Combat Ships - ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

  • It's been a while since I thought about making a tutorial-esque type of thread involving ships (and also defences which I will do in another thread). I won't put here all the details most people already know about like their price and stats. I will just do a quick summary on how each ship is or can be used.

    So, without further ado, let's get straight to it:

    Light Fighter


    -BEST against: Reaper
    -GOOD against: Battleship, Battlecruiser, Bomber, Destroyer
    -BAD against: Cruiser, Deathstar

    Against Defences:
    GOOD against: Gauss Cannon, Plasma Turret
    BAD against: Heavy Laser, Ion Cannon, Large Shield Dome

    -It's a ship that is mostly used as fodder to protect the bigger and more expensive ships from shots of the enemy big ships, but even on their own, they are a nightmare against any type of ship that doesn't have Rapid Fire against it. Cruisers are their worst enemy because of that very fact.
    They are also bad against Deathstars and the Large Shield Dome because they cannot damage either in any way. This however can be countered by changing the firing order of ships so that the heavy ships can damage the Deathstar's or Dome's shields and this will allow the Light Fighter to damage their hulls, and in this scenario, they are particularly deadly due to their large numbers.
    Against defensive structures, they should be avoided if huge number of Heavy Lasers and Ion Cannons are present since in the Heavy Laser's case, it can take them out pretty easily with a single shot, and in the Ion Cannon's case, it takes too many to get past it's shields and the Ion while not as good as the Heavy Laser, does still have the potential to destroy a Light Fighter in one-shot. Their use can also be extented on expeditions, where so far, it's the most profitable ship to use when it comes to fighting Aliens and Pirates.
    One of it's shortcomings that is often overlooked is that they are one of the slowest fighting ships in the game.

    Heavy Fighter


    -BEST against: Small Cargo
    -GOOD against: Cruiser, Bomber, Destroyer, Reaper
    -BAD against: Deathstar

    Against Defences:
    GOOD against: Gauss Cannon, Plasma Turret
    BAD against: Nothing in particular.

    -The same reason used for the Light Fighter can pretty much apply to the Heavy Fighter. However, the Heavy Fighter has a slightly higher deuterium consumption/price ratio and is just not as good as the Light Fighter against the majority of ships aside from Cruisers. The Heavy Fighter however, aside from the obvious Deathstar, doesn't appear to have a "natural" enemy that can profit from it, which sometimes can be a pain to deal with. They are also very fast, faster than it's "rival", the Light Fighter.
    They are the best ship to use to fight against Small Cargos and this could be something to consider because Small Cargos are sometimes used as fodder in place of Light Fighters because nothing has Rapid Fire against them aside from Battlecruisers and Heavy Fighters themselves. It can also be considered to replace Light Fighters when dealing with defences that have a high number of Heavy Lasers since Heavy Fighters can withstand their firepower much better than Light Fighters can and they also take much less shots to take out an Ion Cannon's shields and they can damage the Large Shield Dome unlike the Light Fighter.

    Cruiser


    -BEST against: Light Fighter
    -GOOD against: Bomber
    -BAD against: Battleship, Battlecruiser, Deathstar

    Against Defences:
    GOOD against: Rocket Launcher
    BAD against: Gauss Cannon, Plasma Turret

    -A very good all-rounder ship that is needed in pretty much any fleet because of their huge effectiveness against the widely used Light Fighters and also because they are the fastest ship in the game. They also have high-rapid fire against Rocket Launchers but if a defence has too many Gauss Cannons and/or Plasma Turrets, it starts to become very descouraging to use them.. It handles itself well against most ships but it's helpless against Battleships and Battlecruisers, and also Deathstars because of it's shields. However if the Weapon Technology of the attacker using Cruisers is 3 or more levels above the Defender's Shielding Technology, Cruisers can damage Deathstars, at which point they become very effective against them.

    Battleship


    -BEST against: Cruiser, Pathfinder
    -GOOD against: Bomber, Destroyer, Deathstar
    -BAD against: Light Fighter, Battlecruiser, Reaper

    Against Defences:
    GOOD against: Nothing in particular
    BAD against: Plasma Turret

    -The starter of the heavy-ships. One of the most cost-effective ships in the game, so much so that despite not having Rapid Fire against Cruisers, due to their low-cost and high attack power, they actually just edge out the Battlecruiser in the task of hunting down Cruisers. Even to this day, they can still be stated to be the backbone of most fleets, they can sometimes even be used as a Destroyer replacement to hunt down Deathstars due to their much higher speed. Should be avoided using against defences with high numbers of Plasma Turrets since those can one-shot Battleships with relative ease. Light Fighters and Battlecruisers are very bad matchups for them, but Reapers are their worst enemy by far.

