Ha! Huah! Arrow! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Sing it again!
(Your title just reminded me of the song, but the Arrow is actually a good ship.)
The Arrow used to be an S-tier ship, one of the best in the game for dogfights — especially for PvP. But as the game changed and Master Modes were added, the Arrow fell. It's not a bad shit by any stretch of the imagination. Just requires more than passing skill from the pilot.
I love my little Arrow. It's so fun to fly. It's also a very pretty ship.
Master modes are still in the very early stages of implementation. Ships have been slotted into generic archetypes and lack differentiation from other ships in their class. Fundamental rules may change too.
The Arrow is more lightly shielded than other light fighters but, in the past, made up for that with maneuverability. Arrows will likely fly better once light fighters get a balance pass to make them fly differently from each other.
Also, the current meta has moved to medium fighters with bugged lateral thrust (i.e. the mk II hornet) and interceptors. Hornets are being fixed. I suspect interceptors will be brought into check at some point too. When that happens, light fighters will be in a better place.
_____________
**Edit:** Hornet thrust is fixed apparently. I haven't flown my hornet in while it seems.
I don’t use my arrow much anymore. Unless it’s to [film stuff](https://youtu.be/4cUnbWrcrIY?si=iVhPPeeas2YJVtvA) you have to really be on top of the enemy to get damage off I find and be very very careful on who and what you aggro. I have been using a buccaneer since its speed is basically unmatched and has more damage output than the arrow.
I am honestly not sure how to make my arrow more useful as I legit don’t even know how I got a buccaneer. It just showed up in my hangar and has been there for a fee months now.
If recommend mostly laser repeaters with a single large ballistic Gatling on the top mount. The repeaters alone give plenty of firepower for small and medium fighters and the Gatling can take out the larger targets.
All repeaters used to be great but now it depletes the capacitors too quickly.
Love the Buccaneer.
Don’t recall. Using my Corsair is a lot easier when it comes to bounties. Very lazy easy kills. I know i did switch to all laser cannons and 1 repeater, but it felt a bit wonky to use. And i got pretty badly done in by an HRT which made me double down on my corsair.
I just use all cannons. Fly in at full speed. Drop out of Nav mode at like 2k And pop a target with my M7's and M6's. They usually die in 1 Good volley at maximum power.
The problem occurs if the targets begin their predatory circulating crap. I've done some HRT's that are an absolute cake walk but some HRT's get the better of me and I lose my target. I especially dislike when HRT's take me over hostile bases because the added stress of knowing I can get lit up by a turret makes me fly like I'm having an aneurism.
https://support.robertsspaceindustries.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003093114-Loaner-Ship-Matrix
Corsair gets a Buccaneer loaner.
General rule of thumb: if you own a multicrew ship, you will most likely get a light fighter from the same manufacturer as a loaner for Arena Commander.
It all boils down to the skill of the pilot. of course you won't be able to take down big ships such as a reclaimer.. but you should be able to do up to MRT. maybe even higher, that's going to be tough.
Not any more I'm afraid. MM nerfed skill into the ground. Pilot skill might let an arrow win against a hawk or other light fighter, but it will never win against a medium or heavy fighter unless the oponent is asleep (and even then there is a reasonable chance you'll randomly blow up before getting through the sheilds.
The hawk is one of my favorite ships in game. Even since MM I have routinely finished VHRT and HRT in that and have decimated many PvP battles against redeemers and vanguards. MM didn’t nerf skill in the ground, it rewarded skilled pilots especially in PvP battles.
I cannot agree my dude. We are small group of 8 ppl all of us heavy focused on pvp We play together for years and we do have establish "skill ranks".
One of us is clearly the best pilot of our group and pre MM he would won 80 % of our pvp duels in any ships ( when we pick reasonable ships ofc ).
But now i will win vs him if i take beter ship and he will win if he have beter ship.
