I will buy a new rocket launcher appart of the mentioned shotgun,but dunno which one is better. Anyone test the two???
I honestly do not understand the point of the Swarm. What. Is. It. For? Ok, I can adjust the missile speed between... err... two settings: SLOW and FAST. Do the SLOW missiles hit harder than the FAST missiles? If not, I see no reason to use SLOW missiles. Also, the lock on range is TEENY TINY, so what's the point of FAST missiles?? This rocket launcher seems like insubstantial fluff.
Couldn't get Swarm to work in VR (probably a bug) so no comment but basically it does in three shots what the Annihilator does in, errr.....more shots. I've had much fun and success with Annihilator but have rediscovered the joy of dumb firing, so I'm back to Nemesis, Grounder and Hawk (G2A lock ons)
Can't quite put my finger on it because I don't fly but pilots seem predisposed to outrun these slow moving missiles. It's like they are waiting for the damage to occur and while they are waiting they keep flying straight out of render range in some kind of paralysing trance. The range the missile has is quite impressive.
The Swarm's main purpose is to help fellow tryhards (such as myself) get the Air Deterrence ribbons for their Heavy Assault directive. That's what I say, anyway.
if you're determined to get one of those then i'd go with swarm, but personally i'd just go for an air-lock dumbfire launcher (crow/nemesis/grounder)
The Annihilator is more reliable, its rockets are a bit slower than the fast rockets of the swarm but they will almost always hit unless outran or something gets between it. The Swarm is more fun and does a bit more damage overall.
I can't say for certain, but empire specific G2A launchers were recently stealth-nerfed to near worthlessness. I'd give the Anni a tryout to see if the damage is at all worthwhile before dropping certs/cash on it. Currently, it'll take 3 lock-on rockets to destroy an uncerted ESF, which is impossible to get off if the pilot hasn't literally died in his chair.
Thing with the swarm is that it is very usefull to hit fast moving targets. I was quite surprised when I did not missed one single shot on Scythes and Swagriders when I aimed correctly. The use of this RL is to hit things multiple times, not cause a lot of damage at once. Never used the fast missiles so no idea what is the difference.
Hold the fire button down don't just click the trigger and you get missiles that better target and follow the target. Quick trigger sends a missile but will have less accuracy. Annihilator does a lot of damage in one shot but doesn't follow for long, with Swarm you get three shots that follow longer distances, thus more chances of taking out the target and because swarm also locks on faster you get more opportunities to shoot at the enemy. I loved the Annihilator until the Swarm came out, the faster lock on for Swarm means more frequently use.
So the Swarm when it shows 3 dots means it is set to FAST mode? when it is set to one Dot , that means its slower but more damage? Can someone clarify please
Anihilator all the way. That is if you want kills, of course. IF you are going for air deterance directive, by all means get the swarm.
The problem with the two rocket launchers was that cant shoot without lock ons (im not sure about Swarm) So if a MAX appears on front of u,u are in serious problems. But there is a good weapon called shotgun that put difficultyes to MAXes :F So,about the RLs i prefer the Anihilator because it does a lot of damage per shot,but Swarm can follot the target better if u hold the trigger without sacrifice ammo reserves,also dunno if with the Swarm can shoot without lock ons...anyone can clarify this please???
The Swarm has to have a lock just like the Annihilator. Oh and unless they changed it, the Swarm has a stupid amount of splash for some reason. Firing at a crowded sundy will get you quite a few kills.
There are two advantages as I understand it.... One of which is more of a trade off.... I will start with that. Although you will be exposed for longer to let off all 3 rockets, each one does 375 damage meaning you have 1125 damage per reload. This is up from the 1000 you get from the Annihilator. Now the second thing is actually hidden, the rockets from the swarm don't start to chase their target until they have traveled "a distance". This distance depends on fire type. This is intended to get around the "fire straight into the floor in front of you issue". A few other facts: Fast projectiles move twice as fast as Slow and hence have half the maneuverability. Slow projectiles are similar in speed to a boosting Harasser. The fast projectile start to track its target at around 130m. The slow projectile starts to track its target after 40m (if memory serves). You can miss targets inside the range before they start to track. You cannot abuse this to score rear hits on tanks, the reason for this is the game doesn't care where the projectile hits only the position of the shooter to the target. The Swarm isn't better OR worse than the Anihilator in performance terms, I just believe the Swarm to be more fun.
Too fast and a target might just make you hit cover, slow missiles are better for constantly moving targets like ESFs that try to use cover to detonate missiles. Fast is great against targets like tanks that are constantly using one bit of cover to duck behind to get a faster shot in, slow travels too slow to nab them. The exposure time is quite annoying but you do get more flexibility when coming into an engagement against something, a master of the swarm will hit more often than a master of the annihil, but the annihil has a good single payload and a lot less in exposure time, so he only has to hit the one shot for it to pay off while the swarm has to peck in 3s.
The biggest thing about a swarm, is that pilot can't know if any are more dangerous missiles in the swarm. It's good at getting esf's to back off, not kill em, but thinkin that's about it.
