Missles are not effective against fighters

[Frank Johnson]

I've played the game sincve the day it was released. Acording to steam I have logged around 1300 hours.


Seems to me that missles are not all that good when used against a fighter. Only about 50% of them never hit a target.

Latly I mostly use them to take out hard points on a capital ship from 5km or more.

When up against a fighter:
Missles are to slow.
Can not turn as fast a the fighter.
Short range before auto destruct.
Chase target instead of intercept.

[mr.WHO]

It's been an X-Universe tradition to have problems with missiles.

They are always either too OP, too weak or too useless (like detonating in your face blowing you up).

Make your life much easier and just ignore them.

[Nikola515]

Problem with them is that they keep flying around ship instead of hitting them(I would say there is pathway finding problem ). What is point of having them if it is intentionally made to do this.They can always reduce damage if they are OP or add way to counter them (turrets or flare). As for X3 they wore not OP. We had way to shot them down and there was way to counter them... Also there was limit how many we could have in cargo. Skunk have limit too but it is not like in X3 where you could chose how much E-Cells you want for jumpdrive or something that you wont to sell.

[Frank Johnson]

Another thing I ahve noticed is that even when firing missles at a fighter comeing at you head on the wille will not hit the target. It will wait for the fighter to pass then make a huge wide turn and try to chase the fighter down at which point it is to late. Any changes in direction of the fighter will keep the missle from hiting.

[wysiwyg]

You need the right missile for the right job:

Starflash (smallest and fastest) - good hit rate against fast fighters e.g. cenelath, domelch, eterscel. Can also be used as good AOE missile against packs of drones that tend to stay tightly bunched. Top Tip - fire off two at the same target - the targets don't evade the missile, they just fly some random "crazy ivan" type manouvers to look like they are evading. Starflashes are cheap, easy to get and the Skunk can hold a shed load.

Sunstalkers - good against larger, slower fighters such as Katana and daito

Hellbusters - slow missile that packs a big punch but can only hit slow targets - good for surgical strikes against cap ship shield generators for example

Swarm Missiles - good against packs of fighters and drones but a bit hit and miss - expensive if you get a poor return for each launch.

Dumbfire missiles - only good for taking out cap ship and station surface elements or lucky (point blank) hits against larger fighters

Novadrones - very slow or stationary targets only - large AOE damage though so expect a lot of collateral damage around the point of impact.

Starflashes for me are the must have missile if you expect to fly into a pack of fighters or drones - fire lots of them to cause panic amongst attackers so you can pick them off one at a time.

[GCU Grey Area]

What engines are you using?

For effective missile use against fighters I generally like to launch them at extremely close range from right behind the target, often just at the point where I'm about to overtake them. Gives them much less opportunity to dodge (maybe 1-2 seconds at most). For that to work you either need to have faster engines than the target (mk 5 supercharged works well for this) or rely on boosters which, since they deplete shields, is something I prefer to avoid as much as possible in a dogfight (though sometimes a brief tap on the boosters to get moving faster after a sharp turn can be a literal life saver).

As for why I use missiles at such close range, it's mostly for convenience & quick kills. Often find that by the time I've shot through their shields with gunfire my guns are dangerously close to overheating. Could switch to a different gun but generally find it's quicker & a lot more convenient just to finish them off with a Sunstalker, or a couple of Starflashes (choice depends on target's speed), while my guns cool down ready for the next victim.

[Zetoss]

Used to be the Sunstalker was my favorite for any and all targets; 10km range combined with decent speed and packed an average punch. Nowadays they basically never hit anything smaller than a capship so I've resorted to Astrobees and close range carpet bombing of targets in close proximity to each other, my wallet is more or less bleeding credits and I haveto get up close and personal but the satisfaction of watching them wipe out half a dozen targets simultaneously is worth it. The only thing I'd love that would not make them OP (their range is horribly bad but they need a drawback) would be for arms dealers to stock at least twice as many because you need to hail an average of about 3 arms dealers for a mere 10 Astrobees. I get that they're supposed to be somewhat rare but let's face it; we keep switching zones and hailing everyone in sight until we have all we need anyway, it's enough that they are expensive.

Protip if you get outnumbered but have some quality missiles: boost away from the swarm and target closest (Shift+E) while still going away from them and at just over 2km range (3km if their weapons are still reaching you) you fire in the direction you're going, the missile tends to bend back, miss completely because their targeting completely sucks, but then you keep your enemy flying in a straight line trying to catch up and on the second turn the missile will come right up their exhaust port if it's faster than the ship. Talk about a pain in the rear for the bad guys.

A random thought; could missiles have the same issue as marines lately, avoiding collisions (which is good of course) but in doing so also dodging their target?

[Nikola515]

@GCU Grey Area

I thought whole point of missile is to be long range weapon. If im that close to ship I might as well shot it with main weapon. Problem is them not hitting target. They just fly around it in circle until they explode (that is if missile is faster than ship). Also I noticed even if ship is front of me missile go far left or right and than locks on target and starts following it. Also I noticed sometimes it it go back around skunk and than start locking on ship in front of me. I don't think you can even fire missile with boosters on. Also when you fire missile it should be always faster than ship that is moving. So if I fire missile with skunk going fast it should be skunks speed+ missile speed (within vacuum space and no gravity).

[Snafu_X3]

Certainly StarFlashes & SunStalkers are my missile of choice; most of the rest I simply sell off (or in the case of DF, just waste to make room for others..)

3-4x SF will take a Xenon N; a similar count for SS will take an M. Or you can simply hoard SFs for doing escort missions: one on each attacker is likely to get their attention away from the Gigrum they've been tasked to kill, & onto you This leaves you with the option to choose the battlespace, with your mission target running for a station, & them with AI orders to concentrate on you, not your mission target

[GCU Grey Area]

I thought whole point of missile is to be long range weapon.

Possibly, though I've always preferred to use them as a melee weapon - a swift coup-de-grace to eliminate an unshielded enemy target, without wasting ammo/weapon energy (in old X games) or to avoid weapon overheat (in XR).

Also when you fire missile it should be always faster than ship that is moving. So if I fire missile with skunk going fast it should be skunks speed+ missile speed (within vacuum space and no gravity).

Think that may already be the case. If I fire Hellbusters when I'm travelling at full speed they definitely shoot off ahead of me. If they didn't add Skunk's speed they would logically fall behind: Hellbuster 325m/s, mk5 supercharged Skunk 360m/s. Only way to catch up with a Hellbuster launched from a mk5 supercharged Skunk is to use boosters (incidentally, if you fire a missile immediately after a bit of sustained boosting that missile's speed can only be described as 'ludicrous').