Homeworld noobs online multiplayer strategy guide.

[Madgrenade]

The Homeworld Noobs Online Multiplayer Strategy Guide.

By Madgrenade.

The Homeworld learning curve is steep. Really steep. I feel this topic deserves its own thread with detailed instructions on getting started. This strat has been combat tested against current players and should see you happily in to the midgame where the real fun starts.

The problem with online matchmaking on Gameranger is that poeple have such diverging skill levels that new players may be put off after getting repeatedly annihilated at ten minutes by a cloud of scouts before they have even got their fleet off the ground.

The purpose of this guide is not to attempt to describe every possible permutation of Homeworld strategies.
Its purpose is to help new players survive the first battle and breakthrough into the wonderful world of capital fleet battles and open space warfare.
I am a new player online and have lost many battles, but using the strategy below I am able to get past the early phase relativly unmolested and even throw in a few surprises of my own!
However I have been playing Homeworld since its release, and there is no substitute for total familiarity with the interface. Play the tutorial! Practice hyperjumping in skirmish until you are fully accurate. Practice manuervering with the formations desribed below.
Practice resourcing and researching really fast. Then get on gameranger and prepare for a REAL rts battle! With no terrain to save you you are totally reliant on your skill, your stategy, your tactics and your victories!



It will cover four areas; Building, Resourcing, Research,and Combat.

Building.
It's important to start building the moment the games starts. If you wait a minute before you open the build menu the enemies new collectors will emerge a minute before yours, he will have a minutes worth of extra scouts. You will lose because you are too slow to start.
I would recommend any noob who wants to survive do the following. Gamestart_ Build menu Order your first collector hit build. If you spend a minute choosing what ships to build then your enemies collector will still come online a minute before yours.
Then queue fifty scouts and hit build. Now there is no way in hell the enemy can show up with significantly more scouts than you in your territory. Infact, as you will most likely be probed before any attack, the presence of a large row of scouts may deter any such scout rush from happening in the first place.
Look at that! Your scouts have saved your ass and they haven't even moved. Equally should you notice that your enemy has not built enough scouts to deal with your scouts at five minutes then attack!
You may be able to take an early collector and if your opponent has been truly lax then you may be able to destroy the relief force and continue your attack, unmolested, for some time. Congratulations! You just won with scouts. Not so noob now!

If you start with two research labs, add another two. If you start with four then as a noob I wouldn't bother with any more. If you start with none then build three at first. As with resourcers it is important that you dont waste all your starting funds on research ships. They have no guns.

IMPORTANT: You MUST Start building your first resource controller the MOMENT you finish researching capital ship drive (See below). If you do not then it is costing you money. As a noob its going to be hard enough when you get into combat, you cannot afford to be behind at this stage. LISTEN!
Announcements come from fleet command every other second at this point. You must listen to them and act upon them. Unlike HW2 Your ships are totally dependent on your orders. You must issue orders quickly and build to keep up. But dont try to build too much at once.
If you have no controller then you can't afford to run out of money before it is built.
This applies to the whole resource, research, force build startup. If you order too many frigates when they become available then your fighters and corvettes wont be ready in time. I recommed also ordering four support frigates to join the order of battle but don't hesitate to pause if you are running short.


Resourcing
This is possibly the hardest thing to get right as a new player.
Fighting the AI in skirmish does little to prepare a player for how little time they actually have before they come under targeted, sustained attack.
Failure to defend your harvesters against an early attack by scoutcloud will result in your defeat time and time again. Resourcers must be serviced in good time by resource controllers.
Failure to build resource controllers will also result in you defeat. As a noob your controllers should be set to guard an outbound collector as they come online.
This will reduce time spent travelling and allow your income to keep pace with more experienced players. They aren't using magic, they are simply managing their resource fleet more efficiently.
Keeping up financially is the first step to going head to head with the old guard.

