Missiles

See Also: Weapons

Overview

Missiles are expendable munitions.

Most attack missiles and torpedoes detonate to cause damage to shields and hulls. Their primary purpose, to distinguish themselves from energy weapons, is that they consume much more space and functionally cost you money to attack, but compensate by being capable of inflicting far more damage in a given period of time than a regular weapon can. A good many types of missiles cannot be bought at all, and must be hoarded from enemy kills, making them more precious as a weapon, or else simply sellable loot from a kill. Many powerful missiles and torpedoes have ranges far greater than normal lasers, making them capable of being used from "safe" ranges where a smaller ship would be vaporized by capital ship fire if they traveled into standard weapons range.

This means missiles have a large role in combat strategy, as it gives weaker ships a chance to kill stronger ships, if they are willing to sacrifice money or rare loot, or simply have the missile complexes to buy victory.

Boarding pods are a "missile" which delivers marines from the firing ship to the target.

Attack missiles have a variety of properties.
Damage yield is the amount of damage inflicted on targets within the Area of Effect.
Range describes how far the missile can travel, generally you want to launch at targets well within range to compensate for target movement.
Speed describes how quickly it moves towards a target.
Cooldown describes how much time the launcher takes between firings to prepare the next launch.
Seeker determines how the missile acquires targets and when it may be fired: Targetted, requiring a target prior to launch or Autonomous which relies on the missile's onboard systems.
Swarming refers simply to missiles which release multiple warheads. There are always eight warheads released. Note: warhead behavior is detailed in other columns such as dumbfire, heat-seeking, etc.
Guidance determines how a missile tracks and follows targets: Heat seeking missiles will attempt to attack the nearest warm target, Image Recognition or Standard Guidance will follow a specific target primarily based on its appearance, Dumb-fire have no guidance at all and will travel in direction of launch without maneuvering relying on the pilot's intuition of target movement.
Fusing controls detonation, most missiles detonate when they impact a target. Proximity fusing will detonate when the missiles gets close enough to the target, generally once it's already missed impact and is getting farther away. A few missiles may be Manually Triggered to detonate remotely, also known as synaptic triggering.
Some missiles have extremely powerful detonations which affect large areas the size of this influence is noted by Area of Effect.

Table of Missiles

Name	Damage	Range (Km)	Speed (m/s)	Swarm	Requires target	Guidance Type	Fusing	Race	Ship Type	Producing Race
Banshee Missile	74,000	14.814	153	no	yes	standard	impact	Commonwealth	M1-M2 M6-M7	none
Tomahawk Heavy Missile	625,000	43.1	196	no		standard	impact	Commonwealth	M8
Hornet Missile	200,000	31.2	186	no	yes	standard	impact	Commonwealth	M1-M2 M6-M71
Thorn	15,000	17.777	158	no	yes	standard	proximity	Kha'ak	M1-M3 M6	none
Typhoon Missile	240,000	74.8	195	yes	yes	standard	impact	All	M1-M2 M6-M71
Firestorm Torpedo	1,000,000	99.0	165	no		standard	impact	All	M1-M2 M6-M71
Hammer Heavy Torpedo	300,000	75.9	253	no		standard	proximity	Commonwealth	M7M
Flail Barrage Missile	40,000	58.3	486	yes		standard	impact	Commonwealth	M7M
Boarding pods	0	76.8	480	no	yes	standard	impact	Commonwealth	M7
Poltergeist Missile	12,000	12.5	250	yes		standard	impact	Terran Xenon	All	Terran
Wraith Missile	1,000,000	51.0	170	yes	yes	heat seeker	proximity	Terran Xenon	M1-M2 M6-M7	Terran
Spectre Missile	260,000	24.1	228	no	yes	heat seeker	proximity	Terran Xenon	M1-M3 M6-M7	Terran
Shadow Missile	560,000	80.8	245	yes		standard	proximity	Terran	Skirnir	Terran
Ghoul Missile	52,000	56.2	450	yes		standard	impact	Terran	Skirnir	Terran
Phantom Missile	650,000	53.0	212	no		standard	proximity	Terran	M8	Terran
Sting	4,000	39.9	257	no	yes	standard	proximity	Kha'ak	M5-M3	none
Needle	7,400	26.6	174	no	yes	standard	proximity	Kha'ak	M4-M3	none
Windstalker Missile	30,000	22.2	179	no	no	dumbfire	synaptic	Commonwealth	All	none
Wildfire Missile	15,000	33.3	246	no	no	standard	impact	Commonwealth	All	none
Disruptor Missile	6,000	39.9	514	no	yes	standard	impact	Commonwealth	All	none
Hammerhead Missile	1,200,000	86.0	172	no	yes	standard	impact	Commonwealth	All	none
Beluga Missile	100,000	89.9	211	no	yes	standard	impact	Commonwealth	All	none
Remote Guided Warhead	100,000	79.9	142	no		standard	impact	Commonwealth	All	none
Firefly Missile	1,500	24.9	576	no	no	dumbfire	proximity	Commonwealth	All
Thunderbolt Missile	75,000	78.0	195	no	yes	heat seeker	impact	Commonwealth	All	Split
Aurora Missile	8,000	18.7	589	no	no	dumbfire	synaptic	Commonwealth	All	Paranid
Tornado Missile	400,000	24.9	312	yes	no	dumbfire	proximity	Commonwealth	All	Split
Cyclone Missile	23,000	59.9	148	no	yes	standard	proximity	Commonwealth	All	Boron
Tempest Missile	60,000	62.4	195	no	no	standard	impact	Commonwealth	All
Hurricane Missile	6,000	29.9	471	no	yes	standard	proximity	Commonwealth	All	Paranid
Silkworm Missile	19,000	28.4	190	no	yes	standard	impact	Commonwealth	All
Mosquito Missile	200	14.6	590	no	yes	standard	impact	All	All
Firelance Missile	4,500	49.9	500	no	no	dumbfire	proximity	Commonwealth	All	none
Wasp Missile	8,000	18.1	560	yes	yes	standard	impact	Commonwealth	All
Rapier Missile	1,000	99.9	657	no	yes	standard	impact	Commonwealth	All	none
Dragonfly Missile	5,000	18.7	250	no	yes	standard	proximity	Commonwealth	All

Note 1: The Medusa Prototype M3-class fighter can also launch these Corvette-class missiles.

Note

1. M8s and M7Ms are not normally included in "All" because they have a "Specific" missile. (Besides Mosquito)
2. M5s are not usually included in "All" and normally use Mosquito missiles or low-yield Terran missiles.
3. Commonwealth includes Yaki and Xenon, since they do not have specific race-based missiles. However, Xenons supports almost every single missile in the game besides Kha'ak missiles.
4. the "Producing race = none" means that it's super rare and is not producible by ANY factory.
5. Blank "Producing race" means that the Commonwealth make the missile.

See Also

• Weapons
• Boarding
• M7M Missile Frigate
• M8 Bomber