TL;DR
A quick cheat sheet for people who dont want to think too hard.
Current PD meta at time of writing -
ANS - spam defenders, a bit of flak if you feel like it, and omnisoftkill(this is the crucial part, do not forget active decoys and an e70 ball jammer)
OSP - Auroramax ocellos(with an e70), and amms - min warhead EL with max manuever, to be precise. SACT if you are budget, CMD if you want to be truly safe. Grazers for leakers are nice but not required.
To softkill missiles - (IN MOST CASES, THIS IS THE MOST CRITICAL STEP, MOST HARDKILL NETS WILL NOT STOP A TRUE SPAMMER)
Step 1: Click the EMCON command to disable ARAD seekers/validators, if OSP, queue a decoy container launch if you have one
Step 2: Activate your e70 communications ball jammer to ward off cmd
Step 3: Watch your active decoy fire itself or hit shift z a few times to spam chaff if ANS -
Step 4: make sure you move away a bit to stop missiles from hitting you on accident or to dodge the "useless backup to fly straight under jamming" CMD strategy.
If you suspect the opponent is doing SAH micro, manually launch an active behind you relative to the illum ship and stay moving to make micro a nightmare.
To hardkill missiles -
For torps, run defenders - keep in mind good torps steamroll all pd, your best bet is to never enter torp range
For rockets, pretty much anything from auroras to flak to defenders
For high quantities of s2s, massed flak - light s2s can be wiped by defenders
For containers - massed defenders are essential, rpf and flak can help clean up the decoy flares
For hybrids - auroras/sarissas are nice, amms and grazers if you cannot carry these modules on your ship
On the missile side of things:
A missile can be given a backup seeker, notated as primary/secondary
A missile can be given a validator, notated as primary[validator]
For directfire missiles, some solid combinations are:
If you have an illuminator, SAH/HOJ(cheap), SAH[WAKE], SAH/ARAD, SAH[ARAD].
If you dont, but have a locking radar, CMD/ARAD, CMD/SAH, CMD/HOJ.
If neither - ACT[CMD]
For cruise -
Mixed arad/act and act[arad] is a fine choice.
act[wake] has its uses as well, for shooting liners and small ships.
For ANS, arad/act mixed with act[eo](reject unvalidated) is nasty
MAKE SURE YOU WIGGLE DODGE SARISSAS OR YOUR SALVO WILL BE SAD.
For CLN - SAH shuttles are your only real hope to land hits on competent capitals.
What kind of SAH really doesnt matter much - SAH[ARAD]/HOJ, SAH/ARAD[WAKE], etc will all work
Just make sure you are aware that secondaries can sometimes cause your salvo to go after faraway jammers and stage their decoys if you set your final waypoint too far from the target. This is due to the secondary getting a whiff before the SAH sees your target(3km range)
That being said, halfcap CLNS are far easier to play - they are loaded with rocket containers and support containers and bring a capfleet with them. Their primary purpose is to nuke all small ships threatening the cap game.
You can also bring some CMD TRP stuff because often ANS axfords forget their e70 and are in need of a reminder why that is a bad idea.
Make sure you bring enough decoy flares and penaids for CLN.
To get SAH to ignore actives/chaff, you can manually fire the illuminator in a way that it hits the target but not the decoys. This is called SAH micro.
It is far easier and more reliable to just get real close, so the illum beam is really tight.
Finally, to execute a ToT strike, plan a useless manuever(I use a loop) that lasts as long as it takes you to program the next batch of missiles, then attack the target. While the first salvo is programming, plot a second course without the useless manuever.
Skilled players can stack 3 or 4 salvos but this is nearly always overkill - 2 is often more than enough.
Make sure your missiles are fairly maneuverable or the time wasting maneuver will make them behave erratically.
Missile Types (you Probably Already Know This, If So Feel Free To Skip)
There are a number of missile types in the game.
