TC/AP best missile for situations?

[DrwHem]

im just wondering what ppl think are the best missiles for:
vs fighters?
vs medium ships?
there are so many to choose from its a bit daunting. the vs fighter missiles should be ideally faster than all but the fastest ships but also have enough damage to wipe a fighter out in 1 or 2 hits.
the missiles for heavy fighters and corvettes can be slower but need to be much higher damage.
Before i bought AP i was using silkworm missiles against fighters and typhoon missiles for larger targets. any ideas?

[uk.crow]

I totally agree with you picking missiles at first is very duanting, but generally the main missiles i use are:
Wasp - cheap as anything, excellent against pesky m5 you can't be bothered to chase down or are too slow to catch (watch out for their range and time before self detonation)
Thunderbolt- relatively inexpsensive, powerful warhead and huge range (75km). great to take out m3's. Bit greedy of cargo though.
Mosquito - rubbish against ships, use it for missile defence only. Use it in conjuction with the missile defence script.
Typhoon - swarm missile that has long range, high damage and decent speed. Great against fighter swarms.

Others will have there own personal preference though, hope that helps!

[Triaxx2]

Best missile for all ships is the Flail. If it's not working, use more.

Seriously though, Silkworms and Typhoons are good choices for TC, along with the Tempest and Hornet. Tempests are self-seekers, so if you fire enough of them, any extras will turn and engage other targets.

Hornets have enough damage and enough speed to knock out most targets in a single shot. They're particularly effective against Bombers which are a one hit kill. Fire two anyway. Some of them have missile defense.

For AP, generally it seems to be the same but MORE. Just use more firepower. Since they vastly increased the hull ratings, you'll probably have to fire twice as many as you used to.

Two notes on the Flail: 1) It's the most effective way to deal with Kha'ak Corvettes. But it requires 64 missiles to do it. 2) It's no good against stations. The shields are simply too strong and recharge too fast.

[Libelnon]

the idea of having so many missiles is so that you have one for many different situations, and some that can cater for more than one. Generally speaking, for fighter-level combat, I'd want to look at the following:

Against M5s: Firelances, Fireflies or Wasps
Wasps are practically built for anti-M5 duty, and are a swarm missile with a total damage capacity of 8k. However, it is only really effective between 0.5-4km, beyond which they may not catch up with the prey before self destructing, or miss completely, in which (being swarm missiles) take a while to turn around and follow the target. When you're closer, a Firelance is an unguided missile that will take out an M5 in a single hit, with 5k damage directly, and is also useful for 'netting' M4s, but Fireflies are available on a larger scale (as firelances can't be produced, only picked up from wreckage). Most people avoid dumbfires such as the Firelance or Firefly though, as they do need a bit of practice to learn to use effectively.

Against M4s: Silkworms or Wildfires
Silkworms are great for anti-M4 duty, because of the 19k of damage, but are a little slow with only a top speed of 250m/s, meaning that the Scorpion and perhaps a few other M4s can outrun them. Wildfires are also good, dealing less damage but are faster, but cannot be purchased again, having to be looted instead.

Against M3s: Tempests or Banshees
Tempests are great - 60k of damage and they retarget automatically if the target's destroyed before they get there. Banshees are also good, with 74k damage, but are quite slow and can't be purchased. If you're against an M3 in an M4 or similar ship that can only use light missiles, try a Remote Guided Warhead - 100k damage, but they're quite rare and unpurchaseable. Otherwise, drown them in dumbfires. Hitting a slow target shouldn't be too difficult.

The Typhoon missile, as a few others here have said, is a great hunting missile, but it's also a heavy missile and so can only be mounted on M6 or above. The Cyclone is in all respects similar, just a wee bit smaller, and so can be mounted on M3s - just be aware, the Cyclone is a bit slower, as well.

The main advantage of missiles - which is especially important in AP - is that their damage is fixed, unlike most lasers, which do considerably reduced damage against hull. Missiles will always do their said amount of damage, be it to hull or to shields, which means a missile is often a good way to finish an enemy ship quickly.

[Triaxx2]

Firelances, which you'll probably gain in mass quantities, are excellent for turning fighters into a poor mans M7M, but only effective against stations.

A one-two punch of Wildfire>Silkworm is effective for those fast movers that the Wildfire can't one shot, and the Silkworm can't catch.

One other dumbfire to keep in mind is the Tornado. 50k damage, 8 dumb fire swarm warheads means it does 400k damage, and most fighters can mount it, so it's effective for destroying capitals without a bomber.