Heavy Bombers pack enough punch to take out main fleet units-Cruisers and Heavy Cruisers-but they are vulnerable and expensive, as well. Their relative efficiency over Heavy Bombers makes them more useful than their counterpart in a defensive role. Their ability to harm Cruisers makes them especially handy in the defense until you have Heavy Bombers. While less efficient, they can still be slightly efficient meat. Bombers have the same armor as Fighters with twice the firepower and twice the cost. Application of Fighter waves in combat can significantly improve your exchange rate. You go through Fighters at an obscene rate because Fighters are basically designed to die. Build thousands for base defense, and then keep building them for use with offensive fleets.
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A fleet that runs out of Fighters will take far higher losses, and can be defeated in detail for obscene exchange rates by anyone who manages to catch them. It is literal to say that you can never have too many Fighters. That makes Fighters your primary unit for use as cannon fodder. The damage they absorb per credit is unparalleled. Fighters are the single most efficient ship in Astro Empires. These are the staple of all fleets in AE-defense, offense, everything. We now look at the support units in greater detail. Corvettes are useful in raider, emergency resupply roles. Destroyers are also highly effective against Escorts again when there is no enemy Fighter support. Heavy Bombers are effective in killing Escorts when there is no enemy Fighter support. Fighters are the best in killing unshielded units. Generally speaking, there are three support (meat) units you want in battle: Fighters, Heavy Bombers and Destroyers. In the Small Fleet approach, capital ships are generally not built because of their inefficiency.
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Escort ships should comprise a balance of Cruisers and Heavy Cruisers. Generally speaking, your support fleet should be mostly Fighters with some Destroyers. Utility Ships: These are units you should never put into combat.Capital Ships: These are massive units (Dreadnought and larger).Escort Ships: These are large, units (Cruiser, Heavy Cruisers and Battleships).Support (Meat) Ships: (Fighers to Frigates).There are four ship classes this guide recognizes: This sub-section provides general comments on the fleet units in Astro Empires. This precedes a short set of points to remember. In this Section, we discuss each unit and their role in an efficient fleet. Your combat will suffer as you will not earn as much as you spend-they Pyrric victory. However, building units merely to create balance means you will spend too much to build a fleet.
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This gives your opponents an opportunity to destroy your fleet more efficiently. The core problem with balanced fleet doctrine is that it convinces people that they need to build and use units that are unnecessary in a fleet.