Guide to Fighters

Wishing to pilot a fighter is equal to wishing to die, in that both will get you killed. Welcome to the Guide to Fighters.

Please note that there are several in-game tools for this for you to learn for yourself. Consult a Seegson terminal or the current FL for help. However, if your FL is completely incompetent (standard), read on.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW

Surprisingly, this is a list of the most important things to know about fighters.

The Controls

Use Ctrl + Scroll Wheel to zoom out when viewing the overmap.

C toggles whether the ship follows the mouse. When you first click the console, the ship will strive to point its nose towards your mouse. Hit C to toggle this behavior, which can be useful for not ruining your orientation just because you needed to click out of the window for a moment.

W and S control the throttle, and A and D move the ship left and right. Remember, the ship retains momentum once it starts moving; you need to compensate or brake to slow down or stop.

The Alt Key is a sort of parking brake. Hitting it toggles the brake, which will make the ship come to a complete stop and stay put.

The Shift Key activates a boost, which is primarily useful for dodging particularly nasty torpedoes or evading enemy vessels.

Q and E activate a rotational drift, which is useful for ~~pulling sick drifts~~ turning very quickly, and in a short distance. This can also help to evade torpedos and less maneuverable ships.

The X key toggles inertial assistance. Disabling this allows you to strafe, fighters have it off by default.

Prerequisites

Before you even get in (which is done by left-clicking the fighter and entering the pilot seat), look at this list of helpful things:

Fighter hardsuits and double-extended oxygen tanks from the suit containers near the hangar will save your life later, so get those.
Entering a fighter will create two new parts of your GUI.
- "Stop observing" will exit the fighter. Do not press this while in space.
- The Ship tab, next to Preferences in the top right, contains every menu that you'll ever need, and some you won't.
All fighters are equipped with a DRADIS, a radar system which updates once per second. It is a simple minimap showing you (blue), friendlies (green) and hostiles (red). Note that red may not always mean hostile, but that's not your call to make.
Fighters have a fuel tank. The less fuel they have, the less time you have to fly. Tyrosene fuel is made in Chemistry and you start with a tanker of it in the hangar. Click it to grab the hose, then click a fighter with the hose to refuel it.

Take Off

Once you've gotten into a fighter, two screens will pop up: Your DRADIS console (radar) and your control console.

To start up the fighter first press the "Canopy lock button" to close the canopy and switch to internal atmosphere. Do note that you will be unable to exit the fighter while the canopy is locked, so be sure to unlock it when you plan to exit.

First press the button labled "Battery", then "Fuel injector", and then "APU." At this point do not press any more buttons. The RPM gauge will now begin to increase - you must wait for it to reach 100% before pressing "Ignition" or the engine will not start.

Inertia dampeners are the equivalent of the handbrake for your ship. They will very quickly prevent any movement in any direction, so if you're looking to go in a direction, these won't help. You can toggle your inertia dampeners with the Alt key or through the respective button in the control panel.

Pressing C toggles laser-guided movement, which allows you to use your mouse to rotate the fighter. This is enabled by default.
You can use WASD to strafe in all directions, then disable laser-guided movement to get a cool new arrow and the ability to control it with Q and E. This arrow represents the direction your ship will be directed towards.
Press shift to engage the afterburners, which will provide a temporary speed boost, useful for evading incoming fire and catching up with the mothership. Pressing X toggles intertial assistance mode, which will cause your ship to fly in the direction it is facing. Useful for big bulky boats, not so much for small nimble fighters.

You can press the Help verb in the Ship tab to remind yourself of the fighter controls at any time.

Shooting

Movement is all well and good, but if you can only move you'll eventually die or piss yourself as you almost die. First, you want to get into space and far away from the ship you launched from, preferably in the direction of ~~other fighters~~ hostile craft. Then, disable your weapon safeties with the relevant verb in the Ship tab or through the respective button in the control panel. You are now ready to explode things with your weapons, which begs the question: what are your weapons?

The Ctrl key switches between your primary and secondary mounts. The primary mount will typically be your fighter cannon, and the secondary will be a missile or torpedo launcher.

