Can anyone explain to me the painter fighter strategy? If I put painters and rockets on a fighter, they seem far too slow. Do I just make a fighter w/painter as a weapon, and one with rockets? What orders? Co-operative?
On a different note, is online challenges all player vs player? What is tribe etc…
Thanks!
the target painter help to guide ALL rockets and missiles, so your cruisers and frigates will have better aim too.
online challanges is player created fleets that they have uploaded for people to beat. so no, its not PvP. its more like player vs player creation. PvPC or something…
tribe is one of the expansions that you can buy.
With fighters, faster is definitely better, i.e. more survivable. So your target painting fighters will last longer if that’s all they’re carrying.
It seems like a waste of a fighter to target frigates/cruisers w/paint. I do like how fighters distract the big ships however. Hmmm…
Now on to fighter/fighter, I can never seem to shoot down enemy fighters w/fighters. Pretty much the only thing I get to work are the big ship anti-fighter lasers. Any tips there? I pretty much just try to use rockets and Engine II, anything else on any fighters appear to make them too heavy to do anything but die. Any suggestions?
Using some of the expansions, you can get fighters with more weapon slots, which gives you a lot more flexibility in your designs.
For example, the Scavengers mod has a “heavy” fighter, which can mount 4 weapons, and 4 or 5 standard slots. This allows you to create medium-fast fighters with one weapon, or slow fighters with massive weaponry.
Application:
4 Anti-Fighter missile pods, light armor = excellent fighter defense especially when given orders to ignore frigates and cruisers.
4 big guns/rocket pods, heavy armor, light shield = excellent frigate destroyer, esp when ignoring fighters.
1 Painter, 2 missile pods, double engines = INSTANT DETH TO BAD GUYS…or something like that 
I don’t think mod contents are a good example of how things can be used. Some mods, especially scavenge, are very overpowered. The most noticeable one is the Rock Hull + Ultra Armor + Tribe Repair + Hadronstrahl.
What about fighters for just the "basic"game? I found the Rebel Achilles fighter w/rockets to be the fastest (w/just engine III), but they still don’t seem to take out fighters very well. They kill frigates, but what doesn’t. It also seems that fighters w/anything but Rockets are so slow that everything can take them out. Are there some “basic”-game-only fighter strategies I could play around with?
What are mods? Are they homemade races that people developed to work with the game, hence they are totally overpowered, or “official” expansions (game balanced) that you purchase?
Thanks!
they are homemade races (and therefore free), but they are not necessarily overpowered. Balancing is a big part of modding. The mods that are OP just add an extra challenge 
without being impossible to defeat.
Read about them here: http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=23
Do these mods work on a Mac? I’m not sure how to load them. Just click on a link?
I’m on a mac too, I’ll tell you all you need to know 
Yes, just click on a link to download one (or create your own). BUT most are for PC so the graphics are all dds. To get around that, get gimp if you don’t have it already. Load a dds with it (it isnt a ‘recommended application’ but it is ironically the only one that can open it properly). Then just save it as (original file name).png. move the pngs where they should go. BUT if there is a sound or fx file, your screwed. They are in the same format (.ogg and .fx) but on a mac, the ‘mac’ ones are ‘documents’ and the ‘pc’ ones are ‘unix executable files’ which GSB can’t use.
Its confusing but look through, I should have answered any questions.
PS: The text files don’t need changing because they always say (filename).dds when it is referencing a hull etc., but it doesn’t matter it uses the png.
Any advice on what my first mod should be, considering I have a Mac?
Uni-T (By darkstar076) has a good mac version, and is a very fun mod.
It is also very challenging to play against Uni-T, so if you are a beginner then find something else with a mac version just so its easier.
I’ll amplify that note of caution - Uni-T isn’t meant for those who are new to the game in general, nor modding in particular. It also requires that you already have Tribe, Order, and Swarm. If you do choose to try it, go slowly. 
Questions specific to Uni-T can be posted here. Its creator, darskstar076, is a friendly gent who’s willing to clarify anything in his mod that you’re uncertain about. I’ll gladly state for the record that it’s a superb mod and can offer fun and gut-wrenching challenges even for experienced veterans of GSB.
So I need to download Tribe, Order, and Swarm first, with “gimp?”
I’ve never tried any of the missions beyond easy, but I’ve received between 12 and 20,000 honor on each one. Is there an honor leader board? I’ve begun reading posts from page 23 backwards to try to gain some tips/perspective. (I still haven’t found fighters that can do damage to anything w/shields yet, even though they can fly into shields, again just talking the basic game.)
Once you have purchased and installed those three DLC races, you can then install Uni-T. Gimp is needed for conversion of the primarily Windows-oriented mod content that includes .dds files - as Wasabi explained, you need to have those in .png format on your Mac. However, darkstar076 has already graciously provided an entire Mac-friendly version of Uni-T to make integration far easier. I don’t think that you have to do a mass conversion of graphics in those 3 DLCs just to allow Uni-T to function; I believe that the mod uses other files from those sources instead of the ship .dds’.
I’m not aware of any leaderboard for scores achieved in missions bundled with the game. Online challenges may be differently handled.
Have you tried a fighter loadout of just one plain ordinary fighter laser, one engine-III, and the smallest powerplant you can juice both of them with? That loadout, when deployed in large quantities and with the appropriate orders, can shred many cruisers.
I’ve just found the expansions to buy, and I will once I’ve played around some more!
Have you tried a fighter loadout of just one plain ordinary fighter laser, one engine-III, and the smallest powerplant you can juice both of them with? That loadout, when deployed in large quantities and with the appropriate orders, can shred many cruisers.
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Ahh, those orders! I try order them to just attack cruisers, at optimum laser range, I’ve tried co-operative, vulture, etc, but can’t seem to do much until shields are down. I’ve tried minimum range, to fly into the shields… Any mission in particular a good one to try fighter tactics on?
Agreed. IMHO, needs to be backed up by a few squadrons of double-rocket fighters with an engine II and no poweplant (slightly faster) to engage the enemy fighters exclusively. Still haven’t seen any difference in adding fighters with target painters to that mix, BTW.
Double rocket fighters arent too slow to engage enemy fighters?
nope
a bit inaccurate unless with painters tho
Agree with Gunnyfreak. Double rocket fighters are actually faster than laser fighters, as long as you use Fighter Engine II, so you don’t need a powerplant.