Getting attacked by an M7M full of flail missiles?

[kurush]

Does it happen? I used the barrage command on my cobra and entered "30" thinking it will fire 30 missile. Well, it appeared to be 30 * <something> and the results were downright scary. Sufficient to say that all enemies quickly disappeared at the price of ~ 200 missiles. Is it a player-only weapon or does AI perform this attack sometimes? This is probably one thing that can take out even a springblossom...

[jannix]

Forget the springblossom! With enough supply factories and say a TL resupplier escort, M7Ms can smoke just about any ship in the game, several times over. What can a lone M2 (ANY M2) do against 200 hammers ? Even if the M2 was player-controlled, I don't see how you can fight off such odds.

I love my Kraken - it is my favorite M7M. Decent speed, largest cargo, 4 missle turrets (largest number among all M7Ms). What i lose is weapons gen - which I do not need, since this is my command ship and all my fighting is done away from target.

[Creston]

What can a lone M2 (ANY M2) do against 200 hammers ? Even if the M2 was player-controlled, I don't see how you can fight off such odds.

Unless that M2 uses MARS, ofcourse. Then of those 200 missiles, maybe 5 will get through (IF they're lucky)

And no, the AI never barrages, at least I've never seen it. An M7M is a very good, if EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE, way of dealing with capships and stations and other assorted riffraff.

Creston

[tanner1ie]

I yet to make the silly money necessary to buy a cap ship.
Haven't hear of MARS before - is it in the regular game or from a script and what does it do?

[Painman]

Addon script that changes turret behavior and does a few other things.

[DDM_Reaper20]

I yet to make the silly money necessary to buy a cap ship.
Haven't hear of MARS before - is it in the regular game or from a script and what does it do?

MARS is a script written by GAZZ. It greatly enhances the effectiveness of turrets, especially on capships. On those, MARS:

1. prioritises enemy threats -- no more trying to catch a lone M5 while an M2 is blasting away at you.

2. auto-switches weapons to get the job done, based on the probability of hitting the target and the potential damage dished out

3. also targets missiles, and with damned good efficiency to boot.

4. You can also launch "goblins," which are, at heart, fighter drones -- just load fighter drones onto a MARS-equipped ship, and they'll be re-programmed to serve as goblins. Goblins, however, are much smarter than their cousins.

5. MARS can be adjusted for offensive or defensive purposes. The former will actively blast anything hostile, the latter will rather try to protect the ship from harm (again, much better than the standard turret scripts in the game).

Note that you'll earn a MODIFIED tag by installing this beauty.

However, it's really, really worth it. I can't imagine going without MARS.

Cheers, happy new year and all . . .

[tanner1ie]

^ Cool
I don't use scripts myself but good to know, sound like it makes ships a little too effective to me, anyway.
Do you just sit there thinking of yourself as the ships Captain.
Navigation Officer "Sir, enemy cap ship moving into weapons range"
Captain "Very good activate MARS and lets watch the fireworks"
or
Do you still have to do something?
Like in my car i have cruise control but i don't use it, as i'd rather not give control over to HAL

[NeverSnake]

MARS apparently has the downside of being very CPU intensive so you can't use it on all ships in the game.

[silenced]

Forget the springblossom! With enough supply factories and say a TL resupplier escort, M7Ms can smoke just about any ship in the game, several times over. What can a lone M2 (ANY M2) do against 200 hammers ? Even if the M2 was player-controlled, I don't see how you can fight off such odds.

200 missiles = load the ftl drive and jump away !

[Cycrow]

for missile barage, each volley will fire a missile from each of the missile tubes.

plus, as flails are spawn, each missile splits into lots so the number of missiles would be, 30 * tubes * spawm amount

[Seathal]

MARS apparently has the downside of being very CPU intensive so you can't use it on all ships in the game.

I just use them in M7, M2, M1 and TL ships. It's very CPU intensive if they're all in the same place using MARS, of course, so not good equipping your swarm of fighters with turrets (Or M6's) with it.

Still one of the best combat scripts there. Oh, and about that being too efective. NPC enemy ships use that with you too (not goblins, but almost eveyrthing else), so... you're jsut putting thigns equal.

[Wolfgar]

Just once.... early in the game 1.2 maybe or 1.3 I had an pirate ship fire a .....bunch..rather more like a stream of missles at me....the visual effect was ...well it looked like an S with the ship in the middle...like the ship had been rolling while repeatedly hitting the missle launch..but it was a tight grouping of missiles on either side of the ship...Dunno if that was barrage or not... never used it myself though I have tried...lol but it couldnt be a barrage could it cause it was a fighter sized ship launching? Anyway thats my bit.


Wolf

[OTAS Employee]

Just wanna make it clear that you can choose for AI and Enemy ships not to use MARS, and for only your ships to use it, if they have the software.

[TBV]

Heh, if the AI started using missile-barrage, PSGs would get very popular very fast. It'd be like X2 all over again.

[pjknibbs]

lol but it couldnt be a barrage could it cause it was a fighter sized ship launching? Anyway thats my bit.

There are non-barrage swarm missiles--the humble Wasp splits into 5 or 6 separate missiles on firing, for instance, and I've definitely seen the AI use those.

As for an M2 with MARS taking down all those incoming Hammers, yes, it possibly could. However, assuming a human player was FIRING those missiles, he'd have the sense to overwhelm the ship's defences with something smaller and cheaper before sending the big guns in!

[Spaceweed Adict]

Well a Split Cobra fire's 8 hammers per barrage so giving it orders to fire a barrage of 30 would result in the ship actually firing 240 missiles at the target and even MARS turret controlled ships can't deal with that.
Believe me I know I've tried it.

[Spaceweed Adict]

Hmm was just thinking about what kurush said about enemy ships attacking you in an M7M and using the barrage command.

Can you imagine poor old betty

"In,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in coming missile"

[Orion1632]

[TemplarThano]

Hmm was just thinking about what kurush said about enemy ships attacking you in an M7M and using the barrage command.

Can you imagine poor old betty

"In,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in,in coming missile"

iv actualy heard betty freakout like that a couple times after jumping into a Ka'ak secter were all of them decided i would like a good fireworks show in my face

[NewtSoup]

For the next patch they could take pressure off the sound system by keeping a count of "incoming missile" chained within the last second and replace it with a single expletive to the same effect .


"in,in,in,in,in,in,in, oh crap!".