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.

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. Jet Fuel is made in Chemistry and you start with a tanker of it in the hangar. Click and drag to refill fighters.

Take Off

Once you've got in the fighter, lots of screens will immediately pop up. Panic for precisely ~~four seconds, then initiate use of your brain~~ for a full two minutes because there's this entire new screen now and you don't know what does buttons do and there's a new fuel counter and oh god oh fuck what do i do

There's a whole load of buttons and a whole lot of time to press them in. But don't. Not yet. Make sure you read this super cool guide^TM first, because else you'll fuck it up and die.

Hit the Canopy Lock button to, uh, close the Canopy. This will seal the fighter and make it run on internal atmospherics instead of external atmospherics. It will also prevent you from exiting the fighter, so remember to toggle it off if you wish to preserve the structural integrity of your head.

Hit the buttons from top to bottom, halting at the battery ~~or just turn on the battery since it toggles all three on~~ and then lock the throttle (using the Throttle Lock). Toggle the APU once you're ready to start up, and turn off the throttle after a few seconds and attempt to move your ship. Keep attempting until you actually move, because if you don't you'll flood the engines with explosive fuel. You are now moving! Try not to crash into the wall.

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 ~~please never do this~~.

Pressing the spacebar 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 eventually go once it's figured out that turning is actually a good thing.

You can press the Help verb in the Ship tab to remind yourself of these ~~before you take off like a responsible pilot~~ while you're dying.

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 firing modes between long range acquisition (for using homing missiles) and manual point defence (for the flak cannon). If you actually want to damage anything, choose missiles. If you want to live, choose manual point defense.

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 fit up to six of these at the same time, and they can be shot down with point defense, so use them wisely. With that in mind, let's talk about point defense.
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.

As your backup weaponry, your flak cannon is shit. It functions like a three-burst railgun and has pitiful damage, but infinite ammo. Luckily, it has a purpose beyond "I've run out of missiles", and that's to shoot down missiles that OTHER ships have shot. Just make sure the missile is targeting you or your allies first, because if you shoot down all of the missiles aimed at the enemy ship, you might find yourself being the next target of everyone else's flak cannons.

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.

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 most maps, there will be 6 fighters somewhere near the hangar pre-outfitted and ready for takeoff: 5 Vipers, the standard fighters, and one Raptor. Ignore the Raptor and take a Viper.

Assuming your FL hasn't already set the fighters out neatly, you will need to maneuver a fighter into the hangar yourself. Just get in, disable the dampeners, get it onto one of the highlighted spaces, and re-dampen. Disable the laser turning, and get out. You've got yourself a fighter.

When it's time to fly, your FL will (presumably) announce on the Air Traffic Control/ATC radio channel (accessed through :h) that the Launch Bays are open. Ensure that you are allowed to enter one of these launch bays before you recklessly launch your fighter directly into a hostile warhead.

Launch Procedures

If you enter 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.

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 two types of Syndicate ships. Corvettes, and Frigates, and they both 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. Good fucking luck.

You will want to give both of these 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 railgun for precisely this purpose.

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 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.

First, open the maintenance panel. Grab a wrench to unbolt it then pry it open with a crowbar. This will either destroy your fighter completely (bad) or put it into maintenance mode (good).

In maintenance mode, you can refill missiles, swap out components, and repair your ship.

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?).

Ensure the maintenance panel is closed, grab yourself a Welder and a Welding Mask (there should be a welding equipment locker somewhere in the hangar) and click on the ship. Your character somehow has an innate knowledge of where the broken things are, and will perfectly fix them with no prior training. You'll need to do this multiple times - opening the maintenance panel will allow you to see the structural integrity of the ship.

Replacing missiles

If you've launched both of your missiles, and your point defence cannons just aren't doing it for you, return to hangar for refill. Refilling missiles is surprisingly simple:

Open the maintenance panel of your ship, then grab yourself a Munitions Trolley, which will either be in the thermonuclear warhead section of the armory (red door to the west), or strewn randomly about the hangar. In the armory, 3 missile types are available: NTP-1 High Velocity, NTP-2 Standard, NTNK Thermonuclear, and a fourth missile type only available through Munitions, the NTP-0x Electronic Countermeasure:

NTP-1 High Velocity is the fastest but weakest.
NTP-2 Standard is the most well-rounded.
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 two 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, and close the maintenance panel.

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, click and drag the tank onto said Fighter, and after a few seconds it'll top them up.

We've run out of things

We've run out of fuel

You poor thing. Go beg for more from Chemistry.

We've run out of missiles

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, 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.

Start with the fuselage. Construct, wrench and weld it.
Attach the empennage, wrench, and weld it.
Attach a wing, wrench, and weld it. Repeat for other wing.
Attach and wrench landing gear.
Attach armour plating, screwdriver, and weld it.
Wire the fighter. Multitool this wiring to calibrate it.
Attach and wrench fuel tank. (can be improved!)
Attach and wrench fuel lines. (can be improved!)
Attach and weld engine. Repeat for other engine. Multitool to calibrate engines. (can be improved!)
Attach cockpit, screwdriver, and wrench it.
Wire fighter again.
Attach avionics, screwdriver, and multitool to calibrate it.
Attach targeting sensors, then screwdriver and multitool to calibrate it. (can be improved!)
Use the airlock painter in the centre of the hangar to paint the fighter.
Click it to name it. Examples: "Thor XCI", "Vishari 52", "Thermonuclear Missile 3"

Miraculously, a fighter appears!

Do note that you cannot build more Raptors. Don't destroy those ones.

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.