Playing as Feds, By Boggz

Share and discuss your gameplay strategies.
1, 2, 3, 4
posted on January 25th, 2011, 10:16 pm
Last edited by Boggz on February 16th, 2011, 8:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
[align=center]The United Federation of Planets

  A little overall gameplay advice....

By Buggzy :D[/align]




CONTENTS:
  • Overall Observations
    - Strength Timeline
  • The Magic Chassis 1
    - Special Researches
  • The Warpin
    - Standard vs. Experimental
  • Baseline vs. Specialist
  • Teching Up
  • The Fed-Roll
    - Borg
    - Romulans
    - Dominion
    - Klingons
    - Federation


1.  Overall Observations

  Defensive passives, ftw!  :D 

  "Good day, Lieutenant.  The United Federation of Planets is counting on you to valiantly defend Humanity by crushing the tiny miners of your opponents over and over again.  To do this you will be provided with the best-defended and cheapest ships EVER.  If that's not enough, we'll toss you some free battleships every 3 minutes.  If that's not enough, we'll also provide you with the most overall useful turrets in the game.  If that's not enough, just spam Monsoons from 3 yards. 

  Good luck, young man!  Starfleet is counting on you!"


 

[align=center]Strength Timeline[/align]
 The Federation strength timeline (very general) goes like this: (scale of 1-10)

Early - [align=center]2[/align]
Mid - [align=center]5[/align]
Late - [align=center]10[/align]

 The reason I put it as this is due to the fact that the Federation has one of the slowest basic ship setups.  For your first real combat vessels you need engineering and a research before you can produce.  On top of that most of your ships are slow to build compared to other races.  This is made up for by strong defenses combined with direct damage specials on your baseline ships.

 As mid-game comes around, Warpins will begin to add decisive firepower to your fleet (or numbers will begin to show if you are multi-yarding without warpin).  Teching up can also grant you access to more unorthodox but game-changing ships like the Remoore (with PDP and Precise) or even E2's.

 Late game is where the tidal wave of humanity comes crashing down as Warpins plus massive numbers of powerful ships becomes overwhelming even to races that rely on soaking up damage and repairing it or escaping (Rom / Kling or Borg Spheres / Cubes).  The "Fedroll" goes into effect as you are able to produce massive numbers of ships for a lower general cost than others.

2.  The Magic Chassis Level 1

  From Chassis Level 1 you are granted 2 vessels: The Intrepid and the Monsoon.  These vessels will handle almost 80% of the vessels in the game quite well.  There are certain ships your enemy can field that will hard counter BOTH, but overall these two ships can basically handle the game for you.  Here's why:

  • Monsoon:  High Density Shield Generators, Short Range, 140 speed, anti-small Special
  • Intrepid:  Auto-Defense AI, Short Range, 130 speed, anti-building/large size Special

  Clearly vessels with Ablative Armor will frustrate you endlessly, but there are only a few ships that will basically hard-counter you and they are the Vor'cha, T-15, Defiant.  There are others that will perform very well, but no others will take you apart as effectively as these 3.  K'vorts will perform nicely but can still be handled well by your Chassis 1.  Keep in mind that Monsoons will be auto-targeted before Intrepids, so when preparing for combat try to make sure that your Monsoons are in a place where they will attract weapons fire from things like Sangs, Canaverals, T-15's, or Excelsiors in order to maximize your cover.

   Basically these two vessels will make for excellent baseline units throughout the game depending on what units you are facing.  Sangs, T-15, B-8's, Dodes, Excel II's, Rhienns?   Monsoon!  Akiras, KBQ, Bugs, Spheres?  Intrepids!  They'll tank for almost all your other ships and do so while reducing the incoming damage.  Boom, headshot!  Also these two vessels will be almost all that you need against the Borg.  Monsoons for Dodes, Intrepids for EVERYTHING ELSE :badgrin:.  Poor Borg.

  These two ships are both incredibly fast.  This allows you to double their uses as both raiders and interceptors.  Few enemy ships will be able to escape you if they launch a shortsighted attack.  The Defensive passives allow for an easy retreat as it's generally harder for ships to deal death blows against you as well.  You'll find that Mayson Monsoons will be a MAJOR force to be reckoned with.