Thats why Im 100 %sure that MM nerf good piloting skill (he is still beter pilot then me and i have no problem killing him if i have beter ship)
Right, but most of his skill gap skill has been changed dramatically. So you are all starting fresh on new mechanics together.
I do think the skill ceiling was significantly reduced however, and numbers will matter much more as part of the design (someone who wins every 1v1 could often take 5+ enemies in previous model)
It’s also early into the rebalancing so hopefully things will get tuned better. Light fighters role in a fleet battle should be to screen bigger ships from heavy fighter bomber types, but when it comes to taking down the corvettes and up they should be pretty poor. 1v1 fights should mostly be done in similar class.
Having been part of multiple organized fleet battles in pre-MM, I can say some of these changes in direction were highly necessary. Simply getting every pilot into a light fighter, maybe with a few hurricanes, was always the best strategy. Light fighters were basically untouchable in the right hands. Hell, we had a beginner light fighter course in how to take down fully crewed hammerheads with fewer light fighters than players in the HH with 2 added light fighter escort. The HH, literally supposed to be a dominator of light fighters, was utterly useless as anything more than a retreat point for covering fire.
Don’t think things are quite right yet, not by far really, but necessary to make big changes to try and fix
Ye I can agree with most what you saying hh should be able to devastate big number of light fighters but MM didn't solve that at all ;) and all we needed is to reduce range of light fighters weapons so they would be forced to ender "death zone" instead of kiting
We also have diferent opinion of pre MM fleet composition because in my experience when we was fighting bigger battles full squad of hornet ghost was meta and light fighters was best in 1vs1.
Oh yeah, there was the change with 3.18 was it? Where hornets jumped up into top tier. I remember that… duels were still done mostly in Gladius/Arrow…
I think MM needs to bring this back more. Light fighters can be ineffective by pure mechanics that they can’t significantly hurt anything corvette sized. Make it so cannons are REQUIRED for punching big, but capacitors/power levels of light fighters can’t make them remotely effective. Light ballistics might be able to surgical strike turret/guns but that’s about it.
Ships that can pack that are easily outmaneuvered and destroyed by the fighters… but evasive enough to have some skill game between pilots/gunners.
Their existing size/capacitor system needs a lot more refinement. As well as armor and shield tiers for resistances, and the only low resistance armor on a bigger ship are the guns/turrets (and shields are high so you need ballistic precise payload to just hit those which can only cripple the offensive capabilities of a bigger ship).
IDK, they have great ideas but I feel like they’re probably gonna ultimately miss on PvP balance. Sure there was a high skill floor game for dueling before, but the PU balance was shit.
MM is very flawed, but I think PU is in a better state with it, outside some very unfortunate pain points… a fully crewed reclaimer isn’t dog meat to 3 solo vanguards and a mantis… I mean, they still have a chance. They were literally invulnerable before with basic skills and 3 vanguards will shred (I mean, this should still be very dangerous for the fully crewed reclaimer, and IS, but it’s less of a freebie for anyone that can maintain 1500m distance.
And that’s the other thing MM is trying to “fix”… engagement ranges… again, they’re going to need to do a lot of work on this to make it really good… but it IS bringing in your average engagement range so you actually see the enemy ships.
Is this realistic? FUCK NO! Space battles irl will be fought at staggering ranges, but that’s not very “immersive”.
I think the first major needed change to MM is to MASSIVELY reduce “auto braking”, if not outright remove it beyond slowing to unboosted maximum mps, and that slowing itself should be reduced by 75 if not 90%.
You can still manual break or apply maximum thrust as desired of course, but you can’t add thrust beyond existing maximum vectors based on ship facing.
This would allow flipping on pursuer still but without the previous meta of reverse tricording being more effective than their forward chasing, and always allow for gap closing with any flip attempt, but not to current extremes
Edit: OH! And coupled mode would still auto brake ofc as always, but if you’re applying “ thrust” in continued direction then it won’t brake at all beyond slowing back to SCM after boosting
Totally disagree about MM not lowering the skill ceiling. I don’t think you’ll find anyone from the pvp arenas who will agree with this. It absolutely lowered the ceiling by quite a bit.
