Missles

[qwyksilver]

I've run about half a dozen missions, had dozens of targets locked and in range, but as yet have been unable to launch a missile. What am I doing wrong?

[zaskar]

Once you get tone, as Raptus says, "Let, Go", while you still hear tone click again.

[Ramalina]

Works pretty much the same as the proton torps in the old PvE on rails space missions.

 

1: Place missile firing arc circle over desired target (important, over target i.e the actual ship, not over lead aim reticle).

2: Keeping circle over target, depress and hold right mouse button to start locking target.

3: After getting audio and visual cues indicating target is locked, release right mouse button to fire.

 

 

There are people who give the right mouse button an extra click, not sure why unless they've altered their keybinds because it doesn't do anything under the default setup. Possibly with some models of computer mouse the button release doesn't register reliably.

 

Assuming you properly executed steps one through three, and you have a functional mouse, a missile should launch.

 

Unless there's enough latency between you and the server and/or the server and the target, so that when resolving input from both players the server decides that your target wasn't really in range/firing arc when you tried to fire.

 

That's the 'internet ate my missile' scenario. You can compensate a little bit trying to fire missiles at middle ranges and only when the target is close to the center of the firing arc.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Ramalina

[-Streven-]

Keep in mind after releasing missiles there are a variety of lock breaks that can be employed to negate the missile from landing damage. Tier one scouts can have up to three different lock break cooldowns on a single build. If a lock break is employed while you are locking you have to release the mouse button and start over again.

 

If a person dips out of range, outside your targeting circle or out of your line of sight you will lose your lock. Sometimes this occurs due to latency but you won't see it, i.e. they appear to be visually still inside the target arc but aren't.

 

I've learned to keep targets square in the center of my target circle until releasing the missile. This often means I have to give up on lasers for a moment or two if my target is turning and boosting hard to evade my lock.

 

Tier 2 strikes are easiest to land misssiles with since they get two missile types. If your target uses a cooldown to evade the first one you can usually land the second.