First M6?

Kowalskibravo · Post by **Kowalskibravo** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 02:43

Hey yall just coming in for a question. which BUYABLE, COMMONWEALTH, M6 is the best one to go for? i have all the neccessary credts and it must be a m6, no m6+

Girlinhat · Post by **Girlinhat** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:01

Anything that can mount ion disruptors is fun, and will help you hijack your way towards M6+. I personally skipped the M6 and went straight into a Heavy Centaur, and then a Minotaur which was used to cap a Cobra and then a Tiger and... well yes. I do a bit of capping.

Karmaticdamage · Post by **Karmaticdamage** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:07

Hydra. 2nd fastest of the base line commonwealth m6s and tied to the osprey for most cargo. It can fit ion disruptors for stripping internal defenses off other ships" for capping ". I you dont care about capping then the dragon is the fastest of the lot. All of them fit 8 main weapons.

Kowalskibravo · Post by **Kowalskibravo** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:10

well i suppose m6+ are an option. how would you stack the heavy dragon against the skiron? how do they compare?

Bill Huntington · Post by **Bill Huntington** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:11

Kowalskibravo, I find the Dragon and Hydra are excellent M6s. The Nemesis and Centaur are not. (Nem not enough cargo space, Centaur just weak.)

Many M6s and M7s are offered on Return Ship missions and can be stolen by you for free, with some forethought.

Occasionally, a used M6 is even offered for sale at a SY.

These two items are a good reason to attain and keep high rank with all races. (Unless you are pillaging the Paranid, of course.)

Kowalskibravo · Post by **Kowalskibravo** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:13

Im currently pillaging the boron lol

so hydra is out.

Nyito · Post by **Nyito** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:20

With those limitations, I personally would go with a Dragon. I'm assuming you're saying no M6+ because of cost, so you're limited to only 4 choices; Centaur, Hydra, Dragon and Nemesis(Osprey is in the 15 mil range just like M6+ IIRC). Of them, none of them have more than 600MJ shielding, so speed is going to be king. The Dragon also has some minor late-game usage as a tug with a tractor beam. It can be tricky to fly, but quite potent once you learn it's limits. If you plan to cap a lot of ships, however, the Hydra is probably your best bet, with ion weapons, as suggested above.

With all that said, if you can stand it, I'd suggest doing some more missions in whatever you're currently flying, or maybe invest in a better M3 if you're using a crappy one just to get by, and save up the 15 mil or so for a Skiron. The difference is pretty stark between it, and a standard M6 like a Hydra or Dragon.

Edit: Skiron blows every buyable M6/+ out of the water, imo. The only one that rivals it is the Springblossom, because of it's combination of flak-type weapons and insane speed. But since Terran ships are out of the equation...

Bill Huntington · Post by **Bill Huntington** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:24

The Skiron is fine as an M6. Not great on cargo space, though. You can get at least one free if you do the OTAS corporation missions. If you are lucky, you can get multiple Skirons for free. I got 6 free in one game, and just 2 and 3 in other games.

I usually keep one M6 for my personal use, and use the others to defend my bases from pirate attacks. The Skiron is perfect for this, since it won't need to carry much E. I find the best weapon for an M6 is CIG. Occasionally I will outfit a Skiron just with PACs if I need to carry E. It does fine for many kinds of missions.

The heavy versions of all the M6s are good enough, even the Centaur. I forgot the Osprey in the previous post. Good enough.

Kowalskibravo · Post by **Kowalskibravo** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:29

I am going to do alot of capping... why are ions so good? (forgive the slight noobishness i just have never used them lol)

Nyito · Post by **Nyito** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:33

They damage shields heavily, while not damaging hull much, so you get more bail 'checks' for fighters, and marines damage the ship as they fight through it for ships that have to be boarded, and will abandon the boarding op if the ship gets too damaged, so hull damage getting their shields down is a must avoid. I'd read up on the stickies here about capping to go more in depth than that.

Edit: I should mention Ion Shard Railguns do NOT fall into this category of capping friendly weapons, despite the Ion in the name, and as well, the Pulsed Beam Emitters are the absolute best bail-forcing weapon in the game, despite not being an Ion weapon, they share the trait of very high shield damage, and low hull damage.

Kowalskibravo · Post by **Kowalskibravo** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:43

Ok thanks a lot. i needed to know what is best for capping frieghters (ts class) and from what u say it looks like PBEs.