Your missiles pack a really big punch, so if you fire in the general direction of the enemy, they'll home in and explode. Try not to have them home in on your mothership.
Your fighter can only hold so many at a time, and they can be shot down with PDC (Point Defense Cannon) rounds or flak, so use them wisely. With that in mind, let's talk about the fighter cannon.

Fighter cannons are fully automatic and are your go-to choice for dealing damage. Heavy and light cannons hold ammunition, and will need to be reloaded often. If you find yourself running out of ammo during battle, don't hesitate to leave your squadron and return to base for immediate rearming.
It's also good to note that there is every useful tool called Lock-on targeting that allows you to pick a ship out of the crowd in the middle of combat. This is done by holding shift and then clicking on the ship you want to target. This will probably do some beeps and boops and maybe show some sort of indicator, but now all of your missiles will target that ship, and with increased efficiency. This is very useful for ~~hitting your own fighters~~ singling out single ships to take them out more efficiently.

Landing

When you want to go back to the ship for various reasons, enable the docking mode in your Ship panel, or the respective button in the control panel, and fly directly into it. Your ship will proceed to enter the ship Z-level, which indicates a successful docking, allowing you to maneuver yourself back to the hangar. That is, if you have a functioning docking computer installed in your fighter.

Actually getting off the ground

Theory is easy. The real world is not. Let's have a look at that second one.

Finding a Fighter

On round start there will be aircraft either in the hangar or on the launch deck which are pre-built and in need of refuel and rearm before takeoff. You will typically find several Rapier light fighters, one (or zero) Scimitar heavy fighter, and one or more Sabre support craft.

Each aircraft will need to be refueled and filled with ammo before they will truly be ready for you to ~~die in a blaze of ineptitude~~ show off some of that pilot shit. This process generally includes fuel refilling via prepared fuel tanks around the hangar, filling of cannon ammo (light for the Vulcan, heavy for the BRRRT machine,) and finally missiles for the light fighters or torpedoes for the heavy fighters.

Assuming your FL hasn't already set the fighters out neatly, you will need to find yourself a new home. Once you've found that home and claimed it, hop into the cockpit, flip over to the Ship tab or use the Change Name verb and christen your coffin with something creative.

With your aircraft armed, fueled, and named, all that's left between you and your dream of being the next Maverick is an aircraft tug to an available electromagnetic catapult.

Launch Procedures

Everybody needs a nice tug now and again, and as a fighter pilot you more than anyone will need constant tugging. To do this, you'll want to find the M575 Aircraft Tug and the fighter tug key, which when combined will allow you to drive around the hangar bay. Now that you've ~~landed yourself in the brig for running people over~~ gotten the tug up and running, drive it over to the aircraft you want to move and position yourself right up against it, then click the Load Fighter button to load it. With aircraft in tow, take it to the desired position and press the unload button to drop it; if you do this near a magnetic catapult it should automatically lock on to the catapult. DO NOT press the Launch button on the tug, unless your intention is to shoot the aircraft off like a ghetto catapult.

If your fighter enters a launch bay, you will immediately lose control of your fighter. Don't get out or you'll wish you were dead, then you'll die. Because you're in space. Stop having an existential crisis, and recognize you cannot move. You're currently on a magnetic arrestor. This essentially functions as a much larger inertia dampener which you cannot control; somebody in Air Control must release or launch you. Stay in your fighter and wait for the signal from your FL. They will use the launch computer and engage the launch sequence. This will be fairly obvious by the loud launch noises in your ears. The process should take around 10 seconds. Angle yourself towards space (NOT A WALL, PLEASE NOT A WALL), wait for launch, and you'll be sent into the cold dark void of space.

If no ATC or other personnel are available to run the catapults, press the MAGLOCK button on your aircraft console, flip the brakes off (ALT key,) and whisk yourself gently (gently...) out of the tube before putting the ship in your rear view and zooming straight into enemy fire. As an additional note, some maps may include vacuumed flight decks; in such cases the use of tugs and catapults is still recommended for various reasons, but because you are already in the vacuum of space and on a reinforced flight deck you do not technically need either of those things to take off or operate your aircraft.

Ship to Ship Combat

Once you've launched, you will most likely see some red signatures on your DRADIS computer. These are signatures that have invalid IFF, and are (probably) extremely hostile. If they are, they will most likely be Syndicate ships (and if they're not Syndicate ships then you're fucked anyway).

