I'm no where close to knowing everything about the ship archetypes, so if I missed any or made any mistakes here, post them up!

Light Ship:
Ship: Centurion Rev C, Centurion IBG, any Vulture (most notably Serco Vulture Guardian and Corvus Vulturious)
Weapons (2 Small): Neuts, Gauss, Positron (Axia)

Just about the most popular ship around. Very fast, low armor, and the small frame makes these ships very difficult to hit. Sometimes flares are used as a secondary weapon, though very rarely. Also, these ships don't have infini-boost (except Vult mkI) but still have excellent acceleration.

Hog
Ship: Any Warthog, Atlas Type X (TPG)
Weapon (1 Small): Flares, Neuts, Gauss, Positron (Axia), Gemini, Rail Gun, and so on...
Weapon (1 Large): GATLING TURRET

Although Warthogs can use different weapons in the large port, the Hog archetype is defined by the GT. Very weak at 150m or more (not taking small port weapons into account), but if you make a mistake close in...GT will easily shave off half your armor.

Spam Rag / MGC (Mobile Goliath Cannon)
Ship: Any Ragnarok
Weapon (3 Small): FLARES (in MGC), Gemini (?)
Weapon (2 Large): SWARMS, Stingrays (?), Jackhammer/Screamer (in MGC)

Spam rags are widely considered to be the most annoying ship. Using seekers, they use a Fire & Forget method. Spam and Sprint (unloading all ammo and then running to reload) is a common tactic, but causes the unified hate of everyone subjected to it. MGC is much more respected (though still . It uses rockets (Flares and Screamers) for as much forward damage as possible. One direct hit is capable of taking down light ships, two for larger ones, but requires a lot of skill to make these shots count, while being a huge target. They do have infiniboost, but their high mass taxes their ability to run.

Valks / Flare Valks
Ship: Valkyrie
Weapon (3 Small): Combination of Flares and Neuts/Gauss

The Itani exclusive ship and the fastest ship available. 1v1, the Valk is almost unparrelled. It is much like Light Ships, but the extra small port allows more convient use of flares while still having an energy weapon. It has the power of heavier ships by using flares, while still maintaining the ability to dodge almost anything. Running from this ship is also very difficult due to its speed and that of flares. However, keep in mind that in addition to the large price of the Valkyrie, is the time it takes to ship it down from an Itani station (doesn't really apply to BP), so watch out for runners who don't want to lose their precious ship. None of the Valks have infiniboost, but it is near-impossibe to get away from them once you've started a fight anyway. Marauders (Axia, TPG, Corvus) are a poor, but still capable, substitute, though it lacks the manuverability of the Valk.
"It's large ovular shape make it a very easy target and many pilots find that this overshadows its manuverability." (by Ghost)

Prom
Ship: Prometheus
Weapons (2 Small): FLARES, Gauss
Weapons (1 Large): GATLING TURRET

If anything rivals the Valk in its demand for respect, it is the Prom, exclusive to the Serco (what a coincidence). See Hog for info on GT. Flares let Proms have Midrange/Close-range Firepower in addition to the GT, also useful for taking out runners. Its high armor (a whopping 21000 on SCP) lets it easily battle 2 combatants at once, and I have seen good pilots take on 3. Basic Proms (mk I and II) have infiniboost, but they don't have the acceleration nor speed to catch up to other ships.

Rails
Ship: Hornet, Vulture
Weapon (4/2 Small): RAIL GUNS

Popularized by Alamar (PLZ COME BACK!!!) this ship is still not widely used, but still good to know what those 400m/s rounds that someone (*COUGH* DR. LECTER *COUGH*) is shooting at you are. See "The Way of the Rail"
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9241#130541 by Alamar. A direct hit from 4 Advanced Rails (only available to those with 500 pks) will destroy many light ships.

Also, feel free to post your special builds

fooz2916 Aggresso
Ship: Tanguskan Centaur Aggresso
Small (1): Rail Gun MkIII
Large (2): Gatling Turret, Mega Positron

This ship shows my love of balanced ships. It is dangerous regardless of your position (except behind me). Close-up: GT, Midrange: MP, and Long-range-Rail Gun (not overly used, but it's so much fun to get a Rail Kill =P)

[edit-URL edited for clickability-RR]

Last Updated: 11/5/05

this is prob one of the most useful threads i have ever seen you should have ur own forum ^^

beam Valk:
Valkry Vengence (or Rune if the Vengence wasn't available)
3 small: 2 Positron balsters/ flechet cannons 1 mining beam.
Fast Charge Battery

This ship is desigened for counting coup (for details read http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/10975#128252 )
while they can be usefull for fighting bots, or if you want attacking players the posies or flechets are mainly there to weigh the valk down so as to make the coup more honorable.

