Strategies and Counters

Specialized spacecraft tend to have a sort of rock-paper-scissors type relationships, with certain types of craft beating out others for far less in the range of mass and cost.

* Laserstars and laser drones are unarmored or lightly armored spacecraft focusing primarily on laser firepower, generally with MPD propulsion, and are considered the most powerful all around strategy. They are incredibly difficult to defeat without a more massive and costly ship. Among the most effective options to combat such craft are capital ship-mounted lasers or to simply counter them with the user's own laser drones. Burning out the turrets' mirrors in this way can be difficult and precise work but is nonetheless an effective solution. User-made missiles with high Delta-*v* (5+km/sec) and anti-laser armor (nitrile rubber or aramid fiber) are together highly effective, as the missiles can overwhelm laser defenses when fired in large volleys perhaps numbering in the hundreds, stripping laserstars of their often large and fragile radiators. Whole fleets laserstars and laser drones can often be fried by larger (megaton range) nukes that inflict crippling damage against them, if not destroying them entirely. Missiles also have the advantage of carrying their own on-board weapon systems, providing an imposing firepower front. Another (questionable) tactic is to deploy suicide drones or smaller, disposable capital ships and have them unleash a volley of cannon-fire before being destroyed.
* Missiles can be difficult to counter, especially when fired in large volleys. Flares are a dedicated counter and work very well on ships without large heat signatures. With tweakable irradiance cutoff for player-designed missiles, your results may vary, however. Lasers are usually a solid defense for larger ships, and can easily destroy most missiles that aren't specifically anti-laser-armored. Railgun or chemical cannon based CWIS varies heavily in performance from nearly perfect to complete and udder garbage. Dodging missiles through orbital maneuvering or tricking them into crashing is always an option, given your fleet has the delta-V. Though this strategy is often rendered inviable by the fact that most player-designed spacecraft carry hundreds or even thousands of missiles. Generally point defense lasers handle small missiles, while dodging should be saved for larger ones. Missiles and lasers are generally the two best weapon systems; with or without player optimization.
* Drone counters and strategies vary heavily based on the drone. A bog standard gun-drone is best dealt with via a laser that can melt off the gun(s). Heavily armored drones toting high-velocity railguns tend to be expensive, and therefore not seen in large numbers. Lasers may still be the way to go, but missiles can be used to intercept more threatening drones. Microdrones cheekily deployed by the hundreds are very very easy to eliminate with lasers, and while fun, are somewhat impractical all around.
* Gun or blast-launched KKVs and micromissiles are best dealt with with decently powerful lasers. Using a laser to eliminate the gun firing them as fast as possible.
* Large, player-made super-capital ships with meters of stuffed Whipple shields and many powerful lasers and 100+km/sec railguns tend to be very expensive, but are difficult to counter as they boast a variety of weapon systems leaving no obvious weakness. Generally these ships are too large to make use of flares, and missile spam is your best bet.