Guide 10: ACS guide

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    • ACS (Alliance Combat System) is a method used to combine different fleets from different players or even from the same player, to attack or defend a given planet/moon.

      =How to invite into an ACS-Attack?=
      1) send the fleet on attack mission to the coordinates you want.
      2) go to fleet movement and use the Fleet Union Button to Invite others or yourself to the attack.
      You could either chose a player from the box on your left (these players are from your Buddy List), press "Invite", then press "OK"; or you could put the name of the player that you want to invite to the ACS-Attack in the "Search User" box, press "Search", and then press OK. If you want to only ACS with yourself then just click OK without choosing any player.

      Invited players get a message and have in the fleet-menu the option to join a group-attack. They can choose between all the groups they are invited to.

      =How to join an ACS-Attack?=
      After you get an invitation to the attack
      1) Go to fleet and choose the fleet you want to add to the ACS-Attack
      2) Press continue and then choose the Attack you want to join in the "Combat Forces" drop-down box. Press on "next" and select the ACS-Attack mission and then "Send Fleet".
      ACS-Attacks don't require being in the same alliance as the other attackers or having them on Friend List.
      Each joining fleet will modify the arriving time depending of speed but the fleet that is already flying cannot be slowed down more than 30% of the remaining time. If new fleets to be added are slower than this 30% limit, the option for a group-attack is not available
      NOTE: In case the player goes into vacation mode or returns to Newbie protection after an ACS is initiated, no more fleets can be added.

      =How to make an ACS-Defend?=
      1) Choose the fleet you want to defend with
      2) Enter the coordinates you want to defend (choose moon or the planet), and then select the ACS-Defend Mission and the holding time you want.

      NOTE:
      First requirement in doing an ACS-Defend is to have the player to be defended in your alliance or on your Friend List (unlike ACS-Attack)
      You can Hold your fleet in defense up to 32 straight hours.
      The longer the fleet stays in defend mode the more deuterium is needed. The deuterium is automatically loaded onto your fleet, so be sure to have enough cargo capacity to hold enough deuterium with the fleet to make the ACS-Defend.

      =General information about ACS=
      All involved parties in the ACS (defenders and attackers) get a full detailed CR unless the attacking fleet was destroyed during the first round of battle.
      The ships during the whole battle belong to its owners and use his techs.

      The Combat system works normally as if it is solo attack:
      - Maximum of 6 rounds (after 6 rounds, the result will end as a draw) and the targets are chosen randomly.
      - The resources plunder are divided according to the total cargo capacity of the fleets and divided up accordingly (i.e. if attacker A sends 75% of the total cargo capacity, they will return with 75% of the plunder)
      - You pay only as much deuterium as you would pay for a normal attack.
      - After the battle every surviving fleet flies back to where it came from with its own speed.
      - When you recall the fleet, all deuterium required for launch and holding is gone.

      A maximum of 5 players can ACS together in attack and a maximum of 5 players can defend a certain planet/moon; they can ACS in maximum of 16 different slots.
      Group attacks count for every attacker as one normal attack in the sense of the bashing-rule.

      The Group of fleets flies at the speed of the slowest ship in the ACS; and if a slower ship joins, the whole group is slowed down.
      When a fleet leaves the group, the remaining fleets continue to fly without a change to speed, even when the ACS starter leaves. (Caution: if the fleet that started the ACS was recalled, no more ships can be added )
      When in an ACS-Defend mission against an incoming attack, the planet/moon owner is the only one that can see the attack on his overview.
      If you are attacking and defending the same planet/moon, you will be fighting against yourself (e.g in a Moonshot attempt).
      If you are ACS-Defending moon which is meanwhile destroyed by moon destruction mission, the defending fleet will ACS defend the planet.

      Bashing: Each ACS attack is counted a a single attack, so you can still attack him 5 times after the main ACS hit, and each one of your friends can attack 5 more times.

      =What else can ACS be used for?=
      - Slowing down fleets and Safety Probing (you slow down the main attack enough to sneak in probes on espionage mission.
      - Hiding the attacking fleets flying times with the ACS function so they cannot be easily be hit on return.
    • What is ACS ?
      ACS (Alliance Combat System) is a method used to combine different fleets from different players or even from the same player, to attack a said or given planet/moon.
      OR
      It is a method to Defend a said or given planet/moon with different fleets from different players.

      How to invite into an ACS-Attack ?

      At first you send the fleet on attack mode to the coordinates you want.
      Then, go to fleet movement and use the Fleet Union Button to Invite others or yourself to the attack.


      The following Window will open:



      You could either chose a player from the box on your left (these players are from your Buddy List), press "Invite", then press "OK" ; or you could put the name of the player that you want to invite to the ACS-Attack in the " Search User" box, press " Search", and then press OK. If you want to only ACS with yourself then just click OK without choosing any player.

      Invited players get an IGM (In Game Message) and have in the fleet-menu the option to join a group-attack. They can choose between all the groups they´re invited to.


      How to join an ACS-Attack?
      After you get an invitation to the attack, go to fleet, choose the fleet you want to add to the ACS-Attack, press continue and then choose the Attack you want to join in the "Combat Forces" drop-down box.



      After that, press on "next" and select the ACS-Attack mission and then "Send Fleet".



      ACS-Attacks don't require being in the same alliance as the other attackers or having them on BuddyList.

      NOTE: In case the player goes into vmode or returns to Newbie protection after an ACS is initiated, no more fleets can be added.


      How to make an ACS-Defend?
      You have to choose the fleet you want to defend with, press on next, put the coords you want to defend (always remember to specify whether you want to defend the moon or the planet as the fleet doesn't defend both, it defends only the selected one), and then select the ACS-Defend Mission and the holding time you want.





      NOTES on ACS-Defend:
      First requirement in doing an ACS-Defend is to have the player to be defended in your alliance or on your BuddyList (unlike ACS-Attack)
      You can Hold your fleet in defense up to 32 straight hours.
      The longer the fleet stays in defend mode the more deut is needed. The deut is automatically loaded onto your fleet, so be sure to have enough cargo capacity to hold enough deut with the fleet to make the ACS-Defend.

      Holding-Costs:

      Small Cargo 5 deut per hour
      Large Cargo 5 deut per hour
      Light Fighter 2 deut per hour
      Heavy Fighter 7 deut per hour
      Cruiser 30 deut per hour
      Battle Ship 50 deut per hour
      Colony Ship 100 deut per hour
      Recycler 30 deut per hour
      Espionage Probe 1/10 deut per hour
      Bomber 100 deut per hour
      Destroyer 100 deut per hour
      Deathstar 1/10 deut per hour
      Battle Cruiser 25 deut per hour



      General information about ACS:

      * All involved parties in the ACS (defenders and attackers) get a full detailed CR unless the attacking fleet was destroyed during the first round of battle.
      * The ships during the whole battle belong to its owners and use his techs.
      * The Combat system works normally as if it is solo attack :
      - Maximum of 6 rounds (after 6 rounds, the result will end as a draw) and the targets are chosen randomly.
      - The resources plunder are divided according to the total cargo capacity of the fleets and divided up accordingly (i.e. if attacker A sends 75% of the total cargo capacity, they will return with 75% of the plunder)
      - You pay only as much deut as you would pay for a normal attack.
      - After the battle every surviving fleet flies back to where it came from.
      - When you recall the fleet, all deut required for launch and holding is gone.
      * A maximum of 5 players can ACS together in attack and a maximum of 5 players can defend a certain planet/moon; they can ACS in maximum of 16 different slots.
      * Group attacks count for every attacker as one normal attack in the sense of the bashing-rule.
      * The Fleet that is already flying cannot be slowed down more than 30% of the remaining time. If new fleets to be added are slower than this 30% limit, the option for a group-attack is not available.
      * The Group of fleets flies at the speed of the slowest ship in the ACS; and if a slower ship joins, the whole group is slowed down.
      * When a fleet leaves the group, the remaining fleets continue to fly without a change to speed, even when the ACS starter leaves. ( Caution: if the fleet that started the ACS was recalled, no more ships can be added )
      * When in an ACS-Defend mission against an incoming attack, the planet/moon owner is the only one that can see the attack on his overview.
      * If you are attacking and defending the same planet/moon, you will be fighting against yourself (e.g in a Moonshot attempt).
      *If you are ACS-Defending moon which is meanwhile destroyed by moon destruction mission, the fleet will ACS defend the planet.

