Admiral's 101: How to Space Battle

Some basic battle tactics everyone should know, and useful information about the game.

Ship Hardpoints, and what they do

Engines- Allow movement and Hyperspace Retreat, however ships can drift without them. Note that larger ships with multiple engine hardpoints will move at the same speed and be able to retreat so long as one engine remains intact.

Shield Generators- Provide Shielding and regenerate shield HP. Ships with multiple Shield hardpoints will not loose shielding until all generators are destroyed, and shield recovers at the same rate and has the same maximum regardless of how many generators are still active.

Hangars- Deploy Fighters, and on Starbases they allow free reinforcement Ships to jump in. Note that Starbases have an unlimited reinforcement capacity wheras carriers and other ships have a limited number of squadrons, but refill their hangars every battle; a Star Destroyer that looses all its TIE wings will have more in the next fight.

Ion Cannons- Damage shields ONLY. They are a very low priority target. Ground-to-Space Ion cannons disable shielding completely and additionally slow down weapons fire rate.

Turbolasers- Generic Weaponry of Star Wars. Duals & Quads are high priority targets. Turbolaser accuracy is also affected by the target, as it is easier to hit another Star Destroyer than a Corellian Corvette fleeing with power to engines active.

Concussion Missiles- Tracking missiles, rather low damage, may penetrate shields. They can be effective against squadrons as they have a small area of effect and tracking, however in vanilla the projectiles are so slow they can barely hit them. Some mods alter this.

Proton Torpedo Launchers- High Damage Torpedoes, usually penetrate shields. These are first priority targets (and the same weapons that Bombers have).

Mass Drivers - Like Turbolasers, but penetrate shields. Not very common, only see them on some Consortium ships and in a couple mods. Harmful and annoying, but do less damage than proton torpedoes so they're to be destroyed after the torpedo tubes.

Laser Cannons- Anti Fighter machine guns. Low damage to actual ships.

Tractor Beams- Can latch onto and slow small craft. More of an annoyance than a serious threat.

(Starbase) Comms Array: Your Minimap

(Starbase) Resupply Dock: Your Non-Mining Facility income

The master file for this stuff can be found at /Star Wars Empire At War/GameData/Data/XML or /Star Wars Empire At War/Corruption/GameData/XML. ===DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE===

The Ion Cannons Debate:

Regarding whether Ion Cannons are a priority target, there are two camps:

>They are a priority target, because they do huge damage to shields, and once shields are down you start loosing hardpoints, firepower and health, entering into a death spiral. This is good for a cautious play and will keep ships fully intact longer, potentially outlasting the enemy.

>They are not a priority target, because they do 0 damage to hull and hardpoints: an enemy ship with only ion cannons remaining can't hurt you. This is the aggressive play and renders the enemy ship harmless in the brawling phase.

10 Laws of Space Warfare

1: Use the right ship for the right job. Some are Anti Fighter, some are Carriers, some Battleships.

2: Balanced Fleets are the ideal meta. Use Capital ships and support craft, not just the former.

3: Ships have range proportional to their size & class. Outranging the enemy (ie with a super star destroyer) is a tremendous advantage and forces them to react & adapt to your moves.

4: Priority targets- You control what hardpoints your ships shoot at. Win the DPS race by cutting at the source. Proton Torpedo Tubes > Shield Generators (if your weps can bypass it) > Hangars > Heavy/Quad > Dual/Normal > Ion & Laser Cannons

5: There is strength in numbers. Every ship is a divisor to incoming enemy fire, allowing your shields and therefore turrets to stay online longer. Works very well vs AI as they never focus fire.

6: When the enemy has numbers, focus your fire. This way you might actually kill something instead of scratching the shielding across the board.

7: Special Abilities, they're powerful when used correctly. *Power to ___ abilities are situational: Weps will drain your shields, Shields is when you need to tank, Engines is when you're moving.

8: Most ships have a blind spot behind their engines, and moreover every weapons hardpoint has a limited arc of fire. Eg. Guns on port won't target stuff on starboard.

