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Fleet Management
Basic Fleet Management Concepts
- Early in the game, only build ships that take advantage of your early Nano and/or Ship Techs. This type of ship may not be what you eventually concentrate on later, once your techs have advanced, however in this early stage of the game, you need every advantage that you can muster, even if it's minor.
- Early game again, even though you can take out a home-world with 8-12 ships (depending on type and design of the ships), it's best to use larger battle groups. Many prefer to use 18-25 ships per battle group. Once you make the first group, send it out, and begin making the next one. By using larger groups, the systems fall faster. Also, if you run into a stranger, odds are you'll have him out-gunned and if you want to be "persistent" about your claim on a system in question, you'll have the hardware to press the issue.
- Keep your fleets merged, some players prefer to group them via speed.
Not only is it easier to manage yourself, but it will be easier for your
Alliance General to manage as well. It's also a good idea to come up with
some sort of "naming convention" for your ships. Some people use simple
acronyms such as "HEC" for Heavy Escort Carrier, "LBS" for Light Battleship,
etc.
You will also need to be able to come up with some way to distinguish older designs from newer ones. You'll want to do this to make sure you clone the newest version of a particular ship. Why? Because as your ship techs rise, your ship becomes stronger, faster, and more powerful. Also, as your econ techs rise the costs decrease as well as the amount of time needed to complete construction.
Some simply use versions numbers (i.e. HECv1, HECv2, etc.). Some people use more complex version schemes (i.e. HECvP5). The "P" represents the Production tech level at the time the ship was first built, thus helping them to remember to design a new version once their Production tech reaches the next level, thus saving build costs.
You may also want to consider using names that don't indicate what kind of ship that it is. For example an Escort class ship might be named "Sparrow". A SOTL vessel might be names a "Hawk" and a CAP ship named an "Eagle". These are just some ideas. Feel free to come up with your own system. The point is, that you will need some sort of system. Later in the galaxy when you have hundreds of ships, you will be glad that you've developed some way to sort them out and keep them organized in your mind. - When setting up a rally point near the border of your potential enemy,
never set the rally point RIGHT on the border. It should always be at
least 2-3 layers back. There are a couple of reasons for this.
First, you don't want your potential enemy to be able to scout your rally system and see the build-up of ships, thus killing your element of surprise. Secondly, if you start sending ships to a rally point and your potential enemy has the same idea as you and attacks first, you'll be glad that your ships are BEHIND the actual battle front. This is especially true if you're off-line for an extended period of time. Just by having the rally point a few layers deeper, you buy yourself some extra time. - Except for a few rare instances, you should NEVER set your rally point to a system where a current battle is raging. The primary reason is that instead of your ships arriving in one large group, thus having more impact in helping to turn the tide of the battle, they will "straggle" in in small groups, and it will do nothing but serve to feed your enemy easy prey.
- "Pinging" the enemy's systems is normally done when you expect the enemy
to have the early advantage and that they will advance on you, at least
initially. This could be because your fleets are far away on another front
and you can't get your fleets in position quickly enough to be there for
the start of the battle.
So, you make some very slow ships, large ships, with nothing but 1-2 slots for engines, no weapons, (some players put one slot of weapons on their pingers) no hull, no shields. You should build them relatively far from the battle front. You should then send a single ship to each enemy system that you can see on the map, however, change their ETA travel time to double the normal time it would take to arrive.
Ideally, it will be 18-24-48 hours (Max is 72hrs). What you're doing of course is keeping your enemy's systems "lit up" on radar so that you can attack them later. If you don't do this, once your fleets do arrive near the front, the only choice you have is to play defense (normally a losing scenario) or re-take your old systems that they just took.
It's MUCH better that you are able to hit THEIR systems and thus affect THEIR economy. The systems you recently lost, if re-taken are for nothing more than pride. Economically at this point, they are of little value to you OR to your enemy. Hit your enemy where it hurts on THEIR systems. - (This item is courtesy of Mandor a.k.a Scion) An alternate method of the slow ping is The "FAST PING". With the recent changes to Stealth rules Stealth is checked on your ship once every 3 turns while using "attempt stealth" orders. You can use high evasion scouts on attempt stealth and just leave them at an enemy system for long periods of time without detection. If you're active, you can rotate them out every day or so. It's safer than the old empty hull - slow boat to china type of ping, because unless your stealth fails, there is no danger of you being attacked, and the enemy won't even know you have a ship in orbit! Because of this, they may feel safe to rally ships on the system and then you'll be able to view their ship designs and this will allow you the advantage of being able to design ships that will be well suited to destroy them.
Basic Attack Formations
"The Cyclops Formation". This is as simple as it gets. It works especially well when you have a very narrow border with your enemy. You amass one large battle group (all alliance member fleets) and you simply drive a straight line directly into the enemy's empire. If you have good "intel" and you know that your enemy's empire flows a certain direction, then you should of course steer your battle group in that direction.
The primary objective is to do two things. First you want to get to the heart of your enemy's empire, taking out as many, big, fat, juicy, older systems that are vital to their economy. This tactic works best in the mid to late game when fleets are much larger in size. Your second objective is to FORCE your enemy to confront you battle group so that you can dispose of their fleet early.