      Further Explanation:

      Group attacks count for every attacker as one normal attack in the sense of the bashing-rule.

      Taking into account that the bashing rules are 6 attacks per planet/moon (normal 1x speed universes)
      If you are attacking Planet/Moon "X" in an ACS attack with 4 other persons, that would count as your first wave, which leaves YOU and each one of your friends with 5 more attacks on this planet/moon each.
      So you can still attack him 5 times after the main ACS hit, and each one of your friends can attack 5 more times.

      The Fleet that is already flying cannot be slowed down more than 30% of the remaining time. If new fleets are slower, the option for a group-attack is not available.

      As example:
      A fleet would need 2 hours (120 minutes) to a planet. 10 minutes after the launch joins an ACS fleet which needs 130 minutes. That is possible, since the new fleet slows the group down, but only around 20 minutes (16%). Another fleet, which would need 160 minutes, could not join (almost 45%).

      When a fleet leaves the group, the remaining fleets continue to fly without a change to speed, even when the ACS starter leaves. (Caution: if the fleet that started the ACS was recalled, no more ships can be added)

      If you had 4 fleets flying, and one of those 4 fleets is recalled, the other 3 fleets continue to fly normally and without any problem and the remaining time stays the same as before the fleet got recalled.
      BUT, incase the particular fleet that was recalled was the fleet that started the invitations to the combat, all the other fleets continue the flight and everything is normal with the time remaining unaltered, but the only exception would be that no more fleets can be joined to the ACS-Attack.

      What else can ACS be used for?
      - Slowing down fleets and Safety Probing (you slow down the main attack enough to sneak in probes on esp mission and avoid the bugusing violation and to have enough time to check the new report and avoid any potential ninjas).
      -Fleet saving in ACS mode (Note: you might want to consider fleet saving by deployment mission as it is the safest method)
      -Hiding the attacking ship times with the ACS function so they cannot be easily "returned" (i.e when an attack fleet arrives to destroy your fleet as it returns from it's mission).


      Advanced ACS:

      1) Delaying of arrival time
      -real safety probing

      A regular safety probe is sent a few seconds before your hit impacts, you do this to check the esp. report of the planet/moon you are attacking to see that nothing has changed, i.e., no big enemy fleet is waiting for your arrival to totally destroy you! lol. However, you need a few seconds to read the spy report and to recall your fleet in case of an emergency like the one mentioned before => typically you sent this safety probe to arrive 30-15 secs before impact (unless you trust your internet connection speed)=> this means the defender has 15 seconds to let his ships or his friends ACS defend ships arrive at his planet unnoticed, so if they have good timing you lose.
      However, you can prevent this using ACS: the basic idea is to delay your fleet to arrive after the original arrival time, enabling you to safety probe right after the original arrival time :), in this way you'll be able to notice any ninja trap that the defender set up for you in time !!!
      How does this work? Well, when your fleet has less than 30 minutes to go, start thinking of sending an espionage probe on ACS with the regular fleet at a very low percentage, usually you can send this when there are around 8 minutes or less remaining (depending on timing, circumstances, etc). To delay, you just make sure that the probes flight time is longer than the flight time indicated for the ACS mission. Thus, what you do is actually join in the current attack mission with a slower fleet, making the flight time longer than it was originally (keep in mind the 30% limit for delaying, so practice first before trying it in real time). Try to make this delay at least one minute but more preferably 5 minutes or perhaps more! Never become predictable with your timing, slow by different amounts each time.

      This latter reason is to prevent anticipation from your enemy. When he has a couple of friends or a lot of fleet, he could make it this way that he sends one fleet to arrive just before your original arrival time and one fleet a bit afterwards, in case you use the safety probe delay system => when you delay for only one minute, like most people do, the second fleet will still succeed (you won't notice the first one as that one will be recalled before you arrive!!). Best thing is of course is to use several delays and corresponding safety probes.

      -Adapting phalanx hits
      Assume you have very little time to manage your phalanx timing on your fleet, you sent but it arrives too early :(. If you recall you won't have time anymore to send the same fleet to arrive in time and loose precious fuel => no worries don't recall, just adapt the arrival time using ACS :), exactly the same idea as the delay safety probe in other words ! This of course gives no solution when your timing is too late instead of too early.

      -Avoiding debris steal
      Picture following scenario, you send 1667LF to a friends planet to be crashed for a moonchance, obviously your friend timed his recyclers at the planet to arrive just a bit after the fleet is crashed to gather the debris. However his harvest report shows nothing and there is nothing there at the galaxy view :( . So what happened, someone with a phalanx on his moon saw the incoming attack and timed his recyclers better than your friend !! How can you prevent this from happening?
      Debris stealers need at least 1hour to get to the debris even if he is in system=>with like a half an hour or so to go, you delay the attacking moonchance fleet with 5-15mins or so and his recyclers will certainly arrive too early, giving your friend plenty of opportunity to gather the debris without having to worry about debris thieves.

      -Killing targets within phalanx range that are online but naive fleetsavers

      Let's assume that you notice that your target came online and spotted your incoming attack. Most likely, he will try to fleetsave. You see on phalanx he launched a short debris fleetsave to his own planets debris and back. So what do you do ->yup right delay your fleet and let it arrive just after his naive fleetsave returns lol! This of course requires that your target fleetsaved early enough, allowing you to make these delay movements. So never give up too early and trust me a scenario like this has happened more than once in my ogame career :)

      2) ACS ninja

      For people who don't know what a ninja is in ogame terminology, the idea is pretty simple: it is suprising a player that is attacking your planet, by letting arrive a fleet of your own that is able to take out his fleet just before impact. If your timing is good, he won't have time to spot this change and let the hit go, BUT he will get an unexpected result, i.e., he will get owned instead of getting raiding profit :D
      Actual this ACS ninja is your regular ninja, but now your friends/allymates can come to play ninja and surprise the attacker. This is one of the nicest ways of using the ACS defend option. An extra advantage is that you can setup different timings by having more than one friend/fleet coming to defend you. For instance, imagine following scenario: EstimatedTime(of)Arrival of the attacking fleet is 17h25:33 server time. A good ninja would time the fleet that has to surprise the attacker to arrive at about 5 seconds before impact, thus 17h25:27. Now of course, this is an ACS universe so your attacker might use a safety probe with slow down procedure and would still spot your attempted ninja. You can take this into account by letting another friend sending ships to arrive a bit after the actual time of the ETA :). Thus, when you see the probe slow down, the first ninja fleet might still be recalled, allowing the second ninja fleet to do its trick. So in other words, "be prepared" is a key factor here, besides having an active and communicating alliance!

      3) Moon to friends moon fleetsave
      Choose a ACS defend mission from your own moon towards your friend's moon and set holding time to zero hours, the fleet will just fly to the moon and back, this has the advantage that you can carry resources (and getting them back in contrary to a transport mission ofc) and that moon to moon fleetsave is not phalanxable, they can't even make use of debris watching to time your fleetsave. The disadvantage remains that once returning, the fleet can't be recalled and that you have to trust the owner of the other moon. Best fleetsave remains deployment from own moon to own moon, there is no doubt about that, but this can sometimes be a possible alternative.

      4) ACS to arrange a friend's MoonChance
      Assume you colonize a new planet totally away from your other planets, but near a friend. Instead of taking the risk to deploy fleet overthere, you can just ask your friend to arrange the MC. Your friend can hold 1667LF of his own fleet at your planet, and then come and crash those with his own cruisers, and recycle afterwards. The biggest advantage of this, is the fact that you don't even have to be online yourself for this type of MC :D, which is definitely easier for planning when you are not online that much. Don't forget to inform the GameOperators of this moon shot though!

      5) ACS as backup for your return trip

      Especially later ingame when you launch big parts of your fleet at a big target, you might risk to have someone try to time your return, and thus instead of you crashing your target and enjoying the profits, you might end up with a crashed target perhaps, but also with yourself being crashed :s. There are a few simple guidelines to avoid such events to happen.
      - split up your fleet using acs and make sure you launch them with different flight times. The fleets will jointly arrive at the target on the EstimatedTime(of)Arrival of your slowest ACS fleet, BUT they will return in parts based upon the flight times of the individual fleet parts. This way it is more difficult to crash whole of your fleet, and it is more difficult to time, certainly when you launch from a moon. The counterside, smaller fleets mean that there are more people that can crash an individual part of your ACS fleet.
      - Make sure you get an ally or friend waiting for your return. That way when you see someone trying to catch you on your return, you can inform your friend to ACS defend you. In other words, be sure that you got someone that watches your back. This way you might even get a ninja :D.

