In the games where you are allowed to choose your missile loadout (WC3/4), do you go with ImRec missiles or Heatseekers?
Advantages of ImRecs:
1) Can be fired from any angle, especially from in FRONT of an enemy, where it is the hardest to dodge.
2) Has a 75% chance of resisting each decoy, compared to about 50% for FFoe, Heatseeker, and Leech missiles
3) Lock CANNOT be broken by any sort of gyrations or other evasive action unless a solid object (another fighter or a capship) blocks its path. This, combined with the higher decoy resistance, makes ImRec missiles VERY hard to shake off--light ships such as Arrow/Darket have better luck trying to outrun them.
Advantages of Heatseekers:
1) Marginally faster and more agile than ImRecs (and MUCH faster than FFoe missiles)
2) If lock is broken via evasion (but NOT via decoys), Heatseekers can reacquire target lock, locking onto the FIRST target to present its rear within their cone of vision. Note that Heatseekers will not distinguish between friend and foe in this instance, and will lock onto and pursue whichever makes itself available first.
3) Since Heatseekers always lock onto the REAR of targets and pursue them from behind, they always deliver their damage to the rear quadrants. This means that a second Heatseeker will always strike in the same spot as the first one, whereas other missiles might strike a different quadrant and have their explosive power blunted by undamaged armor. This can be helpful against targets that can survive the first Heatseeker impact (any WC3 craft heavier than a Darket--WC4 craft ALL die with a single missile hit except for FFoe missiles against Longbow/Dragon)
Advantages of ImRecs:
1) Can be fired from any angle, especially from in FRONT of an enemy, where it is the hardest to dodge.
2) Has a 75% chance of resisting each decoy, compared to about 50% for FFoe, Heatseeker, and Leech missiles
3) Lock CANNOT be broken by any sort of gyrations or other evasive action unless a solid object (another fighter or a capship) blocks its path. This, combined with the higher decoy resistance, makes ImRec missiles VERY hard to shake off--light ships such as Arrow/Darket have better luck trying to outrun them.
Advantages of Heatseekers:
1) Marginally faster and more agile than ImRecs (and MUCH faster than FFoe missiles)
2) If lock is broken via evasion (but NOT via decoys), Heatseekers can reacquire target lock, locking onto the FIRST target to present its rear within their cone of vision. Note that Heatseekers will not distinguish between friend and foe in this instance, and will lock onto and pursue whichever makes itself available first.
3) Since Heatseekers always lock onto the REAR of targets and pursue them from behind, they always deliver their damage to the rear quadrants. This means that a second Heatseeker will always strike in the same spot as the first one, whereas other missiles might strike a different quadrant and have their explosive power blunted by undamaged armor. This can be helpful against targets that can survive the first Heatseeker impact (any WC3 craft heavier than a Darket--WC4 craft ALL die with a single missile hit except for FFoe missiles against Longbow/Dragon)