Base Assault Strategies/Types

General Description
This page is solely for listing the different types of base attack strategies that exist in the current game, and for providing fully detailed descriptions of listed strategies. The purpose of this article is to help players learn how they can attack bases and be more successful. Some of the listed strategies may be ones you are already familiar and practiced with, others may be brand new to you.

That being said, feel free to make any reasonable edits or additions to the article. If you wish to remove a section of information that is more than 3 or 4 sentences long, please specifically say so in your edit summary so it can be tracked.

Don't fly through the Terminus mine.

Sniping:
This strategy involves the use of destroyer-class ships to attack a base. Newer players will tend to use all six ship slots in a fleet for destroyers such as Longbows, whereas more advanced players will typically use four slots for destroyers and the remaining two for decoy ships, which will draw the fire from the combat modules and allow the destroyers to fire on the base without being attacked. For very high level players who are experienced with using sniper fleets, there is no fully effective defense against well-fitted destroyers and well-fitted decoy ships. This strategy at high levels will usually result in at least one star, either from destroying the bridge, or from dealing enough damage (25% to the base).

Often times, the fleet design will consist of 4 Trident Destroyers and 2 Revelation Cruisers. The 4 Tridents are equipped with Kinetic weapons, most commonly being Mass Drivers, Siege Drivers, or Gladius Drivers. The extended range of projectile weapons makes them great weapons for attacking base modules, which have significant range themselves, but of course the range of the base will always exceed the range of any destroyer, which is why the decoys are necessary.

The 2 decoy ships are usually stripped of all offensive capability to allow for maximum durability. This is because these ships need to be able to take 100% of the damage for as long as possible to allow the destroyers to do their job. While many players use Revelations, which are perfectly fine for acting as decoys, the Apocrypha and Rapture Cruisers, with more usable mass than the Revelation, are able to fit stronger armor and/or shields which will make it even more durable. The type of shield that should be used will depend on the type of weapons the base is using, which is why scouting a base before trying to snipe it can be very helpful. For bases using all three weapon types, a Shockwave Shield V is recommended since it has the highest shield strength in the game, or a Metaphase Shield III (there should be plenty of room for armor) and maybe the occasional regeneration shields, as the shields regenerate to prolong combat use at the cost of less shield strength.

There is no single fleet configuration that will work on all bases, since base configurations can vary so greatly, but generally speaking, more damage and less defense on destroyers and less damage and more defense on decoys will help your fleets be more potent.

Blitzing:
This strategy involves using many heavily shielded and armored ships (typically cruiser-class ships such as Revelation Cruisers) to rush headlong towards the bridge of a base to destroy it with overwhelming force. This strategy can be achieved at high levels with 5 or 6 Revelation Cruisers or Apocrypha Cruisers which are equipped with heavy shielding and heavy armor. This is similar to the way decoys work when employing the sniping strategy, but some durability has to be sacrificed to allow room for strong weaponry. This can be seen as a downside, but it is important to remember that you now have five or six of these ships instead of just two.

The two most common weapons seen in blitz fleets are Thermal Beams or Creeper Torpedoes. Creeper Torpedoes have one of the highest damage values in the game, only being equalled by Thermal Beams and the Burst Ray. More recently, these have been surpassed by the infernal gatling ray. Below is a list of advantages and disadvantages of this weapon in base combat:

Advantages: Disadvantages:
 * Highest area of effect for its damage in the game means that there is the potential to damage three or four modules with one torpedo.
 * On bases with a tightly-knit configuration, the wide spread of the weapon can actually provide a benefit since the torpedoes will constantly be damaging multiple modules, and the resulting collateral damage of the modules can make blitzing those bases significantly easier.
 * The extremely low projectile speed means that if all of your ships are destroyed but some of your torpedoes are still traveling, they may not all reach their target before the 10 second buffer ends. This is not a massive disadvantage, but one worth noting.
 * The projectile speed along with the comparatively low number of projectiles launched with each volley compared to other weapons means that if you exit a battle and are attacked by another player, they will most likely destroy your fleet since they have the option of avoiding the torpedoes.

