Overview
Hey this is Fatpiglet, creator of the PRA line of ships, and that somewhat frustrating player on multi who always fields a massive fleet. This is my first guide and it is mainly focused around competitive fighting in multiplayer.Efficiency, thats what being competitive in multiplayer is all about. Building the cheapest ships with the most guns and marines as possible. Wasting no space and making every inch of your ship have a purpose.*Want to add a note. This guide is still viable but since I haven’t been able to play as actively as I used to it is no longer up to date. Other fighting styles may have become viable or stronger than the styles I present in this guide. Multiplayer has been barely active in the last year plus and it is hard to run tests like I did when I originally made this guide.
How to win battles, react and be efficient
Efficiency and proper reaction, thats what being competitive in multiplayer is all about. Building the cheapest ships with the most guns and marines as possible. Wasting no space and making every inch of your ship have a purpose.
-A Efficient vessel is usually in the 100-1000 range for bunkers and 300-1000 for land and airships
-Large ships are INEFFICIENT, if it isn’t a 1 ship only fight you are better off fielding a large amount of smaller ships than a few large ones. If a large ship takes a unlucky hit it can all be over, small ships are independent and losses wont be as devestating.
-Efficiency in airships is a combination of, firepower, survivability, versatility, and endurance. You want to design a fleet that utilizes these in its vessels or design a fleet that abuses some of it to make up for the lack of the other. For example, a ship with 10 cannons and only 1 ammo module will have a ton of firepower for the price, but little endurance and mediocre versatility. So you would need to try to abuse the firepower to cripple the enemy early before your ships lack of endurance will cripple you.
This all cost less than $5000, gives me a good fighting force vs most enemy fleets, with a large amount of deckgun bunkers with a wall to prevent flankers, a couple bombers to deal with specific threats, and 1 landship to deal with a light flanker that can get over my wall. This is my standard bunker focused force, with a little bit of variety to keep changing things, enemies will adapt if you never change strategies.
Effective fighting styles, Boarders, bombers, and bunkers
Fighting styles, there are 3 effective fighting styles in my opinion that utilize the most efficient combat devices in the game. Those styles are Boarders, Bombers, and Bunkers.
Boarders, boarding vessels used to be tier 1, they have gotten weaker but are still quite strong. If you don’t lag out or crash boarders are arguably the strongest combat style in the game. They have limited hard counters, if you’re fast with your commands and are decent with predicting the enemy you will be nearly unstoppable (unless if vs other boarders, than its a race) You want your boarders to have a fast command system so you can stay in front of the enemy.
8 grenadiers were able to chain capture 3 light walkers, the crew inside the ships holding the grenadiers can abandon their vessels and take over the new walkers
-So boarders have 4 primary counters. Fast firing anti infantry style weapons, you will need to avoid their firing arc to protect your boys. High flying ships, which are countered by your own high flying boarders. A high flying ship is usually pretty light and won’t need much muscle to overwelm and capture. The second are bunkers, bunkers soldiers are stronger than your airmarines, the counter to bunkers are spiders, spiders will massacre everything and are good vs slow landships and bunkers. You need spiders to take large bunkers though. The third is airships equipped with soldiers, similar to bunkers, you can try using a lot of air marines or spiders, be careful of counterboarding.
-So to have an effective boarding fleet you would want a universal boarder, one that flies to a reasonable height and is okay armored and has a decent amount of muscle, this is your main ship to take over enemy airships and landships. It has to take some fire for a bit of time before it can reach the enemy. Capture their ships with the most firepower first and try to chain capture or just duke it out after.
-You also want a high flying boarder to counter enemy bombers, it can be lightly armored and have light manpower, enemy bombers are unlikely to have much resistance, capture one of their bombers and you can use it to chain capture others.
-You than will want a bunker buster, probably a landship with spiders, with heavy armor. March it towards a enemy bunker and unleash your little demons, they should take it easily if you have designed it properly.
The boarders on top are high flying grenadiers, middle are mid flying grenadiers, the two large ships on the bottle are 1 vs 1 ships which have a combo of spiders and grenadiers. I don’t like using boarder only fleets due to my computer but a variety of ships to counter the enemy is one of the better paths to victory.
-If you do a boarder focused fleet design a lot of ships with a variety of price ranges, design a light, general, and bunker buster boarder in the price ranges of 300-2000 and you should be pretty set on overwelming the enemy and enjoying their vessels
Bombers, bombers tend to not be as strong as boarders but they are still very powerful, a high flying ship will avoid most of the enemies firepower and is one of the best counters to enemy bunkers.