Coup Hog
Anny warthog, usualy a MK2
1 L port: any mining beam (your choice of colors) or concussion mines or Repair module.
1 S port: mining beam or any conventional weapon.

like the beam valk this is a coup ship, and so the weapon loadout is meant to be non leathal. This ship has the advantage of being able to mount L sised weapons thereby reanting aces to the conc. mines and repair moduel, these are a little better respected as coup weapons because they are percieved a taking more skill to use properly, but the mines actualy do a small amount of damage to your victum, and the repair gun, repaires them and therefor can be counter productive if counting coup in a battlefield situation.

Pirat Moth
Bohemoth
2 L ports: Gattling cannon or mega positron blaster
Fast charge battery.

While this tub wouln't catch any players it is verry effective at netting NPC atlas convoys as they pass by. And this baby has the cargo space to take all the booty home. This ship is also fairly effective for the scrap yard mission.

"The Itani exclusive ship and considered by many to be the best PvP ship available. 1v1, the Valk is almost unparrelled."

I have to disagree here. When dealing with two pilots of equal skill, a centurion will almost always beat the valk in my experiences. Also, the only loadout on a valk that can barely compete with a prom is the tri-flare, and even then its tough for the valk to win. The one factor you left out was the shape of it. It's large ovular shape make it a very easy target and many pilots find that this overshadows its manuverability. Its shape causes it to eat Gauss and Gatling Turret fire with a voracious appetite.

First of all, I'm glad to see the feedback. Keep up the posting!

You're right about the shape of the Valk, it is fairly easy to hit, so I added that in. However, the flares from the Valk seem to be more than enough to take out a Cent. I'm not sure about the gauss, but in my experience with Valks, the only way GT's hit Valks is if they sneak up behind them while fighting someone else. Valks can easily avoid GT range

I'm in with Ghost on this one. With pilots of equal skill level, A Cent pilot will usually win against a Valk pilot. Maneuverability is the same, however the Valk is just physically BIGGER and fatter, therefore a larger target. If the cross-sections were the same, the numbers say that the Valk pilot would have an advantage.

The Valk how ever is very versatile for a fighter size ship of it's mass thus making it a great ship for filling many roles. Factor in the fact that it has the best drain to speed ratio of any ship in game and well you have a very nice ship.

The Scrimmager

A tri-n3 IDF valk. Fast and agile this ship was made to take out bombers and medium sized ship classes. Though it was also good at taking out most fighter pilots.

The only down side is due to it's shape AGTs really put a hurt on it.

Just for the record, the Cent & Valk actually do not have the same maneuverability, the Valk has more thrust than the Cent, and is therefore more maneuverable. But it's a pretty slight difference, and if the Valk fills all three weapon ports it will usually lose the maneuverability advantage (with the gain of additional damage, of course). But I would agree that usually the larger size of the Valk is a much worse disadvantage than the slightly worse maneuverability of the IBG Cent.

a combo Valk can take a prom, been there, done that. well, I took him to 15%, I didn't want a non-rail kill. dual flare + aap is really effective if used well against the SCP, just don't ever fall for the temptation to fight blow for blow and try to dodge the flare sets. a good SCP pilot is hard to down, but then again, as is a good IBG pilot. as Edly would say, the SCP just reaches its potential sooner.

Valks are AGT targets like little else in the light ship category. almost all other light fighters can strafe-roll out of the AGT from almost all ships, Valks can't do that against proms and decent AGT users.

the IBG or a Rev C *is* a better ship than the Valk, and I still contest that the only solution for that is to cut their armor into the 5K range. removing their thrust to adjust them to the Valkyrie will make remove their role completly. having different ships that have different tactical and piloting uses is good, keeping the thrust of the zippies will keep this alive.

heh, fooz, thanks. =)

IDF Valk Vigilant: prom sniper flavor
FC Battery
L/R Ports, Rail Mk II
F Port, Sunflare

IDF Valk: hot buttery popcorn
FC Battery
L/R Ports, Flechette Mk II
F Port, empty or Sunflare

IDF Valk: massively heavy lumbering potato O' death
Heavy Battery
F/L/R Ports, Advanced Rails

