Fleet engagements- what to kill first

from Sins Forums
When having a battle with large fairly evenly matched fleets whats best to concentrate fire on and kill first? Should I focus fire on the cap ships, heavy cruisers or LR frigates? Carriers? Support Cruisers? Usually I've been focusing on enemy Cap ships since killing them hurts them more in the long run, but is is smarter to kill lighter ships first to whittle down dps faster?
strategy
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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I usually focus fire on cap ship which have healing, shield regen ability.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Usually I try to mop up any anti strike craft frigates first, then I can launch my fighters to clear the skies of enemy fighters, then launch my bombers to deal out the damage. After the anti-fighter frigates are gone, I concentrate on the capitals, get rid of the one(s) with the most threatening/annoying ability.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Fighter/Bomber heavy (as in most of your damage comes from them)

Flak
Engineering/Support Cruisers
Support capitol ships
Offensive capitol ships
As you like

This removes first the ship that primarily stops your damage, then the ships which repair and inhibit your damage, and then the ships which can do annoying things to your ships to prevent them exploiting the advantage, and then the primary objective of the battle which is to remove your opponents experienced capitol ships.

Fighter/Bomber light AND Flak light

Engineering/Support Cruisers
Eneamy carriers until your flak is good enough
Support Capitol Ships
Offensive Capitol Ships
As you like

Fighter/Bomber light BUT Flak heavy

Engineering/Support Cruisers
Support Capitol Ships
Offensive Capitol Ships

If you dont get rid of the shield ships and self repairing ships and command cruisers, then all your damage will be wasted.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I usually go for capitals; they're the biggest investment and hurt the most to lose.

Microing a fleet to go after flak frigates would be a nightmare anyway. :)

However, it gives me an idea- we should be able to set general target priorities for a fleet. Something that would be the same for all races, so just general classifications of target priority.

It would have to be coded so that it would give non-exclusive priority; it'd suck to have a higher-pri target clear across the gravity well and ignore other targets in the vicinity. But you get the idea.

Something like a list of general classes, with an up/down arrow to change priority.

Battleships
Battlecruisers
Capital Carriers
Carriers
Heavy Cruisers
Command Ships
Anti-fighter frigates
etc.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Depending on the fleet mix I prefer to target capital ships with my own offensive caps while missile frigates go wild. I also like to have 10 or so heavy cruisers to serve the multi-purpose role of anti-frigate spam and targeting capitals.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Don't forget, if you focus your fleet's firepower on one ship then you are wasting a lot of firepower because of the way the damage is mitigated due to shielding (i.e. diminishing returns).