Bomber Better Missile Boat Than m7m?

[CerebralAbrasion]

In x3tc I recently built a phantom missile plex. My plan is to use Claymores to give a frontline of destroyers some backup firepower. Since I suddenly have phantoms coming out my ears, I decided to experiment with a Claymore as a player ship. Out of curiosity I clicked the extra commands menu on my Claymore and guess what I found? The option to launch phantoms in barrages of 8, just like an m7m.

Now I've seen it said all over the internet that m7m's are the best/only option for a hard hitting missile boat. I took this advice long ago and have a small stockpile of hammers for appropriate situations. But after learning what the Claymore can do, I think it is a superior option for several reasons. Each phantom does almost double the damage of a hammer. A phantom factory produces more than twice as many missiles per hour than a hammer factory does. And finally, phantoms take up 1/20'th the cargo space of hammers. This is huge if you're trying to stockpile missiles. I don't want 20 Mammoths sitting around holding my hammers when 1 of them could hold the same number of phantoms. Granted the hammers have a couple of advantages in speed and range. Also consider that the launching platforms for these missiles are very different. In comparison to an m7m, the Claymore is lightly shielded but very fast and maneuverable. With a turbo booster you should be able to escape most enemy fire, move to position, launch salvos, and jump away if need be. And if I'm not mistaken, the number of missiles you can carry on an m7m vs bomber should be roughly the same. The only real downside to the bomber is that you won't have any missiles fast enough to catch up to scouts. All in all, I think the bomber platform is superior to the m7m by just a bit, and will be my new go-to for when the Xenon stir up trouble Any thoughts?

[Timsup2nothin]

As I have said many times before, there is no problem in the universe that Tomahawks can't solve.

[ancienthighway]

With the exception of boarding.

[MarvinTheMartian]

Interesting take on it. I do have an M8 as an ICE contact but tend to use M7Ms as I'll probably want to steal something while I'm there.

Couple of things...

You're playing TC so if you really want to push a button and make a sector go away then there's no getting past a Skirnir - that's a real M7M FTW button

I'm in AP and, despite missiles having hull points, the missile defences of most ships are actually quite capable of shooting down a barrage or two of hammers so likely Tomahawks and Phantoms too. I almost exclusively use flails now for all but stations and the biggest ships (M2+) if I'm going for destruction.

Spoiler

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you can use the barrage command OOS which is insta-hit

[Timsup2nothin]

The trick with a bomber is to get to close range and let them have it right between the eyes. No missile defenses need apply.

[fireanddream]

My plan is to use Claymores to give a frontline of destroyers some backup firepower.

Nope, nope, nope, nope.

One claymore kills everything. Two claymores kill everything, twice.

Your bigger ships will either block the missiles and die stupidly, or simply struggle to steal a kill from your claymore. If you want some backup fire power, have a defensive M7M firing flails and running MDM.c, claymore is simply so op that two NPC claymores can annihilate your entire fleet unless you use PSG mounted paranid capitals.

And you don't need M7M or M8 to invade Xenon sectors either since missile is the NO.1 reason of death of AP, but Xenon doesn't have M7M or M8. Besides, their capitals are poorly equipped (downside of wide weapon choices), poorly shielded (sub-bar K and Q), and in general way less scarier than their looks. Just be ware of PBE mounted fighter swarms.

[Triaxx2]

Bomber's I've always treated as integral parts of fighter groups. Bring them along and use them to deal with any capital threats that turn up to stop you. If something doesn't go down to a Bomber, you didn't use enough missiles. And they're more efficient at taking down stations for the number of missiles spent. Admittedly, an M2 is cheaper for dealing with stations, but if you don't have one...

I haven't used the Claymore much since I haven't had a reliable source of missiles, but I presume the same rules apply to it as any of the Commonwealth bombers.

[Honved]

Two things an M8 can't do that an M7M can are:

- Deal with fighter swarms. An M8 will get eaten alive by light fighters, and the Tomahawk is not well suited for killing M5s. An M7M can use Flails against smaller targets. A single rear-mounted energy weapon is not an adequate substitute (although it would be REALLY nice if the M7M could use them to save a bit on the cost of missiles).

- Launch boarding pods. If you want to blow up the target, simply use the M8; if you want to capture it, the M7M is well worth the hefty boost in price.

[Timsup2nothin]

With the exception of boarding.

Boarding is a luxury, not a problem.

[CerebralAbrasion]

I've gotten some more experience with the Caymore and I see what you mean, I can already launch as many Phantoms as I want with it, so I probably only need 1 bomber in the whole game. Also, I think someone suggested (but I can't for the life of me find the post) that flails can basically do it all, destroy heavy and light targets. I noticed before that flails can put a big hurt on capital ships, when I was trying to take down their shields for boarding. I took a look at some stats on the wiki and did some math, looks like flails do a little more than half the damage of hammers for their cargo volume, and it would take exactly 40 flails to destroy a Xenon K. Don't take my word for it I'm not good at math But yeah I think flails could "do it all", which is pretty awesome to think about, you'd probably want a freighter behind you with an extra supply though if you're seriously at war. I think I only have one flail factory though, so maybe it's time to build a complex for them

[BloodBrain]

I took a look at some stats on the wiki and did some math, looks like flails do a little more than half the damage of hammers for their cargo volume, and it would take exactly 40 flails to destroy a Xenon K.

Actually it would be 350 Flails.


Also Flails do less than 1/3 of Hammer damage cargo-space wise. You somehow miscalculated their damage.


At least for AP. The bit other half figure is true for TC, but even then you would still need 215 Flails for a K

[Honved]

Problem is, the target's shields regenerate while you're lowering them, so a lower damage or slower-firing missile will take even more time and total damage than a more powerful missile to knock down shields of the same strength.

[Triaxx2]

The trick, is to fire a barrage of hammers, then swap to flails and fire again. Flails are a lot faster, and some will miss. Now the target is shooting at those, and the initial barrage comes in and smashes the target.