Instant Fleets

Information
Instant Repair with Battle Pirates is somewhat of a necessity for those who are playing for free. You are able to obtain 5 minutes of repair for free after a battle. After that, you need to pay coins or pay the requisite (in real life time) for waiting for your ships to be repaired before you can go again and engage in combat to complete missions, campaigns, raids, salvage, or strike a friend's base of operations. This instant repair has limited options, and the options seem quite confusing at first, but after a while of playing, a few recommendations become a bit more clear. This 'guide' is to allow you to shortcut to the solutions I have discovered so that you can make a faster start into the game and get more fun out of the game without paying a lot more unnecessary coin on trial and error. This guide is solely my opinion, however, so feel free to test out all of these techniques and see which work or do not work for you, and adjust as necessary to how you would like to play.

First, we will cover overall tips.

OVERALL TIPS:

Damage over armor all day, every day

Your ships will die, and die quite often. Your goal is to deal as much damage before it runs out, then instant repair and go again. If you try to create a mini-tank, I have discovered that they will still die within one, two, (or if lucky) three hits. Therefore the weight used to fort up the walls would be much better used to maximize your weaponry FIRST, then add armor with the rest of the weight available.

Maximize your ships by using a system

Most of the instant repair ships only have 1 slot for specials. This is best used by using a system, which combines two specials from one lower level. For example, Ballistic system 3 will combine reloader2(damage) and hardened barrels2(range). There are four types of bonuses, and each weapon type is missing one of the 3 types with the benefits that you can receive from specials. This is very important to notice later on when we choose weapon types. However, for now, learn that for every type of instant repair ship, we will be using a system.

Always use damage mitigation before armor points

Repair times are based on ship health; damage mitigation cost resources which is easier to obtain than repair time. (Example: compoundX armor, 33% resist all 3, cost over 100k resources per ship, to repair at 75% Legendary)  This is far more applicable in ships that have 3 or more specials slots, but for the four types of ships that have 2 slots (Arbiter, BB, BBA, Sea Wolf), as well as choices for armor, you can find ways to mitigate damage before it adds to that costly repair bill (measured in time repairing when you could be out there having fun in combat).

Think of the situation you will use a particular fleet for, and plan

The 27 military stronghold has ballistic damage; the low level campaigns take more damage from missiles/ballistics than explosive damage type. Also understand some of the limitations of what you can do as well as what you can't do with instant fleets. If you get blown off the map without getting off a single shot, instant repair will probably not help. However, there are many (more than one might think) situations where you can simply whittle down the enemy until they go away.

And here is some planning help, with introducing your ships:

FIRST INSTANT REPAIR ROUND OF SHIPS: LESS USEFUL SHIPS, EVEN AT MAXED OUT SPECIFICATIONS

Gunboat: 1 weapon, 1 armor slot. Max health: 115 OR Thud1 weapon

Skirmisher: 1 weapon, 1 armor slot. Max Health: 325 OR Ripper 1 weapon

Longship: 2 weapon, 1 armor, 1 special. Max Health: 1025(equivalent) OR Thud1+Thud2

Corvette: 1 weapon, 1 armor slot. Max Health: 119 OR Thud2 +Hardened Barrels3

Frigate: 1 weapon, 1 armor, 1 special. Max Health: 486(equivalent) OR Thud2 with HB3 or CS3

Above is a list of maxed out lower ships. You will most likely not use any of the above as your long-term instant repair ships. Even when you have a respectable fleet at a higher level, you still can have a great instant repair fleet ready for when your main fleet(s) are in the repair shop and you still want to hunt salvage for blueprints or to rank up to legendary (easily). This is where your mainstay instant repair fleet will help out. Also know that you can have a few RAID-spec fleets, which is to say that you manage the specifications to fit the 1/2off repair bill that happens during the once a month raid period of time. Here are the two sets of ships:

