Fractured Space Basic Tactics Guide

Fractured Space Basic Tactics Guide by Prophet_01

Basics and main objectives

The point of the game is to capture the enemies main base.

The easiest way to do this is holding the majority of stations on the map. You get resources for doing so and if you are able to get more resources than the enemy team, you will upgrade faster (the team’s level is displayed at the top of the HUD).

Your team can use this advantage destroying parts of the enemy team and simply the enemy main base’s sphere with more ships than the enemy team. Nothing will hapen if both sides have an equal number of ships on site. But your team will receive costant damge as long as you are inside the enemy base’s range. It’s a good idea to wait for the right moment and capture it with multiple players on a quick attack. you can either try to distract the enemy team and attack with 2-3 ships or win teamfights and destroy as many of their ships as possible.

The disruptor’s and corvette’s repair ability will make attacking and capturing the base a lot easier.

Sometimes you may be able to sneak into the base sector and capture it before the enemy is able to react.

It require some good timing, but it can end a game even if the enemy holds more ressource points. But if you try this, always keep in mind that every ship is able to jump directly back home. They may overwhelm you and destroy your base instead, because the rest of your team gets outnumbered. It’s not necessary to capture a base on a single attack, the progress will remain and you can continue to capture it later.

The gas station (G) will give your team an additional buff if you capture it. It’s important to know that G can’t be captured within the first couple of minutes. You get 3 messages at the top of the screen shortly before it gets active. It will be activated and deactivated multiple times during a match. There is no point in camping at G during the times it can’t be captured.

If one team is able to capture G, this side gets a buff and and the station will deactivate again for a couple of minutes. Note that the buff gets a lot stronger during late game. If you can’t capture G when it activates for the first time, it’s not the end of the match, but later on it will have a serious impact.

There are other guides that explain aspects like resources, upgrades and the HUD more in detail. I’m not going to include everything from those here. The following will focus on tactics.

How to position yourself or “closing the gap”

For battles the weapon range of your and your enemie’s ship is going to determine how much damage will be dealt. So the main question is how to close the distance or how to keep yourself out of enemy weapon range. Abilities such as blink or boost are important for that, but there is also the jump drive and using cover to get you an advantage. If you know how to use those features, you have a good chance of being in the better position and catch the enemy off guard.

The game’s major difference compared to similar tactic orientated games is the 3-dimensional cover model and the Jump Drive. Never underestimate those. Cover is very important as it is your big ally against snipers and destroyers. Try to avoid open areas or get through those as fast as you can.

To give you an example for this, let’s think about the flag ship. If it just tries to chase enemy ships with it’s dead slow engines, it’s likely to be incapable of catching up and either gets heavily damaged or destroyed entirely, because it usually has the smaller weapon range. If it on the other hand approaches through cover and uses it’s boost and slow abilities things look different. Sometimes you even get the opportunity to jump right onto an enemy ship.

Another thing that you should keep in mind is the armor of your ship. Each side including up and down has a seperate armor and you get more damage if shots hit a section of breached armor. So try to turn away if sides of your ship start to burst into flames. That will greatly increase the amount of damage you can take. Of course you should also use that knowledge to deal more damage. Keep firing at breached armor and try to outmaneuver them. There are differnt levels of strengths of armor on most ships. Most ships armor can take vastly more damage on the sides, but if you instead focus on the front or the back you will be able to increase your damage output. If you are attacking a ship, keep moving! Evade fire by cycling around your target and the use of strafing (-Q- and -E- keys) and as already mentioned, let your armor tank the damage and turn away breached sides.

Next thing to talk about is the jump drive. It’s not just something to get yourself from a to b or a scifi gimmick, it’s your ticket out of combat and a great tool to confuse the enemy or execute annoying hit’n’run maneuvers. It’s rly important to know that the regular jump drive and the ‘jump home’ability (pressing -6-) have seperate cooldown timers. This enables you to switch from a to b-lane quickly by using the jump-home-ability to get to your base and instantly use the regular jump drive (-shift- or -5-) to get to the final destination. This will safe you some time and enables light and fast ships to participate in fights on BOTH lanes.

Let’s also have a look on the “jump routes”. If you are at a base (either your’s or your enemys) you will be able to jump to the forward stations a and b that. You will appear to the station that are closest to your position. Often it’s a good idea to jump to the enemy base from one lane and jump to the other lane from there. This can be a great maneuver to surprise a sniper and destroy him at close range.

Note that you will only be able to jump to the enemy base from a lane at which you control the station which is closest to the enemy base.

The gas station (G) is connected to ALL forward stations. However, you can only jump to the stations next to the enemy base if those are under your team’s control. You can jump to G from every corner of the map though. That’s the reason why it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the map and use an opportunity to flank once it’s available. Attacking a group of enemies from both sides may surprise and confuse them, which will make the fight easyer.

