Tactics: Tactics: Shaltari Tribes

Popular styles: Long range snipers, Toolbox, Stealth, Close Action brawlers

General Characteristics: The Shaltari are the faction that breaks most of the rules. Most of their ships and weapons have special rules that the other factions rarely have access to. They are fast with small signatures and good point defense, but lower than average hull and armour values, that is until they raise their shields.Their great scan ranges translate into better threat ranges for their close action weapons as well.

When they raise their shields however they lose their point defense and their signatures increase dramatically. The shields do improve their armour value and can save against critical hits, which most players consider a fair trade. The increased signature however means that you must be careful when you decide to raise your shields and allow the enemy to lock onto you from further back.

Other things to remember are that while the ship’s point defense might drop to 0, you can still improve your point defense with fighters. Weapons with scald do reduce the armour value provided by the shields as usual.

Shields work very well against small numbers of regular attacks or that easily cause critical hits. Against massed volleys of close action attacks with bad lock values, the additional point defence is more useful.

The other big difference to other fleets are the Shaltari motherships and gate networks. Motherships tend to avoid the frontlines and act as the origin of Shaltari ground forces and can deploy or even redeploy them through any gates in range of it or another gate.

Due to this flexibility opponents will target  your gates and we advise that you get them into atmosphere as quickly  as possible to increase their survivability. Once in atmosphere their shields or good point defense will help defend them against attacks.

A good rule of thumb is to take 2 to 3 groups per 500 points composed of Mothership or Homeships, supported by an equal number of void gates and then add an extra gate or two per 500 points. If you have points left over, buy more gates.

Particle and mauler weapons are the bane of ships with good armour values. The first ignoring their armour values by causing critical hits and Mauler using their armour values against them to lock on. Lining up the shots to capitalise on the extra particle shots from fusillade with a weapons free order can be hard, but is extremely satisfying when you pull it off.

Bombardment weapons with their alternate firing mode allow bombardment weapons to not merely be locked into that role, but do damage in close range as well. While impel weapons allow you to mess with your opponents movement and turn dangerous weapons out of their firing arcs. This can force your opponents to manoeuvre where they do not want to go.

Shaltari launch assets do not always get the attention they deserve, they are fast with good values and as mentioned can give some point defense to ships with their shields raised. The bombers can also be a threat to an enemy ship with cloak or silent running.