      6) ACS trap/betrayal
      A bit of a questionable strategy, but be assured that some players have a lack of style and won't hesitate to use treason. For instance, you setup an ACS attack, invite some players, because alone you wouldn't be able to take out the target, BUT just before the fleet is supposed to hit they recall !! Resulting in you being owned. This is just one possible scenario, so be warned to be careful with whom you put your trust in. Another one to make it more vivid: say you get invited to join a phalanx hit, the player can't take out the fleet on its own but with your help he can, he is in the same system or very close so he can easily take care of the recycling part. Profit will be divided afterwards. You both sent at 100% because there wasn't much time left, but still timing was perfect and all goes as planned, the hit results in a victory YAY... but as soon as your ships are on their return you can see someone else that has timed your return trip!! Your ACS-partner has passed on your flight time information to the enemy :s ! Other possibilities are a clean ACS and no problems, but so-called missing debris: probably some evil thief :( OR your ACS partner playing a trick on you and keeping all the profit for himself!
      So who can you trust and what moral standard do you have yourself... it is all up to you.
      Another way of ACS betrayal, get someone to ACS-Defend you saying that someone is attacking you with an amount of ships you can take down incase of ACS-Defend. At the end, you get a Losing battle report, what happened is, that the person you defended tricked you through getting you to defend with your ships, he didn't have his ships and the attackers sent more than he told you.
      example: you defended with 4.000 destroyers thinking the attackers is hitting the defender with like 2.000 bc, then u get that all your ships were killed, and you discover that the attackers sent about 15k destroyers and the defender was in cooperation with the attackers to get you to defend and getting crashed. The way to avoid this, is by asking for a screen shot of the attack before you send defend, and another screen shot 2-3 minutes ahead of the impact.


      I have fixed broken images and fixed some minor typos.
      Everything else seems fine I am only not sure if it's good to add explanation about honor points system in ACS here or to keep it all in some separate guide. Or in both
      .



      Old
      This is a new, improved guide for ACS with pics and more details ( based on the old thread: ACS~{Alliance Combat System} Tutorial )


      What is ACS ?
      ACS (Alliance Combat System) is a method used to combine different fleets from different players or even from the same player, to attack a said or given planet/moon.
      OR
      It is a method to Defend a said or given planet/moon with different fleets from different players.

      How to invite into an ACS-Attack ?

      At first you send the fleet on attack mode to the coordinates you want.
      Then, go to fleet movement and use the Fleet Union Button to Invite others or yourself to the attack.

      The following Window will open:



      You could either chose a player from the box on your left (these players are from your BuddyList), press "Invite", then press "OK" ; or you could put the name of the player that you want to invite to the ACS-Attack in the " Search User" box, press " Search", and then press OK.

      Invited players get an IGM (InGameMessage) and have in the fleet-menu the option to join a group-attack. They can choose between all the groups they´re invited to.


      How to join an ACS-Attack?
      After you get an invitation to the attack, go to fleet, choose the fleet you want to add to the ACS-Attack, press continue and then choose the Attack you want to join in the "Combat Forces" drop-down box.



      After that, press on "next" and select the ACS-Attack mission and then "Send Fleet".



      ACS-Attacks don't require being in the same alliance as the other attackers or having them on BuddyList.

      NOTE: In case the player goes into vmode or returns to Newbie protection after an ACS is initiated, no more fleets can be added.


      How to make an ACS-Defend?
      You have to choose the fleet you want to defend with, press on next, put the coords you want to defend (always remember to specify whether you want to defend the moon or the planet as the fleet doesn't defend both, it defends only the selected one), and then select the ACS-Defend Mission and the holding time you want.



      NOTES on ACS-Defend:
      First requirement in doing an ACS-Defend is to have the player to be defended in your alliance or on your BuddyList (unlike ACS-Attack)
      You can Hold your fleet in defense up to 32 straight hours.
      The longer the fleet stays in defend mode the more deut is needed. The deut is automatically loaded onto your fleet, so be sure to have enough cargo capacity to hold enough deut with the fleet to make the ACS-Defend.

      Holding-Costs:

      Small Cargo 5 deut per hour
      Large Cargo 5 deut per hour
      Light Fighter 2 deut per hour
      Heavy Fighter 7 deut per hour
      Cruiser 30 deut per hour
      Battle Ship 50 deut per hour
      Colony Ship 100 deut per hour
      Recycler 30 deut per hour
      Espionage Probe 1/10 deut per hour
      Bomber 100 deut per hour
      Destroyer 100 deut per hour
      Deathstar 1/10 deut per hour
      Battle Cruiser 25 deut per hour



      General information about ACS:

      * All involved parties in the ACS (defenders and attackers) get a full detailed CR unless the attacking fleet was destroyed during the first round of battle.
      * The ships during the whole battle belong to its owners and use his techs.
      * The Combat system works normally as if it is solo attack :
      - Maximum of 6 rounds (after 6 rounds, the result will end as a draw) and the targets are chosen randomly.
      - The resources plunder is 50% as usual (no extra plunder or loot from the defenders planet/moon); the resources are divided according to the total cargo capacity of the fleets and divided up accordingly (i.e. if attacker A sends 75% of the total cargo capacity, they will return with 75% of the plunder)
      - You pay only as much deut as you would pay for a normal attack.
      - After the battle every surviving fleet flies back to where it came from.
      - When you recall the fleet, all deut required for launch and holding is gone.
      * A maximum of 5 players can ACS together in attack and a maximum of 5 players can defend a certain planet/moon; they can ACS in maximum of 16 different slots.
      * Group attacks count for every attacker as one normal attack in the sense of the bashing-rule.
      * The Fleet that is already flying cannot be slowed down more than 30% of the remaining time. If new fleets to be added are slower than this 30% limit, the option for a group-attack is not available.
      * The Group of fleets flies at the speed of the slowest ship in the ACS; and if a slower ship joins, the whole group is slowed down.
      * When a fleet leaves the group, the remaining fleets continue to fly without a change to speed, even when the ACS starter leaves. ( Caution: if the fleet that started the ACS was recalled, no more ships can be added )
      * When in an ACS-Defend mission against an incoming attack, the planet/moon owner is the only one that can see the attack on his overview.
      * If you are attacking and defending the same planet/moon, you will be fighting against yourself (e.g in a Moonshot attempt).


      Further Explanation:

      Group attacks count for every attacker as one normal attack in the sense of the bashing-rule.

      Taking into account that the bashing rules are 6 attacks per planet/moon (normal 1x speed universes)
      If you are attacking Planet/Moon "X" in an ACS attack with 4 other persons, that would count as your first wave, which leaves YOU and each one of your friends with 5 more attacks on this planet/moon each.
      So you can still attack him 5 times after the main ACS hit, and each one of your friends can attack 5 more times.

      The Fleet that is already flying cannot be slowed down more than 30% of the remaining time. If new fleets are slower, the option for a group-attack is not available.

      As example:
      A fleet would need 2 hours (120 minutes) to a planet. 10 minutes after the launch joins an ACS fleet which needs 130 minutes. That is possible, since the new fleet slows the group down, but only around 20 minutes (16%). Another fleet, which would need 160 minutes, could not join (almost 45%).

      When a fleet leaves the group, the remaining fleets continue to fly without a change to speed, even when the ACS starter leaves. (Caution: if the fleet that started the ACS was recalled, no more ships can be added)

      If you had 4 fleets flying, and one of those 4 fleets is recalled, the other 3 fleets continue to fly normally and without any problem and the remaining time stays the same as before the fleet got recalled.
      BUT, incase the particular fleet that was recalled was the fleet that started the invitations to the combat, all the other fleets continue the flight and everything is normal with the time remaining unaltered, but the only exception would be that no more fleets can be joined to the ACS-Attack.

      What else can ACS be used for?
      - Slowing down fleets and Safety Probing (you slow down the main attack enough to sneak in probes on esp mission and avoid the bugusing violation and to have enough time to check the new report and avoid any potential ninjas).
      -Fleetsaving in ACS mode (Note: you might want to consider fleetsaving by deployment mission as it is the safest method)
      -Hiding the attacking ship times with the ACS function so they cannot be easily "returned" (i.e when an attack fleet arrives to destroy your fleet as it returns from it's mission).


