The Attrition Fighters

The Attrition Fighter, the Darwinian Pilot draft, who survives gets a bigger ship eventually.

Saucer Shuttles?
These are so low end it makes you wonder how desparate are procurement for these things.  If a pilot survives it probably because they were not seen as a threat... no matter how many you bring.

Pit Vipers
The classic in attrition fighters.  There are various versions from the Trainer to House Specific variants.  One of the fastest of the Attrition fighters and generally a good all rounder.

Blizzards
For a concept the Blizzard is a cheap torp boat.  Regrettably its main weapon is a bit lack lustre because it requires getting up and close to targets that would ice in a trice.

Spirit Riders
This is one of the toughest Attrition Fighters but unlike many others in its class it comes with two torps, twin splattergun and armour value of 3!  However, to make this fighter worth its weight the pilot has to be of some standard.

WindJammers
Similar to the Pit Viper these fighters have reduced their drives for a QuintPulse Lasers which makes it quite pokey and a danger to others in its class.  Also the WindJammer has the potential to smear a Sauer Shuttle in one shot (It needs to deal 7 damage and it has a +4 modifer to begin with)

Some tricks with Attition Fighters is to use them as Torp shooters.  Another is to slightly improve the gunnery of the pilot so it shoots before other fighters.  

In swarms they can be dangerous but due to their fragility they cannot swarm for long.

I like posts like these. Do you have the stat sheets to comment on the house exclusive designs of The Twelve and other popular hulls (in alphabetical order)...
Various/Area 51:

• Chupacabra
  
• Dart (core design)
  
• Hound
  
• Iklwa
  
• Jambiya
  
• Marut
  
• Piranha
  
• Stinger (a widely distributed design- all houses, so quasi-core)
  
• Strella
  

Operation Drydock II:

• Bulldog
  
• Corona
  
• Deinonychus
  
• Microraptor
  
• Cossack
  
• Delta II
  

I'll pluck one from the list and do a write-up:

Piranha
I built this with the current design system and it was closer to ship constructed legit than I expected: it went over by just 2 points (20 instead of it's listed 18) and by a single slot (10 vs the 9 allocated to a 100-ton design), With the omission of the Mk. 40 torp it actually fits within the ship construction template guidelines. Not too bad for a former prize ship that has now become the de facto attrition fighter (along with Stingers) for those "Stockfish-in-a-cockpit" Data Sphere automata.

Great speed, quality DV, a flexible toolkit of weapons, and a price tag that doesn't break the bank puts this design at the apex of its class. If your dream bird is a Kosmos II - but with a glass cannon dealer rebate package add-on, This. Is. Your. Ship. (as is the Iklwa & Iklwa II -if you're into zebra interiors). The larger than usual single warhead is probably best used for big, brick ships as a "heavy wrench tossed into the spokes" gift-in-passing. Find your partially crippled ship 'bleeding' with these machines nearby? Expect a frenzy of disruptors tearing small chunks out of your hull (at best), or missile lock-on warnings if they've been forced to scratch the disruptor mount already (at worst).
                                      Rating: 4½ Black Widows
                     

Dart:  Conceptually a good design with 50% durability than the attrition class, but why the Twin Pulse Lasers or why the Minigun?  Just pick one, the pilot would be happy with a decent aimed weapon, not two sub par weapons.

Hound (SA): Comes at a price but it is 40% bigger than the standard attrition class.  2mk20s, a PD, slightly reduced screens and an Impulsegun.  Not a fantastic combination but a workable one, those semi decent pilots will enjoy this as much as a Spirit Rider.

Are they Sext Splattergun fodder (yes), can a MK10 torp take them out (Yes)

Iklwa (YW): There are two variants but V2 is better with its Twin Splatterguns and ML but you are still looking at a semi decent pilot to fly it.  V1 Only has a Splattergun and a gimmicky Plasma ML that makes it an excellent hunter of other ships in its class. 

Jambiya (QVP): Its price tag and durability says attrition fighter.   However, this design is in the Spirit Rider tradition.  Semi decent gunnery will give the Khanjar a punch despite the lacking of improved aiming.   The ML is a bit of an after thought and not to relied upon (you just wouldn't put any decent pilot in such a small craft).

Marut (KC): It meets the requirement of an attrition fighter.  3mk10s is a good package to have, the Twin Pulse Lasers are a bit lack lustre and the Impulsegun is another bells and whistles add on.

