Since a lot of new players are having trouble i'm gonna add some non-invasive tips. What would you share? Please post it here and specify if you want your nickname to appear. es: "Placing frigates in the front row may be a good idea if you have a faster unit behind it." - Dracariys

PVP is key to making an efficient fleet. Even bigger opponents can lose if you have a good strategy. Synergy is ideal. You want your equipment, squadron types and choice of ships to combo together. Try to build everything off of each other. Consider how your enemies might use certain equipment against you, including ones you're using and ones you're not using. Experiment a lot in PVP, change your equipment whenever you lose, especially consecutively. Sometimes drawbacks can be turned into advantages. -X% engine or range could allow units to maintain proper positioning, such as keeping frigates behind fighters. (You can show my nick name.)

Vice Admiral Meou2001 tutorial about "lightning rod" strategy. This strategy consists in focusing your opponent attacks on a small number of defensive ships while attacking from distance with high damage ships. The fighters follow each other and attract ennemy attacks, the whole effect ends when the last ship on the line is destroyed (takes around 20s). During this period, the main fleet is expected to change the tide of the battle. [Here is an image of the fleet :](https://imgur.com/a/F0coNXN) The lighning rod works if the fighters are permanently 2 squares ahead of the fleet. They protect 3 squares up and down. You can see in the image that every line under 3 squares aways from a line of fighters. The best ships for lightning rod are fighters with the *"Instead of dying, survive 1.5s"* equipment : they can last a little bit longer. The other equipment doesn't change much the outcome. I'd recomment *"Reflectors +35% firepower -60%"* since these ships will receive a very large amount of damage (the whole oponent's fleet firepower). The main attack force should have a good range in order to stay way behind the fighters. Only 4 equipments add to range : *"+25% range -50% engine"* ; *"+0.3 range"* ; *"-1 engine +6% all"* and *"+5% all"*. The last two are not enough, even if you take both. The only good choice is the first one *"+25% range -50% engine"*. The second equipment slot is for the firepower : remember you have 20s to change the tide of battle. Choose between : 1. *"+35% against squadrons"* (best in PVE) 2. *"+40% firepower -15% capacitator"* (not that good since capacitators can charge quite a bit during the 20 second under lightning rod) 3. *"-1 engine +6% all"* : quite good, the second engine nerf doesn't matter too much (best for PVP). 4. *"20% chance to hit behind"* : nice power-up, but not the best. 5. You can also go for defense by increasing your capacitator since he can charge a lot during 20s. At this point you didn't used any squadrons. I tried the 3 types of squadrons and the line was the best, not for the bonuses but for the good placement on the map. Advantages of the strategy : Very few ships sacrificed for defense (33 on the exemple above). Good firepower. Drawbacks : It can be destroyed if the oponent uses : 1. *"-35% damage from units with more range"* 2. A build with a large quantity of interceptor : the interceptors will push back your lightning rods and reach your frigates. For these reasons, you can make some decent scores with this strategy, but you'll never end first of PVP.

