This guide will discuss survival in the later part of Grand Admiral difficulty in Career Mode (as of Early Access patch 0.27.0g). Although Grand Admiral can be beaten using a long-range Railgun fanning ship, or by using a fleet of ships that flank the enemy's weak sides, or luring AI ships to fight each other, I have not come across any guide about using a regular ship and just trying to tank damage normally. I prefer brawling, for me it's a way more "fun" way to play a spaceship game. So I tried it, and it forced me to redesign my ships and to learn the mechanics of the game in much more detail. Ship designs that were powerful in lower difficulties were annihilated in Grand Admiral. It was hard, I got my *ss kicked, but it was a good challenge.

I am not yet an expert at the game, and I have learned a ton from other experienced players who have shared tips or have made other guides. I thank everybody for helping by sharing their wisdom.

AI in Grand Admiral difficulty deals 140% damage, and you deal 70% damage. AI outputs twice your damage for the same cost. In practice, AI weapons can slice through your defenses much faster, and your weapons take longer to cut through the AI's defenses. The reason why this is important is that: the effectiveness of overlapping shields and shield regeneration can change hugely based on small changes in DPS. In Grand Admiral, opponent's overlapping shield walls can regenerate because your DPS is low, whereas your shields don't have time to regenerate because enemy DPS is too high, and then enemy starts to destroy your actual shield emitters, and then the inside of your ship.

Ship designs that could dominate lower difficulties suffer way more damage at Grand Admiral difficulty. On paper, my ship should be way more powerful than even the Cabal's toughest ships. On Grand Admiral, the math of DPS and defense is heavily skewed in favor of the enemy's Apotheosis ship.


This is a screenshot of my latest ship, heavily inspired by a ship that was posted to Reddit by user "max_sil.". It is not perfect, and it is not optimized. On Grand Admiral, it's probably impossible to make a perfect brawling ship. But, it's strong enough to survive most battles, and it is has excellent velocity for its size. I will go into more detail below in terms of specific design choices.

Choose your primary weapon type that allows you to have a solid layer of defense at the front of your ship (Railguns, Ions, Deck Cannons, HE Missiles). Other weapon types require some extra surface area on the outside of your ship, which reduces your defensive layer, which makes your ship too vulnerable to enemy ion beams and HE missile barrages.

In Grand Admiral difficulty, you can't safely place Large Shields, Flak, or Point Defense at the very front of your ship. I've tried a few different set ups, bu the enemy DPS is too strong: any of these structures will be destroyed in seconds. I will mention this later, but you can and should place Large Shields and Flak on the sides or in the back part of the ship, where it is more protected. Large Shields can also be safely placed inside of a well guarded internal "neck" or nest area. It simply can't be right at the front.

Therefore, there are only a few different viable set ups for frontal defense.

1. Thick Armor wall, supported by 1-2 walls of Small Shields.



2. Thick Armor wall, in front of empty space/ceiling, supported by a wall of Large Shields.



3. Extremely thick later of Armor, with no shields.

All 3 of these designs have different pros and cons. Pure Armor is equally good against all weapon types, but is heavy and will slow down your ship, making it harder to kite. More reliance on shields makes you increasingly vulnerable to EMP missiles, which the enemy will use generously, but they will regenerate slowly over time. In theory, all 3 can all work somewhat well, and none is perfect.

Make the Armor thicker nearer to the middle/center, as enemy AI will target the center more often. Test your design by fighting stronger enemies (i.e. enemies with a lot of ion beams, or a lot of HE missiles). Add more layers of Armor as needed.

Railguns and Ion Beams shoot out of a vulnerable opening, which is referred to as a neck, usually at the very front of the ship. In Grand Admiral difficulty, enemy ion beams hit twice as hard as yours'. Your neck needs to be better defended than then enemy's, because of this imbalance in DPS. You'd be surprised how quickly your 10 overlapping Large Shields will fail under heavy fire.

Although Flak cannot be safely placed at the front of the ship, it is a good idea to have as many forward-facing Flak as possible, in a position slightly behind your ship's front-most part. I will share a screenshot of such a set-up. It's a bit to the rear of the ship, but the Flak are placed facing fowards, which allows them to shoot down a significant amount of HE missiles (except the ones that are flying directly in front of the ship, out of the firing arc of the Flak Batteries). Because they are not directly in front, they receive slightly less damage, so they can survive fairly okay using just a small amount of overlapping Large Shields. Set the Large Shields sideways if you can, because this gives you more room to place foward-facing Flak Batteries on the forward-facing platform itself.

I've tested PD thoroughly, and it's useless on Grand Admiral difficulty. The reason is that the PD projectiles do not hit instantly, it takes a fraction of a second to hit the missile. This makes them terrible at shooting missiles at an angle or moving in a slightly different direction. This is to say nothing about the fact that anti-missile weapons have poor base accuracy due to having wide firing spread (the projectiles shoot at a randon angle). I tired using 24 PDs at a time, supported by optimal Capacitors and Crew, and it still barely shot down a fraction of any missiles barrage.

I've tested Flak for just a couple of minutes, and it's already clear that it's far superior. If missiles get within its range, 5 Flak are enough to decimate most of the barrage. Flak hits instantly, so its accuracy is way better than PD.

