M7 and the M7M

[Palladin888]

Can anyone explain the diff between these two ships.

[Romantic Heretic]

M7's main armaments are lasers. M7M's main armament is missiles and they are the only ones that can use Flail Barrage missiles. Most can also launch boarding pods carrying marines to capture ships.

List of M7s

List of M7Ms

Hope that helps.

[Mightysword]

M7 is simply the next ship on the hierarchy M3-M6-M7-M2. So in general, it's a ship between the corvette and the destroyer. Usage wise it's pretty nice and I think a lot of people use it as a ship of choice because it's not as slow as the M2, have enough fire power to bring down most target in the hand of the player with medium afford. So think of it as the next inline in term of firepower if you're moving up from an M6. Most of them can also carry some fighters, which is nice since both the M6 and M2 botched this feature. Also, the Split especially have 2 M7s, the Tiger which is like I described, and the Panther which is actually a small carrier.


The M7M ... well, it's a missile frigate. Most of them can not mount any gun or regular missile. However they mount a bunch of missile and torpedo tub. In vanilla it has 2 type of ammo.

+ The Flail Barrage: a swarm type missile for anti fighter purpose. Although it's as good as any to take down all target up to M7.
+ Hammer Heavy Torpedo: this is the anti-capital ammo.
+ Boarding pod is a special type of ammo use to launch your marine to capture other ships. For the most part I think it's easier comparing to space walking, also it give a bonus when cutting hull.


As for its usage, well one usage is obviously to capture other ship. Other use is the missile. Even when you launch one by one, it has a much higher firing rate than conventional missile launch from other ship, but the best part is it can fire in barrage of 10. So yeah ... think about firing 10 waves of toperdo with only a 1sec pause between waves and with 10 torpedo per wave and you get a pretty good idea the kind of fire power it has. Of course, only if you have the money to use ammo like that. Oh yeah, "10" was use as an example, most M7M have the capacity to launch about more than 30 waves ... so have fun. :d


To put it politely and technically, the M7M is pretty good at take out anything and everything. But let me be honest and say it blunt here, it's the ship that its existence is a big LOLWTF!?!? It's there to make your balls feel big, it's there to make the AI curse its existence, it's there to make enemy captain wet their paints realizing their so call "fleet" are as flicker as a candle light before the wind (before a storm is more like it). And it's also there for you to vent for your frustration after being chewed by your wife or girlfriend or your boss. It's the ultimate facerolled tool of destruction that you rarely see in a video game. So you jump in a Xenon sector that's so full of red you think it's the blood on the neck of someone who just get his head chopped off, scared? No problem, your trusty M7M can make it as squeaky clean as an elven's arse and your map will be as blue as the summer sky in under 5 minutes. Even 5 angry M2 admirals will have less than half the fire power of a bored M7M captain

[Darkhymn]

Mightysword has it pretty well covered, but I'd like to clarify and provide a counterpoint or two.

The M7 Frigates are essentially small capital ships filling a variety of roles. As Mightysword stated, the Panther is in fact a smaller, faster full blown carrier (circa 40 ships iirc). For the most part, the rest function in exactly the role you'd expect: bridging the power gap between the M6 Corvette and the M2 Destroyer, and they do so very well. In the hands of the player, they're faster, more maneuverable, and very nearly as well armed as an M2. With some skill, there's not much you can't kill solo in a Tiger or a Shrike.
Additionally, OOS, these will (generally) land first volley in unobserved combat with the larger capital ships, as they are faster. Players notice this most with the Xenon Q, which has a habit of patrolling in and killing player M2s in the opening volley.

M7M Missile Frigates are completely different, and fill a much narrower role. They are lightly shielded and can only fire missiles (with one exception). They carry up to 20 Marines (with one exception), and are the only ships that can fire boarding pods (with the exception of the OTAS Aquilo, which can't, bizarrely). They fire two types of missile, the Hammer Heavy Torpedo, which is best used on M7 or larger, and the Flail Barrage Missile, which is wonderfully suited to missile defense and the rapid dispatch of anything M6 and smaller. The Flail also makes a wonderful distraction for anti-missile fire, as the Hammer is quite slow.
M7Ms can be used to clear entire sectors. Solo. They are frighteningly overpowered, as covered by Mightysword above. HOWEVER, in order to be used as the monstrous murder machine (ah, alliteration) he describes, you really need a very large complex producing ammunition. The one I have in the works is, from what I gather, relatively small, and involves 30 stations and a startup investment of about 80 million credits. They are also very lightly shielded and somewhat vulnerable to other M7M.

