I'd have to disagree. That 'one shot kill' is what keeps a Light Fighter pilot on his toes. Though I believe the Hyena might be able to survive a nuke, but I haven't looked at the numbers. It does have a lot of hull strength, though.
I'm talking about the experience of the average player. Sure the ship is agile, but if it is that difficult to survive in a fight, the learning curve becomes a little too steep. Hence, light fighter loses much needed love and disappointed average player goes to pastures newer and bigger.
Fighting well seems to require a few skills used all at once. In a light fighter if you forget the whole mine thing for an instant, you are dead. It's the only ship type where something that can be dropped at random with no skill up to 70 times can cause instadeath.
It requires at least 6801 base armour to survive a nuke mine after taking armour upgrades into count. So that is still significantly less than a heavy fighter, which has 8000-9000 hull on average. Currently the only Light Fighters with more armour than this are the Hyena and two Nomad Light Fighters. The reason for this being that the Hyena is massive, and the developers mind-set that nomad ships must be over-powered or they won't win.
My point is, you can't take something from nothing otherwise you upset the balance. So, what is the Light Fighter going to lose in place of more armour?
But the Sea Serpent is equally massive (check the first post).
Your assertion that you have to lose something to gain something is based on a flawed assumption: you're assuming that balance exists in the first place.
An imbecile in a bomber (the killing of which is the idea behind light fighters apparently) could drop 70 nuke mines: one every ten seconds means the best part of ten minutes could be spent simply hitting the mine button. These require next to no skill to hit, especially in such numbers. A experienced pilot could avoid them, cd them. But add another ship to the equation, and another... no average player would bother with light fighters. Groups of them are effective together, but only just.
No other weapon instakills from full hull what is intended to be an effective ship so easily, apart from the SN and Razor, both of which require the ability to aim.
Getting razored in your light fighter means you met a really decent opponent.
Getting mined in a light fighter means you lost concentration for half a second during a twenty minute long battle against someone who could have the fine motor skills of a donkey mid-seizure.
My point is that the armour buff to ensure that you survive ONE nuke mine would be enough to make light fighters more attractive to the average player. It won't actually have that much an effect overall especially when you look at it in practice.
I think we've proved that LFs (the Sea Serpent at least) can be very effective when armed with high damage, low refire weapons. And if four relatively average pilots can take out three bombers and a VHF, then there can't be that much problem with the balance of the ship (other than its size being a bit of a magnet for minirazors and mines). As long as we're not trying to take out Sabres, it looks like we'll be ok. But shouldn't that be the way things are? LF's dying real fast to a VHF?
Edit: The problem I see is the lack of effective weapons for LFs. With our buckshots (and lets be honest, bucks are great guns) it takes ages to take out a bomber. I dread to think how long it'd take to take out 4 ships.
Stoatie, suffice to say that we would now still be fighting those bombers at this time.:)
The ista mine issue is kinda 'meh' to me. I like the trill of flying a LF. The mines only add to the thrills of flying one. the problem is, as said before, damage output. maybe some general 2.00 refire 1000k-ish could prove to be a solution. Spray and pray doesn't work: you have too few and too weak guns to actually hurt something.
On my Libby yesterday ( 4 Hammers, 2 V and 2 IV) I was able to dish out some hurting. but only as a support ship. I think 2.00 or 3.03 refire weapons with 'high' damage output could proof to be worth checking out.
I'll try and contribute. I'm on page two right now. So.. Yeah..
The Sea Serpent strikes me as a "CHARGE THE FRAK IN AND KILL IT ALL WITH FIRE AND FLAME" kind of ship, especially now that it has it's own trademark faction. I would see reducing armor plating somewhat (take out the cardboard, just use sticks for the framework) but increasing speed and maneuverability further, as well as a firepower increase by way of 4x 9 guns, and a powerplant to support that, as Buckshots aren't easy on it.
What you would see is a near-useless solo fighter, but would fit perfectly into the 22nd's mindset of "Swarm the frak out of everything you see"