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The strategic layer of HighFleet is incredibly complex with many interlocking systems on top of a challenging campaign, even on Normal difficulty. In fact, the whole game can be quite intimidating with its stylized UI and lack of hand-holding throughout the game. To get prospective admirals started on their long journey to defeat the revels, we compiled a list of handy advice and suggestions to help jump the learning curve more easily.

The two most important resources in HighFleet are cash and fuel, which let you buy items and keep the fleet moving. For the sake of cash efficiency, it would be wise to avoid spending unnecessary premiums on fuel unless absolutely necessary, and aim to top off the fleet’s fuel tanks and designated fuel depot cities for cheaper fuel.

One of the best and stable ways to get cash is to salvage equipment from enemy wrecks post-battle. Most ship weapons, especially ballistic weapons like cannons, machine guns, and rocket launchers, come with a really high selling price and can quickly pay dividends. Though expendable weapons like bombs and missiles aren’t so lucrative, they’re still worth picking up to equip on friendly ships.

In some ways HighFleet can be considered a dieselpunk version of Oregon Trail with a military focus, where the player will have a long trek ahead of them to reach their target. The map is filled with roving threats and unexpected allies that need to be avoided and contacted respectively. To best make use of the precious fuel resource and to maximize fleet coverage, it’s important to figure out an optimal fleet path.

Aside from fuel depot settlements, locations can also hold intelligence outposts. If players remove the enemy garrison and land they can use the outpost to get a read on some enemy positions for either Strike Groups, missile and aircraft carrier task forces, or transport fleets. Moreover, if players station a Strike Group for a time at these outposts, they will be able to reuse it as they gain some intelligence points.

One of the most efficient ways to get new ships into the fleet is to find friendly tarkhans or officers that may join the player’s cause. Not only does the player not have to pay them for their services, but allies also have the benefit of providing a variety of support through the intercom. The sooner players recruit allies, the sooner their fleet can grow and perform more tasks, which in turn will give more resources and greater chance at success.

Though HighFleet doesn’t do a good job of giving the player at least something to go off of, it’s even more important to take your time and plan out speeches to increase the chance to recruit an ally. To recruit allies into the fleet, players will have to play a card game-style dialogue game. Here players will craft speeches from a randomized deck of cards and hand out gifts to convince or sway the prospective ally into joining your fleet.

Giving potential allies a gift during dialogue can be a useful way to gain their allegiance as they buy the player more time to compose a rousing speech. These gifts are usually treasures, valuable trinkets, or military paraphernalia. The only way to come by these useful gifts is by rummaging through the remains of crew cabins in post-battle wrecks.

Aside from providing additional ships to the player’s fleet, recruited allies will also give access to their support network. At any moment admirals can turn on the intercom and ask an ally for a support action, which can range from speeding up repairs and providing some additional cash, to giving some intelligence points to spend or improving crew morale. It’s important to note, that allies will lose a loyalty star after the player requests for their support and once they reach 0 loyalty, players will no longer be able to ask that ally for support.

Though players have the option of keeping their fleet together as a big ball of death, it’s highly advised to split the player’s fleet up into multiple Strike Groups. There are a few major benefits to doing this, such as covering more ground and fighting more enemies for additional loot and random events, as well as getting more recon coverage on enemy movements. In addition, by keeping multiple Strike Groups active can prevent the enemy from figuring out where the player’s flagship is positioned and instead go on a wild goose chase.

Regarding fleet composition, it may be tempting to build a fleet entirely of heavy ships loaded with weapons and armor, and in later stages of the campaign it can certainly be to the player’s benefit to maintain a healthy core of large ships. However, for the success of any fleet a flexible combined arms approach in ship composition is best as a variety of types can cover for each other’s weaknesses. For example, many of the heavier combat frigates, though powerful and durable, have a very short operational range, and can also get easily overwhelmed by large enemy numbers without first softening the enemy up.

