I like to use the hardest hitting, energy guzzling, graviton shield ripping, 4.00 refire rate guns I can find. 4.00 seems to be the most balanced rate to me.

ATM I like a mix of a couple of light fast hitters and the rest of the hardpoints for the big guys.

I haven't needed missiles yet, perhaps when I get to the higher levels they may become more appealing.

I just sneezed.

Personally, I like the photon guns, fairly high damage AND a high rate of fire. I can cope with the power consumption and short range

I try not to pick anything slower than 4 rounds per second.

... come to think of it, right now my ship it outfitted with guns with all the same projectile speed too, which might simplify aiming.

ER

Yeevie, I wouldn't bother with missiles, they are a waste of time.

That StarKiller toreado: "Causes serious damage to even a space station" barely scratches a weapons platform. You need about 25 to even make a dent on thos shield generators at the end of the SP missions.

They'll dent platforms pretty well in the beginning. I think you need to upgrade to the SUNslayer torpedo...

Missiles rock, especialy the high level ones. An almost guaranteed 4+k damage is nice (when used in the proper situation). They just aren't like missiles you normaly see in games. You can't just fire them whenever and expect them to hit.

-Stregone

It seems to me that as the guns get more powerful you can afford to get slower ones. I mean it's OK to have those level 9 or 10 guns with a 2 or 3 refire rate because one or two good hits will cream most enemies. A refire rate of 4 seems like the best compromise though. It's definitely harder to hit stuff with guns lower than that.

Let's get those missiles ready to destroy the universe!!

I'm partial towards mixes of both. As soon as I can, I pick up a few Junkers barragers for fast-firing slots, and some Lavablade III's/magma hammers for big, bad, slow guns.

Is it even possible to blow up like... errr... something like "west point training accademy"??? says you can blow up space stations and stuff... any truth in this?

Kip.

*tractor beam fail

It's impossible to blow up stations like that. They're invulnerable. What would happen if you blew up a mission critical station, one that you'd meet Juni at later in the game? I shot about 20 torpedoes at Trenton base in orbit around Manhattan and it took no damage. Anything that doesn't have a damage bar is indestructable. So there!

`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`


Rogue Squadron: The True Force in the Galaxy!

I usually run a mix of weapons: 2 quick/light-damage guns, 1 - 2 "medium" guns, 1 - 2 heavy guns.

Out,
Volstag

I don't look at any weapon stat in isolation because what matters is not the absolute numbers, but the rates at which things happen. What I go for is the best combination of damage/second AND energy/second I can get. Depending on ROF, some guns with low absolute damage might do more damage over time than slower-firing guns with higher damage/shot. And note that weapons class doesn't have much to do with this, because some weapons are way above or below others in their class.

For instance, compare the Rogue Drail (class 3) with the Xeno Scorpion (class 2). In 1 second, the Drail fires 8.33 times so uses 75 energy per second. If all 8.33 shots hit, it does 242 hull or 117 shield damage. Quite a nice weapon for levels 1-5 and slightly better than the comparable Justice and Starbeam weapons available in the New York stores. But for the Scorpion, 1 second uses only 60 energy but does 292 hull and 144 shield damage. So the Drail uses 25% more power than the Scorpion but does about 15% less damage. Hence, once I found some Scorpions, I sold my Drails, even though this was going from class 3 to class 2 weapons.

There are other considerations, however. Scorpions have 15% less range than Drails and bite a different type of shield. But in this case, these differences don't seem to make enough difference to outweigh the Scorpion's power and damage advantages.

Missiles could be considered as the ultimate in "powerful slow guns". Per hit, they do tons of damage, but take a very long time to reach the target, if they ever do. Because so many things can keep them from hitting, IMHO their effective damage/shot is much, MUCH lower than the published figures, and often well below that of the guns you could carry instead. Thus, I haven't found missiles to be very useful yet, but I'm still in the early going. Perhaps more advanced missiles will be attractive in the future. But once you ditch your initial "piece of crap" ship, where you basically need missiles to give you competitive firepower, you probably won't want missiles again for some time.

My problems with missiles are as follows:

* Essentially useless in asteroid/debris fields where most fighting seems to take place, because they usually hit something short of the target.

* Very vulnerable to countermeasures and somewhat vulnerable to being shot down short of the target.

* During the long time required to reach the target (except in head-on shots), you can usually do more damage by firing guns on those hardpoints instead of missile launchers.

* Only have a real chance to hit in head-ons and long-duration butt-shots, even if of the homing variety, whereas guns can hit at any angle.

* Reliance on missiles as a major part of your firepower limits your combat endurance and trust me, there will be times when the fight lasts longer than your supply of ammo. Then you might not have enough guns to fight your way out.

* Buying missiles by the dozen after every hop quickly eats up your money. Once I quit using missiles, I started amassing enough money to buy much better ships and equipment.

MIssiles do have 1 real advantage over guns: they don't use any power. But it seems to me that having a missile launcher basically limits one of your hardpoints to being useful only in head-on attacks, for the most part. While these are common situations, is it worth giving up a good gun there, which is useful in all situations and which requires no on-going ammo expenditure? If you're worried about the baddie surviving the joust pass, drop a mine as he goes by . You can do this without giving up a gun hardpoint.

-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria

I make good use of the catapult missles. They are expensive, but money isn't that hard
to come by. They are quite effective at 'finishing off' or severly damaging a target whose
shields have already been depleted. I usually blast a target till his shields are gone, and
if there are several other hostils shooting my ass that I can't seem to shake will use a
catapult to finish off the shield depleted target. If it doesn't kill them it will reduce them to
very little armor. Don't wait on the missle to hit, stay on their tail and keep shooting them
while the missle is enroute. You have to learn at which angle to fire the missles. It
seems to me that firing directly at the tail of the ship is not as effective as firing towards
the top of a ship, as they are turning to try and shake you. That is to say they hit
much more often if not fired directly at the rear end of the opponent. The reason for this
I believe is because the opponent does not have velocity in the direction of the missle and
thus it is much more difficult to evade. The missle ends up popping them right in the top, or
in the rear as they move to dodge the missle.

I go for a combo, though it sways into the slow and deadly category. My Titan is currently outfitted with two of the alien weapons (lev10,800/400dmg,3.02), two salvaged weapons with a name like BLUE HAZE or something (lev10,1000+/500+,2.0), and two lighter level 9 weapons whose names I can't recall. (400/200 I think, 4.0).

I tried out missiles but didn't care for them much. And I lost probably about 300,000 creds in trying it out... hehe... I got a lot of money. I've also just finally found where to get the sunslayer torpedo launcher but, of course, they hate my guts right now so I'll have to work a bit to get access to it.