What is the best M7 for a capital killer?

[Klord]

So whats you favorite M7 as an anti capital ship? Since ship stats has changed drastically, it would be worth to have another compassion.

1. I fly an Agamemnon with 12 IBL and 8 CIG and it can pack a punch but unfortunately has to rely on turret fire which can be unreliable in times. It also has a huge laser battery and a big shield generator/shielding . One downside is that it has huge wings, so dodging capital weapon fire from strafing is very difficult.

2. What is the purpose of Tern? Is it a replica of Shrike without hangers but with more shielding? I think this will be a good capital ship killer as well, but have to try out myself. Have anybody tried this beast?

3. Tiger is not very much changed in FL, its the same old Tiger. Its thin so can easily doge incoming fire but has a huge tail so you will get hit when you are turning away from the enemy ships after your wepons dry out.

Any other worthy contendors?

4. Also, I didnt flew M7s much in previous X games. So Im kinda new to capital ship battles. My current tactic with Aggy is get close to the enemy so the turret IBLs can fire at them. When the enemy cap ship comes in range, Ill fire the CIGS while trying to strafe and avoid incoming weapon fire. When the weapon energy depletes, I turn away (mostly to the left side) and start flying away and comes back again at the enemy when I gained about 5 km distance. This is where I have the problem. When I turn and try to get away from the enemy cap ship, I cant see incoming projectiles, so I get hit a lot causing heavy shield damage. Am I doing something wrong?

[Thandrall]

So whats you favorite M7 as an anti capital ship? Since ship stats has changed drastically, it would be worth to have another compassion.

1. I fly an Agamemnon with 12 IBL and 8 CIG and it can pack a punch but unfortunately has to rely on turret fire which can be unreliable in times. It also has a huge laser battery and a big shield generator/shielding . One downside is that it has huge wings, so dodging capital weapon fire from strafing is very difficult.

2. What is the purpose of Tern? Is it a replica of Shrike without hangers but with more shielding? I think this will be a good capital ship killer as well, but have to try out myself. Have anybody tried this beast?

3. Tiger is not very much changed in FL, its the same old Tiger. Its thin so can easily doge incoming fire but has a huge tail so you will get hit when you are turning away from the enemy ships after your wepons dry out.

Any other worthy contendors?

4. Also, I didnt flew M7s much in previous X games. So Im kinda new to capital ship battles. My current tactic with Aggy is get close to the enemy so the turret IBLs can fire at them. When the enemy cap ship comes in range, Ill fire the CIGS while trying to strafe and avoid incoming weapon fire. When the weapon energy depletes, I turn away (mostly to the left side) and start flying away and comes back again at the enemy when I gained about 5 km distance. This is where I have the problem. When I turn and try to get away from the enemy cap ship, I cant see incoming projectiles, so I get hit a lot causing heavy shield damage. Am I doing something wrong?

Can help out much there, as I don't use M7's much either, even more so since the maru is pretty damn powerful in its own right. But with the aggy, its a lot easier to dodge weapons fire when you use the rotation keys as well, as you said it has wings, so you only need to move the main body out of the way by a little bit, while rotating and you're clear.

[dony93]

The Tern, IMHO. 8 GJ of shields, 4 Gauss Cannons in left and right turrets (they can shoot forward!) and 4-5 IBLs in the cockpit and you will easily kill any capital. It's my main ship.

[Ezendeir]

It has to be the Tiger for me. Keep in mind though that my opinion is biased since I used to play on this ship a lot in AP . Very Fast M7 (128 m/s is faster than a Nova Sentinel), very maneuverable, can run a full IBL setup better than Tern due to having more MJs of reload, though you could make the argument that the Tern with Gauss Cannons is better. And yes, the Tiger is also a very sleek ship, capital weapons most of the time won't even hit you if you strafe, rotate and move out of the way accordingly while letting your turrets do the job.

If you have the ability to produce Gauss Cannon Ammunition and/or don't mind being stuck under 90 m/s (unless you get pandora crates) then go for the Tern. 8 GJ of Shields can make a difference.

If you like hit and run tactics, or just breezing through a storm of lasers, the Tiger in my opinion is the ship for you.

