What are each of the nation's ships best at?

[Terra Blade]

So I am trying to build ships to my playstyle, but I feel like I am working against either the way the game is meant to be played or how ships are meant to be built towards. I like the confederation ships for example both because I think they look the best but more importantly they have defense. I feel like they trade some speed for defense, but then again I come across a Coil Cultist with their beam weapons and suddenly my ship and especially weapons and engines are being torn to shreds faster than I can take out them out. Shields help but...I feel like I am doing something wrong.

So here is what I feel each kingdom is best at, and bear in mind I know I am early game and may be very wrong. That's kind of the point of me posting in frustration, I am trying to figure this out.

Teutonic Confederation: Big, armored, and slow. Seems to have a preference for greater firing arcs with cannons with turrets. As such tend to have powerful cannons but gets a little greedy on fuel and ammo due to their travel speed and the cost of their weapon use.

Observation: Should be built with focuses making hits count, as Teutonic weapons seems to be slower but more powerful per shot compared to other factions.

Aecerlian Kingdom: Prioritizes offense over defense, and tends to go all in on "mana" usage. Meaning they favor beam weapons which cost less in ammo and more in energy. Ships tend to be lighter and faster and with more room for thrusters that allow better omni-directional movement. Also means they are better at boarding strategies.

Observation: Beam weapons seem more designed to soften up targets and take out defenses. Leaving them open to being burned out of the sky as the ship stays in the now weakened side of a ship or move in laterally for a boarding action takeover. Especially potent if the officer has tactics that target specific areas like say the drives of an enemy ship.

New Viridian Republic (least amount of contact with thus far) : Tend to favor speed and cargo space over offense. However their combat seems built around broadsides as their ships are some of the faster turning so far. However they seem more on the fragile side compared to their counterparts.

Observation: Ships seem to be built to use broadsides and speed. Using their turning speed to bring a new battery of weapons to bear rather than rely on keeping an enemy ship to one side or the other. Most like other traditional tall sail games in playstyle.


Again I know I am possibly if not probably off base on all the factions, but any feedback to make my ship building and fighting better would be appreciated.

[acosnil]

All of the above. Although Aecerlian weapons will hands down end matches against unprepared enemies faster than any other weapon type. If you weren't anticipating beam weapons and laser turkeys you're going to get absolutely shredded.


Otherwise the best weapon is.... knowledge. The AI in the game is terrible and if you equip AI craft with a variety of weapons they won't know what to do with it, so it's usually best to specialize AI vessels at a single role, like close range brawling. Because if you give that brawler a single torpedo tube, there's always odds they'll sit at range trying to make that dumb tube work.