Any tips on how to use the early ships?

[Rescue Toaster]

Hey guys, I hope you're all doing well!

I got the game a few days ago during the sale (the season 1 pack), and while I've been loving it, I feel like I'm not doing a few things right.

In the base campaign, on medium difficulty, my primary fleet consists of 3 Rangers and 4 Adamants. I don't have many designs available yet, just the Manticore, Berserker, Adamant, and Ranger. Waiting on RP to unlock the first Battlestar design; I think it's the Artemis-class?

Regarding my current tactics:

I typically have my 3 Rangers as the tip of my spear, and stack the Adamants all on top of each other at alternating elevations back behind the Rangers. With the Adamants stacked they can all maneuver the same and focus fire on the individual targets I designate, and this seems to work very well. I also tend to have them fly above so they can get top armor hits for quicker kills. I assume weapons with a blast radius, like nukes, will be an issue in the near future making this tactic obsolete, but for now it works great!

With the Rangers at the tip, I usually plow into their formation with that spear, which disrupts their formation and allows most of the Ranger guns to fire, and I use close-range torpedo volleys against enemy carrier and larger capital ships while the Adamants focus fire on the smaller, more deadly ships.

I tend to run 2 Rangers with all torpedoes and the 3rd with only guided missiles, all Adamants with guided missiles. Regarding the squadrons: 2 Raptors and 2 Vipers from Adamants, and finally, 2 Vipers from the Daidalus. I have most of the Vipers screen my vanguard Rangers, 1 Raptor for initial scouting and the other on standby for boarding more difficult / dangerous ships (not sure how to use them to defend against Hacking, yet..).

After reading about Rangers and how they are primarily a missile boat-type ship, and seeing the 'okay' performance of them as brawlers, it feels like I'm using them suboptimally. They tank damage a lot better than my Adamants can, so it doesn't feel completely wrong, but the gun performance is really poor, and I don't even know the optimal position to attack enemies with - I usually just go head on, coming from slightly above them with the hopes that my frontal heavy turrets and bottom medium turrets will get a chance to fire.

So here I am, with this small essay, humbly seeking new tips / advice on how to use my fleet differently, and frankly any advice on all of my ships / fleet makeup / formation / tactics, etc. Am I misusing the Rangers, or does this seem like a legitimate tactic, in your opinion?

And a TL;DR for "those" people (you know who I mean!): how me git gud?!

Sorry for the massive word count, and thank you in advance!

[USS Midway veteran]

Hello Rescue Toaster

Yes, you are asking for a lot. Here are some basics to help you along. I'm sure others will add to it.

1. Rangers are not really good "point of the spear" ships. Yes, they have a great missile system, but their guns are very weak. They may be alright for now, early in the game, but when you start facing off against Revenants and Cerastes you'll really need that Artemis battlestar. For now, your best "gun ship" would be the Beserk Cruiser. Maybe you could drop a couple of Adamants to add a couple of Beserks.

2. It is always best to attack from below the enemy, not above. With the Colonial ships you now have in operation, most of their guns cannot fire down, primarily they fire up and to the side most effectively. I also think the Berserks would be more effective when stacked than the Adamants, although Berserks do not fire missiles.

3. To use a Raptor to deal with hacking, you have to attach the Raptor to the ship you want to protect BEFORE a hack begins. If you wait until the hack has already started, you are too late. So pick the ship you want the raptor to protect and go to the ship with the raptor and click on "Squadrons," then "Raptor," then "Abilities" and then "Boost Firewall." When you have done all that, click on the ship you want the Raptor to protect and then "OK."

4.You may want to focus on the use of Guided Missiles over Torpedoes unless you are aiming at a slow-moving target. It is difficult to hit a fast Cylon ship with torpedoes unless it is coming straight at you or you are very close to it. Sure, pack some torpedoes - I think you get about 100 of them for each missile battery now - but Guided Missiles don't miss. However I will point out that a Torpedo burst does more damage than a Guided Missile burst....if you can hit the target.

5.Get that Artemis battlestar as soon as you can, because you will be facing some serious Cylon firepower very soon. One tip about the Artemis, it's battlestar artillery is on the top only. The Artemis has only a few Heavy Turrets and some Point Defense Turrets on the side and bottom. To use the Artemis effectively, you must be slightly below the target (to increase accuracy) and to avoid a Revenant's guns and to get full power out of the battlestar artillery.

