A Detailed Guide to Ship Hulls and Common 3000 Point Builds (Updated December 8, 2023)

Designing even one multiplayer fleet of 3000 points in Nebulous tends to be very overwhelming for new players. There are also a number of theories/suggestions, people literally telling you exactly what to do in the community.

Vren55, Missile Update and OSPN Tester, and Captain will instead just give some general tips on how to design a 3000 point fleet. Mind you, these are his opinions, so you’ll probably find something different but I hope that these would help.

Introduction

Designing even one multiplayer fleet of 3000 points in Nebulous tends to be very overwhelming for new players. There are also a number of theories/suggestions, people literally telling you exactly what to do in the community.

Vren55, Missile Update and OSPN Tester, and Captain will instead just give some general tips on how to design a 3000 point fleet. Mind you, these are his opinions, so you’ll probably find something different but I hope that these would help.

First of all though, let me go through the hulls that various fleets can use, what roles they can fulfil.
Note that when referring to the missiles I’ll be using the terms below:

Balestra – Size 1 missile
Cyclone – Size 2 Hybrid missile
Tempest – Size 2 Missile
Atlatl – Size 3 Hybrid
Pilum – Size 3 Missile

Special Thanks to the OSPN Update Testers, PuppyfromHell and WeebleKneeble for proofreading and also thebluehaloguy for helping me with the OSPN screenshots

Also check out Jdee's Video here on how to build a fleet. It's not missile update current but there's still a lot of useful stuff. JDee also has a lot of videos on different Nebulous mechanics that are very useful.

Finally I strongly suggest all new players go to the Nebulous Fleet Command official discord for updates and advice. https://discord.gg/5DSrYtrEFr

Part 1: Ship Hulls

Every ship hull has a purpose. In this section of the guide, I’ll introduce you to some basic ship hulls and their roles.

Sprinter - Corvette

Pros

• Fast – means you can use it as a scout, to capture control points, to locate the enemy, to close into the enemy to dump ordnance
  
• Small radar profile – means it won’t get detected too easily and helps you scout enemy ships
  
• Small – means when you get shot at by big guns such as 450mm and Rails, you won’t get hit so easily
  
• Cheap – the Sprinter is the smallest and cheapest hull type so losing one isn’t a major deal to your fleet

Cons

• Fragile – means that if you get hit by 250s HE-RPF, by 120mm guns, or by a Beam, you’re dead
  
• Limited – the corvette has very few module slots and weapon mounts which means that what it can do is limited. It can do a few things very well, but it’s not a Jack-of-all trades. They can bring either a 250mm cannon, some Size 2 missiles in a VLS launch system, or six missiles in either a Canted or Vertical launch system

Why do you want to bring a Sprinter?

You bring a Sprinter for two reasons. You want to swarm sprinters, or you want to bring a scout ship. If you are swarming sprinters, you want to overwhelm the enemy with small targets so that you can kill them with either close or long range missiles, or with a horde of guns. If you are bringing a sprinter in a heavier fleet, you want to equip it for scouting. This means you either fit it with a Spyglass for intelligence, or if you want to get fire control locks, a Bullseye.

One might think that post missile update a point defense corvette would be a good idea, but while having a singular corvette in say a heavy cruiser fleet would assist in scouting, corvettes suffer from a lower power output and few module slots which means you can’t really build a very effective picket ship out of a corvette.

Common builds:

6-10 Sprinters with missiles, four or more jammers.
6-10 Sprinters with more expensive Size 3 missiles.
6-10 Sprinters with a combination or either 120mm or 250mm guns
Note that not all sprinters in these builds have to have the same layout. In most cases one is a jammer, the other holds the missiles, whilst the others hold point defense.

Sprinter Corvettes versus OSPN

Sprinters are still quite strong against OSPN and are used the same, but there are some caveats. One, with the introduction of Mines and Container Missiles, Sprinters need to actually carry good missile defense to clear mines and to defend against stray container missiles. It’s not likely that a container missile will hit a sprinter, but it’s a guaranteed disabled sprinter if a container hits. The Sprinter Swarm however is still pretty strong.

The biggest threat to Sprinters from OSP are 100mm guns, in particular, the grapeshot ammunition as that has an 8km range and can cause critical events on Sprinters. Be very careful of wandering into any warship or even fighting lone shuttles armed with 100mm guns as these can really hurt a Sprinter.

Raines – Frigate

Pros:

• Cheap – Raines class ships are still fairly cheap to bring in the missile update
  
• Excellent Support Weapons Platform – Raines class frigates have four weapon slots which can mount a lot of support weapons. These include: point defense, Electronic warfare jammers, illuminators, pinard electronic intelligence modules, and fire control radar. They also have enough module slots to be equipped with powerful Spyglass or Parallax radars
  
• Can Hold a Lot of Ordnance – Raines class frigates can mount VLS-16 and MLS2 launchers and if specialized properly, can carry a lot of missiles They also can be used to carry four 120mm gun turrets. Post missile update, the Raines can now carry two 250mm turrets and if one brings several of these frigates, it can be quite terrifying for lighter warships.
  
• Good speed – For what it can carry, Raines class frigates don’t need much modification to maintain and be fairly speedy.

Cons:

• Limited Mounts – While a Raines can carry a lot of missiles and even the excellent 250mm gun, it still only has four weapon mounts and only two module slots, limiting the roles it can perform. Raines typically work best when specialized to fulfil a task, such as Ewar, Point Defense, Gunboat, or Missile carrier
  
• Fairly Fragile – Raines frigates are not designed to withstand damage. Do not get hit by 450 HE, by 250s and 120s will still hurt you.

Why Bring a Raines?

Raines are either brought as the primary ship in a Raines frigate spam, or as supporting ships to a fleet. If you want to build your fleet around multiple Raines frigates, you generally want to specialize each Raines around a specific role in the formation and design them with missiles, guns and Ewar to cover all ranges. Typical Raines packs sport at least five frigates carrying 120mm or 250mm guns, torpedoes for close range, at least four jammers, and a variety of point defense turrets.

For people with heavier warships such as Vauxhall, Axfords and Solomons who want to add a little bit of Electronic Warfare, Scouting, a little bit of Point Defense or just something to deal with pesky corvettes, a properly equipped Raines class frigate can do all of that as it’s an excellent support ship. Equip it with Jammers, Sarissas or Auroras and it will help protect your fleets or cover for them.

Raines Frigates versus OSPN

There are some significant threats to Frigates when fighting OSPN, but the frigate also has a lot of strengths too. The frigate is surprisingly durable to OSPN 100mm and even against 250mm and the fact it’s so cheap but can carry weapons such as VLS3 or VLS 2 tubes, 120mm and 250mm cannon means that enough frigates can defeat or harass most OSPN warships. Be careful about the more heavier warships such as the Lineship and Cargo Feeder, though. Common frigate spam builds still work versus OSPN, but their loadouts and playstyles will be different due to the differing nature of OSPN loadouts. Consider a balance of both 120mm and 250mm guns for fighting OSP with missiles.

