Round 9:Ship Guide

Strategy and race selection thread. (Eclipse website, posted by Focht)

Before i start, this will be a long thread and will kinda display the official Eclipse ideas on Ships and Races. This thread will go very much into details and will not only judge a race purely by the numerical strenghtes or weaknesses but also by side and game effects which always play a big role in the decision if a race is top or not.

To set a few rules to understand this thread is the assumption that the universe, as usual will tend to lay somewhere around 3 Metalroids : 2 Crystalroids. In general i will not go into any special scenarios for the use or the abuse of a certain ship but especially for the "slaughtered" corsair i will do so lateron.

To start with the most modest and most reliable race during all the rounds, i choosed to name Terran.

This race always was easy to handle, had mainstream ships but as many other ppl named, its major flaw was the stop in development since r6. While other races were tweaked, changed, trimmed and upgraded the Terranship was kept in the same shape, this lead over the time from an advanced race slowly towards a decaying star. The most notable ships in a Terran fleet are Pegasus,Demeters,Wyverns,Dragoons,Harpies,Phoenix, Chimeras and maybe Gryphons. Hardly any other ship is worth to invest ressources into it. Before i go totally into detail of specific ships i want to light up the situation background of this round abit more. There will be lots of Ziks&Xans and the Para/Cluster setting will reduce attacktimes even more while overburn defence is gone. This means in the longrun especially fast attacks get more and more dangerous, something terrans can not well reply to. The Harpy is and always was a modest fighter good armor combined with good firepower just not outstanding, especially WITH vrshak fighters on the same side it was able to reduce the devastating effects of hostile fire. The Gryphon and the Phoenix are both only a 2nd class ship, once beeing good now overly outgunned. you need alone 4 Gryphons to land a single hit on any destroyer doing only 12 damage. this leads to the point where even the Zik-Brig outguns it. So to rely on terran anti De-CR defence is a very bad thing for an alliance to do. The Pegasus / Demeter are the backbone of a terran fleet. considering the universe leans more towards Zik and Xan they will face a hard time against short eta Pulsar/Sentinel fleets and Clipper/Rogue fleets ingal or incluster. It still takes about 2.5 - 3 weeks for a terran to get wyverns which is the only thing to face the DE-threat of a Zik and roaches/defenders combos were always strong against pegs, nomatter what you send with them. The Chimera is the workhorse of a terran fleet, one of the better frigs very usefull against all races and all possible situations but its beeing so usefull its its biggest flaw, While good for your gal and your cluster as a short eta workhorse in defence its for your alliance mostly useless and serves especially in the latergame with huge fighterfleets around no use in attacks as the targetting on swift moving fighters is very limited and its powerfull guns turn to "overdo" it on weakarmored fighters (dmg 4 vs armor 1 is not cool)

As a conclusion from this, a terran is a good overall race, easy to play, no fuss with ressourcemissmanagment and no highly difficult fleetcombos. Attacks will either be a recall or not depending on how many cloaked fleets show up and how much u want to risk, because the pegasus is a fragile flower, once targeted it tends to die quickly. Especially in a Xan and Zik full universe i think you will have problems to find targets and might face defence more often then you would like, thats why i dont recommend taking it unless its your deepest hearts wish.

The next even more debateable race is Emp or Cathaar.

