Editing Vandrayk's Starship Combat Guide (section)

== Capital Ships ==

=== Common Strategy ===

* match your opponents Y level,
* fight at minimum Y level
* “rotate” your shields.(I.E: You are showing the right side of your ship, so those shields are the main ones getting hit. Whenever they get to around 30%, you will switch the side you are showing the enemy to the left so that your right shields can regenerate while the left is healthy.)
* cruise DC (Very easy to understand, something that is harder to apply at all times in combat as it's easy to forget. It works as such:
*# Set your Powermode to 10 40 50
*# Cruise in a direction til max speed
*# Set your powermode to 50 40 10
*# Activate /DC in slot 9, while holding left shift
*# When you’ve been in this mode for about 7-10 seconds, deactivate /dc while simultaneously setting your powermode back to 10 40 50
*# Repeat
* These steps allow you to cover more ground super quickly, speed past players in a “drive by” fashion attack, and is one of the most valuable techniques to learn in SvS)
* Aim lead (Follow your tri turrets and lead a bit in front of the direction they’re shooting, very good for new players to learn and understand how to aim heavy turrets)
* ghosting (while approaching a player to be aggressive, don’t shoot HTs so they don’t have an exact visual on which direction you’re coming from)

=== Attack Frigate (6500-6900 Blocks) ===
THIS SUBCLASS IS NOT WORTH USING IN A MAJORITY OF SITUATIONS AND REQUIRE A VERY HIGH SKILL LEVEL TO OPERATE MORE EFFECTIVELY THAN A STANDARD 8K. IT IS INCLUDED IN THIS POST AS SOME NATIONS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS AND DECIDE TO USE IT ANYWAYS.

YOU MUST USE /DC & CRUISE IN CONJUNCTION AND ENSURE THAT YOU POSITION YOURSELF TO WHERE YOUR BRIDGE IS NOT EASILY SNIPABLE. IT’S ONLY USAGE SHOULD BE AGAINST SUPERCAPITALS, AS IT'S SMALL PROFILE AND HEAVY TURRETS ALLOW IT TO DODGE INCOMING SUPERCAPITAL VOLLEYS WHILE APPLYING DAMAGE. ALL OTHER SITUATIONS ARE BETTER HANDLED BY AN 8K.

Hard countered by Frigates (8000), Fast Destroyers (10000) and Destroyers (12000)

=== Frigate (8,000 Blocks) ===
Frigates exist as the ideal fleet support ship, combining a good balance of tankiness, speed, damage, and versatility. These ships should mainly be flown with cruising, but some situations call for you to enter direct control (/dc). Frigates have access to phaser, tri turret, heavy turret, plasma, light turret, but you should focus on Heavy Turret, Phaser, and Tri Turret.

Play very aggressively against corvettes and smaller vessels, use your phaser to target either the bridge or a specific point on the ship, while also barraging the ship with volleys of Heavy Turret fire. Whenever the ship is out of render distance, switch to tri-turret fire.

Against the same size ship or larger vessels, you should play somewhat defensively. You want to cruise at diagonal angles, a lot of capital ship combat will take place outside of render distance, you want to lead the ship you’re fighting with heavy turrets to hit it at the furthest range possible. This is challenging even for some veteran players, so you can engage at a closer range to attempt to utilize phaser but know that this could backfire terribly. Your mindset should be to preserve your shields and prevent hull damage for as long as possible while simultaneously winning the fight. Against battlecruisers, you want to stay as CLOSE to maximum heavy turret range as possible while still dealing damage.

An Optimal Frigate is subjective, but by standard they need: 12 shields, (one of these is an enhanced shield, place this one on your bridge), ample heavy turrets and tri turrets on top/bottom of the ship, and a phaser in every cardinal direction.

These ships are countered by attack destroyers (10k), indirectly countered by destroyers (12k), indirectly countered by cruisers (16k), and hard countered by battlecruisers (20k)

=== Destroyers (8,000 - 12,000 Blocks) ===
Destroyers are the tankier older brother of the frigate. With the same armament, they can fire more heavy turrets and have extra shields to make up more tankiness for the lack of speed. These exist and operate to keep cruisers and attack destroyers in check, while even being able to go toe-to-toe with a battlecruiser for a very short amount of time. There are two subclasses of destroyer worth using:

==== Attack Destroyer (9,750 - 10000 Blocks) ====
Attack destroyers exist as a better version of a frigate with a caveat, they get ran down by larger ships a lot easier. Attack destroyers have the same armament as destroyers and a few more shields than a standard frigate. The mindset you should have with this ship is that you are relying on your smaller profile and speed rather than your tankiness per-se. These ships should only be used in cruise, with situationally, sometimes cruise dc

The Optimal Attack destroyer is subjective, but by standard has 14 shields (one of these is an enhanced shield, put this on your bridge), ample heavy turrets and tri turrets on top/bottom of the ship, and a phaser in every cardinal direction.

These ships are evenly matched by cruisers (16k), countered by destroyers (12k), indirectly countered by starfighters (350), and hard countered by battlecruisers (20k)

==== Destroyers (12,000 Blocks) ====
Destroyers are the largest capital ship (excluding supercapitals) and the tankiest of every ship without a reactor. Their best application is to go toe-to-toe with attack destroyers, and in fleet combat as a “mobile defense platform’, where your smaller ships can fall back to your destroyer to hide behind and regen while you apply massive damage and soak up incoming fire. These ships should only be used in cruise except with certain situations, sometimes cruise dc

The Optimal Destroyer is subjective, but by standard has 17 shields (one of these is an enhanced shield, put this on your bridge), ample heavy turrets and tri turrets on top/bottom of the ship, and a phaser in every cardinal direction.

These ships are evenly matched by cruisers (16k), indirectly countered by starfighters (350), and hard countered by battlecruisers (20k)