Marnault

I don't really like the defensive guns due to their very short range, so unless you clump them to gather only one or so will actually be firing on a target. But if they are clumped together then they can be avoided completely. I prefer the hangers much more, I usually build 4 of them with 7 bombers and 1 fighter. If the system is a on the front lines I will also have some light carriers and some basic attack frigs. If you can get around 15-20 bombers in one system they can put some seri

I start out by first queuing up all the mines, followed by a capital ship yard. Then depending on the size of the map I pump out at least 3 scouts for a small map, more for larger maps. I find that an important thing right off the start is to figure out asap where the choke points are where different plant types are, where the pirate base is and where the other players are. This way you can ensure you expand in the right directions preferably having as few front line systems as possibl

One issue I have noticed is that fleet combat isn't that decisive because if one side is outnumbered they can easily warp off, even with the tower that slows the speed of hostile warps it doesn't give you enough time to kill much more than a few ships. One idea I had to counter act this was to add cap ship that has the ability to prevent ships within a certain radius from warping off. I think something like this would be best suited for a cap ship with low offense and fairly strong def