Firestorm Vs. Hammerhead.

[Cipry]

Please debate upon it. I'm looking forward to destroy a pirate base. I just got a Hammerhead missile from a Pirate Nova that i destroyed, and i heard that the Hammerhead is a real station "killer". I launched it towards the pirate base in ore belt, expecting for some huge explosion, flying pirate guts in space and some serious damage. I was EXTREMELY dissapointed when i saw the only damage it did: a bit LESS than a quarter of the stations shields. Is the Firestorm Torpedo any better? Or is there even a more powerful missile?

[AgamemnonArgon]

Using an M8 with it's usual armament, will take out a Pirate base with around a dozen missiles, depending on how many laser towers it has.

[Cipry]

sorry that i forgot to say, it is not terran conflict, it's reunion, so no m8s

[Deadbeat_Spinn]

If the station in question had it's shields at 0%, the damage would be more significant. Plus a Hammerhead is the most powerful missile one can have, short of changing the numbers of a given missile to make it even more powerful (but that an S&M issue).

[Bobucles]

Hammerhead missiles are superior in just about every way. More damage, faster firing, less cargo space. But they can't be built, at lest not in X3TC.
Firestorm missiles can be built(X3TC), and have many "high yield" complexes around the galaxy.

One unit of missile damage = 1KJ of shields = 1 unit of hull.
A Hornet missile does 200.000 damage. This is the same as 200MJ of shields, or 200K hull. Shield values tend to be much higher than hull values (10x in TC), so plan accordingly.

[Cipry]

thank you for your quick reply. Then what is the best laser/missile, against shields?

[Killjaeden]

firestorm are one of the best missiles... and you can build em (in X3R too)
you just have to fire enough of them
A M2 with PPC is much quicker destroying a station but half as fun.
Combination of both would be the ultimate way...
or more M2... or more Firstorm... whatever you like^^
A wing of M6 can fire a pack of Firestorm pretty quickly

[jlehtone]

A wing of M6 can fire a pack of Firestorm pretty quickly

Yes but ...

X3R Pirate Base has what? Around 3 GJ of shield? So at least 4 Firestorms to dip the hull a bit.

X3R Xenon Station has 30 GJ of shielding. One would need more than 30 Firestorms even if there were no shield recharging between hits, and there is.

The blast radius of Firestorm is 1 km. Missiles within blast radius vanish without detonating. So you better let the previous Firestorm fly over 1 km before launching the next. And Firestorm has only 83 m/s speed, so it is a long firing sequence.

So no, a wing of M6 firing Firestorms simultaneously won't cause the desired damage. Typhoons are better. Only 30 MJ damage, but 8 warheads, so almost 240 MJ of damage per missile. Nothing compared to 1 GJ of Firestorm, but one can spam a lot of them "safely".

[pjknibbs]

Taking out a quarter of a station's shields is actually a pretty darned big boom if you work it out. To put it another way--if you'd been inside a kilometre of that station in any ship smaller than an M2 or M1 (since you're playing X3R) then you would be looking at The End and wondering what had happened...

[OniGanon]

Taking out stations in X3R isn't hard, just time consuming.

I remember watching a Yaki Raijin (M4) slowly come close to killing a station by itself, just using PSGs.


That ship ended up being my first capture, actually. The X3R Raijin was a BAMF.

[Scott C.]

Rather spend a week pillaging hammerheads from unlucky pirates than mess around with firestorms..... Only benefit they have outside of availability is that you can be close to what you shoot at, scoot out of range, and still make a cup of tea before they hit their mark.

[jlehtone]

Blast radius of Firestorm is 1 km. Blast radius of Hammerhead is 1.2 km.
Hammerhead is a bit faster, so time between launches is about the same.

Although Hammerhead makes more damage, you still need quite many of them. It is simply not worth the effort to waste Hammerheads on stations.

[Master of the Blade]

A favourite tactic of mine in Reunion was, when a Xenon fighter(s) did the inevitable Hammerhead Spam(tm), I would quickly fly into the middle of the Xenon group in my Hyperion and let the rocket hit me. A tad over 1/3 shield damage and no Xenon within 1.2km, without going through the hassle of finding a hammerhead/buying a firestorm/killing the Xenon.

[mrbadger]

A favourite tactic of mine in Reunion was, when a Xenon fighter(s) did the inevitable Hammerhead Spam(tm), I would quickly fly into the middle of the Xenon group in my Hyperion and let the rocket hit me. A tad over 1/3 shield damage and no Xenon within 1.2km, without going through the hassle of finding a hammerhead/buying a firestorm/killing the Xenon.

Nice trick!

I don't tend to find many Hammerheads in TC, even when I go missile farming (Camping Danna's chance with a Hyperion and a TS to hoover up the goodies).

I do like them though. When I do I reserve them for particuler events like taking out a kha'ak cluster before/just as it breaks up, or wiping out the escorts of a Xenon patrol. I think I've got around 20 at the moment, like I said, they're sparse.

For everything else I prefer re-targetting missiles.

[perkint]

When I do I reserve them for particuler events like taking out a kha'ak cluster before/just as it breaks up, or wiping out the escorts of a Xenon patrol. I think I've got around 20 at the moment, like I said, they're sparse.

The hammerhead is a bit overkill for that. I just use RGWs

Tim

[Paladin-Solo]

When I do I reserve them for particuler events like taking out a kha'ak cluster before/just as it breaks up, or wiping out the escorts of a Xenon patrol. I think I've got around 20 at the moment, like I said, they're sparse.

The hammerhead is a bit overkill for that. I just use RGWs

Tim

The Wraith missile is absolutely brutal on a flight of fighters, huge blast radius and damage and multiple warheads, its pretty to see from far away as you see a bunch of large explosions go off and hear pirates scream over their radios, lol. But yeah Khaak Clusters don't react to missiles till they hit them, so anything that can 1 shot them is extremely effective.

[Biroboy]

In Reunion I definately rate the anti-cap-ship swarm missile (Typhoon I'm pretty sure...) over any of the high-yield warheads. They have 3 major avantages when taking on M1/M2's over the high-yield types:

1) No fratricide - The small blast radius means you can spam the hell out of them and won't be wasting warheads.
2) Swarm Warheads - Even if you're going up against something with turrets, most of the warheads are going to get through.
3) Manufacturable - A closed-loop complex pumping out these things gives you enough to spam the heck out of any cap ship you come across, and still head home to get more whenever you want.

I used to load up my Hyperion with the things and there was absolutely nothing in the game that could lay a finger on me.

As far as taking out stations, I always use an M2. The amount of cash you need to spray out the launch tubes to dent a station with missiles is just plain excessive. PPC's take a little bit longer, but once they'll come close to paying for themselves relative to missiles after you've killed a couple of stations.

-- Biro