Fleet Formation

This site belongs to Merovech, formerly of Ceti; now resident of Epsilon.

  BEST SHIPS

• Fighters - necessary cheap fodder - lots and lots

will soak up damage in attack and defence and you need them for suiciding at enemy fighter defences. Far better armour per credit than anything else means you lose a lot less fleet if you have enough fighters with you. (a good amount of carriers/fleet carriers are important). If you play right, you will lose far more value of fighters than anything else.

• Cruisers (best all round ship) - warp drives, decent speed, good armour per credit and strong enough to take out anything below p-rings and titans. Although you need more in the fleet to take out the big stuff cause the shield penetration is not so good, you will lose less than with Heavy Cruisers or bigger cause the armour per credit is better, shields are not really good value on any ship.
• Heavy cruisers (pack more punch) - you never need anything bigger than heavy cruisers. They have some advantages over cruisers.. bombers and fighters are ineffective against them.. plus the high power means they penetrate heavy shields much better than cruisers so you don't need as big a fleet to get the job done .. but you will lose more. Higher shields are not worth the increased cost of armour over cruisers in most sitiations. Slower than cruisers.

BEST FLEET COMPOSITIONS FOR ALL-ROUND ACTION

• Cruisers + Carriers + Fighters (ratio.. 10 : 2 or more : lots.. full load + enough to come back and refill)
• Heavy Cruisers + Fleet Carriers + Fighters (+ a few Battleships)

(always retreat carriers and recyclers before battle, then recall after)

Large numbers of destroyers or heavy bombers can make good additions to these fleets.. but be aware that they could be a liability and make sure you know what you are doing.

SPECIALIST SHIPS

• Recyclers - get plenty. 5-10% of mobile fleet size (ie. what you can move away from your bases) is not too much
• Scout ships - take a bunch with you when you send fleets to-far off places and always have a few spares at each base (or sit a bunch of them on each jumpgate). Moving a scout ahead so you can see your fleet's landing zone is a good idea to avoid being ambushed. A single scout is unlikely to be seen on scanners (can only be seen 40s before it lands) but still, be careful not to give away your intentions. You can see every base in a region where you have a a ship. Guildmates can see every base in a system where you have a ship. Be aware of this when scouting for guildmates. Just cause you can see it doesn't mean your guildmates can.. but you don't need a scout right on the base.
• Battleships - specialist.. you don't need many till leviathans appear. They can destroy many fighters and bombers without a scratch. Also light defences. A single battleship can do a lot of damage, but against anything half decent heavy cruisers will be better value. No real weakness (cruisers can be owned by bombers and HC can be owned by heavy bombers, but ion bombers are too expensive to be much use). Put a few in your heavy cruiser fleets to pack a bit more punch, soak up a bit of repairable damage and add another element… they won't die much behind a decent number of heavy cruisers.
• Corvettes - fast attack.. useful to have a bunch around. a large amount is good for another layer of fodder to protect the more valuable ships when attacking (more layers are better, but they will get screwed on by enemy fighters when defending. Its much easier just to use fighters and carriers). Mostly useful for quick light action and killing enemy recyclers. Lack of warp drive lets them down.
• Destroyers - good for another layer of fodder and for killing cruisers, but not necessary. no warp drive and slower than corvettes means they are of limited use. You can use them in large numbers to take out cruisers and heavy cruisers instead of heavy bombers. They cost more but don't require hangar space and are less vulnerable but they will still get punished by a decent player with a lot of fighters.
• Bombers types - can be good.. but they are tricky to use right (don't attack anything with too many shields, and you have to use the right amount or you just throw them away). Vulnerable to being attacked. Careful use of bombers with the battle calculator can yield good results. Never use bombers for defence as any decent opponent will screw on them.

o Bombers - own Cruisers and smaller. Missile tech is cheap but is only useful for bombers.

o Heavy Bombers - own Heavy Cruisers and smaller. Plasma tech is more expensive.. but you need it for cruisers and heavy cruisers anyway. Once you have good plasma tech, normal bombers become mostly redundant.

o Ion bombers - are way to specialist to be of much use. You just don't get the nice power/cost ratio that the other bombers get and even against the biggest ships, battleships give a comparable ratio without the disadvantages. Maybe you want to take some along with your cruiser fleets as a bit of heavy shield penetration that doesn't slow you down, but you're probably better off just taking more cruisers. Ion tech is not nearly as important as plasma tech and it is more expensive.

• Larger Ships - can be good for the same reason as battleships.. they can take on entire smaller fleets without dying and they can soak up some repairable damage. Lack of speed and high cost lets them down so build few. The larger the ship, the more it can do on its own without taking critical damage.. but repair costs can be high and if it gets attacked while alone you could get seriously screwed over. Twice, I've lost a titan cause I fell asleep while it was inching its way towards the target Wink

frigates suck.