Introduction

This article gives an explanation of various things to consider for fleet compositions in Infinite Galaxy, including a suggested fleet composition.

Scope of this Article

The inner workings of the Infinite Galaxy combat engine are not known, so don't see this as the definite guide on making fleet compositions providing you with the perfect solution, but read it and for both relatively inexperienced and the more experienced players there will be useful information.

Warship Types, their Relation and Basic Stats

There are 3 different warship types, Frigates, Destroyers and Cruisers. Of each there are 10 tiers available. The tiers need to be researched first in the Research Center before you can build them (although sometimes you can get a higher tier warship from fro example attacking the Tactical Training Base).

There is a relationship between these three ships. Cruisers are strong against Destroyers, Destroyers are strong against Frigates, Frigates are strong against Cruisers. This relation gives an increased damage of 15% to the warship that once is strong against, and 15% decrease to the warship one is weak against. This is something to keep in mind when fighting opponents with an imbalanced fleet.

The leadership of these ships is also very different. Frigates have a leadership of 3, Destroyers 10 and Cruisers 30. This means that for every 1 Cruiser in your fleet you can also chose to have 3 Destroyers or 10 Frigates.

When we have a look at the HP, Armor and Shield, it is good to not look at absolute values, but look at these values per leadership point. If we do this for example for the tier 5 warships, we will find that Armor and HP are high for Frigates, Shield is high for Destroyers. Cruisers is lowest on all 3 stats. For tier 6 warships the results are similar, only Cruisers t6 shields are slightly better than destroyers t6 shields (frigates is still a lot better than both).

Based on this we can conclude Frigates are most suitable for defensive purpose, the small warships protecting the more valuable ones.

Attack Bonus and Damage output were not so clear to me at first, but it turns out not to difficult to figure out. The Attack Bonus is applied to the basic weapon damage, and the Damage Output is calculated based on the weapon. A few examples should make it clear:

Tier 5 Cruisers have an Attack Bonus of 250% and a Kinetic Weapon that does an attack of 648 with a cooldown of 2.5 seconds. That is 259.2 damage per second (648/2.5). 250% of 259.2 is 648, which is indeed the Damage Output of the t5 Cruisers.

Tier 5 Frigates have an Attack Bonus of 100% and a Missile Weapon that does an attack of 26 with a cooldown of 0.5 seconds. That is 52 damage per second (26/0.5). 100% of 52 is 52, which is the Damage Output of the t5 Frigates.

The calculations are not really important, for me the important takeaway is that when doing any comparison I can just look at the Damage Output and ignore the Attack Bonus and Weapon Damage, because those are all already included in the Damage Output.

Comparing the Damage Output per leadership for tier 5 and tier 6 warships we see that Cruisers have the best score (for tier 5 the destroyer damage output per leadership score is very close to cruiser damage output per leadership score)

Weapon Types

There are 3 different weapon types: Kinetic, Laser and Missile. Missiles are stronger against shields, work on a short range, and have a very small cooldown time. Laser Weapons ignore part of the armor, but do less damage against shields, have a medium cooldown and medium range. Kinetic have no specific strength or weakness, having the longest cooldown time, but also the longest range.

Frigates have either Kinetic or Missile Weapons, Destroyers either Laser or Missile Weapons, Cruisers either Kinetic or Laser Weapons.

What is wrong with an equal mix of Warships?

When I started playing I didn't do the above analysis and just used an equal mix of all warships, as much as possible of the highest tier. I found out I was doing less damage during alliance events compared to some of my alliance members, which caused me to ask them some questions and do some analysis.

The feedback I got from most players that did well was that they were very heavy on Cruisers in their fleet composition. Going as far as using only Cruisers.

Looking at the analysis above, this makes sense. Cruisers are the best damage dealers. Especially my 33% Frigates in my fleet causes my overall damage to be much lower. Should we follow this heavy on Cruisers or not? Destroyers might be an alternative, their damage is close to Cruisers, but I feel a focus on Destroyers have no upside and a drawback. I expect many players are producing lots of cruisers and if I would focus on Destroyers, that would mean having a lot of warships that are weak against cruisers, the one type of warships many of my possible opponents have a lot of. Frigates have the benefit of being strong against Cruisers, interesting for pvp, but their base damage is quite low compared to Cruisers, which is a drawback for the many fights against computer opposition, who as far as I have seen mostly have a mixed fleet.

Now if we chose to have a fleet that is very heavy on one warship type and tier, this opens up some other possibilities which we will discuss in the next secion.

Boosting your Flagship Stats

There are several ways to improve the stats of your warships. To name a few: Flagship skills, Flagship Gear, Crew skills, Spaceport Fortify Plan projects, Captain Skill, Core Module Projects, Research, Alliance Tech.

So far I have been kind of mixing things up, but now that I am going to make a switch to a fleet where I am very heavy on one warship type (tier 5 Cruisers, Kinetic Weapons), I can put a focus on all these to make those warships stronger.

Consider for example just equipping gear that improves your Kinetic Weapons to your Flagship, having Crew in your Spaceport that just benefits Cruisers, Kinetic Weapons, or general Warships, but nothing for Frigates, Destroyers, Missile or Laser Weapons, Assigning the Spaceport Fortify Plan points to Cruiser HP and Kinetic Weapon Attack, focusing on your Cruiser research first. Having a Flagship that complements the Cruisers, like Brontes, is a long term project for me, but that could help as well.

I am very focussed on the Development side of the Core Module projects, but with a focus on just Cruisers, I am tempted to score the 10% Cruiser Attack in the Weapon tree (besides the 3% Warship Build Speed I already took).

Fleet Composition Suggestions

How much Cruisers you use compared to the rest might depend on the type of fight you are involved with. If it is for example Archean Ghost Ship or Secret Signal, events where it is about doing damage and losses will normally be small, you might go as far as 100% Cruisers, for fights where you might have some tougher opposition and also take casualties, you have to play around a bit with the numbers. It will in some cases be beneficial to have some Destroyers to take out enemy Frigates, or Frigates for enemy Cruisers.

For events where it is about doing damage only: 100% Cruisers

For battles where it is more about win condition, start with 75% Cruisers, 15% Destroyers, 10% Frigates and tweak to get better results.

Normally I would go for the highest available tier, but you can also opt for example if you have tier 5 Cruisers to complement with tier 4 (or 6) Frigates, since these also have Kinetic Weapons, so they benefit from your focus on Kinetic Weapons. Similar if you have Tier 6 Cruisers consider complementing with Tier 5 (or 7) Destroyers for benefit of Laser Weapons.

But what about pvp?

Above is very good for computer opposition, but even against player opposition it should be beneficial. The fact that you can totally focus all your efforts on making one type of warship stronger, should compensate in large part of the relatively weakness. Of course someone focussing completely on Frigates will have some benefit towards you.

Conclusion

Using mostly Cruisers in your main fleet should directly benefit your damage in events against computer opposition, and you will have a lot of additional benefit once you have made sure all different ways to get boosts for warships also complement the specific warship type you use most.