9: Via Control/ Shift clicking you can set command groups and hotkey them to a #, 1-9. Its much easier to command fleets in battlegroups (#1 is fighters, 2 is corvettes, 3 is the big guns etc) instead of micromanaging each individual ship.

10: Never Surrender! Don't autoresolve, ever, its really quite atrocious. Play out the battle.
Retreat is a perfectly viable option, however doing so forfeits your starbase and puts your planet at risk of invasion. Play a short defensive battle, use your fighters, starbase, and reinforcements to inflict some damage before abandoning the planet.

Fleet Composition

Depending on what faction you play, the individual units you have available will change as will their strengths and weaknesses, however;

- If the enemy uses Carriers/ fighter-bomber spams, add more Corvettes to your fleets
- If the enemy uses Capital Ships, buy a couple of Carriers/Bombers
- If the enemy uses Corvettes/Frigates buy some Capital Ships
- If the enemy has Super Ships, invest in Ground to Space weaponry (Hypervelocity Guns, Ion Cannons)

Just play each faction in skirmish a bit, get to know their units & abilities, how they handle, what they're weak against etc. Find and use the counters.

And again, I cannot stress the "balanced fleet" enough; Everything ties together.
Fighters kill Fighters / Bombers
Bombers kill Capitals
Corvettes kill Fighters/Bombers
Frigates kill Corvettes
Capitals kill Frigates

Deployment & Utilities of ships

=Corvettes: They're fast and great at defending against Fighters & Bombers, but won't be much help against anything larger. Keep them near fleet and if they're taking damage, pull them back. Good for starting a match, pop power to engines, close in on the enemy and drop in the fleet.

=Frigates: For Ship to Ship combat, plenty of Turbolasers & Ion Cannons and devastating in numbers. Outclassed in the late game but invaluable for their role in proving fire support, because they're not on the same layer as Capital ships - you can have Frigates directly "on top of" your capitals, allowing you to concentrate a lot of firepower in one place. Frigates are also faster and more maneuverable than a capital ship, better following the flow of battle and allow quicker reaction or exploitation of the situation.

=Capital Ships: Heavy Battleships designed to deal damage to single targets. Excellent at destroying Space Stations & crippling Frigates, however they're expensive, slow, have limited arcs of fire, and are helpless against bombers. These will form the bulk of your fleet. Most capital ships will also carry some squadrons of fighters and bombers, launching most when they are first deployed but with 2 or 3 in reserve.

=Fighters: Keep them close, don't waste them. Excellent for ensuring air superiority and scattering enemy anti starcraft weapons fire for bombing runs, and defending your own stuff against enemy bombers. They're also quite fragile, and do incredibly low damage to "real ships" unless they're massed in absurd numbers.

=Bombers: Amazing for knocking out specific hardpoints, like shields or the hangar bay, but won't survive long in combat. Use them wisely, and watch for the enemy's.

=Carriers: A Niche. Watch their health, and try to protect them as the enemy's going to want to shut their hangars down ASAP. That said, some carriers are quite capable of combat & work really well as capital ships, like Lucerhulks and Venators in Republic at War. Carriers, like capital ships, also have a limit to how many squadrons they can carry and deploy in battle, however it is much more proportionally than a standard capital ship.

=Super Ships: Really, Really powerful Capital ships. Treat them as such, and remember that they're not invincible. As the ships get bigger, so do the blind spots, and mobility goes way down. For example, an Executor SSD is helpless against anything behind its engines and will take an extremely long time to turn around and return fire.

=Starbases: Starbases / Space Stations / Your shipyard is a space unit in its own right, although it cannot move or rotate it is heavily armed with lasers, turbolasers, ion cannons, torpedoes and the lot, and can aptly defend itself. In Galactic conquest mode it'll spawn free reinforcement ships and fighter squadrons until the hangar is destroyed, and lets you buy small boosts to ships damage / shields / armor. You may want to manually order it to focus it's fire on priority targets although for the most part it will function autonomously.

