Strategies

This is a list of some basic strategies in Starblast.io. There are no perfect strategies or techniques, but learning these basic moves can help you get started. Feel free to add your own to this list!

General
These strategies are not really specific to any particular mode.

Upgrading

 * See also: Upgrades

Have a general idea of how you want to upgrade (what upgrades on each ship, and the upgrade path you want to take). You might sometimes need to tweak your upgrade path on-the-fly, but your ship upgrade path can usually be decided before you do your first upgrade.

Figure out the best upgrade order for each ship (usually Energy Regen first in team mode, unless you have mining pods and some other stat sucks and this needs higher priority). Sometimes, you just want to powermine (upgrade Energy Regen, or nothing for Tier 1 and 2, and then fill cargo with gems, deposit at base if needed) to the next tier, so don't waste gems on unnecessary upgrades. Upgrading a ship differs from mode to mode. In team mode, an upgrade might be very helpful, but if you use the same upgrade in Invasion, you would fail hard! For example, you would upgrade energy regen first for A-Speedster in Team Mode, whereas in Invasion you would upgrade speed first, so thinking about upgrades is very important. With the U-Sniper, skipping Damage and Agility upgrades lets you move backwards faster with recoil, but then each shot does less damage, and it accelerates slowly. In U-Series and Nautic Series, certain ship stats should not be upgraded (such as Energy for U-Spread/U-Center/U-Octa/Catfish, and Energy/Damage/Bullet Speed for Cuttlefish).

Ship upgrades form a DAG (directed acyclic graph). Each edge in the ship graph can be assigned a weight representing how bad the previous ship is to use, and a shortest path algorithm can generate a shortest-path tree, which is not necessarily unique. This best-upgrade-tree is the tree of all preferred upgrade paths. As the ship graph is a DAG, there is no need to use Dijkstra's algorithm to compute it. It can be computed by doing a topological sort and visiting ships in any topological order (or just visit all of the ships in a tier before visiting ships in the next tier), determining the  shortest distance and predecessor of each visited ship.

Possible best-upgrade-trees are shown below. The edge weights are subjective, and different players might assign different edge weights, resulting in different trees.

Before a game, decide which Tier 6 ship you want, and follow the path to it. Since there are more Tier 7 ships than Tier 6 ships, and Tier 6 is easier to reach, you should choose a Tier 6 ship. The best-upgrade-tree does suggest a preference for a best Tier 6 ship to reach a given Tier 7 ship though. If a leaf node (ship with no children) is Tier 5 or lower, then it means your ship path is not preferred, and you should use a different ship path.

Vanilla
In Vanilla, the Odyssey is the best ship. The best strategy (informally called "meta") is to have two Odyssey healers with many Odyssey attackers. For this purpose, the best Tier 6 ship to use is the Advanced-Fighter and Scorpion.

If more healers are needed, the additional healers can also choose to go from Howler through Barracuda and become Aries healers. Note that the Barracuda cannot heal.

Fly ├── Delta-Fighter │  │   Pulse-Fighter │  │   │   Vanguard │  │   │   └── U-Sniper │  │   │       └── Advanced-Fighter │  │   └── Mercury │  │       └── FuryStar │  │           └── Scorpion │  │               └── Odyssey │  └── Side-Fighter │      ├── X-Warrior │      │   └── T-Warrior │      │       ├── Marauder │      │       └── Condor │      │           └── Shadow X-3 │      └── Side-Interceptor │          ├── Aetos │          │   └── A-Speedster │          └── Shadow X-2 └── Trident ├── Shadow X-1 └── Y-Defender ├── Pioneer │  └── Howler │      ├── Rock-Tower │      │   └── Bastion │      └── Barracuda │          └── Aries └── Crusader └── Bat-Defender └── O-Defender

The Crusader mines faster than the Pioneer, but it's slow and is poor at combat. Some players prefer it to reach Howler because it mines faster.