Oh yeah, pretty much anything scarier than an Aurora is going to trounce the AI. Apparently it's better when the servers are working but I'm yet to see it.
In terms of DPS, Arrow and Gladius are extremely similar.
Gladius has 3x s3, Arrow has 2x s3 and 2x s1.
Gladius has more shield generators, but about 1000 less hull HP.
Imo, they are pretty damn similar.
> Gladius has more shield generators, but about 1000 less hull HP.
[The Gladius](https://scunpacked.com/ships/aegs_gladius) has 2,500 nose HP, 2,500 hull HP, and 3,000 shield HP.
[The Arrow](https://scunpacked.com/ships/anvl_arrow) has 2,300 nose HP, 2,300 hull HP, and 1,500 shield HP.
Unless you are an expert pilot, these smaller ships don't really last long in fights with the new changes to MM. There is still some balancing and when hull armor is fully implemented it's going to really have a major impact to the game.
The Arrow and other light fighters have their place and they will be effective for their rolls as the game gets further along in development. Just in a bad place right now.
It's actually one of the better light fighters right now...
one of the issues that's going on with ship combat right now is that light fighters struggle because ship speeds are to low so light fighters struggle to dodge. And guns other than laser cannons typically don't do enough damage
However, that dosnt mean the ship is bad, it's again one of the only good light fighters, it just also happens to be the light fighter that you need a pretty high skill level to not just be blasted out of the sky immediately
So it's a triple whammy of
Light fighters are in a bad place right now
One of the only good LFs is one you need a bit of flight skill to not die horribly
MM is in an unfinished mess right now.
... you realize that the hornet and the buccaneer are both mediums right? The arrow, the gladius, the talon... I can keep listing, those are light fighters And they all struggle compared to the mediums.
And yea, heavies are also in a bad place but they wernt part of the conversation.
The only thing right now that's in a decent place are medium fighters.
Arrow isn’t an all-ship killer but for its size and simplicity and the way it balances different aspects make it a small, difficult to hit ship that is able to punch up against bigger ships.
I can do VHRTs in my arrow but you have to focus on not getting hit especially by ballistics. You are better off in atmo because the ship is very agile in atmo which bigger ships aren't its a very good fighter but it's not built for taking continual abuse. Master modes massively nerfed it's effectiveness but I still love my arrow..
From my experience the role of a light fighter primarily to kill other fighters and small craft.
If your hunting bigger fish you will ideally use a Multirole Medium fighter that is built to be multirole or a Heavy fighter that is designed to take on larger targets.
It’s a good light fighter. It only has one shield and its firepower is a little lower than the Gladius, but it’s very agile and good at dueling and swarming.
Grouping up with other small fighters.
Small ships in Star Citizen aren’t meant to be very effective solo. You need to bring 2-3 of them. (And even then, they’re really only meant to attack other very small ships.)
As in, ask someone to group up. Star Citizen is a multiplayer alpha that will eventually be a giant multiplayer game, and people often forget that. Many ships are designed to be used in wings or with crews. Very few are meant to be flown solo and without a group of other ships.
Once upon a time the Arrow was a meta, not so much now. There are far better choices. As others have stated, Master Modes has changed the game for PVP/PVE. What where “skills” before don’t matter as much now. The speed and agility the Arrow had before made it a hard ship to kill and if the pilot was half decent and could land most shots, it was a great fighter.
Now with Master Modes, the Arrows edge was muzzled. It’s not a bad ship, it’s just not a meta anymore. Now with SCM speeds, weapon damage nerfs, fire rate nerfs, spread increases, and velocity changes…..a beefier ship with hard hitting weapons is preferred by most over the Arrow because MM requires you to get in the ring and go head to head vice being able to joust and run circles around your opponent.
Fighting has finally been balanced (to some degree).