=Battlestations: (Not in Vanilla) Generally speaking, stuff like the Golan III / II / I even. These stations are solid battle platforms packing plenty of turbolasers and proton torpedoes with a large shield pool to boot. They will need protection against fighters / bombers but can hold their own and do heavy damage against Star Destroyers and the like. If you've got a fleet, best to position your ships around or in line with the platform so it can assist in the battle and tank some damage away from your weaker frigates and cruisers.

=Satellite stations: The vanilla space build pad turrets. They can hold their own against fighters, stray bombers and even corvettes, but will need some backup against anything larger. They'll add firepower to your defense without cutting into your unit cap, and are quite cheap in Galactic conquest mode.

Positioning

The positioning of your ships is of utmost importance; Firepower is of no matter unless one is poised to use it. Common formations are:

V Formation : A tactic used when you're unsure from where the enemy is going to attack and want forward firepower and covered flanks. Also used in offensives, starting from your own line of ships, if the enemy's line appears weak somewhere you push them hard and pull the rest of the fleet along, forming a V behind the initial push. DON'T literally make a V of star destroyers and send them into the enemy, destroyer 1 will take the entirety of the enemy's firepower all at once and be killed before 4 and 5 can provide fire support.

"U" Formation : Also a reverse V, used for encirclement of the enemy or like a glove when/wherever the map has features that will naturally funnel the enemy into your trap.

Line Formation : Used to maximize firepower in open spaces, staggered movements of the fleet maximize firepower while a straight line may be used for defense.




This is a hypothetical battle situation

Orders

**Don't forget you can pause the game in singleplayer**

=Attack Move vs Move
These are two different orders you can give your units, most importantly fighters.
-When you order your units to move to a location, they will shoot at but largely ignore things along the way as they move towards the target location. When they get there, they will shoot at anything in range, and fighters have a small chase range.
-Attack move makes your units fight anything they encounter as they move towards a location, and should they encounter nothing it employs a larger aggro radius at the destination. This will keep them moving and engaging the enemy, and not sitting around in the buzz droids being torn apart.

=Stop
Spam this whenever your units start turning away from the enemy, leaving the shield radius, or committing some other act of stupidity.

=Guard
You can set units to guard locations and other units:
-For locations it basically clones the behavior of attack move in using a larger aggro radius.
-For units however they will automatically follow the target as it moves around and support it in battle. It does trail a bit behind the target but is very useful for assigning screening corvettes to protect your capitals.

Example Fleets

We start with 2 Non-Examples:


That, right there, is UNIT SPAM.
Arguably a tactic if the enemy is weak against your unit of choice or you are going for 'wolfpacks' to hunt the enemy or try and pull hit and runs, but certainly won't gain you any popularity points. If the game comes to a point where all you have to do is spam X to win I'd consider it a balancing issue, but to each their own.


This, is a sad waste of a Super ship, thrown alone against the entire enemy fleet, which proved stronger. Don't do it, or at least bring some support ships along with your ship. The outcome here was a culimation of the # of fighters/bombers from the fleet > # of fighters in the super ship, and ships in the fleet spread along the front being able to withdraw and re-engage when the shielding recovered.

And...

This is a proper fleet, with the ships being used as they are intended to be. (This is a map from Thrawn's Revenge if you are wondering)

This, albiet a little bit old, is another fleet configuration I found to be highly effective. For those of you who don't play TR there were four capital style vessels in each fleet accompanied by 9 corvettes plus a Frigate and a handful of advanced fighter squadrons equivalent to TIE Defenders. Favoring Capitals with Anti Fighter support to counter enemy capitals and bomber spams.

Skrimish Mode

Highly recommend reading this guide by Reth on Skirmish matches, he explains the importance of the battle for mines in a far more straightforward manner than I could.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1168242986&tscn=1590525441



Generally there are 3 playstyles: Agressive, Defensive, Balanced.