You can also use "dispersed" frigates with Spyglasses, Adaptive Radar Receivers, and missiles that loiter out of radar range of OSP and kill OSP scouts. This type of gameplay is considered advanced though so be careful.

Common builds:

• 6-9 Gun-Missile Frigate Swarm. Usually sporting a combination of Size 3 Hybrid Missiles, 120mm cannon, 250mm cannon
  
• 4-6 Missile Frigates. A purely missile frigate group might just be armed with Hybrid S2 or S3 missiles. Usually equipped with some form of jamming or long range Spyglass radar, these are intended to scout and waypoint missile strikes onto unsuspecting or occupied targets

Keystone - Destroyer

Pros:

• Spinal Weapon Mount – The Keystones have a unique and very dangerous spinal weapon mount. You can either mount a very powerful Beam Cannon which can eviscerate ships at close range, or a long ranged Rail Gun that can damage even capital ships. Note that supporting modules such as the Focused Particle Accelerator for the Beam Keystone and the Energy Regulator are critical to their operation. Most experienced Beam Keystone players run at least two Focused Particle Accelerators
  
• Variable Utility – The Keystone’s spinal mount means that very few modules are required to support either its Beam cannon or Railgun, which allows Keystones to be refitted with less-power intensive support weapons such as missiles, or guns. Alternatively, due to its mounts, the Keystone can be equipped to be a missile platform with a beam backup.

Cons:

• Relatively Fragile Glass Cannons – Keystones are not particularly well-protected ships and even 120 HE-RPF rounds can damage them (with difficulty). They do well ambushing, attacking, or even defending around corners, but once they start taking damage from larger weapons, they drop quite quickly. In particular, a Keystones’ spinal mount’s frontal placement means it can be disabled quite easily in combat
  
• Not built for speed – Keystones also not particularly fast. They have the same drive and reactor setup as a Raines Frigate but are heavier, which makes them relatively slow ships
  
• Priority Targets – In particular, because of how powerful Beam Keystones are, they are often the first target of more experienced players. Coupled with the glass-cannon attribute of a Keystone, this means that Keystones run the risk of being destroyed quite quickly in an extended engagement, especially if surprise is lost early.

Why bring a Keystone?

Keystones are either brought as core to a Keystone pack (usually of three or more Keystones) or to bring additional “oomph” to an existing heavy fleet.

Keystone packs are often supplemented with support ships of the Sprinter and Raines variety that bring either scouting intelligence, and/or Electronic Warfare capabilities that can be used to protect a Keystone pack and negate some of the vulnerabilities of the ship.

Typically the composition of Keystone-centered fleets are dictated by the spinal mount of the Keystone. A Keystone Railgun fleet would require a lot of spotters to assist the Keystones with firing their railguns or missiles (which rail Keystones often bring). A Keystone beam-missile fleet will often bring significant Electronic warfare through an additional frigate or sprinter to protect the Keystone pack as they close in for a beam attack. Note that Beam Keystones in a pack need to operate under cover and undetected for as long as possible until they can get the perfect beam ambush off, which will easily eviscerate ships within 5km.

In general, Keystone packs carry missile secondary armaments. For Railgun Keystones this gives added tactical flexibility that they lack. For Beam Keystones, heavy missiles allow them to punch up against ships that are out of range of their beam. Consider either Size 3 missiles, Size 3 Hybrid missiles or Size 2 hybrid missiles.

Keystones, particularly beam Keystones, can also be used to augment Axford Heavy Cruiser fleets, providing the much needed alpha damage to take out capital grade targets that the Axford can’t take out.

Keystone Destroyers versus OSPN

The Keystone is still very good against OSPN warships as either part of a group of three Keystones forming a pack, or as a supporting element in a more varied fleet. Jammers are no longer as effective on these Keystone packs, though, as OSPN has the ability to get offset tracks through Early Warning Radar and Long Range Tracking radar. I would personally suggest replacing blanket jammers with point defense, as one of the things the hard to manoeuvre Keystones are vulnerable to are Container missiles. Alternatively, jammer fleets can be augmented with a communications jammer, but these don’t work against Ocello equipped OSPN fleets.

Alternatively, you can consider lone Keystones. You do need to play them quite carefully but on certain maps a lone keystone can cover a point with its beam against a capping shuttle, shutting down avenues of approach. Just be careful not to get counter-fired by missiles.

Common Builds

• Beam Destroyer pack - typically 3-4 beam destroyers with escorting sprinter or frigate for Electronic Warfare support. Sometimes armed with missiles. TF Ashe created by Nebulous Discord Moderator Highscore is a good example of this build
  
• Beam + Frigate pack - a missile focused build usually sporting 1-2 frigates and 1-2 Keystones. The Keystone here is often intended as a close-escort for the gun or more usually missile frigates. Employed by Permanent Tester Zacho
  
• 9 x Rail Destroyers, which is a bit of a fragile and incredibly problematic build but it was tested in testing and could work with the right team support. Most often employed by Permanent Tester Rymarq

Vauxhall - Light Cruiser

Pros:

• Speed - The Vauxhall is the lightest ship that can be equipped with dual 200 and a 500 series drives, which means that you can get a Vauxhall so fast it can outrun Sprinter corvettes. This speed can protect a Vauxhall from fire by getting it into cover quickly and allow Vauxhalls to close into range for torpedo dumps. Furthermore, it allows players to reposition, reinforce and switch in and out with teammates under fire, giving the ship a lot of tactical flexibility. Gun-armed Vauxhalls can pursue lighter ships and rip them to shreds with its weapons. Speaking of…
  
• Weapon Mounts – The Vauxhall can field a wild variety of weapons. It has the ability to equip at its maximum, 6 either 250mm guns, or 6 missile launchers. This can allow the ship to be either absolutely deadly against lighter ships thanks to its 250mm guns, haul a ton of missiles, or be very deadly against capital ships. However, the rear mount of the Vauxhall is in a bit of an awkward position, leading most people to just mount 5 guns. The Vauxhall can also be equipped with Jammers, and bow on its point defense field is quite good, making it one of the most variable ship types in the game.
  
• Surprisingly Durable – When bow-on to enemies, the Vauxhall can be a surprisingly durable ship as its angled armor allows it to tank shots from 250mm and 120mm guns. Gone are the days however when Vauxhalls can tank 450mm HE shells, though. Keep between 7-8km range if engaging heavy gun-armed warships and use its superior evasion to dodge shots. You can’t do this forever though so watch your component health

Cons

• Speed – The Vauxhall is so fast that it is one of the few ships that does not benefit from a Sprinter Corvette scout, mostly because it can outpace a Sprinter Corvette. This means that often Vauxhalls are simultaneously their own scouts, which means they’re often the first ships to be shot at because they’re the first ships to be seen.
  