    Battlecruiser


    BEST against: Large Cargo
    GOOD against: Small Cargo, Cruiser, Battleship
    BAD against: Light Fighter, Destroyer, Reaper

    Against Defences:
    GOOD against: Nothing in particular
    BAD against: Plasma Turret

    -Probably most fleeters favourite ship. It's very versatile with it's Rapid Fire figures against a large number of ships, and very fast, and it consumes very little deuterium as well. It's the best ship to use to "Cargo Slap", namely Large Cargos as it's the only ship outside of the Deathstar with Rapid Fire against it. Just like any heavy ship that has no Rapid Fire against the Light Fighter, it fares badly against them, however, Destroyers and Reapers are it's biggest enemies. Should be avoided using against defences.

    Bomber


    BEST against: Nothing
    GOOD against: Nothing in particular
    BAD against: Light Fighter, Heavy Fighter, Cruiser, Battleship, Destroyer, Reaper

    Against Defences:
    GOOD against: Rocket Launcher, Light Laser, Heavy Laser, Ion Cannon, Gauss Cannon
    BAD against: Plasma Turret

    -Nothing much to say here. The ship you have to build the least, or not build at all. It's only good against defences but even so, with high number of Plasma Turrets, they still suffer considerable losses. They are the best ship in Defence to Debris Universes. (lol).


    Destroyer


    BEST against: Deathstar
    GOOD against: Battlecruiser
    BAD against: Light Fighter, Heavy Fighter, Battleship, Reaper

    Against Defences:
    GOOD against: Light Laser, Gauss Cannon, Plasma Turret
    BAD against: Nothing in particular

    -It's the go-to ship when it comes to taking down the mammoth Deathstar. It's by a considerable margin the best ship against them due to their destructive power and also very low Rapid Fire value from the Deathstar of 5, and they are also very good in dealing with Battlecruisers, they are of no use against anything else though and they are ridiculously slow, the slowest combat ship in the game alongside the Bomber. They can also be used to crack those larger defences since they are tough enough to withstand even the hits of a Plasma Turret and they have Rapid Fire against the Light Laser. Light Fighters and Reapers are it's worst enemy.

    Reaper


    BEST against: Battleship, Battlecruiser, Bomber, Destroyer
    GOOD against: Deathstar
    BAD against: Light Fighter, Heavy Fighter

    Against Defences:
    GOOD against: Gauss Cannon, Plasma Turret
    BAD against: Nothing in particular.

    -The new king of the warships. It is the best ship in dealing with any type of heavy-ship. And it's also good against Deathstars, although Battleships and Destroyers do a better job at it. In contrast however... Reapers are the worst choice against fodder because the lack of Rapid Fire in combination with it's high price tag. They can be used against against large defences in the same way that Destroyers are, however, they don't have any Rapid Fire against any defensive structure and they are also the only ship in the game that trigger Rapid Fire from a defensive structure, the Ion Cannon. They are not that fast but they aren't particularly slow either, they manage to be faster than the Destroyer, Bomber and at the end game with high Hyperspace Technology, also Light Fighters. They have huge cargo bays which can help in farming a few profitable planets without the need of cargos and they can also assure you don't have all of your Debris Field stolen because they can acquire part of it (25% in the General class) right after battle if they survive.
    You only have 3 ways of getting Reapers:
    -You choose the General class and build them in the Shipyard.
    -You use a Destroyer to find them in expeditions.
    -You ask someone of the General class or who found them in Expeditions to sell them for you in the marketplace.


    Deathstar


    BEST against: Any ship that cannot damage it's shields.
    GOOD against: Battlecruiser, Bomber
    BAD against: Battleship, Destroyer, Reaper

    Against Defences:
    GOOD against: Any defensive structure that cannot damage it's shields.
    BAD against: Plasma Turret

    -The ship that most people use to bash on anything without getting any losses due to it's ridiculously high shields and hull. It's most commonly used to fleetsave your fleet to drastically reduce deuterium costs or to bash a defence. It's rarely used to hunt down fleet because it's way too slow, so slow that it's borderline useless in that aspect, much more so in slow fleet speed Universes. The Deathstar is pretty much a do-everything type of ship due to it's Rapid Fire figures against anything but the Plasma Turret and the Shield Domes, and also because of it's non-existent deuterium consumption and large cargo bay, but again, because of how slow they are, they are most effective on the defensive, in particular behind defensive structures where it's very effective against other attacking Deathstars. It's also the only ship to use to destroy someone's moon.
    The Destroyer is it's worst enemy on the fleet side of things.