[align=center]Special Researches[/align]
Proxy Torpedo
  Proxy Torpedo will be your best friend against a number of issues.  Proxy Torp is what suddenly turns your fast and sturdy Monsoons into fast, sturdy, and packing a nasty sting.  It will let you send 3 Monsoons on a mining raid instead of 4+ and get out quickly.  It will also help you counter problem units like Leahvals that really do well against a vast array of your ships.  Proxy Torp IS what allows you to get the finishing blow on Cloakers and it helps you prevent a buildup of powerful cloaking ships to the point that you can no longer hope to stop them.  The Romulan and Klingon ability to preserve their fleets suddenly comes to a halt! :D

Tri-Cobalt
  Tri-cobalt Torpedo research is less immediately applicable than the Proxy Torp in my opinion, but it offers you some more exotic tactics of which you can take advantage.  Tri will allow you to take on Turrets effectively while a Monsoon or two effectively tank the damage from the nearly uniformly long range turrets.  They also can allow you to go straight for mining STATIONS as opposed to just harassing the freighters.  Because the Intrepids are strong torpedo-armed cruisers they are are able to run in, blast the Station with torps and Tri's and run out.  They don't do a great deal of damage to starships compared to Proxy, but against Large-sized vessels they'll never miss and can fire on a retreating vessel from artillery range, so let those torpedoes fly!


3.  The Warpin

  Ahhhh the Warpin .... the impetus behind countless balance threads and bitchfests ... The warpin represents free ships.  They are free.  No questions asked, no promises made.  But dear lord ... should you lose your Warpins you will start paying supply out the shpongstooker.  The Warpin recently received this penalty in order to prevent Warpins from being throwaway or kamikaze units and you would do well to keep it in mind.

  Fast-teching to Warpin can still be a viable strategy, but one that will not provide you with a distinct vessel able to counter what your opponent is building.  In my opinion the Warpin is the heavy firepower that you will need once you've established a stable economy and a reliable force of baseline ships.  That's when the warpin shines: when you can take full advantage of the Nebula Refit's Precise Volley, the Steamrunner's Tri-loader, or the Ambassador's ability to tank Turrets.  Actually going straight from the ground-up to Warpins can be very risky as you are totally at the mercy of the draw and your opponent can build with the intention of countering it.  Romulans will put out Leahvals, Klingons will do Qaw'Duj or Kvorts, while the Dominion can Bugspam you to death.  There are many ways now to overcome the Warpin and you will sacrifice map control along with supplies.

[align=center]  Starfleet does not send you ships to use as cannon fodder...  Should you Warp in Starfleet's precious warships to their obvious doom you will be penalized upwards of 60 supply in total.  Do this at your own risk...[/align]

  My recommendation is to always use Warpins as the name states: as an emergency reinforcement and as the hammer of your striking force.  The Nebula Refits, Galaxys, Ambassadors, Excelsiors, and Steamrunners all possess enormous striking power that can be used to augment your defensive-oriented baseline vessels like the Akira, Intrepid, or Monsoon.  Keeping your Warpins grouped with other similarly-ranged vessels will also help you keep them alive and can help you keep more delicate ships like the Steamies and Excel I's behind your dogfighters.

[align=center]"Warpin is the meat that starts the Fed-Roll a'rollin' :D"[/align]

[align=center]Standard vs. Experimental[/align]
  In most situations the standard Warpin of 3 ships is the tool for the job.  You get the most amount of firepower, hitpoints, and flexibility for the fewest number of warpin slots.  There are however times when a massive roadblock in the form of a Descent can be just what the doctor ordered.  I generally find that Descents shine most when used against Borg opponents (rarely miss with their torpedoes) and when used as a strong defensive vessel backing up a turret or two.  Hitting shield recharge on one of your torpedo turrets is a major boon for you and will endlessly frustrate your opponent.  In most other cases though the Descent is not as useful as Galaxys and Nebbies.


4.  Baseline vs. Specialist

  The Feds are relatively unique amongst the races in that they have many vessels capable of being deemed 'baseline' units that still fulfill specialist functions.  I am of the opinion that this is because nearly all are well-equipped with defensive traits that allow them to survive more often than not in many situations.  Some, however, are able to completely counter certain enemy units with their traits and I'd like to point out why.

