So I have Ipm-ed several planets now (all inactives) and noticed a few things. Id apreaciate comments on my observations.

1) It takes longer than it looks for the missiles to hit and damage to register.
2) I have IPM ed a planet with ABM's and they didnt go off... untill I did it a second time.
3) The IPM menu gives targeting options. What are the advantages of choosing a specific target, and is there a "rule of thumb" to estimate how many missiles to send?
4) Im about to hit a "Live" target and I want my fleet and IPM's to hit him within a couple of minuets of one another. How should I time it?
5)does higher levels of Silo increase the range, or just storage capacity?

Missile silos only increase the storage capacity. in order to increase the range of the missiles you must upgrade your impulse drives.

I have noticed that the ipms dont work exactly like they say as in you have no idea when they land so i suggest to always probe before sending the fleet.

nobody wrote:So I have Ipm-ed several planets now (all inactives) and noticed a few things. Id apreaciate comments on my observations.

1) It takes longer than it looks for the missiles to hit and damage to register.
2) I have IPM ed a planet with ABM's and they didnt go off... untill I did it a second time.
3) The IPM menu gives targeting options. What are the advantages of choosing a specific target, and is there a "rule of thumb" to estimate how many missiles to send?
4) Im about to hit a "Live" target and I want my fleet and IPM's to hit him within a couple of minuets of one another. How should I time it?
5)does higher levels of Silo increase the range, or just storage capacity?

1. It doesnt take longer, however you have to wait for the missiles to land before you can send the probesto check.
2. You can ONLY IPM with IPM's, you cannot send ABM's as they are strictly for YOUR planets defense against IPM
3. The target options are to be able to isolate what you want to hit. If you choose all, the targets start Rocket launchers, then Light Lasers, Heavy Laser, Guass cannon, Ion Cannon, Plasma canon, Sm dome, Lg dome. So if they had just a small amount of defenses but they had domes, you might want to specifically target the domes. Precision hits have a high chance of Missing and usually cause less overall damage than a general carpet bombing would.
4. There is no real rule of thumb. The damage and defense are calculated with weapons, sheilding, armor in mind. If you are sending IPMS and your weapons tech is substantially higher than thier shielding/armor, you will do considerably more damage. Opposite if you have lower techs.
If your techs are basically the same a very rough estimate for general carpet bombing would be. 1 IPM=60-70 RL,25-35 LL, 4-6 HL, 10-13 IC, 2-4 GC, 1 PC 1Sm 1 Lg dome.

5. I higher impulse drive increases the range at 5 systems per level.

Sorry # 2 should read: I IPM-ed a plantet that had IBM's on it and they didnt go off... untill I did it a second time.

Hi, I have an observation related to IPM ranges. As the discussions yielded that per level increase of impulse drive the IPM range expands by five system both ways. So for a moderately experienced player say in the range of 10k-30k pts. it would be practical if we consider impulse drive upgrade would reach lvl 10.

* To cover a single galaxy it would take 500/(10*5)-1 planets with IPM silos. So to cover a full galaxy 9 planets.

Now I would like to know, apart from the comments on the above observations that, is it possible to hit a planet across galaxy with IPMs?

You should keep in mind the Rapid Fire. Attack ships and Defenses have rapid fire against some things.
IPMs are usually used as a primer against heavily defended forts (used to increase the success rate of your follow up fleet).
Though if you are planning to to blow all of his/her defenses, it does not matter which goes down first.

Another thing, shield domes can be easily destroyed by IPMs, attack fleets usually need up to the last round to destroy it.
Edit: Sometimes it is a lot cheaper to send IPMs than sacrificing some ships to go through a thick defense.
Defenses destroyed by IPMs will not rebuild.

And no. You cannot IPM someone a galaxy away. IPMs work only within a galaxy.

You can only IPM a planet within the same Galaxy.. so planet 3:450 with an Impulse drive of 12 could not reach 4:1. Your range would be 3:391-3:499

Can anything increase the speed of IPMs? TIA.

No.