U-Series
U-Sniper MK 2 ├── U-Cruiser │  ├── U-Penta │  │   └── U-Arsenal │  │       └── U-Punisher │  │           └── U-Barricade │  └── U-Spread │      ├── U-Center │      │   ├── U-Octa │      │   │   ├── U-Monitor │      │   │   │   └── U-Wall │      │   │   └── U-Perimeter │      │   │       ├── Heartbreaker │      │   │       └── U-Fusion │      │   └── H-Destroyer │      │       └── U-Bruiser │      └── U-Interceptor └── U-Quad ├── H-Warrior │  └── U-Speeder │      └── Trailblazer │          └── U-Afterburn └── U-Sentry └── U-Siege ├── U-Demon │  └── U-Smasher │      └── U-Marksman └── U-Pulsar ├── Hellfire │  └── Shadow X-27 └── U-10 Thunder

Some players prefer U-Sentry (instead of H-Warrior) to U-Speeder because it mines faster and can retreat with recoil, although it doesn't retreat as fast as the H-Warrior. Some players also might prefer U-Interceptor (instead of U-Speeder) to Trailblazer because it's a better attacking ship, but it's trickier to use and doesn't mine as easily.

Nautic Series
Snail ├── Jellyfish │  ├── Squid │  │   ├── Cuttlefish │  │   │   ├── Swordfish │  │   │   │   └── Narwhal │  │   │   └── Giant Squid │  │   │       ├── Orca │  │   │       │   └── Colossal Squid │  │   │       └── Octopus │  │   └── Lionfish │  │       └── Catfish │  └── Archerfish │      ├── Lobster │      │   └── Dolphin │      │       └── Beaked Whale │      │           ├── Fin Whale │      │           └── Whale Shark │      └── Scad Fish │          └── Reef Shark │              ├── Shark │              └── Grouper Fish └── Crab ├── Guitarfish │  └──  Stingray │      └──  Piranha │          └── Angler └── Turtle ├── Flying Fish │  └── Sawfish │      └── Hammerhead Shark └── Starfish ├── Leatherback Turtle └── Spider Crab ├── Manta └── Beluga

Catfish is also a good path to Beaked Whale.

Fully Upgrade Ship (not for Tier 1 and Tier 2)
This is a simple strategy, recommended for beginners. (And can all around be helpful) Whenever the upgrades are unlocked, upgrade all of your available stats. This way your ship will have the most minimal weakness in terms of its stats. One thing you have to keep in mind when using this strategy is that it will take longer to upgrade your ship since you upgrade your stats first. Of course, you can skip some upgrades like the Speed and Agility stats if you have the skill to outpace other players. If you are feeling uncertain, just upgrade your stats, and you have nothing to worry about. (Except for other enemies that are teaming with other ships) Unless you have the skill, you should probably use this strategy until you get better, then you can make your own favorite strategy!

Do not waste time maxing Tier 1 and Tier 2 ships. Just skip to Tier 3 before maxing ships. The optimal number of times to upgrade energy regen for Tier 2 varies (twice for Delta-Fighter, once for Trident), but most people don't bother and just don't upgrade anything for Tier 2.

In U-Series, mining is faster than in vanilla, so you should generally max your Tier 3+ ships.

Power Mining
Upgrade Energy Regen, and upgrade Damage if needed to empty energy capacity. Then upgrade to the next tier. In some mods, different attributes should be upgraded. For example, for Cuttlefish and U-Spread, don't upgrade Energy Regen.

Other: It is also a wise idea to upgrade energy capacity if you upgrade damage, allowing you to fire more shots before running out of energy. This is also needed with most of the pulse ships.

Mining Ships
When you start out in a server (preferably a game where there are no tier 5+ ships), go defender path (far right path). Mine to the next tier while barely upgrading to make mining a bit faster (energy regen, shield regen, and possibly ship speed since the ships on this path are quite slow). Do this till you get to O-Defender where you should max it and then mine to Aries, which is the best mining ship. As Aries, you can't enter the station, so give gems to your teammates, but not too much, since you need a gem pool for protection. This is referred to as power mining which is also considered as a noob tactic.

