Does size really matter ?

[trooper]

Mmm... not exactly what you could think of...

I was wondering if, in order to have more powerful fleets than the opponents, it was wiser to build huge ships (and then developing ship construction tech in priority ) or to have high level weapons. Surely the better is to have a mix of the two : reaching a cruiser level construction tech, and then optimizing weaponery ?

[Rambie]

This all depends on your style of play, your racial traits, etc.

You have to look at your enemy ships design, look for weeknesses, then decide on a size and weapon loadout for your ships.

[Wanderer]

Well, it's all down to personal preference isn't it? Even if someone sits down and works out which set of techs give the 'most powerful' ships for the smallest amount of research, everyone will handle this differently.

You have to weigh up what to research first in terms of vehicle size, speed, attack (weapons & sensors) and defence (ecm, armour & shields). As in real life, if you keep these four balanced you will probably have an advantage over someone who has concentrated too heavily on one or the other, but not necessarily.

The classic is to research very big, powerful guns only to realise you can't hit the enemy, having not yet got round to researching combat sensors.

[Arkcon]

Opinion: Do not be more than 1 hull size behind the enemy. It is hard to put enough shields and armor on a destroyer to survive the amount of guns from a few battleships.

[Gandalph]

I recently had a battle in a PBW game where I had 17 LC's and my enemy had 38 BC's and BB's. My LC's defensive bonuses seriously outwieghed his BC's and BB's offensive bonuses. The 2 weapons I could fit on my LC's hit every shot, his ships weapons hit 1 in 15 shots. His fleet was turned to space dust and I had moderate damage to 4 ships. The moral here is, size is not as important as the ability to hit and not be hit.

[Fyron]

I normally research ECM and Sensors 2 before getting things like Cruisers or PPBs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[couslee]

"The classic is to research very big, powerful guns only to realise you can't hit the enemy, having not yet got round to researching combat sensors."

Yup. that was me in my current game. his (a neutral at that) one ship bLasted my entire fleet. and to add insult to injury, he sustained zero damage, as the few shots that did get through were not enough to pass the shields he had. I was http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by couslee:
"The classic is to research very big, powerful guns only to realise you can't hit the enemy, having not yet got round to researching combat sensors."
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh that happens to me sooooo often. Especially vs TDM Modpack AI's they take defensiveness charateristics. Real tough to crack.

[couslee]

arg. credit where credit is due. only the faces were in my post, the original quote was Wander's