> *Originally posted by **[meou2001](/forums/1065360/topics/1888451?page=1#13318789)**:* > Vice Admiral Meou2001 tutorial about "lightning rod" strategy. > > This strategy consists in focusing your opponent attacks on a small number of defensive ships while attacking from distance with high damage ships. > The fighters follow each other and attract ennemy attacks, the whole effect ends when the last ship on the line is destroyed (takes around 20s). During this period, the main fleet is expected to change the tide of the battle. > [Here is an image of the fleet :](https://imgur.com/a/F0coNXN) > > The lighning rod works if the fighters are permanently 2 squares ahead of the fleet. They protect 3 squares up and down. You can see in the image that every line under 3 squares aways from a line of fighters. > > The best ships for lightning rod are fighters with the *"Instead of dying, survive 1.5s"* equipment : they can last a little bit longer. > The other equipment doesn't change much the outcome. I'd recomment *"Reflectors +35% firepower -60%"* since these ships will receive a very large amount of damage (the whole oponent's fleet firepower). > > The main attack force should have a good range in order to stay way behind the fighters. > Only 4 equipments add to range : *"+25% range -50% engine"* ; *"+0.3 range"* ; *"-1 engine +6% all"* and *"+5% all"*. > The last two are not enough, even if you take both. The only good choice is the first one *"+25% range -50% engine"*. > The second equipment slot is for the firepower : remember you have 20s to change the tide of battle. > Choose between : > 1. *"+35% against squadrons"* (best in PVE) > 2. *"+40% firepower -15% capacitator"* (not that good since capacitators can charge quite a bit during the 20 second under lightning rod) > 3. *"-1 engine +6% all"* : quite good, the second engine nerf doesn't matter too much (best for PVP). > 4. *"20% chance to hit behind"* : nice power-up, but not the best. > 5. You can also go for defense by increasing your capacitator since he can charge a lot during 20s. > > At this point you didn't used any squadrons. I tried the 3 types of squadrons and the line was the best, not for the bonuses but for the good placement on the map. > > Advantages of the strategy : > Very few ships sacrificed for defense (33 on the exemple above). > Good firepower. > > Drawbacks : > It can be destroyed if the oponent uses : > 1. *"-35% damage from units with more range"* > 2. A build with a large quantity of interceptor : the interceptors will push back your lightning rods and reach your frigates. > For these reasons, you can make some decent scores with this strategy, but you'll never end first of PVP. > Doesn't seem like anything a new player can pull off

Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, I use a very similar strategy to the lightning rod strategy. Same fighters (undying reflector fighters) and same frigates (long ranged hang back frigates) Only I use a different arrangement of fighters designed to more evenly distribute interceptor attacks and I rely on putting fighters in rhombuses to increase their reflection abilities. Enemy frigates and interceptors practically kill themselves on the fighters before my frigates can even reach them. This has allowed me to reach a decently good rank in PVP despite having a smaller "less advanced" army than my opponents, stopped short by enemies that are too big to counter, or they're doing the same thing back to me since my own frigates don't really have a defence against reflector fighters themselves.

Be prepared to shuffle your build a lot until you find something that works for you. Take people's advice on exact builds with a grain of salt until you've tested them out. Starting with AI fights is a great way to learn, but don't expect the same build to work on PVP. Also, don't get nervous when you see new ships - they're just skins!

Even if most of your fleet survives, you still need to be able to kill enough of your enemy to win. You will probably get money faster from idle income than battles. Try spending a lot in idle income early. It's possible for low map control to help you. The attacks from fighters and frigates can hit other enemies if the original target dies before the attacks hit. It's okay to lose pvp rank while designing a fleet, the point is to be able to get it all back. Some low rank strategies don't work at high rank, and some high rank strategies don't work at low rank. Your fleet in slot one is used when you are attacked. Use the second slot to test designs. feel free to include my nickname

fleet size helps you fight higher level AI, and increases rewards; upgrade it early & often the ai uses a huge fleet of ships that move at the same speed. you can counter this with slow, long-range ships that pick them off as they come in u can use my nick and format my terrible grammar & punctuation :>

Kamikaze interceptors has helped me gain over 100 levels in PvE. I make 2 wedge squadrons of interceptors that I place in the front center. They have engine +30% and first attack deals 400% damage. Behind them is a rhombus squad of frigates. Two square formations of fighters adjacent to, and a little behind my interceptors, behind them are frigates not in a squadron. The gear doesn't really matter with them, just make the fighters tanky and the frigates pew-pew-ey. This is effective because in PvE the AI always has a square squad of fighters front and center, and the kamikazes rush them, pushing them back so that the rhombus frigate squad can attack their more squishy ships. It's effective in most cases, but not as effective if your opponent has high deflect.

