ship types? (IE Corvettes, Frigates)

[Cat with the Gat]

What are all the ship types actually used for? some of them have the same counters so.. what are they all for? (I'm just asking for a general blanket explanation, more advanced explanation may not help considering i'm using the clone wars mod and maybe Republic at war)

[Firewalk]

Dunno how those particular mods handle it, but at least in the vanilla game its like this:

Fighters are best against bombers and each other. Use them to engage anything thats not an anti-fighter corvette.

Bombers are best against frigates or larger targets. Just don't use them on fighters or anti-fighter corvettes.

Corvettes either shred through fighters/bombers like tissue paper or are artillery against space stations (depending on which corvette it is). Every fleet should have a bunch of the former, maybe 1 or 2 of the latter IMO.

Frigates are best used against corvettes and each other, can tank fighters rather easily, but suck against bombers and capitals (unless they outnumber the capital vessel signifcantly). These guys are your backbone in most fleets and provide good firepower.

Capitals can shred corvettes and frigates, but make juicy targets for bombers. They also pose a huge threat to stations. As long as you keep enemy bombers away, these guys are an answer to anything and should lead your fleets.

[Binty]

Just in case you don't know while playing the game, laser cannons and point defense are most effective against fighters and bombers, while turbolasers are best against larger, slower targets. You can tell what a weapon is by hovering your mouse over a ships hardpointt, which shows you its name and health.

Corvettes are best for anti-fighter duty. They are typically the fastest ships aside from fighters, but they suck at fighting anything but fighters and bombers, to the point where even other corvettes could take a while to beat. They're weak against big ships but are incredibly useful in some mods, especially if the faction you're playing as has poor fighters. Unlike most large ships, corvettes don't have hardpoints, which means that no matter how low their health is, they will always have the same amount of firepower. They very rarely have any weapons aside from laser cannons and sometime weak missles, which is why they're so poor against anything but fighters and bombers.

Frigates are probably the class with the most ships in it for most mods, and are probably the most versitile ship class. Typically the main advantage to them is their small size, making them take up less unit capicity and allowing them to have an easier time manuvering around the battlefield while still having respectable firepower. They also usually have a much better balance between ship-to-ship weapons and anti-fighter weapons, but some frigates are focused around more specific tasks. It would be a good idea to make the bulk of your fleet frigates until you unlock capital ships, as you don't have much else for dealing with other frigates until then, but you should really keep some around once you do get capital ships. Finally, while they are fairly capable of dealing with fighters, never rely on them too heavily for fighter support. That's the job of corvettes and your own fighters.

Captial ships are usually the biggest ships around, most mods block them off until around tech four or five, and a battle hasn't truly started until someone gets the ability to construct them. With lots of powerful weapons, tough shields and armor, and plenty of fighters in their hanger bays, capital ships will probably make up most of your fleet once unlocked. They are the most powerful ships in the base game and in many mods, but they do have number of weaknesses. They are expensive, although if you manage your economy well, money won't be much of an issue when you unlock them, but they also take a long time to build, which can make creating a large fleet a very time-consuming process. In battle, while the only true match for a capital ship is another captial ship, they can be overwhelmed if they try to take on too many frigates at once. They are also slow, take up lots of unit capicity, and have a hard time manuvering due to their size. On top of this, bombers can devestate them by ignoring their shields and going straight to destroying major systems like shields or engines. It is also very rare for them to have any weapons that can easily defend them from those bombers, so protect them with corvettes or lots of fighters.

Finally, let's cover fighters and bombers. Bombers are meant to attack large targets, like space stations, frigates, and capital ships, by launching bombs that ignore shields and deal serious damage to the sytems those shields are supposed to protect. Usually, try to hit the shield generator on heavy ships with bombers before those ships get into range of the rest of your fleet, since then the shields on those ships will disappear and it won't have much to protect itself from your guns. Fighters are meant to deal with bombers and eachother, they are by far the fastest ships, but are incredibly weak. The main advantage to fighters, though, is that you usually have a lot of them, and while the are weak, most ships in most mods have hanger bays which deploy fighters in limited numbers for free. Managing fighters is a big part of winning space battles, and if one side has lost all its fighters and corvettes, there's not much it can do to stop the other side from swarming their ships, and the damage they deal really builds up.