X4 Foundations: Which Fighter is Right for You Guide

There are many small combat ships to choose from in X4. With all of these options your first question may be

which

is better? To explore that is easy: the Pegasus. It has the highest scroll speed of all explorers in the game. When we look at interceptors... Which brings us to

fighter

s and heavy

fighter

s. Now fighters tend to be faster while heavy fighters tend to have more weapons, not 100% of the time, but that's a good generalization, but I'm combining them for one reason: aircraft carriers. Both occupy the same place in the launch bay. so I'll end up competing for that space.

Before we start comparing, I need to talk about how I got these values. Each ship received Argon Mark Three fighter thrusters, Mark Three fighter thrusters, Mark Three Teladi shields, and Mark Two pulse lasers in all weapon slots. This was so that all ships would work with the same equipment. We're not judging them on their potential loadouts, just what the basic values ​​of each ship are and how they compare to each other. If you want to know the specific numbers, you can consult the encyclopedia entry for each ship. You will see in this box a lot of numbers.

That's all determined by the thrusters, and the ratings were the same for all the boats in all five categories, so I combined them all into one group called maneuverability. There are also ship variants: vanguard and sentinel. We're dropping Sentinels because every ship has a Vanguard variant, but not every ship has a Sentinel variant. We're trying to maintain that consistency here. The difference between the two is that the Sentinel variant has more hull and cargo space, while the Vanguard has more speed and crew. So with all that setup ready, let's start with the Argon's entry-level fighter: the Nova. .

She is the fastest fighter out of it, so she fulfills the role of interceptor, but she is not as good a ship. However, it should not be, the main advantage of it is that it is cheap. In fact, she is the cheapest fighter in the game. She is also very easy to fly, making her a good choice for your first gunship as you learn to fight. A step up from the Nova is the Federation Eclipse. This is your frontline air superiority fighter. He's slower but makes up for it by being tougher and hitting harder. She has the most hull and shields of all the small Argon ships, this is the ship you will take to massive fleet engagements.

The Republic went in a different direction with the Pulsar, focusing on firepower at the expense of everything else. With six weapon mounts. She has the most weapons of all the fighters, but that's all she has. The low defenses and speed make it terribly vulnerable, and the high cost of production means you'll want to protect it. Finally we have the Federation Quasar,

which

is simply a cheaper Pulsar. Everything the Quasar can do, the Pulsar can do better. This is very much a situation where you get what you pay for. Not to say it's useless, this is the cheapest fighter that can carry four weapons, but its low price is definitely the only reason you'd want Argon ships to have a lot of firepower for a comparatively low cost.

They are definitely slow and have pretty low defenses. They seem to have a habit of overwhelming their enemies with many ships, each with many weapons. On the Paranid, their entry fighter is the Perseus and it is a very good ship. Very fast, it meets the quick response, the interceptor's roll is very good. She's a little fragile and doesn't hit very hard with only two weapons, but she's cheap enough to make swarm tactics a viable option. If you want something with more armor and firepower, then we have the Theseus. She even has a lower production cost but sacrifices a lot of speed and maneuverability to achieve it.

This is intended to be a secondary category to the Perseus, but she feels like an inferior ship. A little extra hull and a third cannon doesn't make up for how slow it feels to fly. The final Paranid ship is only available through the Holy Order and that is the Ares. Her stat sheet is very unbalanced, sacrificing all of her speed for improved survivability and firepower. In fact, she is the slowest fighter in the game and the second most expensive. But that's because this ship was built specifically for non-sector combat. All weapons have a 100% hit chance in OOS, it's just a math calculation that marks every second.

Defenses and the amount of weapons is the only thing that matters and the Ares has plenty of both. The Paranid have two specialized ships and a single general purpose fighter. . It seems that Egosoft wanted them to be able to rely solely on themselves; Instead of giving them a theme, they have a more comprehensive list, which makes sense when you look at how the Holy Order of the Pontiff starts off at war with all of their neighbors. The Falcon is the first fighter the Teladi have access to. He is the fastest ship of his, so he fills the role of patroller and interceptor, but he is not as good at it.

Every navy needs a rapid response ship and the Teladi have to settle for the Falcon simply because it's the best option they have. She has the highest survivability of all the unlicensed ships, so that's something at least once you unlock the military license. You will have access to Teladi's second fighter: the Buzzard. It gains a third cannon and some additional hull, but sacrifices a lot of speed. She's not the slowest, but she's very close to the bottom of that category. As a frontline fighter he's definitely not the best, but he's cheap, so he has that going for him.

While you may think that the Teladi have the worst fighters out there, AND honestly, they do, I completely agree with that. It fits very well with the theme of that race where they are more concerned about becoming an economic power than their military. Both the Falcon and Buzzard are low cost, meaning you can simply mass produce as many as you need and keep throwing them at the enemy until the problem goes away. Moving on to Free Families, we have the Asp Raider. It is a flying weapon. Three guns and a cockpit strapped to an engine with nothing else.