Just as important is building the right amount of resource collectors. On high resource maps such as Death or Glory it may be possible to cap out you resource fleet.
But on most maps some consideration to the number of resourcers must be given. Ideally there should be three collectors per controller, so as to avoid a queue and maximise efficency.
Small map/medium map- Two controllers (Very small, sparse maps may require even less.) Large map- three controllers.
The reason being if you spend all your early money on resourcers and have neglected the force required to protect them then your enemy will start to target your operation with a vengange
(And with the thousands they saved not spamming resource). Your force will not be large enough to protect your resource fleet, and any relief you send will likely be destroyed. Another easy win for the Pros.
(Combat Note) Keep a probe on your enemies res fleet. If he tries to be cheeky and build too many collectors you MUST make him suffer for it. Otherwise you will lose as the boom comes into force in the late game.

Escorts. It may be tempting to use the guard command and have a little escort fleet follow your controllers around. I must ask you as a noob to resist the tempation.
The reason is that while a couple of corvettes and a few defenders may give the illusion of security it IS an illusion. Your enemy will simply note the size of the escort and send the requisite ships to destroy them too.
Congatulations, not only are you losing your resourcers, now your fleet is being annihilated piecemeal, defeated in detail.
Nay. Much better to have a massive wing on a hotkey to respond to any strike craft threat. If he send thirty scouts, send fifty to intercept! This is an important note. If possible you must send overwhelming forces to assure easy victory. Watch out for the feint!

Research
Another tricksy one, research can easily be forgotten in the heat of battle.And even in the heat of doing nothing. Again listen up. Every time you hear the work 'research' from fleet command hit the r key. Doesn't matter what is happening, order the next subject immediatly.
You can spend all your money and have six research ships if you want (See above.) but if you arent using them then they are pretty poor ships.

IMPORTANT: Research capital ship drive first, even if you want to build fighters and corvettes. No capital ship drive, no resource controllers. No resource controllers, no victory.

EXTEMELY IMPORTANT: It isn't immediately obvious that you can assign more than one lab to one subject. For example, if you start the game with four labs assign them all to capital ship drive to get it done in record quick time. Just keep double clicking on the subject you need to research to assign more labs.

My NOOB research tree (with a view to surviving to Fleet battle phase and mixing it up in a standard capped game.)

Subject Labs

1. Capital ship drive All
2. Corvette drive 1
2. Capital ship Chassis All spare
4. Corvette chassis 1
5. Ion Cannons Half available
5. Super Capdrive Half available

This short research tree will allow you to build all the units necasarry for the Noob Order of Battle, while leaving you acess to the rest of the tech tree in a timely fasion. This would be a good time to unlock fighters and you will definitely want to take a look at heavy corvettes.
But you may wish to just keep on running up the tech tree to missile detroyers and heavy cruisers. If you do this though, I would also suggest that you take in the delights of gravity well generators.
But the most important thing to do is to keep up the pressure on technology, and get up that tree!

Combat

Company of the Holy Noob.

Order of Battle (Ideal)

If you have follow the quidelines layed out here before things get too hot you should have;

1x Resource fleet of appropriate size. (Comprised of Collectors and controllers as above.)

1. 50x Scouts
2. 12x Light corvettes with, 4x Support frigates
3. 2x Destroyers

With this force, correctly organised, you should be able to defend your collectors or go and assault his if the situation demands it. These units are not enough to carry the whole battle, but they should get you through the start.

You should also have other assorted frigates, Either more support, or a few assaults and lots of ions, and some gravity well generators, if you are short on fighters.


1. Scouts. Love them or hate them you still gotta build them.
The main reason for having a fighter forced comprised entirely of scouts is they have an amazing turn of speed, able to show up and bring the pain, then disappear into the black, luring defenders away while the light corv wall sneaks up.
Then returning to battle at the worst possible moment. Keep your scouts out of formation and on evasive and they will be very hard to hit. If attacking resourcers while undefended put them in agressive sphere to do the most damage.
When some guns show up to waste your scouts hit F2 D Z to send them rabbiting out of danger at the highest speeds in the game. Keep them Fueled with the support frigates, keep them alive and use them to harass undefended enemies where they are weakest.
If the enemy sends too few reinforcements to deal with your scouts, the go agressive and destroy them ship to ship. Focus fire.
Fighters not packing enough punch? Mix in interceptors and attack bombers for better results. Be warned though, you will take more losses on a late retreat.
Alternativly just build all the way up to 80 scouts for death at 1000 m/s. Just keep an eye on them.

