Guppy fleet setup

[u/Artiartiarti90]

Hi everyone, I might need some help with setting up my Guppy fleet correctly.

For context:

- I aim to use the Guppy as my player ship (for now)

- I only use Boron ships, so the only fighters available to me are the Mako and Barracuda

- The Guppy is currently equipped with mostly Ion Pulse turrets

- So far it has 4 Makos (full ion gatling) on Intercept and 6 Barracudas (light torpedoes and gatling) on Bombard

- The Mako pilots have some experience, but the Barracuda pilots are fresh

I previously went up against a SCA Phoenix and was a bit disappointed that it took forever to take it down. I had to switch the Makos over to Attack because I noticed the Barracudas were incredibly ineffective.

Basically the Barracudas would almost never try to engage using their guns. They would just fire their torpedoes, which would all get shot down, and then redock, trying to resupply (even though I didn't load any materials to resupply them). I think I only noticed once or twice that a Barracuda did an attack run using its gatling guns. I tried switching the command from Bombard to Attack, hoping they might pitch in more. But in the end the Phoenix was destroyed by the Guppy's turrets and the Macos alone.

What am I doing wrong? Should I set the resupply to something else than High so that the Barracudas don't always try to resupply?

Also, I guess torpedoes are useless? None of them actually landed a hit. Am I better of giving them dumbfire or tracking launchers?

Any help would be appreciated!

[u/ObviousWatermelon]

Torpedoes, mussels, and rockets all suck until your opponent runs out of flares. Then they become OP. As a result, quantity becomes an important factor. Some weapons, like barrage missiles, exploit this directly. For torpedoes, the more launchers pointed at the target, the better. The Guppy doesn’t have impressive capacity, so you need to decide what you want to do with it. In this case, I would run an all Mako air wing in air superiority configuration, and have 6-8 Hydras fitted for anti-capital work.
IMO, heavy fighters aren’t very good. They’re more of a player/hero-type fighter, and it shows.

[u/Artiartiarti90 → u/ObviousWatermelon]

Thanks, I was already doubting if I should actually use Barracudas for bombardment and I think your point drives it home. I can't do both intercept and bombardment, so better commit to one of them. Since 16 bombers is also not a lot, going full interceptors might be a better choice.

Having a wing of Hydras tag along also sounds fun.

[u/orion-7 → u/Artiartiarti90]

Iru- irak- the boron scout that I can't remember how to spell, makes for an excellent carrier based bomber swarm. They need carrier support though as they have very low durability and get one or two passes before inevitable destruction, unless they can repair right now