New Players Guide | NEBULOUS: Fleet Command

This guide is designed to get you through your first few games and hours in NEBULOUS: Fleet Command. If you want to know more details around mechanics and other tips see the playlist below which is continually being added to and updated.
Tutorials and tips playlist: • Tutorials & Tips | NEB...
Come across to the discord to find people to play with, for advice on ships and to stay up to date with the game. / discord
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:24 Tutorials
01:33 Single Player Skirmish
05:56 Deployment
06:43 Your first game, what to focus on
10:41 Easiest to Hardest Starter Fleets
11:11 #1 TF Oak/Birch
13:38 #2 TF Hemlock/Epsilon
16:03 #3 TF Redwoord/Willow
19:04 #4 TF Sycamore
20:27 #5 TF Ash
22:16 Moving onto Multiplayer
28:34 Do you want to know more?
29:28 Final Thoughts
Specific points of note:
07:06 Slow/Pause Time - use and setup
24:05 Advice on commencing with a custom fleet
24:20 Restore Starter Fleets if you saved over them

[@cyitain9856]

Once you’ve become confident in your abilities to use and build fleet I would suggest moving away from generalist fleet and try to use more specialised ones, like the beam destroyers in task force Ash. Build primary around one weapon type with components to maximise their effectiveness and maybe a few other weapon systems to minimise weaknesses without sacrificing the effectiveness of your primary weapons.

[@dudududu1926]

It's also easier for my monkey brain to control ships with only 2-3 weapon systems.

[@v44n7]

I just design my first ship. one BB with 2 mk68 weapons. It sucks

[@mafuletrekkie]

Can't thank you enough for this. The game starts you with Ash... which I loaded into a skirmish match not knowing any better against the AI and promptly died in a hail of death having never even seen what was shooting at me. After an hour of trying and getting ready to throw this game into the garbage bin I found this, switched to Birch, and had a much better experience.

[@JDeeGaming]

Glad it helped you mate.

[@shiolle436]

Out of all starter fleets, TF Ash eats everything else for breakfast (when both sides are controlled by AI). If you follow the advice in this video with 4p, if you then give TF Ash to one of the opposing AI, it will most likely chew through your ally in seconds and then they will gang on you together, or you are going to engage in an endless carousel around the map. All that AI does in "control" mode is rush from one point to the next. AI can't kite; all it can do is rush forward, which benefits TF Ash tremendously. Sometimes you will be lucky to catch them in the open, but more often then not, they will be able to deal catastrophic damage to some of your friendly AI. It works for the new player as well. Yes, TF Ash has a lot of toys, but it is easiest to play against AI once you learn them. For this reason, as a new player, I learned to measure all my attempts at fleet building foremost against TF Ash, and only then against other compositions. In multiplayer, it is an entirely different story of course.

[@nickandres7829]

The main thing I've noticed is if I'm just commanding one or two ships, its fine, but once you start having to command a whole squadron, especially if they're spread out, someone's always going to get neglected.

[@mdsf01]

Best get acquainted with the formation function. JDee has an excellent vid on that.

[@JDeeGaming]

As of Patch 0.3.0.55 - starter fleets have a difficulty rating assigned when selecting a fleet. Original video: Hi All, so I made an error. Task Force Epsilon is not an official Starter fleet. When I was making the video it happened to be grouped with them and I went with it. Apologies if this causes any confusion. I still think its a good fleet so I have uploaded Task Force Epsilon to the steam workshop if you want to play it steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2870628845

[@Delta99]

Was just coming here to ask where Task Force Epsilon disappeared to :)

[@Delta99]

Hey @JDee, I found the Epsilon fleet on the workshop. It would be nice if it had a description like the other starter fleets. When selecting some fleets to mess around with those descriptions come in real handy especially for someone new like myself.

[@grumbotron4597]

Just got this game today. Tried a couple of ai games after finishing the tutorial and got very frustrated very quickly. I was thinking a 1v1 annihilation would be the easiest to start out on because of it's straightfowardness, and was playing with more complex starter fleets because I assumed since the oak and the birch were near the bottom of the choices while the ash was at the top, I assumed the ash was meant to be easy and birch/oak was meant for more experienced players. Thankfully I found this video, and it gave me a completely different outlook. Also I had no idea about the slowing time/pausing time. I kept thinking to myself "I wish there was a pause time mechanic so I can take a second to get my bearings and make a few choices" but just assumed that there wasn't since the tutorial didn't cover it.

[@JDeeGaming]

Glad this helped. Its one of the pieces of feedback to the devs that I usually harp on about is the new player experience. Its getting better but still more to do.

