Ship stats

[Piemanlives]

The Junker has only 500 perma  hull? Damn I would never have guessed.

[N-Sunderland]

Pyramidion more durable than the Goldfish? I'm going to have to strongly disagree. Two people on the hull when things get rough and that ship will seem invincible. The Pyra, on the other hand... Just dies. It's better to have one good stat and one bad stat than two mediocre stats.

[James T. Kirk]

I'm basing my opinions on not only total health, but also the need to switch ammo types (remember I play mostly pubs) and repair-ability.

And with two people on the hull, that leaves my gunner to fix his own gun (I run a HawchaFish mostly, and that needs at least heavy and burst). This makes going up another ship with a Manticore (or one with any significant shatter weapon, for that matter) hell if my gunner misses his shot/doesn't shoot first.

[N-Sunderland]

The buffgineer only jumps back when the hull goes down and you're in a bad spot. There's loads of time to buff and repair the front gun.

[James T. Kirk]

Being in a bad spot normally involves my main gun going down.

I'm not saying the Goldfish is squishy, nor is it even semi-squishy.

It can even be tanky, but only for one or two close-quarter engagements.

[Captain Smollett]

Two people plus 3 spanner hits each equals good as new.  Armor goes up faster than a Squids and you still have all your main weaponry returning fire.

[Echoez]

Personaly I believe that if you get in a realy bad spot with the Goldfish you should be punished for it, the ship is designed to be manuverable, has very good durability and its armour repair speed is only eclipsed by the Squid's and you bear a giant Heavy gun to punish anything in your sights.

With the guns the Goldfish can bear, repairing it as long as you haven't massive screwed up and put you in a bad spot should be fine, Lumberfish can jump in and out of battle very quickly while keeping engines and armour up while the close range variants either have a massive component disabler (Hwacha) or the Punchdog (Hellhound) to deal tons of damage very quickly.

The devs were right to nickname it the 'Bread and Butter'

[James T. Kirk]

That's more or less what I'm saying.

Normally, on a Hawchafish, my strategy is to single out a ship, knock out most of their weapons with Heavy Clip, move in close, Burst Round everything else, Gatling their armor, and either Charged Rounds or Greased Rounds their perma-hull.
Simple, but effective.

When I say 'being in a bad spot' I mean that:
1) My Manti was sniped out while I was closing the distance for burst rounds.
2) The other ship kills my ally unexpectedly and turns on me mid-engagement.
3) A surprise attack while searching for the enemy.

All of these situations cause my engineers to switch quickly from offensive to defensive, and while the engie on my starboard Gatling can get to the hull quickly, the other has to run from fixing the engines to the hull, and in some cases, someone has to help tend the main gun. These precious seconds lost chip away at the un-fixable perma-hull.

If everything goes according to plan, than yes, the Bread and Butter of the GoI armada is quite durable.
It's the lack of ability to get most of its durability back after a close fight that keeps this ship from being OP.

[N-Sunderland]

Are you working on getting the front gun up? If you know that you can't manage that then you can have the gunner help on the hull while one engi gets the engines.

[James T. Kirk]

Hmm. Good strategy. 

What do I have the gunner bring? A pipe wrench (to fix his gun when things go our way) or a Spanner (so he's 100% prepared for emergencies)?

[N-Sunderland]

I'd strongly recommend a spanner. On a Goldfish you generally want one engineer with spanner/mallet/buff near the front gun anyways, so bringing a wrench doesn't come with much of a benefit.

[James T. Kirk]

Yellow Names to the rescue again.

Thanks for the tips, Sunderland!

[Echoez]

I'd strongly recommend a spanner. On a Goldfish you generally want one engineer with spanner/mallet/buff near the front gun anyways, so bringing a wrench doesn't come with much of a benefit.

I always assume everyone knows things like all people having a spanner on a Fish is mandatory so I never mention it. Crewing on a Goldfish is weird, people need to know what to do else you will end up with idle people doing the wrong thing, let alone not repairing engines.. ( can't count the times I have screamed at people for this reason )

[HamsterIV]

For pyra emergency hull rebuilds I prefer to do it as the captain than reduce my rate of fire by calling my gunineer off his gun. Unless my target is trying to circle me the pyra can fly itself for a few seconds while I help bring the hull back. There is a heavy risk/reward factor to doing this, but sometimes it means the difference between a kill and a death.

[Gambrill]

Whenever I'm piloting the pyra or squid and all hell is breaking loose i don't mind taking my hands of the wheel and getting them dirty to help out