6.Get the Minotaur gunship as soon as possible. It's a Cylon killer, particularly when positioned slightly below or beside the target.

That's all I have to say for now. You have a lot to learn, so take it one step at a time. On the Steam page, look for some ship guides written by Sir Wagglepuss III. They will help you tremendously. He is still updating them, but I think you will learn a lot by studying each ship as they come along for its strengths and weaknesses.

[Half Phased]

Everything above is good advice and should be followed, here’s a few more points.

1 ranger is usually sufficient, it has a rapid reload allowing it to dump munitions extremely quickly. 2 is alright, 3 is excessive.

The Artemis should be the second thing you aim for after it becomes available, the first thing being the Mk2 viper.

Raptor can boost the firewall of the ship they are based on, they do this by returning and docking with the ship, rather than the boost firewalls function. Same limitation applies however.

It is usually advantageous for ships to start a gunfight on a broadside, rather than the front of the ship, that way it’s easier to rotate to use all of the armour and you can avoid exposing the vulnerable rear side of the ship (which usually has the weakest armour and contains the critical navigation subsystem). Of the season 1 ships, only the Heracles should attempt to try and charge head first at the enemy, as its front armour is the thickest.

[USS Midway veteran]

Originally posted by Half Phased:

Everything above is good advice and should be followed, here’s a few more points.

1 ranger is usually sufficient, it has a rapid reload allowing it to dump munitions extremely quickly. 2 is alright, 3 is excessive.

The Artemis should be the second thing you aim for after it becomes available, the first thing being the Mk2 viper.

Raptor can boost the firewall of the ship they are based on, they do this by returning and docking with the ship, rather than the boost firewalls function. Same limitation applies however.

It is usually advantageous for ships to start a gunfight on a broadside, rather than the front of the ship, that way it’s easier to rotate to use all of the armour and you can avoid exposing the vulnerable rear side of the ship (which usually has the weakest armour and contains the critical navigation subsystem). Of the season 1 ships, only the Heracles should attempt to try and charge head first at the enemy, as its front armour is the thickest.

Thanks for pointing out that a raptor can protect its own ship, Half Phased. I was not aware of that.

[Xautos]

I'd switch out Rangers for Bezerks, not only do they have great fighter squadrons but the whole ship is nothing but damage dealer, despite the armour being a bit flimsy, it is a very useful ship to have in your fleet, early on i would go for adamant bezerk combo to get a lot of firepower, defense and fighter cover all in one go, of course the early MK I's can be thrown at the enemy forces, they are useless in missile defense. When you get those MK II fighters, switch over asap and keep the fighters ready, they'll be far more effective in helping to clear your sky.

[Cоsмоиaцт ⭑]

just a few tips on rangers--

You're honestly fine with keeping only one of them in your fleets during early game. As many have pointed out, they're actually ill-suited to frontline combat roles. I usually place them in a secondary line at an angle above my primary one. Think of them as your ranged DPS ships; they're glass cannons, similar to the Berzerk, but with a focus on munitions rather than guns. At higher difficulties or levels of the game, I'd recommend operating them in teams of two. Additionally, I'd highly recommend equipping one munitions slot on at least one of your rangers with PCMs. They're fantastic if you find yourself lacking vessels with flak walls like battlestars, as they can intercept and remotely destroy hostile missiles and torpedoes. It may seem like a bit of a high price to swap out something like torpedoes for something more defensive, but the ranger's quick reload will allow you to pump out a PCM every other turn. If you ARE running rangers with battlestar or flak-heavy fleets though, be careful that you don't end up firing your own munitions into their flak clouds. Sounds easy enough, but it can get pretty tricky when everything kicks off in a fight.

All in all though, rangers are a great asset and I found them incredibly useful at all stages of the game. Good hunting, and you might wanna check the deadlock wiki for some other really useful tips on how to operate ships, and find out which ones complement well with one another.

[Xautos]

Rangers are best used unmarked from the main fleet rather than in a fleet formation, much like the manticore. So if Rangers are fairly far from the front but have a clear line of fire and the hostile fleet is focused on the main fleet assets, those Rangers will be very useful.

When you get the Artemis battlestars and Viper MK II? Their role will be fully realised and PCM's won't be needed as the flak from the Artemis' take all the missile spam the enemy has to throw, but that all depends where your fleet is compared to the enemy and how you set your fleet formation. Also the Artemis MK II's can protect the Rangers.

