The following is the Tutorial i finished working on earlier today. To view the Tutorial the way it was intended, you will need to register at X Development Center
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Introduction
So, you finally got the reputation and credits needed to buy your first capital ship and you're probaly wondering about one or several of these questions:
- What is the best capital ship?
- Should i buy an M1 or M2?
- What race should i buy from?
- What weapons should i install, what is the "best" loadout?
- How do i handle combat in my M1/M2 ?
This guide will answer all of your questions, and many more as best as my experience allows it!
The very first thing to consider when buying a Capital ship is: Do i want to get up close and personal with the enemy or do you want to fight safely from a distance?
M2's have more turret mounts and can therefore equip more weapons, usually twice as many weapons as their M1 counterpart. They also have a substantially larger Lasergenerator to power the weapons. The M2 can also equip more shields than the M1.
M1's have the distinct ability to load up massive amounts of fightercraft. They are enourmous flying hangars. As the M1 has less turrets, weapons, lasergenerator and shields than the M2, the M1 relies on it's fighter support to protect the ship and to attack the enemy.
In a head to head battle between an M1 and an M2, the M1 will loose most of time since it is not designed for heavy capital battle. Whereas this is the speciality of the M2.
Keep in mind that in order for the M1 to be really usefull, you will need to be able to fill it up with fighters. This can cost from around 3-5 million to more than 260 million credits so choose wisely before placing your hard earned credits in one of these behemoths.
Differences between the races
Each race has it's advantages and disadvantages. But the difference between most of them is not large. The Capital ships are fairly balanced against each other. There is however one ship that stands out in this equasion and that is the Paranid. Their Capital ships are the only ones able to mount the Gamma Phased Shockwave Generator (GPSG).
The GSPG is a truly devasting weapon but think it through before buying and equipping the ship with this as it is an area-effect weapon. Everything caught up in the blast radius will take damage and eventually be destroyed. Exellent for venturing in Khaak, Xenon or Pirate sectors but not very good when engaging an enemy in a race sector. You will probaly end up destroying passers by and your reputation will drop like an apple falling from a tree!!
The Split Capital ships are the fastest, they can mount the most powerfull weapons in all turrets, but they are also the least shielded and the ships with the least turrets available. They do however make exellent ships in combat because of their size. They are the smallest Capital ships and can dodge incomming fire easier than it's rivals.
The Teladi M2 is The most heavily shielded ship in the X Universe. It carries a single 10 Gj shield. The recharge rate of the shield is far superior to any of the other Capital ships. It is, however, also the slowest and largest M2 available. Being so big means being an easy target to hit. If you fancy protection above speed, then the Teladi are the race of choice.
The Argon Capital ships lie in between the other races and excell at nothing! Harsh said but true. This is not a bad thing, on the contrary it is an excellent thing! It means that the Argon Capital ships are heavily shielded, heavyly equipable and have a fairly good speed. The Argon Capital ships would be my recommendation for the first purchase.
The Boron Capital ships look very nice and they have the possibilty of being very powerfull... Sadly there is currently a Turret bug and untill this is corrected i advise against buying these ships as a personal ships as some of the turrets will simply not fire when in-sector!
Equipping your Capital ship
Lets' begin with equipping an M2
Think about what role you want your M2 to fill out ie Capship killer, fighter killer, all-round.
To make a good loadout for being a Capship killer, you will need nothing more than simply equip the most powerfull weapons available ie BPPC and GPPC in every turret. This is also the optimal loadout for an oos patrol ship, but for a personal M2, this idea is not so good.
To make a good loadout for a fighter killer, you would place AFLAK and BFLAK in all turrets (where applicable, BPAC in remaining turrets) This will ensure you total and complete victory against any and all incoming army of fighters. It is allmost safe to say that against fighters... you will not die !! There is a downside to this loadout and that is the ineffectivity against other Capital ships. Although possible to beat a Xenon K with this loadout, you would need very good experience in avoiding incoming fire, get really really close and also possess a good portion of luck! (most of the time, as said it is possible...)
