Your First Attack

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

* Fighter drop - the first stage of an attack in which you hit your target with just fighters.
* Ratio - when you are talking about your ratio you generally mean the cost of the fleet lost on your side compared to the cost of the fleet lost on the attacker's side.
* CC - Command Center
* Mobile fleet - fleet used for attacking
* Tick - key point in time, can mean either the half hour (when recyclers collect debris) or the hour (when you get paid your total economy in credits) depending on context

Good Housekeeping

Also know: don't pull all your defensive fleet off of your poorly defended planets and start hitting people.


Before you go trying to make your first hits it's imperative that your bases are reasonably defended given your level. For in depth analysis of what composes a reasonable defense look at this handy guide. A brief summary would be:

- Unshielded turrets are a waste of time because they will be smoked by fighter drop.

-Ion turrets aren't bad but they will go down to fighters too since your shielding tech is almost always lower than your attacker's laser tech. This results in damage bleeding over the shields and whittling the turrets armour down fast. Get photon turrets up before you go hitting people unless you're confident you won't get hit back.

- CCs are pretty good since anything that can put off people like you who are looking to make a quick credit is good defense.

- For a defensive fleet as a low level player try to get fighters and heavy cruisers. DO NOT attempt to use any unshielded units that are not fighters for defense, they will get smoked in the fighter drop for a good ratio. Cruisers are also unsuitable for defensive fleets for the same reason that ion turrets are only average defenses.
What is a good target?

Pretty much look above and work out if the player hasn't followed these guidelines. A good target will be defending with unshielded units that aren't fighters, and will be using only unshielded turrets or at most ion turrets. Even if they seem to have a large amount of turrets, if they're unshielded they'll be easy to make a profit off.


Recyclers are the key to a successful hit.

Your mobile fleet will be composed of units that go down relatively easy for a profit, since it will probably contain various unshielded units that aren't fighters. Due to this you never ever want to be leaving it over an enemy's base for any longer than absolutely necessary. The hitch is that a large portion of your profits is going to come from picking up the pieces that used to be your enemy's fleet with recyclers, and they only pick up those pieces once an hour.

Because of this you're going to want to be landing at your target with so many recyclers that you can pick up all the debris at once, and you're going to want to be attacking so that you can land your recyclers at the tick. To know how many recyclers you're going to need, try taking a look around your bases for a target you might hit. Check the value of the fleet there and then pretend that's how much debris there's going to be. Divide that value by 10, and that's the number of recyclers you're going to want for your first hits.


BOATLOADS of fighters (and carriers to support them).

If you don't have enough fighters you're not going to be able to hit things for a profit. Fighters take care of all unshielded units/turrets, and if you have enough of them they'll also deal with cruisers and ion turrets. They'll also do this all for great ratios. I found ~1000 adequate for hitting people below my level but everyone else will tell you that you want 10 times more, they're right but they also forget how poor your production is at these low levels. However, with only ~1000 you'll need to take your mobile fleet back to base to "reload" a lot.

The reason I had so few fighters in my first hits is because carriers are expensive and therefore take forever to build at low levels. If you're at the stage where you can build fleet carriers then it's your choice whether you use them or carriers. I prefer carriers because you can start building them sooner, pretty much all your bases should be able to make them so you can spread the production, and also since the next largest unit I have in my mobile fleet are cruisers I get the benefit of the additional speed.


The Big Guns

Most bases you come across will include cruisers and heavy cruisers as their biggest defensive units. For dealing with these I like to have a tonne of destroyers. You may also come across the occasional battleship as levels get higher, and if you really can't find a better targets then you'll get decent ratios with frigates. That being said I personally don't like building frigates because they just don't look worth it, and besides that you need to build way more than is reasonable for your level to take out a battleship. This is why I build cruisers instead.
Punch Someone

So you've got your mobile fleet, you've got your target, and you're ready to make some money. Here's what you want to do:

- Check their profile; are they a free or upgraded account? FREE: They don't have the scanner, and so they won't see you approaching their system. Find a planet near them, and move your fleet there. When you're ready to hit, move from that planet to the target. Make sure that you arrive JUST BEFORE THE HALF HOUR. This is important, because you want to make sure those recyclers get their job done FAST. UPGRADED: They have the scanner. Are they on the edge of their region? If they are, check the region on the other side of that edge to see if there's a system adjacent to them. If there is, then move there first instead. If there isn't then you have three options, you can either move your fleet in lots of little fleets to a planet near them (this will fool the scanners since your fleet won't be detected as quickly), you could move your fleet accompanied by an outpost ship to a nearby planet and hope they think you're just starting a new base, or you could just throw caution to the wind and move to the nearby planet as normal.

- If the target has an unshielded defense (fleet and/or turrets) then you're going to want to fighter drop. After you've landed your fleet at the target JUST BEFORE THE HALF HOUR, send all fleet but your fighters anywhere at all, then attack with your fighters, and quickly recall your fleet.

- Now to take down the big guns, once all your fleet is regrouped send away any fleet you're not going to need EXCEPT the fighters as before. The fighters will act as meat shield and improve your ratio by reducing the damage to your more expensive fleet. Attack, and recall your fleet. If you're not certain what fleet you're going to need, just look at the target. Cruisers/heavy cruisers? Use destroyers. Something bigger? Use cruisers AND destroyers (destroyers act as further meat shield).

- Your recyclers should have arrived just before the tick, and you'll get your debris and pillage in quick succession. Congratulations! You've just ruined someone's day. Now get your fleet the hell out of there!