Yes, you can do that and it's a viable strategy if you have the money to replace them.
They can get very expensive to replace if you fire 4 or more.
You could easilt spend $1000 on firing missles and in the earlier missions where you only get <$3K per mission .... well you can see that gaining wealth would slow down.

Tricks to missle's are to fire when an enemy is coming head on.
If you are behind him always remember that the missle may not turn to get your target if he cuts real fast.
Missles in FL are not like other games where they do massive amounts of damage.

I usually have 3 hardpoints for missles.
2 of the same kind to hit shields and 1 for Hull and then have my guns that do mostly hull damage.

Torp's are a WHOLE other story tho.
hehe most will know EXACTLY what I am talking about.
In my single player game I have a lot of wealth and sometimes I just load up on missles and torp and fire only them at enemies to make them mad.

Oh well, what else is an old guy to do.

Nitescape

Missles are really a waste of money. Firestalker missles do the most damage but when you got two hardpoints for their launchers might as well kiss your money good bye. The same with torpedoes, though they work the best when you thrust and are 20 ft from the enemy might as well kiss his ass goodbye. There are some guns out there that will take care of the damage that the missles do. The strategy is that you get about 3 guns that tear away their shields and then guns that do massive amounts of damage. There are ships that are pretty much indestructible becuase they take out your shields and then tear your hull open. So my opinion is that don't worry about missles, unless you have large amounts of money to cover them

yeah I prefer guns myself.....if you have 4 gun slots just use 2 shield lazors, and 2 hull lazors....don't really need missles....I do better without missles.

I love missiles in SP. Nothing like having an AI pilot do an engine kill maneuver right in front of you, only to catch 2 missiles, a mine, and a full complement of guns right in the teeth.

I never use missiles on my ships. I always use high damage guns, and one or two pulse guns for shields. It works perfectly fine for me. Anything but the highest level enemy ships and I can kill two or three on the first pass.

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I'm sick of seeing all your signatures and not having one of my own

Ok, so I see most don't use missels. For those of you who use one type of gun for shields and the other type for hull do you have all of them fireing at onece or to constantly switch back and forth. If so is there some way to assign hot keys to groups. I only know of selecting them manuall on the lowwer rignt of the window.

Thanks

I fire normaly about a dozen starkiller torps per mission, its just a few k for the torps, and it get rid of over the half of the hull in one hit, which means I save a few seconds per target ... worth to me, I am anyway bored with the missions and they bring anyway nearly all over 200 000 per missions ... a few key do not make a difference.

I always save 1 hard point for missles as they can do a great deal of damage when used properly.
These are not the type of missles where you can fire and forget. You must first weaken the enemy ship and get the angle on him. Do NOT try to shoot one up his tail pipe as they usually turn very quickly and they will miss, unless it is a very slow or very large ship. Then you probably want to use Torps to take them down anyway.
I like to use a combo of Torps, Missles and Mines to take out a group of targets quickly. But the best use is head to head or a side angle shot at a close range with their sheilds weakend by canon fire or a shield weakening weapon. Usually one missle is all you need using this tactic.
You can also straffe them with your mines as you go by but be careful as you can also damage your own ship it you run into them later in the battle. If they didn't find a target yet it could just be you who becomes the prey of those toys.
Just some observatons from the edge of space.

all the news that no one reads

Missiles are fantastic in Freelancer as they have modelled 'Blast radius' as well as direct contact. With a enemy formation of 3 bandits heading towards me, I can usually take out two of them with missiles, while I concentrate my guns on the third. I can usually take all 3 of em out before they pass me using this technique. People complain about missiles in Freelancer, I just don't think they have the skill to use them correctly

I gave up on missiles about 1/2 way through the plot missions, I figured the large number of gunpoints on the heavy and very heavy fighters more than made up for a lack of a missile launcher. 6 or 7 gun points shooting at once does more damage than a single missile, and you don't have to pay to reload the guns. But at the beginning of the game, when you don't have access to the better ships, I think the missiles are a great asset. A good missile launcher gives even the lightest light fighter a real heavy punch. I think that's why they are put in there. When you first start, you only really have 4 or 5 gun points, and the guns you can put there aren't that lethal. Having a heavy hitting missile launcher really helps when you get jumped by 4 or more baddies.

I know having a missile launcher saved my ass plenty of times when I was stuck flying a Startracker. But I don't understand the need for multiple missile launchers, but to each his own.

this chick walks up to me and she's like, "hey, aren't you that guy" and I'm like, "yeah whatever"

forget it.. waste my cash..

I hate Wasp Missiles[!

i sometimes have a missle that takes out the shields, on the first pass i fire it at one target while shooting my guns at another, one shield down and an enemy garunteed

I don't use missiles at all now. I used to hit about 90% of the time with them and the trick was to fire head-on at almost point-blank range, but their bang-for-buck ratio is just horrible. Giving that hardpoint to a Nomad Energy Blaster makes so much more sense.

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War does not decide who is right, only who is left.

Well one shot whit my guns does as much damage as one missle so i think that you don't need missile unless whan your schip is almost gone you can fire lot's of missile's and you might make it out.
so i only use missile's whan it absoluty inportend you kill your ememy's fast