The mixing colours is just a small bonus, not really something you need to "build around". There are a lot of ways to build it, but the paint is mostly just an incidental bonus that you use occasionally when you just need a bit more power in a round or need colours that you don't have, not something that you really consider while choosing which units to use.

If you get the chance, I think some of the best units for that ship are the common one that has sum: 5 generate a 4 point energy (especially if you can combo it with the other common unit that gives the left-most card in your hand +1 point whenever you generate an energy, as it lets you basically just load it with 5 energy for free since it will generate 4 energy and increase a 4 energy to 5 energy) and the unit that has use: gain 3 strength and sum 6/tricolour activates the use ability (while in a vacuum that unit isn't especially strong, it synergizes with basically everything and you'll rarely be disappointed to have it - it becomes especially strong if you get the units/artifacts with effects that trigger when you have 0 uses left, as the tricolour/sum effects are actually counting as triggering a use effect on it, so it can trigger the "0 uses left" effects many times per turn instead of just once per fight).

Lyre + any unit that loses power is also obviously really strong as it lets you trigger lyre every turn, the legendary unit that gains power every time any other unit changes power is almost always good (it can also sometimes work especially well with that other unit that gains 2 temporary power every time energy in your hand changes power/colour), and a few other things.

Jammer combos can be pretty good too. If you can find the self jammer that applies Double Strength to all units in a row and then any support unit that will load it with energy (since jammer only disallows energy from the hand), you can do huge amounts of damage very quickly.

asdf and Delta have great points; treat the paint initially as a bonus to help plug into units you otherwise couldn't, and then look at what sort of unit synergies (tricolor, sum, etc) you seem to be getting and try to work around them. Later on you can use the paints to guarantee a tricolor effects as well if you're running it. It may take a couple runs, but I'm sure you'll find it has some excellent units to work around and you'll get a solid victory soon!

asdf mentioned Weakening Core which is a great common attack unit; putting in 5 damage and getting energy back is a great trade and has some great combos (like with the Tracks or D20 support units, also common). I also like Revolver Core which loads tricolor energy into itself for six turns, great passive and combo attack unit.

On the rare side of things, there are several great attack units that boost themselves up quite easily (Blue Crystal, Charging Core, Puzzle, High-Point Compass), and some great support units that can give big boosts to your energy generation/usage (Mimic Lens, Increment Device, Twin Stars, Blue Flower Device).

For Legendaries, there's a lot of great ones to pick from; very few mediocre choices.

Overall I think the Spectre has a lot of good unit choices and some strong synergistic options, and the paint system can help guarantee you a couple turns with no "misses" on the energy color, or can be used to power up a build.

It also has some hilariously overpowered combos, mostly with the legendary "The King" attack unit (Not an optimal setup to take 0 damage, but stacking that much strength in one lane is too much fun to pass up):
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3470557698

I have to say I find this ship to have the weakest systems of all. The weapons are underwhelming (with a few exceptions) and so are the supportunits. The idea of the ship with it`s colours is great, though.

Polls on the game's discord, consistently show it to be the strongest of the three

Originally posted by Game Familiar:

Polls on the game's discord, consistently show it to be the strongest of the three

? How? With both other ships I was able to create ships that killed the opposition turn 1 or 2 basicly without doing anything but get a little lucky with range. With the Spectre I have to actually work for every win in every combat. With the second ship you can create ships where you dont have to assign a single die to steamroll (almost) every opponent, the third ship needs constant micro management.
I`m not say one is better gameplay then the other, but for me it is quiet obvious which ship is stronger.

Originally posted by r-cane:

Originally posted by Game Familiar:

Polls on the game's discord, consistently show it to be the strongest of the three

? How? With both other ships I was able to create ships that killed the opposition turn 1 or 2 basicly without doing anything but get a little lucky with range. With the Spectre I have to actually work for every win in every combat. With the second ship you can create ships where you dont have to assign a single die to steamroll (almost) every opponent, the third ship needs constant micro management.
I`m not say one is better gameplay then the other, but for me it is quiet obvious which ship is stronger.

You can do the same type of builds in Spectra, as well as have low rolls and actually to think on the other ships

The ship parts are ship specific, so for example making a ship that is just fillled with autofilling parts that can easily get 60+ strength each round with no dice luck included is something that I have no idea how you would achieve that with the spectras parts.