Thermal Beams are very efficient at close range, and since their "travel time" is instant, it may result in more durability in base combat since modules may be destroyed before they can fire off a finishing volley.

Advantages: Disadvantages: One last alternative is to use Burst Rays, as their destructive levels at close range can score high damage. Adding Ion Modulator V may also help, but usually it's not better against bases.
 * Instant travel time can possibly destroy modules before they can shoot back if you are close to being destroyed.
 * Thermal beams are very effective in fleet vs fleet combat as well as base combat, which means that if you escape and are attacked, if you have reasonable health remaining on your ships you have a good chance to survive and destroy the other fleet.
 * The smaller range of Thermal Beams than Creeper Torpedoes means that anyone using them will have to maneuver closer to the bridge than normal to be able to fire. This means that any close-range weapons the base has will have ample opportunity to destroy you before you can deal enough damage, especially if there are more than 2 or 3 of them.
 * Thermal Beams have trouble destroying modules at high levels, when bases usually have all of their modules equipped with Metaphase (all around resistance, meaning every weapon type) shields. In these circumstances, most if not all blitz fleets using Thermal Beams will not be able to destroy the bridge unless there are multiple follow-up attacks on the same base. It is also recommended, at this point, to snipe the base rather than blitz it.

Advantages: Disadvantages:
 * Burst Rays, even at level 1, can completely and utterly decimate most things that come across their path at close ranges.
 * They have very fast projectile speeds, unlike Creeper Torpedoes.
 * Burst Rays are quite heavy and take up way more space than Creeper Torpedoes or Thermal Beams.
 * They have to be fired directly straight-on, at super close ranges, to achieve maximum damage.
 * Their short ranges causes the base to get a sort of head-start, and bases using Arrestor Beam Turrets can prevent some ships from reaching the target without soaking up massive damage.

Circling:
This strategy involves the use of Battleships to encircle and attack a base from a distance and, using Rear Thrusters or Fusion Thrusters, avoid the base's weapons. This strategy can also work with frigates that are equipped with Strafe Thrusters to achieve the same goal, but Battleships have a 125% range bonus to any of their weapons, which provides a notable advantage in base combat.

Typical setups include using 6 Venom Battleships, lining them up, then moving around the base while firing at any modules in range. It is common to see players use regenerative shielding on these ships. Since the goal is to avoid getting close enough to be under constant fire, equipping regenerative shielding allows ships to remain active in combat for much longer than when using non-regenerative shielding. Another common tactic is to use regenerative shielding that resists projectile weaponry. This is because many bases at mid-high levels predominantly use projectile turrets such as Kinetic Driver Turrets.

Higher level setups involve using 4 or 5 Fury Battleships to achieve the same goal. The advantage with this setup is that Furies are more durable individually and also have six weapon slots instead of the Venom's five. This means that the furies can be fully equipped with superior weaponry and high-level thrusters to surpass per-ship effectiveness in combat. The disadvantage, though, is that if a player wishes to use more than four furies for this type of combat, he/she will have to underfit the ships so that they all fit in one fleet. As of the present, only 4 fully equipped Fury Battleships can be placed in one fleet at a time.

Common weapons used in mid-to-high level Circling attacks are Mass Drivers IV or V, Gladius Drivers II or III, or even Siege Drivers II or III (Siege Drivers are usually only on furies because of their very high usable mass). Kinetic weapons have the ability to bypass shields with the Phased Projectiles weapon upgrade, which makes them optimal for destroying shielded base modules. This usually works well since all of the battleships have 2 special equipment slots; one can be used for the type of thrusters, the other for the weapon upgrade.

It is important to know that battleships are meant to fill a support role in space combat. This strategy is usually meant to prepare a base for a sniper fleet or blitz fleet to help it finish the job. Using battleships to execute a direct assault on a bridge is not recommended, since their durability cannot match that of the cruisers.