  • Monsoon:  High Defense, HDSG, Direct Damage special
  • Intrepids:  High Defense, ADAI, Anti-building Special, Split Beam/Torp Weaponry
  • Akira: High Defense, Regen Special, AoE Officer ability

  These units are perfectly suited for providing a strong backbone of Shieldpoints between your enemy and your specialist units.  I considered adding the Excelsior 2 into this list as it's a very easily spammable unit, but I felt that it's slow speed prevented it from being overall useful enough to be considered a higher-tier baseline unit like the Vor'cha.  Nonetheless, these 3 will be the main units you use early on to establish yourself on the map and to test your opponent's attention to the counter-table.

  The more specialist units for the Feds, unlike some of the other races are actually able to hold their own quite well and perform well across the board and in many situations.  Part of this is due to their generally high defense and part of it is due to their very useful special abilities.  I'll go ahead and go through what I consider to be the best uses for each vessel.

Saber
  Tough call here.  Thought about making it a baseline, but I settled on calling it a specialist because Saber play is pretty unique among just about all races.  Saber-spam itself is a very difficult strategy to beat without the correct approach, but winning a match with Saber-spam while making mistakes is not an easy thing to do either.  The function of the Saber is to draw and dodge enemy fire away from your other vessels.  Sabers in a group of 4 or so using Hyper Impulse will draw fire from auto-targeting fleets and have a good chance to dodge it when Cover Fire is activated.  That's 4 seconds of basically zero damage being applied to your fleet.  Nothing to sneeze at...  Saber spam itself as a build order and strategy is a game of patience.  You build up your fleet of Sabers until you've got the numbers to actually kill something before your Sabers get taken apart themselves.

[align=center]"2-3 Sabers attacking alone is a great way to give your enemy some ranks..."[/align]

Canaveral
  Very underrated in many situations.  Highly overrated in others.  Before investing in the tri-heavy research and construction of a Canaveral ask yourself, "why am I building this thing?".  If your answer is anything other than "Because I want Sensor Blackout", then I highly recommend reconsidering your choice.  People may disagree with me and say "Oh c'mon, Boggz!  Fast Tracking Computers, Support Status, and long range ftw!".  Totally!  They have some great attributes.  They also don't tank when they are using EC3M and that IS their defensive trait.  Their trait prevents them from being a tanker.  No problem there, but they have only 13 offense which does not lend itself to being much of a DPS vessel either and are too cost-prohibitive to be massed effectively.  Only against K'vorts, Intrepids, Bugs, and Bombers would I recommend using Canaverals as dedicated combat ships simply because of the amount of good they will do.  In nearly all other cases something else will do the job better, for less cost, at less risk, and with greater speed.  It's a support ship, not a battleship!  Sensor Blackout reduces the effective DPS of 5 enemy units by 35% for 25 seconds.  That's AMAZING.  Get good at keeping EC3M activated, turning it off at the onset of battle, hitting Blackout, then re-activating it.  Your life will improve.  You should never need more than 2 Canaverals on the board at a time in my opinion.  Use the tri for other specials or system upgrades instead and use faster, more efficient ships for DPS combat.

Norway (Mayson Only)
  Once the bane of all things ... now considerably more tame.  Norways have not really shown the might they once had in online games, but they now take a slightly different role: that of a dedicated ADAI tank for Mayson.  With a defense of just 20 the Norway remains below Mayson's Intrepids and Monsoons in terms of defensive value.  This means that it will tank damage from units before it goes onto the others.  In many cases this won't be a good thing, but against ADAI units like Bugs, Intrepids, Excel 1's, or Eresis they will soak up auto-target damage and shrug it off.
  With regards to Emergency Power and Assault mode; I have found few uses for them to be honest.  There is always the use of an extra 60 energy on a Steamrunner, and Monsoons can also benefit from it, but the micro needed in order to identify which ships can use the energy and give it to them will be very difficult to do in a heated battle.  My suggestion is that several Norways be used to power that can quickly make strong use of the energy like a Remoore that's just fired off a Precise Volley or is using PDP.  Otherwise it's another short range small vessel in a lineup of short range early vessels.  Use something cheaper.