Nyito · Post by **Nyito** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 03:52

For forcing bails I personally actually use a Tenjin M3, equipped with 8 Phased Repeater Guns, and 1 PBE, weapon groups set as: All guns, 8 PRGs, 4 PRGs, and just the PBE, to maintain good balance of combat firepower and the PBE to force bails. IREs or PACs in the turrets, set to missile defense. Just another option, if you want to focus on capping, but find you're not ready for the huge investment boarding ops can be.

Kowalskibravo · Post by **Kowalskibravo** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 04:02

yeah thats me lol

i currently use a nova raider: 4 HEPT 4 PRG 1 IRE (turret missiles only) . i have the hepts in one group, all PRG in another, and the 3rd and 4th have 2 PRG and 1 PRG respectively

Bill Huntington · Post by **Bill Huntington** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 04:02

Kowalskibravo, you don't need an M6 to cap M3s or any TS. Just about any M3 will do just fine. Personally, I prefer the Mamba or Mamba Vanguard, but any is good enough. For the Mamba, I just put 5 PACs on button 1 and 3 IREs on button 2. When the hull get to about 92.7, I switch to IRE. This gives the most shots and most bail checks. The first one is happens at 92.7. You have to wait a while before you can get the next check. As a rough estimate, if a target has 3 x 25 shields, you can go for the next bail check when the shields have recovered to 20 %.

The PBEs are great weapons, even though they are energy hogs. They would be my second choice for a capping weapon. But IRE are weaker, and therefore give you more shots and more bail checks.

You should check all the weapons for their plus and minus. I use the PAC because it is easily available, cheap. It also just keeps firing when the others have used up the available energy. For damage on target, the PAC is as good as anything, in my experience.

Kowalskibravo · Post by **Kowalskibravo** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 04:08

Thanks for the help! I knew i didnt need an m6 lol

but hey they are fun

but thanks everybody for all the tips on boarding, i think focusing on that instead of more ships is a better idea for my current spot in the game

thanks again!

Triaxx2 · Post by **Triaxx2** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 04:13

Actually, IonD is terrible for bailing because it has a hard-coded quarter of the normal bailing percentage.

I'm partial to the Dragon myself. However once you learn bailing, the idea of cost means nothing. The Dragon has speed, power, and sheer, awesome looks.

Girlinhat · Post by **Girlinhat** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 04:38

While the IonD may have lower bail rate, it has the advantage of causing negligible hull damage, LOTS of shield damage, and you can "rapid fire" it depending on how bail checks work. With any regular gun, when you take a shot you roll for a bail, but you also lower your bail rate - less hull means less future rolls! IonD does very little hull damage. If you fail a bailing check, then just shoot again. When you've got nigh-infinite shots to take, then 1/4 of infinite is more than 30 with a PAC or something.

It's all about patience, there.

Except ships that need to be boarded. IonD will strip the shields without stripping hull, and it can also destroy equipment, so you can reliably destroy the enemy's turrets while leaving the hull intact, and your marines won't get shot down, and when the marines damage the hull it won't hurt as much because the ship should have hull intact. It's useful for selling hulls - a Yaki Akuma at 100% sells for 75mil+, but it's bad for taking gear - Akuma packs the coveted IBL, which the IonD would strip off it.

Regardless, it seems that "When in doubt, go Split" seems to apply. If you're ever just not very sure on what ship to take, Split ships seem to be overall good combat options. Others may have better cargo, or better shields, or different weapons, but Split makes a good base line "it'll get the job done without much fussing about."

Progress-M · Post by **Progress-M** » Wed, 3. Oct 12, 05:05

Bill Huntington wrote:Many M6s and M7s are offered on Return Ship missions and can be stolen by you for free, with some forethought.

This is how I've aquired the first M6/M7/M7M in many of my games without having any real muscle or money prior. Race rep can be aquired quickly with missions and once it's up there, these missions pop up semi-regularly.

Snafu_X3 · Post by **Snafu_X3** » Thu, 4. Oct 12, 03:45

Be aware that whichever M6 you choose it's going to handle llike a dog (even when fully tuned) compared to the fighters you've been flying, so you'll need to change ypour combat style

Progress-M · Post by **Progress-M** » Thu, 4. Oct 12, 07:07

Apart from a certain TC-plot reward M6, that is probably the first M6 for many.

That thing turns on a dime!

egosoft.com

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First M6?

First M6?

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The Skiron

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