Vice admiral meou2001 2nd lecture : the "Turtle" The lightning rod formation was a pure offensive one, meant for PVE. We'll review here a highly defensive formation, meant for PVP. The "Turtle" is a 100% fighters fleet with the highest possible defense. We'll review here the various possibilities with the underlying maths. The "True Turtle" : (Deflectors +40% attack range -40%) + (Range -30% shields +60%) + (square squadrons) For every build we'll compute the Shield coefficient (SH). Here, we got a 60% from equipment and a +10% for the ships inside a squadron. We'll note it à follows : SH : 1.6 / 1.7 We'll also compute the Residual Damage (RD). We got a 10% innate deflector, a 40% for equipment, and a +5% if inside a squadron. If the deflector is at 55%, we get a full damage 45% of the time and 20% damage 55% of the time. The average damage is 45% + 0.2x55% = 56%. We'll note it as follows : RD : 0.60 / 0.56 The sturdiness (ST) is SH divided by RD. It's the true indicator for the resistance of the ship, if the ST is equal to 3, it means you'll need 3 times the damage to destroy the ship. ST : 2.667 / 3.036 The "Evading Turtle" : (Deflectors +40% attack range -40%) + (Deflectors +20%) + (square squadrons) SH : 1.0 / 1.1 RD : 0.44 / 0.4 ST : 2.273 / 2.75 The evading turtle is clearly inferior. Moreover, the 10% reflect is less efficient for the evading turtle due to the low Residual Damage. The "Growing Turtle" : (Deflectors +40% attack range -40%) + (After each attack +6% size and shield) + (square squadrons) Here, we'll give the various coefficients after Zero, Ten and Twenty attacks. SH : 1, 1.6, 2.2 / 1.1, 1.7, 2.3 RD : 0.60 / 0.56 ST : 1.667, 2.667, 3.667 / 1.964, 3.036, 4.107 It becomes equivalent to the True Turtle at the tenth attack, exactly 22 seconds after the ship entered the battle. Thats too long IMHO, don't use it. The "Not Growing That Much Turtle" : (Range -30% shields +60%) + (After each attack +6% size and shield) + (square squadrons) SH : 1.6, 2.2, 2.8 / 1.7, 2.3, 2.9 RD : 0.92 / 0.88 ST : 1.739, 2.391, 3.043 / 1.932, 2.614, 3.295 This formation is clearly less powrfull than the Growing Turtle The "Flawed Turtle" : (Deflectors +40% attack range -40%) + (-35% damage from units with more range) + (square squadrons) Since the range is low, you may consider this equipment, but you won't actually escape the fire of other turtles and it's slighly less resistant than the True Turtle. SH : 1.0 / 1.1 RD1 : 0.60 / 0.56 RD2 : 0.65 / 0.65 ST : 2.564 / 3.022 Synthesis : use the True Turtle. If you want to mix these build with some healing (capacitator), reflexion or damage increase, you may consider using different squadron formations, or different ships, but probably not different equipments. Concerning the fleet : try to concentrate all your force on 3 columns, as packed as possible. If you realize your fleet is weak on the center or a side, move your squadrons accordingly to defend the whole front. You'll soon realize that a Turtle build works extrememly well in PVP, is always a pain for your opponents, and can be the baseline for more complex builds.

Postioning is half the battle; a creative initial setup can let you pull off upsets against bigger fleets. Focus on having two flanking forces or reinforcing the middle of your fleet. Fully commit to one tactic, don't do two tactics poorly. Specialization will beat a jack of all trades. If you can punch through the enemy fleet, your ships can attack from behind. Fleet composition should have variety; otherwise your technology boosts will go to waste on unused ship models. Feel free to use my username

So is there anything really usefull fur new players here or only worthless advanced stuff that doesn't belong here?

