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[Temjin]

The fact that missiles are flux-free sources of damage means that they can be used to swing very close slugfests in your favor.

They are also great in the early frigate-vs.-frigate battles, and allow small ships to pose a very credible threat to larger ones (nothing like having a Lasher sneak up behind you and put three Harpoons in your engines while you're distracted.!)

Finally, Annihilators might as well be a flux-free ballistic weapon. Tons of area denial, lots of damage potential, loads of ammo, strip armor very well, and overwhelm any PD short of dual flak.

[Doom101]

One thing i love about missiles is that versus fighters save the Xyphos and the wasp wing ( which lets face it is just a group of flying lasers) missiles with tracking are essentially hunter killers a fire and forget especially versus the slower fighters. this can also be really useful in the very early game since a lot of people may start with a Lasher with salamanders or harpoons, both of which have very good tracking ability, then they get in a fight with a hound or two and a bomber group.
When your fighting those hounds you don't need a bomber wing coming up behind you and putting a bunch of bombs up your backside. so you can launch missiles against the bombers and instead of going after you they are now running away from the missiles and you can go kill the hounds.

And one thing i love that absolutely needs to be more exploited by someone in a new weapon is that if you fire a sabot and the fuel on the first stage runs out it sits there and turns into what is essentially a landmine until its timer fades out. we need land mines. space mines. not land mines. space mines. i don't know who else agrees with me on this but... space mines! ( also phasing space mines around outposts? or take a leaf from star trek, phasing self replicating space mines)

[frag971]

Missiles would work amazing in multiplayer, fit fast frigates with missile launchers or torpedos for flanking manouvers. With the currect AI its nigh impossible to use missiles efficiently, and all the effort made to do dat perfect hit is overshadowed by simply stacking energy or ballistics.

I think the whole rocket/missile/torpedo system should be somewhat reworked/rebalanced. Probably won't happen but i've never used missiles when ballistic/energy are overall better.

[PsychoWolfen]

I enjoy missiles but i always mix them with ballistics and energy weapons.

They are a bit of a crutch on their own since they have low DPS and a bit of recycle time they need fast weapons to help them excel.

If i wanted to use Reapers or Harpoons i want to use weapons that do Kinetic damage since they will overpower the shield.

Or if i wanted to use Sabot SRMs then i would have high explosive weapons such as Hellborne Cannons or Assault Chainguns.

Its all about adapting with weaponry and how you build them

[Reshy]

Personally I think they cost too much and are of too limited ammo to be worth justifying OP towards except for annihilators.

[Thaago]

With the level 5 skill perk some of the missiles get muuuuch better. Pilums and single shot (now double) reapers in particular are wtf good.

[Faiter119]

I love missiles, and that they are very much weapons of opportunity makes them alot of fun to use, and gives ships alot greater flexibility. And some of the missiles are very easily justified, such as the small Reaper (2 OP 4000 dmg WTF) And the annihilator.

The other one are abit harder to justify, but they are still very useful. The Sabot is brilliant to take down shields. And the harpoon is a great weapon to deal massive damage.

The only missile I cant justify using is the Swarmer...

[Thaago]

I absolutely love the Swarmer!  Its very powerful vs fighters (especially when supported with beams/burst pd to strip the (tiny) armor), has tons of ammo, and is low OP. Its a constant pressure weapon against fighters and also larger ships once the armor is down - 300 damage per missiles is nothing to sneeze at. When I'm soloing with a Hammerhead the only missiles I ever use are Reapers or Swarmers.

