[Discussion] Fleet choice issues

[Cathul Thuku]

I feel like no fleeting guide would be complete without a discussion of how to choose ships.

If Rebels is a good representation of naval power, players basically face three potential levels of fleeting engagements:

• Level-1: an element with a cruiser as a flagship, with some corvettes or frigates for escorts, total meterage up to 2000m
• Level-2: a squadron with a destroyer as a flagship, with some cruisers, frigates or corvettes for escorts, total meterage up to 5000m
• Level-3: a fleet with a battlecruiser as a flagship, with some destroyers, cruisers, frigates or corvettes for escorts, for the really big engagements (like invasions).

Now, regardless of the engagement size, a fleeter should never put all their eggs in the same basket, however tempting it is, for storyline, to field a one-dimensional fleet, especially not in 1vs1 engagements: that is, never field a fleet with just one type of ship, because then one would have an obvious weakness.

It might be easier to forgive for a writer to focus more on one type of ship when there are multiple players on the same side in the same engagement, in which case it's the combined fleet that needs to have some balance.

It needs to be said: one needs to pay close attention to the strengths/weaknesses section of any ship sub of any ship you would be fielding. Oh and if there are any restrictions on how many ships of a given type can be used per writer in a thread, pay attention to that: battlecruisers are usually understood to be limited to 1 per writer.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

There's a basic rock-scissors-paper relationship in fleeting.

Destroyers -> Escorts -> Attack Craft -> Destroyers

The big Star Destroyers with their slab sides and heavy turbolasers eat smaller frigates and corvettes for breakfast and are almost entirely immune to them.
However, Star Destroyers are very vulnerable to fighters and bombers who can get in and attack past the limited flak of these ships.

Therefore, when I select fleets I choose about 50-67% of my fleet as destroyers and heavy cruisers, the rest made up of escorts to both deal with enemy escorts or provide flak.

 

[Cyrus Tregessar]

Cruisers can often disrupt that flow, as can, say, a Battlecruiser with a lethal point defense system.

There are several factors in Chaos fleet formation that differ from canon as well. We tend to have equivalent-quality starfighters in large amounts, compared to canon which tends to have either lots of crappy fighters or small numbers of good ones. That messes with the balance a bit, and I have definitely noticed that strike craft in general are much neutered here compared to books and games.

But otherwise I would generally agree that you have three levels or so. It can be problematic for Imperial factions (or me in particular) because I love my Star Destroyers but it's simply not feasible. In that manner we mimic real world naval formation rather than Star Wars, I suppose.

 

[Tellos]

Even IRL the role for escorts is changing as improved point defense gets rolling out. But seems liek snub fighters tend to cause problems for big ships overall. You'd think all that targeting ability you could hit one with a turbo laser but apparently not.