The acronyms for them are: S1, S2, S3, S2h, S3h, CM, and CM-S.
The exact details for each missile can be found at the excellent wiki page here: http://nebfltcom.wikidot.com/mechanics:missiles
I will only be discussing what I feel is important here, rather than specific stats which can be found at the wiki.
The Balestra, or S1, is a Size 1 Missile.
They are small, maneuverable, and suited for anti-missile-missiles and occasionally swatting small ships.
They have one seeker slot, and therefore can only have one seeker and no penaids.
It cannot take penaids as a warhead.
(A penaid is a penetration aid, which will be discussed later).
(Seekers will be explained in the seeker section).
The Tempest, or S2, is a Size 2 Missile.
They are reasonably fast and cheap, and are generally used in massive dumps or to swat small ships at longer range.
They have one seeker slot and one seeker/penaid slot.
The Pilum, or S3, is a Size 3 Torpedo.
They are shortrange, fast to program, and very durable.
They are generally used to nuke ships at point blank.
They have one seeker slot and one seeker/penaid slot.
The Cyclone, or S2h, is a Size 2 Hybrid.
Their first stage acts similar to an S2, before staging to move very quickly once they spot a target.
They are pricier than S2s but penetrate defenses far easier due to the increased speed and maneuverability.
They are usually used against ships of varying sizes at long range.
They have one seeker slot and one seeker/penaid slot.
The Atlatl, or S3h, is a Size 3 Hybrid.
Like the s2h, it has a first stage which is slow but long range, before staging to move extremely quickly once it spots a target.
They are generally used against ships of any size at long or (occasionally)short range.
They have one seeker slot, one seeker/penaid slot and one penaid slot.
The Container, or CM, is a large longrange missile that is used for attacking ships. It deals devastating damage but is easy to shoot down or otherwise counter.
It has a seeker slot and two seeker/penaid slots.
It cannot take penaids as a warhead.
The Support Container, or CM-S, is a container that can carry decoys and other penaids to assist the damage containers in breaking point defense.
It has a seeker slot, a seeker/penaid slot, and a seeker/penaid/mini-warhead slot.
Its normal warhead is forced to be a penaid.
There are a number of additional support containers such as the mine container, rocket container, and decoy container.
Missiles are fired after a programming time for VLS and Container Banks.
For MLS launchers, missiles are fired immediately but then launcher must reload.
MLS-2 fires 4 before reload, MLS-3 fires 2.
Seeker Basics (again, Probably Already Known, Skip If So)
There are a number of seekers in the game, and they can be combined in complex ways.
First of all, missiles can be direct or cruise guided. Direct goes in a straight line to the target, cruise follows waypoints before activating its seeker.
Hot launch means the missile comes out with its engine on, useful for reliable spacing of salvo on launch and for when you need the missile to not waste any time like for torps.
Do be careful, hot launch can hit rocks easier if your ship is facing a direction other than the target.
Cold launch means the missile comes out, aligns, then turns on engine, useful for back line fleets that shoot at funny angles all the time.
For seeker types, first there is command guided - CMD.
For this seeker, the launching ship is sending it instructions for the missile to fly to hit the target.
It is yellow colored.
It cannot do normal cruise plotting, only following direct paths, or if cruise, one singular target reference point, called TRP.
It also requires a track to shoot, accuracy of missile depends on track.
CMD missiles can be comms jammed.
Then there are the radar seekers - ACT, SACT, and EACT
ACT means "active radar" and it means the missile has a mini radar in it that searches for targets.
SACT can swivel and EACT has longer range and can swivel.
They are green colored.
They will fall for chaff, active decoys/decoy containers, and can be jammed out via radar jammers.
Semi active homing, called SAH, chases whatever target is bouncing the radar emissions of an illuminator module on a ship.
It has the same weaknesses as ACT, only it sees what the illum is highlighting and nothing else.
The Anti radiation seekers are ARAD and HOJ.
