Talk:Federal Assault Ship/@comment-164.39.72.34-20151021123200
Take everything I say with a pinch of salt, always try ships for yourself before making a final judgment. I moved from a vulture I've used for six months and I primarily do combat vs ai, very little pvp.
Hardpoint Placement:- One of the Large Hardpoints is placed on top of the ships center, the other large is under the ship also center with two mediums under the ship either side. The two large are relatively easy to fire I've not had issues with lining up fixed or gimbled. The medium are also fine for the most part I find the medium left sometimes needs lining up when using gimbaled weapons other than this using four pulse lasers ruins shields seemingly twice the speed of the vulture.
Handling / Manoeuvrability:- The vulture is rated a 9 this ship a 6 with that said I find to be just as manoeuvrable as the vulture when fighting large ships. Because this ship drifts you can quickly switch off flight assist and pull a 180 much faster than the vulture. The smallest ship I've fought thus far is a cobra I didnt have any difficulty keeping up with it. As for anacondas I found myself usually getting stuck doing loops with the vulture struggling to stay on their tail I'd usually be stuck center off their ship looping with the enemy which meant I got full brunt of their weapons, with this ship the drift seems to have removed these "looping battles". The boost speed is greater than my vulture which is nice but battle speed is much slower the assualt ship does require those extra pips when the enemy is trying to pull off a few boost manoeuvers. This is something the vulture handled better.
Power Distribution / Shields:- This ship offers plenty of power, I like to use a mix of weapons depending on what I'm doing but my all time favourite combination is four gimballed pulse lasers. With four pips into weapons I can fire all four lasers for about 10 seconds whilst I'm waiting for a recharge I can fire the two mediums constantly and without thermal load and the energy bar will still replenish. If I were to use the two large it's a similair result with the vulture you can fire them for up to 20 seconds before a recharge is required. As for recharging rate engines, weapons recharge about 20% - 30% faster than the vulture. The sheilds however are very weak it took two passes of a drop ship to reduce me to one shield and this is with four class 4A boosters. This same action would have taken another two passes in the vulutre, as I previously said the recharge rate is faster but it's probably worth keeping a cell bank or two with you.
Conclusion:- So far very nice ship, aesthetically pleasing, suprisingly manoeuvarable and a whopping boost speed. I can see myself being comfortable in this ship for the next few months until my anaconda arrives unless their is something special in 1.5.