Now, for all the begginers out there, you will probably skip this section thinking, "Psh, lame. How important could this really be?" Well, my suggestion to you is NOT to.

So, to begin, we need to learn how to observe this magical thing known as the "Centre of Mass" (Here-after refered to as C.M.)
So, lets say you have a ship. No big deal, its only the worst thing you've created in your life. To observe, simply press the "P" on your keyboard, and all of the blocks will shrink. Now, look at your ship, do you see something that looks like a ball with arrows pointing out of it?

This is your centre of mass. Yay, we found it! Now to describe how important it is and how to put in in an optimal posistion.

So, your C.M. is, for everyone that never paid attention in science class, a point representing the mean position of the matter in a body or system. In other words, the centre of your ship. Go figure.
This is important because if your C.M. is too high, your ship will be "Top Heavy" and your top of the ship will flip and be considered the bottom. It may also prevent your proppelers from working correctly and cause your ship to either send you to the bottom of the sea or into the air. You want to keep the C.M. as low as possible.

Now, to fix this. It it relatively simple. All you do is put something heavy at the bottom of your ship (e.g. lead) and keep placing it until your C.M. lowers to the last block or two of your ship's bottom.

Now, some people do keep the fortress, but they do it as a challenge. I want to make this game as easy as possible for you until you are ready for such a task.

So, to scrap it, go to build mode. Under the "Misc." section you will see in the top something called the "Vehicle Blueprint Spawner" click it. Now underneat that you see the "Vehicle Blueprint Spawner and Scrapper" Place it (on a different ship from your starting fortress). Now, select the scrapper and click on your fortress' name. Now at the bottom, there is a selection called "Scrap". Guess what. You're gonna click it :)

Now, after the fortress is gone, you will gain all the resources that were put into it. However, there is a problem, you are gaining no new resources. So, you will need to build a resource-gathering boat. I won't go into specifics here, as this is sort of beside the point, but you'll want a crystal farm with 2 layers, 6 resource miners, and 2 oil drills.

Now, I had this problem at the begining of the game, too. You may look at the cost of metal and alloy and think, "Oh man, this junk costs a fortune. I'll just use wood." Now, for most vessels you will use wood, however, use SOME metal. This junk will save your skin so many times. Now, you don't have to use a lot, but cover the important parts of your ship in it, like the AI or ammo barrels.
In all honesty, if I had one thing to stress on beginners, it would be to use metal, and use it a lot.
Now, as a person pointed out, for you beginners out there, don't bother using light alloy. For its cost and armour and health... well... it is way better to make a ship out of wood and then cover it in metal.

So, lets say you have a basic ship, it works... well, and it does it's job. Now, however, you've got the basic idea of what to do and you're like, I want a fast ship without all this heavy metal protecting me. Well, I've got the solution for you, introducing the all new shield! With this marvelous technology, you will be able to create a shield that spans 25x25x10 (This is 100% customizable, by the way. You can also make the shields vary effectivness, more on this later.) The only price is engine power. Now, getting shielding around your ship is on step, however a shield by itself won't do much, so you need to increase it's effect strength. I'm not sure of the math on this, but you're probably going to want at least strength 2 shields. Strength 10 is the best type of shield, while I wouldn't even bother suggesting using strength 1.

Now, the day you discover missiles, celebrate! You've just discovered how to easily kill the Deep Water Guard! However, when you realise that you can customize EVERYTHING, well... things start to get out of hand.

In all reality, for most purposes the largest missle you will need is a 4 block. It may not seem like a lot, but it truley is. If you're thinking, "Well, this 4 block missle, you say, is good. So what should I put on it?" I would recommened a thruster, 2 fuel tanks, 2 fins, a one-turn, a warhead of any kind, and an infrared-seeker.

The reasons large missles are gradually less-efficient is thus:
1: Each missle block you add increases ammo cost by 25. (e.g. a 4 block missle will cost 100 ammo per, whereas a 5 block will cost 125 per)
2: Each missle block you add will increase reload times. (I have no idea what the increase is, but I know one thing, I've never seen my 50+ block missle reload... ever.)
3: Each missle block increases weight (less top speeds) and increases drag (not as manuverable)

This one is pretty self-explanatory, however I should tell you the perks of using beams over blocks.
1: Each beam has the same cost as 4 blocks of the type of beam (e.g. an alloy beam has the same cost as 4 light-weight alloy blocks) however, each beam has the health of 6 blocks, and only takes up the space of 4 blocks, so for no extra cost, you are getting 50% more bang for your buck.
2: The second perk is more for latter-game than anything, but still helpful to know. As you can probably tell, battles start to get really large. As such, wouldn't it be better for the game to only load 1 beam than 4 blocks? With this in mind, constructables spawn much quicker and the game runs smoother as well.

Yeah... sorry for that title, just had to make something funny out of something that will change your life, FOREVER. Now, a tutorial and how to best set up an AI (that I've found) and then what it does.
So, an AI is actually pretty simple, it is:
1 Mainframe (Black)
1 Wireless Transmitter (Sky Blue)
Any number of Card Slots (Yellow)
Any number of Cards (Red)


So, now for an explanation what what each component does and why it is so frickin' awesome.
The Mainframe is the centre of the AI. It is where everything will take place.
The Wireless Transmitter allows the AI signal to go anywhere with a Wireless Tranceiver.
The Card Slots allow Cards to be placed.
Cards are what make the AI an AI. They allow certain functions (e.g. Naval Guidance allows your ship to move by itself.)

