[AP] How to fight M8

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wRAR
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[AP] How to fight M8

Post by wRAR » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 20:50

I tried to battle M8s in Nova Prototype and Skiron. I cannot avoid them because apparently at current fight rank I'm doomed to fight them: every assassination mission and every anti-pirate station defense mission spawns an M8 (sometimes two of them) with full fighter escort of 6-8 ships. They immediately start spawning Tomahawks/Phantoms and apparently have several dozens of them. Even if I manage to get into laser range with the M8, I can't fight it, dodge missiles and fight/evade escort fighters at the same time. It's even harder to do that with the completely white screen, and large blasts of "successfully" "neutralized" missiles that kill me and/or the M8 do not help either.

Is the only solution "use bigger missile"? Or should I improve the fighting rank on random encaunters to "upgrade" to spawning M6s?

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Post by cswiger » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 21:13

You shouldn't have much problems taking out an M8 in either of those two ships.

For defend station missions, try starting them when you are next to it, and fly towards the enemy. You should deal with the fastest first (ie, M5s, then M4's, then the rest), or leave them be if the M8 is starting to launch. Once that happens, take it out. The rest of the fighters should go after the station, not you.

For assassination missions, almost all of the fleet will jump out once you kill the target. So do that ASAP, unless you do want to dogfight a hostile crowd.....
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Post by tanner1ie » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 21:16

I've found the only way to fight them, in a fighter, is to fight fire with fire and kill them with your own missiles.

Due to tomahawks now having health, you'll be using most of your weapon energy killing them, not having much left to damage the M8s.

Get too close to them and shoot one of the missiles, and as you found out it will kill you both.

It's ridiculous that they keep firing missiles, no matter how close you are.
They should stop firing missiles and which to turrets only, if you're less than a Km from them.

Of course shooting missiles at targets with turrets will get a lot of them shot down but wasps have a range of up to ten Km, so keeping 8-10km from them, launching heavy and swarm missiles at them, while shooting their missile spam, has worked for me.

(Tempest missiles are my favourite, because if their intended target is destroyed, they'll go after another enemy - something, i think, all missiles should do.)
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Post by Raize » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 21:23

M8s are a pain. I have trouble with them even with my Boreas. A major contributing factor is that the game considers "M8" a capital ship larger than "M7" and gives them priority for my PPC turrets. Obviously, they never hit. And the Flak never targets them because it's not commanded to shoot capitals. Mosquito Defense is nice, but really can't keep up with the volume of Tomahawk spam. One bomber is usually okay. Two is touch and go, may lose my Boreas and have to reload. If I see three or more bombers, I just reload, it's not worth trying.

The only hard counter to bombers seems to be fighters, but losing swarms of fighters to Tomahawks is not efficient. I have tried using Typhoon missiles against the bombers with limited effect, the Typhoon is simply too slow to hit the bomber before it begins launching. The best counter would probably be a M7M to just maul the bomber with Flail before it can really start filling space with missiles.

With only a Skiron and a Nova, your best bet is to use the Skiron and spam Typhoons at them as soon as they arrive, and ensure you have MDM and an adequate supply of Mosquitoes. I tend to use up 30-50 per bomber per fight.

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Post by tanner1ie » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 21:31

cswiger wrote:You shouldn't have much problems taking out an M8 in either of those two ships.
Killing/capturing M8s, in TC was easy, but have you tried fighting them in AP?

In TC, they hardly fired any missiles, any they did fire you could take out with one shot (as i said now, heavy missile have health).
I used to look forward to M8s in defend station missions, because like all other enemies on those missions, they ignored you 'til you attacked them.

In AP, they'll keep flying towards a target, but start launching missiles at you if your with in 25Km - one every five seconds.
They can ever fire them backwards, while flying towards a station.

You'd think, you'd be safe in a Centaur, from them - you'd survive one direct hit, not two.

(Centaur's have three 200MJ shields, or 600MJ, one tomahawk does 625MJ of damage, which'd leave you with zero shields and hull damage.)

In AP, even friendly M8s and M7Ms are a pain, because they keep stealing your kills.
Trigger patrol missions, near them, particularly M7Ms, and you'll be left picking up the scraps :( .
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Post by tanner1ie » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 21:59

Raize, try setting your flak turrets, to missiles defense or attack all enemies.

Missile defense, will of course shoots M8 missiles and once they get one hit, will target the M8s.

And attack all enemies, should shoot at missiles as well as the M8s, but might target the M8s more, then you'd prefer it to shoot any missiles in flight.

While I haven't gotten an M2 in AP yet, so i don't know how many hits you can take off them, that should still help - also how you arm you ship, makes a big difference.

But in Reunion and TC, here are my tactics and can't see them changing massively for AP.

Flying an M2 i try to equip it with the weapons i'll need based on the enemies i'm expecting to face, with alternative weapons in the hold.

Of course if i'm expecting to face multiple capital i'll put full banks of PPC in front and side turrets with flak up and down, but taking on two capitals at once even strafing, isn't advisable, flying around getting enemies where your comfortable is the best thing.

But if i'm expecting only one or two capitals, i'll only put PPC in the front and on one side (normally the right, but that's just me :) ) and flak everywhere else of course try to fight the bigger ships, with them on my right hand side.
(Can the M8s still hit you though a full bank of flak?
If they can, that needs fixing.)

And 30-50 typhoons?! - i can kill M8s with a half dozen wasps and a half dozen tempests/thunderbolts* :? - you must be doing something wrong there.
(*More than i'd like to be firing at them.)
Last edited by tanner1ie on Mon, 2. Jan 12, 22:12, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by AL'42 » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 22:12

I think the people who say it should be no problem in an M6 haven’t seen the M8s in action in AP !! Its deadly even in an M7 like the Griffon fully armed with flak arrays and cluster flak.