HOJ is a setting of ARAD.
ARAD seeks radars that are turned on and radar jamming, and HOJ only seeks radar jamming.
They are green colored.
ARAD will fall for active decoys/decoy containers, and if the target turns radar off it can no longer see them.
HOJ can be fooled by something called a killjoy, which is a missile with a self screening jammer penaid in it.
Wake is WAKE, and it chases particles that the main engine(no other) of the ship emit.
It is red.
It will only really work well when shot from the rear, and if the target stops burning its main engine it wont see it after a set amount of time.
Finally Electro Optical, or EO is basically a visual spectrum camera that looks for ships.
It is blue.
Dazzlers can jam it.
The OSP Faction does not have this seeker.
Missiles can be set to min angle or free approach - min angle tries to go in a straight line between last waypoint and target, while free approach doesnt care and just goes for the target.
This is very rarely important, as the behavior is pretty similar in most cases.
I have yet to need to change it from the default min angle.
Combining Seekers
Seekers can be combined in several ways.
This makes your missile much harder to softkill.
In the "seeker configuration" page, you will notice several settings.
"Seeker mode" determines if the seeker is a backup or a validator(explained shortly).
Accept/reject validated says "if the validator says no, but there are currently no validator approved targets, will I go for it?"
Generally this is set to accept, unless you are 100% confident in your validator(such as for CMD or EO).
Accept/reject small targets is a "does this go for enemy missiles or not" check - Set this to accept for anti-missile-missiles and reject for anti-ship missiles.
A missile can be given a backup seeker, notated as primary/secondary
If the primary cannot find a target or is jammed out, the secondary takes over.
This provides safety against jamming and can also be used to find targets the main seeker is not in cone for.
To do this you add a second seeker behind the first seeker(the nose seeker is the primary)
A missile can also be given a validator, notated as primary[validator]
The validator checks the primary seeker, and approves or rejects targets depending on if it can see them.
This makes a missile more resistant to decoys like chaff and flares.
To do this you add a second seeker behind the first and change setting to validator.
Example:
A common seeker combo is ARAD/ACT.
This means that the missile will act like ARAD, unless the ARAD doesnt see anything, in which case it uses the ACT radar.
The combo is common because turning radar off doesnt defeat the missile, as it would for normal ARAD; you still have to block the ACT too. This places additional micro tax on the defending player.
Another common combo is EACT[ARAD].
This means that the missile acts like an EACT radar missile, but it checks each target to see if it is emitting radar.
It will favor targets emitting radar or jamming.
If accept unvalidated is set to REJECT, it will only pursue targets that have radar or jamming on.
(dont do this, it is too easy to EMCON, set it to accept).
Some quirks:
A CMD validator imposes the same pathing restrictions that CMD does in order to work - you can fire it without a track if you wish but the validator wont do anything then.
A WAKE validator only works from the rear angles of the ship, and only when the primary engines are on(or shortly after they turn off).
ARAD validators have memory - if the primary seeker saw something that was emitting radar, it will continue to be approved even if the ship turned its radar off, for 30 seconds after the emissions stop. The primary seeker has to have seen the target when its radar was on though.
Containers can have three seekers - validators will apply to all primary/backup seekers, and if you stack three non-validator seekers, the priority moves from nose to rear.
In general, if you are worried your primary will get jammed out or wont see the target, adding a backup is a solid choice.
(ARAD, CMD often has this issue)
(ACT and SAH do too, but to a lesser extent)
If you are worried your primary will get duped by decoys like chaff, flares, active decoys, etc, a validator is a good move.
(ACT and SAH has this problem. ARAD does too but if you dont have a backup for ARAD primary then EMCON just kills ur missile)
Build your seekers for their intended targets - capitals rarely have radar jammers, but often carry decoys and comms jammers, small ships rarely carry comms jammers, etc
Mixed salvos allow you to send a mixture of different seeker combos to make softkill a nightmare.
