Help with ships and fleets.

[russweis]

Hey, im a new player. just got into finding the green ore. I have lost 3 ships recently. What I need to know is;; How big of a ship should I be using, how many attack ships should I have at my side. and how big should they be too. I keep getting into 3v12 fights. Flag ships mass is 100kt and side ships are 40kt.

[Echo090118]

Well the answer to this will somewhat depend on the difficulty you are playing on. I play on the veteran difficulty and i run a solo ship till i hit the Barrier. But while i am exploring a path i have two mining ships building up my resources for building ships and stations. To cross the barrier you will need a fleet of 8 ships due to the quest mechanics. In my game i used a 6 slot ship through the green region. Between green and blue i upgrade to a 9 slot ship. Once i start hit the middle of blue i pause a bit to set up mines and factories to provide the credit income to build the next level of ships 12 slot ships. I run two 12 slot ships from the barrier till i hit orange ore. There i pause again to build up credits, weapons and ore to build a flagship, two battleships and a support craft. First being a 15 slot battleship to explore and the support craft to run salvage and mining operations. Once all four are built i attack the center boss. Probably better ways to do things but this suits my play style.

Now the problem with running multiple ships in a fleet in the early stages is system upgrades and weapons. It's easier to have a ship with 1k fire power than 4 ships with 400 fire power concentrating fire on a ship. For fighting fleet ships i would make the flagship your long distance fighting ship and the other ships cheap, slow and with heavy armor equipped with the close range weapons like chain guns and bolters.