Harrier Frigate

"The Harrier Frigate is an agile ship, perfect for flanking maneuvers and avoiding damage. Frigates only fire forwards."

General
The Harrier Frigate is a Tier 1 hull with primitive Miner Rebellion technology.

As a frigate, this ship focuses on agility and evasion, avoiding damage when possible.

Advantages
Harrier Frigates and most frigates in general are only powerful when given enough speed and reflexes in combat. Frigates are incredibly agile ships and thus very maneuverable, allowing many tactics other hulls cannot pull off.

Although this ship starts with no special slots, resulting in the lack of thrusters, this can be fixed by upgrading to Mk II, which is very easy to achieve (read here). Mk II Harrier Frigates are effective kiting ships in the early game until you unlock the Rancor Battleship. In addition, Mk II frigates get a large damage bonus against destroyers and battleships.

Some players use the Harrier Frigate as a decoy to pull certain enemy ships away from the rest of the fleet in order to pick them off one by one. However, this (obviously) only works when the enemy is on auto (i.e. with AI switched on, no manual piloting), or when facing NPC Targets.

Disadvantages
Harrier Frigates, like other frigates, are relatively fragile and therefore must rely on their agility to win fights. This can be achieved in numerous ways.

Kiting, the most common tactic, relies on having a range advantage over the enemy. You turn your ships such that the enemy is on the very edge of your firing arc, strafe away from them while firing your weapons, then turn away to regain distance before the enemy manages to open fire at you, rinse and repeat. Both forward and turning speed increase the rate at which you gain distance from the enemy, while strafe speed decreases the rate at which the enemy catches up when firing your weapons. Two formations can be used for this purpose. The compact box formation, which reduces the extent you have to turn in order to open fire, but the enemy may have to get closer for all of your ships to open fire, and the line formation, which reverses the strengths and weaknesses of the box formation.

Flanking, effective against destroyers and battleships, requires the use of two groups of frigates. You surround the enemy and position your ships such that the enemy's firing arc is directed at only one of the two groups. That way, the enemy is unable to defend against all of your ships at once. Send the other group in and destroy the enemy before the ship could turn around and fire on them. If the enemy has a high turning speed, send both groups in, so that even if the enemy manages to take out the first group, it will waste time turning around before being able to damage the second group. A high forward speed can help you get in range to fire before the enemy manages to turn around.

Dodging, which requires the most skill overall, involves moving in such a way that causes enemy weapons to miss your ships entirely. Oftentimes, players do so while facing the enemy so that they can fire back, eventually claiming victory as the enemy is unable to inflict much damage to the frigates. Thus, strafe speed shines the most here. Besides speed, fleet formation is also very important. Make sure to space out your ships so that any incoming projectiles will pass between your ships. This is often achieved using a standard box formation.

Trivia

 * You receive a single Harrier Frigate for free at the beginning of the game.
 * You receive another free Harrier Frigate on your 2nd day since playing.
 * In the early stages of closed beta, this ship could move swiftly backwards, this was nerfed due to it being able to take out more or less any NPC fleet with ease.
 * This is the only ship that does not receive a resistor slot when upgraded.
 * Mk 3-5 upgrades appear in the preview server, but are unavailable in the live server.
 * All player ships had their Resurgence values modified as a result of the late February 2020 update.