Cadet II/Stealth fighter d

Defending with a sf

Example of a missile having to curve around in mid-flight, thus losing total range

It is vital that you have a good probe net when you go Tac to give you warning of enemy bomb runs. Sfs are not built for defence and the enemy team will often try to bomb your tac as soon as possible. They take longer to get in position, and if they are away from base when the bbr is spotted take longer to rip home.

For defence you want snipers and a full load of hunters. You can probably even launch with a rack loaded. You want to camp the aleph slightly off to one side, about 300m closer than your hunters range. This gives your missiles 300m to curve around as they track your target (see pic on right).

Example If you have hunt1 your range is ~1700m so you want to camp about 1400m.

A good time to cloak is when someone yells "drop", so you're low sig when the bbr enters. Once the bbr is in target a nan and start lobbing hunters. Hopefully someone on your team will start calling "Attack my target", press Insert to accept and concentrate your fire - this is especially needed if you have bad tech and/or the enemy are cross-nanning each other.

Once all the nans are dead start killing the bbr. As he flys toward the base use your side thrusters to stay at the same distance. Do not move straight into the bbrs path! You'll become mince meat. Similarly, avoid falling into the bbrs rear because you'll eat prox.

If the bbr reaches firing range you may need to target him and hope you can outdamage the surviving nans before he kills the base. If the comm or a veteran starts spamming "Attack bomber!" then you should probably switch to the bbr.

Tip: Having one stealth fighter staying out of the fight completely in order to pick up pods can be incredibly useful.

If you get eyed chances are someone will start shooting at you. Especially if they are force-bombing with int escorts. Dodge the bullets as best you can, you may even need to drop missiles and fall back a little. It's better to have one sf out of the fight temporarily than having an eject pod. You may even act as a pod pickup.}}

Defending vs. capital ships

Capital ships have a lot of shield, it regenerates quicker than you can reload missiles, and their turrets can outrange you. All in all, they are quite hard for a sf to kill - alone. The key to taking down cap ships as tac is to work in groups, and use LRM Killers. Staying behind the capital ship will make it less likely that you will be eyed. It will also make it easier to land LRM Killers, as your missiles will not have to turn to hit the cap.

LRM Killers have a damage bonus vs cap ships, but a lot worse tracking than hunters. To ensure they hit you need to aim them like you would a dumbfire.

Refresher Consult the [article on aiming dumbs].

If you do encounter a cap ship by yourself and you're armed with hunters, then concentrate on taking down the nans. Be careful, as the turrets will beginning firing in your direction as soon as the missile is spotted, even if you're uneyed. If it doesn't have nans then trail the cap ship and give info to your team about what it is doing.