Flak are too large to be reliably protected by Small Shields. Large Shields are the only reasonable way to defend them.

Reminder: Flak Batteries are automatically set to "fire at will." You have to manually set each Flak to "defensive fire only," to not waste ammunition.

Using the above set-up, your ship will be well protected against HE missiles on the sides, but vulnerable to HE missiles in the front (the front does not have Flak, only Armor). If the enemy has weapons that make melee engagement dangerous, then you just have to fight them normally.

If the enemy has a dedicated HE missile boat that does not have dangerous close-range weapons, then it is best to try to "ram" them to get within melee range. Your front section is protected against HE missiles, because it is hugging the enemy's hull. The enemy HE missiles have to fly sideways, and this makes them get in range of your forward-facing Flak Batteries (on the recessed forward-facing platform, slightly in the rear). Almost all of the HE missiles will be shot down. It works, as long as you have anough Ammo or Sulfur to supply the Flak.

In my opinion, engines are better protected when they are enclosed inside of an Armor rectangle. It is not as efficient in terms of Crew or Reactors or Engine Rooms, but the rectangle offers much better options for defense and it is a simpler geometric shape to design around.

Have a large amount of backwards thrusters. This is your best defense against short-ranged Nuclear Missiles. Just keep out of range, at all times. Make sure you can reverse faster than a Nuclear missile boat can fly forwards towards you.

Strong reverse velocity is also the best way to avoid getting flanked or surrounded.

Go to the edge of the map/system, where there are no enemies around. Then, approach a bounty area (Fugitive, Renegade) from the outer edge. This way, if you have to reverse thrust, you will reverse into vaccuum. You will be less likely to accidentally reverse thrust into other enemy ships.

Keep in mind that it takes many seconds for a large ship to change vector/direction. This is because it takes 4 seconds to achieve max acceleration, but this acceleration is just a force that changes the velocity (speed); you still need a few more seconds for the velocity to go from -95.5 to 95.5. Any experienced player will know that, if you are approaching an enemy ship too quickly, you will accidentally plow into them at melee range before your ship can achieve a good reverse velocity, leaving you battered from the Nuclear Missile hits you took in those few seconds. The trick is to use the red targetting slider to slow down outside of weapon's range, so that you are no longer in an out of control forward velocity, and then use the red slider to change your distance more carefully.

You can also use this in other ways. Enemy Railgun ships will often kite you at a velocity faster than your own. The trick is to target them, use the red slider to face them but reverse engines at maximum (slide your red ship far away from them). You will reverse, and after a few seconds, they will engage their forward thrusters to chase you. Once they are at max velocity, use the red slider to push your ship forward towards his ship; this will make you engage your forward thrusters. You will eventually achieve maximum acceleration/velocity, and the enemy AI will not be able to reverse direction nearly fast enough. This will allow you to get within melee range of a fast railgun kiter.

You can use a similar tactic to "lure" enemies out of an asteroid field. Have them chase you for a few seconds, leave the asteroid field, then reverse direction and attack them once there are no more asteroids in your way.

This is not a guide on Crew optimization. I encourage any serious player to read or watch Crew guides, as they are all really helpful. I will however repeat or share a few kep points. Making sure all of your equipment is always powered and is always at peak performance (not failing on-and-off during a combat situation) is important in Grand Admiral difficulty.

Make specialized "Operator" Crew and then specifically assign them to specific number of modules that require permanent operators; use math to make sure there are exactly enough operators, no more no less. I have multiple 24-crew beds, and I specifically assign them to 12 modules that each require 2 operators. You can place the Operator crew bunk far away, with door/corridor access; this saves a lot of space in the part of the ship where space economy matters (like in the ion core, or in engine rooms). You can place Operator crew bunks in a random location in the back of your ship, where there is free space; as long as you connect it to wherever you want them to go using corridors and doors.



Reddit user "crunxzu" pointed out that Ion Beams will lose power if they are more than a few of tiles away from a Large Reactor, regardless of how many Crew you assign or how good the walkway setup is. I've switched to a similar setup where there is never an Ion Beam Emitter more than 2 corridor tiles away from a Large Reactor. It's expensive, and it's way more Reactors than you "need" in theory, but in practice it's the only way to keep the Ion Beams firing continuously with minimal interruption. It requires that the Crew bunks always be adjacent to the Large Reactor, and in my ship 6 "Power Supplier" Crew can power 4 Ion Beams as long as they are very close to the reactor (not including the 2 Operators in each Emitter).



Engine rooms can function almost uninterrupted if they each have 3 "Power Supplier" Crew near a Medium Reactor (not including the 2 Operators). In my limited testing, it seems like 2 "Power Supplier" Crew can manage an Engine Room near a Large Reactor. Anything less will cause power interruptions every few seconds.

I get that Grand Admiral difficulty would have been way less painful if I had made a Railgun fan kiter, or a fleet, or took more time to lure AIs into fighting each other. But I enjoyed the challenge, and it forced me to learn the mechanics of the game much more than I would have needed to otherwise. This was a good reason to read more guides, test out more designs.

The picture in the thumbnail is the Cabal Ipsissimus ship. It has nothing to do with the guide, I just love the design.