You don't split your battle group until you encounter the main enemy fleet and defeat it. Once that's done, you and your allies fan out into smaller battle groups (see "Shotgun Formation" below) each hitting one or more systems and hit as many systems as possible. The idea here is that after you kill their fleet, it will take them time to rebuild another fleet. Thus, you want to make a huge "land grab" and take as much territory and destroy as much of their economy as possible. This will not last forever, sooner or later they will rebuild a new fleet, so stay on your toes and be prepared to respond when they show back up for another round of battle.
If the enemy fleet has not shown itself and your large battle group has gotten deep inside your enemies territory, you can bring in smaller groups, begin at the original attack point and hit systems on either side of the path you've created. When the enemy fleet finally does challenge your main battle group, you can use these secondary fleets as reserves and add them to the larger fight.
"The Batman & Robin Formation". Again, this is very simple and basic. This can be done almost anytime during the galaxy (early, middle or late game). And you can do this whether you have a narrow or broad front to attack.
You form two battle groups of approximately equal size and firepower. You enter the enemy's territory side-by-side. You launch them together and if all goes well, you will conquer both systems on the same tick and can almost always advance them together.
The two primary objectives here are obvious. You'll be able to conquer two systems per battle cycle but more importantly, you can do so in relative safety. Be certain to keep both battle groups within an ETA of 3 ticks of one another (two ticks if you have an Oomari in your alliance).
If any resistance shows up, you simply slide the other battle group over to reinforce the one under attack. If both are challenged, they will of course have to stand on their own two feet, but that shouldn't be a problem, as the enemy has their fleets split also. If one battle group gets swamped with a much larger force and they also attack the second battle group with a force of equal size, you're in trouble. They may also use a smaller, but very fast, evasive fleet to "pin your fleet", making it virtually impossible for you to move or retreat your fleet in an effort to reinforce your other battle group. If this happens, your in trouble, not so much because of poor tactics. You're in trouble because you underestimated your enemy and didn't choose your target properly and you would have gotten your tail kicked anyway. As with Cyclops, you should bring up additional fleets as they are built and have them nail systems at the original front and work their way toward the two primary battle groups.
"The Oomari Two-Step". First of all, you must have an Oomari in your alliance for this to work properly. Again, none of this is rocket science, but if this is done right, you can drive your opponent nuts and can give a much larger alliance that does NOT have an Oomari on their team a run for their money.
For this to work, you've got to be really active. The entire team get's the Oomari 2 tick jump speed, so just be sure to have a capable General at the helm, pretty much around the clock, if possible. It works even better if your enemy does NOT have an Oomari in their alliance. As stated, this technique is especially handy when the other alliance is much larger, has a much larger fleet, etc.
The basic idea is to "be where they ain't". In other words, since you can arrive in only two ticks, they will not get a report of an incoming fleet until your fleet is one tick away from their system. If they attempt to intercept you it will take them at least three ticks to arrive (unless they have an Oomari in their alliance too). You can hit them for two ticks, do as much damage as possible, then move off to a new target, just as they arrive on the next tick. This can be VERY frustrating for the enemy alliance.
You should bounce around like a butterfly, trying to be VERY unpredictable as to your next target. Many times this is used against alliances who are much larger, perhaps 3-4 times your size. If your fortunate enough to "nail their fleets", catching them in small groups, you can cause a considerable amount of damage to their empire.
When used with the "PING" technique above, you can keep their systems active on the map and run them ragged for several days. If you have competent Generals who happen to be in the right time zones, you can keep your fleets moving virtually 24/7. When no one can be online, simply pull your fleets back behind the lines at a safe distance.
Remember the "be where they ain't" idea? That's exactly what you want to do. When the enemy merge their ships to try and catch your fleets and kill them off, split up into much smaller groups and hit as many systems as possible. When they split up, to attempt to compensate for your broader attack, merge your ships and hit only 1-2 targets, in much larger battle groups, so that if we you run into one of their fleets, you'll have them out-gunned.
"The Shotgun Formation". This attack is where you and your alliance mates each form several smaller battle groups and hit as many systems as possible. The idea is to cause as much damage as possible on as many targets as possible. This technique is best used when your NAP is short and you're pretty sure that the enemy's fleets are engaged elsewhere on the map, preferably far away and your virtually certain that they will not be able to respond quickly.
You may only be able to "get away with this" for a short period of time (perhaps one or two battle cycles) before you're forced to regroup into much larger battle groups for safety. Because, once they arrive, if you're still in small groups, they will pick off your fleets, one battle group at a time.
The only other time you should consider this formation is AFTER you've already killed off their main fleet and you feel that you can "run amok" in their empire without fear of having your fleets "picked off". Remember however, that they WILL rebuild another fleet and they WILL come back at you again with a vengeance. So, when you estimate that they've had enough time to rebuild a significant force, you may want to close ranks and proceed more conservatively.
Summary
The above are some of the simplest and most conservative techniques that are employed in Space. There are much more complex ways of going about conquering the galaxy. They range anywhere from the very simple to the utterly brilliant. Use your imagination, observe the tactics of your enemies and LEARN from your mistakes.