I believe I've expressed my opinion on this before, but such things are really beyond what can be effectively conveyed in the form of text. Not to mention the fact that I have no idea if
my way of dogfighting is even any good, thus I wouldn't presume to try and tell people to do things my way, and rather let them figure it out on their own. I don't think there's a single mod (or even game) out there that tells you off the bat the "right" way of playing it... It's ultimately up to the player to develop their preferred playstyle after all. If I gave situations when to use X and when not to use X, people would have the same complaint after trying it and having less success than they expected, etc.
Hell, I don't think there are all that many guidelines like that for regular FreeSpace and it's been out for 10+ years and has had a period with an active, competitive Multiplayer scene. Most of that knowledge is only in the hands of people who have played during those days (ie. QuantumDelta), and even then it doesn't translate the best into words. There would have to be videos showing strategies and I'd say of you're asking for that, it is completely unreasonable...
I mean I could put in kind of generic pointers like "use lateral thrust to sidestep fire momentarily", or "use reverse afterburners to put a pursuing fighter into your line of sight" etc, but that still doesn't really say when is an actual good application to do so (or when it will even actually work). I suppose that's a step, but I don't think going any further would actually be any more instructional.
The three-stage missile is designed for fire-and-forget. You just spam it and it kills stuff, or misses.
The "effective range" of the diamondback depends on the size of the target. It's a shotgun missile. The closer the better. You can hit bigger targets a lot better from further away. The missiles themselves travel ~1.5km but it does next to nothing at that range. Very effective against shipping (and close range).
I'll revise the descriptions a bit and add some numbers... >.>
The Phoenix shield system is kind of a development flub. It was designed with the intention of being present, only to run into an engine bug that made it unusable until close to release.
Perhaps this makes more sense?
Type 0: Standard : no strengths, no weaknesses
Type A: Trenton Field : improved shield strength, but shield leaks a small amount of damage through to the hull
Type B: Layered Shield : shield takes no damage from light weapons, but overall strength is decreased - good vs. rapid fire weapons, weak vs. missiles and burst weapons
Type C: Hardened Shield : shield takes a reduced amount of damage from heavy weapons, but overall strength is decreased - good vs. missiles and burst weapons, weak vs. rapid fire weapons
As for the Amaterasu, the ship moves forward slowly, it isn't stationary, so there comes the problem of making sure the relative coordinates of the targetable waypoints are correct, but since set-object-position breaks all collision that doesn't work so well... There might be some more hack-ish ways but not sure if those are any good either
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As for what the Exarch says, how much of that is true? How much of it is just what he believes and is passing off as the belief of the rest of the Exarchy?
The Exarchy (that you see) appears to be holding the belief that humanity is posing some great threat to the galaxy, to the point of requiring xenocide - perhaps it could be justified (to them) in some greater scheme?
Is every free-thinker in the Exarchy holding the same belief? (Did every free thinker in the U.S. think that the alleged WMDs in Iraq warranted an invasion?) ...probably not.
Are those that do justified, by their (alien!) measures of virtues? ("Surely, you too eat babies! [are good people]") ...perhaps not by our standards.
This is perhaps the subject of a different thread, though
