How to defeat those pesky M5 ships

[MrFiction]

Started as a Terran defender in AP (although the same holds for TC) and I'm having trouble dealing with small M5 scout ships. Either I bring in a capital with flak weapons or I spend minutes circling around the scouts trying to hit them.

Tried with M3 or M6 ships (Terran Katana with 8 EMPC up front) and I just can't find a good strategy to hit them. I try to fly towards them in a direct line but shooting at them, all shots seem to miss. Tried with cursors fire, boresight fire, with and without aim assist, etc. Any tips?

[Timsup2nothin]

Faster weapons. The bolt from an IRE is far faster than most other weapons, so more likely to reach the target before it turns or does something else to throw off your aim. Hitting a fly with a sledgehammer will certainly kill it, but so will a flyswatter and it is a lot easier to swing accurately.

[Alan Phipps]

I'm not sure the Terran smaller ships have a fast weapon outside of their Starburst Shockwave types.

Probably the best tactic for attacking the remaining annoying Scouts at close range may be small fast homing missiles (Poltergeists or even Mossies can be useful).

Of course the ultimate anti-swarm tactic, if you have the opportunity, is to wipe out the entire Kha'ak cluster before or just as it splits. Spectre missiles have the range and payload to do that for you.

[Martin Head]

A method I use is. Don't take pot shots at the M5, just try to keep it in your sights. Eventually it will make an attack run, straight at you. Wait until it gets real close, then let it have it.

[RAVEN.myst]

Terrans are notoriously weak vs. M5s and fighter drones, because even the lightest weapon (the EMPC) has the wrong profile vs small agile targets - its shots are too slow, small, and far apart, as well as deflecting a small random amount (ie. are somewhat inaccurate), so your would-be vict-...errr, targets often end up flying right between the shots.

The Katana you mention is a perfect example of the above, because the problem is compounded by its lousy forward weapon placement (3 on the left, 3 on the right, and a huge gap in the middle - similar to the Springblossom). When flying that ship, I find the best thing is to set the left and right turrets to "attack my target" (if you want to be specific) or "attack enemies" (if you're less fussy) and let them do the bulk of the work (limit your maneouvres, so as to not throw off your turrets' aim too much) - use the forward gun array mainly vs M6s. Generally, I allow turrets to deal with M5s. To this end, whenever playing as Terran or ATF (which I really enjoy, so I do quite often), I end up using my turrets more aggressively - instead of my usual "missile defense", I do as mentioned above a lot more of the time. Otherwise, if you like flying M6s, the Vidar's forward array is more compact and dense, and comprises more guns, so your hits are far more consistent. (In this vein, I find also ships such as the Thor and the Fenrir do well against even small targets.) Alternatively, you could fly the "makes-the-game-too-easy" Springblossom, which is fast, capacious, and packs flak weapons (unique in the M6 class, in that regard) - pretty much solves anything, if you can put up with the almost cheaty feel of flying it

Note: One of Terran ships' main advantages is generally higher shielding in most ship classes than their counterparts in other races. M5s generally pose little threat beyond "nuisance" - thicker shields + offensive turrets means that the problem goes away by itself, given a little time.

Poltergeists are OK, but generally too slow against M5s, unlike the Commonwealth's lower-damage but much faster Wasp (which is an excellent way to swat M5s.) The 'Geist's advantage, however, is that if its target disappears, it looks for a new one.

EDIT: Corrected a typo.

ADDENDUM: Regarding the Katana (since you mention it), this one's a bit of a strange fish.

Speed: pretty good.
Maneuverability: mediocre.
Capacity: mediocre.
Shielding: very good.
Weapons: er... complicated to mediocre.

As mentioned above, the left and right shoulder-mounted turrets can be used in lieu of the frontal array because of how their arcs of fire start overlapping just above the targeting reticle. As mentioned above, the frontal gun array is appallingly bad, shooting to either side of a target (regardless of aim-assist mode on or off), so I generally use this for MAMLs to hit larger targets, on the rare occasions that I fly a Katana. However, even this use is compromised by the ship's relatively smallish cargo hold, which means that, after installing the larger MAMLs, there is already rather little space for ammo for them.