      Advanced ACS:
      (Taken from Flavus' ACS Guide

      1) Delaying of arrival time
      -real safety probing

      A regular safety probe is sent a few seconds before your hit impacts, you do this to check the esp. report of the planet/moon you are attacking to see that nothing has changed, i.e., no big enemy fleet is waiting for your arrival to totally destroy you! lol. However, you need a few seconds to read the spy report and to recall your fleet in case of an emergency like the one mentioned before => typically you sent this safety probe to arrive 30-15 secs before impact (unless you trust your internet connection speed)=> this means the defender has 15 seconds to let his ships or his friends ACS defend ships arrive at his planet unnoticed, so if they have good timing you lose.
      However, you can prevent this using ACS: the basic idea is to delay your fleet to arrive after the original arrival time, enabling you to safety probe right after the original arrival time :), in this way you'll be able to notice any ninja trap that the defender set up for you in time !!!
      How does this work? Well, when your fleet has less than 30 minutes to go, start thinking of sending an espionage probe on ACS with the regular fleet at a very low percentage, usually you can send this when there are around 8 minutes or less remaining (depending on timing, circumstances, etc). To delay, you just make sure that the probes flight time is longer than the flight time indicated for the ACS mission. Thus, what you do is actually join in the current attack mission with a slower fleet, making the flight time longer than it was originally (keep in mind the 30% limit for delaying, so practice first before trying it in real time). Try to make this delay at least one minute but more preferably 5 minutes or perhaps more! Never become predictable with your timing, slow by different amounts each time.

      This latter reason is to prevent anticipation from your enemy. When he has a couple of friends or a lot of fleet, he could make it this way that he sends one fleet to arrive just before your original arrival time and one fleet a bit afterwards, in case you use the safety probe delay system => when you delay for only one minute, like most people do, the second fleet will still succeed (you won't notice the first one as that one will be recalled before you arrive!!). Best thing is of course is to use several delays and corresponding safety probes.

      -Adapting phalanx hits
      Assume you have very little time to manage your phalanx timing on your fleet, you sent but it arrives too early :(. If you recall you won't have time anymore to send the same fleet to arrive in time and loose precious fuel => no worries don't recall, just adapt the arrival time using ACS :), exactly the same idea as the delay safety probe in other words ! This of course gives no solution when your timing is too late instead of too early.

      -Avoiding debris stealers
      Picture following scenario, you send 1667LF to a friends planet to be crashed for a moonchance, obviously your friend timed his recyclers at the planet to arrive just a bit after the fleet is crashed to gather the debris. However his harvest report shows nothing and there is nothing there at the galaxy view :( . So what happened, someone with a phalanx on his moon saw the incoming attack and timed his recyclers better than your friend !! How can you prevent this from happening?
      Debris stealers need at least 1hour to get to the debris even if he is in system=>with like a half an hour or so to go, you delay the attacking moonchance fleet with 5-15mins or so and his recyclers will certainly arrive too early, giving your friend plenty of opportunity to gather the debris without having to worry about debris thieves.

      -Killing targets within phalanx range that are online but naive fleetsavers

      Let's assume that you notice that your target came online and spotted your incoming attack. Most likely, he will try to fleetsave. You see on phalanx he launched a short debris fleetsave to his own planets debris and back. So what do you do ->yup right delay your fleet and let it arrive just after his naive fleetsave returns lol! This of course requires that your target fleetsaved early enough, allowing you to make these delay movements. So never give up too early and trust me a scenario like this has happened more than once in my ogame career :)

      2) ACS ninja

      For people who don't know what a ninja is in ogame terminology, the idea is pretty simple: it is suprising a player that is attacking your planet, by letting arrive a fleet of your own that is able to take out his fleet just before impact. If your timing is good, he won't have time to spot this change and let the hit go, BUT he will get an unexpected result, i.e., he will get owned instead of getting raiding profit :D
      Actual this ACS ninja is your regular ninja, but now your friends/allymates can come to play ninja and surprise the attacker. This is one of the nicest ways of using the ACS defend option. An extra advantage is that you can setup different timings by having more than one friend/fleet coming to defend you. For instance, imagine following scenario: EstimatedTime(of)Arrival of the attacking fleet is 17h25:33 servertime. A good ninja would time the fleet that has to suprise the attacker to arrive at about 5 seconds before impact, thus 17h25:27. Now of course, this is an ACS universe so your attacker might use a safety probe with slow down procedure and would still spot your attempted ninja. You can take this into account by letting another friend sending ships to arrive a bit after the actual time of the ETA :). Thus, when you see the probe slow down, the first ninja fleet might still be recalled, allowing the second ninja fleet to do its trick. So in other words, "be prepared" is a key factor here, besides having an active and communicating alliance!

      3) Moon to friends moon fleetsave
      Choose a ACS defend mission from your own moon towards your friend's moon and set holding time to zero hours, the fleet will just fly to the moon and back, this has the advantage that you can carry resources (and getting them back in contrary to a transport mission ofc) and that moon to moon fleetsave is not phalanxable, they can't even make use of debris watching to time your fleetsave. The disadvantage remains that once returning, the fleet can't be recalled and that you have to trust the owner of the other moon. Best fleetsave remains deployment from own moon to own moon, there is no doubt about that, but this can sometimes be a possible alternative.

      4) ACS to arrange a friend's MoonChance
      Assume you colonize a new planet totally away from your other planets, but near a friend. Instead of taking the risk to deploy fleet overthere, you can just ask your friend to arrange the MC. Your friend can hold 1667LF of his own fleet at your planet, and then come and crash those with his own cruisers, and recycle afterwards. The biggest advantage of this, is the fact that you don't even have to be online yourself for this type of MC :D, which is definitely easier for planning when you are not online that much. Don't forget to inform the GameOperators of this moon shot though!

      5) ACS as backup for your return trip

      Especially later ingame when you launch big parts of your fleet at a big target, you might risk to have someone try to time your return, and thus instead of you crashing your target and enjoying the profits, you might end up with a crashed target perhaps, but also with yourself being crashed :s. There are a few simple guidelines to avoid such events to happen.
      - split up your fleet using acs and make sure you launch them with different flight times. The fleets will jointly arrive at the target on the EstimatedTime(of)Arrival of your slowest ACS fleet, BUT they will return in parts based upon the flight times of the individual fleet parts. This way it is more difficult to crash whole of your fleet, and it is more difficult to time, certainly when you launch from a moon. The counterside, smaller fleets mean that there are more people that can crash an individual part of your ACS fleet.
      - Make sure you get an ally or friend waiting for your return. That way when you see someone trying to catch you on your return, you can inform your friend to ACS defend you. In other words, be sure that you got someone that watches your back. This way you might even get a ninja :D.

      6) ACS trap/betrayal
      A bit of a questionable strategy, but be assured that some players have a lack of style and won't hesitate to use treason. For instance, you setup an ACS attack, invite some players, because alone you wouldn't be able to take out the target, BUT just before the fleet is supposed to hit they recall !! Resulting in you being owned. This is just one possible scenario, so be warned to be careful with whom you put your trust in. Another one to make it more vivid: say you get invited to join a phalanx hit, the player can't take out the fleet on its own but with your help he can, he is in the same system or very close so he can easily take care of the recycling part. Profit will be divided afterwards. You both sent at 100% because there wasn't much time left, but still timing was perfect and all goes as planned, the hit results in a victory YAY... but as soon as your ships are on their return you can see someone else that has timed your return trip!! Your ACS-partner has passed on your flight time information to the enemy :s ! Other possibilities are a clean ACS and no problems, but so-called missing debris: probably some evil thief :( OR your ACS partner playing a trick on you and keeping all the profit for himself!
      So who can you trust and what moral standard do you have yourself... it is all up to you.
      Another way of ACS betrayal, get someone to ACS-Defend you saying that someone is attacking you with an amount of ships you can take down incase of ACS-Defend. At the end, you get a Losing battle report, what happened is, that the person you defended tricked you through getting you to defend with your ships, he didn't have his ships and the attackers sent more than he told you.
      example: you defended with 4.000 dessies thinking the attackers is hitting the defender with like 2.000 bc, then u get that all your ships were killed, and you discover that the attackers sent about 15k dessies and the defender was in cooperation with the attackers to get you to defend and getting crashed. The way to avoid this, is by asking for a screen shot of the attack before you send defend, and another screen shot 2-3 minutes ahead of the impact.