-Agressors aka Rushers actively take the offensive and hunt the enemy, attacking enemy mines to cut the supply lines. They usually rush a Star Destroyer or similar craft and throw everything they have at the enemy in a victory-or-death gambit. Even if that fails, they end up controlling most of the map's resources and can be very hard to defeat. This tactic can be countered with offensives of your own, like snipe attacks with bomber squadrons on their mines while they're not defending them.

Don't let a fleet intimidate you if they don't have the economic base to replace losses; hit sensitive engine / shield hardpoints and gradually take them apart. Another thing to mention is that if the opponent is at their unit capacity, they can't call in reinforcements to counter you acting elsewhere; moreover if you take out important hardpoints on ships but don't actually destroy the ship then it sits there using full unit cap points, but running at 1/2 or 1/3 combat capacity.

-Defenders aka Turtles wait for the enemy to make a move, drop their ships to halt the advance and then counter-attack. Defenders typically play cautiously and build up an overwhelming force before making serious moves. It works great in small skirmishes but is vulnerable on large maps with multiple fronts and a ton of mines. Remember to keep scouting and expand whenever possible, take advantage of enemy losses to push ahead, and use distractions or concurrent attacks. Don't literally idle and wait for the enemy to come to you; if you never attack their economic base while constantly suffering damage yourself you are in a losing proposition.

-Balanced Players are very opportunistic and flexible for the current situation, taking advantage of unclaimed and undefended mines, and not uncue to defend their own. Most players can be considered 'Balanced'.

-And if/when you are playing multiplayer, PLEASE communicate with your teammates. It is much better to have a rough battleplan than none at all and just assuming "well they are doing that so I'll go over there wait they turned around guess I'll go th- nevermind... uhm what even are you doing mate"
------Divide and conquer: You go there, I'll head here, we build the mines and both push mid
------Combine your forces into a single offensive rather than 2 weak attacks
------Help each other out. If someone's attacking an ally's mine, defend it! YOU ARE A TEAM!

Satellite stations, basically space build pads, are another point to mention here. They don't affect your unit cap and can hold the line against stray bombers / fighters but will need backup against anything more. Unfortunately they're also a bit expensive, being 700-1200 credits depending on if it'll shoot lasers/missiles/repair ships and what faction you're playing; about the same cost as a corvette or half a frigate, and some mods neglect to adequately rebalance them for the ships they'll face.

Lastly, during space skirmish modes it is possible to purchase access to hypervelocity guns and ion cannons, which can be handy to quickly counter or cripple something you otherwise cannot handle. Beware that these weapons are costly, will not always hit the target (greater chance for bigger ships, even higher chance if the ship isn't moving), and are usually purchased as single shots.

Galactic Conquest

1: Minimize Borders & defend the few passages into your space well. NEVER leave your planets open & undefended.
2: Oppositely if a planet has several hyperlanes leading to it, it becomes a strategic chokepoint wherein one fleet's garrison power and threat potential is projected onto multiple enemy planets, requiring them to divide and weaken their defenses, sacrifice their position or formulate a counter-attack.
3: Build as many mines as you can on interior planets not bordering the enemy. More money lets you make more ships which let you take more territory...
4: Building multiples of the same ground production facility on a planet speeds up build times
5: Space is the Ultimate High Ground and your first Priority. Once you occupy the space above an enemy's planet you have as long as you can hold that position to prepare an invasion. What good is a massive ground army if you can't get it to the enemy?
6: You can build (2) Hypervelocity Guns/ Ion Cannons on your planets. Although expensive, they can cripple even the heaviest of Super Star Destroyers after a few shots.
7:Your Starbase offers a magnitude of tactical upgrades and will call in reinforcements as long as the hangar is intact.
8: See Image

9: If you put a ship in the slot shown above, it will jump in first during a space battle, leaving you free to call in the rest of your fleet however you like, preferably somehwere near the enemy. You can call in corvettes at the edge of your vision radius to quickly expand that and give you a larger area to call in ships / form a wider front.
10:If you retreat from a defensive space battle, you loose your starbase but NOT ground to space weaponry. Sometimes you may find it better to retreat then immediately turn around and re-engage the enemy above your planet, as the defender's ships always spawn in a formation and you can't really position them to your liking, which is very exploitable on small maps or maps where the two fleets spawn very close to one another. Of course, this carries the risk of them initiating a planetary invasion, but if you're quick sometimes you catch their fleet and said troops in orbit...

