Ship Building Megaguide

structure:

basic description of category under header

link to guide pages including short primer for guide pages with some exceptions

Ships

Ships are the fundamental unit of Nebulous: Fleet Command, coming in a variety of different basic hulls that may be further customized to the user's liking.

Links to guide pages

Beginner's Guide (Basics of Shipbuilding)

The beginner's guide section on shipbuilding covers the basics that apply to any ship build, without getting too far into the specifics for any one ship.

Sprinter

Sprinters are the least expensive and fastest ship on ANS' roster, and serve in a variety of roles between being an inexpensive escort or ultralight capturing asset, to being the basis for missile-focused backline hunters or a difficult to discover and fast sensor platform.

Raines

Similar to the Sprinter, the Raines is a hull which fulfills a large variety of roles, costing a bit more and with worse mobility in exchange for stronger mount selection, better armor, and much better power generation. These qualities make the Raines decent as a choice of supporting ship for the rest of your fleet, letting it win gunfights against lighter targets or bring higher power cost modules inexpensively, but reduce its utility as a capture asset or backline hunter.

Keystone

The Keystone is a hull which breaks the prior trends; while it does still offer more mounts and power generation than its predecessors, this is rarely useful except for powering its unique spinal weapons and keeping itself alive owing to its poor mobility and cost efficiency compared to prior options. None of that is to say the keystone isn't worth using: it is simply defined by its spinals, giving you an option between an exceptionally dangerous close-range weapon and an exceptionally annoying long-range weapon.

Vauxhall

The Vauxhall is a hull which is fairly singular in purpose, being fast and well-armed in exchange for its lacking armor scheme. Vauxhalls exist to skirmish with the enemy and defeat smaller assets with 250mm guns, though they are more than capable of posing a threat to heavy assets along the way. Alternative builds tend to make use of missiles to some extent, though this is far less common than simple gun-based Vauxhalls.

Levy

Unlike the previous ships, there is no ambiguity in what a Levy wants to do: the Levy exists to carry and launch craft, serving as its primary weapons as well as strong supporting tools for the rest of the team. A Levy can be built to do extra things on top of launching craft, but these extra things serve as bonuses to using craft.

Axford

Axfords are ANS' second heaviest frontline asset, taking a lot of damage to kill and being able to shrug off heavy gunfire for much longer than almost anything else available to the faction. Axfords are a cornerstone of ANS fleet compositions as a result, existing to simply take and deal damage while the rest of the team can try to give the frontline an advantage. It's worth mentioning that while the Axford is largely defined by its frontline utility and importance, it is also good as a missile asset due to its relatively low cost, generous mounts, and ability to mount a turreted beam for self-defense.

Soloman

The Soloman is ANS' heaviest frontline asset, and its most expensive ship overall. Unlike the Axford, there isn't much room for what a Soloman should do: it exists to shoot guns and have guns shot at it. Alternative schemes for what a Soloman should do are usually very difficult to use, point inefficient, or both; 450mm gunfire is the Soloman's comfort zone.

Ferryman

The Ferryman is analogous to ANS' Sprinter, being OSP's least expensive and fastest ship. Unlike the Sprinter, the Ferryman is fairly limited in what roles it can readily fulfill: it will typically act as a rocket-based ambusher, an inexpensive capture asset, an inexpensive skirmisher, or a jamming asset. Despite this, it is still a crucial asset for OSP fleets, and extremely dangerous in the right conditions.

Draugr

The Draugr is analogous to ANS' Raines, fulfilling the same niche as an overmatch asset against light targets and in being an auxiliary sensors asset, in exchange for losing some versatility overall especially as an escorting asset.

Monitor

The Monitor is like ANS' Keystone in that it is slow, but unlike the Keystone in most other ways. Where the Keystone struggles in direct combat, the Monitor is designed for frontline combat, taking and dealing damage much in the same way as ANS' Axford and Soloman hulls. When not in a frontline role, Monitors are mostly used for their potentially very generous magazine capacity with missiles, or very occasionally as a defender for a capture point.

Journeyman

As with ANS' Levy, the Journeyman is singularly devoted to launching and using Craft, though it is much lower in cost in exchange for its much lower carrying capacity. While the Journeyman can also do some things in addition to using its craft, it similarly should use these in support of using craft.

Ocello

The Ocello is directly analogous to ANS' Axford, being a medium weight cruiser which uses 450mm guns and expects to take 450mm gunfire in turn. Its main distinction is as the only OSP ship that may take ANS-unique mounts, enabling it to bring a stronger roster of EWAR and PDT options than any other OSP ship. As a result, the Ocello tends to be employed as an anchor against enemy missile play, while also being one of OSP's strongest frontline combatants.

Marauder

The Marauder is quite nimble and carries very heavy firepower, in exchange for being extremely large and relatively fragile. Marauders are employed in a wide variety of roles owing to their very generous compartment and mount layout, as well as their aggressive price; missile Marauders, 450mm Marauders, 250mm Marauders, and 100mm/Plasma Marauders are all staples at time of writing.

Moorline

Like the Journeyman and Levy, the Moorline is fairly restrained in what roles it can fulfill; unlike the two dedicated Carriers, the Moorline gets a choice between two roles instead of one. Moorlines should virtually always be using all four of their uniquely large slots for equipping either large amounts of CM4 container missiles, or for equipping container bank hangars filled with craft. Poor mobility, cost efficiency, and protection mean that the Moorline should spend all its time in the backline, firing cruise missiles or launching craft to remotely effect the game.