    • ACS (Alliance Combat System) is a method used to combine different fleets from different players or even from the same player, to attack a said or given planet/moon.
      OR
      It is a method to Defend a said or given planet/moon with different fleets from different players.



      =How to invite into an ACS-Attack?=
      At first you send the fleet on attack mission to the coordinates you want.
      Then, go to fleet movement and use the Fleet Union Button to Invite others or yourself to the attack.
      You could either chose a player from the box on your left (these players are from your Buddy List), press "Invite", then press "OK" ; or you could put the name of the player that you want to invite to the ACS-Attack in the " Search User" box, press " Search", and then press OK. If you want to only ACS with yourself then just click OK without choosing any player.

      Invited players get an in Game Message and have in the fleet-menu the option to join a group-attack. They can choose between all the groups they are invited to.


      =How to join an ACS-Attack?=


      After you get an invitation to the attack, go to fleet, choose the fleet you want to add to the ACS-Attack, press continue and then choose the Attack you want to join in the "Combat Forces" drop-down box. Press on "next" and select the ACS-Attack mission and then "Send Fleet".
      ACS-Attacks don't require being in the same alliance as the other attackers or having them on BuddyList.

      NOTE: In case the player goes into vmode or returns to Newbie protection after an ACS is initiated, no more fleets can be added.


      =How to make an ACS-Defend?=
      You have to choose the fleet you want to defend with, press on next, put the coords you want to defend (always remember to specify whether you want to defend the moon or the planet as the fleet doesn't defend both, it defends only the selected one), and then select the ACS-Defend Mission and the holding time you want.

      NOTE:
      First requirement in doing an ACS-Defend is to have the player to be defended in your alliance or on your BuddyList (unlike ACS-Attack)
      You can Hold your fleet in defense up to 32 straight hours.
      The longer the fleet stays in defend mode the more deut is needed. The deut is automatically loaded onto your fleet, so be sure to have enough cargo capacity to hold enough deut with the fleet to make the ACS-Defend.

      Holding-Costs:

      Small Cargo 5 deut per hour
      Large Cargo 5 deut per hour
      Light Fighter 2 deut per hour
      Heavy Fighter 7 deut per hour
      Cruiser 30 deut per hour
      Battle Ship 50 deut per hour
      Colony Ship 100 deut per hour
      Recycler 30 deut per hour
      Espionage Probe 1/10 deut per hour
      Bomber 100 deut per hour
      Destroyer 100 deut per hour
      Deathstar 1/10 deut per hour
      Battle Cruiser 25 deut per hour



      =General information about ACS=

      All involved parties in the ACS (defenders and attackers) get a full detailed CR unless the attacking fleet was destroyed during the first round of battle.
      The ships during the whole battle belong to its owners and use his techs.

      The Combat system works normally as if it is solo attack :
      - Maximum of 6 rounds (after 6 rounds, the result will end as a draw) and the targets are chosen randomly.
      - The resources plunder are divided according to the total cargo capacity of the fleets and divided up accordingly (i.e. if attacker A sends 75% of the total cargo capacity, they will return with 75% of the plunder)
      - You pay only as much deut as you would pay for a normal attack.
      - After the battle every surviving fleet flies back to where it came from.
      - When you recall the fleet, all deut required for launch and holding is gone.


      A maximum of 5 players can ACS together in attack and a maximum of 5 players can defend a certain planet/moon; they can ACS in maximum of 16 different slots.
      Group attacks count for every attacker as one normal attack in the sense of the bashing-rule.

      The Fleet that is already flying cannot be slowed down more than 30% of the remaining time. If new fleets to be added are slower than this 30% limit, the option for a group-attack is not available.
      The Group of fleets flies at the speed of the slowest ship in the ACS; and if a slower ship joins, the whole group is slowed down.
      When a fleet leaves the group, the remaining fleets continue to fly without a change to speed, even when the ACS starter leaves. ( Caution: if the fleet that started the ACS was recalled, no more ships can be added )
      When in an ACS-Defend mission against an incoming attack, the planet/moon owner is the only one that can see the attack on his overview.
      If you are attacking and defending the same planet/moon, you will be fighting against yourself (e.g in a Moonshot attempt).
      If you are ACS-Defending moon which is meanwhile destroyed by moon destruction mission, the fleet will ACS defend the planet.


      Bashing:
      Taking into account that the bashing rules are 6 attacks per planet/moon (normal 1x speed universes)
      If you are attacking Planet/Moon "X" in an ACS attack with 4 other persons, that would count as your first wave, which leaves YOU and each one of your friends with 5 more attacks on this planet/moon each.
      So you can still attack him 5 times after the main ACS hit, and each one of your friends can attack 5 more times.


      =What else can ACS be used for?=

      - Slowing down fleets and Safety Probing (you slow down the main attack enough to sneak in probes on esp mission and avoid the bugusing violation and to have enough time to check the new report and avoid any potential ninjas).
      -Fleet saving in ACS mode (Note: you might want to consider fleet saving by deployment mission as it is the safest method)
      -Hiding the attacking ship times with the ACS function so they cannot be easily "returned" (i.e when an attack fleet arrives to destroy your fleet as it returns from it's mission).


      =Advanced ACS=
      1) Delaying of arrival time(real safety probing)

      A regular safety probe is sent a few seconds before your hit impacts, you do this to check the esp. report of the planet/moon you are attacking to see that nothing has changed, i.e., no big enemy fleet is waiting for your arrival to totally destroy you! However, you need a few seconds to read the spy report and to recall your fleet in case of an emergency like the one mentioned before => typically you sent this safety probe to arrive 30-15 secs before impact.Try to make this delay at least one minute but more preferably 5 minutes or perhaps more! Never become predictable with your timing, slow by different amounts each time.


      -Adapting phalanx hits
      Assume you have very little time to manage your phalanx timing on your fleet, you sent but it arrives too early. If you recall you won't have time anymore to send the same fleet to arrive in time and loose precious fuel. You don't need to recall, just adapt the arrival time using ACS , exactly the same idea as the delay safety probe in other words! This of course gives no solution when your timing is too late instead of too early.

      -Avoiding debris steal

      Debris stealers need at least 1hour to get to the debris even if he is in system. With like a half an hour or so to go, you delay the attacking moonchance fleet with 5-15mins or so and his recyclers will certainly arrive too early, giving your friend plenty of opportunity to gather the debris without having to worry about debris thieves.


      2) ACS ninja
      For people who don't know what a ninja is in ogame terminology, the idea is pretty simple: it is suprising a player that is attacking your planet, by letting arrive a fleet of your own that is able to take out his fleet just before impact. If your timing is good, he won't have time to spot this change and let the hit go, but he will get an unexpected result, i.e., he will get owned instead of getting raiding profit.
      Actual this ACS ninja is your regular ninja, but now your friends/allymates can come to play ninja and surprise the attacker.

      3) Moon to friends moon fleetsave
      Choose a ACS defend mission from your own moon towards your friend's moon and set holding time to zero hours, the fleet will just fly to the moon and back, this has the advantage that you can carry resources and that moon to moon fleetsave is not phalanxable, they can't even make use of debris watching to time your fleetsave. The disadvantage remains that once returning, the fleet can't be recalled and that you have to trust the owner of the other moon. Best fleetsave remains deployment from own moon to own moon.

      4) ACS as backup for your return trip
      Especially later ingame when you launch big parts of your fleet at a big target, you might risk to have someone try to time your return, and thus instead of you crashing your target and enjoying the profits, you might end up with a crashed target perhaps, but also with yourself being crashed.

      There are a few simple guidelines to avoid such events to happen.


      - split up your fleet using acs and make sure you launch them with different flight times. The fleets will jointly arrive at the target on the Estimated Time(of)Arrival of your slowest ACS fleet, BUT they will return in parts based upon the flight times of the individual fleet parts. This way it is more difficult to crash whole of your fleet, and it is more difficult to time, certainly when you launch from a moon.


