[X3:AP] Slikworms, Hornets, Firestorms, all missiles, all earn the same!

[Jimmy C]

Has anyone noticed this before? I was looking over the numbers for my planned missile production complex when I noticed a pattern.
Every missile fab produced nearly the same amount of sales (no. of missiles x average price) per hour, roughly 202,100 plus minus 100. I suspect the variation is only due to rounding errors.
So, if you want to use the "infinite sink" method of selling missiles, just use the cheapest factories. It doesn't matter which missiles you sell, it all earns you the same over time. Might as well save your credits on the factories.

[ancienthighway]

Firefly Missile 134,400 per hour.
Mosquito Missile 151,200 per hour
Shadow Missile 213,376 per hour

But every other missile, as you pointed out, is 202,080 to 202,400 per hour.

[Jimmy C]

Changed the title to match. Seeing what you posted, ancient, I wonder if I should replace the Poltergeist fab in my complex with a Shadow fab. Poltergeists are practically useless anyway, but the Cobra is the only M7M for leading captures (the Sirokos can follow along) for me.
At least I can sell the Shadows for extra profit,

[ancienthighway]

In a 30 minute cycle time, Shadows and Poltergeists will consume the same amount of resource, but the Shadow has better revenue by roughly 11k credits. Stations cost the same. Break even point is at 13.7 hours and 14.5 hours. So, yes, Shadow missiles are a slightly better money maker than Poltergeist missiles.

The Mosquito missile, bringing a smaller profit, has a cheaper set up cost, 525,884 vs 2,034,560 and faster break even point at 3.5 hours.

Early game, Mosquito is clearly the way to go for steady profit from dumping missiles. The Firefly costs more to set up and gives a smaller profit. Race matters only in the cost of the factory, but not in resources needed, so profit per hour is constant, but break even point ranges from 3.5 to 4.0 hours.

As some credits are accumulated, the Dragonfly is much more profitable. Station costs roughly 950k and provides profits of 202,400. For roughly 1/3 of the cost of most of other factories it brings in the same profit. Break even point, likewise will be much sooner (4.6 hours).

Then once Terran rep is good enough, the Shadow can be considered. The factory cost 2 million credits more than the Dragonfly for an additional profit of 11k per hour.

Honestly, if you already have a station set up to build missiles to dump, there's no real reason to change it to a Shadow facility. The slight additional profit plus the lengthy break even point that starts all over, not to mention time that could have been spent in other ways making money (missions, ship captures) seems to make 11k per hour rather moot.

Along the same line, in putting something down for the first time, I'd skip over the Mosquito factory and simply go with the Dragonfly, and then never switch up to the Shadow.

[Jimmy C]

The Poltergeist is part of the later phase of my building plans, I haven't built it yet.
I had planned on one future factory to be a Tempest fab. But I also have a Thunderbolt fab planned. The two have almost the same performance and compatibility, so I've been wondering if the Tempest fab was redundant. Do you think it would be worth it to swap out the Tempest fab for a Dragonfly fab in my plans?
I could also swap out a future Split Lasertower factory for a Dragonfly fab. Which of these plans do yo think would be more useful?

[ancienthighway]

If you are looking at missiles to dump for cash, I don't see any reason to go with anything but the Dragonfly. But if you are talking about missiles to use with your fleet, the Tempest, despite the lessor numbers on paper, is better than the Thunderbolt, simply because it will reacquire a target.

As far as lasertowers, what is your need of those? Have you declared war on a race that will encroach on your territory and you need the sector defense? Did you build stations in the migratory paths of pirates or xenon? As a cash ware, your profit is less than 97k per hour.

[Jimmy C]

But if you are talking about missiles to use with your fleet, the Tempest, despite the lessor numbers on paper, is better than the Thunderbolt, simply because it will reacquire a target.

That's what I thought in my last game too. So I built 5 Tempest fabs in my complex there. My experience turned out to be different.

It takes 2 Tempests or Thunderbolts to kill an M3. Careful firing means no extra missiles that have to reacquire targets. If they were fired from non-player fighters, there's usually no targets left for excess missiles to reacquire on. In short, their reacquisition ability is rarely used successfully. And I find I hate configuring fighter wings. Too much work.

Maybe I'll replace one of the Flail fabs in my plans instead. I'll come to a decision later.

As far as lasertowers, what is your need of those?

To secure certain sectors where my freighters frequent. A constellation of 8 LTs in front of a gate means the occasional hostile Yaki or Pirate fighter wing is swiftly reduced to nothing.
Also, after noting the behaviour of Yaki M1s spawned in missions in my previous game, I enjoyed having a constellation of LTs at the Savage Spur gate in Empire's Edge to cut down replacement Yaki fighters heading for Hoshis in the missions I took.

