M4s - Does anyone bother with these?

[NCODB]

Just a quick question.

When it comes to either chosing an early-level fighting ship, or creating fighter wings, does anyone here ever bother with M4s? Whenever i make wings, i tend to skip to M3s and don't bother with M4s or M5s.

Considering there are plenty of M3s that are just as fast as M4s, have heavier shields and hull, stronger weapons, etc, but are just more expensive (which isn't an issue by the time you start making fighter wings), why even bother?

What are your thoughts on this?

[xTemon]

M4 Buster is one of the best ships in the game. Some of the other M4s are pretty nice too. They have good firepower and awesome speed, but sacrifice some shields for that.

Some variations, (Vanguard, etc..), shift it around a bit, but I always found the base Buster to be really cool. Not sure how well it performs in X#TC though, as I haven't tried it.

Elite is a M4+, and has really good shields potentially, but its speed is awful. Pandora Tunings could make it awesome.

[Catra]

theyre pretty good, despite what the paper says =P

[Triaxx2]

The thing about M4's is that pound for pound, M4's are more cost effective than M3's.

True, they might be a little less survivable than M3's, but tend to be more agile and thus either get out of the line of fire faster, or simply aren't there when the rounds get there. Ten Buster Raiders are at least as dangerous as 10 Nova Raiders, strange as it may seem.

The Elite is essentially junk. Don't bother.

The Pike is the pinnacle of the M4. Fast, agile, small frame, and a cargo bay unsurpassed by any other fighter. True, the Mjollnir can carry 92 more units, but only M cargo. The Pike can carry L cargo.

And if you want speed, the Scorpion Raider is the ship for you running at 296m/s and mounting HEPT's. The lack of shielding and weapon battery isn't as important because it'll only be on target for a couple of seconds, so the HEPT will do the maximum damage.

And it's faster than all but two M3's. The Xperimental Shuttle, and the Spitfyre. Scorpion raiders are neither expensive, nor unique.

The Theseus is a surprisingly competent missile boat for it's surprisingly small cargo bay. And again, it's a tiny ship making it a difficult target to hit.

So in short, yes, I do use the M4 class, because they are far more diverse than the M3 class. Different ships for different roles.

Of course, I do still use M3's in anti-capital engagements where I need ships capable of surviving the glancing blows of capital grade weapons.

And M5's are great for chasing down ships that have decided to flee.

[dalin80]

M4's would be awesome if it wasnt for the handful of new weapons added to TC that insta-kill fighters, in x3 your only threats were flaks so you simply kept your distance from a capital ship that may be carrying them and pbe's which required careful testing to see if that ship you are flying toward may be carrying them.

In TC everyone and everything fires insta-death missiles like the launch button is stuck down and you have to deal with more types of flak weapons that can be fitted on smaller ships and the fact that every other pirate ship carriers flame throwers which will kill any m4 in about 0.0000003s.*

Even weapons like the ISR, PRG and EBCG are much faster then most seen in x3 and all can smack down light fighters in a few shots.

M4's in TC just dont have the survivability to be of much use, m5's are fast enough to dodge weapons fire, m3's strong enough to absorb some** but m4's are stuck in the middleground where there are simply too many things that can knock them out of the skies in the blink of an eye.

Just think back to any combat mission you have done, what were the easiest things to kill? m4's as they simply arent a concern.


*may not be an exaggeration, I have personally watched a single pirate blast claw chew out a shrike with those damn flamethrowers like it was melting a plastic bag.

**can survive a full 0.0000007s against flamethrowers.

[Samuel Creshal]

There are M4s… and M4s. The Solano is hands down the best fighter in the whole game – stats like a small M3, price like a small M4. So it has a lower surviveability – so what? You can buy two for the price of one M3 with only slightly better stats than one of them.

[AshToDust]

I disagree about Elite. They're doing pretty well in oos battle. Why use full expensive m3 patrol when you can mix half of them with Elite for the same result. why Elite and not other m4? because Elite's shied makes it cheaper in the long run.

Looks like you're thinking as money doesn't matter, maybe because you're using every game's trick to make cash. I do not and one third of my fighters are Elite ^^

I do like buzzard too, but I don't know why

[Sinxar]

I disagree about Elite. They're doing pretty well in oos battle. Why use full expensive m3 patrol when you can mix half of them with Elite for the same result. why Elite and not other m4? because Elite's shied makes it cheaper in the long run.

Looks like you're thinking as money doesn't matter, maybe because you're using every game's trick to make cash. I do not and one third of my fighters are Elite ^^

I do like buzzard too, but I don't know why

The only problem with your argument is that the Elite is double the price of a Solano with less shields and is slower. The only thing the Elite has in its favor is the rear turret. It even has less laser energy and weaker shield generator.

http://eng.x3tc.ru/x3_tc_ships/list.php?class=8&race=0

[Samuel Creshal]

Everyone who disagrees with me is a cheater.

Waaay to go.

[AshToDust]

Everyone who disagrees with me is a cheater.

Waaay to go.

