Engineers Best engineering for the FSD Disrupter Missile?

[Exigeous]

First a HUGE thanks to Frontier support - I've had the FSD Disrupter Missile for several months but haven't really used it much yet. Recently when intending to transfer it to a CG system I accidentally remote sold it. Apparently that's tough for Frontier to restore but as I had video proof of accidentally selling it they were willing to give it back to me. Once again they come through in spades.

So now that I have it back I figure it's time to go get it engineered. I'm planning on doing rapid fire as I figure with it being dumbfire that'll give me the best chance of landing a shot. The questions are first, anyone disagree on that modification and second what special effect? I'm thinking Overload as you can't use drag on dumbfires, Penetrator has to hit hull (and I'm gonna assume their shields might still be up) - but I could see that one being effective. Overload converts some damage to thermal so it would be more effective against shields.

Anyone??

~X

 

[Raino]

use it first then think again

its no impact missile

 

[Exigeous]

use it first then think again

its no impact missile

Oh I've used it but obviously only for it's interrupt powers - hence wanting to engineer it in some way to make it more useful. I pretty much only pirate in small ships with the FAS being the largest I ever fly. If I'm going to give up 1 of my precious hardpoints for it I'd like it to be as useful as possible.

 

[Nero Tacitus]

Take this with a grain of salt as I don't pirate, you just haven't gotten any feedback yet so I thought I'd get the ball rolling.

Your only real options for engineering would be Rapid Fire or Ammo Cap, both have their place as missiles come with only 60 ammo. If you'd prefer to ensure you land the shot, and increase the DPS of the hardpoint, then you're on the money with rapid fire. If you're able to reliably land the shot, and you're running out of ammo regularly (especially if you're using the hardpoint as a standard dumb-fire and not just the occasional FSD shutdown), Ammo Cap could be better; it's entirely up to you, bot mods have their merits, however I'd personally go Rpaid Fire and just load up on synth mats.

As for the experimental, you've pretty much summarised the issue.
Overload converts the explosive (-50% against standard shields) to thermal (+20%), increasing the weapon's ability to help strip shields. As before, if you're going to spam them, then buffing the hardpoint's DPS would make up for its lacklustre stats (FSD missile does half the DPS of a stock dumb-fire), but if you're only going to fire it to prevent waking out, then that extra damage isn't going to add a lot to the DPS already put out by your other hardpoints. Normally I'd be all for shield stripping to get at the cargo hatch, but now that limpets ignore shields, is stripping shields still valuable to you?

Penetrator on the other hand could have a niche use, allowing you to punch out certain subsystems to force a more cooperative target. I haven't used missiles much beyond bombarding instllations, so I don't know how easy it is to land a dumb-fire on a particular subsystem of an AI that quite obviously knows where you're aiming. The main issue I'd have here is that I recall a post which noted that the penetrator mod removes the missile's ability to damage external modules, they no longer "explode", but instead gain breach damage. This means that they can no longer damage external modules, which includes thrusters and ECMs. If this is true, it may also extend to Overload, which would make both mods a step down in crippling a ship without risking destroying it.

Sorry I don't have more concrete info to give, but if I suspected that Overload or Penetrator would remove the explosive damage of my missiles in exchange for niche use, I'd be skipping either and leaving the missiles as standard Rapid Fires.

 

[Exigeous]

Thanks much for all the input Nero, I appreciate the time you took to write that all out. You're also thinking exactly what I am and I think I'll go for rapid fire. I don't see me running out of ammo as I really only plan to use them to stop waking but wanted a little something extra. I'll also go with Overload as I see the negatives to penetrator here.

Once I play with them a bit I'll report back - if anyone has any other comments I'm all ears.

~X