[Doom101]

The more tactical missiles can play really well into teamwork based fleets, IE i have a Lasher i outfitted with what i call Anti shield which is 5 dual auto cannons which alone can absolutely wreck the shields of all frigates and a few larger ships, but it also comes with 2 sabot racks which in addition to the auto cannons expand its shield killing power immensely but it still can't do a whole lot to armor no? well that's where another ship comes in, ( another Lasher works well) fitted with things that do very little to shields but will shred whats underneath. Say a Lasher with 5 light assault guns and 2 racks of harpoons or 2 reapers. the two ships working together take a little bit of work to coordinate but its worth it early game until you get ships that can do both jobs IE the enforcer.  you could also potentially outfit a fast or teleporting ship like the wolf with salamanders and it could rather easily take out engines or disable systems on a ship allowing other ships to catch up or do some damage to the dead in the water ship.
also salamanders play well with ion cannons for overwhelming EMP damage no matter where on the enemy ship they hit, save shields of course.

and if you want the punching power of a reaper but have some extra op around why not get some atropos? they essentially do the same as a reaper, ( 2x2000 dmg = the 4000 of 1 reaper)
and while they do loose some of the reaper's HP they gain tracking which is extremely useful since for firing at a semi moving ship you no longer have to lead or get in really close to hit the target.

[Morrokain]

Although I agree with a lot of what has been said so far about missiles as a tactical weapon, the one thing I definitely agree with in regards to the original complaint is that imo pd is sometimes wayyyy too good. Flak is actually rather ridiculous. Even the single version means that any missile hit is one shotted except reapers.

I once saw an onslaught punch through 18 pilums because the flak fires fast enough to equal the travel distance of a pilum trying to close with the ship.

I know its a medium weapon slot being used for pd but even one mounted is basically a get out of missiles ever hitting you unless you are venting or overloaded free card.

[FlashFrozen]

Anyone think that flak should have some sort of chance effect? like 35% to NOT do any damage? or etc. just look at a flak cannon vs a pilum, flak will almost always win until it runs out of ammo. Or you can reverse the idea and make certain missiles only take damage by chance.

[Doom101]

Nothing should ever have a chance to not take any damage, if i hit the thing i hit it. now maybe adding a spread to the shots of the flak akin to that of the heavy autocannon would be a better idea so even the infallible flak can be defeated, of course then isn't flak supposed to be the end all be all of PD?
also if a ship can afford to have more than one dual flak on it you should not be firing missiles at it, unless it's overloaded, venting, or has been emp'd. in my opinion the AI needs to be smarter about the PD its shooting missiles at, i mean no player would just waste missiles against the pd of an onslaught why should the AI?

[Rowanas]

I think the flak is fine. When a ship mounts flak, I know to weaken it first or fire out of it's arc. If a ship wants to completely cover itself in flak weapons, it deserves to take no damage from missiles, but its DPS is severely weakened by the use of all those slots for simply defending itself. Adding support ships with Pilums (pila?) to the mix can distract flak enough to let you get through, but honestly, it's not worth the effort. Flak cannons are the be-all and end-all of PD weapons. For my money, I prefer PD lasers, or tac lasers if I've got the small weapons->PD hullmod.

[ThePinkPanzer]

I don't mind them being specialist weapons, used in specific situations, but then they get pushed to the same rank as ship systems. And the fact that there are ships with mostly missile-weaponslots make me believe that they were designed as an viable alternative to energy/ballistics and not necessarily complementary.

Those ships are not meant to be used on the frontline, they are supposed to fire from way back.

[Tellaris]

I find it better if you think of missiles of a supporting weapon rather than a main alternative to the energy/kinetic. In such a role, they work awesomely.
I tend to run more of a fighter based fleet, rather than larger ships. As a result, PD is always an issue. However... Often I find those fighters cause the enemy ship to make a choice... Shield against my weapons fire, or shield against the fighters shooting it in the backside. Same thing works quite well for missiles. Sure, it might block the missiles, meanwhile my energy weapons are tearing a hole on the other side. And vice versa. It also works to have missiles coming at them from multiple angles. If you can get behind that onslaught, and fire a few MRMs while your support missile ship fires a few Pilums into his front, than he has to make a pretty crappy choice of what is going to eat him first.
You can also actually block PD with your shield! Just basically ram them while the pilums follow you in...

Missiles are a VERY situation weapon. Using them correctly is key. Sure that energy cannon does decent damage... But some MRMs at near point blank range on a venting/overloaded target does much, much more.

Also, I find missiles are extremely good for killing freighters and their converted counterparts, (destroyer level) as they generally have no shields/weak shields. A nice dose of MRM makes that mule go down nice and easy with a Frigate.