Most underrated fighter

Going in that direction, what about the Vindicator? It seems to get very little love. It's got decent guns (lasers and tachs) a heavy weapons loadout and torpedoes!
For me, the Vindicator was one of the best ships in WC4. I actually liked it a lot more than it probably deserves, by right of contrast - having had to deal with so many of these while flying the Hellcat on those horrid ground attack missions, I was overjoyed to find out that I'll get to fly it myself. Especially against Hellcats :).
 
The Vindicator has the Stormfire weapon, so it's simpler to deal with enemy fighters. Without the Stormfire, the Pirahna in Prophecy would be of very limited use.

Using the scatter weapon in the Banshee is a bit risky since you have to be closer than the laser gun range, and the scatter weapon seems much better suited to slower or less agile targets.
 
The Vindicator is awesome. Just divert all energy from the guns to the shields and use the stormfire.
 
Me, I'd say the Scimitar. Yes, the one that Iceman compares to a Centauran Mud Pig.

It's not the fastest, nor the hardest-hitting, nor the best protected, but it's still a nice solid "workhorse" ship. With its two mass drivers, it could slam out the rounds for a long time, and except against the Hriss and Jalthi* the Scim could fairly regularly go head to head with kat fighters and come out on top.

Agreeing with this. It was actually an advantage in WC1/2 to fly slower due to the weird problem of having sprite-based graphics in a 3D environment, so I'd rarely fly over 200 or 300 with any fighter, even the Hornet. The fast-firing mass drivers the Scimitar had were awesome.
 
Personally, I didn't hate the Vin, in spite of my ragging on it to get Raptor's goat, but I didn't care much for it, either. If they'd skipped the lasers, and just went with 2 full tachyon guns (vice the light tachyons it mounts) I'd not have minded it so much. And that puny single laser in the turret? Either double up on lasers, or put a mass driver back there, as was done with the Thunderbolt. One overglorified flashlight is hardly a disincentive, especially given the limited field of fire thanks to those huge tail fins.

In regards to the Banshee and its scatter cannon, yes it is a problem if you're not inclined towards "in their face" flying, but with its speed and handling keeping close is fairly easy to do. I think Pliers was probably fuming about always having to repaint my ship after it came back from a mission, thanks to the paint being scraped off on the enemy's hull before they got blown to dustbunnies. :p
 
Personally, I didn't hate the Vin, in spite of my ragging on it to get Raptor's goat, but I didn't care much for it, either. If they'd skipped the lasers, and just went with 2 full tachyon guns (vice the light tachyons it mounts) I'd not have minded it so much. And that puny single laser in the turret? Either double up on lasers, or put a mass driver back there, as was done with the Thunderbolt. One overglorified flashlight is hardly a disincentive, especially given the limited field of fire thanks to those huge tail fins.

I have to disagree with you on this one Death. I loved the Combo of lasers and tach. In fact I prefered it to the Tach/Plasma combo. The refire rate on the Vindicator was much higher then that on the Dragon(lance). I will grant you that 9 out of 10 times this wasn't an issue with the Dragon as most anything you shot at, you killed in a couple of hits. But say you go against multiple enemies, you then have to wait for the thing to recharge before going full guns again. The Vindicator's combo offered superior range and refire rate. Plus it's the only fighter that has tachyons that you can use rather consistently throughout the game. The Vin's turret never really did it for me either, I'll admit that. But it was an unnecessry addition in my opinion. So really it was just there to swat annoying flies that might come up on your tail, so I don't have any complaints.

In regards to the Banshee and its scatter cannon, yes it is a problem if you're not inclined towards "in their face" flying, but with its speed and handling keeping close is fairly easy to do. I think Pliers was probably fuming about always having to repaint my ship after it came back from a mission, thanks to the paint being scraped off on the enemy's hull before they got blown to dustbunnies. :p

Understatement... I had one too many collisions trying to use that damn gun. It's just not worth trying to line up the shot.
 
For me it would be the Scimitar in WC1, Thunderbolt in WC3, and Vindicator in WC4. They may not has looked as flashy or had some of the special features but they got the job done.
 
I loved the Pirahna, could really make some fast turns in that one. Even when out of missile decoys you could lose one when pulling a sharp turn while making half a barrel roll.

I loved the Banshee as well, but i found it annoying when a group of them fired: those damn high pitched laser sounds :p

The Thunderbolt for me i just having patience, line up on a light fighter and then let those cannons rip. With a good aimed shot you can do a lot of damage!
 
Thunderbolt: When you don't want to fart around with dancing about like a ballerina, and instead just go through your target. :D
 
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