Editing Dropfleet Commander/Tactics/UCM (section)

==Tactics and Common Synergies==

UCM launch assets are the worst of any faction, but the Seattle is the most combat-worthy of any of the medium tonnage carriers of any faction. It makes a solid combat ship, with its launch assets bring primarily auxiliary damage, rather than its main feature.

The UF-4200 turrets are somewhat underpowered for a secondary weapon system, but are good for potentially bringing down two near-death targets, if you feel like gambling a bit. Only the Perth's and Battleship's double batteries of the 4200's are good enough to reliably kill off near-death (as in, one hull point remaining) targets.

If all else fails, say fuck it and send in a Madrid or a Tokyo to just bomb your enemy's ground troops flat. Also necesary depending on the scenario, unless you just want to spend all day chucking meager handfuls of 6+ attacks at the planet. (Protip: The PHR are better at this than anyone)

Your (combat) frigates are very good at killing other people's frigates. A UCM frigate swarm is quite a nasty foe, although it will die quickly. They are also very cheap compared to other frigates, but tend to be outclassed in one or two ways comparatively.

The Taipei Surprise (a squad of 4-6 Taipeis on silent running sneaking up on an enemy capital or supercapital) is amazing to behold. Accordingly no opponent will let you do it twice. But you can scare him into hilariously overreacting by keeping a few of them in your list and threatening to send them up a flank. Not quite as devastating as a Djinn swarm, but seeing as how the Taipei is the UCM's only source of effective CAW, suddenly bringing it out is a good way to take the local meta by surprise.

You have a strategy card that gives you a FREE RIO-CLASS CRUISER. Use it. Alternately, it gives you 3x Toulons. The choice between the two is whether you like doing more damage per turn on standard orders (Toulons), or like keeping that ship alive and get more out of scoring (Rio).

Limas go with absolutely everything; put them in your heavy firepower groups so that they can put some spikes on targets before your bruisers shoot; if paired with beam ships, try to only put a minor spike on the targets (but put it on more of them) so you can take more advantage of the beam's Flash rule.

The Saint Petersburg is exceptionally powerful, but lining up its beams on Weapons Free is difficult against a competent opponent. Your only recourse is to keep it alone in its own battlegroup and put it at the top of your activation stack against something that literally can't activate before it can (such as a battleship, or another heavy cruiser with some accompanying frigates). It's not impossible to use, but getting off more than one double-beam a game demands altering your activation strategy.

The Perth's Viper Superheavy Laser is the most power non-crippling weapon in the game; it is possible (with some lucky crippling rolls) to outright delete a light cruiser in a single round of firing. Technically possible to do the same to a normal cruiser, but not even beams will reliably hit their maximum damage.