In team mode, this is a great strategy (even if considered a noob tactic) You can upgrade your station far faster than other teams (obviously buy mining pods) Once you reach o defender, go on the attack! First max out upgrades. You will have enough creds to buy lots of pods and secondary weapons. If you have 2000 or more credits, buy torpedos, and destroy or damage an enemy base! If you plan to fight a lot, I recommend defense pods as well as attack pods. Enemies will have to get though your 550 shields, and 13 shields/sec regen plus the pods to even disable you! This is quite similar to the "Barracuda and healer strategy

In Vanilla, the mining ships are on the right (Barracuda, O-Defender, Howler, Crusader). In U-Series and Nautic Series, they are on the left (U-Center, U-Octa, U-Perimeter, Cuttlefish, Narwhal, Giant Squid, although Starfish is good for mining too).

Fight/Frag
This strategy is one that will do one thing only, get you to the top of the leaderboard in no time at all. This is done well by seven ships: the Side-Interceptor, Side-Fighter, Pulse-Fighter, Pioneer, Advanced-Fighter, Howler, and Barracuda (note: Y-Defender can be used but requires more skill, same for FuryStar and Delta-Fighter). The amount of damage these ships can pump out quickly makes them ideal for taking out ships. They are a range of high and low tiers, which means that you may not only be a higher tier to frag others. Some players have easily gotten over 50 frags using this strategy. (Note: Don't abuse this strategy, it can make the game unenjoyable. Also, to counter this, get a heavy hitter like the U-Sniper, Advanced-Fighter, and Scorpion. (for smaller ships ideally of lower tier like 3 and 4) Try to hit them as these ships have low mass. As soon the get hit and start to spin, hit them while they are spinning and they will die.) vice versa for the ships of higher tier 5 and 6.

Shadow Torpedo
Another strategy, if you don't feel like teaming up, is to utilize the Shadow X-1, the ship with the highest top speed in the game. Get a maxed out Shadow X-1 and mine peacefully during the game (if any other ships try to kill you, you will easily outpace most of them).

Save up gems until you can buy a torpedo, and perhaps some missiles for survival mode. When you and ideally one other ship are the only ones left, (they will almost always have a much stronger ship than you), simply fire everything at them and win the game.

Try to avoid them as long as possible at the end of the game in the gravity fields (running between the fields when they've overlapped most of the map is a good strategy, then if the stronger ship follows you in, they will be unable to move sideways to dodge the torpedo).

Watch out for the Shadow X-2, it has a slower top speed but faster acceleration and is a threat. Also if you are left with a very large high-level ship, they will often take a lot of damage from slamming into asteroids when the gravity fields are at maximum saturation, so wait a while before firing the torpedo.

Some random dude who forgot to sign: This is not effective because of an arming delay on the torpedoes, the same for mines.

Another random dude who doesn't want to sign: The strategy is still viable, but try and inhibit their movement with some mines randomly place in the center to stop their mobility (note: may be seen as a douche move)

A Shadow x-1 user: I also use this strategy in team mode. It works pretty well, but players can dodge the torpedoes and missiles. Missiles are harder to dodge as they home in on targets.

a random dude who gets annoyed by shadow x-1 : you can use shadow x-1 against a group of pulse ships, slow ships and teamers becaues you can easily outmaneuver them and slow them (in upgrading). I see this is very good to make your enemy (in team mode) to not mine peacefully and give more time to your allies to mine and level up (upgrade the shadow x-1 to max speed and agility) well actually this is not included in the shadow torp strat but idk where to put them so i put this tip here :)

Guy who is allergic to signing : shadow x-2 is a bit better at this strategy since it can store 2 extra secondaries (total 5) and it still is the second or third fastest in the game (i cant remember if the fly is faster). The only way you will mess up is if somebody is using the same strategy but is using an x-1, or somebody is really good at using the fly. With the the shadow x-1, a shield pod would be helpful in case if you run into a ton of ships.

