Lots of good input in this thread, so just to add my 2c. As background I am always no1 at my payout (if have time to play) but can fall to 18th overnight. My fleet is 175K power all ships and pilots are completely maxed out except JC who lacks 3 g11 slots and has no omegas. AA lead poe itp fotp 5s biggs replacements maul JC vader. Have also 8 other 7* ships some of them fully maxed like tie reaper, wedge or boba, some of them still needing some work on g11/omegas like rex sun fac sarge's ship or gs ship.
Needless to say that my shard is quite hellish and from what I hear from my guildmates probably one of toughest. Top 20 players are all from top 20 guilds. We are not whales yet but quite large sharks.
1. Ships are in many ways different than regular toons. Most notable difference is that ship speed is limited so that evens out the play significantly. Second obviously just three leads and not that many ships as regular toons. All this points out to more balanced game than for regular toons.
2. Meta just tells u which ships and leads are most common but the interesting point in ships is that within like 20K power band of maxed or nearly maxed ships u can defeat all enemies and they can defeat u as well.
3. Most common strategies in ships are fully defensive, balanced and offensive. All three work equally well in my experience and in my shard none of strategies will keep you from falling overnight. So my advice is that u choose strategy u like and enjoy your play. My fleet is an example of very offensive and fast squad. I like grinding through enemies quickly, especially with 4x auto. With 4x speed the defensive timeout teams lost what I think was the only appeal they had. But that's just my opinion, lol.
4. All three leads have their own pluses and minuses as well as synergies with specific teams. So u need to try to match the team to the lead ship and ur gameplay style. As I said ships are pretty balanced and for now are the home ships as well.
5. My advice is don't invest in more than one capital ship. Save resources for second round of home ships. I only have Ackbar and sit on mountain of cash maths and droids. A guy in my guild has all 3 near maxed so there are different approaches. He uses Mace and balanced team and is No 1 needles to say. I would also limit the investment in large fleet of ships as new better ones will come so no need to go crazy with breath of ur fleet, better to max out best ships u have.