Nova (Mayson Only)
  I'm gonna go ahead and just confess this .... I have yet to find a really great use for the nova beyond the obvious use of adding extra torpedo firepower to nearby ships.  All the traits exist for a great raider:  Medium Range, 140 Speed, Beam/Torp firepower and a relatively cheap cost.  However something eludes the little Nova that I haven't quite pinpointed.  Part of it is that it's lumped into the Chassis Lvl 2 research and therefore competes not only with the already excellent Chassis Lvl 1 units, but it also competes with the significantly more powerful Akira Class Cruiser.  I'm going to go out on a limb and just say that I feel the Nova has more thorough uses than I've really had time to uncover, but since it's Mayson only he rarely needs to tech up the Chassis Tree and gets a lot out of Lvl1, the Excel 2, and his Warpins.

Excelsior II
  Alriiiiiight!  Now we've got our first offensively oriented production ship!  The E2 will become your mid-late game best friend.  The E2 is the first buildable vessel that will inherently allow you to start taking down "problem ships" like Vor'cha, Leahvals that can't be Proxy-sniped, and will also help deliver the force needed for destroying larger ships like B-5's and Spheres.  Don't rely too much on E2's though to fulfill all your needs ... the vast majority of their firepower is in their torpedoes and is restricted to the 180 degrees facing forward.  That's a critical thing to know: that you basically cannot retreat with your E2's.  Until you've got the fleet for them to back, they are more or less restricted to base defense or favorable tactical engagements.  These will be the wall of torpedoes that make up your Fed Steamroller!    B)  I only recommend using Guided Torpedoes if you are facing many small sized vessels like K'vorts, Sangs, or Bombers, or when you need to make sure you finish off Medium sized units with good cloak like Romulans.

Remoore
  Your surgeon's scalpel and another Fed Player's worst nightmare: The ultimate support vessel :D.  Precise Volley is another ability that will let you get early kills on heavy ships at the opening of engagements, but can also afford you many interesting tactical choices when it comes to using Vector Calculation.  Try and use it on your own or allied ships that can best make use of increased firerate like a Veteran Akira (shoots through shields), a Descent (LOTS of slow firing torpedoes), or a Cube  :borg:.  Point Defense Phaser might be enough to make your opponent ragequit if they are using Torpedo-heavy fleets like Sangs or Bombers.  Use them wisely, grasshopper, for they do go down quickly when focus-fired.

Avalon (Risner Only)
  If you are Risner enough to field Carriers, you best be ready to protect them.  You are locking 50 supplies into an Avalon when you build them and they are sloooooooooow  :crybaby:.  However, they are well worth their weight in supplies as they pack a mighty punch in their phaser and cause havoc with their nasty little fighters.  Never let them get strung out with your interceptors/baseline units running off ahead and fall prey to a decloak.  They are extremely powerful vessels and are 360 degree ships, but they are so slow that they also have difficulty in retreating.  Everyone wants to be the one to kill an Avalon and mass S-2's are the worst thing you could possibly hope to face.

Defiant
  Pure awesomeness.  Pure power.  Pure Borg-bait.  If you ever send Defiants up against Auto-Assimilators or Holding Beam vessels, you deserve more than to have your own Defiant set against you.  You deserve to be slapped with a dead fish  :fish:.  One of the few vessels to have double passives, the Defiant can hard counter a large number of units in the game and are extremely costly in time and resources to actually field for this reason.  Leahvals, Kvorts, Excelsiors, S-2's, and other problem units get absolutely bludgeoned to death by Defiants.  Critical Shot renders large and powerful vessels impotent and the speed combined with medium size and pulse weapons make for a fantastic mining raider if that tactic still holds merit at the Defiant point in the game.  Just don't lose it  :rolleyes:.
posted on January 25th, 2011, 10:17 pm
Last edited by Boggz on February 16th, 2011, 8:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sovereign
  "OMG BOGGZ THE SOVEREIGN IS PURE BASELINE AWESOMENESS Y U NO PUT IT IN BASELINE???"  Because the Sovereign is a non-support classed support battleship :).  Spamming Sovereigns is rediculous when it's special ability is designed to allow OTHER ships to continue pounding fleeing enemy vessels.  Against short range vessels the Sovereign goes in ahead of your other ships and nails it's engine killer while the E2's and Warpins go to work.  While it does have a defensive passive it will only tank for Descents, Phalanx', and many Veterans.  This means that, like the Vorcha, you need to be aggressive with it and DARE enemies to attack it first.  Make those K'vorts, S-2's and Intrepids be forced into attacking it and wasting their firepower.  In my opinion the Sovereign is not worth much in fleet combat without it's special.  If torpedo firepower is what you're after, get an Excelsior 2.