"Wild Weasel" Agresso
FC Batt
F Port (L): Jackhammer launcher OR Screamer launcher
R Port (L): L-mine launcher
F Port (S): Sunflare launcher OR rail mk II

In a one-versus-many situation, this is a great setup to have. Good pilots will normally try to surround a single quarry, sometimes sneaking up behind and "backstabbing" from close range. Since you are going up against many pilots you will take hits more often anyway, so the Agresso's armor provides good defense against sneak attacks, while still being maneuverable enough to strafe-dodge rocket attacks. The L-mines are your secret weapon to be used only as a fallback. Since they provide a 360 degree umbrella of fire, they effectively surpress would-be backstabbers. Wait until your opponents grow confident enough to surround you at close range or until one tries to sneak up behind you, then drop an l-mine. When your target turns to boost outside the l-mine's radius, hammer them with a rocket salvo or take a shot with the rail gun. Otherwise, try to keep multiple targets in a single group in front of you, and use the rockets prox trigger and splash radius to your advantage, simultaneously damaging multiple targets.

Note: do not use screamers in combination with sunflares. The sunflare has a 70m splash radius with a 30m prox trigger. The screamer has a 30m splash radius with a 20m trigger. When the sunflare detonates it will cause the screamer rocket to go off prematurely, doing little or no damage to the target. I've been on both sides of the barrel when this has happened. Jacks go well with sunflares, screamers are better used alone.

This is one more way that a user-editable "Universal Information Database" would be so useful. If anyone remembers that (another planned launch-time feature <sigh>).

Bird O' Prey Centaur variant
1 AGT
1 flare
1 lmine

this ship is vicious, but be careful, it'll ruin your aim.

The "Horse of a Different Color"
Prom
dual neutron blasters
1 jack

This one is great for practicing your aim, and with the sheer spam power of the jacks, can be quite deadly.

Hit em with 3 jacks and waste em with neutrons while they're shaking.

(For extra pwnage factor, use a prom mk II)

The Amarus Special:
Prometheus Skycommand
2 Flares
1 Screamer

if you've never seen Amarus' wheel of rocketty death... well then you're still alive :)

Another to add here:

The Amarus "nerfed" Prom
AKA the VERY long fight ship
2 Rails (adv could work, but mk II's are more in line with the strategy)
1 Screamer/jack

This one is all about distance control, you will be backing up the entire time, trying to keep a distance for your rails, then you zoom in and drop a rocket or 2, followed by a quick rail set.

Used well this is a very good layout, but as I said, the fight can take in excess of 20 minutes :)

The "Eagle-eye" hog
1 Heavy Battery
1 Megapositron Blaster
1 Axia Accelerated Positron Blaster

Chainfiring is key to this ship. (So setup 1 wep group for both weapons, and the other for just megaposi, then tap your right button and hold your left, you get a beautiful stream)

This one is fully capable of obliterating ships in one good stream.

With a Territorial defender hog, this is probably the best hunting ship in the game.

hmm, a database of ships like this should be fully doable to offer people. if there is widespread interest for something like this, and Guild deems it okay for a third party (ie, me) to host it, let yourself be heard.

Well, the UID was intended as an in-game function. You could already document this sort of thing in lemming's wiki, out of context, but I wanted a user-modifiable in-game database. We intended it to also be wiki-based (hosted by us, probably) and people would have to write in some sort of game-driven markup that we would interpet to replace [[centurion]] with a 3D spinning centurion. Data would all be acquired via standard OS http GET functions.

You mean like embedding a web browser, with a slightly customized version of MediaWiki?

I just _HAVE_ to add this

Warthog CrippledPidgeon Combat Special
Ship: Warthog Mineral Extractor
Flechette Mk.2
Gatling Turret

Atlas CrippledPidgeon Combat Special
Ship: Atlas III or Atlas X
Flechette Mk.2
Gatling Turret

Oh yeah on the topic of Atlases.

The Xith Runner

TPG ATX
N3.
Queen gun.

Mmm chain fire...

Hornet Pretty balls of fire
Ship: Hornet MkIII or Convoy Guardian
Group 1:Gauss + NeutII
Group 2:Gauss + NeutII

Plasmataur
Any Taur... MkIII or Agresso works best though
Gauss in the S port
PLasmadevs in the L ports

Get close... the damage you may take just to land a couple volleys of plasma is worth it. Plasma hurts!

Neither of these is any good versus a Light fighter though... at least in MY hands.

-Zoras