RCS Dodge
This strategy can be very useful if you are being attacked by someone using RCS on you. When the player shoots at you, turn to the left or right as quickly as possible, avoiding their shots. Shoot at your enemy afterward. If they come back, repeat the process. Eventually, you can kill your enemy or succeed in boring them out of attacking altogether, which is awesome! This strategy was created by Mr. Plutonium Ore.

Two variants of this strategy are RCS strafing and squidding.

With strafing, you disable RCS and fly circles around your opponent. While an experienced player can easily counter this strategy, by flying an erratic pattern, you can disorient and destroy your enemy. I have done this on an Advanced Fighter using a Shadow X-2. This strategy requires a ship with a good balance of speed and firepower however, making the A-Speedster (Vanilla), the Photon (Alien Intrusion), or the Piraña (Nautic), ideal. I have taken out many players and even boss aliens solo using strafing. Be careful, however, as a ship with high fire rate and damage can counter strafing. The benefit of RCS strafing compared to normal strafing is that you are harder to track and to hit. And it's fun to shred an entire team to bits. However, it requires skill. (Created by WASD)

With squidding, you disable RCS and use your shots to propel you backwards. This has the added advantage of throwing a lot of bullets at your pursuers. The ideal ship has high damage and recoil, and good energy regeneration. Most heavy hitters are perfect for squidding. However, doing this in an asteroid field will most likely result in death. (Created by WASD)

Trap Maneuver
This strategy is highly effective against someone chasing you if done properly. You can use this in Survival Mode (if you have friends) or Team Mode. So, when someone chases you, run away. Then, have your friends come from all sides of the attacker. At this point, commence attacking the threat. When they are surrounded, they will easily be killed. This strategy requires good coordination with your team members, or it will fail, i.e., they get away or get killed along with your team. This is hard to do in survival mode because of bouncing lasers.

Anonymous I find that you don't necessarily need much coordination  half the time your team is just going to shoot at anything they see so if your target is gullible enough to follow you then this will work very well

(and it's pretty funny watching some gullible barracuda get wrecked by tier 3 ships:D)

Barracuda Destruction Method
If there is a Barracuda hot on your trail, this strategy is very helpful. First, max an A-Speedster or Marauder, since they are the 2 fastest T6 ships. (Condor works just fine as well, it's just a bit slower than the A-Speedster or Marauder) Then, buy a couple of torpedoes( missiles will also do fine but you will have to buy more). When the barracuda is right behind you, turn off RCS, turn around, and fire a torpedo, or just all of them. The Barracuda will be instantly be annihilated, and you will get extra points and cargo. Not effective because of arming delay on the torpedoes and global cool down. (But one can kill a barracuda easily with RCS off and drifting away from the ship (just don't get in front of an asteroid or you're dead.)

The Ultimate Domination Strategy
All you need here is a maxed-out Side-Fighter or Pulse-Fighter, 3 packs of missiles, and you are set. Be prepared to watch your score gradually increase. People especially hate this (take this from one of the victims of this) along with secondary spam being impossible outside of battle royale. But along as you didn't get deleted by missiles they are generally ended quickly by a player with a good aim in a heavy hitter due to both ships having low mass.

Missiles, while being agile and fast, can be outflown. The real advantage of this strategy is the element of surprise. If you can land the first volley, you will have gained the upper hand.

No Escape
This strategy involves having one very powerful ship, such as an O-Defender or Advanced Fighter, and one Shadow X-1 (or Fly) (A-speedster can work well because it can survive longer than the fly and X1), which means that when the large ship attacks someone, the smaller, faster ship can follow and shoot them until they are destroyed. If the target attempts to slow down and kill the weaker ship, the powerful ship will catch up and destroy them. There is almost no escape for this tactic other than being in a team.

