Seeing as people are having trouble with beating the Covenant, I thought I'd write a few that help me a bit.
- Use prowlers to bring the enemy's mining factilities and stations out of fog-of-war, then from across the map, use any ship with the 'MAC' ability to snipe it from afar (and any defensive stations nearby).
- Build prowlers, lots and lots of prowlers
- Start building a large force ASAP. I build mainly frigates, led by a larger cruiser. If the covenant's ships start getting too close to your starbase, you can just send a prowler down near their base and deploy the battlegroup. Depending on how many ships you dedicate, and how much time you have to severly damage/destroy their starbase, determins whenever its a destraction or a rout for the covenant.
- Don't engage the covenant head-on, unless your forces outnumber the covenants. Rather, take them out from behind.
- Build defensive satilites (Archers, Point-defence and SMACs) around your mining factilities to better protect them.
- Use the prowler's mine ability to set up minefields to take out the waves of fighters
- In the early-game, be on guard for Covenant Picket attacks
- When engaging the covenant ships, always take out their PT's first.
- Building at least 2 SMAC platforms behind your base always helps