• Not a Capital Ship – The Vauxhall may be surprisingly durable against lighter ships, but it’s not designed to go against capital ships such as Axford Heavy Cruisers and Solomon Battleships for extended periods of time. It’s meant to support heavier ships from the flanks and screen them, not go toe to toe with them. Similarly, unlike a true ANS capital ship, Vauxhalls are threatened by OSP Rocket volleys if they get close enough.
  
• Suboptimal point defense mounts – While the Vauxhall can mount a very powerful point defense from the front, the way it’s four point 2x2x2 mounts are placed means that missiles from above and in particular, from behind, stand a very good chance of hitting a Vauxhall and since the drive section is at the rear, this can be very bad for a Vauxhall. Additionally, the fact that the 2x2x2 mounts cannot mount Stonewall or Sarissa Point defense turrets means that Vauxhaull players have to choose carefully on how they want to set up their point defense. Recommend looking into Anti-Missile Missiles.
  
• Can’t evade detection without using proper Ewar – the Vauxhall is a small ship but it’s the smallest ship that CANNOT evade detection without Ewar. Any corvette or frigate with a spyglass will spot a Vauxhall at 11.5 km unless angled, but that only reduces the spotting range to 10.6km. This means that a Vauxhall has to use hard cover to evade detection.

Why bring a Vauxhall?

If you’re using a Vauxhall, you’re usually building a light cruiser pack with maybe a single Raines frigate for support. Vauxhall builds have generally become standardized and this hasn't changed much since the latest update. This means if you bring a Vauxhall fleet you’re bringing one of these common builds:

Common Builds

• 250mm gun Vauxhall fleet of 2-3 ships that flits around the map, firing at vulnerable targets, destroying lighter Raines, Keystone and Sprinter class ships, and harassing with 250mm P shells, Axford or Solomon ships (without getting into extended fights with them).
  
• A 250mm gun-missile Vauxhall fleet sporting usually 2 Vauxhalls firing at those lighter ships, while also dumping missiles at heavier targets
  
• An all missile 2 Vauxhall fleet staying away from the enemy and launching ordnance at anything that moves
  
• A torpedo Vauxhall fleet of 2 ships that charges, or lies in wait, and then ambushes high priority enemy targets. Bring extra antennas for this fleet in case your in-built antennas get destroyed.
  
• Vauxhall with support EWAR/PD ship. This build features two 250mm Vauxhalls, each paired with a sprinter or frigate with supporting EWAR. This variant was used in testing period by Moderator Carson, often racking up a lot of damage.

Vauxhalls versus OSPN

Vauxhalls are perhaps one of the best choices of ships to take against OSPN due to their combination of speed, maneuverability and firepower. This is primarily due to buffs to the MK64 250mm cannon. They also are capable of fighting both the lighter Shuttles and Tugboats, as well as the heavier Lineships and Monitors. They only struggle against the Ocello, but even then they can deal damage, especially if they catch the command cruiser in the flank.

The MK64 can now be used in a dual-purpose mode and can damage every ship in the OSPN lineup with its ammunition types. It’s also very accurate, fires fast and the Vauxhall can mount five of them. The Vauxhall’s manoeuvrability and speed also enables it to control space, prevent OSPN point captures and generally intercept and be a real nuisance to all OSPN fleet types.

Finally, the Vauxhall’s status as an excellent missile carrier allows it to carry powerful hybrids versus OSPN warships. It’s just a really good hull to take against OSPN, though, do be careful about fighting OSPN Lineships head on.

Axford - Heavy Cruiser

Note: I’m an Axford main and I play a variety of Axford fleet types so keep in mind that my advice here is going to be more detailed than any other section because I’m a bit biased toward this hull.

Pro:

• Highly Variable – After the Vauxhall, the Axford has one of the most variable hulls in the game. It has three large weapon mountings enabling for a variety of weapons to be equipped. I’ve seen Axfords equipped with a beam turret, missile VLS launchers, railguns, the triple-barrelled 250mm MK65 and 450mm guns. The Axford also has smaller mounts that allow the equipping of jammers, illuminators, and bullseyes and if you so please, 120mm guns, which are now dual purpose and can act as Point Defense turrets. Whatever your fancy, the Axford can be customized to suit your playstyle or preferred weapon. Additionally, while not as fast as a Vauxhall, the Axford can be equipped with triple drives, allowing it to dash across the map.
  
• Good Flagship – The Axford is the ideal flagship that leads a small group of support ships due to its higher durability, large weapon mounts, and most importantly, its two in-built antennas which makes it harder to communication jam, and allows it to get radar intelligence from other ships. It’s also just cheap enough so that you can add supporting warships to bolster the Axford
  
• Firepower – An Axford can bring a lot of firepower for a single hull. Whether this means bringing an Axford with guns and missile launchers, triple barrelled 250mm cannons, full 450mm Axford, or an Axford with beams and guns, the Axford can unleash a lot of firepower. This makes it a high priority target, but it’s a lot of shipkilling power you can bring to the battlefield

Con:

• Requires a Supporting Fleet – The key problem with the Axford is that you require lighter supporting ships to use one effectively. It’s a capital ship that is awesome at bolstering a supporting fleet, but horrible when caught out alone as it’s not as durable as a Solomon, lacks the pure alpha damage as a Destroyer, and doesn’t have the maneuverability of a Vauxhall. it’s a prime target for OSPN torpedo attacks, and can be quite vulnerable to being ambushed. Screening ships are now a must or a second Axford to provide additional firepower
  
• Complicated – As an Axford is primarily a flagship of a flotilla, when designing an Axford, a player has to build it with its fleet in mind. Thus the variety available to an Axford user makes it difficult to build one. A supporting fleet not designed to support its Axford will usually lead to poor results and an Axford without its supporting fleet is dead meat.
  
• High Visibility – Axfords are big and while not as visible as a Solomon battleship, they have got a pretty large radar signature. Expect to be shot at. This is also why you need that supporting fleet.
  
• Poor Point Defense – With the current changes in the missile update and the introduction of Size three hybrid missiles, Axfords now have a much weaker point defense net that is more lore-accurate. This means however that an Axford’s and it’s fleet’s point defense network has to be carefully tuned to counter threats such as hybrids, or if you’re fighting OSPN, Torpedoes, Container missiles and Size 2 volleys. At minimum in the current meta, I would recommend bringing 4 Stonewalls on your Axford and Defenders/Sarissas on supporting warships

Why should you bring an Axford?

When a player brings an Axford, they’re committing to building an Axford fleet, which is either a small group of ships supporting a heavy ship, or two heavy cruisers operating as a self-supporting pair. As to what they want, that’s up to the weapons you decide to bring with the Axford and its supporting fleet. This is because in my opinion, an Axford is primarily a heavy ship that benefits from being supported by team play and by supporting smaller ships.