If this tactic is used against you and are alone, your only chance will be to disable RCS to drift away at maximum speed while turning around and shooting the faster ship, however, this may be difficult as you will likely have been weakened by the stronger ship. It is easier to counter in survival because of bouncing lasers.

Multi-Laser
All you need is a ship with a high rate of fire, such as the Maraurder, Side-Interceptor, FuryStar or Aetos, and load your secondaries slot with attack pods. Then max out your ship. When you attack, your enemies will be overwhelmed by your lasers and will almost instantly be killed. Note the H-mercury was replaced but the strategy still holds true.

ANONYMOUS: I find if you want to use a Maruarder your gonna want to to upgrade your ammo capacity so you don't do short and not very effective bursts

If you are fast enough you can wait for your burst lasers to charge and then fire.

Fly Frag
Get a maxed Fly and frag other players. With their gems, save to get rockets or missiles. As no one expects a Fly to have missiles, you have the element of surprise.

This is easy to counter, as even a maxed fly isn't very powerful. A ship with powerful pulses (U-Sniper, Advanced-Fighter, Scorpion, etc.) can kill the fly in 1-2 hits, and even if a direct hit doesn't kill the offending Fly immediately, it will knock it into a spin that is hard to recover from, and likely launch it at high velocity into an asteroid. Ships with high burst damage (Side-fighter, X-Warrior, Shadow X-2, etc.) can also easily defeat the Fly, as they can wear down its shields very fast. Fast, maneuverable ships (A-Speedster, Shadow X-2, etc.) can cause the Fly to waste its missiles by leading them so that asteroids are hit instead. Finally, ships with very high shield capacity, such as the Rock-Tower and O-Defender, can soak up the missiles and shouldn't have any problems unless the Fly is with a team.

Anonymous: Good luck fragging anyone with a fly :P

Anonymus 2: The Electric Boogaloo: only attempt this if you're comparable in skill to nordic commander because otherwise why even bother

WASD: The Fly as well as the X-1 are hard to catch, but if you use a tank ship like the Y defender, you can smash them into a rock and easily kill the,.

Gem Transfer
Gem Transfer is a new mechanic added in a recent update! In this update, if you hold "V" you will drop gems from your cargo onto the floor and gem transfer varies by tier. For example a t3 is only allowed to drop 15 gems at a time while a t6 can drop 30 gems at a time. This is a very nice update to team mode as this allows players to join teams late but still get up to speed quickly by their teammates dropping gems for them. This is also a very good strategy when you have a fast miner! You can heal the miner so it can mine quickly and then the miner returns you the favor and gives you gems so you are maxed out then both you and the fast miner can attack together and dominate the teams easily. This strategy allows you to be always ahead of the other teams in quality as you would have many more upgraded ships wait for them to strike.Your only problem is if your team mate is on a mobile and it becomes a one way thing. To stop this you can mine asteroids for them and tell them they can have the gems.

An example of gem transfer: https://tenor.com/view/starblast-io-give-gems-update-gif-14426769

Shadow X-1/X-2 rammer
You can either use the shadow x-1 or use the shadow x-2. you upgrade your x-1/x-2 to max shield regeneration, max shield cap, max speed, and max agility. you then should save for either a pack of missiles or save for a pack of rockets. to do this strategy, fly into your foe and spin them out, then launch rockets or missiles (whatever you chose) while the ship is spinning. the strategy can be countered by a ship with high shield cap, or a fast shield regen rate. Not super effective due to the cooldown on the missiles

