Tornado vs Hornet

[DnBrn47]

I'm looking to make my next missile complex and I'm trying to decide between Tornado and Hornet. For reference here are the stats:


Tornado Missile
Yield x Warheads 50,000 x 8
Speed 312 m/s
Range 24.9 km
Cooldown ms
Target Acquisition Autonomous
Fusing Impact
Guidance Dumbfire
Area of Effect m
Ware Tornado Missile
Cargo Class M
Volume 8

Hornet Missile
Yield x Warheads 200,000 x 1
Speed 186 m/s
Range 31.23 km
Cooldown 1,500 ms
Target Acquisition Targeted
Fusing Impact
Guidance Image-recognition
Area of Effect 0 m
Ware Hornet Missile
Cargo Class M
Volume 3

If you can get every tornado missile to hit it's better. If you can't Hornets are better. Hornets track so they can be used against fighters, Tornados are Dumbfire so they are pretty useless against anything that moves quickly. Hornets are pretty easy to shoot down because they are slow, you would need to distract the enemy's turrets for them to hit. Tornados are much faster and would be much harder to shoot down and since you want them all to hit you'd be closer anyway. Tornados use a little over twice as much cargo space per missile, but have 8 warheads, which if all hit is twice as much damage.

The reason I'm deciding for either or is because the complex is going to most likely have 10 missile production facilities in it since I want to supply both myself and any fighters I bring along, thus making the complex relatively expensive. I imagine I may have both eventually just because, I already have Hammers, Flails and Tomahawks even though I'm not currently using them, they sell for a big profit to equipment docks.

So, with all this being said, can folks experienced using these missiles help me sort this out? Thanks.

[Catra]

tornadoes are better at anti-capital/station

hornets are better at anti-corvette/m3

[jkjklkl]

Both are great missiles; I would go for an easy 50/50 split so you only need a single learge food fab for each. However, if you're dead set on only having one...

Hornet Pros:
+ Stand-off missile - guidance and high yield make it great for taking down enemies at range
+ Exactly 200MJ of damage - this makes it easy to strip the shields of M6s for boarding ops without having them turn hostile
+ Missile trail is a pretty green color

Tornado Pros:
+ Swarm is always great
+ Possibly the biggest anti-capital punch a fighter has
+ Missile trail is also a pretty green color

Hornet Cons:
- Single warhead makes it comparatively easy to shoot down, but if you're making a complex for them then you can spam them, and if you can spam them then nothing short of PSGs will take down all of them
- Typically only mounted on M6 and up

Tornado Cons:
- Dumbfire means it's useless at range unless you're trying to blow up a station


Final verdict:

Spoiler

Show

In my opinion, it has to be the Hornet. It's more versatile while still delivering enough punch to take out big threats.

[delray]

Just don't forget you can't use Hornets on fighters other than Medu Proto from the Paranid start. And suddenly you will realize that Hornet applies to everything above M6, while Tornado rocks in the M3 class.

[DnBrn47]

As I said, I'll have both at some point, but since hornets are purchasable from NPC stations and with more opinions, I'll probably do the tornado first. Thanks.

[delray]

I build more Hornets, since I use them all my bigger ships and with good AI missile chance, while Tornados are mainly for myself and I don't fire that many of them.

[Jumee]

since I love carriers I use tons of tornadoes (and thunderbolts and even poltergeists - but you do not need all of them ) - you cant imagine how quickly your fighters eat through any supplies of them

[NovusBogus]

I like the Tornado because it can be fired from a fighter, and will get significant damage through the other guy's turret screen. Just make sure there's nothing big like a station behind your target, the locals don't like it much if 8x heavy rockets slam into their cattle ranch. Hornets are great for taking out big M3 swarms flying toward you--just don't expect them to hit if the approach vector is covered by any sort of turret.

Having at least one of each fab is a good idea though, since they don't occur naturally.

[Llama]

Worth noting that AI ships have perfect accuracy when leading shots with the Tornado (for all 8 warheads too).

[Flozem]

Tornado... great anti-Xenon missile loaded on your Hyperion Vanguard / Shrike. I rarely see Hornets hit their target - Tornado's always hit as I can safely fire these point-blank.

And what Llama said...

[EmperorJon]

I built like a 20 fab Tornado complex entirely so I could have enough to not WORRY about them hitting. I just fire and fire, streaming the sector...