Something else I've seen people doing is using their faction's heros as fleet leaders / given how they're always in the top right of the screen you can click on them and quickly move the camera to the group they're "commanding", sort of like a hotkey.

Speaking of Hero Units; In GC, Hero units will *usually* (mods) respawn after a few days, effectively making people like Admiral Ackbar and Captian Piett free capital ships. Normally it's best to just keep them in your fleet, but desperate times may call for desperate measures.

Lastly, again about Heros and trainable Admiral/General units, they may provide an operational bonus to your units in battles they are present in, usually being a 10-15% buff to damage, shields, vision range, speed, or something of the like. Some mods make these bonuses far more potent and important, other mods eliminate the mechanic altogether.

Space Tactics and Battleplans for Galatic Conquest:

Take advantage of the map whenever possible, and adjust your fleet's position accordingly; If there are asteroids / nebula, the enemy probably isn't going to send their ships through it.

Every space battle in GC is unique, however there are a few common situations:

=When defending against an overwhelming force: Position your ships behind your starbase, allowing it to tank the damage, and use whatever reinforcements it calls in as shields. Focus your fire and just try to take out as many enemy ships as possible. When your starbase is pretty much dead, initiate a retreat and regroup your ships for another defense or counter attack.



=When attacking a heavily defended planet:
A- Try to catch the defender off gaurd with a dual prong attack. Drop something in that'll get their attention, and when their ships turn to deal with it drop something else in the blind spot(s) of their fleet.



B- Deploy lots of corvettes, frigates, and cruisers in a firing line like formation and try to lure the defender's fleet out to meet yours. If this fails, you can order them forward and use them for the main-line attack.



=Raiding / Provocation / "Herd Thinning" A corvette with power to engines or other rapidly moving craft can reach the defender's ships (which spawn in whatever randomly generated formation) before they've re-positioned themselves properly (or if it's an AI, they've all turned tail and are moving towards the starbase: completely vulnerable). So it is very possible to drop in directly on top of the enemy and do some damage then quickly retreat before things get too hot, even with a strike force significantly weaker than the opponent's fleet.

=Scouting: Like raiding, but mostly for gathering intel on the enemy, their fleet, the map, and any defensive structures + where those are. Best conducted with something that has a few squadrons of fighters to scout the map, see what the opposition is like and how quick they get shot down as a bonus gauge of the enemy venerability to bombers.

= When attacking a lightly defended planet: Overwhelm the enemy with your superior numbers and firepower, but don't get too cocky. Be vigilant for any bombers they may have, and watch the shielding on your ships

= If the enemy has a Gravity Well, and retreat is not an option, you do not have to commit all of your forces to the battle. You loose by default if everything currently in the world is destroyed, however whatever reserves that you did not call into the battle, retreat. Note that the AI is stupid and will always deploy its entire task force.

= When Encountering a Super Ship: If defensive, best option is to retreat to allow for greater flexibility in the positioning of your ships, unless you've got an extensive ground to space weapon system in place to handle it. If attacking, be vicious, brutal, and unrelenting. Try to get in their blind spot and do as much damage as possible. If you're planning a frontal attack, best be prepared for casualties, but give 'em hell nonetheless.