Phalanx (Risner Only)
  Hmm ... well the Phalanx is a funny ship because it's eye-poppingly expensive, at the absolute TOP of the Federation tech-tree, yet is designed to destroy groups of small-sized lower-tier units.  I find that combinations of other earlier (and cheaper) units can accomplish this without the investment of time and resources that go into fielding Phalanx' (1266, 370, 39, with a build time of almost 3 minutes).  Defiants are cheaper, faster to build, have a widely-applicable special, and are useful against small/medium vessels both short and long range.  Build those :D.


5.  Teching Up

  Teching up is a hard decision for any race, but for the Feds I feel like it's one of the most misunderstood  choices you'll have to make.  Teching up is really quite simple for the Feds and the Chassis Researches add a glob of new ships from which you can choose.  The question to ask before researching a new Chassis should always be:

[align=center]"Does the ship I'm teching up to fulfill a job I need that I cannot fill already?"[/align]

  By this I mean, "will getting Chassis 2 allow me to make better use of Akira's and Remoores than what I'm currently getting out of Intrepids/Monsoons?".  Often times you'll find it to not be the case.  Intrepids and Monsoons can handle a vast array of the ships you'll be facing so make sure you're investing your resources for a reason.

  #1 Reason to tech up to Chassis Lvl 2:  Vor'cha, T-15's, Defiants.
  #2 Reason to tech up to Chassis Lvl 2:  You're in desperate need of Defiants to counter certain ships.

  There are other reasons, but again I find that most problems you encounter in the game can be handled by Chassis Lvl 1, Warpins, and Excel 2's.  The Chassis Lvl 3 research brings with it some very fun units that can definitely make their presence felt on the battlefield, but once again I return to the concept that the money invested into the Eraudi Yard, Chassis 2 and 3, and the ships themselves must be absolutely fulfilling a very specific task of immediate need to justify it.  During that time your fleet is not growing as quickly as it could be if you were to simply invest in more low-tier ships or even another yard to increase production.

  Another reason to tech up, but one that I consider a bit more advanced is to basically set up your Chess pieces to get a "check-mate" before your opponent has a chance to fully counter your Tier 1 vessels.  Facing a Klingon that is getting beat by your Chassis 1 ships and is headed to Vorcha?  Get on those Akiras / Excel 2's.  Facing a Romulan that is working on spamming Disruptor Rhienns till you Rage-Quit?  Spam Monsoons and tech up to Defiants/Phalanx.  Don't wait for them to have you bent over a barrel; be proactive!  If you've got Warpins supporting your Chassis 1 and 2 vessels then you're almost always able to halt a moment and tech up to Chassis 3 for Defiants or what-have-you.  This will take some experience in other races though to know what your opponent is planning.  Teching up too fast before you've got the advantage can land you in big trouble.

   Making Monsoons / Intrepids and see your Klingon Opponent is moving to Vorcha?  Stop production of Monsoons, continue Intrepids and move up to Excelsior 2's if you can or Akira if somehow that's all you can get.  Don't wait for the Vorcha to smash the small ships you've already made.

   It's those kinds of things that necessitate a teching up.


6.  The Fed Roll

   So you're saying, "Damnit, Boggz!  All these Leahvals are cloaked and countering basically everything I have!  I can't kill the KBQ's and Vor'cha before they cloak and escape!  The Sphere's are just so strong that even my Intrepids can't kill them before they regen and escape to a nebula or some bullshit!"

   Never fear!  For you are the Federation and you have the power of the Fed-Roll!  Fed-rolling is basically the process of collecting enough ships, regardless of range or passives, that you can simply roll into someone's fleet or base and expect to destroy everything regardless of counters.  This happens VERY frequently in multiplayer games because the Feds are able to field a good chunk of their fleet through warpins.  The Warpins come in different ranges and allow firepower to pass the defensive passives of your opponent's fleet in almost every situation.  Combine a full warpin fleet with 2 baseline vessels (Mons and Intrepids) that each possess an incredible damage-soaking passive (and are targeted first) and you've got a bio-ball of Fedrat destruction!