[Cursed Ghost]

That's what I thought in my last game too. So I built 5 Tempest fabs in my complex there. My experience turned out to be different.

It takes 2 Tempests or Thunderbolts to kill an M3. Careful firing means no extra missiles that have to reacquire targets. If they were fired from non-player fighters, there's usually no targets left for excess missiles to reacquire on. In short, their reacquisition ability is rarely used successfully. And I find I hate configuring fighter wings. Too much work

you would be better with typhoon missiles for combat purposes they have the same speed as Thunderbolts and Tempests missiles but being swarm they are much more likely to kill your target as the computer wont be able to shoot down all the incoming warheads before they get turned into space dust they also deal a good deal more damage and have a smaller volume of 3 as opposed to thunderbolts volume of 6 and tempest volume of 5

the only down side to typhoons is that they can only be equipped on M6 and above and they are a little more expensive but if you are making them to equip your fleet cost is largely irrelevant anyway

I've been playing about with missiles today and come to the conclusion that there are only a small handful of missiles that are actually worth bothering with the rest are vendor trash this is of course none m8 and m7m missiles I'm talking about

here are the ones I'd recommend

m5/m4

Wasp Missile (Swarm)
Damage - 8,000 (8x1000)
Range (Km) - 18.1
Speed (m/s) - 560

Hurricane Missile
Damage - 6,000
Range (Km) - 29
Speed (m/s) - 560

Disruptor Missile (Non-Purchasable)
Damage - 6,000
Range (Km) - 40
Speed (m/s) - 514

m3/m6

Typhoon Missile (Swarm)
Damage - 240,000 (8x30,000)
Range (Km) - 74.8
Speed (m/s) - 195

Hornet Missile
Damage - 200,000
Range (Km) - 31.2
Speed (m/s) - 225

Typhoon and Hornet are corvette level weapons and as such can only be equipped on m6 and above with the exception of the Paranid Medusa Prototype m3+

m7

Tornado Missile (Dumbfire/Swarm)
Damage - 400,000 (8x50,000)
Range (Km) - 24.9
Speed (m/s) - 312 m/s

now given that tornado missiles are Dumbfire they need a little more though put into there use the 2 ways I normally use them are

1.) at point blank range to crush the hull of my target once I've collapsed the shields with PBEs this is my usual method for killing Q's and other M7s etc. that have blind spots

2.) against slow capital ships like the Osaka where I have a big surface to shoot at thus supplementing the fire from my guns to bring the shields down quicker at which point I'll then send in the boarding team or quickly crush the hull if I want the target dead.

M2/M2+

I wouldn't waste my time they have to many guns and can shoot down any incoming missiles from anything that is not a M7M/M8 rendering Firestorm Torpedos, Hammerhead Missile and indeed any single shot munition useless and Wraith Missiles less than effective especially if they are equipped with flak because none M7M/M8 ships can't fire enough missiles fast enough to overwhelm there missile defence the exception to this is if using Tornado Missile at 3km due to there rapid re-fire rate or Typhoon Missile at about 5km where again you are simply spamming them with more ordnance than the turrets can handle at short range to cut down the turrets reaction time

Firestorm Torpedos, Hammerhead Missile and Wraith Missiles are all to slow and have no shielding to help prevent them being shot down and will simply get wiped out before they get close due to there slow speed and poor manoeuvrability and due to there AOE effect when destroyed they will detonate any other missiles in the vicinity causing you to waste a lot of ordinance

if you wanna take capital ships with missiles use a M7M or M8

[Jimmy C]

here are the ones I'd recommend

That covers the missiles I favour too. Differences are, I prefer Hurricanes over Wasps for M5s. Wasps seem to take too long to hit anything and rarely kill it. Never used Tornados as I don't believe in dumbfires.
Typhoons are my preferred anti-fighter weapon on anything that can use them also.

if you wanna take capital ships with missiles use a M7M or M8

Which is why the majority of my planned complex is dedicated to producing Flails and Hammers. Gonna need a lot of 'em, so best get started early.

And figured out how to add an extra 18 fabs onto my complex, even if it means the BoGas M and BoFu M I already got are rendered redundant.

[Cursed Ghost]

That covers the missiles I favour too. Differences are, I prefer Hurricanes over Wasps for M5s. Wasps seem to take too long to hit anything and rarely kill it.

