[Kosh]

You had confused Pegasus with the Perseus, Kosh. Perseus is a Terran interceptor which have two gun banks that can carry Kaysers, Pegasus is a stealth fighter you face in one mission in FS campaign and,

Sorry their names look so much alike I get them confused easily.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Yes, there was, "Endgame", but it wasn't a good choice there.

Whenever I use it in that mission, I play hide-and-seek.

[Droid803]

Seeing as you can pass that mission by intercepting the first wave of bombers, the Pegasus is a fine choice.

[ChronoReverse]

On hard mode with the Prometheus S and Tempest, you can basically kill the opponents within seconds.  My wingmen all get killed off quickly no matter what I do but being stealth I can live long enough to take them all on =)

[Kosh]

It's only stealthy if the stealth dealy is enabled in FRED. Without that it is still kind of tough to kill given its low profile, high speed, and superb manueverability. If flown right this could very well be the Terran version of a Dragon.

[Asakura]

Yes, there was, "Endgame", but it wasn't a good choice there.

Lovely box to fly in that mission if you ask me. Prom-S and Tempests. Real joy to dogfight Ulysses as well, and the rest of the mission is basically killing Hercs and Medusas around Collie. Just avoid the Aeolus and the Deimos, though you actually have a good chance of getting the kill for the Layola if you throw enough tempests on it and get the Fortune to kill it. The Deimos is a little dangerous to try since it can skewer you relatively quickly by that point in the mission.

[Dragon]

I must try flying it someday on Endgame (it was a long time since I played main FS2 campaign, I also played on Easy at that time), on Hard or Insane.
Also, I don't remember what was the outcome, but the first time I played Endgame (on Very Easy, even longer time ago), I tried Pegasus just because it was something that I didn't flew before. I might have passed this mission in it, but I'm not sure (I wasn't a good pilot at this time, I didn't even managed to complete SOC loops on Very Easy in that  playthrought).

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Actually, I tend to see the Serapis and Loki as GTVA counterparts of the Dragon.

[Asakura]

Except that the Loki is actually durable.

[Iranon]

In a 1 on 1, these craft may compare (because twice the firepower on one side and twice the durability on the other side would appear equal)... but not in the bigger picture.

The Serapis has twice the primary firepower of a Dragon, 4 times the secondary loadout but a third of the shields....  one is an unkillable gnat while the other is a (very agile) glass cannon. If the Vasudans want an unkillable gnat, they have to bring out the Ptah which has far better shields than their other light fighters; the Serapis and Thoth are delicate but deadly.

I still think the Loki is the perfect dogfighter - enough primary firepower that it can't be ignored (unlike any Shivan fighter), good enough shields to do their job while under fire themselves (unlike any Vasudan light craft), and a sturdy enough hull to not spontaneously explode at the mere mention of AAA (unlike Dragons, and even the Ulysses needs to watch out).

Asakura makes a good point about the Loki's durability - discounting the souped-up Mara, the best-handling Terran craft with more shields are the Erinyes and HercII; that's quite a drop in flight performance.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

If the Vasudans want an unkillable gnat, they have to bring out the Ptah which has far better shields than their other light fighters;...

Unfortunately, the Ptah is the size of a giant turd, so that affects its survivability somewhat.

[Asakura]

I rarely load UD-8s so whether or not Serapis can use those hardly bothers me. What bothers me though is while its top primary bank is nicely placed the bottom bank is a tad wide. I usually load Prom on top and Maxim below, latter mainly for capships.

Loki is quite a decent fighter for intercept as well. It has the fastest burners among the GTVA fighters, it actually shows some nice increase in speed with power shunted to engines and it also has great reactors for sustained fire when it comes to gunning bombers. Secondaries I usually just load trebs and forget about them after I finish unloading.

[QuantumDelta]

If you're working against the clock in any fashion, or facing overwhelming odds in your dogfight the loki isn't worth that much more.
The 'excess' manuverability it holds is, excess, you can get an eri to turn about as fast as most people can turn a loki if you fly it properly, and the eri has about 10x the firepower, comparing the two isn't a great idea because they're there for different reasons.

If this were an RPG and you could taunt and keep agro of all the enemy fighters the loki would be lovely, cuz then you could let everyone else blow up what's shooting at you, but with only 4 banks (primary) and a small secondary bank you lose a huge, huge amount of firepower, and you will quickly see your squad vanish into small explosions in the night sky if you aren't helping (well, on well balanced missions).

The loki DOES make a decent interceptor, but it's really not space superiority, it doesn't have the 'oomph' to make the difference.
Wheny ou consider what you can load an eri out with compared to a loki for a little loss in unneeded defences against most ships/scenarios you'll want the eri.
The loki would beat the eri 1on1 though - assuming equal and respectable skill levels on behalf of both pilots.

Well, assuming the eri doesn't blow the loki up in one pass.
I would be trying for that if BD were coming at me in a Loki -.-

[Iranon]

@ Asakura: Unfortunately, reactor capacity does nothing in the unmodified game to my knowledge, and I'm not aware of any mod that changes that either. The Loki and especially Serapis  would be truly sweet otherwise... although I like both of them as it is.

As it is, gun recharge is proportional to max capacity - on the same energy setting, it takes the same time for everyone to recharge from empty to full. As such, higher capacity is very useful. This hurts the Ulysses quite badly for example: maximum energy of 80 rather than 150 (most FS2-era Terran fighters, Ursa, Serapis, Thoth) or 100 (most others). It's also a problem for Vasudans who want heavy primary firepower - all of their Kayser-compatible ships only have 100 points. So while you can put quad Kaysers in a Tauret, you can't use them as liberally as you could in a Terran fighter.

I think the same applies to shields but I'm not 100% sure.

*

The Loki is an awesome dogfighting machine  that is rarely practical if getting the job done is a bigger problem than survival. You could argue that its survivability allows you to be more reckless which in turn lets you cause more mayhem... but heavyweights like the Erinyes aside, do you really need those last few percent of performance over the Perseus so badly that you can justify giving up 3/4 of the secondary loadout? I adore the Loki and strongly dislike the Perseus (in my eyes the only fighter without a hint of personality) and in a 1on1, the Loki tears the Perseus' pants off... but rationally the Perseus is a better compromise of performance and firepower in most situations.

[Macfie]

You can use the energy transfer system to effect the weapons recharge rate and or the top speed.  The max afterburner speed is fixed but by transferring energy to engines you can increase the recharge rate.  In FS1, unlike the other fighters and bombers, if you increased the energy to the Loki's engines the speed went down.

[Thaeris]

Strange, really. I think I'd take a Herc 2 over an Eri in most cases. Actually, the handling of the two fighters is exactly the same - the only difference is that the Eri is 10m/s faster. It also has more hitpoints, though its shielding is inferior. Overall, it's less survivable... primarily due to the fact that it's a massive target. I'd call it more of a "Heavy Space Superiority Fighter" rather than an assault fighter.

The Loki is my second favorite after the Herc 2. The fighter qualifies as a superiority fighter when the density of hostiles is not tremendous... or there's not too much cap-ship action nearby. When you're in really dense fire though, you want something with a little more firepower - the Loki is a little lacking in this respect.