As it's been some weeks since I've spent any time playing Starlancer I forget their exact name, but there's a set of missiles that are Fire-and-forget, similar to the IFF Missiles in Wing Commander, which track on anything that's enemy. Barrages of these are quite deadly, and in fact in multiplayer co-op run throughs we've found them to be as lethal to Friendlies as they are to Enemies.

(Reason for this being that the missiles frequently track on the closest enemy, and if there is a friendly chasing that enemy the missiles usually track through said friendly at the same time, which has led my "Team" of players to release bouts of these missiles only under carefully controlled circumstances [such as the launch of a new wing of fighters from a carrier, for example.)

I always tend to balance my loadouts equally between whatever missiles I'm taking (Screamers or the IFF's) and AB fuel. Reason for this is that a number of ships run with Reverse-Thurst (which requires AB fuel to use) and AB fuel is useful for jetting rapidly into (and out of) combat situations.

Typically I also reserve 2 slots of my ship for Jackhammers for two reasons. 1) A kurgen only needs to get hit by one Jackhammer to die quickly. 2) Some missiones require multiplayer Jackhammers for certain objectives. While most missions inform you in the briefing that Jackhammers I needed, I (and frequently my co-op buddies) don't listen to all of the briefing.

Screamers are really most effective at taking out those nasty cloaking Basiliks, Kurgens, and Kamovs. Most of the time whatever else I might fire them at are to slow to get hit.

Though with the large number of capships in the game, I find that most of my screamers go to Turret clearing duties.

Viper, glad to hear that someone else out there loves these weapons as much as I do! As for tactics, there's really not much you can say; get on their six, match speeds, and fire away! Want a thrill? Try using only screamers to score kills against fighters that are well beyond guns range. Basilisks become a non-entity when you turn around and fire some screamers into their flight path before they can even fire on you!

Although I don't always go exclusively with screamers, I always do include at least two pods worth. I usually go about half and half with afterburner fuel, taking two-three tanks. I'll often take some hawks or raptors along if its a defensive mission where its critical to take down fighters extra fast.

I dont use scremers much, I just have 1 fuel pod and load up with a whole bunch of Jackhammers

screamers are good for aiming in singleplayer
only used to assist the normal guns

advantage: you get a pretty good feeling how to fire "cold" missiles in multiplayer this way even if the handling of those are different