Spectra can kind of auto with Corrosion Device / Signal Antennae / as many Maze Cores as you can find

Here's an example Spectra build. Of the 4 ships I have (There's at least 1 pilot with a 12 slot ship), it generates the largest damage numbers. But I didn't go winning the Boss Battles with it yet.
With Greed, you can gather a much larger module selection to experiment with.
This build is a weird synergy stack at least 3 different ways. Load tri-color energy +10 -> boost strength +5 on front weapons; Load central weapon with 1s (or whatever), Powers +1 lower right weapon. "USE" weapons auto-generate energy for the top weapon most turns, which frees up use elsewhere. Generating a White Energy also paints it Blue, which helps with #1.
https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/11274615777728010492/5760EC0C04AD5AB1C5304A15F3FFB58C5EEF84C9/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
Here's the seed HCBCYUWG-0R0L082H

So yeah.
1) Use multiple synergy where appropriate.
2) Treasure can make a huge difference.
3) Some upgrades and modifications are much stronger than they appear. Some actually look detrimental.

Originally posted by Grimelord82:

Here's an example Spectra build. Of the 4 ships I have (There's at least 1 pilot with a 12 slot ship), it generates the largest damage numbers. But I didn't go winning the Boss Battles with it yet.
With Greed, you can gather a much larger module selection to experiment with.
This build is a weird synergy stack at least 3 different ways. Load tri-color energy +10 -> boost strength +5 on front weapons; Load central weapon with 1s (or whatever), Powers +1 lower right weapon. "USE" weapons auto-generate energy for the top weapon most turns, which frees up use elsewhere. Generating a White Energy also paints it Blue, which helps with #1.
https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/11274615777728010492/5760EC0C04AD5AB1C5304A15F3FFB58C5EEF84C9/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
Here's the seed HCBCYUWG-0R0L082H

So yeah.
1) Use multiple synergy where appropriate.
2) Treasure can make a huge difference.
3) Some upgrades and modifications are much stronger than they appear. Some actually look detrimental.

Sorry, but that just proofed my point. It does less damage in a whole turn, then other ships can do in each lane. My current record right now, is 527 a turn, 243 in a single lane. And 309 on auto without having to use more then 1 die per turn. All those achived with the spacewalker in different builds.
That`s something I haven`t even remotely seen on the spectra.

I've hit 600+ on Spectra single lane
https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/17764074813605138226/F3AC43CD15B5842ABA3D88345FF34C439A280BBF/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
King + Calculator + Signal Antennae. Could have gotten higher if I also had White Star. Paint and Extra Slots makes Calculator Tricolor easy to trigger. My main issue is Calculator and King are decent(?) but not great on their own. Like for calculator there are literally 5 sum units in all of Spectra, and two are legendary (Chain Reaction and King) and the other three are meh energy creation (Weakening Core, Reassembly Device, and Twin Stars)

Originally posted by Delta:

I've hit 600+ on Spectra single lane
https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/17764074813605138226/F3AC43CD15B5842ABA3D88345FF34C439A280BBF/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
King + Calculator + Signal Antennae. Could have gotten higher if I also had White Star. Paint and Extra Slots makes Calculator Tricolor easy to trigger.

Now THAT is impressive. Dont know what those parts do, but will check them out. A bit risky though if basicly you only attack high in one lane. How did you mittigate the damage in the other two when they only produce 20 combined?

Originally posted by Delta:

My main issue is Calculator and King are decent(?) but not great on their own. Like for calculator there are literally 5 sum units in all of Spectra, and two are legendary (Chain Reaction and King) and the other three are meh energy creation (Weakening Core, Reassembly Device, and Twin Stars)

Well, doesn`t sound great, but there is luck involved in all the ships. Maybe some appropriate hero abilities can mittigate that.

Originally posted by r-cane:

Now THAT is impressive. Dont know what those parts do, but will check them out. A bit risky though if basicly you only attack high in one lane. How did you mittigate the damage in the other two when they only produce 20 combined?

That was just for final and boss battles because I wanted to see how far I could push it. Leading up to that I was mostly doing Decay Core + Lyre + Sync Core To get upto about 30 in the side lanes and settle for "just" 80 to 120 in the King Lane

Yeah, the King and Calculator along with some other pieces can get really silly numbers. Going all in on one lane isn't optimal, but when the stars align, it's a lot fun to see how far you can push it.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3470557698