It's big, it's bad, and it transforms into a siege tank. UNE's latest toy is the Marauder—a second-generation Strike Suit that first occupied the hangars of Wing Commanders everywhere, and could very well come to own a spot in yours. Even so, a DLC suit would come with questions: What, exactly, are the specs on the Marauder? How does she handle? Knowledge, as Control would (frequently) stress, is power—and this overview aims to provide it in spades.

The Marauder may be balanced (read: toyed around with) by the developers at Born Ready Games. Thus, the information in this guide may be outdated. I will do my best to edit it accordingly, but I can't make any guarantees that it will be done shortly after the patches hit live. Readers should also be aware that I don't use numerical scores when rating the Marauder's performance, only observations—and these are applicable to Easy/Normal difficulty, not Hardcore (unless noted otherwise). You have been warned!

The Marauder is one of the slowest ships in the game, second only to the Blade Bomber. Unsurprisingly, this also means its Strike Mode covers the least amount of distance when moving—contrary to the Raptor, whose rapid default dive can give even a Black Fleet Interceptor a run for its money. As a tradeoff, however, the Marauder can continually dash in Strike Mode without ever running out of thrust—so while it won't be winning any marathons, you will never be unable to sidestep the incoming missiles whenever an enemy cruiser decides to launch ten of them at your face.

There ain't much to say here: She might be slow, but nobody can fault the Marauder's toughness. High armor and shield values allow it to shrug off bullets from lighter enemy craft with ease, and withstand barrages of turret fire that would have shredded the featherweight Raptor. The Marauder is also capable of tanking a few missiles should your EMP key jam for whatever reason. As with all fighter craft, however, the Marauder cannot survive a direct hit from a torpedo—heroics are thus unadvised when corvettes are on the field.

Most suits have Strike Mode. The Marauder, on the other hand, has Siege Mode: when transformed, this ship packs dual LPE M 162mm U cannons and up to five MTAM Avengers at once. There's quite a bit to say when describing the Marauder's arsenal, so let's start with the big guns.


No other usable weapon can match the LPE M 162mm U in range—or in damage. It has a maximum firing distance of 6999, and, when linked, will easily take out a little over half of a corvette's total armor. One shot means instant death for any lighter enemy craft—full shields, armor and all. Heavy fighters, though more durable, will go down just as quickly should their shields reach half bank or less. The drawback? A one-second recoil after each shot—making these cannons ridiculously powerful, but just as slow as the ship they're mounted on.


The Marauder's cannons hit hard, but its MTAM Avengers hit even harder—no surprise there, since they really are miniature torpedoes. Unlike Vendettas, however, they cannot be shot down—which means that they'll keep going until they either hit their target or else some unfortunate sod who happened to be in the way. Each Avenger has a lock-on range of over 20000 (suck it, Vegeta) and a single warhead can reduce a Black Fleet Corvette to a flaming heap of slag—but, like the rest of the Marauder, sacrifices speed for power. Though noticeably faster than conventional torpedoes, Avengers are still quite slow and have poor tracking—rendering them borderline useless against nimbler fighters.

So we've covered all the positive aspects of the Marauder: She's built like a tank, hits like a tank, and is capable of out-flanking—and out-ranging—anything from corvettes to enemy capital ships. Is there anything this suit can't do?

Well, there are a few things. As you may have guessed, the Marauder's presence on the battlefield is unlikely to herald the destruction of entire squadrons of fighters at a time. Without the Strike Suit's multi-targeting missile system or the Raptor's AoE shotgun, the Marauder is ill-equipped to deal with the massive swarms of enemies and torpedoes that the game is so fond of throwing at you in later missions. This issue is made worse in Hardcore, as its weapons—though powerful—are not quite strong enough to pick off basic fighters in one shot (or one Avenger, when dealing with corvettes), forcing the player to spend even more time trying to deal with superior Colonial numbers.

On top of that, the suit's Strike Mode weapons do not respond well to knee-jerk reactions. Like the Rail Gun (or EMPL 250 MJ, in technobabble), the Marauder's cannons need a shot clear of any obstructions in order to inflict damage. Not a problem when engaging fighters—but picking off a turret can become an exercise in patience, as you may need to maneuver yourself above it in order to avoid hitting whatever it's mounted on. In addition, the Avenger's lock-on system is very sensitive to the position of the reticule; a slight drift may cause your missiles to target something that you aren't actually aiming for, wasting both flux and time.

It is also important to note the ship's slow rate of accumulating flux. This is hardly an issue when there are plenty of soft targets around to blow up—but things get a bit troublesome when it comes to capital ship combat. The Marauder, which one imagines was designed to go toe-to-toe with unfriendly frigates, consumes a copious amount of flux whenever it fires; chances are you'll hit empty long before your target goes down, whether or not you have friendly bombers nearby.

The Marauder is tough, with each shot packing plenty of boom for your buck. Lack of crowd control, however, limits its versatility and effectiveness against swarms of enemies. Hardcore dogfighters with a taste for the agile and speedy would do well to avoid this suit altogether and stick with the basics—or the Raptor. Idle snipers, however, can rejoice; the Marauder and its overwhelming long-distance firepower is a match made in Strike Suit heaven.