missiles

[John McG]

I don't know whether this has been asked before, but which missiles do people find most useful/efficient?

[Lone Jedi]

The best missiles are those exclusive for M7Ms.

Other than those, hurricane, tempest, typhoon, wraith, and spectre are all popular. Some players also like wasp but I hate that because of the low hit rate.

Mosquito is essential in AP for missile defense.

[Kirlack]

All of those listed above, I'm also a big fan of the Dragonfly. The Hurricane is slightly bigger on ka-boom, but three times the cargo size. Also Wildfires are great for thinning out groups of M4, but Silkworms are a more available substitute.

[Nyito]

Some missiles are different in TC/AP, so stating which game you're in is helpful. Being as I only play TC, my thoughts refer to that. I'll also only be talking about missiles that you can reliably source. No use in a missile being good if you can't find any to shoot in the first place.

Wasps and Hurricanes fill the same role as M5 killers. In terms of raw performance I prefer the Hurricane, but practically speaking, the Wasp is better just due to cargo space limitations on most ships. One hurricane may be better than one Wasp, but you can carry, and thus fire, three Wasps for every one Hurricane.

Poltergeists are the best medium fighter killing missile in my opinion, but are limited to Terran ships. Commonwealth ships have to settle for the Silkworm, which I find to be a poor second, but the only dedicated option for dropping M4s.

Tempests and Thunderbolts are both exceptional missiles for taking down M3s, and even some of the light M6s, if you can get enough past their turrets. Which is better is mostly preference. Thunderbolts hit harder, Tempests can retarget a new enemy if their initial target dies, making overuse less of an issue in a big fight.

For dedicated M6 killers, you've got the Hornet and the Typhoon. The Hornet delivers one 200 MJ warhead, Typhoons deliver 8 30 MJ warheads. I personally swear by the Typhoon. I even use it to deal with M3s sometimes. It's overkill, but it's also not uncommon for me to carry 300 of them in my hold if I can. The sheer amount of warheads being delivered also makes shooting them down very difficult.

To defeat anything bigger typically requires special missiles restricted to a few specific ships.

The biggest and most notable is the Shadow Missile, limited to the Skirnir M7M. Each missile splits into 8 warheads that deliver 775 MJ of damage each, and being an M7M, it can barrage 8 missiles at once, putting 64 warheads in the air in an instant. They ALSO retarget new targets in flight, so overkill isn't an issue.

Next up is the Hammer Heavy Torpedo, restricted to most Commonwealth M7Ms. It delivers a single 300 MJ warhead, making large barrages necessary, but it's safe and reliable for taking down big ships from a distance. Commonwealth M7Ms can also fire the Flail Barrage Missile, which puts an ungodly amount of fast, light, retargeting warheads in the air, again, 64 missiles per barrage, making them ideal for reducing large clouds of fighters to nothing quickly.

The M8 class, bombers, are like small M7Ms, and they fire the other potent capital killing missiles. Commonwealth M8s fire the Tomahawk Missile, and nothing else. It does around 600 MJ of damage, and can be barraged 8 at a time just like Hammers.

The Terran M8, the Claymore, fires the Phantom Missile, which does more damage at 650 MJ, and uses up half the cargo space. Combined with the Claymore being a superior ship hull to begin with, it makes the Terran M8 by far the best in it's class.

A last resort if you don't have an M7M or M8 to deal with a capital ship using missiles, can be to use Firestorm Torpedoes. They deliver a 1GJ warhead, but are easy to outmanuever even in a large frigate, and are slow, and easy to shoot down, so it's best to attempt to overwhelm the enemy guns with swarm missiles like the Wasp, or if you can afford to, the Typhoon. With the enemy's guns busy trying to shoot down all the smaller warheads, the heavy hitting Firestorms can sneak in and land the kill.

A few other notable missiles are the Mosquito, which is used in the Mosquito Defense System scripts in the bonus pack for TC, which automatically fires Mosquitoes at incoming enemy missiles to shoot them down. A very handy little script, that doesn't mark you game as modified.

You also have Boarding Pods. Technically a missile, but it is fired from most M7Ms, and contains marines you've trained up for boarding operations, rather than doing any actual damage. Best to read up on boarding in-depth before you attempt it.

The Tornado is another interesting missile. It's a dumbfire missile, which means it does not track targets. You fire it, and it flies in a straight line until it runs out of fuel and self destructs, or hits something. However, it packs quite a punch, which means you can use it effectively against stationary or slow moving targets, and because it does not track, enemy guns will not attempt to shoot them down, so hits are near guaranteed. I've yet to teach the AI to use them effectively, however; I think they just don't play very nice with dumbfire missiles in general.

