It has crosshairs instead of iron sights. This is amazing for extreme precision aiming. It has high projectile velocity. Less drop, faster damage. It is an air deterrent. ESFs can't bother you because they scram at the sight of the lock-on warning. It is stil a 2-shot MAX kill. As an experienced rocket specialist, I don't get why people use Decimators :/
Dumbfired Lock on do not get a velocity boost, and are about as fast as a decimator. They are really good launchers though, they kill sunderers in 1 less rocket than default ones I think.
Standard rocket launchers have 115 m/s; lock-ons have 100 m/s; Decimators are 60 m/s. While standard launchers have faster projectile speed, lock-ons have less drop for some reason, probably projectile hop or sight compensation. You are correct about needing 1 less rocket, but the odds are that you are not the only one shooting at a Sunderer. If you're working solo then yeah that's a big deal but when a group of people are pounding away at a Sunderer for 10 minutes, one more rocket will not really matter.
IMHO Annihilator is the best rocket launcher - solid damage, locks-on to ground and air and extreme range (300m AV, 400m AA) make it the most versatile launcher when dealing with vehicles. Yeah, it can't dumbfire so it's useless against infantry and MAXes but TBH I prefer shooting those with an LMG anyways, it's far more reliable. Get a squad of 8 Annihilators, position yourself on a high ground and focus fire for a 300m One-Hit-Kill radious against everything other than a galaxy. It's basicaly a no-vehicle zone. You can seriously rek some zerglings with this
G2A and G2G have faster acceleration than the other ones so they are in practice faster. The difference used to be bigger before they were nerfed in PU2 ( ). It's still the case that G2A gas the least drop. My old test results before the nerf at PU2. Time to reach a target 200mm away. Weapon:---------Time: shrike----------3.7s decimator-------3.9s crow------------2.1s hawk------------2.0s
alpha damage, i'll use deci almost exclusively for the monster damage. the reload doesn't bother me, since i reload it between fights or in cover. plus i'm mostly NC so hard hitting slow weapons are kinda our thing!
Anti-air rocket launchers are great but suffer from a design flaw... the rockets -should- shoot upward and then in the direction of the target rather than immediately in the direction of the target as soon as you pull the trigger.
Alpha damage doesn't benefit beyond 1000 damage for AI. Both are instakill all infantry (damage cap 1600 for HA with shield) and 2-shot MAX (2000 health), but the AA lock-on in fact does more indirect damage than the Decimator (750 vs 650). You could therefore even argue that the AA lock-ons do more damage overall to infantry. The only scenario that I would choose a Deci over anything else is Sundy hunting because it's a stationary target where the extra alpha damage actually helps. Edit: I just noticed that AA lock-ons have the tightest hipfire CoF, so tight that it's comparable to the Anchor with ALS. I guess that explains why I was able to hit reliably while hipfiring! I'd rather have that than get pounded by A2G dumbfires. The goal isn't getting kills; it's an air deterrent.
A smart infantryman waits for the other guy to pop flares while still locked, then reacquires and fires the missile.
Most just nose down and the rocket helpfully ploughs itself into the ground. Bailing is reserved for after AFKs/doing something silly. Which is probably why no lock-on accounts for more than ~1.2% of ESF deaths.
Interesting fact: VS launchers are slower for some ungodly reason w/o explanation. Plasma must be heavy
