Having a viable missile ship/bombship

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Jerjare
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Having a viable missile ship/bombship

Postby Jerjare » Wed Mar 27, 2013 12:57 am

Is there a way to have a viable missile or bomb ship? I know missiles/bombs are okay early on or as secondary weapons, but late game its too expensive to replace missiles for what they do.

The only thing I can think of is breach bombs and hull missiles. Both of these can dismantle ships quickly. Theres no way to get more missiles back quickly. Missile based weapons need to be a viable weapon strategy!
BKT
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Re: Having a viable missile ship/bombship

Postby BKT » Wed Mar 27, 2013 2:33 am

But that's the whole point of missiles (and bombs)— its only weakness is the limited ammunition and therefore must be use wisely to conserves ammo— Artemis in particular, has a unique aura to it that tend to make people fired them more often than they should and drains their missile supplies dry. :roll:

At any rate. The 3-power launchers are pretty nice when the situations called for it if you give them a chance. :mrgreen:
Jerjare
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Re: Having a viable missile ship/bombship

Postby Jerjare » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:06 pm

I think having Pegasus missile(s) and Breach Bombs would probably be the way to go. It might also be useful to forego drones so you can readily trade drones for missiles when the opportunity presents itself.

Say 2 Pegasus missiles and an Ion bomb. Against most ships, target their helm/engines with the Ion bomb. The enemy is a sitting duck, you can pelt them with the Pegasus missiles with impunity.

Using a missile/bomb ship is about getting the best bang for your buck- Maximizing damage per missile used. Sure lighter weapons will fire faster and use less power, but it will do less damage so it will take more missiles to destroy ships.

Since missiles and bombs penetrate shields, weapon pre-igniter is particularly potent- right out of the gate you can dismantle enemy ships. Your big weakness is going to be defense drones (use Ion bomb to their drone control) zoltan shields (wasting missiles to bring it down/immune to bombs) or high evasion (no way to improve missile/bomb accuracy).
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Marinealver
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Re: Having a viable missile ship/bombship

Postby Marinealver » Mon Apr 29, 2013 4:52 pm

Missle ships are expensive as unlike drones where you can get a recovery arm, you can only buy and randomly salvage missles.

Too bad there is no augment such as a missle replicator that takes some scrap you earn and makes missles. Sort of like a hull repair arm augment only instead of repairing the hull it adds missles at a cost of getting less scrap.
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966socho
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Re: Having a viable missile ship/bombship

Postby 966socho » Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:01 am

Missile-based weapons are among the most powerful weapons, being able to take down most ships by itself given enough ammo. That's why there isn't an easy way to stockpile it. Can you imagine multiple Ion Bombs in conjunction with the Glaive Beam knowing that you can just spam the bombs without a care? It was a good decision in terms of balance I think. Still, I refuse to rely on projectile missiles because missing just hurts too much for me.
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Marinealver
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Re: Having a viable missile ship/bombship

Postby Marinealver » Sat May 04, 2013 4:58 am

Yeah another reason why the Missile Drone was removed. Although if the restricted it to 3 leto shots then disappears like the hull repair drone it would be more balanced. (3 damage that pierces shields for one drone part but can miss)

However it gets annoying when you come across a ship with like 2 missiles and a bomb. The enemy ships never run out of ammo.
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Dontmindme
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Re: Having a viable missile ship/bombship

Postby Dontmindme » Sat May 04, 2013 1:42 pm

You are wrong about that. Enemy ships have a fixed number of missiles, seems about in the 8-12 range. The ships with 2 missiles and a bomb tend to run out of them rather fast (assuming you survive that long).
MoD1982
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Re: Having a viable missile ship/bombship

Postby MoD1982 » Sun May 05, 2013 4:21 pm

I prefer using lasers and beams, but if I must use missiles I'll try and partner it with teleporting a crew on board. Hit them in the soft spots, then send a crew over to gain maximum reward.
terrybiel
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Re: Having a viable missile ship/bombship

Postby terrybiel » Wed May 08, 2013 10:27 pm

Personally I love the missile mechanic in that they really do function as an artillery weapon. Artillery don't themselves win battles; instead they allow the user to change the dynamic of the battle and bring other elements to bear in a more advantageous way. Think of catapults knocking down walls of a castle, allowing troops to stream in. Or bombardments flushing troops from cover and into more exposed positions. Or even SWAT rams and other breaching equipment.

Missiles in FTL work the same way, allowing you to bypass shields and knock systems out, paving the way for your beams, lasers, and drones. Though I must admit there's little more satisfying in a game than pulverizing an enemy with the biggest, most exploding-est thing you can summon.

If you're interested in builds that rely exclusively or almost exclusively on missiles/bombs, everyone's been right to note it will be very expensive. Still, I'd recommend thinking about focusing on breach missiles and/or fire bombs with a goal of killing off the crew rather than outright destroying the ship. It seems like kind of a tough way to play, but you'll need all the scrap you can get to fund that kind of weaponry, so best to capture ships whole.
Pyronic
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Re: Having a viable missile ship/bombship

Postby Pyronic » Fri May 10, 2013 4:18 am

Lucked out one day and got two Pegasus launchers and a pre-igniter on an Osprey while completely not expecting it - resulting in a drastic shift away from my usual stall-for-arty-beam strategy with that ship. Those were the first missile launchers I got that game and had a stockpile of missiles, so I went ahead with them. Got "They never saw it coming" with those things on an auto-scout in an asteroid field. But that said, I didn't usually destroy ships with them exclusively; I used them to blast down enemy weapons, shields and/or medbays in the opening volley and used my Rock boarding party to clean up. Sometimes aided by the fires from the explosions.

Also, whenever I play the Rock B (Shivan), I use the fire bomb launcher as my primary weapon; with the synergy of fire with Rock boarders it's incredibly effective for a very low ammo expenditure and high profit - I wouldn't call it a bombship though; it's nigh impossible to do real damage with just bombs. It's a boarding ship with bombs as tactical ordnance support for my boarding party - which is also what I do with the Mantis A and its small bomb, and the Mantis B with whatever bombs I can get (hopefully breach).

So yeah, I would agree that missile-based weapons are more of an artillery strike for boarders or energy weapons to clean up. Using missiles from start to end as your sole means of engagement is rather inefficient.