[PsychoLandlord]

To be fair, I've never flown against a UEF fighter, as I've never played MP and no mods exist (yet, I understand you're working on one) where you  fly as the GTVA against UEF craft. My preference for Harpoons comes from fighting basic FS2 craft with them, where they stand a good chance of one-shotting Shivan ships on double fire, and will heavily damage all fighter craft and most bombers, provided their shields have been weakened. Against tougher, more agile UEF craft I'm sure I would reevaluate my view.

[Mars]

Tornado > Harpoon.  Takes two or more harpoon double volleys to down most FS fighters, where a single Tornado double volley will splash just about all normal fighters (haven't tried them against the newer GTVA fighters yet).  Add to that a longer range, and more submunitions to increase you chance of not whiffing the shot completely due to CMs.  Against the superior UEF fighters, a higher chance of a one shot kill isn't something to sneeze at.

Oh hey, there's an edit there.  Yes, you get half the shots with Tornados that you do with Harpoons, they do double the damage (per volley for no net loss of damage) at longer range.

In WiH, in any level of difficulty above medium, good luck ever getting a lock with Tornados, except maybe in a head on pass. The UEF and new GTVA fighters are simply too maneuverable to get a lock.

It's not purely fluff, the Aurora has AWACS and can detect stealth and expand sensor range in nebulas and crap.

Holy crap . . . how did I miss that?

[Scotty]

Harpoons won't reliably double shot a Mara on medium difficulty (read: they won't.  Ever.  3% hull is a *****).  Tornados will do so reliably until Hard, and still have a good chance on Insane.

Harpoons versus Kents and Uhlans are a joke.  Haha.  Even if you manage to hit them on anything higher than medium difficulty, they won't go down in one shot, and if you're keeping them reliably centered long enough for another shot, you should be wasting them with primaries.

Point well taken about Tornados above Medium though, Mars.  Hence why the better maneuverability of the Myrm marks it as clearly superior.

[PsychoLandlord]

Well I suppose its a good thing I tend to play medium then. And yes, Maras and their damnable ability to just barely scrape by missile hits is a problem on anything above Very Easy. Hell, I've had them survive direct double volley Hornet hits before. Incidentally, I also enjoy myself immensely when fighting them. Always preferred guns anyway, and enemies that make me use them are great.

[Scotty]

You managed to hit something smaller than a cruiser with hornets?  Color me impressed.  They're far and away the most useless standard combat missile in FS2.

[General Battuta]

They're great against stuff that assault fighters like to attack, though.

[Scotty]

But then you can just carry a ****load of tempests and do the job better and faster.  Those have the added benefit of being good against non-stationary fighters.

[PsychoLandlord]

Don't even get me started on that craptacular "ordnance." The only thing I ever use them for is cruiser and Freighter suppression, since they seem to do more damage to those targets then Tornadoes. Which has always struck me as odd.

On a funnier note, in the Instance i was referring to, the Mara actually ran directly into my volley of Hornets while trying to dodge Harpoons from my wingmen. Beyond that, I don't believe I've ever seen Hornets be even remotely useful.

[General Battuta]

But then you can just carry a ****load of tempests and do the job better and faster.  Those have the added benefit of being good against non-stationary fighters.

They're not as long-ranged (650 m is well inside flak and beam envelopes, 1330 is at the edge) and don't look as awesome.

[Snail]

Infyrno missiles are actually pretty good anti-convoy weapons. A "poor-man's bomb" as the PI walkthrough puts it.

[Mars]

The Dirk is a lot like Hornets, and it's good for taking out a couple of Scimitars before they get in range. Similarly you can use Hornets in FS2 to maybe get a mara kill or two in before you get in range.

I seem to remember really liking Hornets in Freespace

[Dragon]

In FS1, they were actually one of the most usefull missiles, but then, missiles in general acted differently in FS1.
Interceptors, for instance, were almost completely useless, while Hornets were frequently able to land at least two hits (4 on double fire).
At least, that's how I remember it, I played FS1 on Easy, long ago.

[NGTM-1R]

The Hornet flies a lag-pursuit curve. Fire at a high deflection angle and you will hit nothing.

[Kolgena]

Isn't DPS on hornets slightly higher than tempests if you load two banks and cycle between them to avoid the cooldowns?

(yeah, that's mostly pointless too since you're stuck with two banks of hornets)

And I think Infyrnos were table hacked in PI. I couldn't come close to duplicating their effectiveness in other campaigns IIRC.