Now, in case you didn't figure out what an AI does by the previous statement, it freakin' CONTROLS YOUR SHIP FOR YOU!
^^
Mind blown, right?
Basically the AI fires weapons, moves the ship, and do everything automatically so you can just sit back and enjoy a nice cup of tea while watching your enemy get obliterated.

Another fairly self-explanatory mistake, except this one does require a bit of description to those of you new to the game.
As you start off on a new campaigne, the Deep Water Guard (DWG) will have a diplomacy value (f1) of -20 or agressive expansion. As such, you are not their largest priority and will wait HOURS to be attacked. Who really wants to wait that long for some AI to attack you, right? Another reason to attack early on is that you can rush two tiles to the right of your starting square to claim another, not as efficient, resource zone. Now, with all this extra income, you will be able to build bigger, better ships more frequently.

Now, this one is a bit interesting. Early on (except for you veterans, but why would you be reading this otherwise?) you will want more than one boat. Heres why:
1: If one gets sunk there are others to protect yo' arse! Yay, saftey!
2: Having one ship specializing in one thing (e.g. a missle carrier or a battelship) generally does better than an all-rounder because if you had to make one ship have both missiles and cannons, would you have more space for more missiles?
3: What looks cooler, one ship or 20 others? (I know, a weak point, but a valid one nontheless)

Why you be getting rekt by missiles, ye' newb? There is no need for any of those shenanigans. If, in the all-too likely case, you are getting destroyed by missiles, or any other projectiles for that matter, here are 3 easy ways to counter them.

#1: Missile Interceptors!

Now, I'm going to show you how to build a missile interceptor and how it works.

Step 1: Build your generic missile set-up. (Do NOT add an AI)


Step 2: Add a 3 block missile to your set-up.


Step 3: Add an ACB (automated control block) right next to the missile controller. (This is why we didn't set-up the AI

Step 4: On your ACB, click "Activate when hostile missile closer than input meters"
Step 5: Click on "Fire weapons systems"
Step 6: Click "Fire weapons"
Step 7: IMPORTANT Make sure at the bottom of the GUI it says "Affect range- 4 meters" If not, the ACB will fire ALL weapons, not just the missile. It should look like this:
Step 8: Make the missile have 1 thruster, 1 fuel tank, 2 fins, 1 fragmentation warhead, and 1 missile interceptor warhead.

BOOM! Now you've got yourself a pretty decent anti-missile system. Hurrah!

#2: CIWS (Close In Weapons System)

CIWS is a realistic, highly effective way to defend against any kind of munition; it's relatively cheap, doesn't take up space and can also look awesome if you do it right.

The prefab CIWS aren't half bad, but you need to know how to make one by yourself.

Step 1: Add munition warners to your ship

Unlike missiles, the CIWS shells aren't self-aware guided, so you'll need a basic munition warner setup. The most commonly used, and most basic, is an AI connector with a wireless receiver on one end and a munition warner on the other. It should look like this:


Be aware that if you use this, however, one well-placed shell could completely remove your anti-missiles capabilities.

Step 2: Create a basic APS system

Some of you beginners may not know how to do this, so for now, a prefab APS system is perfectly fine. Ensure that the RPM is at least 60, otherwise your CIWS won't hit a thing.

Step 3: Add an Anti Missile Cannon Controller component

Try saying that with your mouth full! Anyway, this particular block can be found in the 'Defense' section. Place it 1-2 blocks away from your turret. This component replaces the LWC found in normal APS cannons

Step 4: Add a Laser Targeter component to your APS

This allows for setting of timed fuses and altitude fuses; both are your friend when using CIWS.

Step 5: Customise your shell

The best shell is flak with a timed fuse, because flak has a larger explosion radius than HE. However, other shells like Kinetic and HE work as well. If you're using anything other than Flak or HE, a timed fuse is not a necessity.




Step 6: Enjoy the show.


#3: Just be fast

It may not sound like much, but simply being fast enough to dodge any projectile that wants to hit you is a foolproof way of ensuring survival.

(I'm not talking about literally being faster than every projectile, but if you want to make a jet that goes Mach 20, go ahead!)

^^^Oh, the thing you never paid any attention to in Physics. Guess it is bitting you in the butt now, ain't it? Anyway, to put it in the words of a lovely commenter, this can mean the difference between a 10 m/s ship and a 40 m/s ship. There a number of ways to do this, and not all are difficult, just less efficient.

This is Betsy Brick, a lovely ship capable of doing nothing! :) Currently she reaches just about 15 m/s with her current design. This is good, but not good enough, lets fix that, shall we?

First up: Betsy Sharpnose.
New speed: 23 m/s.


This is a really quick, semi-efficient way of making your ship move faster.
To build this, all we need to do is add slopes to the sides of your ship, whilst decreasing the interior of your ship by 2 blocks until you are down to 1. Basically, just make your ship look like an arrow. ;)

Second: S.S. Betsy
New speed: 28 m/s


In order to make this ship, I can't really describe it in words, I'll make a video tutorial how, some day. For now, just know that to make this ship, you need LOTS of corner slopes, slopes, and inverted corners. You also probably should have an idea of making this ship before you start building.

W.I.P.

9/26/2015: Initial Release
9/27/2015: Added section about missiles
9/29/2015: Added section about beams
9/30/2015: Added section about AI, also fixed metal/alloy section
10/7/2015: Added section about several boats (W.I.P.) and a section about waiting to be attacked
10/11/2015: Added section about missile intreceptors

To Do:
1: Add section using AI.
2: Add section about using propellers/ thrusters to help with turning
3: Add section about how having several boats is helpful
4: Add section about lasers
5: Add section about missile intreceptors
6: Update sections 4, 5 and 7; they are now outdated
7: Add section about simple weapons
8: Add section about aesthetics