A new strategy: "Hope Through Underwhelming Firepower" I'm sure that we have all tried, at some point stacking our entire fleet full of frigates, placing them in a bunch of formations, and letting them go. It never turns out well. Despite having overwhelming firepower and range, we continue to lose with this setup. Quite simply, a balanced formation will shred this; interceptors will destroy fleet cohesion and we cannot damage fighters fast enough to get to the squishy frigates behind. This strategy that I will layout is an antithesis to this idea, we are going to explore what happens when we focus on maxing resistance instead of firepower. Step one: The premise First, I would like to thank meou2001 for his turtle innovation. The turtle formation lies at the heart of our fleet. To set this up, equip the -40% Range, +40% deflect and the -30% range, +60% shield upgrades to your fighters. Fill every single one of your squadrons full of fighters, and place them in squares. try to fill the entire front of your availible placement area with fighter squadrons. Then fill the next three rows with fighters. Thats right, you shoud have well over 120 fighters in place before you even being going on to the next part. With all your remaining ships that you have availible, place frigates behind your formation in the fourth row. You shouldn't have too many, so don't worry if they look lonely. I like to place them around the middle and bottom, beucase I notice people tend to load up the bottom more than the top. Once you do that, voila, you have your formation. Part two: The exectution This formation is a bit more micro focused than others. It excels in the middle game, and doesn't do great either before or after due to the extremely low ranges on the vast majority of your ships. Becuase of this, strategically pressing the end game button is vital. If you engage a force that will beat you, oftentime you will be able to salvage a draw when your ships engage before your entire fleet is destroyed. If you destroy most of a fleet, you can get pushed back into a draw in the mop-up pase unless you end the game. Part three: Analysis I found a lot of sucess with this strategy in the intermediate levels of PVP, but began to stall out around at around the high 100s to low 200s. Past here, a bigger fleet than I had was needed. I think that this strategy would continue to work if I kept upgrading. As a strength, I routinely found myself able to pull of upsets against fleets bigger than I was that had middling levels of firepower and resistance. This formation also excels at being fleets with high firepower and low resistance, but only up to a point. This fleet struggles with flanking forces; it can easily punch through the center of most formations but due to the low range cannot fire backwards into the flanks, while conversely the enemy flankers can fire freely on your formation. The addition of the small amount of frigates is designed to combat this. The biggest weakness of this formation is a firepower focused fleet with screeners. A one deep screening sheild is easily dealt with, but a two deep one can get dicey. If the frigates behind are massed in wedges, it can be a disater for our fleet. In conclusion, the "Hope Though Underwhelming Firepower" is a highly defensive focused fleet most effective at low to intermediate levels of gameplay. It requires micro to succeed, but can allow you to pull of upsets in what would otherwise be a tie, or convert a loss into a tie. It struggles with better versions of itself and is a toss-up against fleets that sellout for firepower. It struggles with flanking forces.

It's so funny to see how many people don't understand what the "new players" in the topic name means

Part 1. Upgrades While you are a newer player, it's great to try to get your "While Outside Battle Generator" to around level 15 - 20. The higher your generator is, the more supply your money will grow as you are offline allowing you to do more bigger and experimental ideas. (Keeping the game on gives quite a bit more though.) Once your generator is high enough, start going for technologies, increase your space for additional ships, and increase the max number of ships itself. Don't forget to buy squadrons, squadrons have few downsides and many upsides. You'll also want to get all 3 ships to at least level 10 before focusing on a more specified strategy. This way you can always redesign if you don't like something about your current fleet. If you are noticing a huge loss of money after a loss or win of a battle, make sure you are upgrading "Reduce the Cost of Ships". 50% of ship loss costs are around level 23, please correct me if I'm wrong! After that it will start slowly gaining a lot less. Lastly if you focus on offline battles, start focussing your efforts more into "Increase Money Gained with Battles" and "Money Gained from Offline Battles". This can be a decent way to gain extra resources ontop of your already huge boost with offline generation. Part 2. Squadrons Tip: Dmg means damage! Squadrons cap out at 20 units per squadron with a total of 5 squadrons. You can use squadrons to overlap units created much bulkier or denser fleets. The 3 types of fleets you get are Square, Wedge, and Rhombus. Using each one has its own advantages and disadvantages such as: Square: The easiest to place and great for people with OCD. Because of its higher shield boost, it's able to make fighters a lot more tankier. The squadron also has deflectors which help the ship avoid (ignore) damage. It can also do +30% damage to the Rhombus squadron. (Updates may of changed this.) Wedge: It has overload which does a critical hit. (2.25x dmg) Wedge also has overload increased chance. It also does +30% damage against squares. Overload is great for fighters and frigates. Rhombus: Rhombus has a lot more experimental fun powers to it. Multistrike which does two hits. Sensors which increase range of your ships. And a slower engine, this can help the rest of your fleet catch up if needed. There will be times you can decide not to use Squadrons at all, or have over 100 ships that will no longer be able to fit inside a squadron. Non-squadron ships/fleets do have the ability to be neutral (take 1x dmg) to Squadron damage which can be useful in many tactics. Part 3. Fleet Your fleet is composed of 3 main ships: Fighters: High health, low range, medium firepower, and fast attack speed. Frigates: Low health, high range, high firepower, slow attack speed. Interceptor: Medium health, Medium firepower, slow attack speed. Fighters can be great for defending your longer ranged units. Thorn damage could be a strategy to have the opponents damage themselves. Frigates have a lot of firepower but can be destroyed extremely quickly. Balancing how they fight can mean a very easy or devestating battle. Interceptors have a lot of inbetween both with lower defensive than fighters which can get them destroyed quickly. Overall I hope this helps you mates!

