Hi everyone - pretty new to ADI so please let me know if i am posting in the wrong place. I have just now started to play a bit in the evenings and wondering what missiles would be best to put on my Sabre and 600i ex. Thank you in advance for suggestions.
It depends a bit on what you are trying to hunt.
And how you hunt.
I use usually all rattlers or all strikeforces.
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Personally, they should just go to one missile for each type of tracking and get rid of this min/max range BS. And then the size of the missile will depend on the vehicle. So that way, you don’t have to switch between the size missile for faster track time, minimum engagement distance, and the rest of the missile BS.
so better to have more smaller missiles than fewer larger ones? And i am mostly going to be doing mining, but also some mercenary/bounty (PVE) to mix things up.
thanks to everyone for the quick responses!!
The smaller ones have a limited max range but they have a quicker lock on time but they do less damage. Cross section is the best but you may have problems with smaller ships. I hate having a mix because you have to toggle between the missile types.
If you want to hunt large ships, get large missiles.
But in the current status of the game, which will change, S2 Cross Section missiles seem to provide the best flexibility.
But you may have a hard time locking on to arrows, gladius’, and sabres at times.
I find missiles to be very a personal preference. I tend to stick to default missile racks for all my ships.
EM and IR missiles have faster lock acquisition on average than CS missiles and also depend on target ship EM and IR signatures. Bear in mind that if you’re going faster than SCM speed it will increase your lock time.
CS missiles will lock on slower onto smaller targets and faster onto large targets.
As a personal preference I personally go for EM missiles whenever I can - I find they have best lock times on average in all situations, because the EM signature of target will automatically increase if you damage them - their shield will have to regen, draw more power, so EM sig will go up -, so if you use EM missiles mid-combat after taking a break away from your prey they will most likely work best and lock quickest in my experience.
wow - OK. a lot more nuance than i expected. thanks!
EM is probably your best bet because you only get 5 chaff dispensers compared to high 30 low 40s flares
No problem Geo, happy to share what I’ve learned.
Teufel is absolutely correct, the current countermeasures are also very limited.
As a side note: We are expecting more missile changes within the next 6-9 months that will change the missile gameplay drastically, not to mention that there will most likely be more changes and balance passes in the future once more gameplay mechanics and features come online.
Right now, it looks like flares counter IR missiles best and chaff counters EM. Chaff also screens the ship and breaks targeting lock, so I suspect it has good effect on spoofing CS missile locks too. These will be updated, balanced and likely change with the next 2-3 quarterly patches and may have an effect on missile gameplay as a whole, so it’s difficult to set your expectations for the future.
Currently, I rarely use missiles in combat. Imho missiles are currently only worthwhile using in PVP combat, when you’re fighting someone who is trying to joust with you too much - as they break away send a few missiles their way, forcing them to either disengage completely or to stay within turn-fight distances to lock the fight in.
Edit: this is why I recommend using missiles that lock fastest (EM), as you will only have a split second to make a decision to lock and fire a missile.
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Yeah, there are some changes I like that are coming but I think most of it is CR/CIG-Foolery like minimum firing distance. I can see if the explosion was going to damage your ship or it was a nuke to have a minimum firing distance but in the average SC ship engagement, most ranges that the minimum lock takes effect is safe for the missile firing pilot.
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Also remember that missile do not scale linearly- so damage is tied to launchers/how many missiles you can get off at once. That is, two size 1 do more damage than one size 2. So, carrying more small can have advantages. Those advantages are somewhat offset by having to lock multiple missiles in the already mentioned very small time windows that proper range results in. Just food for thought. I run several ships with racks of 8 size 1s or 4 size 2s.
Also, missile selection is back, with bindable keys, so we can actually now select what we want to fire if you want to carry mixed loads. A definite plus.
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Before 3.11 I used only Rattlers but now I can’t decide due to that countermeasures are op.
Minimum lock distances, small lock distance windows, lock time, and effectiveness of countermeasures in the current patch favor S1’s for PvP, specifically EM S1’s. Distortion mix is the current gun meta and hits by distortion raises target’s EM signature, reducing the effectiveness of the already under-stocked EM countermeasures and making your missiles more likely to hit. That will likely change multiple times in the near future as they continue to “tune” missile play.
For PvE you can use almost anything, with the damage sweetspot being S2.
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