Welcome to this Ship Guide for the casual space strategy game Flotilla. As part of its pick-up-and-play design philosophy, only a few ship types exist, and only one statistic - the ship's hit points - is provided.

The goal of a ship captain is to move his ship into a position where its weaponry is striking an enemy's weakest armor. Ships are depicted as polygonal meshes, with the brightness of each face roughly representing the strength of the armor on that surface. Projectiles will bounce off of armor, depending on its strength and the angle at which the projectile hits - square-on hits might penetrate where glancing blows may not. As the tutorial says, a ship's bottom and rear armor is generally weak, while its front and top armor is generally strong.

With 200 hit points, the Destroyer is one of the weakest ships in the game. However, its blazing-fast speed makes it the ship of choice for flanking maneuvers. The player starts an Adventure with two of these ships.

The Destroyer mounts a unique nose-mounted Missile Launcher that fires spreads of five missiles. These travel relatively slowly and inaccurately, wobbling around the line of fire as they fly. The reload time is also fairly long.

Pros:

• Fast!
  
• Small frontal profile (and decent profiles at other angles, too).

Cons:

• Low hit points.
  
• Low-velocity weapon depends on saturating target.

The Beam Frigate is slower and bulkier than the Destroyer, and its 300 hit points don't make up for the weaknesses.

What does, however, is its nose-mounted Beam Cannon. This powerful weapon will punch right through armor to deal damage to any target it hits - although its short range forces it to close into potential flanking situations.

Pros:

• Fastest Beam Cannon-equipped vessel.
  
• Decent front and top profiles.

Cons:

• Giant and fragile side profile.
  
• Short weapon range.

Continuing the sequence, the Beam Gunship is slower than its predecessors, but has 400 hit points to further increase its survivability. Also, its armor tends to be stronger than the Beam Frigate's, but its boxy design makes it easier for a foe to fire squarely into the ship.

The Beam Gunship's main claim to fame is its two side-mounted Beam Cannons, giving it an incredible amount of firepower at close range.

Pros:

• Two Beam Cannons!
  
• Narrower (but longer) side profile.

Cons:

• Side weapon mountings generally prevent them from firing at the same target.
  
• Rectangular design reduces effect of armor.

The Torpedo Gunship combines 500 hit points with a boxy but well-armored frame. Its speed is rather lacking.

What is interesting about the Torpedo Gunship is its top- and nose-mounted Torpedo Launchers. Firing high-speed, high-accuracy torpedoes, it loves to pepper enemies from long range.

Pros:

• Long-range weapon.

Cons:

• Slow and bulky, large bottom profile.
  
• Torpedoes easily deflected by an alert enemy.

The Dreadnought couples 800 hit points with incredibly strong frontal armor. While one of the slowest ships in the game (only the Battleship is slower), its powerful frontal profile makes it a terrifying prospect for lone enemy ships.

The Dreadnought mounts two Beam Cannons on its front, allowing it to savage any opponent regardless of its armor. As the joke goes, there's not much it dreads.

Pros:

• Strong front profile and front weapons.

Cons:

• Slow, easily outranged and flanked.
  
• Huge and weak bottom profile.

With 1000 hit points and incredibly strong armor, the Battleship is the epitome of defense. However, its engines are barely able to move the resultant mountain of metal.

With two twin top-mounted Torpedo Launchers and two rapid-fire Railguns (one top-mounted, one bottom-mounted), the Battleship can lay down a storm of projectiles that will obliterate any foe that doesn't present its front to this behemoth.

Pros:

• Strong, well-angled armor at most profiles.
  
• Ridiculous amount of projectile weaponry.

Cons:

• No Beam Cannons, relies on other ships to provide flanking fire into enemy weakpoints.
  
• Slow. So slow that Focus Fire order will reduce potential movement to one-third of a ship length.
  
• Need to use manual orientation controls to aim top-mounted weapons at a target.

The Proto Fighter is a minor Easter egg provided by the developers. With only 50 hit points, flimsy armor, and no weapon, it exists merely to provide a mobile target for the amusement of Skirmish matches.

It is, however, very fast and small, making it hard for projectile weaponry to hit it.