That brings us to an important rule of rule of thumb: If you are outnumbered and/or outpositioned and there is no way in hell you will survive that fight, -Retreat!- Jump away BEFORE they are able open to fire at you and stay out of theire weapon’s range. If you are able to keep yourself in a better position while continuing to deal damage, do that. Don’t get yourself killed and avoid damage, especially if your team lacks a corvette or disruptor. The respawn/repair time after a lost team fight is the chance for the enemy to get the overall advantage. The team that is able to outmaneuver the enemy will win in most cases, often it’s just necessary to wait for your team to group up and attack together, while you use that time to bait an enemy player away from his team.

Some words on missiles, fighters and how to avoid them. I highly recomment to look for the range of missiles and fighter in the hangar menu. It will determine if you actually do damage or waste a full barage. There are also counter measures. Every ship has a point defense system that can be toggled on/off by pressing -4-. It’s a good idea to toggle it on a couple of seconds before the missiles reach you and deactivate it afterwards. It can only remain active for a short period of time and needs to recharge afterwards and if you forget to turn it off after use, you might not be able to use it when the second missile barrage is about to hit you. Fighters are usually less of a threat, but are also harder to get rid of and some types of them severely decrease your movement speed. If you approach a flagship, it can be an advantage to stay out of range in order to provoke him to launch fighters that you can take out before entering the actual fight. Fighters have a long cooldown and can’t be used often.

Repair, retreat and regroup

To repair your ship you need to fly to one of the four forward stations (A1, A2, B1, B2) or your base. The disruptor and the corvette also have repair abilities which will spare you the journey back home. Currently there are only few players who pick those two supporters, because they don’t ralise the huge advantage they provide for your team. Although they are a lot more effective if you keep a certain level of communication, they still give your team an advantage as they can capture territory after a fight while being repaired instead of retreating in order to get back to full health.

Also, it will take you some time to reach the base once you jumped to your home sector, it’s usually faster to use the forward stations for repair by jumping back home using ‘6’ and jumping back to a lane with a regular jump.

During the late respawning however is not the faster way to get to max health. So keep an eye on the map, try to predict enemy maneuvers and retreat before it’s too late. You get more damage while charging the Jump Drive, so decide early if you retreat or fight (and tell your allies what you do!). If you want to jump away, keep yourself out of the enemies weapon range using your regular movement.

Which combination of ships work best? A good start is to pick only one of each. You will lose flexibility or lack certain abilities if you rely too much on too few ship types. Diversity can help the game as there is no single ship that is good at capturing ressource points, dealing damage, tanking AND supporting your team. Most ships are only good in some of those aspects and work better if they combine their different abilities to increase the effectiveness of the entire team and not just their own.

Each ship has it’s strengths and you should try them all at least once in order to find out what they can or can’t do and how to counter them easily.

Teamplay!

It may be obvious, but I can’t stress it enough. Communication is the easy way to win the game. Tell your mates what you are going to do. Inform your fellow players if an enemy fleet is preparing to jump right onto theire position. They will apreciate it.

Group up! It’s the key to win a teamfight. Outnumber and or overwhelm the enemy with your abilities and help each other to reduce your respawn/repair times.
An example for a good combo: A flag ship and a disruptor/corvette are devastating if they stick together. If played right, they are ususally able to dominate up to 3 ships at once in close combat. Add a damage dealer such as the assasin, sniper or destroyer to the group and you have a very capable group :D the flag ship can tank huge amounts of damage if a supporter with repairs is around and uses repairs to heal damage and fix the armor. Together with the damage dealer it is rly easy to win a lane.

The disruptors, corvettes and flag ships slows and disarms can be a the key to dominating a fight and deal a maximum. You can focus the damage because the enemy is unable to retreat.

It’s pretty easy to outnumber the enmy constantly if you can destroy them one after another. At some point they either have to accept that they are outnumbered and try to delay your attack or risk the loss of stations while they waiting for theire mates to respawn.

It’s a lot easyer to win teamfights if it’s your team that decides about the when and where. Iniating a battle will increase your chances in most cases. If you have a mobile team with only one or even capital ship, that is not necessarily a disadvantage. you are more flexible and will be able to focus one enemy after another while their dead slow allies aren’t able to help in time.

So don’t camp at a single sector while your team gets outnumbered during team fights. Join a group and help outnumbered buddies. Your team needs you.

Always try to see the big picture and try to understand what the enemy is trying to do with theire ship clases. It’s possible to encounter any tactic if you adapt and comunicate with your mates. A smart assassin that kills the supporters over and over again or a snipers that pins down an entire lane might appear overpowered at first, but they can be beaten with the use of cover early warning and team orientated tactics.

Every class has it’s advantages and as already mentioned, it’s a good idea to give every single one a try. Be aware that some underperform if they are played solo, while others like the frigate are great at performing solo hit’n’run maneuvers. Make your choice dependent on your teams setup to ensure that you have damage dealers, supporters and fast/flexible ships to capture points and act as a quick reaction force. Getting a ton of kills is not the important part and often a sniper or destroyer is a disadvantage in late game due to theire lack of speed and flexibility.

I hope this guide helps you getting started. If you have anything to add regarding tactics or want tell me that I got something entirely wrong, post a comment.

Cya out there :D