Introduction to the Ships In Your Fleet

Astro Empires features a variety of different ships that a person can choose and use but not all ships are created equal. Building the wrong ships or too many of the "right" ships can spell disaster to your mobile and quite possibly ruin your day. This guide is a quick helper for people new to the Astro Empires game.

Fighters

The bread and butter of every fleet are the fighters. Fighters are the BEST ship in the game in terms of damage / armor to credit ratio. Against unshielded units, fighters will rape everything for a mean profit. You can add fighters to just about every attack to lower your losses. You really can't build enough fighters. The only thing you need to worry about with your fighters are Heavy Cruisers or larger ships because those ships can attack your fighters with little to no loss. So while yes, you can never have enough fighters, you should also have protection for those fighters.

Bombers

Same armor as fighters with twice the firepower and twice the cost. These are less efficient, but still tied for the second most efficient meat. Their ability to harm cruisers makes them especially handy. Don't go overboard with Bombers, but they make a good addition to any fleet that needs to absorb a lot of damage, or one that's hitting a large group of cruisers. Since most people use a lot of cruisers, bombers can be very useful.

One of the greatest uses of Bombers is to take out enemy fighters and Cruisers/Carriers on a fortified target in preparation for dropping Heavy Bombers once all the enemy fighters are cleared. While a fighter drop would take out the enemy fighter compliment if you have enough, you'll be taking a loss once the other unshielded units are gone. If you drop Bombers instead, this stage of the assault should yield a small profit, making the overall strike more profitable.

Heavy Bombers (HBs)

Heavy Bombers pack enough punch to take out main fleet units-- Cruisers and Heavy Cruisers-- but they're vulnerable and expensive, as well. Heavy Bombers are best used in waves after you have used fighter waves to destroy the enemy's unshielded units. Heavy Bombers are inefficient against unshielded units, and therefore should not be used in main fleet engagements. Enemy fighters will cut them to ribbons. HBs are also the best ships for breaking occupations if you have a proper amount of Command Centers. Heavy Bombers are absolutely essential in hitting heavily fortified fleets, so you should have a lot of them handy once you've built your core fleet up to a reasonable level.

Ion Bombers (IBs)

Double the price of Heavy Bombers, with the same power and armor. All they gain is one point of shielding, which does practically nothing for their survivability, and their weapons become Ion based, so 50% penetrates shielding. Oh, yay. These things suck. They're so expensive that they're not even efficient in waves. If you send a wave of Ion Bombers against capital ships of equal value-- be they cruisers, HCs, or BBs-- it's impossible for the Ion Bombers to come out ahead in the exchange against cruisers and HCs, and they barely pull a 1:1 ratio against BBs. The first ship class they can attack efficiently is Dreadnoughts, and that's not by much. Bigger ships are vastly more efficient, so don't waste your money on these.

Corvettes

Corvettes are extremely handy because they're extremely fast. I don't include Corvettes in battle fleets, personally, unless I'm making a big hit and need lots of meat. They can be used as meat with the same efficiency as bombers-- which makes them tied as the second most efficient meat in the game-- but they're too useful in their other applications to waste them as meat when you don't have to. I keep Corvette fleets of 1000 or so at jumpgates for recycler hunting and/or reinforcement of damaged fleets that are almost out of fighters. They're fast enough to make excellent raiders, and that speed also makes them great to use as emergency meat. Fighters are twice as efficient, but if you don't have enough and you've got a fleet that's about to get hit, get your Corvettes there instead.

Recyclers

These are not combat units, but that doesn't mean you don't need them. You need a ton. Resource denial is key to waging war. You can almost never have enough recyclers. A good rule of thumb is 1000 recyclers per 100k of fleet.

Destroyers (DD)

This is your first Plasma unit. Since the bulk of your fleet should be Plasma units, your Plasma research should be high, making Destroyers even more handy. They can be used as a combination attack/meat ship in attack fleets, but their low survivability makes them poor units to include in fleets that will spend much time in enemy territory unless you have them in bulk. A few fighter waves can wipe them out very efficiently if you're caught while you're not online. Destroyers are the best ship for efficiently killing Cruisers, but the fact that Destroyers are unshielded means they're vulnerable to meat ships. If you find some naked Cruisers, wipe them out with Destroyers. I like to keep a fairly large Destroyer unit on standby at my jumpgates to facilitate rapid reinforcement of my bases if I see an enemy fleet coming. Destroyers pack a punch sufficient to damage Cruisers and HCs, which are primary fleet units. When you have Command Centers behind them, they play hell with enemy ratios, therefore creating larger debris piles over your planets. Handy! They're also fast enough for some Recycler hunting.

