Starter Fleet Guide:Tantalum
Tantalum Squadron
Consisting of one Cruise Missile Monitor, three Multi-Mission Tugs, three Gun Shuttles, and one Mine Shuttle, Tantalum Squadron is designed to take and hold objectives.
Difficulty: Hard
Strengths at a Glance
* Able to provide wide array of space control * Ability to grant vision across battlespace * Strong ability to contest and capture enemy capture points
Limitations at a Glance
* Not able to fight enemy ships larger than a Keystone-Class destroyer directly * A certain base skill level and map awareness required * High micro/actions per minute is encouraged
Community Maintainer: Good Nut & Marion (Mav625)
Within the 3k fleet point limit, Protectorate faction players have a vast array of tools to contest the capture points in the very common, “Control” point multiplayer mode. While Alliance capture-point fleets employ Sprinter-class corvettes and Raines-class frigates to provide vision and contest points, Protectorate fleets have a different suite of tools to win competitive multiplayer team battles.
Tantalum Squadron is a good example of the typical Protectorate capture-point or “cap” fleets employed in the Nebulous multiplayer where fleets of 3000 points each battle over capturing control points that grant your team score.
Cruise Missile Monitor: Time Dilation
The lead ship of the squadron, Time Dilation is a missile monitor or a "MLS2 monitor", with 5 MLS-2 Size 2 Missile launchers that can launch 20 Size 2 "Sunfish" missiles at a time. These missiles should be used to hit light-medium targets and support your lighter assets in gaining and controlling capture points. Targets like Keystone destroyers, Raines frigates, Sprinter corvettes are to be prioritized, as well as any Levy-class carriers. You can try against damaged warships, but ships larger than Vauxhalls usually have too good point defense. An important exception here is Greedfords, which ditch most point defense turrets for side-arms. Getting strikes into these is invaluable for your team.
Draugr Multi-Mission Tugs: Ranger, Bailiff, & Custodian
Tantalum also has four of what the community has termed “Mult-Mission tugs" (MMT). Each of these Draugr-clas Tugboats is equipped with a C30 100mm Cannon, a J15 'Bellbird' Jammer, a RF44 'Pinpoint' Radar, and a MLS-3 Size 3 Missile launcher. A VLS-1-23 chaff box carrying anti-missile missiles and chaff provides each MMT with protection from missile strikes
With this arsenal, these MMTs can either, defend capture points, scout the void and corners, or hunt Alliance Sprinter-class corvettes and Raines, and most importantly Keystone beam destroyers, using both the jammer, guns and missiles to blind and kill these targets. Just don’t take sustained heavy fire in these warships. The jammer and the tug’s anti-missile missiles on the tugboat also serve as its defense as they have no point defense (PD) turrets or “hardkill” PD. Most importantly, the MMT has a Bulwark Huntress radar with a range of 10km and the powerful Burnthrough ability. Through selecting the ship using the BRN command, a player can make the MMT do slight damage to its own radar in return for lighting up stealthy Alliance warships. It is the Huntress’s 10km range that allows the MMT to provide a significant degree of vision, allowing it to both act as a forward scout, or overwatch corners.
A note regarding the tugboats missiles. Each MMT has two types of missiles: Short-ranged Size 3 "Lance" Torpedoes aimed and longer-ranged Size 3 Two-Stage "Nunchuck" Hybrid Missiles. The Lance is a typical short ranged torpedo, meant to be used when an MMT is in cover, lying in ambush against enemy cap assets as these can deliver a power blow against the enemy. The "Nunchuck" however is new to the OSPN arsenal and uses the new "Flail" missile body. This two-stage missile has a cruise stage and then an agile maneuver stage to beat enemy point defense. Fire them at pesky scouting Frigates or Keystones at range while jamming them up.