I m not sure creating quote from scratch is a correct usage of forum... actualy I m pretty sure it s rude.

X3 is a sandbox game, you play it as you like it, there is . What I was merely saying is that if you re emphasing cash making, you don't have same priority than if you re emphasing another aspect of the X-Universe.

IMO it s a simple fact that if money ain't an issue, 80% of available ship are useless to player.

@Sinxar : true enough... Solano rocks, don't know why it rocks so much. Maybe they forgot a 0 at the top right of the price

[Triaxx2]

The trouble I have with the Elite is that it's not even good against other M4's. It's out run by M3's, and M4's and despite the rear turret, it's under armed, and so slow that it's easily chewed apart by other M4's.

What's worse, is that the heavy shield makes you throw it into heavier fighting, and it just can't survive that. And OOS is a different beast altogether.

The whole point of M4's is that they're faster than M3's. The Elite is out run by the Nova. That's just not right.

So I go for the Pike or the Asp. The Pike is an excellent main combat fighter, and the L version costs about the same as a base model M3. The Asp is a bit of a specialist, and I've heard that it's good for knocking down shields during boarding, when armed with PBE's.

[Samuel Creshal]

Triaxx, ever tried a Solano?

[Raize]

I always found Solano to be bad in practice although good on paper. I'd still go with Falcon Haulers or Sentinel once I get PHQ as a carrier-based swarming fighter...

[Sir Warwick]

Solanos are not that great if you use them alone - same is true of most M4s - their job is to get into a fight quickly and buy time for heavies to get there and get the kills.

I use them paired with ventiis usually - both loaded with MDs and a a few missiles. Solanos usually get lots of mossies and maybe a few wasp - not for damage - more for distraction. Ventiis usually carry more mossies and some hurricanes or tempests.

But this is earlish game and avoiding combat with hostile M7Ms anywhere to be seen (as their flails kill off fighters very quickly). Later on in the game- hardly bother with fighters - logistics is too much of a pain - once you have a complex making fighers drones, flails and hammer - not mch that fighters can add really when the logistics of supplying them is such a pain.

[dalin80]

Solanos are not that great if you use them alone - same is true of most M4s - their job is to get into a fight quickly and buy time for heavies to get there and get the kills.
.

M5's do that role much better as the AI finds them almost impossible to hit grinding the enemy ships progress to a hault allowing the big hitters to arrive, m4's will be killed off much quicker and are less of a inconvenience to the enemy.

[Nanook]

Everyone who disagrees with me is a cheater.

Waaay to go.

Samuel, that was uncalled for. Do not do it again.

[Elazul]

What about Kestrel blobs? Was thinking about buying a ton of these and just using the giant blob to pretty much blow through everything. A tactic that could work or doomed to failure?

[Uncle Ruckus 42]

I don't know, never tried making a blob of Kestrels, I imagine it could work but you'd of course have to fine tune missile fire probabilities and engine/rudder tunings so that the AI can use them effectively without crashing into things (maybe use the Bounce script). I also don't know if you can rely on them as a wing to do exactly what you want. You may need multiple Kestrel blobs to do all that needs done in a big fight.

As far as M4s go, they are kind of the unloved middle-child, but i do still like them. My big issue with them is that they proportionally sacrifice a lot of shielding for often very minimal gains in speed over an M3 if at all. Just a loose observation but in vanilla TC it seems the speed range of 280-420 m/s is mostly vacant. M3s tend to be between 175-225 m/s whereas m4s tend to be 200-275. There are exceptions but IMO M4s should be at least 300 m/s to set them apart. Really though everything in X flies so slow it could never escape the orbit of anything so I guess its good we can't land on planets. Isn't it roughly accurate that every 100m/s is about 200mph? Yea thats pathetic, a jumbo jet flies faster than anything but an m5.

Commentary aside I like m4s in the early game, the right one can get a wide variety of missions accomplished and some of them look cool. In the hands of a good pilot they pack just enough firepower to be useful or survivable. They do a good job giving you the punchy acceleration and tight handling to emulate that dogfight feel, while having just enough firepower to actually engage in it against carefully selected targets. I haven't tried them all but my three favs are The Solano, Asp, and Tonbo.

[Catra]

The whole point of M4's is that they're faster than M3's. The Elite is out run by the Nova. That's just not right.

the Nova goes 150
the Elite goes 160
the Enhanced Elite goes 201 (you can buy this from the CBSE SY)

What's worse, is that the heavy shield makes you throw it into heavier fighting,

the only thing that makes it get thrown into heavy fighting is the user. it doesnt have to go near that type of situation, at all.

[Raize]

The whole point of M4's is that they're faster than M3's. The Elite is out run by the Nova. That's just not right.

the Nova goes 150
the Elite goes 160
the Enhanced Elite goes 201 (you can buy this from the CBSE SY)

What's worse, is that the heavy shield makes you throw it into heavier fighting,

the only thing that makes it get thrown into heavy fighting is the user. it doesnt have to go near that type of situation, at all.

The whole point of the Nova is that you use the 190m/s Raider variant with no actual downsides.