A few varieties of Axford have emerged, though, to go through the varieties of the different Axford fleets out there would still take forever, I have spent hours designing and tweaking a series of flotillas that all perform differently but I will make a few comments on the common builds.

Dual Axfords – common build type where two Axfords are deployed with 450mm cannons. They can be quite tanky and have good point defense, but suffer heavily to Ewar and a lack of intelligence due to the fact they have to be deployed together. This allows a single jammer frigate to completely blind the two Axfords. Use this build only when your team has adequate and coordinated scouting. The point defense field of this pair of Axfords will also likely suffer due to the significant sacrifices this build has to make. The typical example was, TF Oak, was created by Nebulous Discord Moderator Notsolonewolf.

Hybrid Axford with support ships – The most common build type employed by testers due to the Axfords utility as a missile platform. The actual armament and build of a hybrid Axford with support ships varies and can have a lot of variety. An example of such hybrid builds can include:

• A missile-beam Axford with supporting frigates
  
• A gun-missile Axford with one or two supporting frigates
  
• In particular the gun-missile Axford became incredibly popular due to its ability to use guns as its primary and carry powerful missiles as its secondary armament

Cannon Axford with support ships – The 450mm cannons are a weapon that naturally gravitates to an Axford, as the weapons are cheaper on the power and point requirements, which enables more points to be devoted to point defense, supporting ships and manoeuvrability. The sheer variety of support ships that can accompany a cannon Axford are insane, and I almost exclusively specialize in this field.

• Cannon Axford, Two Ewar-PD Frigates, Scout
  
• Cannon Axford, Single Ewar-PD Frigate, Two Scouts
  
• Cannon Axford, Gun Light Cruiser, Scout Corvette with Bullseye
  
• Cannon Axford, Three Ewar-PD-120mm and 250mm frigates.

Note that when Axfords fight OSPN, the enemy usually has a lot of burst damage and a lot of ways to counter ANS Ewar, which means that the normal strategy of bringing an Axford with significant EWAR doesn’t really work all the time. Rather, the escorts of an Axford have to screen and protect the Axford from containers, rocket shuttles, and other OSPN light ships.

The alternative has been to bring a Dual Axford with weapons to deal with OSPN light ships such as beams, and 250mm guns. Dual Axfords however are more redundant rather than durable. They are still vulnerable to OSPN alpha strikes

Common Builds against OSPN:

• Dual 450mm Axford
  
• Dual 450mm and Beam Axfords
  
• Dual Triple 450mm bottom mount (C50) with 2 Triple 250mm cannon Axfords
  
• Single 450mm Axford with escorts, sometimes the Axford has a backpack of missiles
  
  Some of my current and previous builds:
  
• One Triple 250mm cannon Axford with Beam, One 450mm Axford
  
• One full 450mm cannon Axford, One 4x Sarissa Point Defence Frigate, One MK62 120mm Cannon Frigate, One 2xDefender + Hangup + Blanket Jammer Frigate.
  
• One bow-only 450mm cannon Axford, One Beam Destroyer with 250mms, one 3x blanket-jammer Corvette, One Scout Corvette.
  
• One Broadside 450mm Cannon Axford with 4 Reinforced Corvettes with 120mms.
  
• One 450mm Cannon Axford with S3H Missile Backpack firing salvo size 3 mixed missile salvoes of High Explosive Hybrids, Two Reinforced Corvettes with 120mm + 250mm and defenders, One reinforced cap corvette with one 120mm MK62.

Solomon - Battleship

Pros:

• Biggest Guns – the Solomon can sport the largest numbers of Railguns, Beam Turrets, and 450mm cannons of any chassis, which allows it to output a lot of firepower. Post-missile update, the beam and cannon Solomons are in particular a horrifyingly powerful sight due to the increase damage given to cannons. Rail Solomons however can still be effective in the right hands
  
• Can be Very Durable – the Solomon has a 40% Damage Reduction to its hull and 52cm armor. That means the armour on ship, which covers every external part is protected. In effect, you cannot use 250 RPF to strip off radar panels on a Solomon and 120s would have absolutely no effect. In essence, don’t expect light ships such as Raines frigates to do any damage to a Solomon and Vauxhalls will need a lot of 250 AP shot at a Solomon to do any kind of meaningful damage. Furthermore, even OSPN needs to land at least two plasma hits on the same area to strip the armor of a Solomon. Finally, the Solomon has quite a lot of weapon mounts where Point Defense turrets can be mounted.
  
• Easier* to Micro – Due to the 3000 point limit in most multiplayer matches, the Solomon is often part of a two ship or three ship fleet that requires less micro-coordination. With only a single Solomon to coordinate, one can focus on angling the ship, positioning it properly and getting its weapons on target. I say this with a HUGE asterisk though because while a Solomon is easier to micro, there are a lot of cons to a Solomon.
  
• Lots of modules – The Solomon’s significant amount of module slots allows for whatever weapons it can bring to be buffed to their maximum potential. Cannons, Guns, and Beams are more effective on a Solomon due to this. In addition, a Solomon’s modules allows for players to carry missiles as a secondary armament, which was rather common during missile tester matches.

Cons:

• Not recommended for new players – I flat out do not recommend the Solomon for new players. While easier to micro, it has several significant cons that mean it’s a horrible choice for those getting into Nebulous Fleet Command. It’s even more vulnerable to high-value missiles now so unless one knows how to build a good Point Defense system, expect to get targeted by powerful hybrid missiles
  
• Expensive – The Solomon is the most expensive ship hull in the game at this point, and also requires the most components to kit out, which makes it a huge point investment. This means you can’t really spend a lot of ship points on critical scouting ships, or electronic warfare. It also means that the loss of one Solomon for a team is a loss of a lot of firepower and points.
  
• Highly Visible Priority Target – Because Solomons are so dangerous, they’re almost always priority targets for the enemy team. Rail, Cannon or Beam Solomons immediately draw the attention of every player on an enemy team, leading to players focus the Solomon down with all their weapons. To make matters worse, a Solomon has such a large radar signature that you are likely going to be seen by any radar at their maximum range.
  
• Slow – The Solomon is a battleship, so it’s obviously going to be slow. The problem is that it’s so slow, you have more difficulty getting to a place where you can shoot the enemy, you can’t escape from fire easily, and once you get into trouble, getting out is not as easy. It also means that a Solomon player has to plan their moves out in advance or be able to use the map very well. If you specifically build for speed in a Solomon, you will have to sacrifice other things such as point defense and damage potential. This leads to the biggest con of the Solomon which is:
  
• Unforgiving – The Solomon is hands-down the most unforgiving ship type in the game. It may be easier to micro, it may have the biggest guns, but it requires such a high degree of strategic skill and knowledge to employ that only the most skilled players can use it to greatest effect. And even for the most skilled players, their Solomon can be utterly destroyed if a pair of corvettes filled with hybrid Size 3 Atlatl missiles ambushes them in the wrong spot. I’m not even discussing in detail how hard it is to build a Solomon with all its component slots and modules. Moreover, unlike an Axford, you can’t even bring a support fleet to assist the Solomon, only maybe a single support frigate or a pair of scout corvettes. Against OSPN, plasma and 100mm cannons are the biggest threat to the Solomon as it strips the battleship’s armor before 100mm cannons tear the Solomon up.