Capping Shuttles: Scoundrel, Charlatan, & Swindler
Of course, while the tugboats capable scout hunters and scouts, they are far too expensive to take capture points, which are usually guarded by Shelter Alliance assets. Instead, Tantalum relies on its three Ferryman-class Shuttles, each armed with a pair of T20 100mm Cannons. This small gun can damage Alliance Sprinter-class corvettes and provides an outsized threat for its cost. A VLS-1-23 chaff box carrying anti-missile missiles and chaff provide each shuttle with a minimal missile defense complement. Send these cheap 164 point scouts into capture points to grab them for your team, and if they survive, use them as vision or to sneak behind the enemy lines to grab their “natural” capture points they start with.
Mine Shuttle: Hustler
As a final bonus, Tantalum sports a single Minelayer shuttle with a ML-9 'Mine' Launcher carrying 5 M-30 'Auger' Sprint Mines, the best mine variant. These deadly mines are best deployed near your own "natural" capture point directly onto nearby cover in their 3850 meter range. If they detect an enemy, they will SPRINT to target, knocking out anything trying to take that friendly capture point. Once the mines are deployed, you can throw the shuttle onto a capture point or keep it as a reserve to seize a capture point late in the game.
Overall, Tantalum is an excellent example of a Protectorate “cap” fleet. It is not however, not a fleet designed for fighting enemy Alliance capital ships in a head on slugging match. While the fleet’s missiles can finish off damaged Alliance capital ships, they’re of limited volume and shouldn’t be used to fire at them directly. In some ways, Tantalum is also a victim of its cap fleet specialisation. It is an amazing starter fleet for those who already have some game sense and knowledge of Nebulous Fleet Command maps. This does mean that it may not be the fleet for someone who just picked this game up for the first time. In addition, while you can mitigate the actions per minute required to control the many ships of Tantalum by hiding a few behind cover and only focusing on one or two, the fleet does reward a player who is used to intensive micro.
Find the enemy, capture the points, kill their scouts and any light assets defending their capture points. That is what Tantalum excels at.
Trivia: Originally, Tantalum was going to have a Mass Driver liner, but this version was shelved.
Missiles
SGM-312 Nunchuck
A SGM-300 Flail Hybrid Missile with Fixed Active Radar Seeker/[Command Validator], and a size 7 HE Impact warhead.
This is not a Straight-runner missile due to the lack of a reject setting on its primary seeker. This means that when false returns are induced by radar jamming or decoys, they will be considered valid targets by the missile and it may begin to wiggle wildly. When the Command Validator is jammed, the Fixed Active Radar Seeker will consider anything it sees as valid, and it will guide on the largest return as normal. As such, it will stage under these conditions. The benefit of this seeker setting is it is less all or nothing; the missile will continue to function in at least a limited manner if the track on the target is lost.
SGT-344 Lance
A SGT-300 Pilum Torpedo with Command Receiver/(WAKE) and a size 4 HE Impact warhead. Lances are a side-arm for your . Use them at very close range to defeat aurora laser hardkill, or longer ranges against targets with no point defense.
Lances use the Command Receiver/(Wake-Homing Seeker) guidance package, and this benefits them in two different ways. The first is the more obvious one- CMD is a seeker that is difficult to jam, requiring dedicated infrastructure on a reasonably close ship. The second is much less intuitive; a CMD seeker with a backup, in this case WAKE, will go in a straight line when Command is jammed out and that WAKE seeker is isn't guiding. This means that a CMD/(WAKE) torpedo may only be softkilled by a combination of flare and comms jamming. WAKE in particular is selected for its quarter-point cost; this puts it in competition for HOJ or SAH, which have similar benefits and downsides in a similar configuration.
Lances handle penetration of enemy hardkill via purely via HP and speed; this is insufficient against any 20mm kinetic Hardkill but can be sufficient to defeat Flak or Auroras at very close ranges.
SGM-220 Sunfish
A SGM-2 Tempest Missile with Fixed Active Radar Seeker/[Wake-Homing Seeker] and a size 4 HE Impact warhead.