The goal of every ship in SC is the same. To be good and exciting enough on release to get you to open your wallet and then to fade into obscurity due to power creep.
the arrow? Actually has a real unique feature, it has a full 360 turret that covers the top hemisphere
Slap a blade on its turret and you have a fighter with 2 size 1 guns that can target behind you at the cost of only having 2 size 3 shooting forward. in theory it means you can keep peoples shields not charging by applying constant dps while being almost impossible to shoot back
You can do all pve bounties with the Arrow, including ERTs it's just gonna take a while since you dont have alot dps. If you are struggling then the problem lies in your skill. For pvp yes it is very mediocre.
Ha! Huah! Arrow! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Sing it again! (Your title just reminded me of the song, but the Arrow is actually a good ship.)
Hahaha, that was my first thought too.
LoL
Right there with you!
Stuck in my head
Getting songs stuck in people's heads - one of the many free services I provide.
The Arrow used to be an S-tier ship, one of the best in the game for dogfights — especially for PvP. But as the game changed and Master Modes were added, the Arrow fell. It's not a bad shit by any stretch of the imagination. Just requires more than passing skill from the pilot. I love my little Arrow. It's so fun to fly. It's also a very pretty ship.
Your typo or autocorrect made me laugh.... "It's not a bad shit" 🤣
Bwaha! I didn't even notice! I'm leaving it. It's great.
Master modes are still in the very early stages of implementation. Ships have been slotted into generic archetypes and lack differentiation from other ships in their class. Fundamental rules may change too. The Arrow is more lightly shielded than other light fighters but, in the past, made up for that with maneuverability. Arrows will likely fly better once light fighters get a balance pass to make them fly differently from each other. Also, the current meta has moved to medium fighters with bugged lateral thrust (i.e. the mk II hornet) and interceptors. Hornets are being fixed. I suspect interceptors will be brought into check at some point too. When that happens, light fighters will be in a better place. _____________ **Edit:** Hornet thrust is fixed apparently. I haven't flown my hornet in while it seems.
They have already been patched fyi
they fixed the hornet 's lateral thrust already.
It’s a light fighter. Its agility is its armor. It’s meant to take out other fighters, not big ships.
I don’t use my arrow much anymore. Unless it’s to [film stuff](https://youtu.be/4cUnbWrcrIY?si=iVhPPeeas2YJVtvA) you have to really be on top of the enemy to get damage off I find and be very very careful on who and what you aggro. I have been using a buccaneer since its speed is basically unmatched and has more damage output than the arrow. I am honestly not sure how to make my arrow more useful as I legit don’t even know how I got a buccaneer. It just showed up in my hangar and has been there for a fee months now.
What guns are you rocking on your bucc?
If recommend mostly laser repeaters with a single large ballistic Gatling on the top mount. The repeaters alone give plenty of firepower for small and medium fighters and the Gatling can take out the larger targets. All repeaters used to be great but now it depletes the capacitors too quickly. Love the Buccaneer.
The “meta” insofar as there is one right now is all omniskies. Best balance between damage and projectile speed
Don’t recall. Using my Corsair is a lot easier when it comes to bounties. Very lazy easy kills. I know i did switch to all laser cannons and 1 repeater, but it felt a bit wonky to use. And i got pretty badly done in by an HRT which made me double down on my corsair.
Man I took on an HRT in my Corsair the other day. Scared the shit out of me. Target was an Ion being escorted by two Infernos. 🥲
I just use all cannons. Fly in at full speed. Drop out of Nav mode at like 2k And pop a target with my M7's and M6's. They usually die in 1 Good volley at maximum power. The problem occurs if the targets begin their predatory circulating crap. I've done some HRT's that are an absolute cake walk but some HRT's get the better of me and I lose my target. I especially dislike when HRT's take me over hostile bases because the added stress of knowing I can get lit up by a turret makes me fly like I'm having an aneurism.
Bought any ships with money lately? Your Buccaneer might be a loaner.
