Richard Tyrer · Lead Designer, Vehicle Experience team

Short answer to that is yes, but the long answer is, they are relatively close. So our light fighters are actually pretty heavy and pretty big themselves. So it's no surprise that that kind of range of ships does blur the lines. But we've been putting a lot of work over the past four months on the new flight model. And we're really working on how we make these ships interact with each other in different ways, so there's different advantages and different weaknesses in each archetype. Also, we've been working with Torsten on the weapon balance and the armor changes, and that's already started to have an impact on how these ships interact as well.

Thorsten Leimann · Assistant Design Director

Actually, it's something that we discussed a lot lately in the vehicle leadership meeting that we all have, where we need to treat fighters more as its own bucket. But in that bucket, we also need to treat the fighters differently so that there is a clear identity between the fighters. And this is something that we have been working out. The new flight model that Rich and his team are working on is also moving us into that direction, that there's better distinction between the fighters. But something that also came out from the feedback that we received with all the armor rework that we have been doing is, because we have right now in the game in 4.7, in 4.8 hopefully not anymore, this hard gap between heavy fighters and medium fighters and light fighters. So there's even a stop gap between medium fighters and heavy fighters. So we decided that doesn't paint the picture of fighters, because fighters have to fight each other, rather than there's one sitting outside that is immune to light fighters. So one consequence of us discussing in there was also bringing that closer together but still maintaining perceived differences between these fighters. So there's still a meaningful choice that then also plays into all the content that we are doing now for spaceships, where you better bring a heavy fighter, but there are also opportunities for the light fighter.

John Crewe · Vehicle Director

It's something we've talked about before as well that I want to reiterate, is that you don't do like 20 hours of light fighter, 'I've done light fighter now, so now I'm going to upgrade my role or career into medium fighters and then heavy fighters.' They're tools for different jobs. They're not linear power upgrades. You can obviously upgrade, but it's a choice of how your gameplay is to go from light to medium. You could stay in a light fighter for all your game time if you want and have a perfectly great time. You don't need to go up the chain if you don't want to. It just gives you different opportunities and different experiences.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

I think there was this big expectation when the F8C came out that it was just going to be the 'I win' button.

Thorsten Leimann · Assistant Design Director

And it's not. It's not intended to be. It's something that we have been trying for ages already, that we want each category to have its own purpose. Sometimes we hit it, and it's actually working out the way that we intended, but sometimes we have to do slight adjustments, and we are right now in the adjustment phase, especially for the fighters, and they have a focus right now, especially in the new flight model testing. Focus very hard on the fighters, that they feel great, that they feel different. And no, I'm actually looking forward to the future for fighters in our game, because I think we are on a good way there. We just need more testing.