I was looking to create a good Gunship for my game because, frankly, the Brawler sucks and most mods' "Gunships" are just "Ships with guns" instead of a helicopter-style Gunship.
I am confused.
Gunship: An airplane or a helicopter heavily armed with machine guns or with machine guns and cannon, providing air support for ground troops in combat.
What seems to be the general idea in Starsector about what a gunship exactly is?
Naval Gunship and Helicopter Gunship are two different things. The Naval Gunship is basically a boat loaded up with guns. Almost any boat can be a Gunship, technically.
Helicopter Gunships are maneuverable, durable ground-attack craft, typically with limited anti-aircraft abilities but superb ground-striking abilities with an emphasis on precision.
I was more referring to helicopter-styled in that it has a very slim, hard-to-hit-from-the-front profile, ideal for a gunship. It can keep it's tightly-packed forward guns trained on a target while presenting it's target with a hard-to-hit opponent.
My cornerstones for Starsector Gunships are:
+Forward-facing Hardpoint Weapons as the main source of firepower. No turrets or minimal turrets with VERY limited arcs.
+Efficient forward-locked shields.
+Good maneuverability and acceleration/deceleration, allowing it to strafe
+Decent speed (This is what KILLS the Brawler)
+A compact design, allowing more precise application of firepower and less "Wasted space" making the ship a bigger target.
I was trying to get some Apache or Cobra Helicopter sprites to mod up some other Gunships, but I can't find any decent ones that are top-down and don't have giant-ass rotors blocking most of the sprite. I can't draw for crap, myself, so I haven't been able to whip up any decent sprites and almost any that I found besides Sprog's awesome work clashed with the vanilla look so hard that they looked to be a different game. I could see Sprog's ship fitting in with any midline (Or even some Hegemony) fleets, so that's what I went with for looks.
I wish I could make my Cleaver sprite a bit less blurry, but upsizing it tends to do that. I love how it handles in-game, though. Easy to get into a capital ship's blind spots and hover there. And the closely-packed guns let you easily focus your fire on a key engine or weapon system on the enemy ship.
But it's not great against Fightercraft, has to watch out for tail-seeking missiles, and in a fleet battle has to be aware that it's rear is wide-open. And at only 150 max speed, a lot of the faster Tri-tach ships can still kite it pretty easily.
Also, I'd go with the Destroyer size too, Mendoza. It looks a bit wide and bulky for a Frigate, but a bit on the small side for a Cruiser.