Tactics/Strategy

Tactics and Strategy for SotP. What works for you?

last edited by harris2shotkbke

Erhmergerd, just spam paris like duhhhh ebeejeebeejeebobedyboopedyaaay.

But on a more serious note, largely depends on what stage of the game.

Covenant Early: Couple of ORS cruisers supported by around 4 SDV's (corvette thingys),
Mid: Moving into the mid game (by that I mean once you've taken the first 3-4 planets) move onto some DDS and DOS capital ships with supporting SDV's and CPV's and start foraying toward your enemy (hopefully your scouts will have found them by this stage), keep on expanding using your ORS fleets whilst your DDS and DOS fleet keeps pressure on your enemy to try and stop them expanding. If you're fighting a covenant, try and thing their expansionary fleet and kill it, if it's UNSC, just keep pressure on, destroy constructors using fighters/bombers to prevent them building SMAC's, nuke capital ships using DOS', also kill frigate factories. So in list of priority for a gravity well that is being developed or is developed: Frigate Yards - Constructors - SMAC's - Fleet (if there is one), whilst keeping your ships away from any built SMAC's.
By the late game you want to be building CCS's and CPV's on a 3-1 ratio, along with capital ships. Don't build more than 4 DOS and DDS's, since spam isn't really the most efficient thing to do with these caps, rather try and get a few tanky caps like CAS and OSS.

UNSC: don't play them

Jokes...

Early: 2 Orions at the most, and Marathons. If you want to build some Paris' as fodder, fine, but don't build more than 10.
By your fourth planet, you will want to have built at least an additional 4 marathons (So your fleet composition should look like 1 Orion, 2 Marathons, 6-10 Paris, Maybe 1-4 Stalwarts). Always build SMAC's around your infrastructure once you've placed it to fight off any enemy raids, or at least to have a bit of preparation if they attack when you're unprepared
Mid: You should have a few Epoch's and Artemis' as their fighter/bomber units + power MAC's complement eachother well, try to build some frigate yards and capital yards close to the front, if not, make sure to have build Anchor stations (for both Trade and ship construction). Halcyons are very useful tanky fodder, and I recommend replacing a majority of your Paris' by the mid-game with these, as they will last infinitely longer, you can also build a few carriers (not too many as they cost a lot in fleet supply) to complement your Epoch's available strikecraft. You ought to have built a few ONI Sloops (the cap ship varient, can't recall its name), in order to cloak and foray into your enemy territory, (especially if covenant) to target and destroy and weapon tech labs, as you want to avoid your enemy having the ability to call in high-level patrol fleets, as well as high-level cap ships and cruisers.
By the late game, you should have kept up your number of capital ships, ranging from 1-6 Artemis, 1-4 Epoch, 2 at the most Orions, 4 at the most Punic's, and enough Marathons to make Lord Hood green with envy.
Try and keep up the pressure on your enemy's infrastructure (It's not easy), and make sure to upgrade planet infrastructure and build SMAC's (with some saber platforms around them to offer AA defense)

I just gave away all my secrets :(

and sorry for any grammatical errors, I wrote this very quickly and haven't proof read

Don't touch Paris. Spam Halcyons and high-damage capitals and build clusters of ODPs and hangars in orbit of your borderline worlds. Have some Artemis-class capital ships near every ODP cluster in order to deal with enemy DOS-class long range battleships.

The rest you can figure out yourself.

last edited by Battlemage1

UNSC: Build Orion Carriers and a couple Marathons to escort alongside no more than 10-20 Paris per fleet as a basic composition.
Research the Destroyers for Anti-Ship and Stalwarts for Anti-Air for later fleets to replace the Paris.

Use the Orions to colonise planets whilst the escorts attack the pirates and whatever else is out there. Having a large number of Stalwarts can allow you to build carriers that solely have bombers, as they will help finish off the ships hit by MAC rounds and draw the attention of the enemy fleet and accompanying fighters. This will also expose the enemy bombers making a run for the fleet allowing the AAA to take them out quickly.

Keep the number of Sloops roaming up, send them out in pairs in case one is destroyed. You can use the Heavy Prowlers, but they need constant attention, as they don't have the "Explore" ability. Leaving mines in each system allow you to monitor the system.

Only build the Infinity if you have an enormous excess of resources. Smaller ships can get the job done.

