Best Strategies and Ships for the Different Difficulties

Just a few thoughts.

From the ships at the start the best ones by far are the Valiant and The Harbinger for carriers and The Armada as a weapon's platform. I have not played with the Trademark yet or any of the unlockable ships. The Harbinger, although reminiscent to a Battlestar, so it is kind of fun to pretend and use, is in fact fairly weak when cornered. I have lost a few games quite suddenly on Hard, if the enemy ends up chasing me or if you FTL into a map where a few enemy capital ships are armed with MK2s or other uber plasma weapons that knock your shields in seconds (even with 4 small shield generators at full) since you will probably take damage from the stages with (3+) stations as well, even if you FTL to the farthest corner of the map.

I find it almost impossible to not loose a ship at one point or another since it is only a matter of time before you get trapped; where you will be outnumbered as some ships you did not "see" due to the fog of war might just FLT in before your timer for you to bail is not fully reset. One of the best ways to avoid that is to set a formation where your two wings protect your flagship at either side, so if you loose one of them, well, you can always replace it. Not to mention the formation that you come into a sector is very important, which has been said by many before.

Also, in the later game, specially if you are playing endless, then YOU NEED an escape pod. You might still get shot down but if you make into one of your other ships, by then the FTL timer should have reset so you can jump out.

I have found that Bolt Fighters and Plasma bombers to be awesome, specially if you upgrade the range of the plasma bombers and burst. Since they will circle the target just far enough away to last a bit longer plus the Bolt fighters also serve as cannon fodder for their point weapons thus your nukes can slip in easily.

Another neat trick is that when you use the "Stress Beacon" it also applies to some of your own friendly vessels in the sector next over. So you can literally call in the cavalry. ;-) It does not work with all ships but it works with about 50/50 that I have noticed. Most likely based if the ships have some sort of script in the game that it does not allow them to move.

But it is a good strategy to lead them into the sector before the last one (if it is a nebula) since if you need to FTL out, then the Nebula will stop you from going further and the enemy is bound to chase you. If they do, at least you will have a friend ready to fire at them the moment they FTL in.

One of the best strategies is to simply have a ton of fighters since they will literally take the bullets for you. Drones are not as good as fighters.