I’ve had 2 Griffons taken out by M8s, the missile spam is overwhelming, it doesn’t take many tomahawks to get through to wipe out 4G of shielding. I found leaving it to the AI doesn’t work.

The only way I can beat the M8 bombers is to meet them head on, with a near continuous blanket of cluster flak (x8 ) to take out the incoming tomahawks, with flak arrays (x6) set to missile defence to catch any that get through which they do. As for the fighters, I just ignore them until later (4G of shielding helps). IMO trying to achieve this in an M6 is bonkers, 2 tomahawks and you’re dead.

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Post by Gazz » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 22:14

AP became a lot more... consistent.
Missile boats have always been designed to kill enemies at long range - limited by their ammo supply.
In TC, they just didn't work. Oh, they worked if the player used them but that was as one-sided as it sounds. Terrible game balance. =)

Now, if you go up against a formation that contains one or more missile boats, forget really quickly about being the hero, the lone warrior who single-handedly dominates every battlefield in the universe.
In the movies, the hero can just charge the pill box. IRL the odd are... against him.

Sure, the Mosquito Missile Defense helps but you need to consider that your ship was probably not designed for that kind of countermeasure. You can hardly blame it for not keeping up with the fire rate of a missile boat.
If you want it done right, try bringing a specialist. Your own missile boat in a defense role...
They are no longer one-trick ponies that are useless before and after the barrage command.

tanner1ie wrote:Missile defense...
And attack all enemies...
In AP, you decide what your turrets target and in which exact order.
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Post by wRAR » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 22:25

The problem is, I was almost perfectly OK with my Nova but then M8 started spawning on missions (my fight rank was probably Specialist or Instructor) so I stopped doing fight missions, earned some more money and upgraded to M6. I've quite easily killed a lone Q but then found that I still cannot do most fight missions :)

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Post by AL'42 » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 22:37

Oh yes, and I should clarify why I meet the bombers head on…..

The few times I’ve jumped to gate and chased after them resulted in the station I was supposed to be defending getting blown up.

I often have multiple M8s in my game now, 4 of them in one mission, best fire fight I’ve seen. I go looking for them now :wink:

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Post by brucewarren » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 22:54

+1 to I hate M8s.

They spam so many Tommahawks that my poor old Panther gets
creamed. In theory they ought to be weakly shielded if I can only get close enough.

The only tactic I can think of that might work (Even with the
flaks set to missile defence) is to try to take it out quickly
before it can launch them all.

To that end I hit M8s before anything else. I'm fitting my ship with a
turbo-booster. I'm going to try and ram the brute before it kills me.

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Post by tanner1ie » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 23:03

brucewarren wrote:I'm going to try and ram the brute before it kills me.
Like Worf in of the Star Trek movies - Ramming Speed!!! :D .

It's not a tactic i use much anymore, but i used to use it when flying the M7 in Reunion, because of it's speed, agility and it's (then, sob! :) ) monstrous shields.

I'd take down the shields of whatever i was fighting, then - bang! :D .

(Even M2s if the had them down to about a 1/2 - 1/3 hull.)
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Post by Bothersome » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 23:28

I hate to give my tactics away...

But first thing... Terran M8 ships (Claymore) don't shoot Tomahawk missiles. They shoot Phantom missiles. Deadly still.
Spoiler
Show
M8 ships are best taken out with drones.
As the M8 shoots a missile, the drones shoot the ship and sometimes hit the missile. Don't be stingy with the drones.
:D
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Post by tanner1ie » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 23:36

Bothersome wrote:I hate to give my tactics away...
Why? - this isn't a multiplayer game, where you're going to reveal your favourite camping spot, or where you hide all your loot! :) .
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Post by Gazz » Mon, 2. Jan 12, 23:44

Why, so what's your favourite camping spot, eh?

(You don't happen to be looking to buy any gold, are you?)
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Post by tanner1ie » Tue, 3. Jan 12, 00:01

:D :P :thumb_up: :lol: :thumb_up: :P :D , ahem - emoticon symmetry :) .

In multiplayer games, that would be telling, in X - ask away.
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Post by Bothersome » Tue, 3. Jan 12, 00:08

tanner1ie wrote:
Bothersome wrote:I hate to give my tactics away...
Why? - this isn't a multiplayer game, where you're going to reveal your favourite camping spot, or where you hide all your loot! :) .
To be absolutely honest...

I don't like telling everybody how I do things because if my way happens to be the most efficient way, then everybody starts doing things my way and I don't learn anything new from you guys. I need everybody else doing different stuff and posting about it so that I can learn of new ways to do things.

But I understand I have to give a little to get a little... :)
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Post by lt_wentoncha » Tue, 3. Jan 12, 00:13

Best way is to use Banshee's I've found. They get dropped a lot, two or three do the trick. Also...I think you need a joystick.

What I do is shoot at missles when I'm at >2k out, once I go below that threshold from the target what I do is circle around the target. Using a joystick makes it easy. Once the target pops, I jump like hell and pretty much loop so the missles can't hit me until I jump.

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Post by Kai Lae » Tue, 3. Jan 12, 00:30

Sounds like "This situation calls for MARS".

Betting that would totally change the equation.

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Post by A5PECT » Tue, 3. Jan 12, 00:39

Just stick missile defense to the number one priority on your turret commands and keep MDM running at all times. That should keep you safe while taking on one or two bombers.

If you run into more than two then you're going to need to get yourself your own bomber or two to run a missile screen for you, and the only way to protect yourself from an M7M is to have an M7m of your own.
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