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[goduranus]

Has anyone tried massed Colossus MK-2 Spark fighter spam? I have yet to collect enough hull to try this, but with 8 DP a piece they would be 50% more efficient than Drover Spark spam from the previous patch

[Nettle]

Ramming is sure fun but definitely isn't something I would consider effective.

[Maethendias]

i mean you say that... but my 3 overdriven brilliants that smash through entire fleets and get catapulted around the map say otherwise

[Kohlenstoff]

i mean you say that... but my 3 overdriven brilliants that smash through entire fleets and get catapulted around the map say otherwise

If the Player flies a perfect 100% CR brilliant with full Alpha Core skills and perfect speed optimization they can destroy unshielded pirate frigates with 2-3 crashes. But all the penalties to get the player on the pilot seat add up to make not even this scraphunting a viable tactic anymore.

And AI cannot handle ramming effective enough to do this properly. These things are maybe fun but consider all penalties including the loss of CR time for Safety Override. It is too much to be called effective. Other tactics do more. Like adding some weapons and strengthening instead of Safety Override. Then they can shoot stuff. This maybe a bit outdated tactic would still do much more in the long run.

[Vanshilar]

In terms of the player flagship, it seems like spamming Proximity Charge Launchers (PCL) is a very effective strategy. It has very high burst DPS, it takes out missiles and fighters (so it doubles as PD), and it has good anti-armor and anti-hull damage. It also inherits your momentum so you can launch it forward a lot farther than its range by using a maneuverability ability such as Burn Drive.

The epitome of this is the flagship Onslaught XIV, which is what I use as my endgame flagship. The large ballistics have Hephaestus on them for general anti-armor and anti-hull damage, while the rest of the slots are dedicated toward kinetics for anti-shield. (I'm also experimenting with the center large ballistic having Mjolnir instead for additional DPS and anti-armor, at the cost of flux.) I manually control the PCL's, using them to take out missiles that I don't want to absorb with my armor, and I'll manually toggle off the large ballistics weapon group for flux as necessary. If there's a particularly big target (Brilliant/Apex/Nova/Radiant), or a group of ships together, I'll burn drive in toward them, spamming PCL's as I go in. It clears out enemy ships very quickly.

In terms of the overall fleet (i.e. under AI control), right now it seems like the best way to go is massive long-distance missile/projectile spam. This ensures that the enemy fleet doesn't get close enough to be a big threat, allowing your fleet to spend its flux on attacking rather than defending. Since high tech uses energy weapons, this usually means midline or low tech ships. The best example of this is using a bunch of Gryphons (Squalls and Harpoons linked together, with an HVD), the most overpowered ship for the AI in vanilla currently, but other ships like the Conquest, Executor, Onslaught, etc. can all work. The AI simply doesn't know how to handle mass missiles very well, so this disrupts the enemy fleet from becoming a coherent mass and lets your fleet pick them off.

Thus the most effective fleet I've found for general use is flagship Onslaught (player control) leading a bunch of Gryphons. It's the fastest at steamrolling through pretty much any enemy fleet up to and including multiple Ordos that I'm aware of. However, the fleet I prefer is flagship Onslaught with 3 Conquests and 2 Gryphons for more XP gain, since this only requires 5 officers instead of 8, increasing my XP bonus. I made an example video of the fleet in action here.

The theme of player power this patch is endurance.

Not really, CapnHector was going after 5 Ordos and hence the fleets had to be built for endurance, but there's no particular reason to do that in normal play since once you get to 2-3 Ordos you're already maxing out the XP bonus. In fact you generally have to modify the game (to make your fleet look "bigger" and more imposing) to get more than 3 Ordos to attack you at once in the first place.

A decent fleet should be able to finish off double Ordos in around 5 minutes or less, with the best fleets coming in at around 4 minutes or less (Onslaught + Gryphon spam comes in at less than 3.5 minutes). It shouldn't take that long. Player fleet power is about maximizing your offensive power without dying, to chew through enemy fleets quickly and efficiently, and currently the best setup for that seems to be mass missile and long distance projectile spam.

[Kohlenstoff]

A decent fleet should be able to finish off double Ordos in around 5 minutes or less, with the best fleets coming in at around 4 minutes or less (Onslaught + Gryphon spam comes in at less than 3.5 minutes). It shouldn't take that long. Player fleet power is about maximizing your offensive power without dying, to chew through enemy fleets quickly and efficiently, and currently the best setup for that seems to be mass missile and long distance projectile spam.

A decent fleet should produce the best outcome per time spent. For me it is Storypoints per minute of gameplay.

I use 3 Paragons VS fat double Ordos to get the juicy 450% to 500% Experience bonus. It takes 10 minutes for a 750ish DP double Ordo but it results in 26 Storypoints in 1.5 hours without any losses. Not as fast as the gryphons but easier to oversee.