      - Make sure you get an ally or friend waiting for your return. That way when you see someone trying to catch you on your return, you can inform your friend to ACS defend you.
    • In a defense ACS i would add information about the Alliance Depot

      The alliance depot supplies fuel to friendly fleets in orbit helping with defence. For each upgrade level of the alliance depot, a special demand of deuterium per hour can be sent to an orbiting fleet.

      But know i don't remember exactly how does it works
      Ogame.es & Ogame.ar SGO
      Origin Supporter

    • //Added Alliance Depot



      ACS (Alliance Combat System) is a method used to combine different fleets from different players or even from the same player, to attack a said or given planet/moon.
      OR
      It is a method to Defend a said or given planet/moon with different fleets from different players.



      =How to invite into an ACS-Attack?=
      At first you send the fleet on attack mission to the coordinates you want.
      Then, go to fleet movement and use the Fleet Union Button to Invite others or yourself to the attack.
      You could either chose a player from the box on your left (these players are from your Buddy List), press "Invite", then press "OK" ; or you could put the name of the player that you want to invite to the ACS-Attack in the " Search User" box, press " Search", and then press OK. If you want to only ACS with yourself then just click OK without choosing any player.

      Invited players get an in Game Message and have in the fleet-menu the option to join a group-attack. They can choose between all the groups they are invited to.


      =How to join an ACS-Attack?=


      After you get an invitation to the attack, go to fleet, choose the fleet you want to add to the ACS-Attack, press continue and then choose the Attack you want to join in the "Combat Forces" drop-down box. Press on "next" and select the ACS-Attack mission and then "Send Fleet".
      ACS-Attacks don't require being in the same alliance as the other attackers or having them on BuddyList.

      NOTE: In case the player goes into vmode or returns to Newbie protection after an ACS is initiated, no more fleets can be added.


      =How to make an ACS-Defend?=
      You have to choose the fleet you want to defend with, press on next, put the coords you want to defend (always remember to specify whether you want to defend the moon or the planet as the fleet doesn't defend both, it defends only the selected one), and then select the ACS-Defend Mission and the holding time you want.

      NOTE:
      First requirement in doing an ACS-Defend is to have the player to be defended in your alliance or on your BuddyList (unlike ACS-Attack)
      You can Hold your fleet in defense up to 32 straight hours.
      The longer the fleet stays in defend mode the more deut is needed. The deut is automatically loaded onto your fleet, so be sure to have enough cargo capacity to hold enough deut with the fleet to make the ACS-Defend.

      Holding-Costs:

      Small Cargo 5 deut per hour
      Large Cargo 5 deut per hour
      Light Fighter 2 deut per hour
      Heavy Fighter 7 deut per hour
      Cruiser 30 deut per hour
      Battle Ship 50 deut per hour
      Colony Ship 100 deut per hour
      Recycler 30 deut per hour
      Espionage Probe 1/10 deut per hour
      Bomber 100 deut per hour
      Destroyer 100 deut per hour
      Deathstar 1/10 deut per hour
      Battle Cruiser 25 deut per hour



      =General information about ACS=

      All involved parties in the ACS (defenders and attackers) get a full detailed CR unless the attacking fleet was destroyed during the first round of battle.
      The ships during the whole battle belong to its owners and use his techs.

      The Combat system works normally as if it is solo attack :
      - Maximum of 6 rounds (after 6 rounds, the result will end as a draw) and the targets are chosen randomly.
      - The resources plunder are divided according to the total cargo capacity of the fleets and divided up accordingly (i.e. if attacker A sends 75% of the total cargo capacity, they will return with 75% of the plunder)
      - You pay only as much deut as you would pay for a normal attack.
      - After the battle every surviving fleet flies back to where it came from.
      - When you recall the fleet, all deut required for launch and holding is gone.


      A maximum of 5 players can ACS together in attack and a maximum of 5 players can defend a certain planet/moon; they can ACS in maximum of 16 different slots.
      Group attacks count for every attacker as one normal attack in the sense of the bashing-rule.

      The Fleet that is already flying cannot be slowed down more than 30% of the remaining time. If new fleets to be added are slower than this 30% limit, the option for a group-attack is not available.
      The Group of fleets flies at the speed of the slowest ship in the ACS; and if a slower ship joins, the whole group is slowed down.
      When a fleet leaves the group, the remaining fleets continue to fly without a change to speed, even when the ACS starter leaves. ( Caution: if the fleet that started the ACS was recalled, no more ships can be added )
      When in an ACS-Defend mission against an incoming attack, the planet/moon owner is the only one that can see the attack on his overview.
      If you are attacking and defending the same planet/moon, you will be fighting against yourself (e.g in a Moonshot attempt).
      If you are ACS-Defending moon which is meanwhile destroyed by moon destruction mission, the fleet will ACS defend the planet.


      Bashing:
      Taking into account that the bashing rules are 6 attacks per planet/moon (normal 1x speed universes)
      If you are attacking Planet/Moon "X" in an ACS attack with 4 other persons, that would count as your first wave, which leaves YOU and each one of your friends with 5 more attacks on this planet/moon each.
      So you can still attack him 5 times after the main ACS hit, and each one of your friends can attack 5 more times.


      =What else can ACS be used for?=

      - Slowing down fleets and Safety Probing (you slow down the main attack enough to sneak in probes on esp mission and avoid the bugusing violation and to have enough time to check the new report and avoid any potential ninjas).
      -Fleet saving in ACS mode (Note: you might want to consider fleet saving by deployment mission as it is the safest method)
      -Hiding the attacking ship times with the ACS function so they cannot be easily "returned" (i.e when an attack fleet arrives to destroy your fleet as it returns from it's mission).


      =Advanced ACS=
      1) Delaying of arrival time(real safety probing)

      A regular safety probe is sent a few seconds before your hit impacts, you do this to check the esp. report of the planet/moon you are attacking to see that nothing has changed, i.e., no big enemy fleet is waiting for your arrival to totally destroy you! However, you need a few seconds to read the spy report and to recall your fleet in case of an emergency like the one mentioned before => typically you sent this safety probe to arrive 30-15 secs before impact.Try to make this delay at least one minute but more preferably 5 minutes or perhaps more! Never become predictable with your timing, slow by different amounts each time.


      -Adapting phalanx hits
      Assume you have very little time to manage your phalanx timing on your fleet, you sent but it arrives too early. If you recall you won't have time anymore to send the same fleet to arrive in time and loose precious fuel. You don't need to recall, just adapt the arrival time using ACS , exactly the same idea as the delay safety probe in other words! This of course gives no solution when your timing is too late instead of too early.

      -Avoiding debris steal

      Debris stealers need at least 1hour to get to the debris even if he is in system. With like a half an hour or so to go, you delay the attacking moonchance fleet with 5-15mins or so and his recyclers will certainly arrive too early, giving your friend plenty of opportunity to gather the debris without having to worry about debris thieves.


      2) ACS ninja
      For people who don't know what a ninja is in ogame terminology, the idea is pretty simple: it is suprising a player that is attacking your planet, by letting arrive a fleet of your own that is able to take out his fleet just before impact. If your timing is good, he won't have time to spot this change and let the hit go, but he will get an unexpected result, i.e., he will get owned instead of getting raiding profit.
      Actual this ACS ninja is your regular ninja, but now your friends/allymates can come to play ninja and surprise the attacker.

      3) Moon to friends moon fleetsave
      Choose a ACS defend mission from your own moon towards your friend's moon and set holding time to zero hours, the fleet will just fly to the moon and back, this has the advantage that you can carry resources and that moon to moon fleetsave is not phalanxable, they can't even make use of debris watching to time your fleetsave. The disadvantage remains that once returning, the fleet can't be recalled and that you have to trust the owner of the other moon. Best fleetsave remains deployment from own moon to own moon.

      4) ACS as backup for your return trip
      Especially later ingame when you launch big parts of your fleet at a big target, you might risk to have someone try to time your return, and thus instead of you crashing your target and enjoying the profits, you might end up with a crashed target perhaps, but also with yourself being crashed.

      There are a few simple guidelines to avoid such events to happen.


      - split up your fleet using acs and make sure you launch them with different flight times. The fleets will jointly arrive at the target on the Estimated Time(of)Arrival of your slowest ACS fleet, BUT they will return in parts based upon the flight times of the individual fleet parts. This way it is more difficult to crash whole of your fleet, and it is more difficult to time, certainly when you launch from a moon.


