ATCA:SFU What are the tactical styles of different fleets?

[Von Ether]

Played SF once a long time ago, a bit slow for me. So I'm hoping ATCA will more up to speed.

On that note, how do the different fleets play?

 

[Iron Domokun]

Assuming that the ships have the same tactical "feel" as the other SFU games, here's a quick rundown:

Federation: Speak softly and carry a big stick (overloaded photon torpedoes). Poor turning circle, deadly firepower. Good other facilities like science.
Klingons: Tough guys DO dance. Excellent turning, but the disruptors don't have the hitting power of photons. They make up for that with accuracy and rapid fire. Better than average maneuver.
Romulans: They all have cloaks and plasma torpedoes. Three series of ships: Eagle, Kestrel (Klingo-Romulan) and the excellent Hawks.
Gorns: Like Federation but with plasma. Lots of marines and shuttles.
Kzintis: Disruptors as main weapon backed up by lots of missiles. Average maneuver. Launch lots of little toys (the missiles) to distract him while you kill him.

 

[Finlos]

Continuing on from the previous list, not all of these are in ACTA (yet):

Tholians: numerous small ships initially that hide defensively behind web. If they're able to setup & defend expect a bloody battle while later web-casters allow them to be more mobile. Good to average manueverability.
Orions: The SFU pirates. Operate from ~8 cartels spread around the Octant. Able to select weapons based on their local area of operations. Good maneuverability.
Hydrans: Tough ships that come in three flavours: 1) Hellbores with few fighters, able to fight at range while still hitting a down shield, 2) Fusion with MANY fighters, forced to get close but deliver serious damage when they do, and 3) Mixed weapon ships with some fighters, mostly command variants of ships. Average maneuverability.
Andromedans: Extra-galactic Bad Guys. Fast, tough ships able to deliver a devastating close-range punch. Use technology unique to them including some bigger ships able to carry multiple smaller ships. Good maneuverability.

More to come...

 

[Finlos]

Lyrans: Much like Klingons except substitute ESGs (Expanding Sphere Generators, a close range energy field damaging almost everything in its' path) for drones. Average maneuverability.
ISC: An isolationist empire able to develop unified ships and fleet tactics while remaining uninvolved during the General War. Use plasma torpedoes much like Gorns / Romulans as well as the Plasmatic Pulsar Device (PPD), able to rapidly strip key systems from select ships. Average maneuverability.

There are a couple of minor empires I skipped over for the time being but these should hopefully give a good summary of the major empires.