SECOND INSTANT REPAIR ROUND OF SHIPS: YOUR MAINSTAY FLEETS:

Destroyer Destroyer X

Destroyer ECM

Light Cruiser

Light Cruiser X

Marauder

THIRD INSTANT REPAIR ROUND OF SHIPS: RAID SPECIFICATION FLEETS:

Arbiter

Predator Submarines

Stalker Submarines

Battle Barge A

Battle Barge

Sea Wolf

FOURTH INSTANT REPAIR ROUND OF SHIPS: THE ONE COIN OPERATION

BattleCruiser

BattleCruiserX

Sea Scorpion

Sea Scorpion A

OK, so let's discuss your mainstay fleets. The Destroyer and DestroyerX both have the same weapon/armor slots and weight. However, the Destroyer ECM has more weight, so you can pack more firepower into that model. Yet, it still only has 2 slots, so it is limited compared to your other options. The Destroyer has a high speed (17), a full slate of resistance, and a bit of built in evasion. Also, with the right setup, it can pack a punch too!

Speaking of packing a punch, let's discuss weapons. There are four types of bonuses and three types of weapons that rotate between the bonuses; additionally there are 3 types of basic weapons for the four weapons, each missing one characteristic. Consider it a Rubik's Cube! Ok, so far I have found the drac weapons, for the most part to have more damage than their forsaken counterparts for the weight allowed. I guess that should make sense because I use the drac ships a lot more often because of the build in resistances and evasion aide in survivability (without using up slots). Also, we should note that (other than the arbiter), we do not have enough weight to pack on a very robust mortar system. Mortars are a 'spray and pray' type of weapon, and in order to get a bit more accuracy on the target (and even enough damage to make a difference!), I would recommend we do not use mainstay or raid spec instant fleets to do mortar. That leaves us rockets, cannons, and missiles. Destroyers are smaller ships, making them harder to hit at a distance. This makes them more ideal for missiles. However, there are good setups for cannon and rockets as well.

Missiles

Maximum damage for missiles is 2x Torrent I, but that does not leave any room for armor, and it requires to use accuracy for retargetable:true because of the long volley so that you can hit more than just one target. In other words, that makes it a poor weapon for this platform. Therefore, you will end up using strike missiles, with L doing the most damage; you will want to combine it with accuracy to get an effective 96% (higher than N at 90%), or SS3/MS3 with N, or SFB3 with A. SFB3 with A being the lowest damage, N being middle damage, and L with accuracy highest damage. On the LCX, there is a penetrating reload of 19%, along with 75% Legendary bonus, strike L with accuracy bonus, you are cookin' with hot grease!

UPDATE: The new strike missile, while having a much higher range (72 instead of 68) and having bypass measures, is still less damage than Strike L + Missile System 3. I will use the new strike once I get it, but probably only for two out of the five ships.

Cannons

The problem with cannons is that the destroyers will get shredded at close distance before they even fire off a single volley; after they get within range, they can deal some serious damage from such a small package! So range is the most difficult problem we have. However, reloader only exist for cannons and rockets; the reloader turns your good weapon into something absolutely awesome! Therefore, the cannon system is probably the best bet; after all you only have one slot! However, I have wanted to try out Guidance Scrambler to combine with the natural evade to see if I can get my cannon Destroyer to tank/decoy for the others. I have tried this technique with using CompoundX (33% resist all) armor, but it jacks up my repair bill for resources and doesn't outlive/outlast as it should: i.e., it's not worth it. Remember the Rubik's Cube mentioned? Missiles do not have anything to amp up damage (like a reloader), and the cannons have nothing to amp up accuracy (like missiles do). Therefore, getting any cannon with less than 100% accuracy is not going to work for me. Every shot counts when I'm using something that is made to drop some damage before it bites the big blue sea, I can't be wasting that for accuracy issues. So, I would go with the N, or the A. However, I think the range for ballistics is already short, so getting 3 range (9 with multiplier) is worth considering, but ultimately I choose the N for the highest dmg. You only get so much damage you can pack out into these small packages. Reloader3 and N does over 300 dps, thats pretty hawt for such a small machine! The real boon for cannons is engines; you can get to a stop and start ripping up some damage a LOT faster if you have a great engine system getting you to the spot where you fire. Unfortunately, you only have one slot, and no damage+ is not going to cut it for a instant repair fleet; you can only take consideration of this for RAID spec BBA, BB, or Sea Wolf using different slots. A lot of forums say you can use Thud 4's but you lose 40 dmg: 194 for N compared to 150 thuds. Sure, N's lose out on 6 range, but you want to max damage before you die / feather tickling your enemy is not going to get you anywhere! Oh and rippers are either too heavy or less damage than N's using reloader3.