Answering your fourth question... Have you tried going in the external view and seeing which lasers are going to hit you? M7s are very big ships. Especially your Aggy.

[dony93]

4 Gauss and 4 IBLs are actually much better than 8 IBLs: GCs deal around twice the hull damage, and with the greatly increased hull hp in AP/FL it's a very nice thing. Ammunitions are cheap, they last long and you'll have no problems buying them, no need for a complex. Also consider that the Tern has a better laser generator than the Shrike.

The Tiger also has half the shields and it's not much better than the Tern at avoiding incoming fire as both ships are pretty hard to hit compared to other frigates. It's a bit faster, yes, but it's not an issue in FL: with just 4 engine tunings the Tern goes above 100 m/s. Anyway, you'll use Jumpdrive or Turbo Booster most of the time and the gigantic cargo space of the Tern really makes a difference for both.

[Midnightknight]

Without hesitation the Shrike, the best killer in the hands of the player.

Yes the Tern have now better shields and better energy (not much) but it's also a lot less maneuverable and rudder optimization are not that easy to get in my game. On the other hand Engine tuning are everywhere and getting a single create get your Shrike to 140ms which is a really good speed, and it's not too fast either, meaning you won't ram half the friendly system's ships in your M7 when you are turning around.

Outfitted with 8 energy bolt in main battery and 4 gauss on the left and right turret you have an unmatched punch forward facing while you can put PBE or PRG for missile coverage and fighter killing. 6GJ shield is descent and it's capacity to bring 8 fighters makes it really a jewel as they can deal with the M2 escorts while you deal with the big bad guy.
The improved maneuverability also allows you to strafe any IBL, PPC and even CIG incoming shot if you remain around 4km range but also allows you to use the huge antenna at the front to ram any annoying ship like a P that get too close and dispatch it in a second without much efforts, what the tiger and Tern can't do that easily.

I think it's up to you, but M7 players ships that can deal with M2 are the 3 already named and the Thresher you can use as a sneaky glass canon, charging it's many PPC, shot with all gun fully charged on your opponent and back to safety to recharge lol. 4 different play styles for 4 different ships.

[dony93]

At least in my game rudder optimizations are everywhere, so I was able to make my Tern pretty manoeuvrable. In this regard the Shrike is indeed a bit better, and the hangar is useful too. It was my main ship in AP but the extra 2GJ and cargo space of the Tern really caught my attention. I miss the hangar a little bit though, I've never used escort fighters because they die too easily but it was funny to jump in a Kestrel or a M3+ when needed!

[Midnightknight]

At least in my game rudder optimizations are everywhere, so I was able to make my Tern pretty maneuverable. In this regard the Shrike is indeed a bit better, and the hangar is useful too. It was my main ship in AP but the extra 2GJ and cargo space of the Tern really caught my attention. I miss the hangar a little bit though, I've never used escort fighters because they die too easily but it was funny to jump in a Kestrel or a M3+ when needed!

Yeah and it allows you to resupply at the local powerplant if you forget about your e-cells before leaving or are out of ammo lol. (Yeah i'm kind of absent minded from time to time) For the escort i don't use it much, but sometime i was harassed by a bunch or M4/M5 and were a pain to deal with, i was happy to send my 2 enahanced Kea to help deal with them faster. Not really a great use against M2 ships but it's really comfortable to be able to use them. Also when you have a fighter bailing you can simply dock it in and it's way safer to bring it back to the shipyard than ask it to fly around lol.

[RunGiantBoom]

Placing bet on Akurai.
2 PCGs in down turret and 20 marines making any alone capital dead.

Approach, wait 10 sec while PSGs destroying shields launch marines, escape, wait for capture. Easy and safe

Ofc if you need to kill this capital, you can use selfdistruct on that ship

[Midnightknight]

Placing bet on Akurai.
2 PCGs in down turret and 20 marines making any alone capital dead.

Approach, wait 10 sec while PSGs destroying shields launch marines, escape, wait for capture. Easy and safe

Ofc if you need to kill this capital, you can use selfdistruct on that ship

Won't work on Xenons and ATF that requires a lot more marines to be boarded than what an Akurai can bring.

