Arbalest Strategy

As the ingame description says, the Arbalest is the balanced ship of the roster. The best word to describe the Arbalest is efficient. Compared to the Marauder starting equipment cards, Arbalest cards tend to pack more value into each card for the same cost, with the drawback of having worse cooldowns. Typical play pattern of the Arbalest is to use the Laser's to knock out one of the enemy's weapon systems, while blocking the other with hit's shield cards. However, which equipment to target first can vary depending on the specific enemy being faced.

Starting power tip: Most early combats do not require you to block more than twice per combat. Barrier is the only card in the starting Arbalest deck that requires B. This means you can immediately change the default power setup to be 4R, 2G, 0B. Doing so will allow you to play 2 Pulse Laser cards immediately on the first turn if you draw them, and every 3 turns, you will be able to play an additional laser card. You can divert power to B after you've blocked once or twice with Barrier. As of the current early access, due to the insanely low cost of the Resource crew member power, you can simply rely on the +2 all resources to power to produce B required for blocking.

Arbalest Default Equipment Cards

Pulse Laser Mk II

Laser Pulse (3R, 4 precision damage, 3 turn cd) is the basic Laser card. Compared to the demo, it has significantly worse damage throughput having the cooldown raised from 2 turns to 3. 4 precise damage for 3R is an ok rate early, and is shared by many other Laser cards. As a general rule of thumb, 3 basic Laser cards will break a 12 HP equipment, a common breakpoint.
Catalyst Pulse (2R2G, 4 damage, +1 pulse damage, 4 turn CD) is now 1R cheaper, but has 4 turn CD. This means if you fired Catalyst Pulse, Laser Pulse x2 to break an equipment, the Catalyst Pulse will not return in time to break the equipment the turn it's finished repairing. So the starting deck no longer locks down a piece of equipment without additional drafts.
The high cooldown of Catalyst Pulse and Laser Pulse means you often want to draft another attack card early so that you can lockdown any equipment every time it finishes repairing. You especially want more attack cards if your secondary weapon does not offer a good rate for damage, otherwise you'll be facing down too many dead turns with no damage cards to play.
Paired Pulse is arguably the best damage card for the Arbalest’s starting laser. 3x2 for 4R1G is a good cost, and it gets double the bonus damage from Catalyst Pulse, and augments like Weapon Stabilizer (+1 damage to attacks from this weapon) and is downright vicious with Overload (3rd laser attack this turn deals +3 damage). Overload Paired Pulse can crack a full 12 HP system by itself. The only real drawback to Paired Pulse is Elites with a -2 Laser damage modifier, which tanks Paired Pulse's damage.
Quick Laser (3 damage, 2R, 2 turn cd) is now available on the starter Pulse Laser, and the cost got buffed from 2R1G to 2R. The low cooldown and cooldown reduction it grants to the next attack fired makes it an excellent way to compensate for the increased cooldown of Arbalest's starting Laser attacks. 3 damage is a pretty significant drawback though, without Catalyst Pulse to boost the damage, Quick Pulse + 2 basic Laser attacks will fail to crack a 12 HP system. Becomes significantly better the more + damage you find, and can often outright replace Laser Pulse midgame.
Heavy Pulse (5R2G for 8 damage, 4 turn CD) is an alternative to Paired Pulse. While it doesn't really offer a better rate than playing 2 Laser Pulse and scales worse than Paired Pulse backed by +damage, combining all the damage into one shot does have some specific advantages. It's one of the few Laser attacks not crippled by Elites -2 Laser damage effect, and can deal 12 damage in one card boosted by the +50% damage morale ability. One copy is often welcome in most Arbalest decks.