So why bring a Solomon?

To bring a Solomon is to gamble. If you bring a Solomon you are gambling hard that you are the one to bring the most powerful ship frame in Nebulous Fleet Command and do insane amounts of damage. A well-employed Solomon supported by its team will rack up a ludicrous amount of damage, tank hundreds of hits, and utterly devastate an enemy fleet. Even a moderately well-employed Solomon with its scout frigate or corvettes can land hit after hit of Cannonfire, or Beam lasers, ripping apart enemy Axford cruisers and OSPN heavy units, which no matter their variety, must treat Solomons with great care.

On the flipside of the coin, if a player brings a Solomon, they also run the risk of being the target of an ambush, focused down, blinded by Ewar, missile-barraged to death, and utterly destroyed before they can even get 10K damage. I have seen so many Solomons who barely break 3k in damage done and this has not changed in the missile testing branch. This is because everybody knows how dangerous you are, and if they can see you, which they have a good chance of because of your huge radar signature, they will shoot at you.

Rail Solomons with Scouts were one of the most common and usually most effective build in this version of Nebulous, at least in 3k battles. However, with the MK82 double-gun railgun removed, the Rail Solomon is no longer viable.

The Gun Solomon with Scouts is also common and has become more popular with Missile Update Testers due to the buffed 450mm cannons. By virtue of the only Solomon able to use quadruple drives, it is more manoeuvrable and flexible than a Rail Solomon. Moreover, the 450mm cannons now hit hard, and with the right modules can hit fast and accurately. That being said, a Gun Solomon is still a single ship, and in testing it was still very easy to focus down an out of position Gun Solomon with missiles. Have a good Point Defense network and don’t try to solo the enemy team.

The Beam Solomon with Scouts is another common build, sacrificing range for an insane amount of close range firepower. This build hasn’t changed in the missile update. Battleshorting is commonly used in these builds to fire the beams of this ship at close range, and most fleets will die when encountering a Beam Solomon at close range. The problem with this build however is that get caught in the open, or even seen charging to make your attack, and you will get shredded and focused down. High value and powerful missiles have it harder for Beam Solomons to ambush enemy fleets, so consider adding anti-missile missiles, or even offensive missiles to assist in your ambush.

Hybrid Solomons, usually gun-beam Solomon builds, are also employed frequently in Nebulous. This was so that if a Gun Solomon was approached by an enemy ship, it could defend itself more effectively as railguns are now no longer a brawling weapon. Usually a beam turret would be placed on the bottom mount of a Solomon, giving approaching enemies a nasty surprise. In addition, Solomons might also find use for a beam to deal with OSPN or ANS light ships at close range.

Try to always bring a scout ship or jammer ship when bringing Solomon. It already lacks the manoeuvrability, Electronic Warfare to gain intelligence. You do not want to blind yourself by having no scout ship.

Solomon versus OSPN

The Solomon is still an excellent fire platform and its got a toughness that forces OSP players to focus it down or avoid and ignore it. That being said sustained Plasma-100mm fire, 450mm lineships and Torpedoes all can pose a threat to the Solomon. Try not to charge and go in guns blazing versus the OSP as the higher maneuverability of their warships will lead you to be out-positioned and ambushed.

As a result, consider the following:
1. Beam Solomons are hampered by their short range, but are potentially difficult to dislodge from cover, and can rapidly melt OSP light ships, one after another, if they get the chance.
2. Cannon Solomon provide long range fire support and defense, and are generally tough to as they need sustained fire, but there is the potential to outmaneuver and out position it so that you can focus your OSP team's fire onto it.

For both, pick engagements that contribute to the capture of points, and try to have an exit route ready at all times. This is less so due to the Solomon's fragility though and more to do with the fact that the battleship's speed and slow thrust means it is able to hold down a position and take space but if it is endangered it can't get out of it easily. Moreover, it is very common these days to have the Solomon being the lone ship left standing but its team losing on points, so try to engage in a fashion that contributes to capturing the points.

Common Builds

• Beam Solomon - A Solomon with 3 or more beam turrets. A terrifying sight, needs to be carefully used.
  
• Gun Solomon - Solomon with all 450mm Cannons. Sometimes equipped with a backup Beam for close support.
  
• Solomon + Point Defense craft - Usually a 450mm cannon Solomon with one or two craft equipped with Point defense

OSPN Ship Hulls

Although the trailers, dev diaries and other material promote the OSP as an ambush faction and wielding plucky civilian up-gunned warships, this is NOT the case.

Instead, I find it useful to think of the OSPN fleet roster to resemble that of a certain group of dissenters that fought a conflict across the stars with magic space wizards—Yes the OSP is more like the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars and I don’t mean early stage fighter dependant Rebel Alliance, I mean late-war Rebel Alliance/New Republic fleet.

This doesn’t mean OSPN doesn’t have significant disadvantages to the ANS. The OSPN don’t have access to hybrid missiles period. They don’t have as advanced ship radars and so most of their ships cannot Burnthrough jamming. They don’t have any heavy gun turrets over 100mm for most of their warships.

What they do have to make up for these shortcomings is firepower, area control and brawling. This is the name of the game when it comes to the OSPN space fleets

Ferryman Class Shuttle

Pro:

• Fast – Shuttles are very speedy and can make 50 m/s easily.
  
• Deadly Punch – Shuttles can carry rockets which are a deadly threat to the lighter ANS warships including the Vauxhall.
  
• Cheap – Shuttles are very very affordable and are cheaper than ANS sprinters
  
• Small – It’s damn hard to hit a shuttle even with light 120mm or 250mm cannons

Con:

• Fragile – The Shuttle is the smallest ship in Nebulous and isn’t designed to last in a stand up fight
  
• Limited power – Shuttles are not very good utility ships. They can mount jammers, but they are best use as fast attack boats, not jammers
  
• Micro Intensive – the fragility of a shuttle means that players have to micro them quite a lot to be effective

Why Bring a Shuttle?

Originally for passenger use and intended to ferry people, OSPN Shuttles in Nebulous instead ferry deadly Rockets or Mines, or can be used to extend a player’s vision thanks to their superb speed and maneuverability. They’re cheap, they’re fast and the mines and rockets they carry can be used to take out ANS Sprinters, Frigates, Keystones and even Vauxhalls. They can also drop mines on what your opponents think is a neutral point. You can't take out an ANS capital ship with one rocket shuttle in the current patch though.