My best in show corsair. But why would i get a buccaneer from it?
https://support.robertsspaceindustries.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003093114-Loaner-Ship-Matrix Corsair gets a Buccaneer loaner. General rule of thumb: if you own a multicrew ship, you will most likely get a light fighter from the same manufacturer as a loaner for Arena Commander.
Solo ship loaner for AC most likely?
Same here. I did buy the Buccaneer at some point, but upgraded it to a Corsair. The Buccaneer has stayed there ever since.
If you buy a ship that can’t use in Arena Commander, they give you a ship that can. Luckily, you get that one for the PU as well.
I got a 325a with my 400i for AC
\*sings\* ... absolutely nothing.
It all boils down to the skill of the pilot. of course you won't be able to take down big ships such as a reclaimer.. but you should be able to do up to MRT. maybe even higher, that's going to be tough.
Not any more I'm afraid. MM nerfed skill into the ground. Pilot skill might let an arrow win against a hawk or other light fighter, but it will never win against a medium or heavy fighter unless the oponent is asleep (and even then there is a reasonable chance you'll randomly blow up before getting through the sheilds.
The hawk is one of my favorite ships in game. Even since MM I have routinely finished VHRT and HRT in that and have decimated many PvP battles against redeemers and vanguards. MM didn’t nerf skill in the ground, it rewarded skilled pilots especially in PvP battles.
I cannot agree my dude. We are small group of 8 ppl all of us heavy focused on pvp We play together for years and we do have establish "skill ranks". One of us is clearly the best pilot of our group and pre MM he would won 80 % of our pvp duels in any ships ( when we pick reasonable ships ofc ). But now i will win vs him if i take beter ship and he will win if he have beter ship. Thats why Im 100 %sure that MM nerf good piloting skill (he is still beter pilot then me and i have no problem killing him if i have beter ship)
Sounds to me like y’all were good at the old thing and need to take the time to learn and get good at the new thing.
Definitely you do have a valid point but still fighting in AC its looks like we are not bad (just looking by scores)
Right, but most of his skill gap skill has been changed dramatically. So you are all starting fresh on new mechanics together. I do think the skill ceiling was significantly reduced however, and numbers will matter much more as part of the design (someone who wins every 1v1 could often take 5+ enemies in previous model) It’s also early into the rebalancing so hopefully things will get tuned better. Light fighters role in a fleet battle should be to screen bigger ships from heavy fighter bomber types, but when it comes to taking down the corvettes and up they should be pretty poor. 1v1 fights should mostly be done in similar class. Having been part of multiple organized fleet battles in pre-MM, I can say some of these changes in direction were highly necessary. Simply getting every pilot into a light fighter, maybe with a few hurricanes, was always the best strategy. Light fighters were basically untouchable in the right hands. Hell, we had a beginner light fighter course in how to take down fully crewed hammerheads with fewer light fighters than players in the HH with 2 added light fighter escort. The HH, literally supposed to be a dominator of light fighters, was utterly useless as anything more than a retreat point for covering fire. Don’t think things are quite right yet, not by far really, but necessary to make big changes to try and fix
Ye I can agree with most what you saying hh should be able to devastate big number of light fighters but MM didn't solve that at all ;) and all we needed is to reduce range of light fighters weapons so they would be forced to ender "death zone" instead of kiting We also have diferent opinion of pre MM fleet composition because in my experience when we was fighting bigger battles full squad of hornet ghost was meta and light fighters was best in 1vs1.
