Holy smokes! I absolutely blitz most npcs with even level 2 engineered multicannons. I used to struggle against even expert craft, but last night, I took out 2 FAS with my Python mk2, one deadly and the other expert, in like less than a minute. And i had upgraded my thrusters to dirty drives and i just flew circles around them.
I knew engineering was strong, but this is wild. Honestly, the only thing that gave me trouble were high ranked snub craft, like the Vulture.
If you’re itching for Freelancer, there are modern options! There’s a couple of different community patches / mods that attempt to bring it up to date, see: HD edition and Crossfire. There’s also Underspace and Hell Galaxy which have free demos available. Similar gameplay and mechanics but much darker take.
Awwww shit, I saw Underspace when Splattercat covered it a few years ago but it was in early Alpha then. Continued active development is enough to convince me to give it a go, I’ll probably buy it to support the dev. Keeping an eye on Hell Galaxy too. Thanks for the rec!