Known for its efficience in blocking things, hated for its lack of killing the enemy or "winning the war". My personal view on this was always very splitted, effective while not beeing able to make it on their own. Something the Cathaar always had as a major flaw. Loved from many officers for its ability to turn the tide in big battles or to defend a single incoming with less ships. You see from all of this remarks its more a choice of personal taste. For eclipse i would recommend to have a good portion emp but the number should not be over 15-20% of our total memberbase as Emp doesnt win a war. Now i go to a brief overview of ships: Beetle - most effective ship when it comes to roiding and protecting your mainfleet from those irritating little fighterswarms in defence a big thumb up for them as they really own the battlefield aslong as not huge defence shows up. Spider - maybe the most questionable ship, earlyone your only way of dealing with Corvettes, not very effecient compared to BW and bigger ships which also shoot CO. Also purely crystalbased which will fuckup your carefully planned ressourceplacement but still your only chance to support your alliance with low eta anti CO stuff. Imo a waste of ressources in huge numbers, especially when BW are out. You should leave this part of the CO defence to your alliance mates more or less and only offer some BW ingalaxy or incluster if it fits. Scarab- Is a modest defence ship, its ability also falls back behind the BW in dealing with Frigs or CO. Tho its shorter eta is a must to help out your gal or alliance againt this threats. Not a hero but a workhorse is the conclusion from this. Roach- The first line of anti CR/DE defence, loved and prolly the most efficient ships in the game when it comes to deal with terran or cath lategame capitalship attacks. Blackwidow- The Ship of a cathaar fleet, you wont come around building them, your only frig tho once targeted an easy prey especially if your beetles dont freeze up all defence or you run into ingal capitalship defence which a normal cath attackfleet cant deal well. Cathaar-capital ships: I had a few discussions on the lately with Tempy, as he loves them, basically an over the thumb formula for all of them is, good if you attack smaller inactive planets who wont profit from your slow approach, bad if you are hitting active planets who have enough time to sort their defence. Especially in a universe controlled by CO/FI fleets These big ships can quickly fall to the prey of those unless you really sort out a stunning combination.

The general Conclusion from all this might be a misjudgement, but Cathaar is a support race, you will have a good start but in many areas especially of your defence you rely on your alliance. While you can deal with FI/CR/DE well an good offensive Cathaar has only a limited fastresponsefleet against CO/FR. If u want to change this, you will not get around the trading to get yourself more crystal, which means a loss of ressources in the longrun. I have seen various big and medium Cathaars also complaining about their "bad luck" as ppl tend to defend vs them (no defender losses you get blocked in worst case) and especially latergame if you really grab for a top100 position many ppl complained about their "dry age" where they got no more landings because their cruisers were always outrunned by CO / FI or even DE / FR defence. Especially with private gals and a bigger percentage of ppl going Xan/zik this could fire back on you. imagine you are the only person hitting this gal with cruisers or de sized ships, while all other attackers are frigs or Co based fleets. Be sure they throw all their unneeded defence towards your target as those ships normally wont do anything at their own place.

Next on my lists of races is Cloak or Xandathrii.

Prolly the most noteable race of last round. It was/is highly advantage by the (in r8 changed) milscans and its heavy firepower. Tho it went through some serious changes and downgrading this round which i will illuminate now abit more. From what we all know a Xan only needs FI/CO, his frigs or destroyers and any capital ships normally dont appear in the fleets and if only to serve a single purpouse i.e. to fight of BS attacks. As seen in the past Xan is very powerfull, especially the fast eta raiding fleets and its huge fighterswarms are welcomed in attacks and defences by alliances. Combined with the huge advantage of faking attacks in milscans and the always present fear of not knowing what the enemy sended in a xan fleet gives them a huge edge. Before i go into a very brief analysis of their mainships i want to spend some time on the changes. As they "might" effect Xan seriously. Before now anyone gets big fears, Xan is still strong but its not as invincible like last round. The changes were from a cosmetical nature shipwise, The arrowhead lost one of his weak guns, the vulture lost armor so did the sentinel. Along with the serious change of costs of those ships this maximizes the effect of having your fleet damaged. Xan this round will face more damage then in any round before. your higher valued ships mean you have a smaller fleet and in any battle you will take part in you will lose more score if the same ammount of ships is killed compared to last round. This could be in the longrun a small drawback in the growthrate of the Xan, but once you reached a certain size you can basically raid fake rape anyone you want. Especially if you teamup with other Xans to make it even more impressive and dangerous for defenders to defend against you. Now a brief overview of their ships: Vrshak fighter - the most effective fighterhunter in the game, champion of the fighterclass, a deadly punch combined with good agility a threat to all fighters, maybe the most important Xan ship. (especially as this round huge CO/FI fleets will fly around) Pulsar - deadly FR and DE hunter, basically the first line of defence against any Terran Emp or Zik attack. Especially combined with the cloaked ability its a deadly danger to face a 0 ship fleet because Pulsars eat pegs alive. Sentinel - debateable ship, Overly used as a crystalsink tho this ability was downgraded and its not as effective as it was before to soak up your excessive crystal. Modest firepower modest armor, Its remarkable ability is the T3 = all which makes it a backbone of alliance short eta defence against all threats. Arrowhead - Number one Flakship of the Vulture, Still has a formidable anti-Fi firepower but should leave this field to the faster firing Vrshak fighter and should only escort the vulture in modest numbers as escort vessel. Av.Bomber - either you love or you hate it, another flak vessel, having its purpose in defending you against capital ships, will see limited actions midround and be used to booster your roidfleets capitalship firepower to make hostile big-guns run. In defence a nice ships especially against Cruisers, while i and others prefer pulsars against Destroyers or Frigates. Vulture - Your pod, nothing more needed to say, got abit armorwise downgraded but if you flak them with Vrshak fighters (to stop enemy fire already at fighterlevel) and with arrowheads (to stop any direct CO targetting fire) you should still be fine. Bigger ships - are more of personal taste usually not worth mentioning apart from the Broadsword as a low eta capital ship defence for latergame use against Cruisers and BS.