There are several types of Syndicate ships. Corvettes, Frigates, Cruisers, and Carriers with bombers and interceptors, and all have guns. Guns that shoot you.

Corvettes are slow, but, like fighters, have missiles and flak cannons of their own. However, unlike fighters, they have a larger missile capacity and do a lot more damage with their flak cannon.

Frigates are even bigger and slower, but have access to the devastating railgun, a shipside system that fires magnet-accelerated tungsten rounds at lightning speeds: basically an immovable rod. Avoid anti-air frigates, because they won't be avoiding you. Good fucking luck.

You will want to give most capital ships a very wide berth, and ideally take them on with the help of your own ship, as Nanotrasen Space Vessels all come equipped with their own railguns and gauss weapons for precisely this purpose. Heavy fighters armed with torpedoes and BRRRRT are more capable of handling capital ships, but skill and caution are a necessary component for survival when busting bigger foes.

Your FL will most likely give orders on formation. If they don't, stick with your other fighters and be careful. 'Lone Wolf' pilots die very quickly when hit by thermonuclear missiles, and since nobody else is with them, no raptor goes to pick them up.

Hit by missile send help

Thanks to our crack~~head~~ engineers at NT, your fighter is equipped with armour plates that can block at least one shot. Maybe. If you've taken at least two shots, 9 out of 10 experts would recommend getting the hell out of there. Engage docking, run home to mommy, and let the ~~Munitions Technician~~ ~~Air Traffic Controller~~ Deck Technician figure out how you've managed to lodge an unexploded bomb in your fighter.

Is that explosion sprite bad?

You are now ship-less. Good job. Absolutely stellar. Here's a Medal of Honor. Luckily, Escape Pods are ~~invulnerable~~ not invulnerable, but they are equipped with enough armour to weather a few shots. If your pod gets shot down, though, you're dead for good. Hopefully you pre-scanned!

Escape Pods come equipped with one atmosphere of air, so conserve your oxygen by disabling your internals. If you find yourself unable to breathe, perhaps re-enable those internals you just forgot about.

Once your air situation is sorted, scream over the Air Traffic Control channel that you're stranded in a pod in space, and assuming the ATC controller isn't a brainlet (lol good luck), somebody will come to rescue you in a Raptor. Speaking of:

The Raptor

The Raptor can be distinguished from the other fighters by searching for intricate details on its hull: the rounded nose, the slightly wider cockpit, and the fact that it's a completely different ship. However, it is functionally identical to the other fighters, except you can now pick up escape pods from the poor sods who've forgotten how to activate point defense.

To retrieve escape pods with the Raptor, enable docking mode and slam into the pod. It'll look like it has exploded, which indicates a successful retrieval.

Once docked with the main ship, you may eject the body of your co-worker ~~directly into space~~ onto the hangar bay floor, where he will promptly either get up and shout at you for being too slow ("Of course I am the most important pilot here, do you even know who I am?") or die.

Manual Repairs and Missile Replacement

If your Munitions Tech is incompetent, busy or otherwise unavailable (or perhaps you're a Munitions Tech with no idea what they're doing), you will need to channel your inner Engineer and pray to the one true Stormdrive, for you must now commit to the ultimate sin - doing something yourself and servicing the ship that you own.

Opening the maintenance panel

To remove components from your fighter, you will need to engage maintenance mode. To do this, swipe an ID with fighter access and select the second option, then hop in. When inside, you will be able to eject components of your choice. This is important for fixing flooded engines, which I will go into detail about below.

Repairing hull damage

If you somehow managed to keep your fighter after it got hit by a missile, and there aren't any enemies left, return to hangar for repairs (if there are enemies left, what are you waiting for you pansy?). Repairing hull damage is as simple as patching it up with a welding tool, be sure to wear a helmet unless you want to fly blind.

Repairing armor damage

So you managed to survive combat only taking a little bit of ~~friendly~~ enemy fire to the face, and now you need to fix your armor, but smashing the welder into the ship does nothing! Worry not, the procedure is simple; just get your hands on a new set of plating. If the spares bay in the hangar is empty, cargo can supply more from their handy techfab, provided that science has done the appropriate research.