UPDATE: Cannon System seems to be a loss for my DestroyerX fleet. Here is why: Cannons and rockets are better suited for 'tank' type ships that are able to absorb or evade a lot of damage, because they get closer. Your most 'tank-like' ship is your flagship, the two wing leaders are slightly less so, and your wings need almost no armor. This means that rockets will be upfront (because they have no range extender), then torrents OR cannons with specials will be wing leaders, and your missile only ships will be your ranged attackers in the rear. This setup is to create simultaneous fire while auto-ing, which is what a majority of these instant fleets are good for: auto-ing FM 40 and under. With cannons mostly as a 'tank' vehicle, my thinking has shifted to my Dx fleet going 5/5 strike L + missile system3. I still need to test out my hybrid ideas (chaingun/torp, torrent/torp), but I'm still leaning heavily (especially for ImpactN cannons and Rippers) towards HB3 instead of Cannon System3. 57 is too short of a distance! I'm finding that out with rockets as well. I might need to test out thuds and chaingun with CS3 vs. HB3, but HB3 is always the 'safe bet' considering how very little defense the instant fleets have.

UPDATE PART II: Cannons seem to be straight forward. You have damage, you calculate DPS. However, an enemy does NOT have infinite DPS, and retargeting as well as overall enemy ship health need to be taken into account, as well as weapon delay. This is something that I did not notice before when I was tinkering in Huggy's, but real in-game experience has taught me. This means that small pellets of damage that stream are really great to intersperse while your chainguns, impactN, assault, or seige cannons, are cooling down and reloading. Even while my 75% legendary with cannon system3 was firing almost nonstop with impactN fire, I can easily see that there were pauses between the fire that a ripper would not have had. Therefore, it is sound strategy to have all your weapons of one type, and then a ripper as the last gun of the group to keep things going. Example: Sea Wolf. HB3 instead of CS3, Magnus or Strike3 for speed, and AL3. 4x ImpactN + 1xRipper. Ripper keeps the damage going while the Impact N's are firing. However, might even switch to Chaingunx4 or Thudsx4 with the same 1xRipper because the range is such an issue with very low health ships such as instant repair. DPS is lower, but it works better in the game.

Rockets

Rubik's Cube again! Just as missiles do not have something to amp up damage, cannons do not have an accuracy boost, rockets do not have a range boost. The range on the weapon is..the range on the weapon! So, we will just have to get used to 57 dmg. The choice for me is N. The A is lower damage, and the L has the exact same damage with lower accuracy and only a +2 for the range. S is the best-in-class for damage and weight but I haven't seen it offered while I've been playing (200 weight fits lower instant repair ships) So, while with missiles, you actually gained a chunk of damage, with rockets you have the same damage. Rockets are a bit further away, so you can get off a volley without needing the range boost. Also, the explosive system that narrows range (accuracy) and increases splash (damage) does not seem very useful in comparison to cluster warheads III. You can do 2 N's, cluster warheads III, and tack on 75% legendary, and all the sudden BOOM!! class high dmg for Destroyer of 900 dps!!! However, that is sprayed to the four winds, so who knows how much of that 900dps is actually landing on the target. Yet, you can even fit with armor AND use this best-in-class damage combo!