As the campaign progresses and the player gets closer to the rebel capital, enemy resistance will intensify with larger ships acting as garrisons and supporting the roving Strike Groups. Taking on these larger ships can be difficult in tactical combat as players will only ever get to control one ship at a time. To help deal with these dangerous foes players can launch cruise missiles (if they have ships capable of carrying them) at enemy fleets to severely damage them and then follow up with a quick attack to clean up the crippled enemy ships.

Players will have the option to compose their initial fleet at the start of any campaign from a wide-range of varied ships. Two ships that immediately stand for their reliability are the Gladiator and the Gepard, the former is a durable, brawler-style air superiority ship, and the latter is a resilient early warning-air defence ship that pairs nicely as a heavy dogfighter. They’re quite expensive and their operational range leaves much to be desired, but their weapons and durability make them solid picks, especially for beginners and those who love to slug it out in combat.

Fuel-efficient and long-range ships are hard to come by in HighFleet. However, there’s one ship that stands above the rest by several levels of magnitude in this regard and that’s the humble little Skylark. The Skylark is the only ship available early that has 6000+ km range and it’s dirt cheap for what you get. It may be unarmed, but it can form the core of any Strike Group, increasing its range many times over on top of providing a short-range infrared sensor and a decently ranged radar interception system.

As said previously, it’s vital to keep the fleet mixed with a variety of ships capable of tackling different roles. While strategic ships like aircraft and missile carriers may be useless in tactical combat, they’re an excellent choice to form the core of any Strike Group. A strategic ship can take care of the scouting and long-range bombardments, while its escorts can protect it and go on their own short-range missions. A win-win scenario.

While salvaging post-battle wrecks, players will occasionally loot ammo stores, which can hold special ammo types, like incendiary or armor-piercing rounds. It may be tempting to hold on to them for a particularly dangerous threat, but early on most enemy ships the player will meet are either unarmored or can be defeated with the standard high-explosive ammo found on every ship. Selling off such special ammo can be far more lucrative in the long-run than using small amounts of it for easy or inconsequential engagements.

It’s quite tempting to hoard every ship in HighFleet with the fear of never finding new ships. The overall survival and strength of the fleet is far more important than the availability of any one ship, meaning that cash is always more important as it can be used to acquire new ships, perform emergency repairs, or, more importantly, pay for fuel. Ships are quite expensive, especially the larger ones, and when not in use they’re far more valuable converted into usable and flexible cash.

“Speed is life”, as the pilots say and this statement is relevant not only in tactical combat but on the strategic map as well. Fast ships have two main benefits when on the attack, the first of which being that speedy vessels might be able to attack the enemy before they get a signal off calling for a roving enemy Strike Group to respond. The second is that fast ships have a chance to ambush enemy ships while they’re still landed, allowing the player to either drop bombs or do a highly damaging strafing run, before the enemy gets a chance to retaliate.

Players won’t be able to spend an indefinite amount of time picking over the remains of enemy wrecks after an intense battle. All possible loot items have a timer and some objects, like ammo and fuel are explosive, meaning that if they’re not salvaged they will blow up a random item. This makes it generally a good idea to salvage the explosive loot first and then everything else, unless there’s something absolutely vital or there’s enough time to pick everything over.

The player’s starting flagship, the Sevastopol, carries a pair of long-range nuclear missiles on board and it’s oh so tempting to use them, especially on the roving rebel Strike Groups. However, this is a terrible idea unless the player is completely ready for it or the circumstances are incredibly dire, because as soon as the player is witnessed using nukes, then the AI will use them on the player as well and they have a lot more of them. On top of that, if a nuke is used on a settlement, that location will lose all of its benefits to the player and will be treated as a generic port.

Another lucrative way of earning cash is to raid the many transport fleets ferrying goods from settlement to settlement. It’s not quite as profitable as selling big unused ships, but it’s still worth engaging in as depending on the cargo and size of the transport, the payout can be very beneficial. All the player has to do is to attack a transport fleet with a Strike Group, defeat the transport’s escort, and take it to the nearest open settlement to sell it off. However, be mindful of attacking transports that are adjacent to enemy Strike Groups as that would be an unwelcome encounter for the player.