Personally, whenever I start a Terran Commander game (which I do quite often - I like the challenge of Terran, especially economy-wise), the first thing I do is buy a Valkyrie, transfer over the guns, SELL the Katana, and buy more useful stuff (such as freighter/s, a factory, perhaps a M4, a TM as soon as I have the requisite reputation.) I recently played a specifically USC game (ie. no ATF ships, for a change), and so ended up using a Katana for some time (though initially I did as above, though with a Rapier instead of a Valk), and found that the best way to fly it is pretty straight, with the turrets doing the bulk of the work - it's too cumbersome to be used as a "super-heavy fighter".

[ancienthighway]

I've never played the Terran long enough to work out any battle tactics, but I do know the weapons and missiles are generally too slow. With AP spamming mosquitoes might work. No one has mentioned drones. I know the CW fighter drone Mk I will handle M5's fairly easily, what about the Keris?

[Honved]

Terran ships, as noted, are poor at hitting M5s and Combat Drones.

The Commonwealth has several more effective weapons against them, like the Phase Repeater Gun (PRG) and the weak Impulse Ray Emitter (IRE), both of which have far faster bullet speed and higher rates of fire than the Terran weapons. The hated and feared Plasma Burst Generator (PBG) functions as a giant flame-thrower, and is lethal against M5s and any stray friendlies which happen to be flying in that general direction at the time. Paranid Phased Shockwave Generators potentially take that "collateral damage" element to a "war crimes" level, but will exterminated M5s almost as an afterthought. Taking on the Kha'ak in TC with a Diemos packed with PSGs turns it into a cakewalk: vaporize the Scouts in swarms, and simply ram the Corvettes with your 6Gj of shielding.

Wasp missiles are devastatingly effective against lightly shielded M5s. The pathetic Mosquito Missile really doesn't even have enough power to take out M5s, unless you use them by the dozen. The closest equivalent Terran missiles are much more powerful, but a lot slower, and better used against M4 and M3 targets.

There's nothing like watching an Argon Magnetar TM with PRGs in the turrets (one per turret, because two may cause energy drain issues) rip apart a swarm of M5s or M4s. Buying one of those in Commonwealth space, and using it as a mobile "resupply" ship to follow your personal ship, gives you a lot of options.

Flying a Terran ship, you could deploy a couple of Keris Drones, which increases the total number of weapons firing and ups the odds of a hit. After the fight, you can give the drones a "Stop" order, then run them over to pick them up....costing you nothing for the fight.

[RAVEN.myst]

I've never played the Terran long enough to work out any battle tactics, but I do know the weapons and missiles are generally too slow. With AP spamming mosquitoes might work. No one has mentioned drones. I know the CW fighter drone Mk I will handle M5's fairly easily, what about the Keris?

Unfortunately, just as with everything else, Terran drones (ie. Keris) are better at hitting larger, slower targets. They pack an EMPC each, and pretty much fit between the Mk1 and Mk2 in terms of price and performance profile - though even the Mk2 is better vs small targets, as PACs are faster and more accurate.

Where the Keris drones shine is vs heavy fighters and up (even vs capital ships, in sufficient numbers) because their EMPCs outrange other drones' weapons (therefore the Keris can shoot from farther away and is thus less subject to collision avoidance dances - the drones can fire without crowding *quite* as close), and also the EMPC, which similar to the PAC vs shields, is much stronger vs hulls. This, of course, makes them less suited to boarding-support, but then again, if playing "true Terran" one doesn't do much boarding, given the lack of Terran marines and BP-compatible M7Ms...

The hated and feared Plasma Burst Generator (PBG) functions as a giant flame-thrower, and is lethal against M5s and any stray friendlies which happen to be flying in that general direction at the time. Paranid Phased Shockwave Generators potentially take that "collateral damage" element to a "war crimes" level...

I had a good laugh when I read that - thank you

There's nothing like watching an Argon Magnetar TM with PRGs in the turrets (one per turret, because two may cause energy drain issues) rip apart a swarm of M5s or M4s. Buying one of those in Commonwealth space, and using it as a mobile "resupply" ship to follow your personal ship, gives you a lot of options.

Or get the OTAS Zephyrus - same weapon options, stronger weapon generator, more shields and higher speed (in true Terran style, heheh), at the cost of some cargo space and a little maneouverability (but unlike the Magnetar, Zephyrus can't use tractor beam or mining laser - keep this in mind if it's a consideration.) However, as you are playing AP, you also have access to the Terran Toukon TM, in case you are playing Terran-only - its turrets do OK against M5s (not spectacular, but adequate.)