      - Make sure you get an ally or friend waiting for your return. That way when you see someone trying to catch you on your return, you can inform your friend to ACS defend you.


      =Alliance Depot=
      An Alliance Depot is where a friendly fleet can be re-fueled with your deuterium, allowing them to remain at your planet. This building is only available in universes where Alliance Combat System is enabled.

      The Alliance Depot allows you to support friendly fleets so they can remain stationed at your planet for a time. The depot can launch a support-rocket that brings deuterium to the fleet in the orbit. The amount of deuterium is 20,000 deuterium for each Alliance Depot Level.

      Normally the maximum time a fleet can hold is 32 hours. Every time you launch a support-rocket, the fleet is able to use the deuterium to remain in orbit longe. Because larger depots are able to launch more deuterium in the support rockets, they are able to sustain larger fleets.

      This table shows to us how much holding costs (deuterium per hour) from each ship:
      Small Cargo Ship --> 1
      Large Cargo Ship --> 5
      Light Fighter --> 2
      Heavy Fighter --> 7
      Cruiser --> 30
      Battle Ship --> 50
      Colony Ship --> 100
      Recycler --> 30
      Espionage Probe --> 0.1
      Bomber --> 100
      Destroyer --> 100
      Battlecruiser --> 25
      Death Star --> 0.1

      Building and using Alliance depot is not so much useful, because even without alliance depot you fleet can stay up to 32hours at planet or moon of your friend.
    • ACS (Alliance Combat System) is a method used to combine different fleets from different players or even from the same player, to attack a given planet/moon.
      OR
      It is a method to defend a given planet/moon with different fleets from different players.



      =How to invite into an ACS-Attack?=
      At first you send the fleet on attack mission to the coordinates you want.
      Then, go to fleet movement and use the Fleet Union Button to Invite others or yourself to the attack.
      You could either chose a player from the box on your left (these players are from your Buddy List), press "Invite", then press "OK" ; or you could put the name of the player that you want to invite to the ACS-Attack in the " Search User" box, press " Search", and then press OK. If you want to only ACS with yourself then just click OK without choosing any player.

      Invited players get an in Game Message and have in the fleet-menu the option to join a group-attack. They can choose between all the groups they are invited to.


      =How to join an ACS-Attack?=
      After you get an invitation to the attack, go to fleet, choose the fleet you want to add to the ACS-Attack, press continue and then choose the Attack you want to join in the "Combat Forces" drop-down box. Press on "next" and select the ACS-Attack mission and then "Send Fleet".
      ACS-Attacks don't require being in the same alliance as the other attackers or having them on BuddyList.
      Each joining fleet will modify the arriving time depending of speed but the fleet that is already flying cannot be slowed down more than 30% of the remaining time. If new fleets to be added are slower than this 30% limit, the option for a group-attack is not available
      NOTE: In case the player goes into vmode or returns to Newbie protection after an ACS is initiated, no more fleets can be added.


      =How to make an ACS-Defend?=
      You have to choose the fleet you want to defend with, press on next, put the coords you want to defend (always remember to specify whether you want to defend the moon or the planet as the fleet doesn't defend both, it defends only the selected one), and then select the ACS-Defend Mission and the holding time you want.

      NOTE:
      First requirement in doing an ACS-Defend is to have the player to be defended in your alliance or on your BuddyList (unlike ACS-Attack)
      You can Hold your fleet in defense up to 32 straight hours.
      The longer the fleet stays in defend mode the more deut is needed. The deut is automatically loaded onto your fleet, so be sure to have enough cargo capacity to hold enough deut with the fleet to make the ACS-Defend.


      =General information about ACS=

      All involved parties in the ACS (defenders and attackers) get a full detailed CR unless the attacking fleet was destroyed during the first round of battle.
      The ships during the whole battle belong to its owners and use his techs.

      The Combat system works normally as if it is solo attack :
      - Maximum of 6 rounds (after 6 rounds, the result will end as a draw) and the targets are chosen randomly.
      - The resources plunder are divided according to the total cargo capacity of the fleets and divided up accordingly (i.e. if attacker A sends 75% of the total cargo capacity, they will return with 75% of the plunder)
      - You pay only as much deut as you would pay for a normal attack.
      - After the battle every surviving fleet flies back to where it came from with its own speed.
      - When you recall the fleet, all deut required for launch and holding is gone.


      A maximum of 5 players can ACS together in attack and a maximum of 5 players can defend a certain planet/moon; they can ACS in maximum of 16 different slots.
      Group attacks count for every attacker as one normal attack in the sense of the bashing-rule.

      The Group of fleets flies at the speed of the slowest ship in the ACS; and if a slower ship joins, the whole group is slowed down.
      When a fleet leaves the group, the remaining fleets continue to fly without a change to speed, even when the ACS starter leaves. ( Caution: if the fleet that started the ACS was recalled, no more ships can be added )
      When in an ACS-Defend mission against an incoming attack, the planet/moon owner is the only one that can see the attack on his overview.
      If you are attacking and defending the same planet/moon, you will be fighting against yourself (e.g in a Moonshot attempt).
      If you are ACS-Defending moon which is meanwhile destroyed by moon destruction mission, the defending fleet will ACS defend the planet.

      Bashing: Each ACS attack is counted a a single attack, so you can still attack him 5 times after the main ACS hit, and each one of your friends can attack 5 more times.


      =What else can ACS be used for?=

      - Slowing down fleets and Safety Probing (you slow down the main attack enough to sneak in probes on esp mission .
      -Hiding the attacking fleets flying times with the ACS function so they cannot be easily be hit on return

      =Advanced ACS=
      1) Delaying of arrival time(real safety probing)

      A regular safety probe is sent a few seconds before your hit impacts, you do this to check the esp. report of the planet/moon you are attacking to see that nothing has changed, i.e., no big enemy fleet is waiting for your arrival to totally destroy you! However, you need a few seconds to read the spy report and to recall your fleet in case of an emergency like the one mentioned before => typically you sent this safety probe to arrive 30-15 secs before impact. Try to make this delay at least one minute but more preferably 5 minutes or perhaps more! Never become predictable with your timing, slow by different amounts each time.


      2) Managing time in phalanx hits
      You can use fleet slowing by sending additional ships in ACS to your main attack in case you see in phalanx that the targeted fleet arrives after your attacking fleet . If you recall you won't have time anymore to send the same fleet to arrive in time and loose precious fuel. You don't need to recall, just adapt the arrival time using ACS , exactly the same idea as the delay safety probe in other words! This of course gives no solution when your timing is too late instead of too early.

      3) Avoiding debris steal
      Debris stealers need at least 1hour ( in 1x speed universe) to get to the debris even if he is in system. You can delay the attacking moonchance fleet with 5-15mins or so and his recyclers will certainly arrive too early, giving your friend plenty of opportunity to gather the debris without having to worry about debris thieves.


      4) ACS ninja
      Ninja means surprising a player that is attacking your planet with a larger defending fleet . You can do this by letting arrive a fleet of your own or a friend’s fleet that is able to take out his fleet just before impact. If your timing is good, he won't have time to spot this change and let the hit go, but he will get an unexpected result, i.e., he will get owned instead of getting raiding profit.


      5) Moon to friends moon fleetsave
      Choose a ACS defend mission from your own moon towards your friend's moon and set holding time to zero hours, the fleet will just fly to the moon and back, this has the advantage that you can carry resources and that moon to moon fleetsave is not phalanxable, they can't even make use of debris watching to time your fleetsave. The disadvantage remains that once returning, the fleet can't be recalled and that you have to trust the owner of the other moon. Best fleetsave remains deployment from own moon to own moon.

      6) ACS as backup for your return trip
      Especially later ingame when you launch big parts of your fleet at a big target, you might risk to have someone try to time your return, and thus instead of you crashing your target and enjoying the profits, you might end up with a crashed target perhaps, but also with yourself being crashed.
      There are a few simple guidelines to avoid such events to happen.

      - split up your fleet using acs and make sure you launch them with different flight times. The fleets will jointly arrive at the target on the Estimated Time (of) Arrival of your slowest ACS fleet, BUT they will return in parts based upon the flight times of the individual fleet parts. This way it is more difficult to crash whole of your fleet, and it is more difficult to time, certainly when you launch from a moon.

      - Make sure you get an ally or friend waiting for your return. That way when you see someone trying to catch you on your return, you can inform your friend to ACS defend you.