[birdtable]

Shrike .. So adaptable... yes the Shrike.

[Readymade]

I would always recommend an Astraeus Hauler equipped with 8xPlasma Beam Cannon or (you can buy them now! finally) and Flak Artillery Arrays vs fighter.

With Rudder Optimizations and Engine Tuning floating around everywhere in space I would maybe take the Boron Thresher - it can carry 10x Ion Cannon in the main slot which is normally a m1/m2 weapon. Played this ship for a very long time in AP but compared to the Astraeus it got no hangar bays but can also carry FAA and CFA. Sadly it got no slots for gauss cannons and therefore it has to rely on the laser energy. You should give it a try

[FankX]

Shrike .. So adaptable... yes the Shrike.

Can confirm, using Shrike for a while now for everything without issues.
Tern is an upgrade maybe, was thinking about buying it for a while now.

[fireanddream]

For specially killing M7s you have many options, basically, anything that can fire capital-grade weapons can do.

Against M2, no M2 support:
The Thresher - 10 PPC on front that can be charged. No question asked. You strategy should be fire - flee - fire.

Against M2, with your own M2 support:
An overtuned Agamemnon or Deimos. No weapon strips shield as fast as the PSGs. All you have to do is to outfit your M2s with PPC/GC autoswitched, and blast them with 4 PSG for 5 seconds, and wait for your M2s to finish the hull. This is also a great way to utilize terran M2s since PSP sucks at damaging shield but is very good at taking down the hull.

Against other M7:
Agamemnon or Deimos can solo multiple M7s in a roll provided that you fire your PSGs and then ram them. A xenon Q only has 720,000 hull, which means you can kill 8 Qs in a roll without taking hull damage with an Agamemnon, each kill taking about 5 seconds. No other M7s come remotely close to this efficiency.

Against smaller capitals:
Any will do.

One ship I especially don't recommend is the Tiger. It's simply too long and a pain in the ass to fly, because when you fly past an enemy you have to make sure the enemy is 2km behind you before turning around, otherwise you'll crash the ship on them.

With the addition of PBC things get more interesting. The energy usage is too high to be sustainable on an M7, but a lot of exclusive figher killers are now legit against larger capitals.

[dony93]

@fireanddream: the Thresher is one of the worst against capitals in AP/FL. It was good in TC because capital ships had very weak hulls, but now the Thresher doesn't have enough energy to kill M2s, it's huge, has weak shields and it's not particularly fast. It only works against lone destroyers, only if you decide when and if to attack, only if you can flee etc...too many ifs .

As I said before, with a Shrike/Tern, you have 4 Gauss Cannons that hit like 8 PPCs against hulls, they don't use energy and you still have IBLs on top; these ships are also MUCH thinner than the Thresher and have up to twice the shields...there's really no contest IMHO.

Also, I would never consider a ship that's only good if you use PSG: this weapon is totally unusable when there are allies nearby!

[fireanddream]

@fireanddream: the Thresher is one of the worst against capitals in AP/FL. It was good in TC because capital ships had very weak hulls, but now the Thresher doesn't have enough energy to kill M2s, it's huge, has weak shields and it's not particularly fast.

As I said before, with a Shrike/Tern, you have 4 Gauss Cannons that hit like 8 PPCs against hulls, they don't use energy and you still have IBLs on top; these ships are also MUCH thinner than the Thresher and have up to twice the shields...there's really no contest IMHO.

The problem with shrike is that you have no real way to strip down the shield fast enough to not sustain a considerable amount of damage, it can fire its 8 IBLs for about 12 seconds without running out of energy, doing a little more than 50% shield damage for a typical M2 (8gs shield), and then you are left with 2 GCs painfully slowly chipping away their shield. Chances are you have to employ a hit-n-run tactic all the same.

[Midnightknight]

For specially killing M7s you have many options, basically, anything that can fire capital-grade weapons can do.

Against M2, no M2 support:
The Thresher - 10 PPC on front that can be charged. No question asked. You strategy should be fire - flee - fire.