= When encountering Raider Fleets (Thrawn's Revenge Specific) Identified by the message "We've detected unidentified ships entering hyperspace" at the start of the battle. If you're attacking, thats great as they usually consist of a few Star Destroyers and will automatically move towards the enemy Starbase. Best thing to do is move your starting, scout ship to a corner and let them wreak havoc before actually attacking yourself. Now, if you're defending and this happens, don't give up all hope. Raiders are hostile to both players, and might just end up fighting the enemy off for you.

Planetary Information & Land Battles:

I know this is the "Admirals 101", however one cannot simply overlook Generals and land operations as a whole.

-You can change where structures / units are placed on the land map by zooming in to the planet and viewing the map ( if you've got mods that change the ground unit cap (Republic at war) it might not work correctly, because its hard-coded for 10). Unfortunately you cannot move Turbolaser towers or Shield generators.

-If you have a fleet in orbit you can call in bombing runs and/or turbolaser salvo attacks, varies a little bit but its generally safe to assume any frigates with hangar hardpoints are capable of bombing runs and any capital tier ships have lasers. If the fleet is hostile, expect to be bombarded.

-Planetary Perks: Some planets give boosts to specific units and or allow special abilities. Ilum, for example, in Republic at War makes Jedi stronger, while Rhen Var (I think) allows the CIS to salvage space debris for $. These perks are galaxy wide as long as you control said planet.

-Planetary Modifiers: Apply specifically to battles on that one planet. Some places don't allow hovercraft to be used, others are harmful to infantry units, etc.

-"Civilians": Supposed Civilians units will appear on certain planets, but are always loyal to one faction or another and serve as free scouts / weak infantry units. Best used to quickly capture reinforcement points across the map and boost your cap. They will continually respawn so long as their "Civilian Dwellings" stay intact.

-Factories on planets provide free units in the defense of said planet and essentially multiply the defensive garrison. Assaulting a major droid foundry or ATAT factory world might not be a good idea without proper preparation and tactical consideration. Highly defensible factory planets may as well be called fortress worlds, and quite honestly if the enemy has poured a lot of resources into the defense of a planet, they haven't invested the money elsewhere therefore it may be better to focus your efforts in a different sector.

-Shield Generators will stop orbital bombardment in a small area, but are not impassible. Although they actually work really well as walls so long as you garrison your units directly behind the shield, letting it nullify enemy fire. *Use the STOP command to keep your units from leaving the shield*


-Turbolaser Towers: Very Powerful, but horrible against infantry due to their slow fire rate.
-Turrets & Build Pads: Use them! They're extremely cheap in Galactic Conquest mode. Anti Air Batteries are especially useful and will stop bombing runs, and have a considerable range in which they can manually target ground units if need be, but do little damage. Anti Infantry / Anti Tank are self explanatory.

- VS AI: If you continually defeat an AI's ground invasions, they will never advance their fleet further into your territory, and might actually give up and move elsewhere.

Miscellaneous Game Mechanics

(Tentative Section still in work, *=not 100% certain/need to test more).
Things deserving of attention touched on throughout the guide, info here may be redundant.

=Pausing
You can pause the game in singleplayer, which lets you plan ahead and issue many coordinated orders in different areas. Take advantage of this when you can, like the start of a galactic conquest when you're placing buildings on your planets.

=Economy
The Economy of Empire at War consists of Credits, which can be earned by
-Constant income from the Stardock on your starbase + building Asteroid Mines in Space Skirmish
-Constant income from your Command Center + building Mines / Resource Pads in Land Skirmish
-Planetary income from controlled systems + building mines on controlled planets + winning battles in Galactic Conquest mode.

The most important thing is to up your income and start building units.

=Tech Tiers
Empire at War features a few tech progression systems which unlocks more powerful units as you advance:
-In Land/Space you can buy tech ups from your Command Center / Starbase respectively.
-In Galactic Conquest however...
--The Empire builds research labs and buys tech ups from them
--The Rebels use C3PO to steal tech, unlocking something of the next tier each time
--The Consortium corrupts planets or something and steals tech that way I think*
--Some mods have their own systems, like Thrawn's Revenge using Imperial Leaders.