Mounts

Mounts consist of anything which goes on the exterior surfaces of your ships, covering a wide range of options.

Links to guide pages

Communications, Ewar, & Sensors

The mounts in this category can vary somewhat in role and functionality but very generally exist as supporting infrastructure for your other mounts. Even electronic warfare is generally best used as a supplement to some other mount's purpose rather than on its own merits.

Flight Support

The mounts in this category are all used for storing and launching craft. As with the above category, Flight Support mounts are typically best used as a supporting asset for your other mounts, with Container Bank Hangars being a notable exception.

Missile Launchers

The mounts in this category are used for launching missiles, either from the magazine or from storage within the mount itself. Unlike the mounts mentioned so far, the vast majority of these are used offensively, though some missile launchers are still primarily used defensively or in support of other missiles/mounts.

Point Defense Turrets

The mounts in this category are used for destroying enemy missiles and craft; all mounts in this category cannot be used against other ships.

Projectile Weapons

The mounts in this category are all offensive gunfire projectile weapons, primarily used for damaging and destroying enemy ships, though some mounts may also take ammunition types which make them dangerous to enemy craft or missiles as well.

Energy Weapons

The mounts in this category differ fairly dramatically in role and purpose, with the points of commonality between them being their role as offensive weapons, and high power draw in exchange for devastating effect.

Spinal Weapons

The mounts in this category also differ from the norm, with their main point of commonality being that they are all offensive weapons.

Integrated

Integrated mounts may not be purposefully added nor removed in the fleet editor, but are described here for posterity.

Compartments

Compartments take up internal space in your ship in exchange for some benefit. Unlike modules, some compartments will scale based on the size of the compartment they are fitted into, but otherwise compartments and modules are fairly similar.

what does each compartment do? why do you take each compartment? where should each compartment be? are there any special considerations to make for this compartment?

Links to guide pages

Command

Command compartments are what enable your ships to enact any orders at all, with CICs specifically allowing your ship to enact orders more complicated than moving to a position. At least one CIC is virtually mandatory, with more CICs being a common sight on increasingly heavy assets.

Damage Control

Damage Control compartments allow ships which have taken fire to repair and restore themselves. Damage Control compartments are more relevant on ships which expect to take more damage, but are virtually always recommended.

Flight Support

Flight Support compartments store or buff craft. Ships which don't have any craft onboard shouldn't take Flight Support compartments, while ships that do have craft onboard will situationally want Flight Support compartments.

Miscellaneous

The compartments listed here vary in role and importance, though you should always have at least one magazine per ship (your first magazine is always free!)

Modules

Modules take up internal space within module slots, each conferring some benefit (and, sometimes, a downside.) Unlike compartments, there are no modules which scale with the size of the compartment they're fitted to: modules should generally be put in the smallest slot available for that module.

in each page:

same as compartments

Links to guide pages

Radars

Radars are what allow your ship to see anything past visual range, as well as being mandatory for proper functioning of PD turrets and automatic softkill. The various choices in this category are chosen largely based on how well they detect targets and how well they can defeat jamming.

Propulsion

Propulsion modules enable your ship to move at all, with the options available giving various buffs and debuffs over the default drive. It is worth mentioning that large drives should be taken over small drives in almost every situation where they are available, owing to their higher health and better power generation.

Powerplants

Powerplants inexpensively give your ship substantially more power than propulsion modules, the tradeoff being that they monopolize highly valuable 3x3x3 or 5x5x5 slots which could otherwise go to strong Weapon Support or Propulsion modules.

Weapon Support

As implied by the title, Weapon Support modules support the weapons on your ship, though they are also capable of buffing mounts which are not explicitly used offensively. In most cases, you should have a decent number of these modules.

Miscellaneous

As with compartments, there are a number of modules which are not under any of the above categories, with a wide variety in their importance and role.

Craft

in each page:

what do you take each craft to do? what is each craft good or bad at? why do or don't you take x amount of craft? why do you take some modules but not others?

Links to guide pages

Sensor craft

Carriers get access to some of the strongest recon tools in the game, which can serve to support your own operations or that of your teammates.

Fighter craft

Fighters are the primary tool via which carriers may counter other carriers or missiles, though their utility against ships is substantially more limited. While it's easy to conceptualize fighters as only useful offensively, against enemy craft, they are also extremely strong when defending friendly ships.

Strike Craft

Strike craft are the main way that carriers incapacitate enemy ships, and are functionally their offensive weapons.

Missiles

Links to guide pages

Missile Bodies

The underlying body for a missile makes a substantial difference in its usable roles and how it may be implemented for said roles.

Avionics Package

Avionics dictate your missile's programming, as well as being where you may pay to enable cruise behavior on a missile or add in automatic evasion behaviors to better defeat kinetic hardkill point-defense.

Warhead Types

Different warheads dictate what happens when a missile is either nearby or misses a target, with choice in warhead varying based on the missile's stats and intended usage.

Seekers

Different seekers will dramatically impact the effectiveness of missiles no matter their role, with more expensive seekers generally (but not always!) indicating a higher difficulty of your opponent defeating a missile.

Misc

anything i forgot idk