[@ghoost8943]

Yeah, I had the same problem

[@clementello]

Been waiting for something like this! Thank You!

[@Leaddinosaur]

Just got the game and have been watching your series so I can learn the basis. I have really enjoyed the content and I have learnt a great deal. Thank you.

[@SgmScraps]

Thanks for the vids JDee. As a new player these have really helped me pick up the game. I'm almost ready for my first pvp :D

[@NICKCIN]

yo this is perfect, I've been looking for a vid like this

[@uxigadur]

This video has good advices. I will try to learn the basic fleets considering all you have said.

[@kolman3178]

Thank you for this guide.

[@DalyGutierrez]

Very grateful for the video!

[@jean-marcv.19]

Thx for all the tips

[@doublebinthemorning5999]

thank goodness there is an option to slow time in solo games, I love this kind of game but I'm really bad at them so that kind of accessibility option is awesome

[@Roark3675]

Dropping by to say that after an attempt at the game when it came out and giving up on it, I gave it another shot after your video. Lost my first conquest skirmish 1500 to 1450ish points. Won my second conquest skirmish by killing all the ships. Thanks so much. I am now enjoying this game :)

[@JDeeGaming]

Im glad it helped mate and you are back into it!

[@saveascreative]

Bought the game yesterday, it's amazing. You sir got +1 subscriber here.

[@JDeeGaming]

Awesome, thank you!

[@JDeeGaming]

If you are an experienced player, drop some times for newer players in a comment below. If you are a new player, what did you learn that you think others should know?

[@Recon777x]

Oh wow I am _so_ going to watch this right now. I've been staring uphill at the learning cliff of this game wondering how I'll ever learn it.

[@virusguy5611]

Vren55 here with a few tips: Accept that sometimes a match can go against you and there's absolutely nothing you can do. Sometimes fleet comp, sometimes team decisions, Nebulous tends to really show that Fog of War is really a thing that happens and so you shouldn't take things personally if you get curbstomped. The community is generally very welcoming and very encouraging, which means you should listen to ppls advice, particularly the official dev discord. Do not be afraid to however strike out on your own and experiment, though. Identifying and figuring out how to kill and if you can kill the ships you're facing is how you generally win the game. If you can't fight the battleship with your heavy cruiser... why are you fighting the battleship with the heavy cruiser?

[@t-34mediumtank16]

Very well put together video!

[@JDeeGaming]

Thank you, it took me a bit to distil my thinking on this.

[@Mine-md8oz]

Thanks for this

[@quigglebert]

I have needed this as I can't even take the AI in an unfair fight

[@mdsf01]

Another awesome video! Must have done the Missile tutorial mission half a dozen times because Lt Hazel would start rambling... and now I know I could have checked the logs. :) Love this game! Recently finished a 4 hour annihilation battle between my 3100 pt BB and a 4000 pt AI mixed fleet in Pillars. Great for tweaking my BB Jack of All Trades. Damned difficult but doable.

[@JDeeGaming]

Damn 4 hours! Thats an epic fight!

[@mdsf01]

@@JDeeGaming Cat and mouse. Showed me the importance of having lots of damage control teams and buffs for the guns.

[@joaopedrobatistadesouza4428]

As a new player I have noticed the missiles are in a weird place right now, the default ones seem to be too weak and its possible to customize some monsters, I also noticed that smaller ships tend to not do well with missiles because of the missile programming cap, in general it feels to me as a new player that missile heavy cruisers or artillery cruisers are the only way to play, Can you please do a missile tutorial on best modules?

[@ImperiumLibertas]

Missles are almost useless unless supported by jammers. Learned that the hard way.

[@mdsf01]

I like to use them to deal the death blow

[@JDeeGaming]

I do plan to do a modular missile tutorial on all the modules / seekers etc. The question is when.

[@egoalter1276]

You can get a missile frigate to have 4 missile channels with ease, and in all likelyhood can field a pair for the cost of a missile heavy cruiser. Vanilla missiles are far too easily defeated though, I concour. And squalls and Gales ought to be rolled into one, as you can customise one for only 6 points, or 4 if you remove cruise guidance, and squalls are far too situational to be used on there own as they stand right now. The ability to fire them without enemy jamming active, for cheaper makes them much more useful. Thunderheads are just in general far too easy to defeat. They need a target validator and something to make them more survivable against PD, which can bump their cost significantly.

