Regarding early game interceptors and their weapons (new player)

[Amoebka]

I got Little Bird in early March, upgraded to Buckaroo around late May, and then just waited for shadowtech (Scarab etc). Worked for both my first blackbeard run and the current jack sparrow one. I started in EA both times, which makes necroplane parts (which you need to get 14mm ammo from) a bit more common than usual though.

Never used anything other than 14mm ground chainguns and 25mm light ones either.

[Tamren]

The little bird is great. I used it all the way up to october when I upgraded the fleet to aircars instead. Little birds can handle anything short of an aircar/UFO, but the key is that you have to use them early and often to knock out hoverpods and bandit cars. If you do enough of those crash sites you'll get LMG and HMG weapons/ammo you can feed back into the little bird and sustain operations. Otherwise it quickly runs out of steam and is inferior to the angry bird because you can't swap the chaingun for something else.

[Psyentific]

I usually beeline for the Angry Bird because it's a straight upgrade to the Little Bird (+1 weapon, +2 crew) at the cost of 25 speed and a few of the LB's glamour spawns. From there I aim to get a few Buckaroo necrofighters and use Bikes or Pigeon as my transports. This is also around the point I'd try and get a second base online for more hangars and radar coverage. Because of its radar range and healthy crew size, the Pigeon makes a great B-Team transport for your second base; it can put radar coverage over a region for days at a time and respond to missions or landings as it does.