R27 stats guide

[Hude]

I've never written anything like this but thought I'd give it a go. As I don't care about other races I'll start with zik. Feel free to add other races.

Corsairs + thieves + buccaneers + brigands:

Team-ups with Ter/Xan/Etd FR/DE.

Pros and cons:
+ can concentrate your resources on fewer number of ships
+ "only" vulnerable to Ter FR, Ter BS, Xan DE, Etd FR, Etd CR/BS
+ could ignore siege research and heavy factories at least for starters
+/- you might end up stealing CR/BS which might not fit your plan and spreads your ships at several classes
- fewer options on attack and your attack fleet is your defence as well

Any combo of Zik FR/DE/CR/BS ships:

Team-ups with all races and classes bar Cat/Xan CO.

Pros and cons:
+ can build the classes that you steal
+ more choices at attack
+ can ignore light factories
- need to spread you resources to a greater number of ships than with the FI/FR/DE approach
- vulnerable to everything but Cat CO, Cat Cr, Xan CO (because of the previous point) until you steal something nasty

Cutlasses + marauders + rogues + pirates (aka the Alki method):

Team-ups with Ter/Cat/Etd CR/BS.

Pros and cons:
+ can concentrate your resources on fewer number of ships
+ can build the classes that you steal
+ can ignore medium factories
- fewer options on attack
- vulnerable to pretty much everything but Ter BS and Cat CR until you steal

You might be better off by starting with the first option, extending/switching to CR/BS if you manage some nice CR/BS steals. Until then CR/BS is pretty ineffective apart from maybe some free roids early on if you rush siege research.

How to tackle your main weaknesses? Mass corsairs and thieves which are also good alliance defence ships.

[isildurx]

Judging from how last round went as a zik I myself would focus on corsair\thief\buccaneer(less of these)\brigand most likely.
Ideally you manage to steal some nice xan DE or etd FR.