mosquito missiles

[Faded Population]

is it just me or do mosquito missiles do no damage whatsoeva
i laucnched about 20 at a pirate ship and it didnt even dent the sheilds

[Lutzie]

Virtually zero, but enough to kill a mine or missile in one og, or to attract someones attention.
Massive range too, about 30KM IIRC.

[Faded Population]

ok ive got about 200 grand and 2 mercuarys and a disco and a silicone mine
what would u advise i should get 2 steal some pirate ships or should i just save up for a nova

[canazza]

Maxed out Pirate Bayamons are always fun to pilot, best M4 in my opinion.

Capping usually requires Wasp missiles, they are the only REAL offensive missile. However, if you read the Nova Capping posts you'll find out exactly how easy it is to cap a Nova (i did it, and I got a fairly well kitted out one which i easilly maxed for about 1.2 mill)

[Al]

ok ive got about 200 grand and 2 mercuarys and a disco and a silicone mine
what would u advise i should get 2 steal some pirate ships or should i just save up for a nova

OK take the Disco and max out its shields and lasers (Gamma IREs). Also get some wasp missiles too if you can. Max speed and a boost extension is a must. Combat mk2 software is a must as well (auto aim helper thingy).

Head to the Goner Temple and buy several salvage insurance. This allows you to save in space so you can save the game before starting an attack. Capturing in a Disco has a painful learning curve and hence the need for salvage insurance.

First thing to note is if you have a shio targetted the blue bar on the right of the right of the reticule is the shield strength and the green on the left is the hull (I think this is the set up for all ships). These are the most important thing you need to watch during a capture attempt.

Fly to the pirate sectors, my favourite hunting ground near the start is Elenas Fortune. What you want to find is a lone Bayamon or Mandalay. If you can find one great if not try Bala Gis Joy. Failing this you're going to have to pick one off a convoy. To do this get in close and pick a ship from the rear of the convoy and ensure you dont hit anything else, especially the lead ship as then they'll all turn on you. But I'll come back to this in a minute.

If you've got a lone target the theory is simple. If you are going to use just lasers, get behind it and reasonably close and match speed. I prefer about 300m but as you become used to capturing you'll find something that suits you.

Now open fire and try and get the shields down on the first attack. This isn't always possible as they can turn quickly. Now the most important thing is to stay alive. A couple of blast from a Bayamon and you'll be reloading. AS the ship turns you need to get in behind it and continue firing to get the shields down. Once you manage this you have to do some damage to the hull. No pilot will even bail out if his hull is in perfect condition. The magic number you are aiming for is 87% or below but remember that the higher the hull value the more its worth!

The other method is to use wasp missiles. They do 5MW of shield damage each (perhaps a little more) so you need one for a Mandalay and 2 for a Bayamon. Once you have the shields down you need to ensure that the hull is at or below 87%. Use your lasers for this if required.

Once you have this you can break off and let the shields recharge. At this point turn back in and try again. You want to try and no do further damage to the hull if possible so try and restrict your shots to only what is needed to take the shields down. Once the shields are down there is a random chance the pilot will bail out. If this happens you will get a message first saying something like "no ship is worth a Split life" or "You've just put me out of business" etc. The target reticule (in the middle of your screen) will turn from red to blue. This is the time to stop firing. Any further shots will only damage your new ship and at best make it worth less but you can destroy it too.

My best advice is to go for Bayamons. A good condition one will sell for about 100k without shields and lasers. But more importantly than this, it is the best ship for capturing IMHO. So if you capture one and dont immediately need the cash, keep it as a personal ship and once its upgraded use this instead of the M5.

You can target Pirate ships and IIRC 7 wasps are the best way to get the shields down and do hul damage. Dont fire from behind or even fly behind it as they have turrets and this will almost certainly mean the end of you. I found the biggest problem with taking out pirate ships is keeping the shields down low and evading the rear turret. It can be done but I recommend leaving them alone for now.

And there you have it. there is much more to capturing once you get a better ship but this should be enough to get you started.

HTH

Al

[Beagle3]

I only use them to attrack the attention of a Khaak cluster so that it does'n attack one of my freighters or to make it split (hey are those two cooperating )