    Pathfinder


    BEST against: Nothing
    GOOD against: Nothing in particular
    BAD against: Battleship, Battlecruiser, Bomber, Destroyer, Reaper, Deathstar

    Against Defences:
    GOOD against: Nothing in particular
    BAD against: Everything

    -You only need this ship on expeditions to get the expedition bonus and also to get the Debris Field on slot 16 after a fight with Pirates or Aliens. That's basically it. It's way too expensive to use in a fleet, don't let those Rapid Fire figures fool you. In theory, at the very late-game where the Hyperspace Drive is closer to the Impulse Drive, the Pathfinder becomes faster than even the Cruiser, but that's nothing to brag about considering it has no use in a fleet.

    Moons donated: 10

    Edited 2 times, last by Grimm ().

  • Mate you are quite wrong bout pathfinders... they are Fast. swallow up some nasty numbers of Fuel per mile/system but its perfect for farming and crushing smaller trading fleets coz they are FAST AF ;)


    + they are good versus SC LC LF HF C .. bad vs others ships . not sure about defense.

  • I forgot that like the Reaper, the Pathfinder also has 10.000 Cargo bay. So yes, against small trading fleets with no Deathstar and just cargos, it's not technically a bad option.

    But it's not good against SC LC LF HF and Cruisers... At the same value of fleet, aside from the obvious against cargos, they lose out against all of them even despite having RF against them.

    Plus a combo of Small Cargos + Battlecruisers against those supposed smaller trading fleets is far more effective and it just a tiny bit slower, and waste less Deuterium as well. Don't forget that if even one Deathstar is among those trading fleets(imagine a trading fleet save forgotten on the moon with a a few thousand cargos and a single Deathstar which is quite common to find), Pathfinders on their own cannot do anything so you are really forced to use heavier and slower ships in the first place.

    Moons donated: 10

  • Bs lf cruiser fleets still beat out reaper lf cruiser fleets 1:1 so uh

  • A good summary there.

    Though, I would add that BC's are good against HF, due to their rapid fire (the same level vs a cruiser) against them (and vica versa).


    The sky is not the limit it is only the genesis of dreams.

  • A minor point but something which might be worth considering:


    Bombers are useful for resource farming on expeditions because it doesn't add any real combat power when facing pirates and aliens while still allowing for the maximum ship types able to be found.

    I think Bombers cannot find Reapers... Only Destroyers.

    Bs lf cruiser fleets still beat out reaper lf cruiser fleets 1:1 so uh

    Yes chewy? Your point is?

    I made the comparison between ships only. Because you have thousands of scenarios to sim, and I certainly wouldn't bother with that.

    A fast heavy-fleet of Battleships and Battlecruisers for example, get obliterated by Reapers 1:1. Or any combination of any other heavy ship. Which is what the Reaper is good against. It's useless against fodder.

    Moons donated: 10

    Edited once, last by Grimm ().

  • Grimm One hidden fact about Pathfinder that its the a battle type of SC. If combined with General speed bonus for battle ships, they become even faster, of course still second to Cruisers but still. With a good amount of them, u can farm inactives with almost broken defensive. Downside is u need a Discoverer friend to support the lost ones.

  • One misconception people seem to have, is Battlecruisers being "good" against Heavy Fighters... Yes, they help if the attacking Battlecruiser fleet is greater than the defender's fleet which has lots of Heavy Fighters. Basically, BCs help in removing HL fodder.

    Because 1:1, Heavy Fighters actually beat the Battlecruiser. Which is why I stated that the Heavy Fighter is a pain to deal with because they are really hard to counter if they are in large numbers. It's rival, the Light Fighter, is totally helpless against the ship it has RF from, the Cruiser, because you not only can build a lot more Cruisers than you can build Battlecruisers for the same price, but the RF of Cruisers against Light Fighters is also fairly high at 6 while Battlecruisers against Heavy Fighters is "just" 4.

    Heavy Fighters are probably the most underestimated ship in the game. I as a turtle, am actually happy barely anyone uses them because there's really no "definite" defensive structure to actually counter the HF because the Heavy Laser/Ion Cannon are not "strong enough" and the Gauss Cannon is way too expensive and is more in line with dealing with Cruisers. Heavy Lasers and Ion Cannons on the other hand completely murk Light Fighters.