Pillboxing
This is a stratagy derived from a similar space combat game known as Star Control II. In the game's fandom, it's often regarded as a cheap, but semi-effective tactic. It follows the idea of "If you move, you can collide with the planet." While the planets are mere background features in the game (nor are there any gravity wells that pull you to your doom), there's still asteroids and mines to worry about, as both can do substantial damage to your ship if you aren't prepared. The translated strat is stay in one spot and if an enemy comes nearby, you blast them back to their base. Pillboxing with an unupgraded/or not sufficiently upgraded ship is pretty much suicide, and some ships are better than others. Ships with a huge amount of knockback (Advanced Fighter and Scorpion in Vanilla, Beluga in Nautic) are usually the best to go with, along with ships with high shields (O-Defender). Another thing to consider, for both pillboxing and countering pillboxing, is secondaries. Running a ship with full defense pods or attack pods almost triple your chance of coming out on top, if you're the one who is pillboxing. Mines will also help to set up walls between asteroids, usually deterring off opponents who decide to come near your death trap.

(Note from eX0dus-77: if you do decide to pillbox with a mine-wall strategy, use a fast ship like the Condor or A-speedster and equip pods)

The best ways to counter pillboxers is to use rockets and missiles, as they will be forced to start moving because you caught them off guard. Then you start chasing them down as their fearful retreat gave you the upper hand.

Marauder Swarm
As the name says, you swarm your enemy with a group of marauders (3 or more to be most effective). When they all attack at the same time most ships will get stunned from the shear amount of incoming damage. It was first seen in an AOW in Asia in 2020 when NukePsychics organized a few people in the STACK clan (which he is the leader and creator of) to attack with Marauders and it was quite effective at attacking the enemy teams and only was stopped by a large grouping of heavy hitters like scorpions and advanced fighters and torpedo rains. It's seen rarely in team mode and mostly just with 2 people working together. The swarm becomes even deadlier when the marauders are also loaded up with attack pods and/or missiles

Fast Game
Get 30 players in a voice chat, join the same team, upgrade everyone to Side-Fighter with max Energy Regen, for a total of 1050 DPS, and then go to kill the lvl 1 bases. It takes less than 4 seconds to kill a spawn module and 5 seconds to kill a depot module, so it takes only 36 seconds to kill the bases (plus some extra time to kill defenders). Make sure as many people as possible focus on one target (enemy or module).

Weak Ships
Ship upgrades are very steep and are even more steep at higher levels. Therefore upgrading your base before enemies provides huge advantage, but you must be careful when upgrading ships. Maxed level 3 ships can win against unupgraded level 6 ships.

If the entire enemy team upgrades to level 6, you can simply attack them with maxed level 3-5 ships, or if you got to maxed level 6 ships first, attack their unupgraded level 6 ships (which are basically as weak as maxed level 2 ships) with maxed level 6 ships. If you attack their base as well, you can quickly kill ships that spawn (they have no gems and are outnumbered), winning the game. Enemies who powermined cannot downgrade to a maxed ship, so they will leave at that time because it is the correct action, as their loss is impending. If your ship level is one lower than theirs, you can still spawnkill them because they have no gems. However, if your ship is two or more levels lower, be careful if they downgrade to a maxed ship that's more powerful than yours.

Having gems provides a huge advantage, which helps to spawnkill ships that don't have gems. This is also called "base camping", but if your objective is to downgrade enemies, be careful not to attack the station, which will cause enemies to defend and force you to leave.

Cloaked Torpedo
Launch up to 6 torpedoes at a base, but stay on top of it/them. If someone decides to kill you, even if you die, the torpedo is still there to wreak havoc on their base, unless they choose to sacrifice their ship to save their station. If you don’t get killed, start shooting their station or flee.

However, torpedoes are rarely useful in fights. Most ships will simply dodge, wasting 500 credits. But some ships have poor agility (an Aries, Odyssey, or possibly O-Defender), so you have a good chance of landing a hit with the torpedo and stunning them. However, there is a arming delay of 2 seconds, so fire from enough distance.