[Cpt.Jericho]

My approach to that problem is: Get a Commonwealth ship that can launch Hurricane missles and build a fab that produces those.

[ancienthighway]

Raven, have you been able to get the Magnetar to actually use the tractor beam? It does mount one, but I've never been able to get it to lock onto a target and pull it.

My personal preference for swatting the little bugs is a Hurricane missle. A bit of an overkill, but my experience with Wasps is they fly around and around the target then self destruct.

[Timsup2nothin]

If you are in a big enough ship sporting sufficient shielding most M5s can be dealt with by ignoring them and flying an erratic course until they splatter themselves against your hull. Weaving through fields of asteroids and/or rocks to confuse their collision avoidance algorithms will speed the process.

[RAVEN.myst]

Raven, have you been able to get the Magnetar to actually use the tractor beam? It does mount one, but I've never been able to get it to lock onto a target and pull it.

Good point - I don't remember which ship this applies to (might be Magnetar, or one of the other TMs that can mount it - or both!), but while the weapon is listed as compatible, the energy output of the laser generator isn't enough, and so it doesn't work as it should - I remember this happening to me once a very long time ago in X3TC. Thereafter, I only ever bothered with tractors beams on 'vettes and up - "budget tractor" was obviously a bad idea

Re missiles: yes, Wasps do tend to collision-avoid each other ("stepping on each other's toes", so to speak) - but I just have a soft spot for swarm missiles Objectively, a Hurricane is a better bet, yes.

[Triaxx2]

If you've got an M6, ram the buggers. If you've got something lighter, get very, very close before pulling the trigger. EMPC is surprisingly strong, and a bank of 8 should one shot most common M5's, even with AP's stronger hulls. Be so close they're impossible to miss and they will be.

[MrFiction]

Thanks for all the info. I managed to improve my combat skills a bit by doing what Martin Head said, wait until close and in a straight line before firing.

@RAVEN.myst: good info, I'd like to add the Katana has a good frontal firepower for M3 and larger ships. All weapon slots can be filled with EMPC and I can maintain fire indefinitely. With the improved recharge rate in AP, I never run out of energy.

@Honved: "war crimes" weapons

[Honved]

Raven, have you been able to get the Magnetar to actually use the tractor beam? It does mount one, but I've never been able to get it to lock onto a target and pull it.

There are several TS ships that can also mount a Tractor Beam, but like the TM, aren't large or powerful enough to use it. As far as I've seen, an M6 is the smallest ship that can actually use one. Whether it's determined by weapons power generation or hull mass, I'm not certain, but a TM doesn't qualify. The weapons "slot" is defined as able to handle "special equipment", which includes Mobile Drilling Systems, Repair Lasers, and Tractor Beams, but Repair Lasers aren't available for sale (without mods) and Tractor Beams have other requirements. You can install it, but can't use it.

[RAVEN.myst]

All weapon slots can be filled with EMPC and I can maintain fire indefinitely. With the improved recharge rate in AP, I never run out of energy.

Yes, I neglected to mention that - in a way, it only means that it could have a bit more firepower added to it: the excess is going to waste, while it's ok to spend a bit faster than recharging, as just a few seconds of no fire builds the charge back up. On the other hand, being able to fire continuously even with your turrets working is great. The Vidar has 10 forward guns (almost double the firepower) in a more solid bank (no gap in the middle), and is also able to fire almost continuously (the downside is the Vidar is 8m/s slower than the Katana, but it's also more than twice as agile - handles almost like a heavy fighter.)

@Honved: Indeed. I think it's related to the weapon's "max energy" stat exceeding the ship's laser capacitor - there simply isn't enough power(even when fully charged) to even start "firing" the tractor beam effectively. As you say, they are likely "compatible" simply because tractors, mining lasers, and repair beams are all grouped as the same weapon for this purpose, but only the laser drill-head is, in fact, able to be used by the utility ships.

[Triaxx2]

In TC, the tractor beam needs a minimum of 1,000 energy to fire initially. The only TM's that have that, can't mount it. Likewise with TS.

My preference for towing ship is a Pirate Galleon. It's absolutely tiny when measured against other capitals, and so it rarely collides with what it's towing. On top of that, it's a carrier so it can bring fighters along to defend itself, if something nasty appears while you're towing.