New Player......

Points to ponder:

1) NAC fleet ->

Jack of all trades...... Personally I think the CE, CH, BC
suck...
Generally you need to tweak those 3 designs and add them into a reasonable
fleet mix to do well. So I'd suggest ESU as sort of the tough thugs with big
sticks approach. Also don't over look the joys of SML's. They're hard to get
used to... but once you're there its quite a bit o'fun. Check out the FSE CH,
and Roma BB.... both really good missle boats (the FSE Ch being my
favorite)... although the

NSL
        Waldburg/M is a good sml/cost boat... but too slow for rapid
strike missions.

2) DIY fleets ->

Stick to FB1 weapons systems (Although feel free to throw in needle beams).
The mines, wave gun, nova cannons just seem not to be costed balanced very
well (Wave guns are covered in More Thrust). But other then that a well chosen
FB1 fleet should be able to give any DIY

fleet a run for its money if the admiral is on his toes. Typically what we do
is we allow players to design a nations ships and say that if

you use
        this nation... you have to commite to the next 3-4 battles using

only those ships. That way, you have to think about more varied battle
        situations ect...  After a nation has completed 3-4 battles,
then we approve of them and they go in our notebook of valid ship designs...
Usually by then we've found a tactic against them ect....

3) Fleet Size ->

        I'm a fan for 1500 - 2500 pt fleets / side... You can usually
put out
        a couple capitals and a mix of cruisers/escorts to make things
interesting. When you start climbing in points with DIY then you end up
        with a couple huge ships/side....  So, I'd recomend doing some
small
        battles.... aka 500-600 pt range.  Personally 2 CL's, 3 FF's
make a
        pretty cool/fast battle wing (NAC baby - the huron rocks!)  then
when you play a couple battles like that interspereced with bigger point ones
it tends to make you value escorts more then when you start

playing large point value games (I'd like to thank the list members who kept
        talking about escorts/crusiers/~1000 pts< games for that joy)

Have fun......
Chuck