Starter Fleet Guide:Garnet
Garnet Squadron
Difficulty: Easy
Strengths at a Glance
* Easy to micro * Uniform fleet set means its easy to remember what ship does what * Can punch above weight * Quite durable * Jack of all trades - Good matchups against all of ANS's Skirmish and Frontline assets
Limitations at a Glance
* Deals most damage at short range * Large weapon and ammunition variety to keep track of * Slow * Lacks complete softkill - missing jammer decoy
Community Maintainer: NotSoLoneWolf
Frontline Monitors: Just The Warm Up, Serious Callers Only, Excuse The Interruption, Merely Passing Through, & Open For Business
The Protectorate Monitor is the counterpart to the Alliance Keystone destroyer, and even shares having a special spinal weapon. However, unlike a Keystone, a monitor has 48cm of armor and 10% higher Damage Reduction, in exchange being somewhat slower.
Garnet Squadron is thus an angrier, tankier, better version of Task Force Ash, relying on the combination of Plasma-100mm turrets to deal a lot of damage at short-mid range of around 6.5-7km. It does have a long ranged punch with it's main spinal weapons, but it's most effective up close. Unlike Ash however, while Garnet can ambush enemy forces and benefits from ambushing enemies, it is considered a "frontline" fleet meant to hold the line against enemy ANS fleets, but preferably at close range.
Garnet's monitors are each armed with a C90 600mm Cannon, a 100mm T30 cannon and a 400mm T81 Plasma Cannon.
The T30 100mm turrets fire fast light shells and can switch between anti-ship HE and AP, as well as anti-craft/anti-missile Grape. Grape is good against craft, missiles, and Alliance Corvettes. The real show-stopper of 100mm Turrets however is the HEHC (high explosive high capacity) round that needs to be fired with the Plasma Cannons.
This is because the T81 Plasma turret fires armor-stripping shells that opens up enemy heavy warships such as Axfords and Solomons to be damaged by the rest of Garnet's lighter arsenal. Once a ship is sufficiently plasma'd and burnt[1] (which is shown in the standard view as a blackened marks on the ship), fire High Explosive High Capacity rounds from your T30 guns at your enemy targets. The High Explosive High Capacity rounds do significantly more damage to a larger area and penetrate deeper into to armor-stripped targets, but have lower armor penetration, requiring a Plasma'd target to function.
The C90 600mm Cannons are the last trick in Garnet's arsenal and is a general purpose weapon. The High Explosive Squash Head round can literally never not detonate on the enemy, which prevents over penetration when fired at light targets. It's also exceptionally good against heavy warships. It is however very inaccurate. Thus, the C90 can also fire Bombshell rounds that can deal fragmentary damage against any Alliance warships lighter than a capital, from Frigates and Corvettes to Destroyers and Light Cruisers. It is recommended to use the C90 to add additional damage at range against the enemy and in particular to focus down light ships taking capture points (bomb them), formations of light ships [2], sneaky Beamstones hiding behind cover [3], dodging Vauxhaulls [4], or enemy large ships (HESH).
In summary, the trick to using Garnet is to position yourself in a crucial space where you can overwatch a point, or a critical section of the map. You destroy any enemy warship that closes in. If your team needs to push, you need to lead the charge, preferably into an area where you are only confronting one fleet at a time. Don't allow Garnet to sit in the open and be attritioned by volleys of long range ANS 450mm, Rails, or missiles, but don't hide away from action.
This is because you need to be careful using this fleet. Monitors are built tough, but 250mm AP can penetrate them and 450mm HE and AP shells can rip them up. Isolate Solomon Battleships, Axford Heavy Cruisers, and try not to get baited into an ambush by Light Cruisers. Use your J15 'Bellbird' Radar Jammers to screen your movements. Also keep in mind that while Garnet Squadron has a comprehensive Softkill suite with J75 'Warbler' Jammer, L50 'Blackjack' Laser Dazzler, J15 'Bellbird' Radar Jammers, with flak and AMMs to back it up, it has no jammer decoys to draw off Anti-Radiation missiles from hitting your Bellbird Jammers. As individual ships are damaged, this defense grid starts to lose its protective shield.
Set up ambushes, confront your enemies bow on, leave burning wrecks behind. That’s how you want to play Garnet Squadron. It's an overall EASY fleet to play especially when compared to Task Force Ash, as it's better recon elements and the tankiness of the Monitors enables it to not only slug it out, but choose when to slug it out.
Missiles
SGM-100 Anti-Hybrid
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-200 Tempest Missiles (One per), SGM-H-200 Cyclone Hybrid Missiles (One per), and SGM-H-300 Atlatl Hybrid Missiles (Two 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-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.
In Game Description
Garnet Squadron is a multi-role heavy anchor fleet featuring a swarm of monitors. Success with this fleet depends on choosing ammo types to suit your targets and engaging on your terms. The C90 cannon is your mainstay, and its 600mm bombs combined with 100mm HE fire will quickly shred any lightly armored foe. Bombshells can also be used against jamming bearings or position-fired around rocks to take out hidden foes. Against capital ships, swap to 600mm HE-SH and unleash the plasma cannons. After a few plasma volleys land and degrade the target's armor, 100mm HE-HC shells will devastate it. Despite being heavily armored this fleet is vulnerable to enemy missiles if its suite of jammers is not activated swiftly to softkill the threat. Remember that holding shift before right-clicking on a target will allow you to give orders to the entire formation at once.
Example Gameplay
- ↑ The exact amount of armor stripped will fall off with range
- ↑ (bomb them)
- ↑ (keep bombing them)
- ↑ (bomb them again)
