Fleet Strategy
This page has been adapted from the Strategy Forum, Specifically This Thread. Special thanks to Monroe for starting it off and organising the thread, and to all those who contributed to the discussion.
The purpose of this thread is to outline the various types of fashions that players use their fleet to achieve certain objectives, ie 'Fleet Strategy'. It also tries to identify these various strategies with common names, so everyone speaks the same language when describing what they are trying to do. Additionally, it provides an example of the strategy to make it clear and apparant what was meant, and finally it anticipates possible or frequent counter move(s) that the defender may reply with.
Investigate the "See Also" Section at the bottom of this page for similar discussions on fleet strategy, guides and whatnot.
Basic Fleet Strategy
Send, recall, resend
Description: This strategy is designed to strain your target's alliance defence such that a gap opens, which you can then exploit. Launch an attack, jumpgate scan the attack near the end of the first tick to see if there is defence (ie at xx:55), if there is defence recall right at the end of the tick (ie, xx:59) and resend the following tick. The advantage of this frequently used tactic is that it soaks up universal defence, and gives you a second opportunity to attack.
Counter: The best counter to this strategy is active defense, rather then passive defense. Having defenders on at the end of the first tick to recall can be very useful. Another good counter strategy is to organize an attack on your would be attacker that will require him to keep his attack fleet home to defend. Then use the same tactic back at him, ie jpg at the end of the first tick and recall if he got defence.
Single class attack
Description: Send only one class of ships on any given attack, thereby limiting which of your targets ships can target your fleet. This is especially useful since the advent of PAX (the current system), where ships only have one target class, and thus by sending only a single type of ship you are able to explot the weaknesses in your enemy's targeting spectrum (often weaknesses are due to race, such as Terrans are poor against anti CO (Cathaar CO), and other times they are from player's choice (a dislike of Tarantulas, for example).
Counter: No specific counter, just rely on the right type of defence.
Fake Defence
Description: When a friend has incomming and you have the correct type of ships, but those ships are not home send a different type of ship instead in the exact quantity you have of the ship that would be effective. If the attacker does a jump gate he will not know that the defense is fake and will have to assume it is real and will therefore recall.
Counter: No known counter, other then landing anyway and seeing what shows up. If the defense is from outside the target gal you CAN do a news scan at eta 1 and see what the initial eta of the defense was, if the defense eta is different then what it should have been (ie 7 because the fake def is FI rather then 8 because the real def would have been FR) then you know the def is fake. In my personal experiance however this rarely is useful.
Intermediate Fleet Strategy
Disguised Fleet Attack (aka Fake Attack)
Description: Similar to Fake Defence, send a fleet of one class disguised as a fleet of another class. For example, sending a bunch of FR that have the same number of ships as your DE's, then later send your DE's faked as BS (for terrans). Defender will think the first wave is DEs and send anti DE, defender will think second wave is BS and send anti BS, therefore your DE will get through unharmed.
Counter: Fleet scans can tell the difference, as long as you don't get blocked. Otherwise calc your home fleet against the attackers potential attack fleets. Using the above example, if you have pretty good BS defense, but terrible DE defense, simply assume both incomming fleets are DE and defend accordingly. Otherwise massive overkill on def ussually works, but is rarely a good option.
Multi Race Attack
Description: This tactic involves finding a friend of another race to attack with. Because races have different advantages and weaknesses, combining two races together can sometimes be a very powerful attack fleet which is nearly impossible to defend against. One classic example would be cath and zik CR/BS combo attack. Essentially the caths freeze the attackers, and the zik's clean up. Another great example is the 1-2 punch of zik and terran BS attacks, they target most classes and are hard to stop. Essentially any two races can combine at some level, but which combos are best depends on the current ship stats.
Counter: If the attack is done right there is no good counter, other then overwhelming defense. If you are lucky you can find a ship that the attackers don't target, and that does target the attackers, but if the attackers are smart, this isn't really an option.
Defence Specialisation (aka Fleet Swapping)
Description: This is where you and your mates exploit the low ETA advantage of your Galaxy in order to make the best use of your ships, and use the strengths of one person's fleet to cover the weaknesses of another person's fleet. For example, if you have alot of anti CR and your mate(s) have alot of anti BA, and you have BA incs and they have CR incs, you send your fleet to defend a mate, they send their fleet(s) to defend you. It is especially effective if also combined with fake defence, ie you fake another anti CR fleet to another of your gal mates, thus potentially covering two incs with only half the ships.
Counter: The obvious counter if you think your target is likely to swap in-gal def or has a previous tendency to do so, is to send both a CR fleet and a BA fleet at him - that way if he defends his gal mate he leaves himself wide open.
Advanced Fleet Strategy
Fleet Exchange
Description: Have two attack fleets of different ship classes, with different eta's, and the same size. Launching the higher eta fleet with fleet name "alpha." Right at the end of the first tick recall the high eta fleet and send the lower eta fleet. Rename the lower eta fleet to Alpha. If you are lucky (and I've seen it work) they will assume it's the same fleet and not rescan the attacker. Then all defense that is sent will be worthless
Counter: Make sure you do an FA scan after the first tick to verify the fleet composition. Also make sure you have at least some defense against the attackers other possible fleet.
Fleet Catch
Description: This tactic has to be carefully planned and executed to be successful, ussually with multiple attackers, sometimes with as many as 20 or 30 attackers. The idea is to find a target who is about to land his fleet on a target, and time your attack so that your attack will land the same tick that his fleet will return home. The concept here is to make it so he is unable to run away from your overwhelming attack, not to steal roids, but roids are a bonus. There are two strategies with Fleet catches, either to steal as much of the targets fleet as possible, or kill as much of the targets fleet as possible. In order to kill as much as possible the tactic is simple, just send a lot of ships! A good fleet catch however will endevor to steal, rather then kill. To accomplish this ussually a gigantic attack fleet is sent, and once the attack is certain to succeed (ie no defenders left) most of the attack fleet recalls and allows the ziks and maybe some caths to land to maximize the ships that can be stolen.
Counter: Suprisingly there are two counters to this tactic. One is rather obvious, simply find a ton of defence! The other counter is a little less obvious. If you suspect someone is trying to fleet catch you, shortly before you land on your target have a jumpgate taken of your planet. If you see a bunch of hostile fleets on prelaunch timed to catch your returning fleet, simply recall your attacking fleet before you land and mess up their timing. You won't get any roids, but you will keep your ships. Most fleet catches will recall as soon as they see they have missed your fleet, and usually you'll even get to keep your own roids. Also note that it often take alot of ships in order to pull off a successful fleet catch attempt, and in doing so the attackers make themselves vulnerable at home - if you cant stop the Fleet Catch, at least get as many of your allaincemates to steal roids off the attackers to minimise the damage done to your alliance overall.
Counter-Counter Fleet Catching: Sometimes a really organised Fleet Catch will exist where attackers launch the tick before someone lands, such that they are already inbound when you would have you mate JGP you in the 'Counter' section above, in addition to the original Fleet Catch - such that whether you recall now or land anyway you still die. This is known as unfortunate.