2. Put these light corvettes in an agressive wall. Then have the four support frigates repair them using a z bandbox. The frigates will now loyally follow the corv wall through thick and thin, repairing them as they take fire.
Just dont forget to stop occasionally to allow your support frigates to catch up. Get this formation out early enough and you force your enemy to come and deal with you, sparing your resourcers his full fury.
Use This formation in tandem with the scoutcloud. Scouts are cavalry, the corvettes and frigates are infantry. As you lose your corvettes replace them with heavies in walls twenty plus strong. Supported with enough support frigates the heavies take a lot of killing.

3. Twin destroyers. If you can afford it then hyper these dangerous ships right on top of an enemy resource controller the moment the second dessie comes online. You will either blow his resource fleet away or force him into hyperspace.
Dog them. If they return to the nearby locale be ready to re-order the attack. If relief arrives in the form of a destroyer busting threat then simply jump to the NEXT controller and destroy that. Woe betide the player who goes broke if you are in credit using this attack.
He will be unable to spirit his fleet away into hyperspace, and you will have his collectors at the mercy of four ion beams. Lovely. Job done.
Dont be afraid to call off the chase if it gets too hairy. Forcing the enemy to retreat his resource and deal with you will already have thrown him off balance. Now may be a good time to attack with another arm, then bring back the dessies when he has all but forgotten about them. Don't forget to leave some money in the bank to jump out if need be.
Remember you want your destroyers INTACT for the fleet battle phase. Try not to get them destroyed or forget about them.

As well being a decent attack force the scoutcloud and corvettes can defend your resource against fighter swarms. Jumping dessies are very hard to counter. One thing I have tried is using gravwell generators to trap ships that jump too accurately, but with limited success. The mere presence of gravwells near controllers can, however, do a good deal to discourage strikecaft attacks.


Combat rules.

1 Take any opportunity. Attacking, even if forced to retreat, is better than waiting to get attacked yourself.
2 Always engage the enemy with the correct units. Corvettes for fighters, frigates and destroyers for corvettes, and fighters/bombers and capital ships for capital ships.
3 Dont waste forces when they can't win. Retreat. There is a fine line between a group of corvettes a scoutcloud can defeat and ones they cant. You must learn to call it and run if you have to. Your scouts can always come back and cause more hassle with a fresh tank.
4 Try to keep you fleet together and face off in battles where the odds favour the size of your fleet.

Command. You need to take command over your fleet using grouping. Keep different sorts of fire on different hotkeys within a fleet group. So your ions need a group so you can focus fire and take down those all important support frigates. Easier said than done.

But hey. Lo and behold. You got through the first ten minutes and your collectors are still munching up the galaxy. You got options. A whole new world of strategic opportunities is opening up. And every battle you fight and lose is another trick you learn. You can meet the challenges of homeworld head on.
Mines, Gravwells, Cloaking fields, TOTAL control over fleet composition and manuevers and attacking and everything beyond. Its all up to YOU! The mighty Heavy Cruiser WILL be yours to command!

As I said this brief guide is not the be all and end all of all strats for the beginning. But it is a beginning.

Please dont be afraid to play Homeworld online on Gameranger. We are waiting.

Special Thanks

To all the players active on gameranger who have been killing me/ getting killed.

Aratrk(AoD) Sunstreak(Aod) Darkstar, Gravity and many others for being so damn good.

I will write a guide to winning big fleet battles as soon as I figure out how.


How to get a game.

Once you have got homeworld and patch to 1.05 then simply open a room on Gameranger and wait for a player. Titling the room 'Noobs' will often result in a bite. Be polite, mind your gg's and glhf's and always go down fighting. You will find your skill dramatically increasing after about ten games. Remember the harder the player the more you will learn. gl hf.
Ooops please feel free to move to the war room.

[Wintermute]

Awesome. I never really learned how to play Homeworld MP during it's heyday. Reading this is for me, as a MP noob, pretty darn cool. I had never even thought about Build Orders for HW, or the possibility of them existing.

