Posted by: Zardnaar
« on: February 07, 2019, 10:43:26 PM »This guiide is roughly an attempt to cover the 3 fleet types and when/how to use them. Broadly speaking there are 4 fleet types in the game.
Carrier Fleet.
This fleet uses a lot of carrier type ships such as escort carriers, quasar fires, venator's etc. Not you may still have some cruisers or hybrid carrier/battle cruisers in such a fleet but if 30+ points out of 60 are dedicated to carrier type ships you probably have a carrier fleet.
Balanced Fleet
These fleets tend to have 3 or 4 capital ships, 3-5 cruisers and an assortment of smaller ships. A classic balanced fleet IMHO is 4 ISD's II, 4 Victory I/IIs and some combination of strike cruisers/AA frigates/acclaimators etc.
Kill Fleet
These fleets are built around pure fire power. Any craft carried are mostly incidental or are fighters to keep the skies clear of bombers. 4 Tectors +11 strike cruisers+ 3 lancers is a kill fleet, or 2-3 allegiances backed up with strike cruisers is also one. Imperial factions excel at this type of fleet as a general rule.
Super Fleet.
This fleet is built around a super star destroyer. They are built around Bellators, Executors, or the Viscount New Republic equivalent.
Those are the 4 basic fleet types. Not you can hybrid them as a balanced fleet for example could add some escort carriers/quasar fires instead of fire support ships.
When/How to Use.
Carrier Fleet.
Carrier fleets excel at a long drawn out combat and at droping shields. They tend to be poor at killing things in a hurry and running a few capital ships or cruisers (that also carry craft) is advised. Carrier fleets excel at mopping up weakly held systems, systems that are an asteroid field, and make good bully fleets as well where they canbeat up smaller fleets without any losses as strike craft regenerate. They are also good at countering super fleets espicially if the super ship lacks escorts. A large pile of bombers can nuke the super's shields and then you drop a few cruisers or whatever behind the SSd and take out its engines. Carrier fleets tend to be countered by fleets with more than 60 points, a large amount of tectors and those special AI fleets where they derp charge you with 15 Victory I's and II's as your craft can't blow them up fast enough and the concussion missiles wreck your shields. They are also decent on the defensive where you can use a ion cannon or X2 HVG to help them out.
Balanced Fleet.
When in doubt use a balanced fleet. If you don't know what you're advancing into or just need to defend a star base against all comers use a balanced fleet. They are never bad although sometimes they do not excel where one of the other fleets might be better.
Kill Fleet.
Kill fleets tend to be used to try and win a battle as fast as possible using overwhelming firepower. They are usually built around allegiances and tectors either using them as pathfinder units. Tectors and allegiance tend to be tough as guts and pack a lot of firepower. You use them as a bullet sponge while things like strike cruisers hide behind them and fire over them, the idea is to have as many guns facing forward as possible. The New Republic mostly lacks the neccessary ships but you can cobble together something with Majestic Class cruisers, Nebula Star Destroyers and a large pile of Marauder corvettes. Kill fleets tend to come up short vs super fleets and large fleets as you are often racing opposing ships gambling that your shields and hard points last longer than the opposing fleets. Your few fighters are to keep the skies clear and in a drawn out slug fest reinforcements tend to ruin your day.
Super Fleets
A super fleet excels on the defensive especially when they are backed up by things like an HVG or two, a starbase and a several of the strongest defensive structures you can build. These fleets excel at wiping out enemy fleets for the loss of nothing as the super ship tends to soak all the hits. They can however be overwhelmed in heavily deafened systems due to the quantities of starfighters and bombers tat well be incoming. They tend to do poorly against factions such as Zsinj and the PA at least on the offensive as those factions tend to use lots of bombers and combined with a heavily defended system you might have a bad day or have to resort to a 90 or 120 point fleet to crack them open. Still you can pull off some truly lopsided battles using these ships but it can be a gamble.