   If anyone finds a replay with a great Fedroll I'll be happy to link it :).

  Basically a Fedroll can pick up speed once you've got either a nice combination of Warpins / Baseline vessels or just a massive glob of Intrepid / Monsoons / Akiras that can simply out-muscle whatever is countering them.  Each of the two baselines can be hard-countered by a number of different ships, but if you check each specific situation you'll find that it's unusual to come across them.

  The Fedroll is particularly effective against Borg as you don't have to worry about Borg ships having passives.  Nearly all your ships are just as good as any other with some working remarkably better.

[align=center]Borg[/align]
1.  Intrepids.  That's almost all you need.
2.  Monsoons IF your opponent happens to make lots of Dodes / Dode Turrets / Combat Assims
3.  Excel II's if you find that your Intrepids are not dealing enough damage.
  Borg have no passives.  This means that all your ships are basically on equal footing with some doing slightly better offensively and others doing remarkably better defensively.  Intrepids counter Spheres / Adaptors / Cubes / Pyramids / Probes and will do better than Monsoons against Intercept Scubes.  Assims will cause them headaches as well as Dodes, but frankly it's possible to Fedroll the Dodes with just Intrepids if you make good use of Tri-Cobalt or just throw a Monsoon in the mix to attract auto-fire.  Remember:  If a Dode is moving it can't help but worthlessly auto-target a Monsoon!  :badgrin:

[align=center]Romulans[/align]
1.  Intrepids will handle MOST Romulan ships as they are overwhelmingly Medium range.
2.  Monsoons for the Rhienns / Leahvals.  Double / Triple yard them if you get D-Rhienn spammed.
  No Ablative Armor in the Rommie lineup means that you are basically free to run amok with your Chassis 1 ships.  They will never be able to match your numbers, but they will also almost NEVER engage in a battle unless they will win it.  Keep that in mind that it's up to you to force the decisive battle.

[align=center]Dominion[/align]
1.  Monsoons all the way unless they make Bugs.  Bugs will dominate Monsoons.  Monsoons do, however, counter Bombers / S-2 (in theory :D) / B8's / Breen Cruisers / T-15.  That's like all but Bugs from the early ships basically :D.
2.  Intrepids if you are up against Bugs that are making your Monsoon cry  :crybaby:.
3.  Canaverals are actually great against Bugs / Bombers, but again ... just as well to use Monsoons that are cheaper, faster, and have a higher damage output.
4.  Excel II's if you find yourself completely dominated by T-15 (but be aware that S2 will hand you your ass).
  Dominion have some really awesome counters to the Feds and the T-15 effectively counters the Magic Chassis 1.  Monsoons, however, will tank the damage from the T-15 while Akira's / Excel 2's deal it back.  One thing that will hamper you late game is mass C-17 as they are Medium ranged Support Ships with Vor'cha stats.  The only ship with anti-medium range passives is your Intrepid which SUCKS against support ships like the C-17.  Good luck with that one :D.  Fedroll their asses with Warpins / Akiras / Excel 2's and don't let them mass enough Pink Beams of Death.

[align=center]Klingon[/align]
1.  Intrepids.  They counter the Klingon Baseline KBQ very well.  KBQ and Intrepids will both end up reaching a kind of critical mass where they can both start to kill each other, but neither has a real distinct advantage.
2.  Monsoons if your opponent ends up doing Sang to counter Intrepids (Mons get targeted first!) or try and use Qaw'Duj to stop your Intrepids.
3.  Akira / Excel 2.  Vor'cha are the bane of Chassis 1.  Intrepids will still soak up the damage nicely, but in a defensive passive matchup, Ablative Armor > ADAI so the Vorcha will quikly start to critical mass your Intrepids and rankup (a TERRIBLE thing for you).  Don't wait for the Vor'cha to be felt on the battlefield - get working on those Excel 2's to destroy the Vor'cha before they can cloak away and escape.  Akira's are the "Poor Man's" Excel 2 if you somehow cannot get an Eraudi up.  Vorcha will still take them apart though ....
  Klingons are tough.  Their tech tree is flexible enough with a battle yard up that they can quite easily keep up with your tech changes.  Always keep in mind what ships are going to be auto-targeted in your fleet and keep only the strongest counter in combat.  If they mass KBQ's, don't make Monsoons or you'll give them free rank / supply.  Use those Monsoons as mining raiders once you know the position of the KBQ's.  Vor'cha are the one unit in the early game (in my opinion) that will FORCE you to tech up.  I'd say counter early by harassing, but Klingon miners are sturdy and you won't kill a KBQ until you've got a handful of ships.
  The two most common arrays you'll face are KBQ/Kvort and KBQ/Sang --> Vor'cha.  Both of these are strong builds and will nicely match up to Monsoon / Intrepid fleets.  Sang will handle Intrepids when targted while KBQ will auto-target Monsoons.  Kvorts on the other hand will handily bring the pain on BOTH your Chassis 1 ships.  KBQ/Kvort is probably the most problematic start you'll face and the answer is Monsoon/Intrepid mix with Proxy Torp and Warpins.  Warpins will grant you extra firepower to crack fleeing K'vorts while Proxy torp will ensure that you get a KBQ in almost every engagement.  KBQ cost 24 supplies.  Keep that in mind.