The balanced all-round loadout is the tricky one, how does one equip the brand new M2 with weapons that are effective at both taking out fighters and Capital ships alike? Well, my preffered setup is this:
Front Turret: Most powerfull ie B or GPPC
Up Turret: Most powerfull ie B or GPPC
Left: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)
Right: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)
Down: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)
Back: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)
To fully use this loadout, you will also need to have different turret commands:
Front & Up turrets: Attack my target
Remaining turrets: Attack all / Missile protection (dependent on situation)
That was the M2, now we'll take a look at a good loadout for an M1:
The M1 relies on it's fighters to do it's fighting (as earlier stated) But you still need to think about the role your M1 will fullfill. Same thoughts as above.
The thing to note about the M1 versus the M2 is that the M1 has a much higher topspeed than the M2, this means that it is often able to outrun it's Capital ship opponent. So a good place to mount the PPC's on the M1 would be the back turret. Bombard the enemy M2 while you run away. Effective tactic indeed. Still one needs to remember to get Anti fighter weapons ie FLAK's & PAC's
Please note that I am very much aware that there are other weapons available but these weapons are the ones that I have had the greatest success with. They are the ones that keep my Capital ships alive!
Capital ship combat
You should now possess a fully equipped M1/M2 so let's focus on how to do battle!
The thing to note is that it is neccessary to use a different angle than the one used when piloting any fighter. The main reason being that you have no main guns you can fire from the cockpit view, you are totally dependent on your turrets to do the shooting for you!
There's not really much to pay attention to when you're up against a group of fighters. You can plow right through and let your turrets blast away. The fighters will probaly make several attack runs at you but just ignore them. Consider them insects, unless you're being attack by 150+ fighters at a time i wouldn't worry about them!
Combat against other Capital ships, now this is where it gets interesting! The main thing to keep in mind here is to have the enemy ship targeted (remember you've put 1 or 2 turrets on "attack my target" command) A good knowledge of how to strafe up/down, left/right and make rolls is needed in successfully taking down the enemy.
My favourite approach is this:
- Steer directly towards the enemy
- Roll and position your ship so you will pass below the enemy, this is because there are useally less turrets in the downward facing turrets!. If the enemy is equipped with PPC, they useally are!, you will need to strafe up and down in order to avoid incomming fire. Also steering up and down will work wonders!
- When you have the enemy ontop of you, begin climbing and rolling slightly either left or right, whichever side you're more comfortable with!
- Keep turning and climbing around the enemy, this in it self will results in you avoiding the main portion of incomming fire.
- Keep circling the enemy untill he is destroyed.
- Latter, rinse, repeat... go get the next one!
If this tactic is used correctly, you're able to take out a Xenon sector alone in any M2 without ever getting your shields below 20%
A word of advise though: If your shield levels drop below 20% and you're swarmed with enemies, jump to the nearest sector or a sector with either an Equipment Dock, or ShipYard.
Recharging from combat
When you have just either won or fled from a massive battle, your ships shields will probaly have taken a beating. The really annoying part now is that the shields don't recharge from 1 instance to the next.
1 Gj shields take a very, very long time to recharge. Having more of them doesn't exactly speed thing up! They can take up to several hours to be fully recharged while the ship is either flying through space or sitting still.
There is a trick to recharging the shields however. Make sure you have a secondary ship you can beam or transfer into and then order your Capital ship to dock at any Equipment Dock or ShipYard. When it's docked, simply dock at the station too and switch ships. The shields will now be instantly recharged to 100%
The 10 Gj shields behave a little differently. They recharge at more than 10 x the speed of the 1 Gj shield. There is however only 1 ship in the unmodded game able to carry this shield! You will probaly never have to do the shield recharge trick with a 10 Gj shield as it recharges extremely fast.
Before seeking another battle, make sure that you have eneugh Energy Cells to jump back to safety if needed. A quick jump can be a real life saver.
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Hope you liked it
Any feedback is welcome 
Sorry about that!