Attacking Base
Obviously, get teammates to help attack the enemy base. Follow these steps:


 * 1) Focus on one non-functional module to drain gems quickly, so if the attack fails, you do the maximum damage possible.
 * 2) * The only exception is if you are in a significant lead (such as Tier 7 ships vs Level 3 base, or Tier 7 ships vs unupgraded Tier 6 ships), which allows you to skip this step.
 * 3) * In some cases, it makes sense to destroy a few more non-functional modules to set back the enemy enough for you to attack another enemy's base.
 * 4) * Sometimes, the enemy is strong enough to defend functional modules but not non-functional modules. In this case, destroy as many as possible until their defences weaken enough to go to the next step.
 * 5) * If other non-functional modules are weakened by torpedoes, optionally finish them off.
 * 6) * Otherwise, there is no reason to destroy more non-functional modules, and you should go to the next step.
 * 7) Focus on one functional module at a time. This way, you lose less time to module shield regen.
 * 8) * Depending on the situation, it might make sense to destroy both depot modules of a lower level base, so you can let the enemy rage-quit while you attack another enemy and later come back to finish off the spawn modules if they didn't all quit.
 * 9) * In other cases, it makes sense to kill the spawn modules first so that fewer enemies bother you while you finish off the depots.
 * 10) Repeat Step 2 until the base is destroyed.

Also, there are Secondaries that can help with the attack.

Mine Fortress
Mines can play a significant role in team mode! To maximize the potential of mines, you should use them while attacking an enemy base. In most cases when people attack enemy bases, they are easily repelled due to the overwhelming power of the other team, but with this strat, the enemy can't do much. This strategy requires you to get mines, preferably heavies, and surround them around the area where you would be attacking, this strat completely walls you against Barracuda attacks and other ships that try to kill t7s and other ships by ramming them against bases. This also acts as a shield from normal attacks and counterattacks. In addition to being a great wall, it can also be a good place for a Barracuda to ram opponents into so they die. (not to be confused with base nuking)

Mines
Go to the center base module (take care not to hit the base) and start spamming alt to place your mines, once you place at least 2 stacks, you can start firing at the base to get their attention (while spamming alt still). When they try to attack with lasers, they will hit the mines and cause them to explode, damaging themselves and the station.

If your ship does not have lasers, ram enemy ships into the pile of mines, dealing heavy damage to their station.

This strategy can be countered in two parts: while and after they plant. While they plant, missile the attacker, or with a heavy enough ship (like Cuttlefish), slam into the attacker while being invincible from the depot or respawning, just note this is very risky: after the invincibility runs out, you will blow up a large amount of mines causing a very large amount of damage to the base and your ship. After they plant, don't shoot mines in your base. However, in some cases, the station does not move fast enough from mines, so when the mines eventually explode, they damage the station. Only in this case should the team carefully shoot mines while healers heal the base.

Torpedoes
Approach the station and spam 6 torpedoes. Target the center of the base, where the splash damage will hit many non-functional modules and drain more gems than if they hit the outside of the base.

The only exception is if your team is about to win, they are killing the base, and you want to help kill it faster. In this case, aim for the functional modules (spawn and depot) and ignore the other parts.

There is not much of a counter other than attacking the player as soon as you see there color indicator on the map and hope for the best.

Torpedo to kill Slow Tier-7s
If an opposing team has T7 ships, buy 3-4 torpedoes. If you can, recruit your teammates to do the same. 3 torpedoes can kill a Bastion or a Shadow X-3 with a full cargo, and 4 torpedoes are needed to kill an Odyssey or an Aries with a full cargo. Anyways, when you have found your T7 target, press shift-alt repeatedly in their direction, then get out of their way. The torpedoes will blow them apart, and you can salvage their gems to upgrade your station. You just have to be careful or you wasted 2000 gems because there is an arming delay on the torpedoes. This is extremely common in the ACW events in a slightly different form, torpedo rain(s).

Note: this strategy is less viable due to arming delay and global cooldown.

Attacker and Healer
As an attacker and a healer duo, just go around killing everyone so that your team will win.

