Good missile for standard use / production, and Heatseeking pros and cons

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korg33
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Joined: Mon, 18. May 15, 11:43

Good missile for standard use / production, and Heatseeking pros and cons

Post by korg33 » Fri, 22. May 15, 11:31

Considering that I got a consistent cash flow atm, I want to add missiles to my arsenal of weapons. Although I don't want to have a random bunch of rag tag missiles that I fire of randomly. I want to have 2 missiles for standard use. BUT FIRST:

HEAT-SEEKING
-What are the advantages and what are the drawbacks of heat seeking missiles, compared to Image Recognition Missiles? (Are there even disadvantages?

Now to the missiles

Anti-fighter missiles
The missiles that I have found so far that I consider using:

-Thunderbolt missile:
Pros:Great damage, awesome range. Can even be used against heavier targets such as m3's or m6 when used in numbers.
Cons: Somewhat pricey 8k, not ideal in speed, which means that they are only useful vs m5's or fast m4's before a fight starts and they are not yet flying at top speed. 6 cargo space

Question: Does the heat seeking capability mean that it will auto-aquire any enemy target even when U got no targets?
When you do target a ship, will it prioritize your target, or just fly into the first enemy it can find.
Do they also auto quire non enemy targets?

Silkworm Missile
Basically a lesser thunderbolt missile. 4x Less damage, less speed, less range. Although its only half price 4-5 k, meaning you can fire 2 and not dump all your dmg into a single target. Also takes up 3x less space

HUrricane missile
I would insta buy this facotry simply for the AMAZING speed these missiles have 400+. They only do 6k damage, but they would be my ideal anti m4 / m5 missile. BUT YOU CANNOT BUY THIS FACTORY :evil:

Dragonfly Missile
SO CHEAP!!!!!250+ speed and targeted, but useless vs anything bigger then m4 in terms of dmg.....lesser hurricane

So for me its mainly between the Thunderbolt and Silkworm as all round anti fighter missiles


Anti-corvetty / heavy fighter

For me I mainly see the hornet as a good option. Any other good options?

Also as a last point: I be building the station in Argon Prime. So also take into account that I sometimes want to sell surplus missiles to surrounding stations.

ancienthighway
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Post by ancienthighway » Fri, 22. May 15, 12:12

The cost of missiles is meaningless if you build your own. Closed loop or collaborating owned stations can drop the cost to nothing once the station costs are "recovered" whether you sell surplus or consider savings by not buying them. The other savings comes in time it equip your ships, not having to fly all over the universe to find enough missiles.

The best missile for use against M5s is the hurricane, followed by the wasp. The Paranid sell the Hurricane Missile Factory. All my fighters get one or the other.

If you are in an M4 or M5, the Dragonfly and Silkworm can be useful missiles. I tend to release those missiles just after passing my opponent when he is slowing down and turning around and shields are reduced.

Once you get into an M3 and able to use the Thunderbolt, the importance of the Dragonfly and Silkworm drop down considerably due to the low damage and tougher target. They can still reduce the smaller fighter to be inconsequential, but on the bigger fighters they do so little damage that any hits on the shield will be repaired before you can hit it again. A couple of Thunderbolts though can destroy most M3s. A few more can take down M6s.

Rive
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Post by Rive » Fri, 22. May 15, 12:15

About usage: for me (in TC) it was mainly silkworm, wasp and one or two occasional RGWs.

WASPs could distract/fry the small fry, silkworm could soften the bigger targets, RGW could deal with remote clusters. All the rest are for guns.
None of them could kill you instantly if blown up right after fired (of course this also depends on your personal ship).

All were quite common and available, so I could start my first factories not by need, but by promise of profit.

Ps.: of course, RGWs were available only from loot, but that was more than enough.

korg33
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Joined: Mon, 18. May 15, 11:43

Post by korg33 » Fri, 22. May 15, 18:09

In that case I will probably purchase a Hurricane Factory and Thunderbolt Missile Factory. I will start with thr Thunderbolt 1 and set it up in Argon Prime.
I can sel Thunderbolts there infinitely to the equipment dock.

I will put it into a complex:http://www.altanetworks.com/x3/x3tcocc. ... ,Split,S,1

and then Supply Ore from Ore Belt from one of my own mines.

Just hope that there are enough e-cells to go around.

I really hate how Crystals also consume energy....makes it so frkn hard to create your own self-reliant energy supply without making HUGE complexes

So what about heat seeking missiles? -What are the advantages and what are the drawbacks of heat seeking missiles, compared to Image Recognition Missiles? (Are there even disadvantages?

ancienthighway
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Post by ancienthighway » Fri, 22. May 15, 19:10

There aren't that many heat seeking missiles, the Thunderbolt, Spectre, and Wraith, with two of them being Terran missiles. If you have Terran ships, it's a question of using the missile or not using missiles. For the commonwealth ship, IMO, the Thunderbolt is the best purchased/built missile for M3s

Nanook
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Post by Nanook » Sat, 23. May 15, 01:43

I prefer the Tempest to the Thunderbolt. It has the neat feature of retargeting the next nearest enemy if its current target is destroyed. If you fire a bunch of them at one target in a group of several, once the first target is destroyed, the missiles will retarget until either all targets are destroyed or all missiles are used up. It makes dealing with a large number of fighters a lot easier.
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ajax34i
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Post by ajax34i » Sat, 23. May 15, 02:08

Typhoon is not bad, either. Here's all of them with stats and commentary (click the links).

EDIT: For the missiles that do switch to other targets, they only pick from what's RED, so no friendly targets will be hit (unless they are very close to an enemy ship and get caught in the explosion).

Triaxx2
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Post by Triaxx2 » Sat, 23. May 15, 02:36

I tend to use either Mosquitoes for missile defense, or Wasps for attacking. Wasps have either the spiral swarm missile methods, or at close range, they can be used clustered together. I believe the range is 800m or closer.

I tend to use very few chase missiles, though I seriously enjoy spamming Rapiers at fleeing fighters. The only thing that can out run it is a fully tuned Pirate Kestrel and I've never seen one in the hands of the AI.

Those are the three I produce. I also use Silkworms, and Thunderbolts when I have them. Silkworms are useful for capturing ships. They can reliably strip a portion of the shields off of a target when it's not fully shielded like Pirate M6's tend to be. (Seriously, Pirate Centaur with 2x25MJ shields? What were you thinking?) Thunderbolts on the other hand are finishers. Smack them with a burst of lasers then lay out a T-bolt and roll away to a new target.
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