[eliex]

The hornet is still fantastic against Seraphims and Nephilims . . .

The magic about the tornado and the harpoon is that it homes for the front of the ship, not the back like the hornet does.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

The hornet is still fantastic against Seraphims and Nephilims . . .

The magic about the tornado and the harpoon is that it homes for the front of the ship, not the back like the hornet does.

What do you expect? The Hornet works pretty much like the Rockeye.

I do seem to think that the Hornet is a little more powerful, though, even though it probably isn't.

[Krelus]

The hornet is still fantastic against Seraphims and Nephilims . . .

The magic about the tornado and the harpoon is that it homes for the front of the ship, not the back like the hornet does.

What do you expect? The Hornet works pretty much like the Rockeye.

I do seem to think that the Hornet is a little more powerful, though, even though it probably isn't.

The hornet isn't really useful for much of anything. Hitting a fighter with it is nothing short of miraculous, and you can get more kills per secondary bank with a harpoon. The hornet can be effective against bombers and cruisers, but that's a task better suited to the tempest, in my humble opinion. Nothing pisses off a Naheema quite as much as having a Subach / Tempest cocktail rammed up its taipipe.

[Droid803]

The Hornet is has a much  better range than the Tempest, meaning you don't need to stay so long in AAAf range.
Plus, the AI is much better at using Hornets than Tempests.

[eliex]

I think that Hornets are best used against light cruisers to bombers. Usually I pick hornets over Tornados though - they get depleted to quickly by my style of flying.

[Galemp]

Hornets are amazing hit-and-run weapons when you're attacking a heavily defended convoy. You don't have to strafe as much as with Tempests, they have a nice long range, and can't be intercepted like bombs. I learned this the hard way (damned FS1 Basilisks.)

[Herra Tohtori]

Yeah, just load your Herc 2 wingmen with Hornets and tell them to destroy a cruiser or freighter, and start taking time from order to destruction of said ship...

Besides, swarm missiles look pretty cool launched en masse by the wingmen and make for a lot of pretty pictures.

[Mongoose]

Last Hope in FS1 was a great example of what a few Hornet-packing wingmen could accomplish.  The Lightning and Thunder took all of about ten seconds to go down after I ordered everyone to attack them.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Come to think of it, I don't think the AI uses the Tempest at all. They certainly don't seem to use the Trebuchet.

[Krelus]

Ah, yeah, I forgot to mention that. AI pilots don't use tempests right at all, they fire one shot every five seconds or whatnot. I think there's a flag somewhere in the ai_profiles.tbl to fix that...

[Droid803]

Its because of the range. The AI usually make strafing runs well outside Tempest range, I think.
They roast cruisers well enough with just hornets, so I doubt that's too much of an issue.

[ShadowGorrath]

The low firerate of the tempest on AI ships can be fixed by adding the "same turret cooldown" flag, I think. And the Hornet does more damage than the Tornado.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

The low firerate of the tempest on AI ships can be fixed by adding the "same turret cooldown" flag, I think. And the Hornet does more damage than the Tornado.

Really?

[Droid803]

The Tornado's a lot more useful against fighters, while the Hornet is best used against Cruisers, Freighters, and other convoy craft.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

The Hornet does good subsystem damage, right?

[eliex]

In my experience it does.

Coming to that, I'd recommend a bank dedicated to Stellito II's for the Perseus when the missiles are available. Nothing's like the relief of flying around without threat of AAA beams shooting at you.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I don't think you can load out Stilettos on a Perseus...can you?

[FreeSpaceFreak]

You can. Check The Sixth Wonder, for example. But you can't load many of them.

[eliex]

But that's still okay as it only takes one non-dual-wielded Stilleto's to take out a Levithan's AAA cannons.

But for the Lilith . . . 

[Droid803]

The Lilith has poor anti-fighter defenses. Just fly up close and blow up the turret with tempests. There won't be more than one SAAA firing at you. (if you've got wingmen, there'll probably be less than one firing at you).