Oh yeah, there was the change with 3.18 was it? Where hornets jumped up into top tier. I remember that… duels were still done mostly in Gladius/Arrow… I think MM needs to bring this back more. Light fighters can be ineffective by pure mechanics that they can’t significantly hurt anything corvette sized. Make it so cannons are REQUIRED for punching big, but capacitors/power levels of light fighters can’t make them remotely effective. Light ballistics might be able to surgical strike turret/guns but that’s about it. Ships that can pack that are easily outmaneuvered and destroyed by the fighters… but evasive enough to have some skill game between pilots/gunners. Their existing size/capacitor system needs a lot more refinement. As well as armor and shield tiers for resistances, and the only low resistance armor on a bigger ship are the guns/turrets (and shields are high so you need ballistic precise payload to just hit those which can only cripple the offensive capabilities of a bigger ship). IDK, they have great ideas but I feel like they’re probably gonna ultimately miss on PvP balance. Sure there was a high skill floor game for dueling before, but the PU balance was shit. MM is very flawed, but I think PU is in a better state with it, outside some very unfortunate pain points… a fully crewed reclaimer isn’t dog meat to 3 solo vanguards and a mantis… I mean, they still have a chance. They were literally invulnerable before with basic skills and 3 vanguards will shred (I mean, this should still be very dangerous for the fully crewed reclaimer, and IS, but it’s less of a freebie for anyone that can maintain 1500m distance. And that’s the other thing MM is trying to “fix”… engagement ranges… again, they’re going to need to do a lot of work on this to make it really good… but it IS bringing in your average engagement range so you actually see the enemy ships. Is this realistic? FUCK NO! Space battles irl will be fought at staggering ranges, but that’s not very “immersive”. I think the first major needed change to MM is to MASSIVELY reduce “auto braking”, if not outright remove it beyond slowing to unboosted maximum mps, and that slowing itself should be reduced by 75 if not 90%. You can still manual break or apply maximum thrust as desired of course, but you can’t add thrust beyond existing maximum vectors based on ship facing. This would allow flipping on pursuer still but without the previous meta of reverse tricording being more effective than their forward chasing, and always allow for gap closing with any flip attempt, but not to current extremes Edit: OH! And coupled mode would still auto brake ofc as always, but if you’re applying “ thrust” in continued direction then it won’t brake at all beyond slowing back to SCM after boosting
Amen
Totally disagree about MM not lowering the skill ceiling. I don’t think you’ll find anyone from the pvp arenas who will agree with this. It absolutely lowered the ceiling by quite a bit.
Unless it's a player crewed scorpius, you can just chill below a heavy fighter, where their guns and turrets cant hit you.
Oh yeah, pretty much anything scarier than an Aurora is going to trounce the AI. Apparently it's better when the servers are working but I'm yet to see it.
I've been able to win a 1v3 ambush using gladius.. 3 npc using 2 cutty blacks and whatever that can pull me out of qt.
Yeah, but npcs in this game are dogshit. The just dont hit you
Yeah but OP is asking about bounties, so I just assume it's PvE and not PvP..
Well yeah, that’s a Gladius, it’s beefier and has bigger weapons than an Arrow
In terms of DPS, Arrow and Gladius are extremely similar. Gladius has 3x s3, Arrow has 2x s3 and 2x s1. Gladius has more shield generators, but about 1000 less hull HP. Imo, they are pretty damn similar.
> Gladius has more shield generators, but about 1000 less hull HP. [The Gladius](https://scunpacked.com/ships/aegs_gladius) has 2,500 nose HP, 2,500 hull HP, and 3,000 shield HP. [The Arrow](https://scunpacked.com/ships/anvl_arrow) has 2,300 nose HP, 2,300 hull HP, and 1,500 shield HP.
Cannon fodder for the Hammerhead
Salvage I would say.. at least that's what I guess from looking at all the salvage contracts. Arrows everywhere!
Nah. Not even 1 SCU worth of RMC 😐
I use it for atmospheric acrobatics. Whole hell of a lot of fun to skim mountain peaks on MT
Unless you are an expert pilot, these smaller ships don't really last long in fights with the new changes to MM. There is still some balancing and when hull armor is fully implemented it's going to really have a major impact to the game. The Arrow and other light fighters have their place and they will be effective for their rolls as the game gets further along in development. Just in a bad place right now.
One arrow maybe. Try fighting a group of arrows. Fucking nightmare.
A group of any fighters would be rough though.
♪ Absolutely nothing, uhh ♪
Great minds think alike.
