Maybe something like a Skipray Blastboat?

OK, the second seat I can accept. A rear-gun... fine, thought I'm not happy with it. But a fighter repairing other craft? That just doesn't work for me. There isn't any need for it either, what with Gallofrees and Bulk Freighters handling repairs. I've never heard of an FPS game in the entire history of Battlefield where you could form up with another fighter or helicopter and be repaired by it, and I don't really see a reason why FS should be the first.

"Another Rebel craft like the Gunboat" would of course be the Y-Wing. It has a rear-firing gun, roughly (read: pretty much exactly) the same argument, and the same role (read: all-round attack fighter).

I'd go with my favorite the Skipray Blastboat as a heavy support "fighter". It fulfills all your requirements (gun turret, slower, heavily armed, and so on. I'd actually be sort of happy with it doubling as a repair craft, too, since it's a big ship, more like a shuttle than a fighter - you could very conceivably say that there are zero-g technicians spacewalking out of it with tools and whatever to repair fighters, kinda like we Earthlings do with our space shuttles. So yes, I'd be happy with having a Blastboat repair fighters near it, although for balance we should probably restrict it somehow (have the repair function only work when the Skipray is near-stationary, have it be a limited action like the Gallofrees' shields, something like that).

Having said that, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing Gunboats in the mod. We could balance them so that they're counterparts of Y-Wings. They're nice craft and among my favorite X-Wing series craft.

EDIT: As for Rebel counterpart, I agree, make it a small YT-something craft. Doesn't have to be canon, just make something up. Give it a sort of familiar design and some gun stations and let it repair craft.

Many people feel that space maps in general, and especially Taloraan, are much too shallow and straightforward, and could use more depth. Various ideas have been thrown around by the test team, devs, and of course fans, and I hope some or most of them will eventually be implemented.

PS: Canadiens, I checked out your blog and really liked it. PicLens is a masterpiece of a program .

I think space feels so shallow because its so empty, everything looks blank unless your looking at a capital ship. If it were up to me fighters would have feint engine trails like in homeworld and you should be able to see the bloom (is that the right word?) from engines from anywhere in the map.

Also, like homeworld there should be more maps where its not just space, but maybe inside some kind of nebula or dust cloud. This could do wonders for the level of immersion.

Engine trails but make them less pronounced.

More interesting locatione/backgrounds