A Comprehensive Guide to Light Missile HFs

[Levenna]

A Comprehensive Guide to Light Missile HFs
A niche loadout for a niche class for all two other people who play snubs these days
(also hi @Sombs, no, I won't use align justify.)

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Snubs are scary. They're intimidating and people who fly them good tend to be basically untouchable. Heavy Fighters in particular are speedy, and tend to be quite fragile due to lower nanobots/shield batteries relative to their very heavy counterparts. But, what if I told you there was a loadout with a (relatively) low skill floor, and an enormously high skill ceiling, that's relatively easy to learn and apply at least at a basic level? Well, allow me to introduce you to your new best friend:



The Javelin is a light missile. It has much higher velocity, and much lower turn rate than most other missile as well as lower damage, ergo, light. For simplicity, for most of this guide, I am going to be writing about the Javelin. For Gallia, this is the Flechette. For literally everyone else, the Javelin is universal. Houses have their own light missiles, but I'll save those for later.

But snub pvp is elitist! Why share all of this here instead of in the sekrit snub pvp inner sanctum?
Because snub PvP is a dying art and I firmly believe part of that is because people haven't had any tools or gateways to make it more accessible. Moving on.

I'm vaguely aware that people who both snub pvp semi frequently and people to whom Connecticut is a US state that the rest of the world doesn't think of very much will read this post. Ergo, I will split this neatly into two sections.

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Beginner's Guide

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To begin with, you will want a heavy fighter. I will recommend the Border Worlds Stiletto for most people, it is agile enough, although a little large, but most importantly can mount five guns alongside its missiles for backup DPS. If your ID does not have Border Worlds Ships available to it according to this chart, then any heavy fighter will do for this much simpler part of the guide (The Gladiator, if you're a Corsair). Any set of guns will do, too, but make sure that you have at least one Debilitator with a velocity that matches your hullbuster guns of choice.

Once you have your ship set up, you don't need to practice or do any drills to be able to pull off a very simple set of maneuvers to let you grasp the very basics of how this loadout can be used. This is not the most efficient, nor most effective use of it, but it is a very very basic and easy to pick up way to fly it.

Press your engine kill key, Z by default.
Point at your target, pressing your strafe keys in an up, right, down, left pattern. You may need to bind the up and down strafe keys in the options menu.
Fire your light missiles in one fire group, switch to a different fire group and fire a few volleys of your guns.
As your target begins to approach and get closer, use your afterburner to fly past them.
As you are passing, release your afterburner and let yourself glide as you turn to face your opponent again.
Press your nanobot and shield battery keys. This is, again, not the most efficient use of shield batteries but it will at least ensure they are being used.
You should now be facing your opponent again. Rinse and repeat..

A visual representation of this process:


And that's it. It's really that simple at a basic level. Of course, there is a lot more depth to it, but at a very base level it's enough to get some damage done against a better opponent, and probably enough to actually outright give you an edge against an equally skilled one.

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Advanced Guide

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The Javelin is not the only light missile around. Peacekeepers, Flechettes, Longbows, and Shurikens and Feldegeists all play relatively similar. They do, however, have different ratios of hull to shield damage. Adjust the number of shieldbuster guns you bring to compensate. Shurikens you can get away with pure hullbuster, Feldegeists you will need two debs for, more likely than not.

It is worth bearing in mind that not all heavy fighters are especially well-suited to light missiles. The best ships for this type of weapon are ships with missile hardpoints on top, and with no obstructions to either side of them. Ships with missiles on the bottom are workable, especially in a joust, however are limited given the majority of the camera angle on any ship is above and not below. Light missiles are aimed somewhat similarly to (snub, not capital ship) blindfire, and thus large amounts of lead need to be taken to hit a given target, assuming both ships are manoeuvring. This is harder to do when turning down, compared to turning up.

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The Executioner, demonstrating exemplary hardpoint placement for light missiles. Due to its very open mounts with good arcs, the missiles are able to be used at more or less any angle.



The Kingfisher. Him don't shoot up. This is a problem for a weapon that you generally line up and fire once rather than hold down the trigger until it comes into its arc. It's workable, especially by turning down, but it's also restrictive and a pain.

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Light missiles are, doubtlessly, best employed during a turn fight. They are near-guaranteed hits in a joust, making them a consistent source of supplementary damage, however where they really shine is in their ability to track sliding targets or targets that are boxing/anchor turning to get an angle on your own turn. Bear in mind that, like all missiles, they inherit your ship's velocity and therefore both strafing and afterburn/reverse is crucial to manage in order to reliably land one or both missiles on an opponent.

One of the strongest aspects of light missiles is also their ability to detonate mines (citation needed for wardogs). A particularly potent combination is, if you suspect your opponent is lining up a mine on you, to use a light missile salvo as they enter their window where they can drop, and then a second later use a cruise disruptor to clear up any mine they drop afterwards. This almost guarantees the detonation of a ripper or shredder mine on its dropper, and can add up to significant amounts of damage if done even just two or three times throughout a duel.

All of this power and capability that a light missile grants you, however, comes at a cost. You lose two guns to mount these missiles, which on something like a Falcon especially but also any six-gunner is quite significant. This effectively terminates your ability to box and trade with even other six-gun Heavy Fighters, let alone Very Heavy Fighters which you should seldom trade with even in the best of times, if your missiles are on cooldown or if your powercore is low (powercore management is particularly pertinent on HFs as light missiles are not at all efficient damage-dealers). It is, thus, best to continue to joust and move around your opponent, your highest priority being to keep them on-screen at all times. Keeping them on your screen allows you to spot engine kills or other breaks in your opponent's movement allowing you to land a light missile salvo. Individual salvos do not deal much damage, however they will add up significantly over time if you give yourself the right opportunities.

A recording of a relatively high level duel against a standard, six-gun heavy fighter. Highly recommended to visualise some of the above concepts:

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The last thing to touch on are the roles of light missiles in group fights. In this, in my opinion, they are overshadowed by traditional 'heavy' missiles and also by guns. This is because light missiles have very great velocity, however little turn rate to keep up with an opponent doing even relatively simple evasive maneuvers. Oftentimes once you commit to launching a missile, an opponent making even a slight turn in the opposite direction to the angle you launched at will cause the missile to miss entirely. As stated earlier, the missile inherits the launching ship's velocity, as well, meaning that any sideways momentum will carry over to the missile. Thus, if you yourself are being pressured and therefore being forced to strafe, or are unable to sit directly behind the opponent due to other allies chasing, it can be difficult to accurately line up a shot against an evasive target.

Light missiles can, however, be used to bait out countermeasures for better-turning missiles such as Firestalkers, or to pressure an opponent who is flying too straight, costing some of their afterburner and allowing chasers to catch up faster as they make wider circles or other evasive patterns, compared to fleeing in a line and keeping distance. That being said, this is another argument to always have at least one deb on a light missile ship. Being able to do chip damage to shields without relying on light missiles which may or may not be able to land, depending on how good your victim is at dodging, is quite useful.

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@Haste if you change anything about light missiles I will shadowlog your snubs in a solaris gunboat for an entire year. I don't want to have to edit this.

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[03.07.2024] LNS-Beast***: we can do this every day but you have to buy bigger stronger ships...and i'll help you