      =Alliance Depot=
      An Alliance Depot can re-fuel a friendly fleet, allowing them to remain at your planet longer than initially planned. This building is only available in universes where Alliance Combat System is enabled The amount of deuterium is 20,000 deuterium for each Alliance Depot Level.

      Normally the maximum time a fleet can hold is 32 hours. Every time you launch a support-rocket, the fleet is able to use the deuterium to remain in orbit longer. Because larger depots are able to launch more deuterium in the support rockets, they are able to sustain larger fleets.

      Building and using Alliance depot is not so much useful, because even without alliance depot you fleet can stay up to 32 hours at planet or moon of your friend which is not advisable to do because there is always a bigger fleet in the universe able to take yours down.
    • ACS (Alliance Combat System) is a method used to combine different fleets from different players or even from the same player, to attack or defend a given planet/moon.

      =How to invite into an ACS-Attack?=
      1) send the fleet on attack mission to the coordinates you want.
      2) go to fleet movement and use the Fleet Union Button to Invite others or yourself to the attack.
      You could either chose a player from the box on your left (these players are from your Buddy List), press "Invite", then press "OK"; or you could put the name of the player that you want to invite to the ACS-Attack in the "Search User" box, press "Search", and then press OK. If you want to only ACS with yourself then just click OK without choosing any player.

      Invited players get a message and have in the fleet-menu the option to join a group-attack. They can choose between all the groups they are invited to.

      =How to join an ACS-Attack?=
      After you get an invitation to the attack
      1) Go to fleet and choose the fleet you want to add to the ACS-Attack
      2) Press continue and then choose the Attack you want to join in the "Combat Forces" drop-down box. Press on "next" and select the ACS-Attack mission and then "Send Fleet".
      ACS-Attacks don't require being in the same alliance as the other attackers or having them on Friend List.
      Each joining fleet will modify the arriving time depending of speed but the fleet that is already flying cannot be slowed down more than 30% of the remaining time. If new fleets to be added are slower than this 30% limit, the option for a group-attack is not available
      NOTE: In case the player goes into vacation mode or returns to Newbie protection after an ACS is initiated, no more fleets can be added.

      =How to make an ACS-Defend?=
      1) Choose the fleet you want to defend with
      2) Enter the coordinates you want to defend (choose moon or the planet), and then select the ACS-Defend Mission and the holding time you want.

      NOTE:
      First requirement in doing an ACS-Defend is to have the player to be defended in your alliance or on your Friend List (unlike ACS-Attack)
      You can Hold your fleet in defense up to 32 straight hours.
      The longer the fleet stays in defend mode the more deuterium is needed. The deuterium is automatically loaded onto your fleet, so be sure to have enough cargo capacity to hold enough deuterium with the fleet to make the ACS-Defend.

      =General information about ACS=
      All involved parties in the ACS (defenders and attackers) get a full detailed CR unless the attacking fleet was destroyed during the first round of battle.
      The ships during the whole battle belong to its owners and use his techs.

      The Combat system works normally as if it is solo attack:
      - Maximum of 6 rounds (after 6 rounds, the result will end as a draw) and the targets are chosen randomly.
      - The resources plunder are divided according to the total cargo capacity of the fleets and divided up accordingly (i.e. if attacker A sends 75% of the total cargo capacity, they will return with 75% of the plunder)
      - You pay only as much deuterium as you would pay for a normal attack.
      - After the battle every surviving fleet flies back to where it came from with its own speed.
      - When you recall the fleet, all deuterium required for launch and holding is gone.

      A maximum of 5 players can ACS together in attack and a maximum of 5 players can defend a certain planet/moon; they can ACS in maximum of 16 different slots.
      Group attacks count for every attacker as one normal attack in the sense of the bashing-rule.

      The Group of fleets flies at the speed of the slowest ship in the ACS; and if a slower ship joins, the whole group is slowed down.
      When a fleet leaves the group, the remaining fleets continue to fly without a change to speed, even when the ACS starter leaves. (Caution: if the fleet that started the ACS was recalled, no more ships can be added )
      When in an ACS-Defend mission against an incoming attack, the planet/moon owner is the only one that can see the attack on his overview.
      If you are attacking and defending the same planet/moon, you will be fighting against yourself (e.g in a Moonshot attempt).
      If you are ACS-Defending moon which is meanwhile destroyed by moon destruction mission, the defending fleet will ACS defend the planet.

      Bashing: Each ACS attack is counted a a single attack, so you can still attack him 5 times after the main ACS hit, and each one of your friends can attack 5 more times.

      =What else can ACS be used for?=
      - Slowing down fleets and Safety Probing (you slow down the main attack enough to sneak in probes on espionage mission.
      - Hiding the attacking fleets flying times with the ACS function so they cannot be easily be hit on return.





      ((((not for this guide)))

      =Advanced ACS=
      1) Delaying of arrival time (real safety probing)

      A regular safety probe is sent a few seconds before your hit impacts, you do this to check the esp. report of the planet/moon you are attacking to see that nothing has changed, i.e., no big enemy fleet is waiting for your arrival to totally destroy you! However, you need a few seconds to read the spy report and to recall your fleet in case of an emergency like the one mentioned before => typically you sent this safety probe to arrive 30-15 secs before impact. Try to make this delay at least one minute but more preferably 5 minutes or perhaps more! Never become predictable with your timing, slow by different amounts each time.

      2) Managing time in phalanx hits
      You can use fleet slowing by sending additional ships in ACS to your main attack in case you see in phalanx that the targeted fleet arrives after your attacking fleet. If you recall you won't have time anymore to send the same fleet to arrive in time and loose precious fuel. You don't need to recall, just adapt the arrival time using ACS, exactly the same idea as the delay safety probe in other words! This of course gives no solution when your timing is too late instead of too early.

      3) Avoiding debris steal
      Debris thieves need at least 1hour (in 1x speed universe) to get to the debris even if he is in system. You can delay the attacking moon chance fleet with 5-15 minutes or so and his recyclers will certainly arrive too early, giving your friend plenty of opportunity to gather the debris without having to worry about debris thieves.

      4) ACS ninja
      Ninja means surprising a player that is attacking your planet with a larger defending fleet. You can do this by letting arrive a fleet of your own or a friend’s fleet that is able to take out his fleet just before impact. If your timing is good, he won't have time to spot this change and let the hit go, but he will get an unexpected result, i.e. he will get owned instead of getting raiding profit.

      5) Moon to friends moon fleetsave
      Choose a ACS defend mission from your own moon towards your friend's moon and set holding time to zero hours, the fleet will just fly to the moon and back, this has the advantage that you can carry resources and that moon to moon fleetsave is not phalanxable, they can't even make use of debris watching to time your fleetsave. The disadvantage remains that once returning, the fleet can't be recalled and that you have to trust the owner of the other moon. Best fleetsave remains deployment from own moon to own moon.

      6) ACS as backup for your return trip
      Especially later ingame when you launch big parts of your fleet at a big target, you might risk to have someone try to time your return, and thus instead of you crashing your target and enjoying the profits, you might end up with a crashed target perhaps, but also with yourself being crashed.
      There are a few simple guidelines to avoid such events to happen.

      - split up your fleet using acs and make sure you launch them with different flight times. The fleets will jointly arrive at the target on the Estimated Time (of) Arrival of your slowest ACS fleet, BUT they will return in parts based upon the flight times of the individual fleet parts. This way it is more difficult to crash whole of your fleet, and it is more difficult to time, certainly when you launch from a moon.

      - Make sure you get an ally or friend waiting for your return. That way when you see someone trying to catch you on your return, you can inform your friend to ACS defend you.

      =Alliance Depot=
      An Alliance Depot can re-fuel a friendly fleet, allowing them to remain at your planet longer than initially planned. This building is only available in universes where Alliance Combat System is enabled The amount of deuterium is 20,000 deuterium for each Alliance Depot Level.

      Normally the maximum time a fleet can hold is 32 hours. Every time you launch a support-rocket, the fleet is able to use the deuterium to remain in orbit longer. Because larger depots are able to launch more deuterium in the support rockets, they are able to sustain larger fleets.

      Building and using Alliance depot is not so much useful, because even without alliance depot you fleet can stay up to 32 hours at planet or moon of your friend which is not advisable to do because there is always a bigger fleet in the universe able to take yours down.