[align=center]Federation[/align]
1.  Intrepids.  They will do you just fine and dominate warpins.  The only things that counter them well are Canaverals / Remoores / Defiants.  None of these ships are easy to field in numbers before Intrepids can wreck havoc.  Canaverals can be rendered moot by a few Monsoons to suck up auto-fire (Proxy torp will make you laff as you watch 300+ tri per Canav pop :lol:).  Defiants don't have a great counter if they get out.  It's REALLY hard to get Defiants and they have a lot of teching / resources that lay in front of them so you should be able to prevent this.  If you cannot, Warpins / Akira's / (Sovvies if you're a rich biotch) will perform well against Defiants.
2.  Warpins.  They just give you everything you need :D.  You have to Fedroll them before they can Fedroll you :).
3.  Monsoons.  If you get Excel 2's or Risner Avalons or (god forbid) Phalanx making life hard for your Intrepids a few Monsoon will soak up damage from either like it's their job.  Even The Avalon fighters do 50% less to Monsoons :D.
  You may say, But Boggz the Canaveral does SO well against an Intrepid 1 on 1!  Great ... why is your Intrepid facing a Canav solo??  You should have SO many more Intreps than they have Canaverals :D.  Intrepids are faster, hit harder, and are less specialist / expensive.  It will take like 4-5 Canavs before they can focus down even 1 Intrepid fleeing to repair.  Use your speed and Tri-Cobalts to ruin tri mining and prevent more Canaverals and their researches.
  A wild-card is the Mayson Norway.  Norways are short range Support ships and will handle Intrepids conveniently.  Monsoons with Proxy torp!  If they Plasma Coil you that means you stopped moving and deserve to die :D.  The cost difference between a Monsoon and a Norway is enormous so stay out of Plasma Coil when it goes off and kill those tri miners!
posted on January 25th, 2011, 10:18 pm
Part 3
posted on January 25th, 2011, 10:30 pm
lol i like the preallocation of the posts. its a perfect guide already. the feds are bloody easy to play as. they dont really need a guide :P
posted on January 25th, 2011, 10:52 pm
Thats what i was thinking i saw part 1 part 2 and part 3, and i took that to mean that you were suppose to figure it out on your own lol.
posted on January 25th, 2011, 11:32 pm
Last edited by Anonymous on January 25th, 2011, 11:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
i think the guide should just say spam monsoons, u cant go FAR wrong with that.

its funny, ships that do well against chassis 1 seem to do well against other stuff too.

vorcha - will murder sabre spam too. akiras/e2 are your best bet.

kvorts do ok vs chassis 1, and hurt akiras.

t15 are ok vs small ships in general due to pulses

same as defiant.
posted on January 26th, 2011, 12:12 am
Fed Strat:

Spam Intrepid/Monsoon
Use cash saved not teching up to spam more ships, build multiple yards, and a warpin station to randomly spawn throwaway ships at the enemies expansions.

Do Feds even have any ships other than Monsoon/Intrepid and a few disposable anti miner ships you can call in ?

Problem ?

