Fer-de-LanceCombat

The Fer-de-Lance is built around a single idea: win the fight in front of you. A huge hardpoint — rare on a medium — sits amid four mediums with tight convergence, and a class-6 power distributor (the size you'd expect on a far bigger ship) feeds them all without the brown-outs that throttle other fighters. Six utility mounts carry an unusually heavy defensive suite for the class.

It pays for that focus with internals. Just six optionals, none larger than class 5, mean it can't tank as deeply or carry the cell-bank stacks of a Krait or Python Mk II, and its jump range is short. But in a duel — PvP or a tough single NPC — its agility, alpha and sustained fire are class-leading. The FDL is a scalpel, not a hammer.

Four things make the Fer-de-Lance the duelling king:

• A huge hardpoint. The single biggest gun mount on any medium — a huge multi-cannon or plasma accelerator delivers alpha that ends fights.
• Oversized distributor. A class-6 power distributor on a 250t hull means you fire the huge gun, the four mediums and boost without ever starving — uninterrupted pressure.
• Best-in-class agility. It turns and holds a target better than any other medium, keeping your guns on the enemy and theirs off you.
• Six utility mounts. Room for a heavy shield-booster and chaff suite that lets a relatively small hull punch defensively above its weight.

A unique huge hardpoint, an oversized distributor and class-leading agility make it the best duellist below the Corvette; only its shallow internals keep it off the role ceiling.

The 93/100 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

For one-on-one fighting the Fer-de-Lance tops the medium class — nothing else combines a huge hardpoint, this agility and an oversized distributor. The Python Mk II and Krait match or beat it for grinding crowds and tanking, but in a duel the FDL is the medium to beat.

Other classes — the larger leagues

The Corvette is the FDL writ large — the only ship that out-duels it, at the cost of a Federal grind and a large pad. Below it, the Vulture is the small-pad budget duellist. For a medium-pad scalpel that beats almost anything one-on-one, the Fer-de-Lance stands nearly alone.

At ~51M Cr the hull is a premium medium, with no rank or permit gate. Its small internals actually keep the outfitting bill modest — there are fewer big modules to A-rate — so the all-in engineered cost is reasonable for a top-tier fighter.

Spend on the weapons, distributor and shield first; the FDL's combat value comes from feeding its guns and holding a tight defensive utility suite, not from deep internal modules it doesn't have.

A duelling fit built around the huge hardpoint and a heavy utility suite, tanked as deeply as six small optionals allow. Initial is buy-only; A-rated is the duel-ready baseline; Engineered applies the house combat pattern.

Buy the hull and fit the largest shield the class-5 bay allows — a 5E Shield Generator. The hull-reinforcement, cell-bank and module-reinforcement internals stay empty for now; it's duel-ready quickly on shields alone, riding the stock Lightweight Alloy bulkheads (~405 armour).

Arm the huge mount with a 4A Multi-Cannon (Gimballed), and fit the mediums buy-only as a mix of gimballed pulse lasers (shields) and multi-cannons (hull).

Fit a single shield booster and leave the other five utility mounts empty for now — the FDL tanks through shields, not bulk armour.

A-rating priority for a duellist — feed the guns, then the shield, then buy the one bulkhead that's worth the mass:

• 1Power Distributor → A — The oversized unit is the FDL's heart; A-rate it so the huge gun never starves. ~6M Cr
• 2Power Plant → A — Headroom for the huge gun, four mediums, shields and boosters. ~7M Cr
• 3Thrusters → A — Preserve the class-leading agility that wins duels — and carries the added bulkhead mass. ~5M Cr
• 4Shield Generator → bi-weave — Fast regen keeps you in the fight against a single focused target. ~4M Cr
• 5FSD → A — Mitigate the short range as much as possible. ~3M Cr
• 6Bulkheads → Military Grade Composite — The one armour concession: ~405 → ~790 effective, nearly doubling the buffer behind the shield, with 4D/2D hull reinforcements stacked under it. Pricey, so it lands last. ~46M Cr

The house combat pattern focused on a duelling hull. Pin blueprints for remote G1→G5 application; visit in person for experimentals.

Recommended order

• 1Distributor and plant to G5 first — the huge gun plus four mediums need uninterrupted power.
• 2Thrusters to G5 to maximise the agility advantage.
• 3Huge multi-cannon Overcharged with Corrosive; Thermal-Vent beams to strip shields cool.
• 4Reinforced bi-weave and Heavy-Duty boosters — the FDL shield-tanks, so prioritise shields over hull.

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

Engineering pushes boost past 480 m/s and shields past 1,000 MJ while keeping the FDL's elite agility. Military Grade Composite plus Heavy Duty bulkheads and the 4D/2D hull reinforcements lift effective armour past 2,000 — a real fallback if the shield breaks — turning an already-lethal duellist into a medium that out-flies and out-alphas almost anything one-on-one. The short jump range never improves much; that's the price of the focus.

• Fly it as a scalpel: pick single targets, out-turn them, focus them down — don't wade into a crowd that can swarm its thin internals.
• Shield-tank, don't hull-tank; six small optionals can't carry enough armour, but they can carry a strong shield and a cell bank.
• Accept the short jump range — base the FDL near your fights rather than fighting its transit.
• The huge hardpoint defines the build; choose its weapon (multi-cannon for sustained, plasma for alpha) and design the mediums to support it.