About to wipe out a sector with M8 and M7M

[XanII]

My plan: Wipe out a certain sector containing stations, capital ships and tons of fighters that i dont like.

Problem though is that I am not quite familiar with how i should use M7M and M8 missiles effectively.

I have now been experimenting on what is effective but cant quite put my finger on how to wreck things effectively.

Currently it seems the best way is to jump in and start distracting targets with your personal ship. firing smaller distractions missiles, then have the M7M walz in, start blasting flail tunnels followed by hammers. At this point M8 are good to jump in and start sending those slow flying missiles at stations and capitals and then jump out.

Finally M7, M2 and fighters wings jump in and kill any survivors.

Staying IS the whole time is best. unless enemy resistance is so diminished it matters not anymore.

Is this the correct way to do it or am i missing something? I dont like to save&load all the time to learn something so it's easier to just listen to what others have done instead and try to do it right the first time.

[Kapakio]

Wiping out a sector with an M7M does not require much planning. If the sector is not too big and your cargo is full of missiles, you can just target a big ship, fire 1000 barrages, sit and see the fireworks.

If there are too many stations you can use an M8 to destroy them. I'm too lazy now to do the maths, but I think 8 barrages of tommahawks would be enough to destroy one regular station.

[Killjaeden]

but I think 8 barrages of tommahawks would be enough to destroy one regular station.

way too much
this would do 40m damage
a tradingdock or shipyard has iirc 30m shields and 2m hull

regular factories have ~ 9m shield and 1m hull (varies, depens on size and factory type)

if you use a M8 you have to calculate otherwise half of your missiles go poof because of range.

[DeadlyDarkness]

I'd say eliminate the capital ships and fighters with the m7m first, then wipe out the stations with the m8.

[EmperorJon]

1. Fill your M8 with missiles.

2. Hit Barrage.

3. Type 1000.

4. Laugh as your missiles run out, but the ship continues to fire... FOREVER!

OMG!

It works on my game at least!

[mrbadger]

1. Fill your M8 with missiles.

2. Hit Barrage.

3. Type 1000.

4. Laugh as your missiles run out, but the ship continues to fire... FOREVER!

Not if you are sat in a TL full of Tomahawks and keep beaming them to it

I've cleared a huge Xenon sector using just an M7M. It was full of missiles though. A very costly excercise, but fun.

This isn't so easy for me at the moment, as I'm not building stations, but I'm slowly filling my M7M from npc stations.

I plan to have a battle where an M7M is acting as long range artillary support, so I can use M7s to greater effect. Probably two M7M acting together would be better.

[Antarus]

I find M7M boring. Point at a target, launch missile barrage, target is destroyed, look for another target. It is even more poweful OOS: I once had a single Cobra completely clean Xenon Core 023. The fleets of Qs, Ks and Js never even got in 20km range. By the way, from what I've heard there is absolutely no missile defense OOS, so every missile is a guaranteed hit. Not that it would matter, with the amount of missiles an M7M causually launches.

[XanII]

Okay i got missiles but sounds like you guys play with 1000+ missiles.

Dont got that much. And i didnt plan to go refill in the meantime. plan was to use missile strikes first, then bring in the M2/M7 and a carrier to keep the pressure up.

So M8 is good for taking out stations as long as you do the math first? but not much else? and M7M takes out anything as long as you got ridicilous amounts of missiles? was wondering about how much will i loose per lets say, any non-khaak M2 that i target vs. how many will connect?

And is it the flails that count or does the hammers have any function in this or are they just good to shoot down by the ai?

[Antarus]

From my (admittedly short) experience a good mix of flails and hammers can effectively confuse and take out a MARS-equipped M2 with tons of fighter drones. Just experiment a bit and you'll find the best flail/hammer ratio eventually. The flails are less powerful but more likely to hit and are also useful to distract the turrets, the hammers are the things that make it go BOOM at the end.

But anyway, if you want to use an M7M or M8 you definetely should have a complex to supply them, they eat missiles like candy. It's always a good idea to have a TL full of missiles in reserve, just in case the battle turns out to be bigger than expected