The conclusion from all this, Xan is the backbone of every galaxy and alliance raceselection. Its firepower and fast eta fleets are needed in defence and in keeping pressure on the enemy in attacks. Especially with a big amount of Xan and their fakefleets you are able to soften up hostile defences and basically bleed their "defence pool" out quickly. So i strongly recommend this race even with the negative changes which were done to them they still are more then able to compete with any other race.

Last but not least Zirkonians.

The race of the many faces you may call it. Before you decide to go into this race you must throw all feelings of order overboard. Your fleet will be a chaos and you will end up half the time recalcing and reevaluating your own fleet to the universal situation. This might sound like a bad thing but it is their biggest advantage. No other race is able to adopt a universal weakspot as quickly as Zirkonians. If you see the universe is having a hard time to defend vs DE attacks, be sure Ziks wont take long to cap a few De-Pods and to join the race. This gives you after the gamestart endless chances to adjust your own fleet to your needs. On the otherhand when you werent scared by this quote yet, the zik have formidable ships, some of them masters of firepower&armor. They just shoot last. Especially the high armor makes this not naturally a disadvantage and in many situations the "obvious" disadvantage of shooting last doesnt really count because any other race would have had only one or 2 ships who would fire faster (Fighters and Corvettes usually shoot ahead of Frigs thats same for all races) Especally this makes it hard to give advice on how to create a good zik fleet as it is all down to personal taste. The backbone of a Zik fleet is the fighters so ill describe them: Cutlass - even worse then the harpy but still a formidable ship in anti co/fi defence, helps you as a flak for your Corvettes and as a metalsink if you go for clippers or stealships, deffinately worth building to support your alliance. Corsair - limited quality, its only advantage lies in its death or in its ability to fake scans. If a de attack appears with pegs i would want no other ship to escort my Brigs into the battle as they soak up the pegfire like no other ship. Especially the quickly produced high numbers makes it later for milscans impossible to devide between a 10k corsair fleet (with slowdown pod) and a 10k frigfleet with pod. Especially as this fake attack costs not much of your fleet considering its only 600k score to invest. After this you must decide between CO / FR / DE or choose a mixture of everything, basically all ships in those classes are worth building and you need to build them, which makes the Zik fleet a mess of many ships. I advice to concentrate on whatever you choose to be your mainrodingfleet and buildup slowly a 2nd fleet in another class, this gives you flexibility against various targets and also a good protection. Good ships are: Cutter Thiev Brig Clipper, any other ships i would only produce in limited numbers, maybe abit stronger on the Merauder as it was downgraded but still is vital to get new frigs.

Conclusion out of this, Zik is the race for the experienced player and deffinately has chances to become outstanding because of the variety of possibilites you can play them and the good ships they finally got as a backbone. Captial ships are weak but all other ships are workhorses or atleast modest. And you will either endup with alot of hostile ships from your capping or with free roids

My recommendation for a galstrategy would be 4 Xan 4 Zik and 2 Emp. Because the Xan will have much overcrystal for the Emp or Zik to trade and still one of them could go for fast scans to support the gal. I wouldnt go for more Xan as this would lead to more unused Crystal in the gal (remember amps dont give galscore and cost eonium) more Emp wouldnt also be nice as they draw more crystal. If you have another wish for Emp or Terran try to get rid of a Zik or Xn for it, but dont drop below 2 Emp they are vital for ingal defence and fleetcombos.