Its Fixed Active Radar Seeker will guide on any radar signature present. Due to the Wake-Homing Validator, the missile will prefer wake validating targets when presented with multiple radar signatures in the seeker cone. However, the lack of backup seeker or reject un-validated targets setting on the seeker means this missile is vulnerable to being wiggled off course by radar jamming, instead of going straight until a valid target appears or the primary seeker gets close enough to burn through the jamming. Its range is limited to only 15km, so be careful with your plotting. Be sure to leave enough range in your plotting to account for the distance between the last waypoint and the target.
Auger Sprint Mine
M-30 'Auger' Sprint Mines, when triggered, sprint like a hybrid toward their targets. They exhibit TTGI behavior, making them incredibly difficult to softkill after they've been triggered.
SGM-102 Reprise
A ACT4BF Anti-Missile Missile with a Steerable Active Radar Seeker and a size 4 Blast Fragmentation warhead.
As only one seeker is made available to SGM1 missiles, a Steerable Active Radar Seeker is chosen for this AMM. Steerable ACT in this case has no extra cost penalty over Fixed ACT, but both lack any form of mid-course guidance if it is launched before the target is in range for the seeker to acquire, which may cause it to take an inefficient path and range-out before it hits. It is seduced by Missile and Bomber launched Decoys, moreover, the lack of backup seeker or reject un-validated targets setting on the seeker means this missile is vulnerable to being blinded by radar jamming, instead of going straight until a the primary seeker gets close enough to burn through the jamming.
This ACT4BF Anti-Missile Missile is a defensive AMM programmed to intercept SGM-H-200 Cyclone Hybrid Missiles (Two per), and SGM-H-300 Atlatl Hybrid Missiles (Two per), Tanto Interceptors (One per), and Claymore Bombers (One per). Its size 4 warhead is sufficient to kill any of the listed missiles in one shot, but its basic size 4 Blast Fragmentation warhead is unreliable against small missile targets and often will take 2 or more hits to defeat them, as HE-Frag warheads will deal 0 damage on a failed roll to missiles instead of half-damage as they deal to craft. Its armor penetration is insufficient for defeating SGT-300 Pilum Torpedoes, which make take 5 successful intercepts to defeat, in practice likely to be as many as 10 intercepts.
Its high-agility tuning makes it ideal as an AMM for intercepting fast and agile Hybrid missiles, but leaves its range woefully short when used as an Anti-Craft Missile. Nevertheless it can serve this role in an emergency if an extremely close-in attack is taking place, such as someone trying to bomb you. In this role its size 4 Blast Fragmentation warhead will perform much better, able to reliably one or two-shot a Tanto Interceptor or in 5-6 shots kill a Claymore Bomber.
SGM-126 Counter-Time
A SGM-100 Balestra Missile with a Semi-Active Radar Homing Seeker and a size 4 HE Impact warhead. This missile is not intended for offensive usage, or indeed any usage at all during a typical match. Arming missiles exist so that a ship with an arming missile counts as being offensively armed, an important feature in the Control game-mode most multiplayer matches take place within. Thus, firing this missile is not advisable, besides in very niche circumstances.
In Game Description
Tantalum Squadron is designed for nothing less than complete battlespace dominance of scouting and objectives. Three multi-mission tugboats operate independently, patrolling along all edges of the map to provide situational awareness and destroy enemy scouts. They can also be used to capture and block objectives if needed, but the faster and more expendable shuttles are more disposable and thus more suited for that task. A cruise missile monitor backs these lighter assets up, ideal for crushing any medium-sized threats to your other ships. Ideally with salvos plotted to approach the enemy from behind to take advantage of WAKE validation. While defenseless, it can reposition quickly to dodge enemy counterstrikes. This squadron has a vulnerability to enemy craft, and benefits from carrier teammates to provide void cover.
