Wildfire missiles and the FF symbol

Paranoid66 · Post by **Paranoid66** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 13:22

Playing around with a new start took on an combat mission rather underarmed but used a wildfire missile I had picked up by chance to take out the target.

Bit confused about the 'FF' symbol with missiles. Noticed it is applied to the Wild Fire but also another missile with a supposed manual detonation.

Is FF supposed to be Fire and Forget? As in lock on a traget fire and then the missile will continue after that target until it hits.

Does it stay locked on if you select another target while it is still tracking or will it change target?

Sadly I have previously used missiles in a fairly simplistic way.

imperium3 · Post by **imperium3** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 13:33

Wildfire (and several other missiles including all M7M/M8 missiles and the Tempest) has the special ability that it can pick another target if the first is destroyed, and so on. Whereas all other missiles will just fly off into space.

Personally I wouldn't follow those symbols too closely. Sure, in general they let you know what missile does what, (and some like the Hammerhead one look pretty cool), but there are a few which are very wrong, like the Firelance which has the FF icon, but is actually a small pathetic unguided missile that can't track anything. Best way to find out about a missile is to open up its info ingame and look at what attributes it has.

Paranoid66 · Post by **Paranoid66** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 13:38

Thanks I thought the FF might have been misplaced with other missiles.

Oddly I couldn't find a discription for the missile symbols in the printed manual.

The difficulty with missile discriptions is: some do not seem to have been updated from previous game versions that led me question the rests accuracy.

imperium3 · Post by **imperium3** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 13:42

Hmmm. Leave it to me and I'll write up a full guide, seeing as I do know a fair bit about how the missiles work, and no one else seems to have done one yet. I'll set to work straight away

Kapakio · Post by **Kapakio** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 13:49

In case you're interested, here's a complete list of missiles that will reaquire a target if the primary one is destroyed:

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=3037676

juanitierno · Post by **juanitierno** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 15:06

Imperium, that would be great

Certainly something i would print!

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 18:07

I think FF means 'free fire' rather than 'Fire and forget' in that you don't have to have a target locked in order to be able to fire the missile. That is why dumbfire missiles can also be FF. This can also avoid anti-missile fire from the target as it does not know it is being targetted.

Some missiles that are not FF will retarget if the original target lock is lost while in flight but they must have a target in order to be launched in the first place.

AgamemnonArgon · Post by **AgamemnonArgon** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 19:04

I thought it meant Fire and Forget as that is the purpose of the missile....

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 19:12

Fire and forget means that after launch at a selected target the missile needs no further guidance from the launching ship which can therefore immediately fire other missiles at other targets as necessary. Ideally it should also mean that you can also forget the target of that missile on the basis that the missile should hit and kill it. All missiles in X3 apart from Synaptic missiles (user-controlled detonation) are fire and forget using only the first part of the definition above.

Only certain missiles in X3 will launch without a valid target selected. These either go straight ahead or look for a target and home in. Those are all FF or free fire/firing missiles.

AgamemnonArgon · Post by **AgamemnonArgon** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 19:45

Sounds like the ideal time to load up about twenty of everything and find a few Pirates to check out the theory of these things - Good Idea !!

Now, where did I leave that Panther parked....

infohata · Post by **infohata** » Wed, 3. Feb 10, 20:31

AgamemnonArgon wrote:Sounds like the ideal time to load up about twenty of everything and find a few Pirates to check out the theory of these things - Good Idea !!
Now, where did I leave that Panther parked....

Panther is

especially with 32 M3's onboard...

Threesixtyci · Post by **Threesixtyci** » Thu, 4. Feb 10, 20:04

I think I know the missile you're talking about. It's a Torpedo type missile labeled with a FF symbol instead of a DF symbol. I just figure they messed up and put the wrong symbol to the missile and never bothered to patch it.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Thu, 4. Feb 10, 20:35

If you can fire it (whatever it is) without a target then it is FF. It may be a DF as well though.

Yulric · Post by **Yulric** » Fri, 5. Feb 10, 05:19

imperium3 wrote:Hmmm. Leave it to me and I'll write up a full guide, seeing as I do know a fair bit about how the missiles work, and no one else seems to have done one yet. I'll set to work straight away

I'll be looking forward to reading this information -- as it seems like it will surely aid many. There are a lot of types of missiles and sorting it all out takes a bit of time and effort -- good idea there.

Yul

Eisenkalle · Post by **Eisenkalle** » Fri, 5. Feb 10, 14:33

Yulric wrote:
imperium3 wrote:Hmmm. Leave it to me and I'll write up a full guide, seeing as I do know a fair bit about how the missiles work, and no one else seems to have done one yet. I'll set to work straight away

I'll be looking forward to reading this information -- as it seems like it will surely aid many. There are a lot of types of missiles and sorting it all out takes a bit of time and effort -- good idea there.

Yul

Yeah that would be a fine treat. Thank you in advance, can you put it then in your sig?

I am still confused with some missiles, that's why I simply stick to missiles I know everything about. Like hornet, thunderbolt, silkworm and wasp missiles (+M7M and Terran missiles).

perkint · Post by **perkint** » Fri, 5. Feb 10, 20:13

If you get a good guide, it's well worth getting it put in the sticky as well

Tim