Tips: 1) Experiment. Some mechanics take practice to master. 2) You can fight yourself in a friendly match. This may help you learn how things work. 3) There is a slight delay in formation updates. By the above method, you may end up fighting your previous fighting formation. This can be used for testing purposes. Defensive attributes: 4) Capacitators work with high-damage ships. They can be vital for frigates to survive thorns. 5) A full deflector setup can greatly reduce damage. But be aware: they do not prevent thorns. 6) Armor is great against fighters and interceptors, but won't do much against high-power frigates. 7) Point defense could be strong; but not at low values. 8) Delay death by 1.5 seconds can tank a lot of damage, but only if a lot of enemies fire on that ship. Offensive attributes: 9) When you can attack your enemy that can't attack back, you're winning. Sensors can be very powerful. 10) Overload works well against armor. But it is wasted against squishies that would die from a regular hit. 11) Multi-hit works well against squishies. But it doesn't help against armor, and is suicidal against thorns. 12) Thorns can be devastating, especially to fast-firing fighters. A frigate with capacitators largely annuls that damage.

If a particular tactic seems brutally unfair, dont hesistate to use it yourself. You will either crush all opposition or gain a deep understanding on how to counter it.

Offensive tactics: 13) You don't have to wipe the enemy fleet to win. Consider concentrating your forces to win big on one side. 14) Pick your battles. If an opponent counters your build, fight someone else instead. 15) Sometimes you can get a win early, even though the enemy would recover. A well-timed "end battle" can turn a tie into a win. 16) Missed shots can still hit another target, even outside sensor range. You can use this to your advantage. Defensive tactics: 17) Shots continue even if the original target is dead. Make sure your meatshields have enough depth, or they may just be making it easier to hit your back rank. 18) Sometimes a shieldwall can be good. Other times, it's better to distract the enemy from the main targets. 19) Dead ships don't fire. A good offense improves your defense. 20) Speed matters. If your fighters are too slow, they may not do their job in time. Too fast, and they may get wiped out before your main fleet even engages. 21) Range matters. Sensor reduction may help prevent your fighters from hitting a thornwall. Overall tactics: 22) Squads are the heart of your fleet. Design your strategy around them. 23) Watch the battle to see where you fail. That's how you know what to improve. 24) Adapt, adapt & improve 25) Play a style that suits you. Good luck, and have fun!

* If your frigates are spontaneously self-combusting, you're fighting a boss or a player that uses thorns. Put capacitor +20% on your frigates. * AI, PvP and bosses all require different strategies. Best is to experiment, and pay close attention to what works * Use a line or two of fighters, or a big dumb block. Even better: use a pitchfork/lightning rod of fighters. * Friendly fight other players to check out their fleet. Especially if they talk big in chat. You can use my name ^_^

When a battle is close the smallest change to squad postioning can make the biggest difference.

Not from veteran but for beginners: 1. First fleet is used in offline PVP so use 2nd fleet for AI 2. If you are autofigting for money. Time is money so 50k money after 30s is more effective than 70k money after minute. Tune you fleet to do burst damage and die quickly (400% dmg in first shot is good) 3. Early bosses can be beaten by figters with thorns. 4. I have good experience with frigates agains AI, everything goes into damage 400% first shot, 40% firepower, 35% dmg to squad. 5. Invest into money making abilities in the begining. (I think that money per minute upgrade is money per second.) 6. Be patient and prestige only if you can buy highest upgrades as they are most effective. 7. Do not buy starting money upgrade.