Barracuda and Healer
Barracuda is a very amazing miner but the shield regain slows it down from reaching max potential. But with the addition of healing, everything is changed! Healing can help the Cuda be an absolute mining machine! For this strategy, you need a healer to follow the barracuda and shoot at it as it goes through ramming all the asteroids. This is an excellent strategy to mine up the base and to mine up fellow teammates so they are maxed and at full potential! This strategy does phenomenal in team mode! Credits to PearEatingBear and Backfyred for first trying this out and showing how amazing this is in Competitive!

Teaming
Teaming is an incredibly risky business. Teams are often known to turn on one another, for crystals, points, or other teammates. You must be careful when teaming with people unknown to be trustworthy or not because sometimes they might not be teaming with you, even if you think so. If your teammate just follows you, no matter what you do, be especially wary and or chase them away, because they might be waiting for you to ram a couple Asteroids or otherwise get your shield depleted, before attacking and killing you for your Gems. Watch your map and be especially wary of groups of ships. Sometimes, it is far better to play solo than with a team.

If you mean to team for security, or just be a trustworthy ally, shoot asteroids others are attempting to mine, this will show you are serious about teaming, and not killing them. It is not recommended to fly around the map as a team, killing everyone and dominating, as this is seen as jerk-like behavior and you may regret this later when a large team attacks your team, or you are targeted for being jerks.

Note from another person: I cannot confirm if this remains viable, but it was at some point it was common to have large groups of Y-Defenders swarming in groups and killing everything, regardless of rank. This included Flies. Please don't do this, unless you are desperate to get a large score. (and even then it will only give a very tiny amount of points if any) Killing flies are useless, and the most gems you get would be 20, so there is no point.

Note from a 3rd person: In regard to the above Y-Defender strategy, never do that. Ever. It is mean. Also, people may say "team" just to get you to drop your guard. I once had a team of Y-defenders attack me. However, that was a long time ago. I was trying to get the A-speedster, but I was never able to max it out.

Note from the administrator of this wiki: Teaming in Survival Mode is generally regarded as a noob tactic since you just gained another "unit" that protects you. If you team to mine or to kill someone (while outnumbering them/their team), many regard that as bad sportsmanship.

BE ALERT: sometimes you will get a person who wants to team with you, but sometimes those people who want to "team" with you can be sketchy, so if you feel unsafe then watch their behavior, a few sketchy things a "partner" could do are following you but not mining I find that very sketchy, especially if they are right on your tail, if they get right up on you move away because they might start shooting you and in since they are that close to you, you are vulnerable. so BE AWARE OF YOUR "TEAMMATES". Also, beware of groups on the radar flying towards you. They can kill you.

A good team suggested is a Howler, U-sniper, T-warrior and Furystar.

Outdated Strategies
Some strategies are no longer effective.

Death Spin
This is a strategy used in combat. You have to have a maxed-out Pulse Fighter. Once you encounter a higher tier enemy, you ram into them. after you get knocked back you spin behind them, dodging the large bullets and allowing you to hit them. You do this multiple times until the enemy is dead. This is also frowned upon because people hate the rampaging pulse fighter. Still possible with RCS being added in but very hard, you will be better off not using RCS.

Note: This strategy may no longer be effective because of RCS.

Strafe
Strafe is a game mechanic added in a update during April 2019. To strafe, press key A to strafe left, and D to strafe right. (reversed when facing down) This way, you can circle around a ship and attack them easily while they have to turn in circles to try to hit you. Strafe is an amazing addition to the dueling aspect of the game! Strafing causes much more skill worthy battles against opponents. Strafe is a way you can dodge enemy fires while freely attacking. Strafe has added more strategies to be used and possibly an addition to team mode! Strafe can be used both offensively and defensively and an amazing strategy all together! Note this is not used anywhere other than being used in that month's ACW event and a short amount of time in the modding space mod of Nautic Series.