Edna wrote: ↑Thu, 1. Apr 21, 22:52
M3s are expensive, M6s are only for crowd control against fighters. M6s are big and can not deal much damage against capitals due to short range and barely being able to dodge anything (except for the glorious Heavy Hydra).
If you are dealing with Xenon and OCV capital ships, a combination of M5s and M2s is the way to win, for the following reasons:
M5s are incredibly cheap. Particle Accelerator Cannons are incredibly cheap, too. Give one of your Outposts the "Dry Dock" perk and whenever you have the materials, just build M5s. Non-stop. 200 M5s on their own can destroy the most dangerous OCV capital ship, but they will have huge losses. However, since 200 M5s are still very cheap, that is acceptable. You don't need to give them shields, just PACs. They will die to any weapon instantly, so no need to waste resources on shields. They are very fast, though, and thus likely to dodge shots. Capital ships will use all turrets of one side to target the same ship, meaning a Capital ship with six turrets per side will waste six turret shots on an M5. Easy math: If a capital ship hits an M5 with 6 shots and destroys it, it's less of a loss for you than an M3 getting hit by 6 shots and destroyed. As such: M5s. They are smaller and faster, so the chances of evasion are higher than for M3s (although thin M3s are good, like the Falcon, the Perseus and the Split ones).
M2s are super expensive, but if you pair them with swarms of M5s, they work wonders. Use them only in long-range combat, meaning 8-10km distance with the respective guns. The Ocelote is an excellent offensive M2. Rather cheap, has 72 turrets and is manouverable enough to get in and out combat quickly. It's the first M2 Dreadnought you want to get yourself and it is a reliable player ship to command in battle. Later, when you have the economy, you can build the mighty Argon Excalibur, which is an extremely tanky M2 dreadnought and excellent for backing your M5s up.
When it comes to OCV and Xenon raiders, you want to build whatever gives you the cheapest-most-DPS. M5s are the damage dealers and dodgers, but if your economy can allow it, you can go for M3s. They are expensive but deal more damage in short time. They are less likely to dodge but more likely to survive one turret volley except for OCV turrets.
Again, M6s are mostly good in the early game, when you need to fight pirate M3s and other M6s. They don't stand a chance against M2s, though and can barely hold up against M7s, so don't use them against bigger ships.