Lastly is the Wraith missile, which takes a lot of explaining because of it's relationship to one particular ship: The Hyperion Vanguard.

On it's own, the Wraith is an exceptional heavy missile, like the Typhoon, but much, much stronger, at 125 MJ per warhead, 8 warheads per missile. It is mostly restricted to Terran ships, and on those ships, spamming them at M7s and up will eventually bring it down, but it will take quite a few due to them getting shot down.

However, the Commonwealth M6, the Hyperion, is unique in that it is both capable of firing the Terran missile, and of matching it's speed. This means you can target an enemy ship, match the missile's speed of 170 m/s, and start firing them from many kilometers back. Because you are moving as fast as the missiles are, you end up stacking many missiles atop each other, in one, huge clump, which completely overwhelms any missile defenses, easily bringing down the biggest of ships.

In conclusion, as I think you can see, missiles aren't the simplest topic to understand fully, but hopefully this gives you an idea of what to pick for your needs.

[Zaitsev]

Let's see ... I'm sure everyone who played earlier versions of AP can attest to the effectiveness of the Tomahawk

Bad jokes aside, in addition to the ones already mentioned I've also used the Tornado quite a bit. A wing of Falcon Haulers loaded with four EBCs and Tornadoes can do a surprising amount of damage aganist bigger targets, and they've got the shielding to survive a hit or two without going down too.

Edit: Eclipsed by Nyito

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

I like Poltergeist Missile.

[Lone Jedi]

Of all those mentioned above, I only disagree with poltergeists. They are too slow for M5s and too weak for anything bigger than M4s. Thus, the only advantage is to deal with M4s, while M4s are the weakest foes in games. You can usually kill them with one gun shot, and other missiles are good enough to eliminate them, so there is no need to waste storage space for such dedicated missiles.

Disruptors are excellent anti-m5 missiles, but you'd regret if you fired any of them in TC. A large quantity of these rare loots is needed for corporate missions.

[Aragosnat]

Besides the ones I can make. I like wildfire is a good all rounder might not catch the fastest ships but for 15 k damage it is not bad for the size one 1 unit, Rapier is nice in that all but the fastes ship(Fully tuned Kestral) will not be able to out run it, banshee and remote guidied missiles are useful against some M3s but more so against M6 and up. True the only draw backs are they need to be scavanged and not every ship can use them.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Of all those mentioned above, I only disagree with poltergeists. They are too slow for M5s and too weak for anything bigger than M4s. Thus, the only advantage is to deal with M4s, while M4s are the weakest foes in games. You can usually kill them with one gun shot, and other missiles are good enough to eliminate them, so there is no need to waste storage space for such dedicated missiles.

Disruptors are excellent anti-m5 missiles, but you'd regret if you fired any of them in TC. A large quantity of these rare loots is needed for corporate missions.

Actually I like poltergeist because they are stylish
Otherwise I never use missiles. I always try to spare them for bad times. Thus I spare them forever.

[Ripskar]

Some missiles are different in TC/AP, so stating which game you're in is helpful. Being as I only play TC, my thoughts refer to that. I'll also only be talking about missiles that you can reliably source. No use in a missile being good if you can't find any to shoot in the first place...

...Lastly is the Wraith missile, which takes a lot of explaining because of it's relationship to one particular ship: The Hyperion Vanguard.

On it's own, the Wraith is an exceptional heavy missile, like the Typhoon, but much, much stronger, at 125 MJ per warhead, 8 warheads per missile. It is mostly restricted to Terran ships, and on those ships, spamming them at M7s and up will eventually bring it down, but it will take quite a few due to them getting shot down.

However, the Commonwealth M6, the Hyperion, is unique in that it is both capable of firing the Terran missile, and of matching it's speed. This means you can target an enemy ship, match the missile's speed of 170 m/s, and start firing them from many kilometers back. Because you are moving as fast as the missiles are, you end up stacking many missiles atop each other, in one, huge clump, which completely overwhelms any missile defenses, easily bringing down the biggest of ships.

As addition to this the Wraith is essential to any Terran M7 due to the lack of a terran IBL equivalent.

[layton99]

I actually love the wasp missile. Cheap for one and heavily available. Good swarm missile and gives lots of distraction to the target. Also wipes out scouts/m5's two or three take out an M4. Great when flying M4, M3 upto M6

After that typhoons and Flails. Hammers and Firestorms are good if you back them up with swarm missiles to distract the turrets.