don't know if boost speed is affected by engine priority though - it's a bit too fast to try and visualling gauge :-)

To me, cycling to rear first makes more sense, as you don't have a visual there (no rear-view mirror), so it's arguably more likely you'll need to twitch-react to a surprise on your six. When I'm engaging Gunships head on, I'll switch to front-only just before lining up to them. Of course you're screwed if you've got an unkown tail at that point as well, but I think that's the risk vs reward of the Directional shield - knowing when best to use it, and taking gambles. Glancing the minimap can help to know whether you're likely to be engaged by others though, so can help with the judgement.

Is this true? If so, then yeah it does resolve the issue of trying to cap against a single stubborn dodger. Anecdotelly though, I'm sure I've been a single figher orbiting against 2 or more enemies also orbiting, and have not had the node capped by the opposition. @OP - nicely written post - completely describes most of the matches I'm in these days. I wonder if communication can help to alleviate it though. If you tell your team that you'll stick to the orbiting, then they have more freedom to take advantage of distance and 3D space, and will hopefully be able to focus down any orbiting opposition.

I go with Ion Cannons and Heavy lasers as primary, Cluster missiles as secondary, Directional shield, and Retro thrusters. Open with a few Ion shots whilst locking on with the quickfire Cluster. Once shields facing me are down, switch to Lasers and release the Cluster. If they're running at this point, the range of the Heavy Laser is usually enough to make a killing blow (if the Cluster missile doesn't). I've come to love directional shields - pre-load them frontal when removing turrets from an otherwise-undefended satellite. Keep as Neutral in dogfights, then use a single tap to switch to rear if you get in trouble from behind (or pre-load to frontal when engaging a camping Scout or Gunship). With the -3sec shield delay for fully maxed Directional, plus Energy Reactors optimised for shield regen, my survivability it usually high. (assumingly I'm switching shield direction intelligently, and maneuvering effectively) The only threats tend to come from shield piercing or sabotage drones, or Retro thruster accidental suicides!

They have an engine that can auto-rotate to a target as its power. But then they won't have Barrel Roll for breaking missiles and speeding off, or Interdiction for slowing. (Tbh I don't find Interdiction very useful - I value the quicker repositioning potential of Barrel Roll so I'm able to better react to the battlezone).

If you took all 3 sats at that point, and no-one on your team was killed or suicided... technically it's possible? :-) Nice post OP, I especially like the improved kill reporting and kill cam ideas.

Fully agree. I decided to give the Gunship's Interdiction drive a go, after being on the receiving end of it once and being surprised at just how much and long it cripples you for. I was hoping the speed boost was somewhere near equal to the Barrel Roll move though. Sadly it's nowhere near, and still consumes power, so I was fairly useless in the match I tried it (I usually like to play Gunship by shifting postion a lot with Barrel Roll, to best assault/defend). Having a chance to have tested that privately would have saved me being a lame duck for my team in that battle!

Hah yeah that happens to me quite a bit. although these days mainly due to cack-handedness while hitting the F keys for power management (hmm maybe I should think of rebinding!). Ah cool, I probably should have done a bit more research before spouting my random ideas ;-) Nice to know there's quite a difference though, I like diversity and the options it brings.

Yeah I agree, would at least make you feel a bit better that you were on target. I think Evasion would be better implemented as Deflection instead - some kind of magnetic field that can deflect shots off of the target. Those deflected shots would do no damage to anything, but you'd then be able to have a visual and audio effect for feedback, plus it makes more sense to me than my blasters seemingly hitting their mark to no effect.

The cooldown is some kind of global cooldown of around 0.5secs I think (same applies for weapon switching). Do a manual barrel roll or something while hitting tap (front) tap (aaaaah back to all-around).

Hah I hadn't considered it with that humorously cynical slant before :-) I suppose Armour Penetration is then essentially a 5% / 0% / 14% hull damage boost against Strike / Scout / Gunship. (Or taking the damage without armour-pen as the baseline, it's a 5.26% / 0% / 16.28% increase). (Off-topic - "Itkovian" is a Malazan Book of the Fallen ref? If so, have a /salute, Shield-Anvil)

Awwww bang goes that plan then. Thanks for pointing that out though, I've yet to spend the Fleet req :-)

I think they do some additional damage to enemy power systems (enhanced further with the tier 4 and 5 upgrades), so while not fully disabling (i.e. stunning) them, it'll reduce their damage output and boost capability. My personal fave Strike loadout at the moment is: Ion, Heavy Laser, Cluster Rockets, Bi-directional Shield, Retro-boosters. The quick lock-on of the Cluster is great for panicking enemies, and can be acquiring while I'm stripping their shields with the Ion. Once the shields are down, unleash the Cluster, switch to Heavy Laser (for range) as they try to speed away. (Heavy Laser also means at least I've got some kind of mid-range capability as well, in the 5-6K distance). Bi-directional shields are great when I remember to use them correctly. Switch them to forward-mode when assaulting a satellite head on to easily be able to strip 2 turrets down with minimal damage sustained, then boost away and take advantage of the 3 sec recharge delay, to quickly come back fully topped up again. (I've gone for regen speed energy module to get me back to full more quickly). They come in handy when getting a tail as well - switch to rear mode while waiting for an engine cooldown or whatever, then disengage. Or better yet use retro's to get behind them and start blasting away (don't forget to switch shield back to both sides though!).