=Hero Units
-In Skirmish, Heros are basically just units you can buy.
-In GC Hero units become more important, and respawn after a set amount of time.

=Stealth / Spying and Raids
Some units / Heros have the Stealth attribute, which in Galactic Conquest lets you put them in a fleet by themselves and send them into enemy territory without initiating a battle. This lets you gather more information about the enemy before you make a move. Taking advantage of the fact that they do not trigger battles, stealth Heros/Units can be used for covert raids on poorly defended planets. If you win, this also destroys the enemy starbase.
The Rebel faction can form additional stealth parties of up to 3 units of any type, including T40b tanks and MPL artillery, for raids.
Republic at War has many more Stealth Units, however the AI doesn't seem to use it in my experiences.

=Reinforcements / Unit Cap
Unfortunately there are noneconomic constraints to the number of units you're allowed to have;
-In Space Skirmish you are limited to deploying 20/25 points worth of units simultaneously, but can build unlimited reserves.
-In Land Skirmish you can only deploy 9 units simultaneously, but can build unlimited reserves.
-For GC, in Empire at War you don't get to choose what gets deployed first however you can hyperspace in your extra units if anything dies. Forces of Corruption and countless mods use this system:

In Addition to this, Galactic Conquest also limits the total number of units you're allowed to have based on the number of planets you own, the number of buildings on your planets, and the levels of starbases on your planets.

=Retreat, Engines & Landing Zones
Engines allow ships to retreat from battle in GC so long as one engine remains intact. If the enemy tries to retreat sic all your firepower onto them.
Land battles also have a retreat function, if you're defending the planet its more like a surrender button really, but if you are invading and having no luck you can retreat back into orbit by bringing troops back to their landing zones.

=Vision Radius vs Engagement Radius
Your ships have both a FOW clearing radius and a radius in which they will attack any hostiles, however the two are actually separate values and can be misleading.
-Corvettes tend to have a long vision radius but medium attack range
-Frigates tend to have both medium vision and attack range
-Capitals tend to have attack ranges slightly larger than their FOW reveal
-Super Ships tend to have insane FOW clearing and very high attack ranges.

=Nebulae and Asteroid effects
They're quite nasty space hazards, and you should plan your strategies with them in mind.
Asteroid fields do damage to any ship >moving< inside their range. (stop command helps).
Nebulae fields affect ships vision range and shields*, making them venerable.

=Power
A Land battle mechanic, Turbolaser Towers and Shield Generators require power from the Power Generator structure on the map in order to function, so it's another structure to defend. Also they're usually in really dumb spots, like the generator on Hoth being at the bottom of the map and nowhere near your base for some reason.

=Shields
An extra layer of health that absorbs damage, protecting your ships turret hardpoints. Generated by shield generator hardpoints on frigate tier ships and above. Proton Torpedoes bypass them and will directly hit your hardpoints.

=Repair / Healing
There are a couple systems here, basically once something is gone its gone.
-Fighter Squadrons consist of about a dozen individual fighter units flying in formation which can be healed by being in range of a repair satellite, but destroyed fighters are not replaced.
-Ships either have visible hardpoints or hidden hardpoints, in the latter case they use a simple health pool for the entire ship, which can be repaired to full.
-Ships with visible hardpoints calculate their health by the sum of their hardpoints' health, which can also be repaired when in range of a repair satellite, however cannot be replaced once destroyed.
-Your Starbase also uses hardpoints, which can be repaired for (a lot of) credits in Skirmish mode, but again cannot be replaced if destroyed.