UPDATE: Rockets are AMAZING vs. turrents. However, projectile speed is crucial! Also, rockets can lay waste to entire fleets bunched together with splash. Yet, the problem again is projectile speed. Even though they might boast a reload of 1.0, the flight time for rockets to go through the air and then hit their target is slooooww. That is why it works so great for turrets. Instead of leaving remnants of health like mortars (excluding chaos mortars, those are just nuts!), rockets simply blow up (!!) a complete cluster of turrets in a very short period of time. However, the distance is very short and doesn't get extended except for just one or two ships in the game like the Mako (not an instant ship). Therefore, I must unfortunately withdraw my recommendation that rockets be used as mainstay instant ships.  For one coin repair instant ships, the 3 specials and evasion tanking of BC or BCx might make rockets viable again due to the speed as well as versatility of those hulls (Example: Magnus Drive+GS3+CW3 or ES3). The SS/SSA, however, start at a disadvantage for evasion, so I cannot recommend using rockets for those ships.

Launchers

Only the Sea Wolf can effectively have enough weight available to do launchers (except the SSA, BC, BCX of 1 coin fleets, but those are still 'pay to play' and not free). You can load 4 launchers or 3 launchers with 2 anti-mortar A. Because you are not getting the reload bonus of Greta's, the Nuclear Cruiser, and the ilk, you are basically 'end zoning' at the location that those start; that is, when you achieve legendary you have the same or slightly less reload for the launchers fresh out of the oven of those hulls. YET, those are not instant repair! Because D92U has 500 weight, you have much less 'wiggle room' to play with to add specials and damage modifiers. However, you still can 'instant repair' during raid times the very weapon that most people use all the time for almost everything.

UPDATE/EDIT: you CANNOT! instant repair Launchers because they ADD armor to the Sea Wolf! Ha! I didn't notice this before, but this makes launchers a much better bet for low coin options such as battlecruiser(20%accuracy bonus!!)/X and Sea Scorpion/A. SSA actually has 7 slots, but BC has 20% accuracy bonus. With BCX for chaingun/cannon reload and/or for high evade tank (61+%!!), SSA for torrent/missile reload, and BC for 20% acccuracy for launchers or anti-measures, you could mix/match until you get a sweet fleet of 5 ships! Just make sure to match the speeds of the 3 types of ships (BC/BCX/SSA) because they each have different speeds, and can even change speeds +/- 1 while retrofitting to R5  :)

Assault Missiles

Only the Sea Wolf can effectively yield more than one of these; yet, upon close analysis the weight limitations make it more effective to use cutlass III's than a Assault Missile because the added weight allows more specials for use.

Also, Assault Missiles have less dps than the Strike L/Missile System3 combo that works effectively on Destroyer/X fleets.

Repair Modifier

One of the reasons I do not like the sea wolf at all, despite its 5 weapon slots, is the fact it has ZERO repair modifier. Repair modifier allows you to repair MORE ship health points for LESS time, according to the formula. In other words, you can have MORE SHIP HEALTH for instant repair!! Isn't that awesome! Ok, so here is the formulas:

(100%) NORMAL: 300 health points, (100%) RAID: 600 health points = Sea Wolf

(75%) Repair Modifier NORMAL: 400 health points, (75%) RAID: 800 health points: LC, LCX, D, D-X, D-ecm, Arb, BB,BBA, SS, SSA

(50%) Repair Modifier NORMAL: 600 health points (50%) RAID: 1200 health points: Marauder

(300%) Predator (RAID SPEC only) = your max ship health = 200, so basically one piece of armor to make it 180

(200%) Stalker (RAID SPEC only) = your max ship health = 300, so basically you can use 2 pieces of armor to make it exactly 300