Common combos include:
ARAD/ACT and ACT[ARAD]
ARAD/ACT and ACT[EO]
SAH/HOJ and SAH[WAKE]
CLNs tend to load all kinds of seeker combos, too many to list here.
Warheads And Penaids
There are 4 warheads.
HEI - High Explosive Impact
It does its damage with a large number of 50 damage rays, or in the case of mines, 100 damage rays.
For missiles, this means that you cannot grey out reinforced stuff on capital ships, as the rays dont do enough to break the threshold - for more information, here is the wiki page:
http://nebfltcom.wikidot.com/mechanics:component-damage
HEI is generally most efficient per point for doing damage, and can kill people via critical events like fuel line fires.
Even if you dont kill a person, you will have gutted them, and any friendly with guns can finish them.
HEKP - High Explosive Kinetic Penetrator
This has a more complex damage model - essentially explosions in a line.
It does more damage the more ship it goes through.
It does enough damage per explosion to grey components.
Generally you need to hit them from the front or back for best results.
Also it has penetration based on missile speed, and as a result is generally used for hybrids only.
It is very expensive and is often better to be mixed with HEI, so the HEI missiles red everything and one or two HEKPs finish the job.
FRAG - Fragmentation
Explodes to do damage to hostile missiles - for AMM work.
FRAG-EL - The Cooler Fragmentation
Better and more reliable frag, but pricy.
To get missiles to break point defense and actually land their warheads, we have penaids.
These are helpful supports that make breaking PD easier.
They all have comprehensive descriptions in game.
Do not stack two of the same penaid on one missile unless it is decoy flares - there is a severe stacking penalty.
In general, decoy flares are great but very expensive - used when you really need to break pd.
Cluster decoys are inefficient point wise and rarely used, except on S3H.
Both jammers mess up cheap AMMS. BSSJ can also mess with PDT radars.
Hardened is nice for extra missile tank - often used on hybrids to make them tank more amms.
Stealth is niche, but if you have strong jamming it can be good.
Cold gas is for close range or rapid response stuff.
Fast boot is for gigadumping and for rapid response stuff.
Maneuvers - weave and corkscrew
They make the missile dodge pd, great for pretty much every missile.
Cork makes great torps and hybrids, weave is fine for everything else.
They only dodge when they see the target.
If you are fighting a sarissa gamer, make sure you wiggle your cruise paths to dodge the sarissas midflight - this reduces the number of missiles lost to sarissa fire.
CLNs absolutely need penaids to get through defenders - almost always decoy flares, perhaps maneuvers and one bssj per salvo if you really want.
The support containers can carry the penaids for the salvo if you are using triple seeker setups.
CLNs also have a metric ton of support containers -
mine containers - only really stop pd-less ships but can be used to detect invaders who trigger the mines
rocket containers - munch smaller ships if they are not proficient with the chaff and run trick, which is exactly what it sounds like it is
decoy containers - fake out the other team and bait arad missiles
Engine Triangle
This part is pretty self explanatory - top corner speed, bottom right range, bottom left maneuverability.
It is common practice to find a speed you want then tweak to get an ideal combo of range and maneuverability.
You want enough range to fulfill your intended role, and enough maneuverability to avoid missing targets(or enough to dodge defenders via terminal maneuvers, in the case of the torpedo engine shown above).
Trying to get the most speed you can while still having the other two is usually the basic idea.
Drag the stats around until you are happy.
Keep in mind faster missiles spend less time being shot by PD.
Tricks For Missiles
There are a number of tricks that can be used to boost missile performance. Some are scattered throughout the guide but I will place them all here for reference as well.
In no particular order:
1) The Sarissa Wiggle
A technique that makes sarissa gamers mald - when cruising, change direction every few hundred meters, so your final path resembles a zigzag or corkscrew, this will cause most sarissa shots to miss until close range
2) The unused secondary seeker
Jammed seekers without backup cause the missile to wobble around idiotically. It can even cause the missile to stage if it is a hybrid.