[gravity]

I would love to meet newer players on Gameranger and give them a helping hand. its possible to get a 2v2 where each experienced player get a new player each which is more fun than getting bashed by experienced player in a 1v1

[Madgrenade]

Assuming all went well you have managed to hold off the enemies strikecraft assaults. Maybe you went on the offensive yourself, hopefully took out a cheeky controller.
But if you dont manage to totally wreck your enemy with a handfull of fighters then you and your enemy are building up the frigs.

Assualt frigates, Ion frigates, Destroyers.

These are the meat of your attacking force. Generally in larger fleet battles the person bringing more ions to the battle will win. However in smaller capital confrontations a little micro can show you the true worth of assaults.

But even if you dont have the largest fleet with a bit of micro you can twist the odds in your favour.

Capital rules.

1) Love your ships!

Capital ships are expensive. each frig represents at least 1 collector load. Moreover, as the best thing for tidying capitals is capitals, if you keep loosing ships eventually your enemy will have a much larger fleet and it wont matter how much cash you have.
Short jumps cost 150. If you can jump out a ship that the enemy is focusing on then your ship may survive, the enemy must also retarget. short jump to the enemies fleet rear and you start an encirclement action. The re-emerged frig will be shooting into their undefended rear. Unless the choose to engage it, and that will force them to turn, exposing the engines to your main fleet


2) Formations? What formations!

Capital ships do not need to be put in formation. They are quite happy floating around as individual units, and even small formations slow targeting. This is escpecially true of ions. Their pitiful coverage means ions in formations will be even more painfully slow to aquire lock.
In a tight cap battle you need every edge, and the spacing between ships in formation is quite large. Not using formations adds a degree of difficulty as lone ships can easily be forgotten, floating serenely in space waiting for you to tell them to come home. There is a solution.
Simply have all your caps and ions quard a single ship. This is your flagship, usually a destroyer. Now all your caps will bunch up close to your flagship in a rough sphere formation, but much tighter. This is the best way to get all your ions gathered in one place ready to dish out some serious focused fire. It also allows you to click each ship individually for easy micro.
Small frig groups are fine for operations but they need a mission and they need an out. Otherwise they are just lambs to the slaugther. Best to keep your frigs together and use destroyers for capital deepstrike roles.

3) Stick together.

Theres nothing worse than sending off your frigs to die one at a time. Even being caught in line can be devastating, if you run into a well ordered capfleet. The focus fire of ten ions and a couple of dessies is immense, they will tear through your capfleet in no time at all.
Even if your fleet is spreadout in visual range they are weak against a condensed capital fleet. You MUST be able to bring your main fleets fire down on 1 target all at once

4) Mines.

Ok so minelayer corvettes aren't capital ships. But they are a great addition to a capital fleet's entourage and have some serious armour busting power. This is escpecially important if your fleet is smaller than the enemies. A well placed minefield can really ruin someones day. Use a high value ship as some tempting bait. then attack move backward to draw in ships, then watch and laugh as the mines tear them apart.

5) Use supports.

But not too much. Remember that each support is an ion you dont have. During combat you should micro your supports so that they always repair the ship under fire. It may be wise to have your fleet supports repairing the lead destroyer, as this will often be the ship that comes under fire first. Have your fleet supports on a hotkey seperate from any supports you may have working with corvettes. In a massive furball you want that support where you need it when u need it.
Time spent picking supports out of the mess is time better spent issuing new orders. I give combat hotkeys going up from 1, and non combat hotkeys going down from 9 so there is no confusion when scrambling to select ships. in Larger battles focus fire on the weaker Ions and supports to get his beams out of the battle quickly.

6) Pay attention! You're the commander!

You need to actively participate in the battle as it unfolds. Because large capital battles are so violent, fluid and usually short it needs your full attention if your fleet is going to come out on top. You need to be issuing move orders to as many ships as possible to get them to flank and target weaker points on enemy ships. Now another crucial reason for not using formations comes into play. Single ships can more easily b ordered to fire move, and they will do so in the fashion you order.
Ships in formation need to be double clicked/ bandboxed to isolate the from the group, and a mistake here could mean you moving your whole formation and possibly getting massive firing delays.

7) Combined arms for the win.