Anti-ship missiles (ASMs) are the most common form of expendable heavy ordnance available in HighFleet and their primary purpose is to cause massive damage and/or force the target to make a disadvantageous maneuver. However, most small ships will either die from a single missile or can be easily taken out by standard projectile weapons. Bigger frigate and cruiser level ships, on the other hand, are tough nuts to crack and can’t dodge very well, meaning pilots can easily soften them up with a well-paced missile and then finish them off.

Tactical combat will see everyone and everything zipping around and changing course on a dime, making it difficult to zero in on a target. It’s very easy to think that you have a shot lined up, but even the slightest course change sends bullets flying across the screen missing the target completely. One great way of maximizing damage is to get really close to a target (ramming can be viable too), fire off a burst of accurate and deadly fire, and then zoom away before the enemy can respond in kind.

As said above, the sky battlefields over Gerat can be a chaotic mess as every ship will be in motion. Because of this it’s important to think about where the enemy will be in the next half or full second and fire off weapons so that the player’s bullets successfully meet their target. It’s also vital to track your own ship’s movement as that can have an effect on weapon trajectory, as well as the overall readiness of the craft’s weapons.

All ships have limited fuel in combat and won’t be able to keep engines running hot constantly. Small ships usually won’t last long enough to use up all their fuel (on top of being fuel-efficient), but large ships might be too big and resilient to crack with conventional weapons. So instead of going through the mighty beast, a very cunning, albeit time consuming, tactic is to fly around the target, all the while dodging its fire and simply wait for their fuel to run out after which they will crash to the ground. Take care not to run out of fuel yourself!

Though most ships of HighFleet are designed to fight in a 360 degree space, every ship will have its weak spot, even heavily armored ones. The most common weak point of HighFleet’s airships are their undersides. It’s highly advised, especially for small ships, to get under an enemy heavy ship and shoot upwards into its exposed or poorly-armored components.

Following very closely to the previous tip, a good general position to be in for any ship is close to the ground. Not only will this put your ship below the enemy where they’re most exposed, but if the enemy tries to match the player’s position, they’re putting themselves at risk of an engine burn up (if damaged enough). If an engine shuts down for some reason the vessel will rapidly lose altitude, and if they’re close to the ground they will meet a very quick demise without a chance to get back into the fight.

The developers in-game leave a tip to fire weapons in a volley where players empty their magazines and then wait to rearm to continue their offensive. There’s certainly a time and a place for volley fire (at very close ranges), but generally it’s a much better idea to fire weapons in bursts of one to three shots at a time. This way players can more readily correct their aim after every shot, and to make sure that weapons are firing constantly, as volley fire empties a magazine, which also shuts down the weapon briefly until it reloads.

All pilots need to love the afterburner (more relevant for small and medium sized ships) as it can mean crashing and burning or buying some time to make the killing blow. In addition, not all ships will have active countermeasures to avoid missiles so they can only rely on afterburners to jink and force the missile to lose its tracking. Also, many of the higher calibre slow-firing weapons can be effectively dodged using afterburners.

Initially, it may be tempting to hit the juicier big ships as they are easier to hit. It’s wiser to focus on quickly taking out the smaller escort ships as they can become a pain to deal with if not responded to quickly. Just imagine, while you’re harping away at a heavy frigate, three or four corvettes are firing at you from all sorts of directions making your position highly untenable.

Speaking of untenable positions, it’s likely players will find themselves up against multiple opponents in battle. This is already a difficult position to be in as the enemy can bring more weapons to bear, as you’ll only be able to pilot a single ship at a time. Because of this, it’s a good idea to stay away from the center of the battlefield while enemies take positions across the entire screen, blocking paths of escape and forcing the player to dodge from multiple angles.

Less a combat tactic, but still an important piece of advice, every time players enter an outpost, they’ll have the option of landing one or multiple ships in the settlement’s docks. Each dock and berth will have a rating on it, indicating the bonus to repair speed incentivizing players to land their ships in the high-value docks for efficient and quick repairs. Not only should players do so, but practicing their landing drills consistently will help learn the engine controls for tactical combat, making it easier to get into combat overall.

HighFleet is available for PC.

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