Gamescom 2016: Day Two - Complete

Ship Launched Fighters – Prepare to Deploy 

Some larger vessels can be fitted out with ship hangars, allowing them to construct and deploy single seat fighters. 

Low cost, stripped down and heavily armed, fighters specialise in direct support of larger vessels. Favouring manoeuvrability and firepower over defence, aggressors face an unpalatable choice: waste time and effort engaging the nimble fighter, or focus on the mother ship, risking significant damage from the fighter’s powerful weapons.

Utilising telepresence , you can launch and directly control your fighter without leaving the safety of your cockpit. Fighters are especially effective when paired with a turreted mother ship, which can hold position or follow you, continuing to attack whilst you pilot the fighter.

Using advanced technologies, you can construct fighters in your hangar; if you lose a fighter in the field you can produce a replacement – as long as you have purchased enough resources.

The Fighters

There are three different fighter craft that you can purchase: the Imperial Fighter, the Federal F63 Condor and the independent Taipei. Each has comparable flight characteristics, all are a joy to fly.

Each fighter can be outfitted with a number of loadouts to match your particular weapon choice and utility. So whether you like rocking multi-cannons, plasma repeaters or beams, staying cold with heat sinks, boiling missiles with point defence, or shielding yourself in clouds of chaff, the loadouts have got you covered.

Lounging Around With The Crew

At crew lounges in ports across the galaxy you can hire the services of trained fighter pilots. Each of these stick jockeys has their own appearance, bio and combat rank. The higher the combat rank, the more credits a pilot will demand from your operating profits, but when things get ugly, that extra skill just might prove to be the difference between victory and sucking vacuum.

You can issue orders to your pilot, selecting priority targets for them, allowing them to engage at will or commanding them to fly defensively. Having a fighter pilot on-board opens up tactical options: Will you remain in the mother ship whilst they provide back up, or will you hand over controls whilst you yank and bank in the fighter?

Rank Up

Not only will your fighter pilots get stuck in when battle starts, they will become more experienced each time they claim a kill, and can increase their combat rank, becoming more effective warriors. What’s more, the trust you’ve placed in them will pay off, as pilots ranking up will ask for less pay than new hires of the same combat rank.

If your ship is destroyed, any pilot on-board will be lost, along with their experience. However as one chapter ends a new begins; a hotshot ace might be waiting at the next starport...

See the livestream VOD on hiring crew members.