The problem with the shuttle is it doesn’t have a ton of power. While shuttles with reinforced components (say a reinforced CIC and reinforced engine) can reduce the amount of damage 120mm and 250mm cannons can inflict, they will kill the shuttle eventually. Moreover, due to this fragility, it’s fairly micro intensive and it doesn’t have a lot of power for you to work with.

In the OSPN testing phase rocket shuttles have been employed as scouts, minelayers, and rocket ambushers operating as both a single ship in a fleet or as part of a swarm. The ideal shuttle attack group is a wing of 3 shuttles, usually one with a jammer of some kind and some point defense. This enables OSPN to field 3 wings of 3 shuttles and an additional support vessel such as an Early Warning Radar (EWR) ship.

The cheapness of the shuttle also makes the ship an ideal capping ship and the rocket pods can be surprisingly effective versus things like Sprinters or Raines.

Common Dedicated Builds

• 1 Cargo Feeder or Tug Early Warning Radar ship with 3 x 3 wings of Rocket Shuttles. Each wing of 3 has one shuttle with a jammer, sometimes with a Pinpoint Fire Control Radar, usually with some kind of Point Defense such as a PD11 turret or Anti-Missile Missiles. This kind of build was most used by OSPN Tester and Nebulous Boot Camp organizer Hopeful Monster.

Tugboat - Clipper Class

Pro:

• Fast – Tugboats are decently speedy
  
• Small – the Tugboat’s small size means it’s hard to hit with 450mm guns
  
• Decent slots – The tugboat has a spinal mount and four supporting mounts for missile launchers, jammers, point defense and guns

Con:

• Fragile – 450mm and 250mm cannons really hurt the tug and 120mm can hurt it as well
  
• Limited Module Size – The tugboat can only mount a 250mm spinal mount or a R400 Long Range Tracking radar as it’s largest weapon

Why Bring a Tugboat?

In terms of role and function, Tugboats or Tugs are the OSPN equivalent to the Alliance Raines Frigate, though, they are comparable in size to sprinters. They are the smallest ship that a player can equip the OSPN’s very powerful Early Warning Radar or the R400 Long Range Tracking Radar. As such, they can operate a variety of roles, either as a swarming attack ship or as a player’s support ship by being equipped with either J15 and J60 jammers, MLS launchers, rocket launchers, point defense, Pinpoint fire control radar or a spinal 250mm cannon.

The Raines can mount two 250mm turreted cannons, while the Tugboat can mount one, spinal mount. However, the 250mm C53 Spinal cannon is nothing to be laughed at. It has a very large autoloader and can unload a lot of shots very quickly.

This gave rise to Permanent Tester Hunter's Multi-Mission Tug build, which is also used by Permanent Tester Xenophon of Athens. Multi-purpose tug boats are tugboats equipped with one C53 or C30, MLS-2 launcher, and a jammer, as well as anti-missile missiles. This leads to a scary one-ship unit that can cover space, take out enemy scouts and provide sensor coverage.

Another build popularized is the Tugboat Torpedo blob. Armed with cheap MLS-3 tugs usually illuminator directed, the tugboat torpedo blob uses a combination of jamming, speed, the amazing C53 and sheer mass to just charge ANS battlegroups, torpedoing any that stands in its way and finishing them off with the C53.

Common Builds

The most common builds featured them being used in a swarm, dispersed or supporting heavier OSPN warships as utility vessels. Each tug is often armed with both 250mm spinal.

• 7-8 x 250mm Tugs with MLS-3 Torpedo Launchers. Very very scary.
  
• 7-8 x 250mm or 100mm Tugs with MLS-2 launchers, when deployed dispersed in spotting positions and with jammers, this Multi-mission tug build provides superior vision to your team whilst allowing you to kill their scouts.

Flathead Class Monitor (formerly Cargo Feeder)

Pro:

• Tanky - The Monitor has 48mm of armor and 20% Damage Reduction. It can even take hybrid hits and survive when built correctly. It's also got good acceleration meaning it can dodge enemy ships at range.
  
• High Volume - The Monitor has some very large compartments enabling for a lot of ordnance to be carried.
  
• Affordable - for being able to carry such powerful weaponry such as the unique C90 60mm cannon and having its armor, the Flathead is fairly cheap

Con:

• Not Maneuverable - The Monitor is shaped like a brick and manoeuvres like one, don’t expect it to be turning around quickly
  
• Small - while heavily armored, the Monitor is a small and compact vessel. Alliance railguns and HEKP missiles will tear them apart.
  
• Limited mounts - Flatheads have enough mounts to mount primary weapons but when it comes to point defense and utility, compromises have to be made.

Why Bring a Monitor?
Nicknamed by some as “The Grain Silo” and “the Brick,” the Flathead-class Monitor is a durable firebase meant to screen smaller OSPN ships or escort larger OSPN ships. Despite its small size, it has 48mm armour, and a 20% damage reduction, making it one of the tankiest warships of the OSPN roster. It has very large compartments for its size, allowing for significant numbers of mines and missiles to be carried. Alternatively, one could equip the Flathead to carry weapons in the form of 100mm cannons, a spinal railgun, Plasma, Rockets, 450mm or 250mm cannons.

The Flathead also has a unique weapon, the 600mm C90 Cannon which fires two shells. One is the Bombshell, a timed-fuse shell that can be position fired by players, but unlike Radio-Proximity Fused rounds, does not detonate automatically against targets. The other is the 600mm High Explosive Squash Head round which does good high-explosive damage against armoured targets. This weapon has pretty good utility versus masses of small ships and medium-weight ANS warships. When massed in a group of 4-5 monitors, they can even take down ANS heavy cruisers.

The Monitor also has a some very large compartments and with its hardpoints set up the way they are, it can be equipped to barf a volley of 16 missiles all at once and still be able to carry more.

All this comes at a tradeoff. The Flathead can only mount a single large spinal weapon and two turrets, and realistically only two Point defense slots. This combination along with the OSP’s current weaponry and locking ability means that a Cargo Feeder is best served as part of the fleet types listed below.

Common Builds

Ocello and Monitors - Two or occasionally three Flatheads paired with an Ocello can create a powerful and tanky fleet that can deal with swarm opponents whilst providing the player with tactical flexibility. This fleet does not however have high damage output but it can be geared to damage any kind of ship.
Monitor Swarm - At least two, usually three cargo feeders armed with plasma weapons and 100mm cannons and backed up by supporting tugs with jammers or Early Warning Radar. This variant is one of my own inventions actually and was featured in the update trailer played by Commodore and OSPN tester Goldstei
Speedy Monitor Swarm - test games have shown that the Monitor is one of the few ships that can mount a Sundrive type drive and a Yard drive at the same time to give it a really high speed. This enables monitors to be formed up with tugboats to create a speedy Plasma- 100mm ball of death
Missile Monitors - Flatheads are excellent Missile ships and Mine layers. They can mount multiple MLS-2 or MLS-3 launchers or mine layers as part of a larger OSPN fleet. The large volume of the Flathead means that it can carry a large amount of ordnance for a fairly cheap hull that is also durable
Lineship and Guard Monitors - Lineships can be paired with "Guard Monitors' which are C90 and T30 turret armed monitors able to protect points or private an escort for high-damage lineships.

