Starter Fleet Guide:Amethyst
Amethyst Squadron
Difficulty: Hard
Pros at a Glance
* Lots of Craft - Strongest ASF kit of any starter * Deadly Killing Power
Cons at a Glance
* Single, high value target * Needs to coordinate with Team, needs to support team * Vulnerable to an RPF or Sarissa heavy Alliance composition.
Community Maintainer: SecretMink
Craft
B-45 "Steelhead" Sturgeon
Use the Sturgeon bombers to take out valuable alliance units with your Torpedo loadout. It is recommended to use 4 Sturgeons on a torpedo strike wing, especially against enemy capital ships. They are equipped with "Truncheon" torpedoes that can be jammed, but even if they are jammed, they will run straight right into enemy capital ships.
If you manage to disable or severely damage an enemy ANS capital, finish it off with a "Rocket/Bomb" finisher strike, which is configured to jam or distract the remaining enemy point defense and ram bombs home. If some killing of light assets is required, The "Steelhead" bombers can be launched with 100mm HE guns and R2 Piranha rockets which can shred Sprinters, Raines and Keystones.
PF-386 "Arbiter VI" Barracuda
The high end of the High-Low mix.
Amethyst Squadron sports two different Barracuda fighter types. The "Arbiter" fighters are your anti-air fighters with Standoff SDM-100 SPAMRAM missiles and it is recommended to launch them in groups of 3 or 6. These are necessary to engage, or to be exact, to engage at a STANDOFF distance from ANS fighters, especially those with Coilguns. The armor on these fighters means they will not die too easily even if caught by coilgun fighters, but try not to get these groups jumped.
Equipped with the ceramic coating fuselage upgrade, Arbiters maintain the highest possible speed for the Barracuda airframe while also boosting their survivability considerably. Due to their increased speed relative to their slow Barracuda brethren, it is advised to keep these further back from the air war front line, instead using their fast speed to quickly react and intercept to any air threats attempting to push into protectorate space. The higher speed also helps significantly to boost cycle rates, so do not be afraid to RTB them early after expending their load of Spamraams.
PF-386 Barracuda
The low end of the High-Low mix.
As for the standard "Barracuda" strike fighters, it is recommended you launch them in groups of 8 with the default "Strike Fighter" loadout. They can fire SPAMRAM Standoff missiles against enemy fighters should an opportunity present itself, but their primary goal in any sortie should be landing strikes on an enemy light combatant (FFL, FF, DD). While incredibly cost effective, the strike fighter loadout uses R2 'Piranha' rockets which are anything but accurate at range. You will need to manually path your fighters into just before 20mm Point defense range (1.5km or shorter) to launch at the last second for maximum effect.
Equipped with the ablative foam fuselage upgrade, Amethyst's Barracudas are more survivable than base airframes. This comes with a downside, while ablative foam may be the best health-per-point fuselage upgrade it automatically triggers the loadout weight speed debuff, unlike ceramic and stealth coating. This makes the Barracudas perfect for a strike oriented role, as there is no speed opportunity cost to equipping strike munitions as they are already 'slow'. Its "Friendly Escort" loadout is therefor free to carry more heavy equipment than the Arbiter's "Stand-off Patrol" equivalent, gaining jammer pods and another 2 SDM-1 Spamraams.
"Oasis" Halberds
The same craft found in Wulfenite Squadron.
To spot targets, Amethyst has 2 "Oasis" Advanced Radar skiffs with 8km radars. These are essentially the long-range radar craft the OSP has access to instead of the Sundial. Keep them safe with fighter escort. These are your most valuable craft so do not overextend them. They can be used to scout for your allies, and serve as the primary enabler of your standoff ASF package.
Make sure to set your "Oasis" skiffs to the "JUKE" posture as that will enable them to dodge ballistic anticraft measures at range. Skiffs, like all craft, can also exist outside of the withdraw line indefinitely, so do not be afraid to path them outside the map if it gets you a better angle.
Missiles
SDM-122 Spamraam
A SDM-1 Lunge Boosted Missile with a Steerable Active Radar Seeker and a size 4 Blast Fragmentation warhead. The same missile found in Wulfenite Squadron
Used for air to air combat, Spamraams are your long range anti-craft missiles and are employed in the two standoff loadouts available to your Barracudas.
As only one seeker is made available to SDM1 missiles, a Steerable Active Radar Seeker is chosen for the Spamraam. Steerable ACT in this case has no extra cost penalty over Fixed ACT, and is inexpensive enough while conferring a high enough kill rate to be a functional mainstay for your craft to craft engagements. However, the lack of backup seeker or reject un-validated targets setting on the seeker means this missile is vulnerable to being staged early by radar jamming, instead of going straight until a valid target appears or the primary seeker gets close enough to burn through the jamming.