Against M2, with your own M2 support:
An overtuned Agamemnon or Deimos. No weapon strips shield as fast as the PSGs. All you have to do is to outfit your M2s with PPC/GC autoswitched, and blast them with 4 PSG for 5 seconds, and wait for your M2s to finish the hull. This is also a great way to utilize terran M2s since PSP sucks at damaging shield but is very good at taking down the hull.

Against other M7:
Agamemnon or Deimos can solo multiple M7s in a roll provided that you fire your PSGs and then ram them. A xenon Q only has 720,000 hull, which means you can kill 8 Qs in a roll without taking hull damage with an Agamemnon, each kill taking about 5 seconds. No other M7s come remotely close to this efficiency.

Against smaller capitals:
Any will do.

One ship I especially don't recommend is the Tiger. It's simply too long and a pain in the ass to fly, because when you fly past an enemy you have to make sure the enemy is 2km behind you before turning around, otherwise you'll crash the ship on them.

With the addition of PBC things get more interesting. The energy usage is too high to be sustainable on an M7, but a lot of exclusive figher killers are now legit against larger capitals.

Agamemnon is the best M7 OOS but it's not really good IS. Like most of M7 too low laser regen to be a real threat to M2 or M2+ I love this ship but it's the pinacle of the M7 and so have all their issues. People should never use an agamemnon alone in sector it's such a waste of credits as it would be far better somewhere else and you have better ships to actually do the job.

Deimos is crap no matter what ... It's an average M7 in every aspect and average is the opposite of the definition of "Good".

[Midnightknight]

The problem with shrike is that you have no real way to strip down the shield fast enough to not sustain a considerable amount of damage, it can fire its 8 IBLs for about 12 seconds without running out of energy, doing a little more than 50% shield damage for a typical M2 (8gs shield), and then you are left with 2 GCs painfully slowly chipping away their shield. Chances are you have to employ a hit-n-run tactic all the same.

Gauss canons deals with shield really fast and if you put 8 Energy bolt chain gun in the main guns you deal with shield at a real fast pace. In fact i think you deal faster with enemy shield using a Shrike than a Thresher. I used the Thresher in TC and the initial burst was awesome but wasn't enought to deal with any M2 in a single burst and time you charge the 2nd salvo a Shrike would have already been to the same point, but the Shrike have twice it's shield and will melt the hull at a way better speed then the Thresher could ever do. I killed a few Xenon I using the Shrike, i know perfectly it's impossible with a Thresher, the Shrike is profiled to avoid shot, the Thresher is designed to take them all in his face.

Thresher is for a really special gameplay, like i said in my post above, if you want to capture ships, it's fine, you burst someone in the back, taking down it's shield while you send marines on it and run away. But it's the only way you can have it efficient in sector.

If you want a fast ship trolling around, you should use the Carrak, fast glass canon ship with a ring of fire on each side lol. It's 8 Plasma Beam Canon are really fun to use, and it's fast and maneuverable to dodge most of the incoming shots, unlike the Thresher that have a really fat a.. i mean wings.

[dony93]

@Fireanddream: Not true. First, a Shrike/Tern can fire all 4 Gauss Cannons from the side turrets forward, you don't even need to position yourself in a specific way because the turret coverage of this ship is awesome (even the top turret can shoot forward!); second, GCs deal the same shield damage as PPCs, so you have your 8 IBLs + 4 GCs, which are pretty similar in terms of damage to 12 PPCs against shields and 16 against hulls.

P.S.: the Tern has the same laser generator of the Thresher, so when the former runs out of energy the same does the latter
The difference is that the 4 GCs will keep shooting and you have double the shields.

[Klord]

I capped a Tern though it sank my reputation with Teladi to negatives. Installed 8 LBL and 4 GC in turrets and had a battle at a Xenon sector near Scale Plate Green. I have to say, Im impressed about the ship.

Now thats only 2 Qs back to back though. I still have to test her against an M2. If things go well, Im gonna intall remaining tuning crates on the Tern. This looks like the perfect player M7. Boreas is too weak now with just 6 GJ shielding and only 6 main guns !!!