.
I have to admit i was a little dissapointed with this side of the game, its graphics are a little out of date and the outcome is fairly obvious. Here are a few ways to help you swing those decisive battles:
Getting started:
The battle area is represented by a large blue cube, in it are deployed your ships and fighters. There are numbered buttons along the top by a ship icon and also colored buttons by a fighter icon. These represent squadrons. To select a squadron click on its number or colour. You may then give it mission orders by clicking on the mission button (below the orders box). When you have selected an order, don't forget to confirm it by clicking the tick button! The assignment is the same for fighters. The manoeuvers button is next to the orders button. This tells your craft how to proceed. Here you may order it to stop or to move in a pre-set manoeuver. To give a ship an order to move to any part of the battle 1)click on all of the little triangle icons to bring up all waypoint icons, 2) right click on the icon you wish the ship to move to. This is useful when retreating your ships. To attack a vessel, left click on your vessel and then click on an enemy vessel that you wish to attack. The winner is the one who suffers the least damage or the one who doesn't flee.
Helpful hints:
1)Run away! Yes it may seem cowardly, but send your ships in a wave at a time. When the first wave has low sheilds, send them to a corner of the cube and send in wave 2. Use the pause button frequently to observe the change in enemy movements, and to give orders to the ships.
2)Take out those gravity generating ships. If things look bad and you are trapped by an Interdictor cruiser's or a CC-7700's gravity wells (red swirly things!) send a ship or two to take them out before fleeing. When they are on you can't escape. Line up the mainstay of your fleet ready to flee so you suffer as little damage as possible. The flee order button is found in the fleet options menu, by clicking the little purple button on the right.
3)Be sensible. Don't waste ships like troop transport vessels in a fight. Send them in as a secondary fleet after the fighting fleet has defeated any defending fleet and blockaded the planet.
4)Run away some more! When the computer brings his all powerful fleet to a planet defended by your paltry bulk cruiser or Galleon, don't be afraid to run away and get reinforcements. If you flee a battle before it has started (bottom left button before battle starts) then the ships you have will go to the nearest planet under your control. There you may get reinforcements in terms of any orbiting fleet, or you may have to quickly flee to a system that has got another fleet in it. if you are not quick, the enemy fleet will pursue you and caatch up with you again. It is more likely that they will stop and capture the planet, in which case it is easy to send reinforcements there.
5)Good fleets - Defensive fleets should number in size from about 6 large ships (Victory destroyers or Mon Cal cruisers) upwards. Alternatively, you could use many smaller ships like strike cruisers (10 or more) or Dreadnaughts and Assault frigates (8-10). Always keep your fleet's fighter capacity as high as possible. Escort carriers are a must and should be filled with the best fighters you can get (B-wings/Tie Defenders). Large vessels that can carry fighters should be filled with the best fighters at the time of there manufacture, and should be filled up with the best when you have maintainance points free. Offensive fleets should consist of 4-5 Anti-fighter ships, several escort carriers and as many large ships as you can muster. Small ships should be included to out-manouever the enemy fleet (Carrack cruisers and correlian gunships are best for this).
6)Death Stars - a great weapon to use battle-wise. It can destroy any ship in one shot. To fire it, fist click on the green death star square icon, then right click on the target ship. Always have enough fighters to cover the death star, or the rebels can run a death star mission on it. When you may be going up against a death star, always take as many fighters as possible, that way your chances of destroying it are greatly improved.
7)Bulwark Battle Cruiser Vs. Super Star Destroyer - The Bulwark has stronger sheilds, but weaker guns, the SSD vice-versa. Balance these attributes by support ships who can draw fire or provide close support.
8)Fighters - always fill your fleet's fighter capacity to full. The advantage of fighters is great. They can take out most large ships (not Bulwarks or SSDs) in a large swarm once they have destroyed all enemy fighters. You can portect your fighters from unessessary fire by giving them the return to ship order . Do this if you can be sure of covering fire from your anti-fighter ships to destroy enemy fighters.
9)Admirals - always have an admiral, commander and general in any offensive fleet. They give bonuses to ship speed, accuracy etc. A general makes troops better on ground. You may assign the ranks by right clicking on the character in question and selecting him/her a rank.
10)The bigger they are, the harder they fall - if you can, take out the big threat first it will greatly help you in the battle. Piling all your ships onto one target is an untidy but effective method (but keep fighters up to combat other fighters).
That's the Top 10 for now, but if you have better advice then send it to me here.
.