Not mine, but very good and worth reading.
This is not a guide on how to fight, it's a guide on what's important in a fight. Feel free to comment.
1. Fighters win battles. You need a lot of fighters to win a single battle, and even after their nerfing, they're still the key to nearly every battle you fight. The person who brings the most fighters to the battlefield has the best chance of winning, flat out. Generally, you should never stop building fighters, even after your defensive umbrella is done, build more of them. You'll also need a way to move them around, either carriers or fleet carriers. Sure, you can fill the hulls of dreads and cruisers with fighters, and that's good because you'll need the extra fighters, but carriers will make your life easier, especially when it's time to do drops or to go get more fighters. Regular carriers are cheaper to build and thus easier to replace than fleet carriers, but FCs are slightly more efficient than carriers. Your choice. But always build more fighters.
2. Recyclers win wars. While you need a lot of fighters to win a battle, you need LOTS of recyclers to win the war. Don't stop building these either, if you can avoid it. A fleet with 10k of these buggers can clear a million point debris pile in 10 hours. Enough different people go to work on a pile, and it could be gone before the defeated opponent even gets back online. Recyclers will keep your coffers flush with cash so you can build more fleet, mostly fighters and recyclers.
3. Get there fast. The winner of a battle often is the one person who can get their fleet there the fastest (and with the mostest, to use the old quote, but we're focusing on speed here). You can increase the speed of your fleet in 3 ways:
A) Divide up your fleet. Destroyers move faster than cruisers, cruisers are faster than Battleships, and everything is faster than a Death Star. Break up your fleet so the smaller elements can get to the battle faster. If you face overwhelming forces on arrival, you'll also be able to recall just your big guns and let the smaller ships take the brunt of the damage.
B) Research. Warp is good for cruisers and up, stellar for Ion Frigates down. Which should you focus on? Depends on your fleet composition and how you deploy them. If you're top heavy with HCs and dreads, dump everything into warp, otherwise go stellar.
C) Jump gates. Build them, find them, use them. A jump gate is great not just for offensive operations, but simply moving fleet around. All bases should have at least a level 1 gate, but I think it's better to have at least a level 3, with one base per galaxy having at least a level 7. You can go highter (and probably should), but after 7, it just get's nuts expensive.
Selecting Your Target
Once you've got your fleet assembled and you're ready to move, it's time to pick your target. Here are the rules for deciding if you should hit your target (summarized list first, so I don't forget, then the details):
1. Can you win?
2. Can you get the debris?
3. Where is your target from?
4. Where is his friends?
5. Where are your friends?
6. What kind of person is he?
7. Will it be worth the effort?
The answers to each of these will determine if you should attack a given target. Let us get into greater detail.
1. Can you win? - This is the most important question before all other questions. Can you win the battle if you start it? A 100k fleet probably isn't going to destroy a 1 million fleet, but a 900k could, maybe, if set up right. How do you decide? Really, it all comes down to fleet composition. What does he have and what do you have?
Cruisers are generally the most effecient warships in the game, so they can take on anything up to Dreadnoughts fairly easily, with enough numbers. They should NOT take on lots of fighters because the fighters will have more than enough power to overcome their shields and take a big chunk out of them. In fact, often the most effective unit against cruisers are fighters (and heavy bombers, who will tear a chunk out of the cruiser fleets).
Vast hoards of fodder ships (Ion Frigates and less) can either be taken out by high level shielded ships (Dreads and up) or by fighter wave strikes. If there are no big gun ships backing up the fodder, then you can take in the dreads and up and clean them out, if they have back up, use the wave attack method.
All things being equal, the only real way to tell is via a battle calculator, which means you need the enemies tech level. Once you have that, you can get either do the math by hand or try one of the old BCs floating around (not completely accurate any more due to Fighter nerfing). It'll give you a rough idea of victory.
REMEMBER: When calculating, don't count carriers or recyclers in your plans. NEVER USE CARRIERS OR RECYCLERS IN BATTLE!