=The AI
My current understanding from years of observation and what digging I've done into the code and source files, the AI basically generates "Goals" like "Take planet X" after certain intervals of time. The AI will then focus itself on trying to do its task. If it doesn't have the resources to achieve it, it can cheat them into existence anyways on certain difficulties.
The AI's calculation of sufficent force seems to be made using expected Autoresolve results, and the target seems to be "defeat the enemy while suffering 30-40% casulties", but if the AI has deathstack fleets available then they will definitely be using them.
The AI doesn't really think long term. Sometimes the goals it generates are economic, like "build 5 mines" or some factories, but it doesn't specialize planets into being vehicle foundries near the fronts, or fortress worlds at defensible chokepoints, and doesn't even put its mines on high-credit value worlds either. The AI doesn't plan multi planet campaigns like "conquer all enemy worlds in this sector" or "break through the enemy front here and take as much as possible".
Also, the AI cheats. It can and likely will spawn in units from nowhere, and oftentimes gets straight out multipliers to all credits earned (how it spams capital ships with only 1 mine in skirmish mode).

Anything I missed?

If you have suggestions, questions, comments, criticisms, memes, anything of the sort, feedback is welcome & I will get back to you when I can. The intention of this guide was to give information about the core game mechanics- a sort of universal guide rather than one specifically for the vanilla game, Thrawn's Revenge, Republic at War, etc, which is why I did not go further in depth explaining each faction & their actual units. Alas, I will happily answer any question if you leave it here.

[Legends Thrawn]

Wow. One of the few people I've seen or heard of who know how to actually play this game and employ proper Imperial ground and space tactics. (If you would be willing, please make a guide exclusively for TR. I feel like that would truly help many new players, seeing as it is the most popular mod for Forces Of Corruption). The only disagreement I have with this is the lack of adaptability when it comes to the Hapes Consortium. The new update for Thrawn's Revenge buffed them a huge amount.

And may I just say this 'was... so artistically done.'

Thank you for your time.

[budisourdog]

I have added a little section on it and have tried to keep it as unbiased as possible.
Numerically yes their DPS is much better - to shields.
I do not view them as a threat because they do 0 to hull, meaning I can shoot off all the turbos facing towards my fleet on an enemy ship in a line, render it harmless, and move on to the next.

[captainrandomness343]

I would honestly put Ion cannons up higher on the list. They do more damage to shields then Turbolasers. I suggest knocking out the Ion Cannons as fast as possible to make sure the shield stays up as long as possible

[Khorne]

NAH I'll stick to the Tarkin doctrine thank you very much

[Lone Star]

I disagree with Ion Cannons being a low priority target. Depending on the ship, I would say make them an immediate priority as soon as possible. Maintaining your shielding is vital to surviving battles when you are out numbered. You will also take fewer losses throughout the duration of a battle.

[AlbinoDragon14]

There is one exception to the never autoresolve rule.
To explain it I need to first explain how autoresolve works.
Autoresolve assigns a pre-set value to ship and stations from the code, however, these values never change. It doesn't matter if a Super Star Destroyer only has one hardpoint left its autoresolve value will remain the same.

This is the one time you want to use autoresolve: when your force is on its last legs against a much superior force, last one or two ships, and they don't have engines. This means they're going to die and can't retreat.
This is especially useful over planets where you only have defensive stations and not an orbiting fleet, so when you're most powerful stations are about to die, autoresolving is an option to take out a couple of your enemies' ships.

[Schames]

In my experience, I would argue that Ion Cannons are a higher priority than regular turbo lasers. The Regen "Health" in shields is very powerful and can mitigate alot of damage done by turbolasers, but the large amounts of damage done by ion cannons are usually enough to overwhelm the regen. If you can take out the ion cannons (Which are usually not that many) it will drastically extend the life of your shields, and thus how long your ships are fighting with all of their hardpoints and dps. Yes, in the long run targeting turbolasers will mean they have nothing left to hurt your hull, but by then they will also have taken down your shields and destroyed some hardpoints making the next ship attacking you harder.

[PerilousPenguin]

You should do one of these separately for the 4.0 mod because this is fantastic! thank you!

[=7Cav=SGT.Thrawn.N RET]

Thank you for this Lesson Admiral. I hope to use the following and be more flexible especially since remake mod just completely changed from the play style i am used to.

[dylanram]

thrawns revenge has those