Marauder-class Lineship

Pro:

• High Firepower - A bulk freighter can carry the broadside of a Solomon for a fraction of the price
  
• Big, and so surprisingly Durable - The sheer size of the bulk freighter means even 450mm shell hits don’t necessarily damage the warship much

Con:

• Huge target - There’s no real hiding this vessel behind jamming
  
• Limited Arcs of Fire - Due to the hull constraints and shape, players don’t have many arcs of fire when using a Bulk Freighter
  
• Clunky - It’s a bit of an ungainly mess due to its size. Be careful of hitting rocks with this vessel
  
• Not particularly fast - Partly due to its size, the ship is not going to be dancing around the map. That being said, the right drive combination can get this beast up to 55 m/s

Why bring a Bulk Freighter?

The Bulk Freighter Line Ship is the result of the OSPN taking civilian ore or bulk freight carriers then up-armoring and up-gunning them to the point that they become combat ships. The Bulk Freighter’s ANS equivalent would be the Axford heavy cruiser, or Solomon battleship, though, to be clear, its durability doesn’t quite work in the same way and it has very different weaponry.

For one, the Bulk Freighter has less armor and damage reduction stats than the Axford. However, the sheer size of the bulker allows it to tank quite a lot of firepower head on without module loss, even beams. It also has a fairly narrow side-profile enabling it to actually dodge some heavy firepower. On the flipside, the ship cannot indefinitely tank shots because it’s not-military-grade structure health might get structure broken, at which point even bow tanking will not save your ship.

The Bulk Freighter has the ability to mount a row of four 450mm dual casemate cannons, or four Railgun casemates, on its side mounts, but if you want to bring more than one freighter you might only be able to fill one side. Alternatively, certain bulk freighter hulls allow for Plasma turrets and 100mm turrets to be mounted in a fashion where the majority can bear forward. This allows for a powerful brawling fighter. It could also serve as a missile boat and carry a battery of MLS rolloff missile launchers. Either way, bulk freighters can carry a frightening degree of firepower.

The tradeoff is how awkward the bulk freighter is. It’s bigger than a Solomon, but without the turreted guns. The side-mounted railguns and 450mm casemates can’t traverse very far so you can’t bow tank with these armaments and unless you or your team has an Ocello you can’t lock from very far away. The Plasma cannon and 100mm turret freighter is a little more gainly, but not by much. A CHI-7700 drive is usually recommended for this ship. In addition, getting caught out on the wrong flank by an ANS capital ship or light cruisers means you should prepare to get punished. Oh and HEKP hybrids at the right angle will shred you.

Typical fleets with bulk freighters had the lineship being accompanied by an Ocello, as a pair of bulk freighters, or as a ship escorted by smaller cargo feeders, tugs and shuttles.

Common Builds

• Dual Plasma-100mm cannon bulk freighters with supporting warships. Invented by Community Contributor Puppyfromhell.
  
• Dual 450mm bulk freighters with missile sidearms that was first employed quite early on in testing by Nebulous Developer Mazer Ludd. It's also the layout for Starter Fleet, Kyanite Squadron, the starter fleet I designed.
  
• 1-2x Rail Mass Driver Lineship + support warships with R400 and Early Warning Radar. Most employed by OSPN tester Snowblind
  
• Dual or Triple 450mm bulk freighters with either or both R400 Long Range Tracking radar or Pinpoint Fire Control Radar. Most often employed by OSPN testers nocek and Weeblekneeble
  
• Rail array line freighters involving two-three mass driver-equipped line ships. A favorite of Permanent Tester Rymarq
  
• 250 lineships - never underestimate three broadside 250mm lineships as they spit out a ridiculous amount of fire that will kill Axfords quickly
  
• The Cross-Shaped Plasma + 250mm + 100mm lineship - invented by OSPN tester WeebleKneeble (who initially helped mentor me in the game) this wicked, truly wicked warship has a specific cross-shaped version of the lineship mount 3 x 250mm casemate guns, 2 x T81 plasma turrets, and 6 x T30 100mm turrets. You use the 3 x 250mm casemate guns to aim the warship in the right direction and unleash the full salvo. It's Damage Per Second output is insane, almost like that of a under-powered beam battleship.
  
• Missile Liner - a single bulk freighter filled to the absolute brim with cruise-guided Size 2 missiles. This is a nasty build able to waypoint strike onto vulnerable ANS warships. A high degree of skill is required though
  
• Rocket Liner - a bit of a meme build but employed by Mazer Ludd and others, the rocket liner has a single lineship with... only RL-36 rocket launchers that unleash a hail of unguided hell into the enemy's face. A bit of a one-trick pony, but very effective if correctly used.

Moorline Class Container Liner

Pros:

• Carries Ton of Containers - You can kit out a cargo ship with about two hundred or so containers
  
• High Utility - Decoy Containers can mess with the enemy’s mind, whilst mine containers can really mess with the enemy ships if they try capping your points
  
• Applies Pressure - the sheer amount of cargo containers that a Container Freighter can carry means it can apply pressure on the enemy for a long period of time in the match

Cons

• Fragile - Having your Container Freighter shot at might trigger a Container Bank Critical Event which leads to the explosion of a bunch of your highly deadly containers, whilst on your ship. A big oh no.
  
• High Value Target - The Container Ship is pretty expensive, and so losing it and more importantly, the highly valuable and deadly cargo it carries is a big loss to one’s team.
  
• Map awareness sacrifice - By bringing a container liner, you commit to hiding a very powerful warship from the enemy. This means that your team is sacrificing quite a degree of map awareness. Your team formation thus better be well planned so you have people to protect your front line and scout.

Why Bring a Container Freighter?

There’s not much to say about the Container Freighter. It’s a ship whose one job is to keep firing a stream of low moving container missiles and it does a fantastic job of it with its rack upon rack of containers. Every one of these missiles can do significant damage to ANS ships if they hit. Not many of them will hit but the fact that the freighter can continue to fire them means it will continue to apply pressure on ANS taskgroups. After all, you can carry a lot of them.

In addition, the Container Freighter has two very powerful utility containers. Minelaying containers allow it to deny the enemy the ability to capture points or ensure OSPN points are protected. Decoy containers can be fired to mimic lineship and clipper signatures, enabling OSPN to draw ANS reaction and strike from another angle.

The big weakpoint of the Container Freighter is that it’s fragile. It’s very much a support ship to be kept far away from enemy lines or heavily escorted by the OSPN team. Hits to the container banks can cause a catastrophic detonation. Keep this ship safe and it will tend to really screw up ANS ships.

