In the last chapter you built your first ship, the Small Cargo, now we'll look at the other ship types and their uses. This should prove useful when deciding what ships you want to build and research next.

==Building Your Fleet==

At the beginning you're only able to build a few different types of ships so the choice is relatively simple, but even at this stage you should ensure the fleet is suitable for your needs. Depending on your playing style it might be useful to have lots of combat ships or conversely a large number of Cargo ships. But even the most aggressive Raider needs a sufficient number of Cargo ships to save his loot overnight, and peaceful players can also benefit from using some combat ships to farm inactive players. But the ideal composition is very dependent on the individual player's needs.

In the later game play, when you've unlocked most of the ships, there are other aspects to be considered. In rare cases it makes sense to build a full combat fleet of the same ship type. However, since ships in OGame are strong against certain units and relatively weak against others, this can make you an easy target to fleets of a particular type. A good mix is usually the best solution, but we need to consider which type of targets you want to attack. For fast attacks Cruisers and Battlecruisers are important, for fleet destructions Light Fighters and for attacking bunkers Destroyers and Bombers. Also you should always have a sufficient number of Recyclers, the best fleet is not the one able to crash everything, but to harvest all it can crash. Some tips and best fleet compositions can be seen in our chapter <<Fleet composition>>.

==Rapidfire - Who will score how often?==

Beside the obvious values of Structural Integrity, Shield Strength, Attack Strength, Speed and Cargo Capacity every warship also has Rapidfire. This strange value has great influence on a fight and so Rapidfire should always be considered when building a fleet. The exact function is covered in more detail in the <<Rapidfire guide>>, but basically the higher the value of Rapidfire that one ship has against another, the greater the chance it has to fire several times and thus cause more damage. The higher the value, the better it is suited to these types of units. Based on this criterion you can decide which fleet to send on an attack.

==Combat ships - Strengths and Weaknesses==

A total of eight different combat ships are available for players in OGame. While in theory all of them can be used to attack an enemy player, you should decide which type of ships are best suited to the particular mission. See Combat Simulators.

Light Fighter
The Light Fighter is the first ship you can build and is therefore used for the first raids. In the later game play, it's mainly used in large numbers as fodder for strong units (e.g. Destroyers & Plasma Turrets) to prevent them from being destroyed. From a cost/benefit factor it's the best ship in the game. For example, using the same combat techs, 25 Light Fighters can defeat a Destroyer losing only 6 Fighters. This may seem a lot but a Destroyer costs in total 125.000 resources, 6 Fighters only 24.000. Swarms of Light Fighters, combined with a small number of heavy ships, can wreak havoc in heavily defended bunkers or in heavy ships based fleets, as the few heavy ships will wipe out the enemy shields, allowing the light fighters to damage the structure and blow them up.

Heavy Fighter
The Heavy Fighter is mainly used in the beginning to attack lightly defended targets. In the later game only a few players bother to build them, mostly in large numbers for fodder again for facing fleets with a lot of Cruisers. Because unlike with the Light Fighters, Cruisers have no Rapidfire against them. Further on this advantage isn't as important as Battlecruisers; they have Rapidfire against Heavy Fighters.

Cruiser
The Cruiser is the fastest ship in OGame. It's also a very good weapon against large numbers of Light Fighters and Rocket Launchers due to its Rapidfire. Therefore Cruisers should form a part of any good Fleet. They can be used to raid in the very early stages of the game, but as soon as Gaus Cannon appear, they become just an anti-fleet ship. When playing with defense, it's a good strategy to dock 20-30 Cruisers in your planets to help your nightly income defense to defeat raids based on swarms of Light Fighters.

Battleship
The Battleship is a cheap combat ship, and is very popular for farm raids because of its balanced values and large cargo capacity. Due to such qualities, they are like machines, that come out from the factory and start giving profit by using them to raid. Its Metal-Crystal 3:1 ratio cost allow players to build pretty decent numbers of Battleships. But be careful because they're very weak against Battlecruisers!

Battlecruiser
The Battlecruiser is especially useful for hunting enemy fleets, it's fast speed and Rapidfire makes it an ideal fleet interceptor. In the other hand, its Metal-Crystal ratio cost turn them quite expensive to build, especially in large numbers and it's not a very useful ship to raid bunkers. But if you want to be a fleet killer then you'll definitely need the Battlecruiser!

Bomber
Until you research Hyperspace Drive Level 8 the Bomber is an extremely slow ship, and requires a lot of Deuterium. Due to it's Rapidfire the Bomber is mainly a defense fodder killer and so is often used in connection with Destroyers against large Defenses. However, even being a great fodder killer, the ship has a huge disadvantage against heavily gunned bunkers: its structure isn't large enough to withstand the Plasma Turret shot, thus leading to higher losses than desired.

Destroyer
Because of its powerful arsenal, Rapidfire and shields, this ship is primarily used against enemy’s Deathstars and bunkers. However, it can also be useful against big Battlecruiser fleets. The ship has a similar fuel consuption and speed to Bombers, but providing a higher survability against the Plasma Turret.

Deathstar
The most powerful of all the ships in OGame, if you can call it a ship. It's not only very strong, but also very expensive and slow. It uses almost no Deuterium and its high Rapidfire gives it an added advantage over most ships and defenses. It's only susceptible to large numbers of Destroyers. The Deathstar is often used in large numbers against a bunker and is therefore the terror of all Defenses. But it's also well suited to strengthen your own defense. The slow speed of this ship is used by players to fleet save to their own Debris Field in order to cut down on deuterium costs. The Deathstar is the only ship with a Graviton Cannon and is capable of destroying moons; to read more about doing this see
<<Moon destruction guide>>.

==Civil Ships - A wealth of possibilities==

The civil ships consist mainly of special units, which can be used in each case for a completely different mission.

Small Cargo
The first transport ship which you can build at the beginning is characterized by its low speed and cargo capacity, but gets retrofitted with impulse engines after achieving level 5 Impulse Drive making it superior to its larger counterpart. Apart from transportation or farm raids, the Small Cargo is sometimes used as fodder against some Cruiser fleets. Because of its versatility, it is one of the most useful ship of the game.

Large Cargo
This ship is somewhat more stable than the Small Cargo and also has a larger cargo capacity. Players wanting to transport large amounts of resources would be lost without this ship. Especially since the transport capacity/fuel usage ratio is far superior to the Small Cargo.

Colony Ship
This ship really has only one purpose which allows you to colonize and start a new planet. This capability is explained in the chapter <<Colonisation>>. In addition, it can be used for fleetsaving as a safe variant to other methods.

Recycler
The Recycler is used to collect Debris Field left by destroyed fleets, as well as fleetsaving to a Debris Field. It is relatively slow and consumes a lot of Deuterium. Recyclers are the most important ship for a hardcore fleet, as there's no point in having a big fleet to crash enemies, if one can't harvest what crashes.

Espionage Probe
The Espionage Probe is used for gathering information about planets, fleet, characteristics of other players. Everything you want to know about it, read in <<Espionage>> chapter.

Solar Satellite
Not exactly a ship, the Solar Satellite offers an alternative energy source. The amount of energy provided depends on the planet's temperature, and so its position in relation to the sun. However a Solar Satellite can be destroyed by an attack of enemy. More information on this is available in the <<Energy production>> chapter. These Satellites are particularly important when researching Graviton Technology.