ONE COIN REPAIR

THE idea of one coin repair is that you spend less coin, but you are willing to bump up your pocket change in order to make things die faster. This is where the Sea Scorpion A comes in. Both SSA and BC, BCX have retrofit. With Retrofit 5, you can get reload which will greatly enhance your ability to do more damage using the exact same damage. Multiply that by an awesome 7 weapon slots and you become a force to be recon'd with! SSA has missile reload of 30%, which raises to 105 with legendary!! Thats DOUBLE the damage, along with the fact that you are using 7 weapons instead of 3, and you are already doubling your damage to make QUADRUPLE DAMAGE compared to Battle Barge, for example!! wow! Otherwise, one coin repair is simply taking your mainstay fleet and adding a 10 minute repair 'tank' to your 5 minute ships, or adding a 20 minute 'tank' to your 10 minute repair RAID spec ships.

RETROFIT

Which brings me to retrofit. Of ALL the instant fleets mentioned here, the ONLY ships with retrofit are the coinable SSA, BC, BCX and the RAID spec BBA. In fact, BBA is the ONLY free/instant repair (during RAID) ship that is retrofittable possible WITHOUT using coin to repair. Also, the retrofit is cannon reload. Therefore, the most damage you can do is something like CS3 and Nx4 with ENGINE of some sort (!) since you get two specials, and RAID spec it to 800 ship health when you make the ship. I would D1-M x1 to RAID spec it, and leave the other slot blank. That creates 35(divided by 2 to be 17.5) seconds, something I am willing to wait for/for the 10% missile resistance (remember: damage I don't have to pay time to repair!)  Now you have a ship, at Legendary, that packs out 2214 with CS3 and SS3(for 60% without loss of accuracy!)  That's a PUNCH of damage! AND it's 100% accurate -- unless the object has evade you WIN! Then you make a fleet of them, and you have nearly 10k DPS!

DRIVING MAP FLEETS

Driving can improve your chance for kills. Instead of grouping all of your ships in one cluster, trying taking one or two ships to a different direction ??than the computer 'crowd' ?? and diagonally to the left or right of the incoming ships. Keep your offshooting ships so that their range bubble barely touches the left or right of the ship (whichever direction you were heading to), and keep going diagonally left or right until you die or until you have to wrap around. While the enemy ship/cluster will be focused on your main force, your 'sniper' ship (or two) will be able to deal damage without getting blasted in the group with the rest. These 'sniper' ships should have max range of whatever you have on-hand to keep the ship further away. I have effectively cut down trips into single kill instead of repeat visits this way. Of course, when you can auto fleets this won't be as useful, but it is a great tactic.

LATER IN THE GAME

Bump up your Strikes, Impacts, and Firestorms using Uranium from weeklies to cap out even MORE dmg from your little buggers! Up to 20% reload! AND/OR also you can bump up all 3 systems (CS3, CW3, MS3) to make it more worth your while.

SUMMARY:

Destroyer or D-X or DCM: StrikeL with Missile System 3, 400 armor by Titanium1x2 and Steel1x1

Mirauder: 2 ImpactN and 1 Ripper 2 with HB3, 600 armor by D1M and Titanium1

LC or LCX: StrikeL x3, TorpedoM or Havoc, Missile System3

PART II Later On

Ok so I did some testing of my above instant builds after actually building them and I have arrived at the following conclusions.

First of all, missiles are quite ideal for instant ships. The far distance away means you have time to put in some firepower and kill ballistic ships before they have a chance to decimate your ships. As well, strikeL + accuracy60 combo includes retargeting which is amazing for 27 stronghold's low health turrets. However, the added range of missile system3 is even better, making missile system3 and strikeL the very best combo unless you have the new strikeB's which have added range and countermeasure bypass for the same weight.