To fix this, adding a sah or hoj secondary to missiles such as CMD will cause them to fly straight during comms jam.
This can allow the missiles to hit despite jamming, under some circumstances
3) SAH Micro
Manual fireing the illuminator to only light up the ship, and not its chaff/actives
This is tricky against moving targets. The most reliable way for a still target that I found is to aim the illuminator with range 2.5km and make a snowman shape with your aim circle and the target circle in the tac view. Your little circle should be on the side you expect to not have the chaffbox, usually the roof side.
4) Vortex
Some of the best hybrid players have found a way to make hybrids dodge amms.
For more information, go to the nebulous discord and ask around.
5) ToT
Jordenxue has already made a guide for this, and it is covered under Arofire's CLN guide as well.
Essentially, you line up your salvos to arrive on target at the same time, multiplying your effective salvo size and allowing your missiles to land from multiple angles.
A crippling tactic if used correctly.
There are several ways to accomplish this - toying with missile speeds and firing times, cold-launch then hot-launch missiles, etc.
You can also plot cruise paths so that salvos arrive at the same time.
The easiest ToT for a CLN is to perform a time-wasting maneuver that takes the exact amount of time for the next salvo to launch.
ToT is only really worth it if the target's pd is too powerful for one salvo to break.
It adds a considerable amount of time before the missiles land.
That being said if you use this strategy properly you can achieve devastating results.
Countering Missiles
If you are currently saying <Help, I keep dying to spam and I don't know how to fix this>
This section is for you.
With proper technique, you can laugh off all but the most skilled missileers
Note that this doesnt really apply to torpedoes, if someone gets close with cork torpedoes you are very likely about to become dead. Avoid them like you would avoid a beam ship.
MAKE SURE YOU BRING A SCRYER MODULE SOMEWHERE SO YOU CAN SEE THE INCOMING SEEKERS.
The 0th line of defense is to not be shot at in the first place - remaining unseen and using rocks/cover. Rocks are especially nice because you can duck behind one, causing the entire enemy salvo to eat rock.
Your first real line of defense is softkill, and it is for ANS the strongest line of defense at time of writing.
Softkill is where you screw up your opponents seekers so the missiles do not hit your ship.
Essentially, radar jamming and chaff fools ACT and SAH, Radar->OFF and Active decoys/decoy containers fool ARAD, Comms jammers screw up CMD, Blackjack jammers screw up EO, and turning engines off screws up WAKE.
However, radar jamming is not used because most missile players use arad of some kind somewhere in their mixed salvos.
Luckily, you can still counter ACT and SAH with chaff or actives, and the rest of the steps dont really interact with eachother.
Some things to consider: First, blackjacks autotask to missiles if you dont manually fire them. However, Comms jammers do not. MAKE SURE YOU REMEMBER TO TURN ON THE CMD JAM.
you will see a yellow ball around your ship in the tactical view if it is on.
There is no point in CMD jamming for no CMD, or engines of if no WAKE. Deploy whatever you need to counter the threat. That being said it doesn't hurt either, so why not.
For ANS:
Every single seeker combination that OSP possesses can be countered by a timely application of the standard technique - just make sure you carry the gear - a vls 1 with active decoys or chaff, and an e70 ball jammer.
If you see wake zooming around, fullstop or move in a way that the main engine is not fireing.
Then:
First, issue an EMCON command. If done in time, this renders arad seekers/backups/validators useless.
Then, turn on the e70 Interruption ball jammer, which will shut off all CMD seekers once they get too close.
Finally, the ship will autolaunch an active decoy - for smaller ships spamming 2-3 chaff with the shift-z command will work too. This screws up all the ACT and SAH variants (assuming no illuminator micro, which is rare to encounter)
If this is done, every seeker combo will be fooled. This is because WAKE, ARAD and HOJ cant see you anymore, ACT, ARAD, and SAH go for the decoy instead of you, and CMD is blinded by the comms jam. OSP has no EO.