[DnBrn47]

Tornado... great anti-Xenon missile loaded on your Hyperion Vanguard / Shrike. I rarely see Hornets hit their target - Tornado's always hit as I can safely fire these point-blank.

And what Llama said...

Nice, Shrike is my mainstay atm and I've noticed many points in time where they'd be used.

I built like a 20 fab Tornado complex entirely so I could have enough to not WORRY about them hitting. I just fire and fire, streaming the sector...

Yea, I was going to build a 10 fab Tornado since that's all the sector I'm building it in (and my wallet atm) can support.

[Triaxx2]

Best thing about the Hornet is the ability to insta-gib bombers. One shot, one kill. In TC at least.

[garv222]

Hornets seem to be more likely to be intercepted, but don't they also launch faster? It takes a decent length of time to fire all 8 warheads of a tornado missile, unless AP changed it something resembling a shotgun launch of tracking swarm missiles. If you can launch 2 hornets in the time it would take you to launch 1 tornado, I'd lean toward hornets.

[DnBrn47]

Hornets seem to be more likely to be intercepted, but don't they also launch faster? It takes a decent length of time to fire all 8 warheads of a tornado missile, unless AP changed it something resembling a shotgun launch of tracking swarm missiles. If you can launch 2 hornets in the time it would take you to launch 1 tornado, I'd lean toward hornets.

They're slow enough that Tornados would pass the hornets in transit. This is looking at the stats though as I have no experience launching tornados. I've had a lot of hornets shot down however.

[Lelouch]

It takes a decent length of time to fire all 8 warheads of a tornado missile, unless AP changed it something resembling a shotgun launch of tracking swarm missiles.

What are you talking about? At least in TC a swarm missile was always fired as a single missile, which broke up into single warheads instantly. 1 launch, 1 cooldown, 8 warheads.

The Tornado in TC has a cooldown of 2 seconds. Hornet has 1,5 seconds. In a 6 second timeframe you can launch either 5 Hornets or 4 Tornados (32 warheads.)

P.S.: Does the Tornado in AP have 8 warheads? In TC it was a fixed number, but for AP I have some posting in mind mentioning that the number n't fixed anymore.

[DnBrn47]

It takes a decent length of time to fire all 8 warheads of a tornado missile, unless AP changed it something resembling a shotgun launch of tracking swarm missiles.

What are you talking about? At least in TC a swarm missile was always fired as a single missile, which broke up into single warheads instantly. 1 launch, 1 cooldown, 8 warheads.

The Tornado in TC has a cooldown of 2 seconds. Hornet has 1,5 seconds. In a 6 second timeframe you can launch either 5 Hornets or 4 Tornados (32 warheads.)

P.S.: Does the Tornado in AP have 8 warheads? In TC it was a fixed number, but for AP I have some posting in mind mentioning that the number n't fixed anymore.

As far as I know it's still 8 warheads, I haven't read anything that indicates otherwise.

[delray]

You should just go and fire a Tornado? Tornado would be useless if it flew like Phantom.

It fires 8 warheads (all swarms do) for 50000 damage each (so 2x Hornet damage levels), but it's not your typical swarm, it doesn't break into a swarm, every next warhead is following previous one at the same direct route to the target, and by the time you release all 8, you can fire the next one, making it quite spammy, especially with their high speed, although there isn't typically much time to spam since you have to dodge in your fighter. It looks cool, it sounds great, and it's easy to hit at the end of the run at the target since you're delivering it yourself and have to approach from a blindspot, missile defence won't take them out as easily as it would take a Hornet.

[DnBrn47]

You should just go and fire a Tornado? Tornado would be useless if it flew like Phantom.

It fires 8 warheads (all swarms do) for 50000 damage each (so 2x Hornet damage levels), but it's not your typical swarm, it doesn't break into a swarm, every next warhead is following previous one at the same direct route to the target, and by the time you release all 8, you can fire the next one, making it quite spammy, especially with their high speed, although there isn't typically much time to spam since you have to dodge in your fighter. It looks cool, it sounds great, and it's easy to hit at the end of the run at the target since you're delivering it yourself and have to approach from a blindspot, missile defence won't take them out as easily as it would take a Hornet.

Working on it man. Need more funds to make my plex

[delray]

Of course I meant Typhoon not Phantom in the first sentence. Phantom is Terran Tomahawk and is completely innocent here.