Second of all, the D91N/CW3 rocket combination is incredibly powerful. Other small ships literally blow up after the first volley or so lands. However, the problem is in the volley landing. The stat called 'projectile speed' seems incredibly (most) important for rockets, as the rocket ship will usually die while it is firing only one or two volleys; it can't take the heat as a DestroyerX and I know all instant fleets are limited to the same ship health guidelines so it really isn't too far to suggest that the other ships can't take the heat either. Also, the range of D51N firestorm rockets is only a measly 57. When I had equipped 62 from just 2 maelstrom rockets, it was better, but in reality I don't want any instant ship to have a range less than 65 or so.

Third of all, my CS3 D90N cannon system3 idea was a bust. Simply put, the range on the cannon was far too low for the instant ship to make a difference before the health dwindled out. The cannon fire rate at legendary was amazing, and the bullets flew in pairs literally non-stop and the target was dying very quickly. Not the (waaaaait fooor iit, BOOOM!) of rockets, but chunks at a time eaten away. This leads me to think that alternating a chunk damage (D90N) would go well with a constant damage (ripper, chaingun) so that you are always constantly hitting the target. And in that scenario, a better pair is between ripper and D90N OR chaingun and ripper because ripper takes out very small damage each shot but it never pauses to fire like the other weapons. I might also try HB3 instead of CS3 to see if the small range boost is worth it.

Fourth of all, I now have plans to try a hybrid system. This is only applicable to the combo slots of Dx, D, D-ECM, Lc,Lcx, but those are well within this topic. I am going to try a chaingun/HB3 and torpT combo along with a torrent/MS3 and torpT combo. I know you can fit 2 weapons on one Dx but I want the added range because the little buggers just seem to have a tortuous time without being outside of ballistics range.

Fifth, uranium upgrade to strike missile was wellll worth it!! I could visibly see the damage uptick and my Dx can auto more 27's before repair, which seems to be the best use for this instant study so far. I would like to see if missile system does an impressive job as well towards these lil buggers, and since missiles win over cannons and rockets, this might be the best use of my uranium. (mortar not even reasonably useful in the conversation due to the weight of the effective mortar weapons)

Another concept that has been cooking in my head lately has been Mirauder, LC/x, BB/a launcher ships. Mirauder can fit 1, LC/x and BB/a can both fit 2 each. If you got to legendary and refit to launchers, I wonder how that would play out for doing 27's 34's or 40's in FM, or during raids. (I know you can't refit Mirauders, you would just have to play with Mirauder that has 1 launcher and 2 ripper 1's, no armor and MC3 if you have it, because I have D5X 33% armor)

As far as 1coin repair goes, the battlecruiser has 20% accuracy refittable, and along with countermeasure systems3 (if i ever get that), you can pump up your accuracy for phalanx1 (obtained in campaign) and anti-mortar A (also obtained in campaign). You can create a BC with 3phalanx 1 antimortar and use it as your mini-countermeasures ship after you rank it to a high level (CM ships have a hard time ranking on their own because they only receive 50% of the VXP of other ships that fire weapons), as long as you keep it in the speed range of your other ships so that you can group them together. Was thinking of making a CM3 anti-mortarA / phalanx1 Dx out of one of my legendary Dx ships once i get CM3 for the special, but BC has the acc boost to make it worhtwhile. The only other ship with that accuracy boost (phalanx has low accuracy and only fires once) is the vindicator but it is not weekly in the FM prize pool like the BC, nor in campaign. Some people use Triton's as a countermeasure ship, but that is only useful for anti-mortar because even increased range doesn't change the fact that the anti-missile phalanx only fires one per shot.

As far as RAID-repair stalkers, the idea of taking out an enemy DNX in a 65 stronghold is appealing. Someone said that you can get as many points as a 27 stronghold by doing so, even if just taking out the one that goes the furthest away from the base because 65 strongholds are very easy to find :D I would like to try out stalker with Cat3 and strike3 (don't lose acccuracy boost) along with V torps (I dont have B torps yet) for speed boost to see if it is possible to do with a researcheable hull :) Wish me luck on that one :) If seems possible but too slow, I can always go engines3 for faster speed.