The Ocello - Command Cruiser

Pros

• Has all the ANS equipment you know and love AND OSPN equipment. This gives it potentially a very strong EWAR suite
  
• Good Bow-Tanker - the ship’s narrow silhouette and all-forward armament enable it to dodge incoming fire and take it on the nose without valuable compartments being compromised. Can be further exploited by putting "Reinforced" tag compartments in the bow
  
• Fairly fast - it’s a speedy vessel that can intercept Vauxhalls
  
• Decent Firepower - 450mm cannons, triple-barrelled 250mm cannons or plasma cannons, you name it, the Ocello can bring it.

Cons

• Jack of All Trades master of none - It’s not a ship that one can refit to specialize in just one thing due to limited compartments, mounts and modules.
  
• Expensive - It’s more than 500 points, one of the most expensive combat ships in the OSPN roster
  
• Not particularly durable - technically, even 120mm AP can damage the Ocello
  
• Needs time to point nose onto target

Why Bring an Ocello?

The Ocello is a cross between the Vauxhall cruiser and the Axford heavy cruiser. It’s one of the most expensive hulls in the OSPN, but for good reason. The Ocello can mount both OSPN and ANS equipment. Although it doesn’t have access to hybrids, the fact that it can bring the Bullseye fire control radar and ANS Ewar and soft-kill, while combining it with OSPN Ewar and softkill makes it a very valuable warship.

Bow tanking with this warship is a must. The Ocello has a narrow shark-like silhouette which allows it to dodge incoming fire very well and take what fire it gets on its bow. While vulnerable to being flanked, the forward-facing armament the Ocello sports allows it to bear its full firepower on a target without concern.

Ocellos can be fitted into many OSPN fleets. They are usually part of a dual-Ocello fleet, where two Ocellos act a hunter-killer role, taking out smaller ANS vessels or skirmishing with ANS heavies. These two Ocellos can also provide EWAR and long range locking capability to their teammates.

Ocellos can also be integrated to support lineships, tugs, cargo feeders or rocket shuttles in various OSPN fleet lineups. The list goes on a bit too long, but having the Ocello supporting lighter OSPN warships was a fairly common sight in the testing phase.

The Ocello's flaw however is that it's a bit expensive and lacks the raw alpha damage that its OSPN counterparts have. Ocellos are tanky and can help cover fellow OSPN warships with their superior ANS point defense but even a built up 450 cannon Ocello can't output as much raw damage as a bulk freighter. As such, Ocellos are best used in conjunction with the other OSPN warships. Moreover, while the ship is fast enough, its not as manoeuvrable as the Vauxhall and needs time to swing its nose towards the target.

With a note on Ocello's tankiness, it's often usual to fit 4 compartments with the "reinforced" compartment types (eg. Reinforced Damage Control lockers or Auxiliary Steering, or Damage Control Centres) to the bow of Ocellos. This drastically improves the Ocello's bow-tanking ability as it's damage reduction and the Reinforced Compartments stats allow the Ocello to be all but immune to 250 HE and 250 AP and resistant to 450HE. Only 450AP has a guarantee of destroying the Ocello's bow compartments.

Common Builds

• 2 x 450mm Ocellos sporting heavy guns, or some jammers. Usually employed in a similar fashion to the Axford TF Oak pair, except as a faster and more mobile version
  
• 2 x 250mm Ocello, sometimes with Plasma Cannons. This version takes advantage of the ability for Plasma to damage ANS warships and take their armor down, enabling 250mm HE shells to damage Axford and Solomon class warships
  
• 1 x 450mm or 250mm Ocello + support vessels such as a plasma-100mm Cargo Feeder, or Tugs. This enabled the Ocello to carry around extra anti-capital firepower, EWAR or point defense
  
• 1 x 450mm or 250mm Ocello + 450mm or Mass Driver/Rail Bulk Freighter Line ship and maybe one support vessel. This other version allowed for an Ocello to use its Bullseye to get locks onto enemy vessels for the supporting lineship
  
• 1 x 450mm or 250mm Ocello + Plasma-100mm Bulk Freighter Line Ship enabled a 450mm Ocello to support the brawling Plasma-100mm lineship
  
• 1 x 450mm Ocello + Container Freighter was something created by OSPN tester Snowblind, featuring a cheap Ocello with a cheap Container freighter. At this point I’m unsure how the points balanced out but it enables a lot of missiles + 450mm firepower
  
• 1x ANS Rail Ocello + supporting warships is something experimented on by OSPN testers to see how effective Alliance Rails are against Alliance warships. It can be quite effective at turning close fighters in a pinch. Supporting warships usually have an Early Warning Radar and a Long Range Tracking radar
  
• 1 x 250mm or 450mm Ocello + 5 or more Rocket Shuttles. Employed by Discord Moderator Notsolonewolf and others, this horrifying version of the Ocello allows the player to keep one durable warship in the fight against lighter ANS warships and then swarm the map with rocket shuttles that can set up ambushes on larger ANS capitals
  
• Ocello and its monitor friends - Monitors with their tankiness provide a pretty good combat escort for Ocellos as they can help the expensive warship cover more distance, while bringing utility to an Ocello fleet. Suggest either Plasma Monitors, or C90 + T30 Monitors

[samthemostepic]

Thanks.great work so far!

[vren55]

@samthemostepic slowly working on it

[samthemostepic]

could you please update to include carriers

[vren55]

@Frenzymode: The Axford's MK65 triple barrelled 250 guns are NOT dual purpose. Only the MK 64 single barrelled 250 guns are dual purpose. You need to manual-control-fire the MK 65 and even then it isn't that effective.

@Wulfblitzer Ah sorry that wasn't clear. When I wrote Dual I meant, 1 x 200 and 1 x 500 series drive.

@lancetekk Problem is that missile defense is a taste in and of itself. There are so many varieties within the fleet archetypes that I decided not to include such a section. THat and the meta for missiles *keeps changing* so writing a missile defense section is essentially dating the guide.

[FrenzyMode]

I tried equipping an Axford with 250 HE-RPF but it doesn't auto fire at missiles with clear fire unlike the Vauxhall. Does the automatic dual purpose guns only work on the Vauxhall/ or do I need a specific fire control center?

[WulfBlitzer]

The vauxhall only has two module points that can have a drive. Not sure where to fit a third

[LanceteKk]

Good Update. It might be worth to consider adding a brief missile defense overview aswell, as the ship layouts strongly differ in this regard.

[Old_BONE]

Very informative guide. Thank you.

[Adyne]

Another thing I like about Axford is it's unmatched versatility.
The other ships are variable, but usually remain specialized. Put your points into one strength by sacrificing strength somewhere else. The ability to make a balanced ship is a strength of the Axford no other ship can match.

[Dame Puffball]

they did the Solomon dirty with that damage resistance nerf