The missile's tunings contribute to its effective kill rate, being sufficient to chase down enemy fighters and bombers while staying maneuverable enough to hit them despite any evasion they perform.
SGT-3 Truncheon
A SGT-300 Pilum Torpedo with Fixed Active Radar Seeker!/[Command Validator] and a size 4 HE Impact warhead.
Truncheons are your primary offensive tool. Their use is straightforward: fire them off of bombers, keep the bombers on target to guide them into a track.
Truncheons use the Fixed Active Radar Seeker!/[ Command Validator ] guidance package, which makes them a Straight-runner missile due to the reject setting on its primary seeker, indicated here by the "!" symbol. Combined with the Command Validator, this ensures no false returns induced by radar jamming or decoys will be considered valid targets by the missile, and it will continue to run straight as it waits for a valid target to present itself. When the Command Validator itself is jammed, the Fixed Active Radar Seeker will be unable to consider anything it sees as valid due to the reject setting, and it will continue to run straight as it waits for a valid target to present itself. As such, it will not stage under these conditions. Only when both Fixed Active Radar Seeker and Command Validator are jammed simultaneously will the missile consider itself to be jammed and begin to wiggle wildly.
Truncheons handle penetration of enemy hardkill via two different ways: the first is deployment in higher mass, as covered with the Steelhead Sturgeon. The second is by their engine configuration and terminal maneuvers, which together give them a weave terminal for defeating kinetic hardkill solutions. About 1.4G of turn rate yields a low maneuverability for weave to keep the torpedoes alive at range, while 272 m/s is on the fast end for a weave torpedo and carries the mass through hardkill.
SGM-1 Far Riposte
A CMD4BF Anti-Missile Missile with a Command Receiver and a size 4 Blast Fragmentation warhead. The same missile found in Wulfenite Squadron.
As only one seeker is made available to SGM1 missiles, a Command Receiver is chosen for this AMM. CMD in this provides mid-course guidance reducing the odds of the AMM rangeing-out before it hits. It is not seduced by Missile and Bomber launched Decoys, moreover, it can only be blinded by radar jamming if your team's radar track on the threat is lost.
This CMD4BF Anti-Missile Missile is a defensive AMM programmed to intercept SGM-H-200 Cyclone Hybrid Missiles (One per), SGM-H-300 Atlatl Hybrid Missiles (Two per), and Tanto Interceptors (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.
This tuning is an Anti-Craft Missile tuning, trading the agility needed to hit terminal phase hybrids for the range to more reliably hit craft. 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-1 Ceremonial Arming Missile
A SGM-100 Balestra Missile with a Wake-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.
Ship & Usage
Moorline Carrier: All Reaching All Taking
The Moorline Class Lineship, or container liner is the only fleet carrier accessible to Nebulous Multiplayer and as such is one of the most powerful units in the battlespace. With 36 Barracuda Fighter craft, 16 "Steelhead" Sturgeon bombers and 2 "Oasis" Radar Skiffs, Amethyst can project craft wing that can heavily influence the battlespace.
It is necessary however to keep your ship very safe as Amethyst is a single ship worth 3k points, which is normally a quarter of your team's fleet power in a 4v4 matchup. Do not let your ship get fired upon or in danger. Moreover, while it is possible for Amethyst to launch huge sorties of 14 fighter craft at once, this is only advised if you can crush the enemy fighter wing all at once.
Amethyst is HARD rated for a reason. You have a single, expensive ship and a lot of craft to manage. Take it slow, practice against AI for a bit to get your tempo up, before taking this into the battlespace.
In Game Description
Amethyst Squadron is a full fleet carrier, equipped to destroy the opponent with overwhelming force. Launch Oasis skiffs and position them to provide bubbles of radar coverage, aiding your teammates and creating space for your other craft to work within. Fighters and bombers lack search radar, so advance beyond friendly radar range with caution. Your Barracudas are general purpose fighters with some strike capability, while the Arbiter design has significantly greater speed with most loadouts. Steelhead bombers can launch powerful torpedoes to crack capital ships, with 100mm gunpods as a backup option for cheaply attacking light targets. Be aware that for the finisher loadout which includes kinetic bombs, if the target's point defenses are not sufficiently disabled after the rocket strike, then closing in to drop the bombs is often suicidal. Knowing when to commit and when to disengage, as well as using terrain to approach your target safely, is key for the survival of your craft.