[@user-cd4bx6uq1y]

That's the kind of game the entire elementary school would watch tutorials for just to understand how cool it is

[@DerpsWithWolves]

Informative even for someone who's been playing for a few months. I wasn't aware of the Message Log function at all during tutorials. Would have saved me a couple headaches. Speaking of headaches though, I have another, and I've hit a bit of a roadblock and need an expert opinion. Maybe it'll be a good video, or maybe you can point me to a solution here: I spent all last night tweaking my first size-2 AMM to see if the concept had legs, and it turned out very nicely. 8 points, a single-stage body, maximum size fragmentation warhead with a 119 damage, 99 meter blast radius (lovely, big enough even corkscrew missiles rarely sneak past it), and cold gas reserves so it can quickly turn onto target while maintaining 326mps in 2.2 seconds with 6000m range. With command guidance it nearly always gets within detonation range of size 3 missiles (the only things it is set to intercept) even after they begin sprinting, but it... *Never actually kills them* for some reason, despite dealing twice the 60hp of the missiles it was tested against. It should theoretically one-shot normal torpedoes as well, but also fails to do that, even with a 100% hit rate. I thought perhaps the missile's flight profile was causing it to wobble off the target and spent hours tweaking the engine and reduce angle / free approach, but even so, they do regularly get close enough to trigger their proximity fuses - the blast just... doesn't work. My current theory is that the fragmentation warheads have damage falloff, and the game is detonating them prematurely? It could also be that fragmentation warheads this large aren't working as intended. EL Frag is out of the question, as that bumps the price up to 28 points, and by then I might as well just be slinging S3H of my own. Right now, the S2 AMMs are better at destroying *each other* than incoming missiles, as I've also witnessed them daisy-chain their detonations when in proximity. To mitigate that, I've been using them in single-salvo doctrine (which is annoying that I have to manually set PDMSL to 'DCTRN' every battle, perhaps those defaults will be alterable in a future ship building menu). As finicky as they are, I'd really like for them to actually work... An 8 point missile which can delete an incoming S3H or torpedo is quite an appealing concept, I'm sure you'll agree.

[@Tivizzz]

Have you raised this on Discord to the devs?

[@childofsol5843]

Just came across this after getting my ass handed to me several times in skirmish after finishing the tutorials. I thought I was making things easier on myself by going with 1v1 annihilation - keep it simple, right? Ah, I see... perhaps not. It's 3:30am and I'm resisting the urge to get back in now but I'm looking forward to giving it another go tomorrow with your recommendations for 2v2 in control mode.

[@MrTrebleCleff]

One thing to add, playing with the AI can be a crapshoot as on the 4 v 4 maps your ally may decide to run around and cap points, and if you leave them to it there's every chance you run into both enemy CPU players with no support, while the ally AI is pissing about capping D point

[@Ethan-iv8fs]

I think I'm going to pick this game up. I want to do weird stuff with ships.

[@mdsf01]

You should. I just bought a laptop powerful enough to play this game while I'm travelling. That's how good it is. If you like/love the Expanse this is your game.

[@Ethan-iv8fs]

I keep getting weird ideas... I want to design weird missiles... I want to make scouting missiles. I think you might be able to do that in some ways. Or something like EW missiles

[@DerpsWithWolves]

It does work, actually. I have a S3H 'decoy' missile which looks and flies *exactly* like a different S3H in the first stage, but in the second stage it exists only to annoy point defence. Cluster decoys, a jammer, and corkscrew flightpath with maximum maneuverability and the smallest possible warhead so it can start it's 'slow sprint' from as far away as possible. In testing, when fired in volleys along with the "real" missiles, it clutters the air so much PD can hardly do anything to them. The only problem is the cost 61 points each, but they do benefit all of the other missiles in the volley, so it's a tradeoff. They're also very vulnerable to railgun PD if you don't have them 'sprint' from outside 6km.

[@mdsf01]

@@DerpsWithWolves Awesome!!!

[@yutahkotomi1195]

Hey JDee, I think you've got something mixed up with Task Force Epsilon. That's not a starter fleet. Also, congratulations, you managed to make Mazer himself worry if he forgot to add a fleet. XD

[@JDeeGaming]

I saw this comment at 2am and was just like, damn. I got Epsilon mixed in with the start fleets somehow.

[@rzmonk76]

This game is brutaly hard to learn

[@mdsf01]

Watch JDee's videos of matches. His play by play is excellent. I learned lots of info on how to / how not to use ships and tactics.

[@michaelbayliss4018]

helpful

[@JDeeGaming]

Glad to hear that

[@stuartcollett3252]

Tf ash beasted my gunboat frigate, destroyer and light cruiser fleet with no mercy last night. Didn't even down one of em.

[@yellowsaurus4895]

Stumbled on this game on Steam and it looks pretty interesting, but i dont really have any experience playing rts (only one i ever really got into was Star wars: empire at war when i was like 13). Do you think it would be feasible for someone like me to learn this game, or would i be better off starting with something simpler? Its pretty different but ive heard that Regiments is a pretty beginning-friendly rts...