Stinger: Could be called the space skunk.  2mk40s does say keep away, once they are gone let the pilot play with the Splattergun.  After the payload has been released most enemies will only notice it if it hits things too frequently.

Strella (HC): Is a pilot suicidal?  Then this is the ship for them.  OK extremely good screens, Pit Viper speed but can only take half the punishment.  Is it a pimped out Saucer Shuttle?  Good luck, tell procurement to order more, it really is ML fodder.

Conclusion of the the Attrition Class needs to be broken down into:

Spirit Rider pilot needed, we could call this A Class Fighter.
Standard will keep its name as Attrition Class
The 50T and fodder should be called Granny Class ie would you let your Granny fly in it (yes it depends if you like her).

Awesome review. The rest of this is a rant on your accurate assessment of the 'granny' class hulls...

I was wanting to defend the Strella's honor (since I'm building/painting a Colos force, that's where my bias is), but pasting a Strella, Pit Viper, and Windjammer next to each other so as to avoid constant flipping back and forth in the PDF & having a better look at it, I was hard pressed to find much good about it at 10 points besides the screens/DV. I wanted to draw comparisons to Ties & Tie Interceptors and even pulled up the Star Wars variant rules sheets out for comparison, but the attrition fighters of the Empire lined up closer to the Windjammer & Pit Viper.

I play according to strict force availability charts, so at least we can say it's a doctrine thing with Colos, as the only other attrition fighters in their regular roster are Blizzards, Spirit Riders, and Stingers with Hell Benders, Talons, and Thunderbirds being their next tier ships. So there's that (doctrine). So perhaps, in our SD universe, the Strella is the Tie fighter allegorical counterpart? If so, that's good enough by me I think, though a Colos Carrier riddled with 50-ton bay doors like it was a Star Destroyer made out of swiss cheese might help seal the deal aesthetically.

The Stiletto weapon mount itself just doesn't make the 50-ton hull trade-off seem worth the bother the way the Delta II's minigun does at a fraction of the cost- those doubles while holding on to mass driver grips are truly happy times. Edit: I was wrong in this assessment- after looking at the numbers, the Stiletto is way better of the two weapon platforms. A Delta II would be hard pressed to even hit a Strella at range 5, while the Strella with same gunnery skill (D6) will mangle them with every shot guaranteed at twice the range. 

What the whole class of 50-ton ships needs maybe is an extra dash of maneuverability.  Something I'll give credit where credit is due when it comes to X-wing is the ability to differentiate maneuverability slightly better than our hex-bound game does, and it not only does this with the card/dial/template mechanics but also with stress marker mechanics. The 1" barrel rolls they can perform without the added stress is kind of what I'm thinking here, but don't quote me- I'm pretty unfamiliar with the game (I think I need to pick up the base game at least: I've avoided it too long). The only thing we have is the drive that lets you perform more turns/tight turns, but the design space is limited in that you can't just keep adding more speed to enhance ships maneuverability. Would allowing these lightweight ships 1 point sideslips or a tight turn cost of (die)+2 throw the system out of whack? I'm pondering optional stress rules for tight turns (on all ships) as well.

Again, nice write up.

That sounds like a really good option. 50T can side slip for 1 and TT for +2. I like that. Why not if MPACS TT+4. It's just the 50T is either torp fodder, it may survive a MK10 but a 5pack ML if it hits will toast the thing.

Yeah, any missile attention whatsoever shuts down nearly all of these cheap attrition fighters, even the best of them- with 10-11 damage from a 5pack being the norm, even a Spirit Rider after damage reduction is reduced to a drive of 6, so that's not a concern. if a ship can't laugh off the missile hit with 10 hitboxes, 5 will do just as well at making the pilot eject. That's what escape pods are for I guess. It takes a skilled gunner to pull off the lock more than half the time anyway, and by the time the missiles hit the attrition squad might have overwhelmed a firing arc and wounded their prey enough to put them at disadvantage in future exchanges with equal sized ships. If the name of the game is earning your points back, cheap ships don't necessarily have to get in a kill before they blow up to make the difference. Like pawns, threats & tactical sacrifices might be enough to recoup their modest investment.

I guess the next step then is rounding up all these player-created optional rules in one place, modifying rules as needed and putting it in a PDF if it accumulates enough volume.