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Before the server crashed, there was some discussion in the last game I played about whether we should research Killers to kill Bios gunships. I just wanted to continue that here.

Assume that we are tac, and the enemy has gunships. We have Hunter 1, we need to decide whether to research Hunter 2, Killer 1, or both. Hunter 2 is a treasure, so we might already have it. Assume we cannot immediately pick it up: it wouldn't hurt to research something else while we wait for it to pop up. Certainly we will need to lower our sig if we want to have any hope against gunships. However, should we research Killer 1?

It's usually more important that we kill miners than that we kill gunships, so damage vs util should be considered.

Hunter 2 and Killer 1 both do 120 damage. Hunter 2 does 120 damage against mediums shields and hull, and 60 damage against util. Killer 1 does 156 damage against medium hull, 360 damage against medium shields, and 60 damage against util. From a damage perspective, Killer is clearly superior. It's even somewhat better for killing miners, because it takes a few Hunter 2 to fully deplete the shields.

However, you have to hit if you want to kill, and Hunter definitely has better tracking. This isn't so important for killing miners and gunships, but you often have to deal with nans. Scouts are fast, but not so very maneuverable. In my experience, it is not much harder to hit a nan with Dumbfires than it is with Hunters. Not sure about Killers.

My impression from the above is that since you will usually acquire Hunter 2 for free, and it is almost as good as Killer 1 against gunships and miners, and better against nans, researching Killer 1 is probably a waste of cash that could be better spent on GAs, sig 2, or upgrading the Tac.

Further, if you already have Hunter 2, then Hunter 3 might even be a better choice. 144 damage against medium hull and shield, and 72 damage against util, are nothing to sneeze at.

Does anyone have any practical experience using Killer? I don't, so I don't have any idea how it handles.

Killer is like DF. Not enough people actually know how to use it. Simply because people these days suck, you want to get hunter2 and forgo killer. Because people suck. Simple

Gunships can already dodge dumbfires. Therefore, they can dodge killers too.

Hard to make a team, which won't listen to you already, listen to a crazy plan about forming up to killer a gunship with nans, who might be able to dodge the killers regardless.

Also you won't "usually" get hunter2, unless treasures are on high. Something like 30% of the time.

I love to pester my comms to get Killer 1s. They make such awesome Miner O tools.

Lower sig when loaded, kicks like a horse.

Against gunships, well, like Abom said, gunships are as agile as a fighter and can dodge killers if the pilot has good awareness.

Against a smart GS pilot, you need hunters. Killers are much easier to dodge than dumbfires mostly because mass fighters can rush a GS and shoot a mass of dumbs at it while living. SFs are much easier to kill than fighters and what makes them live is their low sig. A mass of SFs that gets close enough to make a GS unable to dodge killers will get spotted and die extremely fast. Of course, most GS pilots won't try to dodge killers, but if you catch one that does and used killers, it'll be hard.

Show me a gunship that can dodge 4 killers from separate ships please.

You missed the whole teamwork factor! 4-5 SFS properly firing killers at a gunship will straight up own it.

For the nans, use hunter 2. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

Yeah, the nans are the hard part. Un-nanned can be picked off easily by hunter1 with minimal teamwork. So go for hunt2.

killer 2 will be useless for base d in case of a bomb run, which is the main problem with TAC. if a miner is defended by a GS, you can always hunter it down to death, killer not so much. the GS is equally easy to kill with hunters but not with killers. A defenseless miner is dead provided you land two missiles, be them killer or hunter

Replace "you" with "your team" and maybe you have begun to make a point.

Throwing 5-6 killers into space at anything usually hurts it to the point of wishing it were dead.