Replacing missiles and torpedoes

If you've launched both of your rockets, and your cannon just isn't doing it for you, return to hangar for resupply. Refilling launchers is surprisingly simple:

Grab yourself a Munitions Trolley, which will typically be strewn randomly about the hangar. Three torpedo types are available: NTP-2 Standard, NTP-4 'BNKR', NTNK Thermonuclear, and a fourth missile type only available through Munitions, the NTP-0x Electronic Countermeasure:

Heavy fighters use torpedo launchers, which can support a number of torpedoes:

NTP-2 Standard is the most well-rounded.
NTP-4 is essentially a better version of the standard, but costs more to build.
NTNK Thermonuclear is a nuke (and therefore very powerful), but is easily shot down and has poor tracking.
NTP-0x Electronic Countermeasure has almost no power, but is useful as a blank shot to draw fire.

Click and drag up to four missiles onto the trolley bring it beside your fighter, and put them both on the ground, then click and drag the missiles into your ship.

Light fighters use missiles. These deal light damage, but are far cheaper than torpedoes.

Replacing Fuel

There should be a tank of Jet Fuel in the hangar somewhere which looks like a welder container. Please do not use a welder container. Drag the tank over to the thirsty Fighter, grab the hose, and click said Fighter.

Fixing a faulty engine

Failing to start a space fighter correctly will result in its engine becoming flooded with fuel. If you hear "Fighter engine violently fizzles out!" in the chatbox, you're in trouble, as your engine has become flooded and will no longer function until it has been fixed.

Fortunately, fixing this issue is as simple as finding yourself a screwdriver. Swipe your ID on the chassis, and engage maintenance mode. Enter the ship, find the engine component, and eject it. Hop out of the fighter, and use a screwdriver on the engine to purge the fuel. After this is done, disengage maintenance protocols, replace the engine, and you're golden.

We've run out of things

We've run out of fuel

You poor thing. Go beg for more from Chemistry (Or just order an aviation fuel crate)

We've run out of rockets

You poorer thing. Go beg for more from Munitions.

We've run out of fighters

How?
You know what? Sure.

You can build new ones! Get RnD to research fighter construction, have cargo print the parts in their departmental protolathe, and assemble them in the hangar. You want two wings and engines, and one of everything else. Keep a toolbox with a multitool and a welding mask handy for this process. If you get stuck during the assembly, examine the fighter chassis to see what needs done next.

Choose a chassis, light, heavy, or utility, and fabricate it.
Bolt and weld the chassis.
Install an engine of your choice and bolt it to the frame.
Install the auxiliary power unit (APU), wire it to the engine with cable coil, and secure it with a screwdriver.
Add the fighter fuel tank and secure the bolts with a wrench.
Install avionics, wire it together with the other components, and screw it in place.
Add a targeting sensor and screw it in.
Add the countermeasure dispenser and wrench the bolts.
Add fighter armour plating, bolt and weld it on. Keep in mind that the armour you choose to use will have an affect on your mobility during flight.
Select a primary mount. Light and heavy fighters will use cannons. Bolt it in place when you've made your mind up.
Select a secondary mount. (Missile launcher, torpedo launcher) and bolt it in.
Use an airlock painter to paint the surface of your complete frame! This step will need to be repeated, once for the surface and once for the details.
Click on the fighter with an empty hand to finalize it. This will open a confirmation box, so make sure you have moved the frame to the hangar bay or open space before finishing the job.
The fighter isn't ready to go just yet. You need to install a battery for it to function, and the primary and secondary mounts will need ammunition. If you're using a fabricated fuel tank, you should refuel it with tyrosene.
Be sure to install a fighter docking computer if you want to leave the Z-level and go onto the overmap.
Install an atmospheric regulator if you enjoy breating without the need for a suit.
You can rename your finished fighter by using the ships verb tab. Examples: "Thor XCI", "Vishari 52", "Thermonuclear Missile 3"

Bonus Information

You can change the name of your fighter in the Ship panel.
Raptors can hold an infinite number of escape pods.
If you have the required access, you can swipe your ID on a fighter to boot the current occupants out and enable the inertia dampeners. Useful for that one griffing bastard or when your Raptor rescue has become a cadaver.