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posted on January 26th, 2011, 1:15 pm
Tok`ra wrote:and a warpin station to randomly spawn throwaway ships at the enemies expansions.


have you actually played fleetops 3.1.5?

it you had you would know (boggz told you in this guide too) that warpins are not disposable. all the main warpins cost loads of supply to lose. e1 has adai so its cost i high, all the other main warpins cost between 20 and 30 supply. so losing all 3 ships on average costs more than 65 supply.

try lose all that supply and build intreps, which also cost loads of supply due to adai.

in the past the feds could win the game without buying supply, every so often new things cost supply for them (intreps, avalons, warpin losses etc) now they cant throw it away.

about the norway: its awesome for murdering adai units with coil. especially bugs. also a good tactic is to recharge ventures with emergency power. loads of decloak :D

i disagree on the sovvie. its torps are quite good, against larger ships it can be built in equal (ish) numbers to e2 and having several engine disables is great.

plus if you get rushed by loads of little ships the damage against them from multiple sovvie specials is quite admirable.

about the phalanx: its a psychological tool, scare your foes with it. say : haha i got a phalanx fool. then watch multiple little ships die against magnan
posted on January 26th, 2011, 1:52 pm
Myles wrote:warpins


I agree that Feds can't survive without buying supply. It's actually worse - they can survive despite buying supply. I took a double Fedroll in a 2v2 the other day. One of my opponents was pumping out ships despite buying supply three times, and each player lost close to if not more than 10 warpins throughout the game. This was while both my ally and I were killing miners almost without pause. Ask Boggz - hence his signature, I suspect.

I'm not saying that people who play Feds have no skill. I'm just saying that most people who prefer Feds don't exactly need it, and there are enough cases where that's the reason for their preference.

A note regarding an otherwise excellent guide: I am sorely disappointed to not see a section speaking about armed Fed freighters. Of course, I'm even more disappointed not to see an armed freighter to be written about. One of the biggest Fed drawbacks is weak mining. Expansions are not only hard to protect, they're costly to build and a few lost miners will usually cost you the game at any stage. Armed Fed freighters would definitely counter this weakness and allow the Feds to be the race they were objectively depicted as in the series.
posted on January 26th, 2011, 2:00 pm
Primigenia wrote:I'm not saying that people who play Feds have no skill. I'm just saying that most people who prefer Feds don't exactly need it, and there are enough cases where that's the reason for their preference.


i agree with you 100% on this, i hope my post above didnt say anything that would give u a different impression.

feds are definitely the race with training wheels. mistakes are hard to make and weakly punished when you play feds. at least one race has to remain easy to play though. or new players would be scared away: "ZOMG i cant build any borg ships"  - new player who hasnt discovered modules yet.

Primigenia wrote:A note regarding an otherwise excellent guide: I am sorely disappointed to not see a section speaking about armed Fed freighters. Of course, I'm even more disappointed not to see an armed freighter to be written about. One of the biggest Fed drawbacks is weak mining. Expansions are not only hard to protect, they're costly to build and a few lost miners will usually cost you the game at any stage. Armed Fed freighters would definitely counter this weakness and allow the Feds to be the race they were objectively depicted as in the series.


:lol: lulz

yeah they need armed miners, armed mining stations and armed worker bees.
posted on January 26th, 2011, 2:17 pm
Myles wrote:have you actually played fleetops 3.1.5?

it you had you would know (boggz told you in this guide too) that warpins are not disposable. all the main warpins cost loads of supply to lose. e1 has adai so its cost i high, all the other main warpins cost between 20 and 30 supply. so losing all 3 ships on average costs more than 65 supply.



Problem ?

Image
posted on January 26th, 2011, 2:20 pm
Tok`ra wrote:Problem ?


you really want to be labelled as a troll some more? seriously, you complain when you get labelled a troll, cant have it both ways. :pinch:
posted on January 26th, 2011, 3:04 pm
I was also being painfully obvious about it on purpose, for humor value.
posted on January 26th, 2011, 3:06 pm
Tok`ra wrote:I was also being painfully obvious about it on purpose, for humor value.


i debated when i first saw your post whether to label you a troll or to take your post as serious. seems my mistake was thinking you would deny the troll inside you.

thing is you complain about people labelling you a troll, then go troll some more.
posted on January 26th, 2011, 3:14 pm
OH NOES SOMEONE MADE A POST DAT I DISAGREE WITH!

DEY IZ TROL!


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