[@elevencastle6154]

Definitely, it’s not a game about doing 400apm, it is a game about planning engagements and reacting to what your opponents and teammates do.

[@yellowsaurus4895]

@@elevencastle6154 yeah i bit the bullet... I dont regret paying 15 dollars to support a small team but man im having a hard time. Do you have any tips for like, camera positioning to be able to plot flight paths better? I knew looking at a 3d battlespace on a 2d screen would be tough but god damn... Just the advanced missile tutorial is making me feel like a total dumbass lol

[@elevencastle6154]

@@yellowsaurus4895 I’m not too good with missiles myself so I don’t really have any advice beyond putting in more time to learn and try different missile builds to see what works, same with getting used to controlling stuff, the 2D to 3D difference is a big adjustment that requires time to get used to. The missile stuff people are cooking up with the osp right now is above my head haha.

[@JDeeGaming]

That tutorial is quite challenging so dont feel bad if you dont get it. I saw someone in the discord use lots of small waypoints for missiles to help with accuracy in plotting strikes close to terrain. Blew my mind. I was using very long waypoints.

[@JDeeGaming]

yes it can be learnt. When starting out look to manage a small number of ships with guns. Then build up from there. I felt the same when I started.

[@HiyoruMikiyazoya]

I was super excited for this game until beam weapons lol I just want my expanse sandbox dog

[@JDeeGaming]

Just ignore the beams and enjoy the game :) the Expanse mod just got updated for this update. So the ships and weapons are in the game.

[@simonchoi973]

Can you have a fleet with only 1 ship? I find it’s too overwhelming already

[@JDeeGaming]

You can but that comes with a trade off as well. Usually a Battleship will bring at least one scout or support ship.

[@simonchoi973]

@@JDeeGaming thank you! I learn something new

[@mpnuorva]

Made the mistake of deploying Birch against Hemlock in my first Skirmish. Not a good idea.

[@planexshifter]

Went through tutorials. Went into skirmish Got pwned hard.

[@samkisiel9326]

Beme is very good

[@Roland_Deschain]

So.. this game doesn't have a proper campaign story like homeworld but tutorials presented as campaign?

[@JDeeGaming]

Not at the moment. In the end it will have a Conquest mode (the next major feature) which is more open sandbox between the two factions (2nd faction being implemented concurrently) and Story mode (which will be at the end) which will be a proper linear campaign set of missions.

[@6double6.]

Can we get a new update video for this guide?

[@JDeeGaming]

No, I dont have the time at the moment. Its still fairly relevant in my eyes. Is there something you are looking for in particular?

[@Leader1623]

Epsilon isn't in my starter fleets?

[@JDeeGaming]

Have a quick look at the pinned comment/description. I made an error in including it.

[@slaphead90]

I was kind of hoping this was going to be a more basic tutorial. As it stands I can't even get past the "course" setting in tutorial 1.

[@JDeeGaming]

What sort of things would you like to know? Ill see what I can do. I do have the tutorial and tips playlist that does cover some more of the mechanics etc.

[@slaphead90]

@@JDeeGaming My biggest problem is moving the ships. I'll move the viewpoint to top down to set the heading, and then move the viewpoint to side-on to set elevation, but in doing so I lose the heading that I set - the cursor doesn't lock basically.

[@egoalter1276]

Because thats not how you are supposed to use the movement widget. You can eizher set a course on a compass ball, a point towards which the ship will burn, or you can use an isometric view to set a waypoint on the ecliltic plane the ship is currently on, and movr it up and down by holding ctrl. I do concour that judging elevation is is difficult, but you can set it in a side on view, and it will lock, amd then set the target in the desired z plane from top down.

[@simulation1158]

I am surprised that there is no starter fleet focused around battleships.

[@JDeeGaming]

That one was purposefully omitted when speaking to the devs.

[@simulation1158]

@@JDeeGaming now that I think about it, the omission of the Battleship seams reasonable. Can't wait for the starter fleets of the second faction.

[@birthdwt8859]

I don't have epsilon

[@JDeeGaming]

Apologies on this I made a mistake, see the pinned comment on this video.

[@braydenb1581]

Man, if only this game existed pre kids for me. Ill see ya all in ten years when my kids are teens and hate me (lol hopefully a joke)

[@noahrosz3902]

3000 point fleet hmmm how about one ship hahah

[@JDeeGaming]

Missile battleship is what you want!

[@pigmentpeddler5811]

Pebes

[@ericbartlett3244]

It's unfortunate its a dogass game, looked so cool

[@JDeeGaming]

its a cool game, come jump in