Light Fighter Combat

Light fighter combat for the most part is about wearing down and tiring your opponent gradually so that they make mistakes you can use to your advantage. There are not many people that choose to fly a light fighter instead of a heavier alternative so for the most part you will be flying against Very Heavy Fighter class ships, from my experience I will try and cover all varieties of light fighter combat.

For the most part light fighters are a support weapon; there are of course always exceptions and it is largely based on the skill of the two pilots fighting, however, Light fighters work better as a support platform than an AOW pew ship. There are a few rules that I have learned to stick by.

1. Never “Joust” a ship larger than yourself that has the ability to instantly kill you.

2. Never fight with your shield down against an opponent that has the ability to instantly kill you.

3. Never drop a Nuclear Mine with your shield down.

4. Never shadow a mine spamming opponent.

5. If you see an opponent is spamming mines, stay back from them.

For the most part, your shield bar is your health bar in a light fighter. If your shield ever is lowered you need to be in evasive mode, do not let the opponent force you to play by their rules.

Mr Nuclear Mine

The Nuclear Mine is probably accountable for practically all of light fighter deaths. 99.9% of all fighter class ships will be sporting a nuclear mine dropper. The Nuclear mine doesn’t move that fast but it doesn’t matter if the enemy knows how when and where to place them.

Play your rules not theirs.

This is important; the light fighter has to wear the opponent down when they are clearly much tougher than they are. By wearing the opponent down you make them tired and eager to ‘just kill the little bastard that’s causing them so much botheration’, when they forget about tactics and start simply trying to kill you in the shortest possible time is when they start to get sloppy, allowing you to maybe get a few hull shots or a sneaky nuke on their hull. Or more likely they will drop a nuke incorrectly and you will be ready with your CD to make them regret it.

Draining

In a fight both sides normally start off with full of everything, CD’s CM’s Mines, Nano’s, Batteries.

Draining is when you fight in a way that provokes the opponent into releasing ordinance such as mines and or CD’s needlessly. Since draining your opponents nanobot’s and shield batteries as a Light Fighter is a long arduous task, draining their ordinance by bluffing with your movements towards them and then moving away will help you close the gap between the importance of firepower or speed in the fight. Like all things in light fighter combat this will take a while to do and is not always so easy and straight forwards, however once your opponent has wasted all or a significant number of their equipment they will be a mildly easier target in some cases.

The most successful drain you can do on an opponent is at least get them to waste all their mines first, they are by no means harmless now because a skilful CD user will be able to kill you by making your own mines explode on you, however it’s one less thing you have to worry about.

Their point of veiw

Fighting a light fighter from the oppositions point of view is in general not a very enjoyable thing to be doing, since you are for the most part an unhittable object many combatants will attempt to flee once they get fed up, anything to get away from the annoying fly buzzing around, don’t let them leave, shoot them point blank while they are charging cruise and CD them at the last second to maximise the effectiveness of their vulnerable charge state. They will most likely now be enraged, because they can neither leave the fight nor hurt the combatant whilst watching their regens -often very very slowly- being whittled down to nothing.

Final Message, PATIENCE

Above all else in light fighter combat, you will require uncanny quantities of patience. Unlike Very Heavy Fighters, which are designed to put out a maximum of 5 figure numbers of pain every few seconds, light fighters must be content with a much smaller 3 numbers of mild itch per pass in a fight.

Patience will win you any and all engagements, either the enemy will flee from boredom, or you will gradually kill the opponent, only time will tell.