Would you mind posting the builds of some of your commonly used ships (list of modules) so I can get an idea of what works. Your Tribe fleets absolutely crush everything I throw at them.
Tribe is really easy. Just load it up with weapons, 1 shield, and engines (depending on fleet).
So a regular Tribe Missile will look like this
5 MWM
1 Guidance Scrambler
1 Pulse Laser
1 Cruiser Laser
1 Reinforced Power
2 Micro Crew
1 Engine2
1 Reflective Shield
In doing some experiments, I found that shields heal an amount equal to their recharge value every 2 seconds. However, they actually recharge in jumps every 2/5 of a second. So they heal 0.2*recharge rate every 0.4 seconds. (sorry if this is the same as what you had in the comparison of shield 2 and fast recharge shields)
I also did some experiments involving repair modules and found that they work in a very similar fashion to shields. They heal 100repair rate every 2 seconds and also go in jumps every 2/5 of a second. So they heal 20repair rate every 0.4 seconds. If my math is correct, this would mean the nanobot repair module heals about 5.5 health/sec and the tribe cruiser repair heals about 6 health/sec.
I’ve actually never found the reinforced crew module to be worth the extra cost. Since damage is randomly distributed and most weapon modules have about 100 health, all your ship’s weapons would most likely be destroyed before that extra health would make any difference.
Does anyone else put frigates armed with anti-fighter missiles in formation behind their cruisers? I’ve found them to be both cheaper and better than anti-fighter cruisers.
On another note, this guide is really awesome! 
You’ve put in a ton of work helping people to get better at GSB.
Thanks for reading through this guide.
The tick is actually 0.42 seconds, no 2/5.
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=5656&hilit=repair+module
The idea of reinforced crew or power is not to shield that ship, but to shield your other ships as it’s getting killed. 1 more shot to kill that ship means 1 less shot on your other ships.
Reinforced crew is also lighter, which occasionally means +1 speed. Reinforced power give +1 power, which at times might be useful.
The anti air frigates are not very variable since, being a different type, your opponent can kill them first just by setting priority to frigates. Though this is not very relevant in playing challenges, it will be apparent when making one.
Hmm, I guess I’ll need to take another look at reinforced modules. Wait, when a ship loses its weapons doesn’t the enemy stop firing on it anyway?
Huh, I hadn’t thought about someone specifically targeting my anti-fighter frigates. They’re also not immune to rocket fighters like cruisers would be. However, all my cruisers have a guidance scrambler beam, which is usually enough to protect my frigates.
Since my anti-fighter frigates are in the very back, sending in frigates or cruisers to destroy them would put them in the line of fire of every one of my cruisers. Since I normally use a combo of cruiser plasma launchers and nomadic beam lasers, relatively fast frigates and cruisers could race in without taking too much damage. However, if they were fast enough to dodge most of my shots I would lose anyway, regardless of what they chose to target first.
Oh, I probably should have mentioned this much earlier, but I also always have a fair number of laser cannon fighters escorting one of the cruisers in the center of my formation.
Yes, this guide is really helpful! I’ve played GSB for over 1300 hours and I still don’t understand all the complexities.
I haven’t see much cruisers floating around and “not die”, especially if the other side is using the co-op tag.
Well, offensive rocket fighters never happens since they can’t damage cruisers with shields, so you won’t have to worry about that. Rockets are almost always leashed and are primarily use for anti fighter/anti frigate. Even against your fleet it’s better to keep my rocket fighters on escort, or to skip fighters entirely, then to actually offensive rocket to try and kill them. After all, your AA frigate is no threat to anything else.
This means offensive fighters are usually laser and/or pulse, specifically targeting cruisers.
Not exactly. Giving your frigate are on formation, they are as slow as your cruisers. So even long range stuff like plasma would hit them. And if the person is rushing anyway then it doesn’t even matter.
But don’t take my word for it, feel free to experiment with it as you like.
Again, frigate AA works great against offensive fighters, but they don’t work against escort fighters.
Also from your description, your fleet is exceptionally valuable to frigate spams.
Thanks.
I think I’ll try out the reinforced modules and see what happens.
Hmm, so I’m guessing that the auto-retreat when a ship’s weapons are destroyed is actually very bad, as it would shift fire away from your retreating ships (which are really only good for absorbing damage) and onto your healthy ones? If this is true, then it would be wise for me to give all my ships “last stand” orders, correct?
That’s true, you wouldn’t have to rush in close to be able to hit my AA frigates. Missiles have the longest range, but my cruisers’ scrambler beams would neutralize them. So, that leaves cruiser plasma as the next longest ranged weapon. However, since my back two lines of cruisers are armed with cruiser plasma launchers, any ship close enough to hit my frigates would also be close enough for me to hit. But, as you said, since they’re AA frigates most people wouldn’t bother targeting them first, as they’re not a threat to cruisers or other frigates.
Yeah, my fleet almost always loses to cruiser laser rushes and fast frigate spam. I’ve been trying to come up with a better general fleet but I’m kinda stumped. What do you think?
Put a Cruiser Laser on each ship. You don’t try to get in range with those. They are just there to prevent a rush.
Put a Pulse Laser on each ship. They are anti frigates which also happen to deal damage to fighters and CL spam. After you do that you might find yourself not needing AA frigates anymore.
Yes, adding guns that isn’t long range means you will lose to someone who spend all their guns on long range. You can’t have everything in this game.
Hmm, that would decrease my damage from long range but probably not by too much…and it would definitely help against rush fleets…I think I’ll try it!
Yeah, it’s annoying to me that even my best fleets can be beaten easily, but I imagine it’s also what makes the game so much fun. If there was one ultimate strategy it would get pretty boring.
Yes even sets of 3+ fleets can be beaten easily with the same fleet. This is why the SAC challenge was introduced, to add some fun on the challenger’s end.
Beating 1 fleet is just too easy to be fun after a while.