[Cyborg17]

Perseus.

[Aesaar]

Perseus.  Both banks loaded with Kaysers, Tempests in secondaries.  Also it looks cool as hell.

Fight me.

[The E]

Perseus for life

[FrikgFeek]

Well, it really depends on the mission, but the Perseus is good enough for pretty much every non-bomber mission. It's pretty versatile, has a good loadout and has enough hull to survive a few AAA beams.
My personal favourite "good for everything" loadout would probably be double proms, 1 bank of trebs and 1 bank of tempests.
Kaysers are probably better for dogfighting, but proms outrange standard flak, which can be a lifesaver in missions where you have to both dogfight and disarm capships.

Though I really like flying the Serapis, the good pitch, jaw, and roll make it able to dodge pretty much everything(aside from beams, which will absolutely tear through your cardboard hull).
I know some people like the Uly but I don't like the lethargic roll. It pitches and yaws like a Serapis but rolls like the Athena.

EDIT: Guess I wasn't clear enough, I vote the Perseus simply because it's always good enough and it always performs what's asked of it without any obvious weaknesses. So that's a 6 Perseus vote chain.

[IronBeer]

The Perseus is my favorite all-round fighter. Plenty of reasons have already been enumerated, but I'm simply adding my voice.

That said, my secondary favorite is the Ares..... but I generally prefer not getting shredded to bulldozing enemies. Further, I actually kind of like the Seth, but it requires a good bit more pilot engagement to keep your AB hot, which can get tedious.

[wardog300k]

Erinyes-7
Perseus-6
Ares-3
Serapis-2
Hercules-2
Pegasus-1
Loki-1
Valkrye-1
Ulysses-1
Thoth-1

Perseus get another 5 votes,but neither the voting Perseus chain was not enough to give it Erinyes' first place.

Come on people,vote for the Horus,its better than the Perseus...

[Phantom Hoover]

unless you're getting shot at

[General Battuta]

One of the Vasudan fighters is pretty decent except it has a weapons subsystem right on the nose which will absolutely get skewered every time you attack a warship with beam CIWS.

The Kulas also suffers this hard.

[FrikgFeek]

The Horus is probably the best interceptor, but it's incredibly bad at every other role. The weapons subsystem is easily disabled and the gunpoints are pretty spread out, making it impossible to hit smaller fighters.
It also has relatively big damp values, making it turn in huge loops.

And when the burners run out it might as well be the GVF bullseye, the target profile from above is pretty huge.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

unless you're getting shot at

Or try to shoot anything smaller than a bomber or heavy fighter. Seriously, that thing's firing point are basically as horrible to work with as the firing points of most Shivan crafts.

EDIT - partial ninja'd

[wardog300k]

The Horus is faster than the Perseus,it has the same secondary capacity,and OK maneuverability,its side profile is smaller than Perseus',and its an interceptor,so it ain't supposed to attack warships like the Ares or the Artemis,although you can destroy Cain if you approach from the right angle,and like every other fighter,it can engage the Moloch with no fear.It is my third favourite fighter after the Ares and the Erinyes.Even when flying the Horus,I do way better than with the Perseus,and I tested them in the same mission,with the same armament.In fact,not so long ago I upgraded the ship's model with better subsystem placement and more guns(8 actually),it will probably be featured in the Final Destination,if the GTD Shadow doesn't take all the available table space...

[FrikgFeek]

Table space? Don't we have modular tables to fix that issue?

On topic, The Horus is a good interceptor, yes, but the Perseus is so much more than that. The Perseus is one of the rare fighters that will perform almost anything you ask of it without complaints, and that's without relying on Treb-spamming or glitching out the retail AI.
I don't know what difficulty you're playing on, but unless you have Trebs the Horus is completely incapable of engaging anything with AAA beams. It only has 170 hull, and that will dissapear very quickly. The large profile also makes it more vulnerable to flak.

[wardog300k]

I'm mostly using retail for the mod,as I want it retail-compatible.FSO is only used for error-checking in the tables.

I play on medium or hard difficulty.
And I was able to destroy an Leviathan,with the Prom S and Subach HL-7 on the Horus with around 40% hull integrity.
With the Perseus and the same armament,I managed to destroy it,but with not much of the hull remaining,like 10-15%,as the speed does help to dodge AAAfs and Terran Turrets.

Note:I wasn't just sitting in front of it and shooting the SGreen,I flew around the ship shooting as much as possible.

[FrikgFeek]

Not sure what AAAfs are doing on hostile ships, but last I checked, speed doesn't really help in dodging them. They just have a set miss chance based on difficulty and a small FOF.
Though on lower difficulties you could probably get away with using more fragile fighters as player damage is reduced.
Terran turrets should be easy to dodge in anything smaller than an Ursa. Blob turrets just suck.

[General Battuta]

Speed only helps dodge beams in that it can move you out of their firing arc. AAA hits are pure chance.

[wardog300k]

Blob turrets just suck.

Nope,I was once vaporized by one in a Jotun.OK,it was actually shooting the Armageddon I fired at the ship and escorted,but the mother****** got a lucky hit on the bomb,and that 56k damage ain't for joking...

I dodged the beams by quickly flying to the other side of the ship(top,bottom,back or the front),and Horus' massive afterburner speed is very useful in such a situation.

[FrikgFeek]

You're not dodging the beams, you're just staying out of their arcs. You can't "dodge" beams, as they don't have a travel time and will always hit if the RNJesus decides they should. And it's really not necessary to fly everywhere to dodge blobs, small adjustments are enough.

[Vrets]

I've started trying the Insane difficulty level. It's amazing the difference in opinion one is forced to develop in regards to slow, heavy fighters like the Herc. The scales have fallen from my eyes.

Ten years ago, playing Fs1 on my potato computer, I loved the Hercules--it was my beloved potato fighter. It was a fighter built to compensate for my terrible computer and horrendous lack of skill. My computer was so terrible, and the difficulty level so low, that I could destroy the fastest enemy fighters with Hornets. "lag-based" pursuit curve, indeed. My glorious potato herc could shrug off an infinite amount of abuse and destroy any enemy as I hurtled myself jerkily into the void of space at 5 frames per second.

Now, today, on my LORD DEATH apocalypse computer with difficulty cranked to insane, the old Herc has become nothing more than a medieval death trap; it is become a cruel mockery of my comforting, youthful memories; it has become a symbol of the passing of time, of unwanted change. Today, in the Herc I cannot avoid enemy fire. My shields are useless. The once-venerable hornet missile is useful only for killing freighters. Although the fall of the potato reflects my positive growth as a person (who can afford actual computers with fancy features like "memory" and "a graphics card"), I nonetheless shed a tear for my false memory of the glorious potato fighter.

**** you, Hercules. Worthless piece of ****.

[Phantom Hoover]

you forgot to vote for the perseus though!!

[General Battuta]

As difficulty goes up, heavy fighters get more bad, but they're still good at missile engagements at long range. Then you add Fury AI and most missiles are suddenly bad because the AI is dodging them. Then you add countermeasures that actually work aggressively on aspect seekers and even Trebs are bad