In my opinion, the real greatest use of the M7M is boarding. An M7M (excluding the Aquilo) can deliver up to 20 marines (with one exception) to a target in groups of 4 per pod. Boarding pods give a bonus to the mechanic skill (hull cutting), as well as being a much more effective means of entry when boarding than spacewalk. To the best of my knowledge these can only be acquired two at a time from military bases, which seem to automagically produce them over time.

[BDK]

M7 = Evil killing machines if armed properly (a.k.a. IBLs).
M7M = Used primarily as boarding ships as they can launch boarding pods.
If you want a real missile launcher, grab an M8 - They pack a serious punch to any capital ship.

[garv222]

M7 = Evil killing machines if armed properly (a.k.a. IBLs).
M7M = Used primarily as boarding ships as they can launch boarding pods.
If you want a real missile launcher, grab an M8 - They pack a serious punch to any capital ship.

If a normal M7 is a killing machine, the any M7M is more of an instrument of mass destruction. Special mention would be the skirnir which is the big daddy of M7M. I think the developers added a extra digit to the damage of the skirnir's main payload missile - the shadow. Unlike the hammer heavy torpedo, the shadow is a swarm missiles which fire releases 8 warheads which do 650k damage each. Release a barrage or two of these and there's a good chance you'll clean out a small sector.

[Infekted]

Anyone else noticed that Paladin888 will come and ask a basically retarded one line question, then never actually respond to any answer?

[StarSword]

Anyone else noticed that Paladin888 will come and ask a basically retarded one line question, then never actually respond to any answer?

It could be worse. He could be like JasonB on StarDestroyer.net, a sci-fi debate board I've spent a good bit of time on in the last couple of months.

JasonB's MO is to make a thoroughly retarded (and usually unintelligible) post about Star Trek. When people respond with a logical answer, he craps out another string of gibberish.

[JanusTN]

Everything they've said about M7s and M7Ms are good.

I'd like to add that the missiles fired from M7Ms will reacquire an enemy target if the initial target is destroyed, which is invaluable to me so I don't waste too much ordinance against a single target, if I fired too many hammers, it simply goes to the next victim and punches them in the face instead.

J

[Gazz]

There is no such thing as overkill.

It's not even that farfetched, either.

[esd]

Anyone else noticed that Paladin888 will come and ask a basically retarded one line question, then never actually respond to any answer?

Is a response needed? Polite, maybe. Needed? No. Perhaps they don't have time to post much. Perhaps they're young. Perhaps they lost the page?

What in all of hecking thumpery is "retarded" about the question, and what makes you think it's acceptable to describe someone else's posts in such a manner?

This post needs no reply, but I'd have a think about your posts before you next hit submit.

[deca.death]

It's not even that farfetched, either.

Scary Nazis : (
They were like comic book villains, only for real : )

[Rhox]

Anyone else noticed that Paladin888 will come and ask a basically retarded one line question, then never actually respond to any answer?

You say that just five hours after the thread was opened? Patience, young Padawan

I mean, not everybody logs in to the forums every few hours. Just give him some time...

best regards,
Rhox

[Darkhymn]

... missiles fired from M7Ms will reacquire an enemy target if the initial target is destroyed...

This is a great point. I'm a little shocked that I left it out. This is particularly nice with flails, as you can fire a barrage at a single fighter and be reasonably sure that every red fighter and ts in the sector will be killed by it.

[garv222]

There is no such thing as overkill.

It's not even that farfetched, either.

Damn... I thought the paris gun was nuts. Forgot those nazis decided to continue down the same train of thought....

[Gazz]

Yep, that's a seven ton shell.

You hit something with that and it's going to stay hit. =P

[SkullCowboy]

Everything they've said about M7s and M7Ms are good.

I'd like to add that the missiles fired from M7Ms will reacquire an enemy target if the initial target is destroyed, which is invaluable to me so I don't waste too much ordinance against a single target, if I fired too many hammers, it simply goes to the next victim and punches them in the face instead.

J

One eency weency problem with this on occasion. If you have a specific target that is blue you have to set them as enemy to fire the missiles. Fire too many and those extra missiles seek out ships you really didn't want to kill. BOOM. Whole lotta rep loss...

[Romantic Heretic]

It's not even that farfetched, either.

Actually those things were kind of useless.

Much preferred these.

In action.

[deca.death]

In action.

Put link to katyushas without sound? Blasphemy friend, pure blasphemy.



Real Deal

[Gazz]

This isn't about useful. Rule of Cool. =P