This is the battle that will likely determine the game, so call in every ship in the quadrant. Check your balance, if you got cash you need to start pumping out fighters and corvs, any swinging dick with a gun that can possibly make the battle before it ends needs to be getting involved. Got some fresh Ions or destroyers waiting at the m/s? They need to be hypered into the fight without any delay! Acuurate jumps only, they must emerge with barrels already on target.
Surviving corvettes must be marshalled into a new wall ready to take on strike craft and add firepower. If they enemy, or you brought gravwells to the confrontation then sent strike craft to hit ru operations.
Be careful when using gravwells not to aid the enemy if you are fielding more strikecraft than them. Be ready with inactive gravs if the enemy tries to escape into hyperspace.

I hope this overview helps new players in capital battles.

Coming soon tactics 101

This thread is open to ONLINE players wanting to share tactics. Please I dont want to know what you did to take down cpus.
As this is a noob thread tho please take the time to explain yourself in plain english. Clear intructions that can be understood.

not: " f2 k z lololloololollololool"

thanks

For more information on hw tactics (written in gamerspeak) Check out this thread.

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthre...Play-Homeworld

[Mantaray]

this thread in my personal opinion needs a freakin' sticky. the amount of 'new' players we get over game-ranger who then promptly ditch the game after getting buggerd so hard is at least 1 in 3, despite our homely community and the gg's and friendly banter.

if we can point them to this. i feel we could possibly even grow, despite the games age.

[Babylon]

Lol. I like how you've put my mines tactic in there. It caught you off guard when I used it didn't it? XD

[marmoo]

Hey Grenade
Played a few games with you recently

and Gman...your absence from HW has been noted..how are ya chap?

[LeviathansWrath]

so then i take it im not missed after all these years either eh oh well FINE.:P

[Madgrenade]

Hey leviathan u aint missed! I spy u on gr and tried to pm u for a game but u popped on and off so fast. We would encourage all hw players old and new to get on the gameranger and play. See no room, pls host we will see u and come.

[Madgrenade]

Tactics

Fighter tactics.

Here we will go into greater depth about the fighter class vessels. I will summarise each vessel and get into fighter tactics and strategy.

CORE units. Any unit marked core is a core unit and should be a part of your force, at least until you start getting some victories under your belt.

SCOUT fighter. CORE unit. 1000ms+

This is THE early game unit. The only only unit buildable at the start of the game that has any assault value. I always add 50 SCOUTS to the build order immediatly upon the games start. As has been previously stated, the reason for this is that should your oppenent starts building scouts, by the time interceptors and light corvettes are even available to be built, your oppent will already a small swarm ready to engage any CONTROLLERS you attempt to field.
By following this advice it will not be possible for you to be scout swarmed right at the start, as you will have enough scouts to engage him, plus his flightimes worth of scouts. He will arrive with less scouts than you, and will likely lose the ensueing battle. dock your fighters when you have destroyed/ run the enemy off.
It is likely that if a player tries to scout swarm you he will retreat if he sees too many fighters. Do not pursue too far and allow your scouts to be dragged of to their doom.Forcing a retreat is victory enough, as your resourcers and controllers will still be munching up the rocks, getting you your monies. They are the real focus early in the game, effeciency is a key factor in determining force strength in the early game.

Scout tactics

Z Speed Boost into and escpecially out of battles. Don't let your scouts die needlessly. You can always bug out.

F2 attack no formation. Usable when scouts are fresh out the M/s your scouts will engage causing light fire but being hard to hit. A good emergence posture.

Mini 3deltas/3claws/5x

Spend a little time assigning formations to fighters but make sure they are not bigger than that otherwise turning speed will be seriously impaired.

F2 F4 switching. Carefully watch the battle and switch between evasive and aggressive tactics. Agressive when fighters are on the attack run and evasive when they are making the turn.

F2 F10 agressive sphere. This is really a scout only formation for when you really need to kill an undefended resource controller. If any fighters show up you are in trouble in this formation. You will need to reassign smaller groups quickly to bug out from here. Use with caution.


F2 K ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

This little jest will put your scouts into a rabid frenzy against other scouts as they try to crash into the enemy ships yet constantly boosting they just miss. Whever they pull round really fast, all the while hammering away with their machine guns...
Usually considered bad form. But desperate times may call for desperate measures.