    Grimm One hidden fact about Pathfinder that its the a battle type of SC. If combined with General speed bonus for battle ships, they become even faster, of course still second to Cruisers but still. With a good amount of them, u can farm inactives with almost broken defensive. Downside is u need a Discoverer friend to support the lost ones.

    With enough Hyperspace Drive, the Pathfinder actually becomes faster than the Cruiser.

    It's a battle SC... yes... but consumes 300 deuterium and is in reality not that strong for it's price. It's not a ship that is recomended to keep on building like almost any other ship for a fleet, but it is indeed a "nice to have around" type of ship, for very certain situations, pretty much like the Bomber.

    Moons donated: 10

  • Are you guys sure Light Fighters aren't good against Deathstars? :unsure:


    They are also bad against Deathstars and the Large Shield Dome because they cannot damage either in any way. This however can be countered by changing the firing order of ships so that the heavy ships can damage the Deathstar's or Dome's shields and this will allow the Light Fighter to damage their hulls, and in this scenario, they are particularly deadly due to their large numbers.


    :)

    Moons donated: 10

  • For the Heavy fighter Id add they are good against the HL, when I find a defense that has a large amount of HL but also has a good amount of PT the a swarm of HF are my go to, this really is the only situation they are good against defenses (unless the defender has a large amount of CR behind the wall then they are great too but thats different). Also HF and SC have the same speed so for defs with only rl/ll/hl/ic they are great for fast and cheap raids, honestly an overlooked ship


    Also you might add that for generals BCR can be effective against PT as with higher techs they can take a shot and survive which if you send overkill can mean little to no losses with low deut cost vs PT heavy defenses.


    I second using PF to farm inactives especially if you have many active collectors around that have the cargo speed boost or inactives with light def


    EDIT: some constructive criticism but this is a great guide :)

  • EDIT: some constructive criticism but this is a great guide :)

    This was one of my reasons for making this thread. :)

    And yes, Heavy Fighter is really underated.

    All ships do in fact have a role. But some of them are so very scenario specific that it just might be overlooked. For example look at Bombers. If they are combined with either Destroyers or Reapers(with a larger number of either of these) and are up against a potential profitable defence that is Heavy Laser and Plasma heavy, Bombers shine since Reapers and Destroyers can take a Plasma hit and survive while Bombers with their RF demolish every single defensive structure. Or just using Bombers with mass fodder of Small Cargos or Light Fighters. But it's so very rare to find a profitable defence, especially on Old Unis.

    The Pathfinder is the same deal. It's not a ship that you will be needing or should be building them en masse unlike pretty much any other ship but the Bomber. But it is a nice to have in certain scenarios. I could've added some of them in the guide if I didn't forget that they also had a 10k cargo bay like the Reaper.

    BCs are not effective against defence... period. Unless there's 10 million resources being protected by a 1.000.000 resource (100.000 point) defence lol. Again, very, very specific scenario. Also I decided not to include the General class because otherwise I would need to post like 2-3 full posts to fully flesh out the use of every single ship.

    Moons donated: 10

  • thanks for the effort Grimm, a nice guide :thumbsup:


    looking forward for that defense one as well :rolleyes2:


    Perhaps sneak in some 'standard' ratios if that is okay..i say standard in paragraph coz i know it depends on situations, uni specs and so on..


    Thanks again man!!

  • Instead criticism and stuff, i'd just say, nice idea you thoguht here, and took some of your spare time to do things like this. If atleast some of criticists were about to do same instead criticise when someone does something good, world would be better!.. thumbsup and clap clap for this grimm wp!

    gokui.png

    ... “Power comes in response to a need, not a desire.” ...

  • I think it’s a good guide for beginners and once people get into the subtleties of building large fleets they will make their own choices. 2 points:


    pathfinders definitely have their uses and are arguably better than BC for cargo slaps now.


    BC are good against defences without plasma turrets

    Space Pyrate

  • I think it’s a good guide for beginners and once people get into the subtleties of building large fleets they will make their own choices. 2 points:


    pathfinders definitely have their uses and are arguably better than BC for cargo slaps now.


    BC are good against defences without plasma turrets

    1 rip on defenders side makes pathfinders draw on cargo slaps.

    But overall great ships with many uses.

  • Andy is 100% right on this ship. Pathfinders ARE your battle-cargos. Anyone saying otherwise just doesn't get IT. Their speed and ability to survive while also adding damage make them a real asset for fleeters. This is also the go to ship for inactive raiding.