That and you need a certain Spartan's Luck if you're fighting the Covenant.

hello I started playing a few months ago and so far I have won UNSC vs UNSC on an easy fortify AI only twice but I find I survive much longer by slightly over stretching my self fleet wise and economically but I compensate for this by fortifying my worlds with full ODP defence early on and placing at least one anchor station with slipspace beacons ASAP especially on my front line leading to every ship producing world I have so I can get ships to any fight quickly I also try to max out fleet cap to produce as many carriers as possible may the be light carriers epoch or Punic class to have a very good balance between bombers and fighters to overwhelm the enemy stalwarts and other AA defences all my cap ships have nukes if able as well as my stations I do keep some artimis class in reserve ready to combat the enemy infinity class using the cov killer ability. economy wise I try to get trade up ASAP and population upgraded I do try to do artefact research pretty early to try and get a good advantage so I can rush as many worlds as possible and pray to god I get a drive upgrade then I go for ship build speed so I can produce ships even faster than normal I haver found spamming halberds and eions works well with some large stalwart and cap ship support military reaserch is a high priority for me as I belive that if I can kill the enemy before they can kill me I will win
this is probably a very bad strategy but it works for me when I use it

I'm heavy into economy throughout any given match, and having a strong economy in Sins also means you typically can have a pretty powerful military in the mid-late game, but you're weak for rushes early-mid match, so you've got a bad Achilles Heel when that's your focus.

It works for me though, because if you're smart about it you can turtle for a while, while your economy bubble builds up.

The way to do it is to have a very small initial fleet that is all about fast and efficient expansion, that can take early game unoccupied worlds very quickly, that you can then bolster with upgrades that will boost your economy, like better population centers. This small fleet means you're not really going to be able to defend yourself outside of tactical structures like MAC/Hangers/Patrol Stations, and so when you're on the defense (which you will be) you need to be focusing partially on turtle-ling either some of your inner colonies so you don't get completely swept over, or building a good external defense line on some of your key boarder worlds where you can push an enemy to attack you at.

Basically, don't get any fleet upgrade until you hit the point where you absolutely need a fleet, because fleet supply upgrades (not capital ship slots, but fleet supply specifically) eat away at your economy, as there's a meta surrounding it where you now have to actually monetarily and resource-wise supply your fleet. At later upgrades you might be eating away 50 - 70% of your potential economy just to have a larger fleet, and you might not actually need that larger fleet because you're just focusing on tech early game, unless you're being rushed.

Pushing the civilian tech tree forward, building trade stations, resource extractors, upgrading your planet population upgrades, and making sure every planet has a resource boost structure like a Springhill helps massively push your economy upwards. By the time you're entering the end game your enemies may be spending everything they have to fight you, while you have strong defenses that they can't push through, and you can pump ships out that are fully upgraded because you've had the resources to upgrade a build ships the whole match.

This strategy works for me pretty well, but as I said before, it leaves you weak early - mid match, and you can definitely get trashed by even moderately sized fleets if you're not ready, because you really don't have a major force to defend yourself until late game.

Make fleets with 2 or more DDS class with supporting craft such as SDV and CPV, then just sit on the edge of the gravity well and let the fighters do the work for you. Easy peasy lemon sqweezy.

COV vs. UNSC: keep in mind this only really works if you know when and where the UNSC are going to attack in full force. Move all of your fleets to the leading edge of the gravity well, when the UNSC jumps in, they will be facing the other direction and won't be able to fire MAC rounds on you immediately, covenant ships will still be able to fire plasma torps and energy projectors at point blank range. If performed correctly, you will lose little to no ships, and the UNSC forces will lose all of their invading army likely before your patrol fleet even manages to get to the battlefield.

very true but my experience of this was a little bit different I was about to jump and attack the last major UNSC fleet and when I my fleet arrived it turned out that the ai was about to jump to attack the world that it had just lost 30 UNSC ships including a level 5 Infinity class vs 250 cov ships including a level 10 OAS class I lost nothing and the infinity went down in a matter of seconds so the above strat does work enjoy burning the human scum

Halcyon Spam: As far as i know this strategy has only been used against the covenant, but would probably work in UNSC vs UNSC. Set the frigate factory rally point of two or more planets to a single enemy planet, then construct as many Halcyon classes as possible in as steady of a stream as possible, the high HP and low cost of the Halcyon's will ensure that the enemy defenses will be inadequate to defend the planet alone, therefore the enemy fleet gets locked to a single defensive position, allowing openings for flanks or sneak attacks.

hit and run works well with the UNSC carriers send in a large carrier force with some other ships for defence and spam fighters on there resherch buildings this is only a diversion as the main fleet hopfully comes to engage your carrier strike fleet while you attack a difrent planet full on hopfully taking it but be carful if the enemy send there fleet to engage your small strike group then use the fighters for a small covering screen and GTFO back to a friendly planet then renforce your forces if losses were sustained good micr can prevent losses