If it can't down a Dragon in under half a minute with only primaries, it doesn't cut it. Therefore, no Ares for me, thanks. I'll take a Ulysses any day.
True, but...
I can do it in 10 seconds with secondaries. 3 for a missile lock, 7 for the treb to reach the dragon from 3 clicks out and snuff it out.
And with the huge harpoon payload I carry, even in close range combat I can easily achieve a missile lock and fire off two pairs of harpoons (bye bye Dragon).
Finally, the gun positions on the Ares are quite good imo and I can score hits with the Kayser fairly well. And unlike the Erinyses (which has crazy primary firepower, but NO REACTOR POWER OUTPUT to match it), the Ares has enough power to back the guns up.
In any case, the Ares is obviously not a furball fighter and does it's work from a distance using secondaries. Kind of like the Missile Boat in Tie Fighter, where the MB was designed specifically to kill the Tie Defender using overwhelming secondary fire.
In the last mission the Ares is still good. You see, if you've loaded up with Trebs you just stay 3 clicks closer to the node and destroy stuff with the supply ship sitting beside you. Then you run for it when the star goes supernova.
Having said all that, I'll have to say this: I would never choose the Ares in an all-human PvP. Against humans that know how to dodge trebuchets, it's far too risky to use the Ares.
