Alliance ChallengerCombat

The Alliance Challenger is the brawler of the Alliance family. It shares the Chieftain's chassis and its three military slots, but re-weights the design toward durability: seven weapon mounts (one large, three medium, three small), the heaviest base shields of the trio, and a tougher hull — at the cost of the Chieftain's signature agility.

That makes it a different kind of fighter. Where the Chieftain dances, the Challenger anchors: it plants itself in a conflict zone and grinds, soaking enormous punishment across its shields, hull and three reinforcement slots while seven guns chew through the opposition. For attrition fights — long CZ sessions, tough massacre stacks, AX engagements — it's the toughest medium short of a large warship.

Four things make the Challenger the trio's brawler:

• Seven weapon mounts. One large, three medium and three small — the most total hardpoints of the Alliance trio, enough for a heavy main battery plus a full utility-weapon spread.
• Best shields of the trio. The highest base shield of the three Alliance hulls, layered over the heaviest armour — double-tough.
• Three military slots. Like its siblings, dedicated reinforcement bays that tank the hull without eating shield or cargo room.
• Deep optionals. Two class-6 optionals allow a big shield plus cell banks — sustain to match the durability.

Best shields, heaviest hull and seven mounts make it the toughest no-rank medium brawler; only its moderate 204 m/s agility keeps it a notch below the Chieftain at 86.

The 86/100 headline is a verdict against the combat role's priority-ordered factors. Each factor carries a weight (its share of 100); this hull earns part of each based on how it performs against the whole field. The points sum to the rating.

Both tables rate ships for the combat role specifically. The role column is the hardpoint loadout — the raw weapon mounts behind the damage.

Same class — medium-pad combat ships

The Challenger is the trio's tank and one of the toughest mediums in the game. The Chieftain trades shields and mounts for agility; the premium specialists trade toughness for DPS or duelling. If you want a medium that simply refuses to die in a long fight, the Challenger is it.

Other classes — the larger leagues

For pure toughness the large warships and the Type-10 surpass the Challenger, but all need a large pad and most a rank grind. The Challenger delivers near-large-ship attrition durability on a medium pad with no rank gate — the toughest stand-and-fight medium you can buy outright.

At ~29.6M Cr the Challenger costs more than the Chieftain but remains mid-priced for its durability, with no rank or permit gate. The extra credits buy more hardpoints, better shields and a tougher hull — everything you're paying for goes into staying power.

Its deep optionals and three military slots mean a full tank-and-sustain fit adds up, but the result is a medium that survives fights that would destroy lesser ships several times over.

A stand-and-fight tank build using all three military slots and deep shield sustain. Initial is buy-only; A-rated is the combat-ready baseline; Engineered applies the house combat pattern weighted to durability.

Buy the hull, keep the stock Lightweight Alloy bulkheads for now, and fit the largest shield the class-6 bay allows (a 6E Shield Generator); drop a hull reinforcement into the first military slot — the other two military slots stay empty until the hull is paid off.

Arm the large mount with a gimballed multi-cannon, spread a pulse laser and two multi-cannons across the mediums and put a single pulse on one small; the other two small mounts and the spare utilities stay empty buy-only. Beams — and the Military Grade bulkheads — come later, with the A-rated pass.

Even unengineered it's a fortress — ready for CZ attrition immediately.

A-rating priority for a stand-and-fight tank:

• 1Power Plant → A — Power for seven guns, a big shield and cell banks together. ~4M Cr
• 2Power Distributor → A — Sustain the guns and shield-cell draw. ~3M Cr
• 3Shield Generator → A — The shield is the first tank layer; A-rate it. ~3M Cr
• 4Bulkheads → Military Grade Composite — Swap the stock Lightweight Alloy for the hull's primary tank layer; every HRP and resistance roll builds on it. ~15M Cr
• 5Thrusters → A — Recover what mobility the heavy hull allows. ~3M Cr
• 6FSD → A — Reach fights and turn-ins. ~3M Cr

The class-1 slot carries a Guardian Shield Reinforcement Package, not an exploration scanner — ~60 MJ of extra shield buffer for almost no mass, paid in Guardian mats rather than credits.

The house combat pattern weighted toward durability. Pin blueprints for remote G1→G5 application; visit in person for experimentals.

Recommended order

• 1Plant and distributor to G5 first to power the heavy loadout.
• 2Shield generator Reinforced (with Hi-Cap) plus Heavy-Duty boosters for the first tank layer.
• 3Heavy-Duty hull reinforcement across all three military slots for the second layer.
• 4Weapons last: Overcharged multi-cannons with one Corrosive, Thermal-Vent beams.

Approximate progression across the three states (figures are representative, not exact rolls):

The A-rated jump in armour comes from the Military Grade Composite bulkheads stacking with three hull reinforcements; the Guardian shield reinforcement adds a little buffer on top of the A-rated shield. Engineered, the Challenger is one of the hardest mediums to kill in the game — effective armour into the thousands, a 900 MJ shield buffer and seven sustained guns. It will never be fast or nimble, but in a war of attrition almost nothing its size out-lasts it.

• Build it to tank on both layers — strong shield plus three military-slot reinforcements — to exploit its defining strength.
• Accept the lower agility; play it as an anchor that holds position and grinds, not a dancer.
• Its seven mounts suit a mix of hull-damage multi-cannons and shield-stripping beams — cover both damage types.
• If you find yourself wanting to dodge and weave, the Chieftain is the better Alliance hull for that style.