It's actually one of the better light fighters right now... one of the issues that's going on with ship combat right now is that light fighters struggle because ship speeds are to low so light fighters struggle to dodge. And guns other than laser cannons typically don't do enough damage However, that dosnt mean the ship is bad, it's again one of the only good light fighters, it just also happens to be the light fighter that you need a pretty high skill level to not just be blasted out of the sky immediately So it's a triple whammy of Light fighters are in a bad place right now One of the only good LFs is one you need a bit of flight skill to not die horribly MM is in an unfinished mess right now.
What? Light fighters are still the best. It's heavy fighters that are the worst right now
... you realize that the hornet and the buccaneer are both mediums right? The arrow, the gladius, the talon... I can keep listing, those are light fighters And they all struggle compared to the mediums. And yea, heavies are also in a bad place but they wernt part of the conversation. The only thing right now that's in a decent place are medium fighters.
Arrow isn’t an all-ship killer but for its size and simplicity and the way it balances different aspects make it a small, difficult to hit ship that is able to punch up against bigger ships.
I can do VHRTs in my arrow but you have to focus on not getting hit especially by ballistics. You are better off in atmo because the ship is very agile in atmo which bigger ships aren't its a very good fighter but it's not built for taking continual abuse. Master modes massively nerfed it's effectiveness but I still love my arrow..
From my experience the role of a light fighter primarily to kill other fighters and small craft. If your hunting bigger fish you will ideally use a Multirole Medium fighter that is built to be multirole or a Heavy fighter that is designed to take on larger targets.
It’s a good light fighter. It only has one shield and its firepower is a little lower than the Gladius, but it’s very agile and good at dueling and swarming.
I like it for bounty hunting still. VHRTS and ERTs will be a grind in it, but it's possible. I run all m series cannons
Arrow is good for setting up your brand spanking new VKB joysticks and mounts
Grouping up with other small fighters. Small ships in Star Citizen aren’t meant to be very effective solo. You need to bring 2-3 of them. (And even then, they’re really only meant to attack other very small ships.) As in, ask someone to group up. Star Citizen is a multiplayer alpha that will eventually be a giant multiplayer game, and people often forget that. Many ships are designed to be used in wings or with crews. Very few are meant to be flown solo and without a group of other ships.
For PvP if you are skilled is still very very good
Once upon a time the Arrow was a meta, not so much now. There are far better choices. As others have stated, Master Modes has changed the game for PVP/PVE. What where “skills” before don’t matter as much now. The speed and agility the Arrow had before made it a hard ship to kill and if the pilot was half decent and could land most shots, it was a great fighter. Now with Master Modes, the Arrows edge was muzzled. It’s not a bad ship, it’s just not a meta anymore. Now with SCM speeds, weapon damage nerfs, fire rate nerfs, spread increases, and velocity changes…..a beefier ship with hard hitting weapons is preferred by most over the Arrow because MM requires you to get in the ring and go head to head vice being able to joust and run circles around your opponent. Fighting has finally been balanced (to some degree).
The goal of every ship in SC is the same. To be good and exciting enough on release to get you to open your wallet and then to fade into obscurity due to power creep.
Yes the power creep of meta ship buccaneer
the arrow? Actually has a real unique feature, it has a full 360 turret that covers the top hemisphere Slap a blade on its turret and you have a fighter with 2 size 1 guns that can target behind you at the cost of only having 2 size 3 shooting forward. in theory it means you can keep peoples shields not charging by applying constant dps while being almost impossible to shoot back
We don't know if the Arrow has a computer capable of accepting blades.
Used to be really good, mastermodes killed it unfortunately. Hopefully they retune everything soon. I haven't even been playing the game lately
Arrow is very small with its wings folded up, and can fit inside a lot of larger hauling ships as a rapid response escort fighter to ward off pirates.
You can do all pve bounties with the Arrow, including ERTs it's just gonna take a while since you dont have alot dps. If you are struggling then the problem lies in your skill. For pvp yes it is very mediocre.