It's not the fastest, but it has the most acceleration and maneuverability, which definitely makes it fast. And it has to be that way because it has no capacity for survival. At least it's very cheap so replacing it won't be too complicated. As the name suggests, it is better suited to skirmishes than mass combat. Our second Free Families fighter is the Balaur, and it is a very complete ship. She can perform any combat task expected of a ship of her size. Her unique shield generator means you'll start racking up increasing losses as the fight drags on, even with her high hull rating, but remember these are split ships.

Hitting hard and fast is the only way they know how to fight. Zyarth Patriarchy, their entry level fighter is the Asp and he is surprisingly good. In fact, until you increase your faction reputation and unlock military licenses, I would consider the Asp to be the best fighter available early in the game. Even after you gain access to more ships, the Asp is solid enough that you can still use it. and be completely fine. Zyarth's next fighter is Mamba. Fast, maneuverable and economical, these are his patrol and interceptor ships. He also has the distinction of being the only Split fighter with two shield generators, as well as having only two cannons.

I wouldn't use the Mamba outside of a quick response role, not because it's bad, but because the Asp is much better at it. Our final Zyarth ship is the Chimera. With the highest hull rating, five weapon mounts, and very good acceleration at the cost of horrible turn speed, the Chimera is less of a fighter and more of a dive bomber. This is the ship that you equip with mortars or torpedoes and send against enemy destroyers. She is also the most expensive fighter, and with only one shield generator she may not be the best choice for your first wave of attacks.

Divided ships are fast. This shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with Universe X. But their helmets are surprisingly solid. Many players consider the Split to have the best small combat ship out there. Combine them with a Raptor and you now have a mobile battle station that has the ability to deal with anything the enemy can throw at you. To the Terrans with the Kukri. He's fine, but he's the cheapest fighter the Terrans have at their disposal, so you need to keep that in mind when looking at his stat sheet. It's definitely not fast, but it has the worst acceleration.

This ship relies heavily on the built-in extreme acceleration rate of the Earth engines to help counteract this. Personally, I would only use this for patrol in friendly territory, as the Terrans have much better options with their other fighters. Speaking of better, we have the Gladius. Only available in the Protectorate, it is a well-armed and armored air superiority fighter that will be very useful in any confrontation with the fleet. It is very slow and expensive, but for the Terrans that is considered normal. The Pioneers opted for a different design for their frontline fighter with the Kalis. Sacrificing much more firepower compared to the Gladius, they made it faster, more maneuverable and cheaper.

It has the highest shield rating with four generators, which helps compensate for its comparatively weaker hull. If you prefer defense over offense, the Kalis would be a good option for you. Now we go to the Pioneer's Takoba. Who would have thought that the usually slow Terrans would have the fastest fighter, but they do? I consider this to be the perfect interceptor. He only has two weapons but does not need to destroy the enemy. Your job is to trap and tie them up long enough for the rest of your fleet to arrive and deliver the killing blow.

The Terran list is very complete, as they are meant to be alone. A separate production line makes it more difficult to mix and match. They also tend to be more expensive, but everything in the Terran economy costs more. The additional cost is only a problem if you play with the other factions. The last fighter we will see is the Nodan. He is only available in the Word Alliance from his only dock in Trinity Sanctum VII. He may lack firepower, but he is quite fast and handles himself very well. Combined with the low cost of her and the large carrying capacity of her for her class, she becomes a very good mission ship.

Unfortunately, most people don't even know she exists until they no longer need her. It would be a nice change to have the dock known from the beginning of all outings so new players would simply know. According to Universe X lore, the Word Alliance was trying to contact everyone when the doors closed, so presumably everyone knows they exist. But it's not like that. Now some of the veteran players watching this may be wondering why I ended the video with Nodan when there is still one fighter left: Moreya. I excluded that boat from this comparison video because her speed is so high that when I originally started compiling and averaging the stats for each boat, many found it difficult to achieve a five out of ten rating in that category.

Normally this would be fine, but it's actually a mission ship, so I thought it would be unfair to the others. You can eventually build them yourself, but that requires completing an entire story, which will take a long time. This is not a video about Yaki. plot, but if you want some guidance on how to start it, check out this reddit post. If you only want to try out a single ship, the mission where you have to find the annoying ship in the Grand Exchange is the place to start. This video is essentially a statistics comparison, focusing exclusively on the numbers.

But if you have a favorite wrestler who didn't score well, don't let that discourage you from using him. If you found a boat that you really like flying or you just like the look of it, continue using it. For example, I always have a squadron of Nova fighters in every game called Kha'ak Knockers. By the way, thanks for the name, I love it a lot. I know there are better ships to use, but I really like the look of the Nova. I don't know if the design was inspired by Babylon 5 but it reminds me of Starfury.

Also, the vector engines are a very nice touch. The Nova definitely gets a lot of interesting points from me. Because in the end it is your game, the decisions you make will only matter to you. And remember that quantity has a quality of its own. Any ship can perform any task if you build enough of them. But before we continue, if you liked the video or found it useful, click all the good buttons at the bottom and share it so more people can see it. Until next time, fly safe o7