Interceptor. 3/4 as fast as the Scout

Always a good addition to your retinue. Once you are building scouts and inters together they all need to be on your fighter hotkey. Don't forget ships can belong to more than one group.
Mix up scouts and interceptors in mini claws/x/delta as above. This will make them extremely good at dealing with incoming scouts and other types of fighter. Building both marks simaltaneously will allow you to dominate the early game if your opponent does not do the same. You will be able to strike fast and if his slow corvette wall should try to engage you can simply choose a new target and attack elsewhere, suffering no losses.
In theory anyway. You need to use your time effectively to get your fighters in a hard hitting group of mini forms

Attack Bomber. 625?mps

Thats pretty slow for a fighter. Nevertheless attack bombers are the coup de gras for any fighter player.

Mini forms as above, but all bombers in together, your attack fighters need to be free. Stay sly, and keep it focused. Don't let your bombers get hit by fighters without the full backing of their faster bretheren, but in a furball bombers can give as good as they get, so attack with everyone in a fighter war. It only takes a handful of surviving bombers to take down a ressie in a few passes. Remember if you don't get results with your bombers it isn't worth the cost and time in research to build them.

Getting some early bomber research, and getting all three marks building simaltaneously as soon as possible you will be able to execute....


The Great Early Fighter Rush!
Yes, If you really feel like a fighter legend, forsaking all other inferior, slow and lumbering behemoths, heres what you need to do.

Once you have you obligatory capital ship drive reseach, devote all research to the fighter tree. Get inters and bombers as fast as you canand devote all monies, apart from your controller and a couple of harvesters.
You may want to keep your inters and bomber docked, but keep lauching scouts lest you arise suspicion. Crush any probe. Sent a few monitors to see that he isn't countering.

Send your mixed scouts and inters over. He should send his fighters to intercept but you should be able to destroy them easily. The bombers should arrive just in time to lay waste to his controller and any resourcers in the area, in that order.
If you have built sufficient fighters and won the first strike, a supported light corv wall may show up to deal with you. If you have enough bombers onside, this is one of the only times a fighter group can go up against a corvwall and live.

Target one row of the wall on aggressive with all remaining fighters and bombers. Go agressive. The massive quantity of fire, ecspecially from the bombs, will be beyond the supporters ability to repair. It will be very difficult for him to pick out the bombers and if you keep focusing on just a few 'vettes in the wall it will fall.
If you pull this off it's probably game over. You will have fresh fighters at your m/s to send over and your survivors could probably finish his res fleet on it's own. Keep up the pressure, keep sending reinforcements and there is very little comeback. If you have killed all his fighters and corvettes feel free to blow up his research station to be extremely annoying.

Beware hard counters such as defenders or vettes camped on controllers. Chances are your plan has been sussed, time to get on the capital tree.

Keep your fighters fueled and on the case.

Once you finish bomber research get on the light corvettes and then more vettes or capitals as you wish. If things don't go the way you planned you can get frig rushed easily. But if you do get scoped then don't worry because a masss fighter swarm is no bad thing against a frig rush.


Other fighters.

Defender. slow. Long range.

This is a decent punt if you know certain things are coming, such as the above fast bomber strat, or jumping dessies. Bear in mind that you need to anticipate attacks and have your defenders in place when the hammer comes down, because they are very, very slow.
Not normally a priority for me, unless I am playing a player I know usually pulls one of these attacks.

Kushan cloaked fighter.

z switch cloak on or off.

Hands down the best scout in the game, provided it remains fueled it can remain cloaked indefinatly, providing an uninterrupted stream of lovely data. And the best thing is your enemy wont know without proximity sensors.
Not a priority, but definitly worth it for a kushan fighter player later on. Wouldn't really rate them as a combat unit, as scouts murder them even without proxi sensors. A great tool for those who like to know what's going on.
Rarely seen. But that's the whole point

Taidaani Defence Fighter

Not essential, but pretty good when you have loads of cash, loads of spare research time, which is usually never. It will beef up the size of your swarm and improve its survivablity with its natty red lazer beam. Doesn't give fire on enemy units however.
Rarely seen.


Thanks to Supa HG for opening my eyes fully to the joy of strike fighters. Repeatedly.