If you are OSP, you have to rely more on the second and third layers of defence, as you lack comms jammers and active decoys.
That being said a decoy container is almost as good if you have space for them - usually on the back side of a lineship. Keep radars on lineships off at all times unless you need them - let the little ships do sensor work (and eat the arad missiles). Also, if you are an ocello you can bring very strong PD. Other people have made ocello guides, go find them.
The second line of defense is hardkill - shooting the missiles down with anti-missile-missiles and point defense turrets(PDTs).
Defenders/Pavisses are 20mm PDTs that have high single target damage and low range. They are effective against everything to some degree, but especially slow missiles like containers/torps.
Flak(stonewall, rebound, bulwark), does AOE damage but does reduced damage to armored missiles(torpedoes, containers). It is good against rockets, S2s, and S1s.
Lasers(Grazer, Aurora) have long range but lower damage. They are good against hybrid missiles, and auroras are good on rockets.
Sarissa - very longrange, decent damage, can miss if the other player is cruising properly.
Great against directfired hybrids.
AMMs are Anti-Missile-Missiles, pricey and don't deal much damage but can scale to the incoming threat, and are maneuverable enough to nail hybrids.
To make one you take a missile, set the mode to defensive on the purple slot, and give it a FRAG warhead of some sort.
Detect small targets should auto enable.
For OSP:
Pavisses are strong against torpedoes and small amounts of other missiles, especially on small ships like shuttles
However your main threat is often hybrids. To counter hybrids, anti-missile-missiles(amms) and laser PDTs are used.
There are a variety of amm builds, most common of which is the minimum warhead FRAG-EL variety.
Its seeker should be either SACT or CMD, with CMD being better but pricier.
Flak is nice to block S2 spammers.
For ANS: Softkill stops most of your threats and defenders clean up well. You can bring flak if you wish.
The third line of defense is tanking the missiles, often used by marauder-class liners.
This doesnt really work against HEKP, but against HEI, the damage can spread out enough to not do anything too critical. After sponging some, you repair. This works best combined with some pd to reduce damage taken.
MAKE SURE THAT IF YOU HAVE A REACTOR CRIT, YOU SHUTDOWN REACTOR AT 40-50 SECONDS.
Exploding is totally preventable and not fun.
Common Fleet Compositions For Missiles
Anything can be a missile ship if you try hard enough.
(except the shuttle, but rockets kinda count)
All a ship needs to do to be a missile fleet is carry missiles.
That being said some are better than others for the different types of missiling.
ANS:
Sprinter - often seen in bomber swarms that nuke people from orbit with s2h, or carrying torpedos/S3hs to nuke people closer.
Raines - best point-per-tube efficiency, so best for backline cruise gaming.
Keystone - can take a beam for late game when you are dry, other than that it can take more buff modules.
Vauxhall - speedy, sneaky, can do all sorts of things.
They are called surrender CLs if all they have are missiles.
Axford - can take beam and armor for lategame, or can take missile backpacks on a gun build.
Solomon - pretty terrible point wise but still workable for missiles, it is better to take missiles as a side weapon to beams/guns/smt. Still a bit questionable, but a few torps to finish people can be quite nice.
OSP:
Shuttles - rockets whee
Tugs - Can take torps or gales and run around in balls murdering people with jammers, 250s and missiles.
Can also take missiles for the cap game, in the case of MMTs(multi mission tugs).
Feeders - can vomit pretty good. Often used for MLS-2 stuffs. Also sometimes torpedoes but feeders are kinda slow.
Liners - can also vomit pretty good, often used with MLS-2 or occasionally MLS-3.