[Dux_Britanniarum]

Thing to remember early game is...

As you unlock blueprints, it unlocks things for the cylons at the same time...so be careful what you unlock!

That said the, Viper Mk-2 unlock is a must.

[Cоsмоиaцт ⭑]

Originally posted by Xautos:

Rangers are best used unmarked from the main fleet rather than in a fleet formation, much like the manticore. So if Rangers are fairly far from the front but have a clear line of fire and the hostile fleet is focused on the main fleet assets, those Rangers will be very useful.

When you get the Artemis battlestars and Viper MK II? Their role will be fully realised and PCM's won't be needed as the flak from the Artemis' take all the missile spam the enemy has to throw, but that all depends where your fleet is compared to the enemy and how you set your fleet formation. Also the Artemis MK II's can protect the Rangers.

The problem with this is that the Artemis has fairly light armor. If you get jumped by anything more than one revenant and get focused, you'll have to turn to evade and eventually pull it out of your battle line. I've had it frequently happen to me in the middle to late stages of the early game, especially on higher difficulties, within like, two turns of getting shot at.

I haven't tried keeping the rangers far astern of the main battle line, for fear that they might get flanked or targetted by cerastes or focused down by ranged spam. Ideally, yeah, you'd be able to protect them with fighters, but the cylons really start to throw tons of raiders at you at higher difficulties. It's often not viable to deploy at all because you'll get your squads wiped immediately unless you have a very fighter-centric force. I've found that it's better to wait for them to swarm your ships, put up your flak walls, etc and 'weather the storm' before launching your own fighters to ID enemy vessels and counterattack. That's what usually works for me, anyway.

[Xautos]

Originally posted by Cоsмоиaцт ⭑:

Originally posted by Xautos:

Rangers are best used unmarked from the main fleet rather than in a fleet formation, much like the manticore. So if Rangers are fairly far from the front but have a clear line of fire and the hostile fleet is focused on the main fleet assets, those Rangers will be very useful.

When you get the Artemis battlestars and Viper MK II? Their role will be fully realised and PCM's won't be needed as the flak from the Artemis' take all the missile spam the enemy has to throw, but that all depends where your fleet is compared to the enemy and how you set your fleet formation. Also the Artemis MK II's can protect the Rangers.

The problem with this is that the Artemis has fairly light armor. If you get jumped by anything more than one revenant and get focused, you'll have to turn to evade and eventually pull it out of your battle line. I've had it frequently happen to me in the middle to late stages of the early game, especially on higher difficulties, within like, two turns of getting shot at.

I haven't tried keeping the rangers far astern of the main battle line, for fear that they might get flanked or targetted by cerastes or focused down by ranged spam. Ideally, yeah, you'd be able to protect them with fighters, but the cylons really start to throw tons of raiders at you at higher difficulties. It's often not viable to deploy at all because you'll get your squads wiped immediately unless you have a very fighter-centric force. I've found that it's better to wait for them to swarm your ships, put up your flak walls, etc and 'weather the storm' before launching your own fighters to ID enemy vessels and counterattack. That's what usually works for me, anyway.

That is why they are unmarked, they aren't being hunted by Cerastas and with guided missiles, 4 salvo would be more than enough to soften up or destroy a Cerastas. if needed those fighters can be sent away to reinforce or dock in the host battlestar.

However this is commander difficulty the OP has mentioned, so it shouldn't pose the problem of admiral difficulty with swarms of hostile fighters and deathly accurate Revenants, but again it depends on your fleet formation and how you go about dealing with the Cylon fleet in order to keep those Rangers free and clear to launch their payload without issue.

[Bomoo]

After having phased manticores out of my fleet - or rather having been forced to due to the annoyingly restrictive cap on number of ships in a single fleet group - I'm definitely missing their sensor range. Consider having at least one if not two or three manticores in your fleet set to full defensive posture, spotting for your other ships.

[Xautos]

Originally posted by Bomoo:

After having phased manticores out of my fleet - or rather having been forced to due to the annoyingly restrictive cap on number of ships in a single fleet group - I'm definitely missing their sensor range. Consider having at least one if not two or three manticores in your fleet set to full defensive posture, spotting for your other ships.