Good hunting.


VVVVVVVV Yeh I plan to go into greater depth regarding Corvettes, Frigate, Super caps, and even non combat/ support units with an emphasis on resourcing. Coming soon.

[Babylon]

you gonna include special frig tactics mad?

[Madgrenade]

Words on corvetttes.

Light Corvette CORE unit

When I was playing in single player I never rated the light corvette. I thought it was too slow, too weak and too useless to bother with, and in single player this is true.
However in multiplayer the light corvette is a stalwart of the first ten minutes.

Why bother with light corvettes? Well the main reason is that they are the next combat unit up from the scout, in terms of what can be available to build fastest. In the early game the light corvette is a decent hedge, while you figure out what yiu want to gofor in the midgame.
Lights are generally seen in agressive wall formation, like other marks of offensive corvettes, and supported by support frigates or repair corvs using a Z bandox, NOT guard. They can also occasionally be seen beefing up an early fighter rush, where reinforcements are sent to battle individual or in twos and threes when they get built.

While there is not really much more to say about the light corvette and its one tiny gun, it makes an excellent choice as a versatile early force, a properly supported a light corvwall can take on scouts no problem.


Defending early fighter rushes with light corv walls

You need to be vigilant. If the enemy pumps a large amount of fighters at the start you need to know about it and be watching with probes and in sensors manager for an attack. It is always so much easier todefend a resource operation against a fighter rush if your light corv wall is in place waiting for the attack to show up. There is no point in having a light corv wall if you allow your opponent to get the drop on you.The Lights are not very fast, your controller will likely be dead by the time you get there. Plus if you are using support frigates to support your wall the corvs will outpace them and arrive at the battle without their support. Not ideal.
Ideally you mark the attack on sensors and move the wall to be near the targeted Controller before the enemy fighters arrive. It is also a good idea to have your fighters onside aswell. The combination of supported light wall and your fighters should be enough to drive off an enemy early scout attack.

However, some expert players have developed the early fighter rush further. They will go for an early fighter chassis and drive, and add interceptors to their swarm. This makes the early fighter attack even more troublesome and dangerous, as the intercptors mixed in with the scouts may be able to overwhelm the light wall. By targeting a few ships in th wall at a time, the massive combined firepower will whittle down your wall very quickly. This is another rerason why early intelligence is essential. If you see the enemy building very early interceptors you need to be ready. Add more support and more members to your wall, and build interceptors of your own if possible. The only effective counter to expert fighter swarms is massive firepower where and when you need it.
If you are facing an incoming wing from a player you know clearly outclasses you in a dogfight, dont be afraid to kamikaze (K) your fighters into their fighters immediatly on contact. While not exactly a skilled move, it can allow a noob player to take on a skilled players fighter swarm and batter them down almost one for one. Sure you loose fighters, but so does he, and any survivors will be low enough in number to be easy pickings for your supported light corv wall. Don't forget to replace those fighter losses though.


Repair corvette

This cute little corv works in very much the same way as the support frigate, using a Z bandbox they will repair freindly ship with their magic green flare. A good choice for those who want more support early on, they are harder to pick out of a furball than the support frigate. This works both ways to make sure your repair corvs are hotkeyed so you can get that healing when you need it.
The repair corvette isnt without defence, having a tiny gun of its own to enable it to attack, but this is a very puny gun, and repair corvettes are best used in their repair role.

Their is one trick with a repair corvette supported wall tho. As they have a higher armour rating than light corvettes a supported repair corv wall can kamikaze a light corvette wall and come out on top, so repair corvettes can be used to negate a light wall early on, leaving a capital shipplayer with left over support.


Heavy Corvette CORE unit

Now we are cooking with charcoal. The heavy corvette is THE premier corvette, and a supported aggressive heavy corvette wall is a fearsome unit, almost indestructible until its support has been removed. Twenty heavy corvettes in an agressive wall is a good number. The heavies have good armour and decent firepower, but they also have an ace up their sleeve. Their burst fire special move (z) directs a withering hail of fire at the target, fighters evaporate like morning mist and frigates are dust in moments. During a large capital ship batttle a heavy wall can be a tide turner, as it vaporises the opponents support frigates while the ions are duking it out. A large heavy corvwall is also no slouch when killing destroyers, although they may take some losses when the twin pintle mounted ions open up.
An impressive all rounder strong on both attack and defence. More experienced player may choose to do without the heavy corvette, but I would recommend a new player make them a high priority.


