By Budomonk
For purple and gold ships, the following rule applies: if you have more than one ship with the same name, keep one and dismantle the others. Scrapped ships give computer chips. The ship you keep can be upgraded up to six times using these chips. Generally, one ship with an upgrade is better than two identical ships in your fleet. There are exceptions, such as the Agro, where having two can be useful.
Ship position is very important. Check the Admiral formation for details and bonuses. Usually the back line and mothership focus on attack. The two front lines focus on defense, with the front row acting as tanks since they take most hits. When you view a ship, you can see its strengths. In the top left, a small green square shows its preferred formation position. Try to follow this when you have the right ships.
Valuable items are blue, purple, and gold. Following the fleet position advice: I use gold weapons and blue armor on attack ships. Defense ships get gold armor and blue weapons. Give priority to gold armor for ships in the front line. The average ratio between armor and resistance is about 2:1. Purple items are only used in slots you cannot fill with the items above. Do not upgrade them; dismantle purple items to upgrade gold ones.
Admirals:
The best F2P admirals are: 1. Philip, who can be bought in the in-game shop for 9500 GEC. 2. Mary, who can be found in deep space missions 4-4. The best paid admiral is Sho Whu. Other F2P admirals usually focus on one type of damage, such as laser or kinetic. They become useful later in the game when you also have the ships and materials that support that specialization.