In addition to the above question, why do missles move so slow? It kinda makes no sense to use them.

The best time to fire your missiles is when your target is coming straight at you. Fire at least two missiles and they will be somewhat useful if they both hit. Dont shoot at targets when your behind them, cause they will afterburn away. Just shoot as many as you can, as quick as you can when they come right at you.

*If you have a cat and a dog in the same house, will that be a problem? Of course not, you might just have solved world hunger*

In response to the second question, i think that higher level missiles go quicker. If you look at the info on the missile ammo at the equipment screen, you can often find the speed of the missile. The javelin missiles have a max speed of 80, so if your target is using afterburners, the missile isnt going to catch up.

*If you have a cat and a dog in the same house, will that be a problem? Of course not, you might just have solved world hunger*

missles arnt slow.. lol its just that enemy fightes are fast. 300miles/sec is pretty fast

Actually all the missles track from what I'd seem in the demo, you must target the red +. Some just travel faster and have better turning rate, though I'll much rather use those with big damage but lower speed.
Do what curry advise, usually they won't miss.

I usually lead my target like that, and snap off a missile when they are turning to evade me or coming head on. I take down their shields with my lasers and fire a missile or two and break off, as missiles seem to do best against hull armor and lasers against shielding and this kills them very easily. I wonder if missiles can deliberately attack subsystems of a ship/station, such as a turret or engines, which would make them very useful.

I have yet to try my Defender with two Stalker missile mounts. That should do very well, though Defenders with lasers and lavablades will pretty much vaporize anything easily.

I mount missiles on every non turret mount on my freighters. Get pulled over, face the enemy and let loose a couple salvos before they get to you. Then go into turret mode 3 javelin missiles is about 1500 damage, and works great for taking out transports, nice and cheap too

-Stregone

Hehe, tkz guys for posting and I found the missile tactic to be very useful when several ships are coming towards you. The javelin are both cheep and very useful . I use them with crusedisruptor so that the target can't cruse away

Just one more thing I'm interested. When playing and shooting on an enemy ship the "target view" if you can call it, is red but rather often it changes to yellow for a brief period of time. What does it mean when it is yellow ?

Yellow means they are transmitting something (like : ALL SYSTEMS FAIL!! I cant hold it~~~...etc)

Though it seems weird that the enemy will want to send you radio messages to you outside of their secure channel. Taunts are ok but not pleas for help etc

i thought it turned yellow when they were behind you and had you as a target!
oh well !

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Here's another missile tip... think they're too slow? Fire the missile while you're afterburning.. now you got a missile that's going 300 instead of 80. I fire them all the time while behind the enemy.. just make sure you're afterburning.

Also, about the targeting crosshair turning yellow. The bad guy isn't transmitting to you that his shields are failing or he's burning up or whatever you hear on your radio.. he's transmitting to his buddies. But as I'm sure you've noticed you can hear everyone's random radio chatter even when it's not directed at you. Why we can hear the enemy is beyond me as it's a little tactically off.. lol.. but hey, it's a game. I always know when I'm about to be attacked cause I'll be mining or something and all of a sudden on my radio I'll hear "Preparing to attack Freelancer 1-dash-1.. lining up my shot" and obviously they are talking about me. So of course 2 seconds later a few bad guys will show on my scanner list. But they basically broadcast a warning to you.. hehe..

MONSTA604, I'm pretty sure 300 m/s means "meters per second" not miles per second. Secondly Vega, while afterburing you can only travel 200 not 300, 300 is when you're cruising.

What everyone else has said, wait for them to come too you head on, then fire a few missles. I have next target bound so when I click on the first enemy in my target status I fire then "next target" fire again, repeat.

200 (thrusters) + 80 to 99 = ~300

But the real question is, does it actualy work that way? I seem to recall trying to fire torps while afterburning and I actualy passed them immediatly after I fired them. Maybe torps are different.

-Stregone