Frigates

Many people say that frigates suck, and for the most part, they do suck. Only worry about them if you're an expert player, and if you're an expert player, you'd know why they are good for different scenarios.

Ion Frigates

Just like Frigates, only with Ion weapons and one point of shielding to go with a price tag 50% higher than it's counterpart. Think that makes them better? Not really.

Carriers

All those fighters don't do much good without a way to get them around. That's what these are for. They have less survivability than Fleet Carriers, but they're also faster. I keep a group at my jumpgates for rapid reinforcement. ALWAYS RETREAT YOUR CARRIERS BEFORE ATTACKING. Nothing makes the enemy laugh more than seeing your carriers hit a base or a fleet.

Cruisers

This is the most efficient capital ship in the game. Build lots and lots of them. At least 35% of my total fleet strength is Cruisers. (Fighters are another 35% or so.) Cruisers are the most efficient ship for taking out anything up to Dreadnoughts (although Heavy Cruisers are more efficient against Dreadnoughts if they have fighters accompanying them). Cruisers are also the most efficient way to take out Planetary Rings, but it takes a whole lot of them. Make sure you have enough. Cruisers should be the backbone of your main battle fleets.

Heavy Cruisers (HCs)

The only thing HCs can't hurt is a Death Star. HCs are handy against the big stuff, but I don't use them in main fleet formations unless I'm attacking something with BBs or higher. HCs are fairly efficient, but Cruisers will get you better ratios. HCs are great for taking out BBs and above, and as a bonus, they have enough shielding to be effectively immune to fighters, unless they have CCs behind them. HCs can be included in main battle fleets if you don't mind taking something of a ratio hit.

Battleships (BBs)

The sad fact of AE is that the bigger the ships get, the less efficient they get. Every ship is vulnerable to smaller ships. That holds true for Battleships as well. The efficiency drop from HCs to BBs is huge. Most people have far too many. Still, Battleships have their uses. For taking out Levis and Death Stars, this is one of the most efficient ships. Battleships are also immune to fighters, making them a good ship for taking out weakly defended planets or for holding an occupation. Battleships are poor ships to include in most battle fleets due to their terrible inefficiency against Cruisers/HCs (which is what most enemy fleets are built around).

Fleet Carriers (FCs)

FCs sacrifice speed for survivability. They have strong enough shields to shield-rape small units. If you have a calculator and you are very careful, it's possible to include FCs in attacks to improve ratios. This is dangerous, though. Don't do it if you're not experienced. You should have lots of FCs to move all your fighters around.

Dreadnoughts (DNs)

The bigger you get, the less efficient you get. The big stuff is best used against things that can't hurt it. The strength of these units is their shields. They're great for taking out bases that have defenses weaker than Disruptors, so long as there aren't fleet units big enough to have a chance at taking you down. Dreadnoughts can make a fair addition to a combat fleet if A) you're fighting things that won't be able to kill one, given the dispersion of damage amongst your units and B) you're prepared to slow your entire fleet down in order to include them. If you might lose one, you're better off leaving it out. If you can safely add one without losing it, feel free; it'll soak some damage away from your other units.

Currently what I use DNs for are base defenses. They provide some of the best protection to loss ratio. Dreadnoughts are too powerful to be simply dropped with meat like fighters and corvettes and so an attacker cannot clear the them without to make a profit from pillaging the your trade routes and recycling the debris. The rule of thumb for dreadnoughts is one per 2 levels of rings, starting with one at 5/5 planetary rings.

Titans

This is the first unit with high enough shields to shield-rape Cruisers. That makes them very handy. On the downside, these things are slower than zombies playing Monopoly. Seriously, slooooooooooooow. HCs will kill them efficiently if you hit them with enough. BBs will kill them less efficiently, but require less bulk. Something like 130 HCs will kill a Titan, tech dependent, but it only takes about 20 BBs. The HCs should get about a 2:1 ratio, while the BBs will get less than 1.5:1. Titans are great to send out solo to smash bases with less than rings.