Ocello - the mighty torpcello has a CR-75 antenna that can overpower comms jamming at torpedo range. This lets you meme capitals in ambushes without fear of softkill.
It can do s2s but is not as efficient for that.
CLN - the container vomiter, seen either as a capital killer or a support vessel. It has a lot of nice utility containers and can also bring an absurd amount of raw damage, just dont expect much of it to actually land.
Universal to all missile fleets are ensuring that your salvo is large enough to break the pd of your intended target.
For ANS, Ocellos, and CLNs this is done by using modules to get more programming channels.
For the rest of OSP this is done by filling every slot that can take an MLS with one.
Modules can also buff programming speed, or MLS reload time.
When using MLS, do not group them. If ungrouped, shift clicking the order will issue it to each MLS individually, so you only need to queue 4 or 2 fire orders.
By contrast, if grouped, each ship fires the number of missiles equal to the number of fire orders, so you have to queue like 30 fire orders.
Not fun.
Also, remember to test your missile builds in testing range, it is not fun to learn you cant break pd in the middle of a skirmish match. Always test your pd pen from angles other than directly nose on for the target, as this makes pd pen drastically harder due to both sides of the ship pd being able to fire.
Missile Gameplay
So, you have built your missile fleet and want to know what to do with it.
There are a few things that missile fleets commonly do.
1) The ambush fleet
These fleets are often directfire torpedo or gale fleets that lurk unseen behind a rock somewhere.
When a high value enemy fleet gets in range, they flank out and vomit, nuking the enemy nearly instantly.
This type of gameplay requires patience and knowing where to park your ambush.
Ideally you will be in a hidden spot that threatens a common enemy push route.
For example, a torpcello camped near E can annihilate the D-E push on pillars.
This gameplay might sound boring, but you can often afford support ships when you run a torpedo ship, and so you can occupy yourself with cap/scout work until the moment you get to nuke someone.
This is the easiest way to play missiles in my opinion, all you have to do is pick a good spot and wait for your prey, and being a full missile fleet you shouldn't have trouble breaking point defense.
Make sure you fully clear the rock before firing or your missiles will eat rock.
2) The yub nub fleet
Yub nub is a name given to cruise missile gamers.
Essentially, a fleet will be packed with as many cruise missiles as possible and will stay on the backline.
They will then cruise delete the targets that their missiles were built to attack.
Examples include cruise s3h, s2h, most containerships, and occasionally s2s.
To do this you need to be reasonably proficient with cruise plotting.
3) The backpack missile / support missile
These fleets primarily do something else, like being a gun axford or gun CLs, or running an OSP capfleet, but they bring some missiles to the side, to give the fleet some nice burst damage or scout popping power.
For example, an osp capfleet can bring a 1500 pt CLN that is loaded with support and rocket containers, and use that to nuke enemy cappers, scout with missiles, and play misdirection, while the fleet fulfills its primary role as a capfleet.
For ANS a gun CH or gun CLs can bring hybrids or torps as a backpack to pop little ships or HEKP wounded people.
ANS can also bring arsenal frigates/dds in a capfleet to nuke shuttles.
4) The orbital missile fleet
Bomber corvettes or other orbital missile fleets take directfire missiles and go to the top of the map, where they then proceed to nuke everything from orbit.
If built right, these fleets can obliterate the enemy scouts and then everything else.
Jammers recommended.
5) The missile tugblob
Plays like a tugblob until you find a target you cant conveniently kill with 250, at which point you gale or torpedo to instadelete the problem.
Final note: Nearly every missile fleet struggles with low map presence and scout work.
To fix this, bringing some scout ships like spyglass raines or EWR tugs can be a great idea, as sometimes your teammates wont have them.
Some little gun cappers are dirt cheap as well, and generally a good pick, to avoid the legendary "wait my team has 6 ships total" situation.
If you want to maximize missile count you cant really bring extras, but in my experience it is often better to be able to see than to have one extra salvo.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3271262068
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