Multigun Corvette.

Another great advanced corvette, This would be the premier corvette if its armour rating was higher. The multiguns armour is a bit too low for it to be able to stand up in a capital ship battle in the same way that heavies can. But capitals isn't what this corvette is all about. Its fast tracking turrets enable it to absolutely murder any fighters unlucky enough to be targeted by it, indeed in large walls it can appear as is there is a fighter null zone direcly in front, as clouds of fighters bloosom into fiery spirals. The multigun corvette is also a superlative minesweeper, and where heavys corvs may struggle to kill mines fast enough before they are destroyed, the multigun corvettes have no such problems. Use ctrl shift to force target those pesky mines and watch them simply dissapear!
Multiguns do have their place at the front, however. Building Heavies and Multiguns concurrently will allow you to produce a corvwall in half the time as a pure heavy wall, and having the two types of ship in an supported aggressive wall together will allow the multiguns relative lack of armour to be less noticeable, and the overall power of the wall, ecspecially vs fighters and corvettes, will improve.


Salvage Corvette

For those who see destruction as a waste of good ships. After all, why blow up they enemy when you can get them to fight for you? Simply order these little ships to engage the enemy,and tey will attempt to come alongside and latch on before dragging the ship of to your mothership or carrier to be re-educated. Fighters and corvettes can be salvaged with one salvager, frigates with two, destroyers with three, and heavy cruisers and carriers can be pinched with five salvage corvettes. Getting good with salvagers is a difficult skill, and they are pretty weak, quite expensive, and your opponent will target them with glee if they show up anywhere near his fleet. However occasionall a good salvage operation can see you running off with a few good ship and maybe even a whole fleet!
SAlvagers are the only strike craft that can operate inside a gravity well unhindered, so use this to your advantage, and beware carriers with gravwell backup, the chances are salvagers may lurk within.
Additionally, SAlvage corvettes allow you to break the cap in capped games, so make sure your build queue or fleet is maxed out if you manage to pinch a frigate or resource collector.


Minelayer corvettes

The bane of capital ships, mines dont show upon radar. You can have up to 10 minelayers and I would recommend making them a part of your strategy, ecspecially on larger maps. Minelayer corvettes drop mines on z to lay down walls of lethal homing mines. The mines always go for the largest enemy signatures, so in big fleet groups it will be the destroyers and heavy cruisers that end up taking most of the mines, either killing them outright or severely damaging the to make them easy pickings for your fleet. Mines are invisible on sensors manager and can be used to defend the mothership from hypering enemy fleets while your fleet is away. Anyone foolish enough to hyper in without checking will be in for a nasty surprise, one that they may be hard pressed to recover from.
Mines are also good for a guarded advance, when capital fleets are evenly matched and you don't want to risk battle without an advantage. By mine creeeping with a group of minelayers you can get within striking distance while making it very difficult for the enemy to engage you. If the enemy try to force a face off, attack move backward and try to draw their fleet into your minefield. Mines arent without their counters though. Cloaked ships will not attract mines, even when lit up with a proximity sensor. Plus they can be swept away by multigun corvettes or supported heavy corv walls. But Their myriad applications and the power of the mines make them a unit with a lot to offer. While they will only lay down a limited number of mines on one Z command, By moving them then reissuing the command you can build up massive, multilayered minefields that will stop any fleet dead in their tracks.




Good corvette play is an important factor in deciding battles, you should have groups of corvettes on hotkeys supporting your main fleet. Remember while a few losses are acceptable your corvette are not really that expendable as the are quite pricey. Try not toget them massacred as I have on numerous occasions. Keep them fueled and repaired, and remember that they need to be supported with repair corvettes or support frigates ideally. keep your walls big and strong, good mixes and you will be able to keep those fighters at bay. Working in tandem with powerful fighter screens you can begin to dominate the fast war.

[Vintac]

Thanks for all the great information.

[Babylon]

Mad you gonna post anymore?