I use Raptors to scout, they are the first to go to the meat grinder, they also save my forces from being chewed up before i can figure out what the AI is up to. If i had 2 Manticores, i'd rather save their attacking power and lightning responses for critical engagements later in the fight where they'd be the most use and dividing what little enemy firepower exists between manticores and the main fleet assets.

I've had manticores take out basestars and an Argos on occasion where my main fleet was otherwise busy elsewhere. It's why i keep a few manticores around in some of my fleets, they serve a niche function in my fleet as free roaming hunter-killers despite only having a small peashooter on the front. :P

That's my style of play on commander difficulty anyway.

[Bomoo]

Originally posted by Xautos:

I use Raptors to scout, they are the first to go to the meat grinder, they also save my forces from being chewed up before i can figure out what the AI is up to. If i had 2 Manticores, i'd rather save their attacking power and lightning responses for critical engagements later in the fight where they'd be the most use and dividing what little enemy firepower exists between manticores and the main fleet assets.

I've had manticores take out basestars and an Argos on occasion where my main fleet was otherwise busy elsewhere. It's why i keep a few manticores around in some of my fleets, they serve a niche function in my fleet as free roaming hunter-killers despite only having a small peashooter on the front. :P

That's my style of play on commander difficulty anyway.

No reason they can't still do that after their initial spotting services are no longer needed. And from what I've seen, the cylons usually take the raptors out first, effectively blinding your big hitters for the rest of the battle. Even adamants set to full defensive aren't enough to make up for the absence of manticores.

For command ships, battlestars have a curiously low DRADIS range - something that modding could easily fix.

[USS Midway veteran]

If you want to avoid loss of your Raptors and Vipers on Scouting missions - and either don't have a Manticore or don't want to use one - do not use "Select Target."

You may be sending them near or straight into a Cerastes or a Revenant.

Use "Move" and then send them either a good distance below or above your objective, not directly at it.

Try sending one of your Vipers forward to almost the same point to intercept any Raiders. The enemy will be revealed before they get to their destination and then you can move to avoid attack or either board or fire rockets at a "safer" target. I rarely use Manticores as scouts, but they are very effective in some situations....particularly if they are carrying a Nuke.

[Rescue Toaster]

Apologies for the very late response - I had a crazy weekend and forgot I even posted this until today when I saw a lot of notifications up top!

Also, sorry for all of the separate responses below - I thought it would be messy if I responded to everyone in just 1 post!

Originally posted by USS Midway veteran:

Hello Rescue Toaster

Yes, you are asking for a lot. Here are some basics to help you along. I'm sure others will add to it. ....

Thank you for all of the information. I actually finished the campaign just the other night, and as you said about Rangers, I learned they stink for that role, and rather quickly after I posted this. I forget when it exactly was, but we're talking about one battle, maybe 3 turns in and "A Ranger is taking damage!". That was a wake up call that I needed.

I love the munition capabilities of Rangers, but once those Wardriver (I think that's the name) squadrons show up that can redirect missiles back at you.. it feels like Rangers are a tad gimped at that point, and I'd rather have more squadrons or a more reliable gunboat, like the Minotaur, which quickly replaced my Rangers in my primary "mission" fleet in addition to an Atlas. They fit the role a lot better!

I don't know where I got it in my head to try and attack from above, but when I got my Battlestars I learned I needed to attack from below, so thankfully I figured that one out on my own

Thanks for all of your help again, and I'll definitely be sure to check that Sir Wagglepuss page / article out to help with my next campaign with the DLC!

[Rescue Toaster]

Originally posted by Half Phased:

Everything above is good advice and should be followed, here’s a few more points.
...

Thank you for the response and apologies for the late reply!

Regarding the Mk. 2 Viper - I actually got the Viper Mk. 2's before the Artemis-class which is why I ended up getting the Artemis so late. I used them (Viper Mk2) over the original Vipers, but are they really that much better? I liked them for the increased speed, but it seemed like I'd lose my Vipers a lot quicker with them.

Also, regarding the final point you made about broadsiding - that's what I would ultimately do once I broke up the enemy formation, and when approaching using the front to keep the side armor pristine for the long-haul of broadsiding once I broke up the enemy's formation. It actually worked somewhat decently, up until bigger, meaner stuff showed up that started deleting my Rangers ~3-4 turns in. Yikes..

I feel silly, but I never considered that damage to specific sides could cause damage to specific systems (IE: rear damage harming navigation), I'm glad I know it now.

Thank you again for everything. I'm learning a lot from everyone's replies!