CorsairAX Combat

Point Gutamaya's modern combat medium at the Thargoids and you get a fast, well-armed AX skirmisher. Three medium hardpoints carry a full triple-Gauss battery — the meta heart-cracking weapon — while three large mounts add Enhanced AX multi-cannons for sustained hull damage. Imperial speed and good agility let it bob and weave through an Interceptor's lightning the way the agile mediums do, and ten optional internals (deep for a combat hull) give it the room to tank with shields, hull reinforcement and Guardian hardening at once.

The reason it sits at 84 rather than alongside the top AX mediums is specific and honest: the Corsair has no military slots and no fighter bay. Module hardening — the Guardian Module Reinforcement that keeps Thargoid lightning from stripping your kit — has to come out of the same optionals you want for shields and hull, and there is no SLF decoy to split a swarm. The Chieftain, Krait Mk II and Challenger all bring at least one of those advantages, so they edge ahead. The Corsair answers with three native Gauss mounts, raw speed and internal depth — and no rank or permit gate.

Four things make the Corsair a capable Xeno hunter:

• Three medium Gauss mounts. A native triple-Gauss battery — the heart-cracking weapon of choice — with three large mounts left over for Enhanced AX multi-cannons.
• Imperial speed and agility. 355 m/s on boost and good handling let it dodge the lightning that heavier AX hulls must absorb — in AX, evasion is survival.
• Ten optional internals. Deep enough to layer a bi-weave shield, hull reinforcement and Guardian module hardening despite having no dedicated military bays.
• No rank, no permit. Pure-credit access to a fast, six-mount AX platform — no navy ladder to climb first.

Three native medium Gauss mounts and Imperial 355 m/s boost lead the score; no military slots and a medium-grade 270/~235 MJ base tank cap it at 84.

The 84/100 headline is a verdict against the anti-Xeno 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 anti-Xeno combat specifically. The role column is the hardpoint loadout — the basis for an AX weapon suite. Evasion, hardening and heat management matter as much as raw mounts.

Same class — medium-pad AX ships

Among the AX mediums the Corsair is the fast, deep-internal generalist: more native Gauss mounts than the Krait or Phantom, faster than the Challenger, roomier than the Chieftain. What costs it the points is the missing module hardening — every hull above it either has military slots or a decoy bay, and in AX that survivability matters more than an extra gun.

Other classes — the large AX warships

The large warships out-tank and out-mount the Corsair but need a pad and usually a rank grind, and none can dodge an Interceptor's lightning. The Corsair trades their soak for speed: it stays out of the fire rather than standing in it, fields three native Gauss from a medium pad, and asks for no rank at all.

At ~76.9M Cr the Corsair is one of the priciest combat mediums, but it carries no rank or permit gate — just credits and the Guardian/AX unlocks. A full AX fit with triple Gauss, Enhanced AX multi-cannons, a capable shield and layered Guardian reinforcement runs to roughly ~110M Cr A-rated and ~140M+ Cr engineered, with a modest medium-ship rebuy near ~7M to budget for.

You pay for speed and breadth, not survivability. If you already fly the Corsair as a combat or multipurpose medium, converting it to AX is straightforward — you keep its pace and add Gauss. If you want maximum staying power per credit, the Alliance hulls deliver most of the AX capability with military slots and a lower price.

A fast AX skirmisher: triple Guardian Gauss on the medium mounts for heart damage, two Enhanced AX multi-cannons and a Guardian Plasma Charger on the large mounts for sustained hull damage, and the deep optionals carrying a bi-weave shield, Guardian module hardening and Guardian hull reinforcement to make up for the absent military slots. Initial is buy-only; A-Rated adds the unlocked AX/Guardian kit; Engineered hardens shields, hull, heat and mobility — the AX and Guardian weapons themselves cannot be engineered.

Buy the hull — there is no rank to earn first. The AX/Guardian weapons, the Xeno Scanner, the caustic-sink kit and all the Guardian module and hull reinforcement are unlock-gated, so on credits alone the buy-only column leaves every hardpoint, every utility and the Guardian internals empty (—) until the materials are farmed.

What you can actually fit buy-only is the defensive shell: the stock Lightweight Alloy hull the Corsair ships with and a 6C Bi-Weave Shield Generator in the first size-6 slot. The rest of the optionals stay open for the Guardian tank once it is unlocked.

The cores stay stock E-rated at this stage — the 7E power plant, 7E thrusters, 7E power distributor, 5E FSD, 4E life support and 6E sensors all wait for the A-rating pass, and the hull stays Lightweight Alloy until that pass swaps in Military Grade Composite; only the class-5 fuel tank already sits at its working 5C rating.

AX-fitting priority for the skirmisher:

• 1AX / Guardian weapons — Triple 2B Guardian Gauss Cannons on the mediums, two 3C Enhanced AX Multi-Cannons and a 3C Guardian Plasma Charger on the larges. material unlocks
• 2Power Distributor & Plant → 7A — Gauss is brutally capacitor-hungry; the class-7 distributor and plant come before anything else. ~18M Cr
• 3Thrusters → 7A — The Imperial speed is the survivability; protect it. ~8M Cr
• 4Guardian reinforcement — Two 5D Guardian MRP and four Guardian HRP (5D, 5D, 3D, 1D) in the optionals to replace the missing military slots, plus a 2D Hull Reinforcement to fill the smallest. material unlocks
• 5Bulkheads → Military Grade Composite — Swap the stock Lightweight Alloy for the 2.5× hull-boost composite; it is the base armour the whole Guardian HRP stack multiplies. ~71M Cr
• 6Shield & booster — The 6C Bi-Weave shield backed by a 0A Shield Booster and a 6A Shield Cell Bank for burst healing. ~8M Cr
• 7FSD & light cores — FSD → 5A for reach to the AX zones; Life Support → 4D and Sensors → 6D to shed mass. minor

AX engineering hardens shields, hull, heat and mobility; AX/Guardian weapons have limited engineering. Pin blueprints for remote G1→G5 application; visit in person for experimentals.

Recommended order

• 1Distributor and plant to G5 first — triple Gauss is immensely capacitor- and power-hungry.
• 2Dirty thrusters to G5 next — speed is how this hull survives the lightning.
• 3Thermal-resistant bi-weave and shield booster, plus a Heavy-Duty hull reinforcement, against Thargoid thermal and caustic damage.
• 4Note: AX/Guardian weapons and all Guardian reinforcement come from unlocks, not blueprints.

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

Engineered, the Corsair pairs three Gauss and three large AX mounts with a shield near ~900 MJ, a Military Grade Composite hull driven to Heavy Duty plus a five-deep Guardian HRP stack — effective armour into the high thousands with stacked caustic resistance — and ~430 m/s on boost: a fast, hard-hitting AX skirmisher. It still has no dedicated military slots, so the hull HP comes out of the optionals; it wins by dodging the lightning and cracking hearts quickly, not by standing in the fire.

• No military slots: budget two Guardian MRP and Guardian HRP out of the optionals before chasing extra shield.
• Put all three Gauss on the medium mounts and AX multi-cannons (plus a Plasma Charger) on the larges — the Corsair has no huge or military weapon mounts.
• Speed is the survivability: manage your weapons capacitor, dodge the lightning, and re-engage rather than tanking it.
• No fighter bay means no decoy — control range and heat yourself, and lean on the wing for aggro in big fights.