I believe that is caused by a bug I don't know much about it just a few references to it I've seen around the forum but apparently wasps have an issue that cause a few of the warheads to go astray and miss the target resulting in them having to do an about face I've seen this happen with typhoons as well so it might be an issue that affects all swarm missiles I don't know

Never used Tornados as I don't believe in dumbfires.
Typhoons are my preferred anti-fighter weapon on anything that can use them also.

generally I don't use dumbfire missiles either Tornados are the only dumbfire missiles that I do use and the only reason they get used is because they hit hard, have a refire rate as fast as flails take up a tolerable amount of cargo space with a volume of 4 in AP, they are cheap and have a pretty decent speed of 312 m/s and every other missile with that kind of speed is weak as hell with 8000 or less damage well with the exception of Flails and Ghouls that is

meaning that you can put the hurt on targets in a hurry and they add considerable destructive power to smaller ships like the Hyperion when conducting combat operations against capital ships

its possible if you have enough of them to kill capital ships I've done it to terran capitals what I do is get the ship to chase me and then when the ship is flying in a striate line I zoom in with the video enhancement goggles to make sure my crosshairs are lined up right and then I let rip you will need a lot of them but its a hell of a lot more effective then using wraiths and because the refire rate is so fast it doesn't really matter if they try and shoot them down it wont do them any good about the only way to stop it is to move but the AI is to stupid to try and avoid damage like that

Which is why the majority of my planned complex is dedicated to producing Flails and Hammers. Gonna need a lot of 'em, so best get started early.

And figured out how to add an extra 18 fabs onto my complex, even if it means the BoGas M and BoFu M I already got are rendered redundant.

I never really liked complex building the whole system while much better than it was is still a farcical joke while complexes sound like a good idea the implementation for actually constructing one is horrible and ego need to do away with it and implement something a little simpler to set up my idea was to have a single building with multiple productions lines kind like the aldrin mixed food production buildings

a system like that would be much easer to set up because you would only have to buy and place a single building and then you could just and add new production lines via the command console after paying the appropriate amount of credits for the production line you want to add

oddly enough it was trade stations that actually game me the idea in the first place because when you first place trade stations they have nothing you have to add the wares you want to trade from them well my idea would work in a very smiler way except instead of adding ware you want to trade from that station you would be adding production lines for wares you want to crate at the station you would then give it a small injection of resources to get everything started and away you go

the one exception to this of course would be mines they would still need to be complexed in the usual fashion or there wares would need to be transported via CLS ships

[Jimmy C]

apparently wasps have an issue that cause a few of the warheads to go astray and miss the target resulting in them having to do an about face I've seen this happen with typhoons as well so it might be an issue that affects all swarm missiles I don't know

You should see what happens when a swarm of Flails overflies its target in SETA.

a system like that would be much easer to set up because you would only have to buy and place a single building and then you could just and add new production lines via the command console after paying the appropriate amount of credits for the production line you want to add

You can do something similar by "burying" the factories inside the asteroid mines, thanks to the fact that game doesn't do collision checking when you set up your factories on top of your own factories.
Though I discovered that you can only overlap about 10 stations on the mine before shield loss becomes unhealthily fast. I think, over 20 stations, and you'll start to lose hull even during the placement scene.

[Solomon Short]

Though I discovered that you can only overlap about 10 stations on the mine before shield loss becomes unhealthily fast. I think, over 20 stations, and you'll start to lose hull even during the placement scene.

You should be able to get to 15 if you're reasonably quick (IIRC I could consistently connect my 17th before hull damage when testing).

But the other thing is, it's 10-15 at a time, so you can just keep stacking them (rinse & repeat every 10-15), 'cos the complex counts as one entity for damage until the complex hub is destroyed.

[Jimmy C]

For that part, I looked at the data, Flail and Hammer fabs have weaker shields than BoGas and BoFu fabs. So, putting Flail or Hammers on top of other factory types causes them to lose shields faster. Best to put them first, then others on top of them.
Still, the math is promising, I can bury two to three mines worth of factories in one mine, so I won't be running out of mines to bury factories.

[Cursed Ghost]

You can do something similar by "burying" the factories inside the asteroid mines, thanks to the fact that game doesn't do collision checking when you set up your factories on top of your own factories.
Though I discovered that you can only overlap about 10 stations on the mine before shield loss becomes unhealthily fast. I think, over 20 stations, and you'll start to lose hull even during the placement scene.

say what now ? if you are over lapping stations like that wont they be destroyed ?

[Nanook]

Not in AP. Once you connect two overlapping stations together with a CCK, collisions are turned off. I use this to build a whole complex of stations in one big pile. It really reduces the amount of lag caused by tubing, not to mention it looks really cool and 'industrial'.