INSTANT REPAIR SUBMARINES:

Predator

New Ztorps are the best second slot, with torpB as the primary weapon slot. Since I only have V at the moment, I can use those with torpT for turning speed, and the best special for Predator is Magnus Drive. The armor will stay as the one piece to get to 180; I don't really want to jack up my repair bill for .5 speed. Additionally, a starting speed of 12 compared to the slow-as-molasses stalker makes it easier to work with even on a general level. However, without a second special slot, the dive time is going to be stuck at 28 seconds, which makes batt3 refitted to R10 (or R15 now?) that much more attractive..its a guess of whether you could get there and back with speed and not being spotted OR stay underwater long enough to not be spotted. This balance is the one for all submarines, so it is something good for me to learn, but with the DN/X of lvl 65 strongholds, of which someone said they are the same points as a 27, I'm going to need to have the stealth of Magnus above the water time of batt3 because otherwise I will be shot down before they even see me...

Stalker

Tried stalker originally with Xtorps and StealthSystem3. SS3 is not as good as battery for predator,stalker,barracuda. Above that with reaper,phantom, and spectre you can get some good use out of it. But I want my sub underwater as much as possible, so the loss of time isn't worth it.

Then I just recently tried V3 armor x2, Strike3, Vtorps, and cat3 for maxed out speed. Someone mentioned you can kill one of the DN/X ships in a 65 for the same points as a 27. Couldn't pass up the opportunity, so after a 3 day wait...failure. Have a new stalker I can refit though. I can get to the ship instead of instant dying, and I can get off one volley...and then my stalker surfaces and then all else fires at it and it dies before it can get away. about 5% dmg to the enemy ship. 1.5hrs or 3 coins to repair just the one silly stalker ship. Expensive to equip V3 armor, I might downgrade back to 'raid instant spec' for 300 ship health, but keep my Vtorps as the speed does help. Of course I'll upgrade to B if/when I get those.

I recently acquired Magnus Drive so my next build will be to swap out cat3 for magnus drive and add batt3. If i refit to R4, I can get 40 seconds of water time from ol' grubby stalker, along with a nice speed of 20 if i refit speed armor to R2 :)  We shall see how this works out ;)

END ZONE
BP is a balance of weight for speed, armor, weapons, and range of weapons. Therefore, even though it doesn't seem like it, the basic draconian weapons are usually your best choice for instant fleets, all the way up to maximum upgrade. After about 4 hours of research, I discovered the best combinations for weapons, all maxed out:

LCX

(includes concussive damage in all totals)


 * Missiles

BEST:  3x StrikeL + Missile System3 + SeigeD. = 1254 ship / 2786 building

(only higher DPS is new SeigeZ missile + Laser1, but range is pathetic with no room for armor; I admit I'm surprised that putting just 1 weapon on a 4 weapon ship would be the highest DPS...and possibly the cheapest uranium cost because you only upgrade the missile instead of MS3, the missile, and the torp, 3 types of upgrades.)

''ARMOR SUGGESTION: Suggestion will be the exact same for both, as both weapon combinations are same weight. D1C + Titanium1 14mins 3 seconds repair.Couldn't get it to exact max weight, unlike the other two setups. Was 3 tons off.''

Second Best: 3x StrikeB + Missile System3 + SeigeD 

Range 90 instead of range 85 of previous setup  = 1063 ship / 2361 building


 * Rockets

BEST: 3x Firestorm S + Cluster Warheads3 + Torp Z (Explosive System3 and Splash Upgrade are less DPS for the one slot of the LCX)

= 3105 ship / 6108 building

Firestorm S is 'best in class' because of its damage per weight; the inferno rockets and seige rockets are the only higher damage, but they are not able to fill a ship; additionally, because the ranges match you can mix/match seige with firestorm at the 57 distance. Most will use second best, however, as FirestormN is easy(iest) to get, and most of the damage.