2. Can you get the debris? - Wars in AE come down to two things: Pride and Profit. Recyclers win wars because they give you profit. Pride is intangeble, so don't worry about it too much, just know that when it gets hurt, there's usually a war. Anyway, the point is if you get the debris, you win the war. Getting debris depends on two things: How many recyclers you have an how many hours you can sit on the pile. Big piles need lots of recyclers and lots of time. Figure that half of all destroyed fleet will end up in the pile, so do a rough guess as to how long you'll need to hold the pile based on how many recyclers you have. Of course, if the target is on a planet with about 10 other enemy fleets sitting there, your odds of getting the debris is pretty low, if nonexistant. In which case, revaluate your reasons for an attack, and change your fleet composition or target accordingly.
If YOU can't get the debris in time for reinforcements to arrive, bring in other players to help. In war, there is no shame in sharing debris with other players (that are not the enemy). The goal is to deny the ENEMY the debris, the profit, and the pride. Only then can you win the war.
3. Where is your target from? - Seems like an odd question, but it's not. Think of it this way: Most players with the "mega fleets" (multi million point fleets) are old and have a lot of planets, BUT, odds are good they don't have more than 20 planets, and there are nearly 60 galaxies per server. Figure many of the first planets are in their starting galaxy, and the odds of finding one planet belonging to a mega fleet player in your galaxy is very low. So they have to send these great fleets into galaxies where they have no bases, and no way to refill their fighter and recycler supplies. Fighters win battles, recyclers win wars. Megafleets without either are pretty useless, thought that depends a lot on the player's personality (which we'll get to in a moment).
So given a choice between attacking a local fleet and one from 10 galaxies away, who do you go after? Depends on the other questions, of course, but the very fact that they can't easily refill their fighters makes them very tempting targets.
Local fleets are more dangerous because they can refill their fighter numbers fairly quickly (within a few hours usually). But you may still have enough time to gather up the debris and leave before the reinforcements arrive.
If the target fleet is over the target's base, then you have to deal with the defenses, which brings us back to the question of Can you win?
4. Where is his friends? - Basically this is the same question as #3, but only about support and reinforcements for your enemy. What fleets can they call on to help? If you take the base (and thus alert the entire guild to your activites) how soon can you expect a response? Really, you need to know the enemy before you do anything. Of course, you may not be able to (it is a lot to take in), so do your best guess. And then resort to #5.
5. Where are your friends? - Just as vital is where your friends and allies are. Can they respond if you need help? Do they have recyclers on hand to help suck up the pile? Can they alert you to movements? Are they even online? Can they donate fleet to help take the target down? Coordinated strikes are often better than lone strikes, so getting help is great, so if you can, do so. Two heads and two sets of eyes are always better than one. And 30 is better than 2.
6. What kind of person is he? - Personality plays a key role in the value of a given target. Megafleet players are often big chest beaters, but when it comes time to actually use their fleets, they don't. Rip out their recyclers and tear up their fighter cover, and they'll retreat to their impentatrable bases to restock. When they do fight, they'll do so for high levels of profit (debris, pillage) for low risk (their fleet). Make it cost, and they'll go gun shy. Of course, they can also get seriously pissed, and throw everything at you, which is fun in it's own way. If you have an idea of how some of the players will respond, you'll know if you should attack them at all.
Demoralizing the smaller players is great fun as well. How terrible is it when their mighty 100k fleet is sitting on a jump gate with MILLIONS of fleet flying around, only to have you come in and blow them to hell and no one responded to the threat? Or have all their recyclers suddenly vanish because they left them undefended? Or watching as the megafleet that was suppose to help them hold the galaxy suddenly ends up in your credit account? Moral, as much as recyclers, determines the outcome of a war, mainly how soon the enemy asks for peace. Break their moral, and the war is all but won.
Finally, try to get an idea of when your target is online. Some of these players never seem to sleep, but if you can get them when they're not on, you'll reap the rewards.
7. Will it be worth the effort? - Finally, what did you gain out of it? Did you have a good ratio (your losses less than the enemies)? Did you make a profit (more debris/pillage/piracy than you lost in fleet)? Did you harm moral or weaken the response ablity of a megafleet? Will your operation lead to the end of the war? Was it worth it at all? Think about the goal you have in mind when you launch such an attack. Other players may question why you did something that seems unprofitable or whatever, but sometimes profit isn't always possible, or even desirable. Sometimes, the profit comes in other forms, often more long term than anything else.
There is one last thing to remember: AE is a GAME, a WAR GAME. You fight wars to have FUN! If you're not going to have fun, then don't do it, it's not worth it at all.
Feel free to comment and discuss.
Fri May 06, 2011 7:43 pm by 
