AGGRESSIVE vs DEFENSIVE
Once you’ve chosen a ship strategy, you must decide how aggressive you wish to be. Are you going to have very high DPS and no defense, or be very tanky and do consistent damage?
I’ve listed rooms here into categories to help you choose. Rooms that are defensive tend to be slow-developing, and rely on longer-term win conditions. Rooms that are aggressive are typically very power efficient and give you a high amount of damage, but have low HP and are weak points on your ship. You can pick rooms from multiple categories, but aggressive and defensive rooms will be less effective when paired together.
Note – this page does not include the level 12 rooms yet. I’ll add them once they’re fully balanced and settled in the meta.
Aggressive Rooms
Good power efficiency, but due to their low HP they are easy targets and you must win quickly
BT: Most of the damage of an MLZ, but one HP and an easy target
MML with any missile type: High power efficiency, but low HP. When used with pen spam, this better have eight armor. =P
TLP: The teleport is an aggressive room because you are committing some of your crew to leaving your ship and trying to damage the opponents. You’ll have less crew to boost and repair your own rooms.
PP/PD: These are aggressive because they are shield busters – most effective at the start of the battle. Their EMP effect is not long enough to permanently EMP a room like the EMP cannon. The shorter the battle, the better they are. However, they do pair well with the hangar (a defensive room) for two reasons: the hangar takes so long to get going that relying on the hangar to take down the shield would be an eternity; and taking the shield down to allow your other guns to damage the AA before your craft arrive is very beneficial.
Hollow SHL: “Hollow” means not giving your SHL any power, so that you get the initial shield HP but no more throughout the battle. This is very aggressive – you better be using that saved 3 power to kill your opponent quickly.
Balanced Rooms
MLZ: Staple laser, reasonable HP
PLA: Staple laser with crew damage, good HP
Hangar (with a five rush): Lots of damage and extremely power-efficient, since it can be turned off when crafts are deployed.
MG: Solid gun, about equivalent DPS to MLZ
MSL with scarlet or jungler: Good utility to suppress enemy crew
LB: Solid laser, equivalent DPS/power as MLZ
RG: Uses AP damage primarily. It’s appropriately costed at three power and a balanced weapon.
Defensive Rooms
Require a long time to be effective, or whose primary goal is to keep your ship alive
HAN (rushing two craft or less): A hangar without rush is slow-developing and better over a long battle.
MD and WC: The heal provided is very slow. If you’re expecting crew to heal and get back into the battle, you’re expecting a long battle.
MSL with pens or emp: EMP is a stalling missile to disable opponent key rooms. Pen spam of course is the longest win condition in the game. Pen missiles have the lowest DPS of any weapon.
EMP: The shield damage can be used aggressively as a shield buster, but the EMP effect is generally a stalling tactic that extends the battle. This is also a high health room that doesn’t need a lot of armor, so it allows you to build a tankier ship (high average armor per room).
ION: A long cooldown but good burst damage. Again, while not “defensive”, this is a very tanky room that doesn’t need a lot of armor. Very safe to have on your ship.
AA: Anticraft lasers are defensive in nature. They are used to counter one strategy in particular – carrier. If they are on your ship, you expect that you need to counter the craft DPS before it overwhelms you; this means you’re expecting a longer battle. One note on AA – have two or have none on your ship. It’s too easy for a carrier player to focus one AA and keep it destroyed for the entire battle.
AS and VM and ZF: Service, defense, and zongzi droids are very defensive by nature. Boarder droids are more balanced, but generally require a long time to be effective.
CG: The cloak room is of course defensive. It allows you to avoid damage, and allows your long cooldown rooms to charge while you’re under cloak.
SB: Another shield generation room is defensive, a way to keep your ship alive longer.
ENG: The engine allows you to dodge missiles. It’s a defensive room since it provides damage mitigation, or keeps your ship operational in the case of EMP missiles.
Next: Ship Design