ARMOR SUGGESTIONS: D2E + Steel1 = MAX WEIGHT exactly (to the exact ton!) 14:00 minute repair

Second Best:  3x Firestorm N + Cluster Warheads3 + TorpZ

= 2439 ship / 4943 building


 * Cannons

BEST: 3x Impact R + Cannon System3 + Hardened Barrels3 (using Sea Wolf during Raid) = 1596 ship / 8626 building (!!!)

ImpactR has 49 range, which is the longest in the game, extended to 73 regularly/HB3 and 88 on Rampart/Goliath. Check out the insane building damage!!

''ARMOR SUGGESTION: DU3 and Titanium1 (makes weight EXACTLY) otherwise, D2E + DU1 = 5 tons shy. 19:26 repair OR 17:47''

Second Best: 3 Impact N + Cannon System3 + Hardened Barrels3 + Assault X (using Sea Wolf during Raid) = 2022 ship / 5785 building

Everyone can make this combo possible with time enough to R15 CS3 and R15 impactN; these items super easy to get.

Third Best: SeigeX + ImpactR + Impact R + Torp T + Auto Loader3 = 2692 ship / 9575 (!!!!!!) building

Game breaking nearly 10k (!!!) building damage, enough to LAY WASTE to your enemies. Unfortunately, it is also the MOST DIFFICULT to upgrade because you are using 4 uranium upgrades to R15 (!) instead of just 1 with the new missile (for the missile category)  Also relatively high ship damage as well, higher than the firestorm / Z combination.

PAYING FOR REPAIR
If you do pay for repair, you want to pay for the best quality repair possible, not to get shorted. Therefore, any ship with repair modifier is a better quality deal for the consumer. Additionally, any Legendary 75% maxed out ship is ALSO a better quality repair. That is why you can 'max out' instant ships to higher than instant repair, but only once they finish getting to 75. When they are @75% reload, you can pay for higher damage output from the same platform. WIth the Strikes, Firestorms, and Impacts being very similar/close damage to their assault/seige counterparts, especially with just a few uranium upgrades (and sometimes outsurpassing in DPS: ex: assault missiles are less dps than StrikeL), you can get your best worth by fitting out every last ton of your 'instant ship' to be armed to the teeth after you have maxed out the hull and put a good combination of damage on the ship first. The only exception might be your flagship, which you can make as a tank. This ship can absorb damage from all angles while the other ships fire at a further distance. However, an 'instant ship' is not likely to be your tank; you can outfit a Juggx to the teeth or even a Mauler if you don't have a Juggx to be your 'tank' and have the smaller ships firing from a distance. I'm beginning to think that overall missiles + missile system3 are the best for instant ships because there is simply not enough specials to add speed enough to race to the target to get off shots of cannons or rockets; launchers add armor which takes away instant repair; reaver chaingun and torrent are great for zombie fleets but resurrecting a zombie (click, repair 10 seconds, remove, click, repair 10 seconds, remove, etc) is incredibly annoying to me: I'd rather to just not do it. I'm really starting to lean towards BC/BCX for 67 or 70% evasion (!)  I tried to purely 'blood tank' with a mauler (70k equivalent! ship points) but even just the basic weak torps of FM torp towers in a 40 FM target were too weak, so now I'm shifting to evasion. BCX has that 70% evasion (but needs 3 D2E (which makes it 3k ship health instead of 835 ship health/1 coin fleet and R4 to reach that number); also you need to use speed3 which gets you that speedy 22 speed)  BC can be used as a anti-mort/anti-missile ship with 20% hull accuracy; hard to use both because at R5 they have different speeds. Anyways, this is just all to say that paying for Legendary 75% repair that has a repair modifier is far more effective use of coin than to spend coin elsewhere on repair.

I miss anything? :P