-you can vary your sized of bomber usually in the price range of 300-1200 is ideal, using lighter armor or dragonhide is ideal to give you a higher max altitude. I prefer to use coal independent systems so my bombers can remain airborn forever. Bombers are much less involved than boarders, just keep them moving over the enemy forces and watch them crumple. Just watch your ammunition.
-bombers also are good kamikazes, put damaged bombers over higher priority enemys so if their suspension systems blow their ship will crash and take an enemy with them.
These are my two main bombers, one in the 350 range one in the 1000 range, they are rather effective vs most enemies and work well in numbers.
Bunkers, now bunkers are my favorite strategy, with a laggy computer they are your best friend. They are heavily armored fortresses with soldiers inside, able to repel boarders (except spiders) and fight long drawn out fights.
These are my two main bunkers the small one being 154 and the large 550 or so. All their firepower is facing foward and they have a good stash of ammo. The deckgun bunker has a lot of firepower but is vulnerable, place steel bunkers in front to draw fire.
-now bunkers are great at fighting low flying airships and enemy landships. Their weakness is bombers, flankers, and spiders(unpopular in multi so not big deal) You can counter flankers by building a large tall wall with struts to the max elevation, that will largely deter flankers so you can focus your firepower foward, having it face backwards is almost always a waste.
This Strut wall keeps the enemy airships from flanking my bunkers and allows me to dedicate all my firepower foward.
Although they can sneak around and sometimes lead to a stalemate, a land or air gunship can usually prevent this.
-build all your bunkers with a decent stash of ammo and heavy armor, whether steel or stone. You need your bunkers to take a lot of fire and be able to give it back.
Efficient weapons
-Boarders, there are 4 types of boarders, marines, arachnids, grenadiers, and mech spiders. Marines are decent hybrid defenders/boarders but you need to get close for them to board. Arachnids are light and good for small and unguarded ships, they have grappling hooks and are very mobile, don’t hold up in a fight. Grenadiers, are pricier but very mobile and do very well in a fight, a pack of these guys can mop up guarded airships. Mech Spiders are the bunker busters, a pack of them can overwelm a bunker or a guarded ship, they work well combined with grenadiers; biggest downside is low mobility and they don’t capture a ship, just kill the enemy crew. Outfit your fleet with what fits your style best, if you plan on taking bunkers though use spiders.
-Bombers, well this one isn’t that difficult, a bombers tools are high altitude and well…… bombs. A couple bomb bays and maybe a rifle or two is all you need, and enough ammunition to keep you going of course.
– Bunkers have more variety of weapons than bombers and boarders get, you may be tempted to slap a dozen cannons on a bunker but that burns through ammunition very quickly. Small bunkers with a cannon and a couple rifles can ration out ammo fairly efficiently and won’t give the enemy 1 easy large target. Balance ammunition, firepower, and cost. look at the weapons firepower and firerate and accuracy, see how viable it is and do a test battle to see how long your munitions hold out. Face all of your firepower foward, except maybe a rifle or a flak gun, if you want to equip both sides with weapons just make a landship instead, you waste too much resources and firepowers if you put weapons on the backside.
-Deckguns, cannons, and rifles tend to be best for a bunker, deckguns are my favorite as they fire fast and are more ammo efficient (2 rounds for 1 ammunition) and can penetrate all armor but are unarmored. Light Cannons are decent choices as they can be armored and can penetrate armor, but are less ammo efficient. Heavy Cannons fire very slowly and take up a lot of room but do a lot of damage, good for longer fights vs armored opponents. Rifles are very ammo efficient and armored, but short range and can’t pierce steel/wood/dragon armor. Try to avoid gatling guns and other short range weapons as they tend to just waste ammunition.
Summary- go small, go efficient
Overall though, small efficient ships with a good balance tend to be the strongest way to go. A variety of boarders, bombers, and bunkers combined will be difficult for even the best commanders to counter. A lot of it comes down to your playstyle and what works best for you, this is just a general guide to give you a idea of what is strong in the meta. Build a variety, find your style, and keep testing and updating.
Now get out there and start designing and good luck in the skys!
Thanks for reading my guide, will update and clean it up soon, if you need some help with ship designs check out my PRA fighting ships (or message me on steam) and they should give you a decent base to design to base your ships off of.