ship sizes , the bigger, the greater ?

[Erax]

In standard SE, larger ships are always better in combat. But there are other roles for ships besides combat : troop transport, population transport, satellite layer, minelayer, minesweeper, repair ship, supply ship, etc.

Many of these roles can be filled by destroyer-sized ships even in the late game.

I am currently trying out a multipurpose 'factory ship' design, but so far it looks like it works best as support for the specialized designs.

[LGM]

Bigger is not always better. A baseship is 40% easier to hit than a Dreadnaught in the base game files. I tend to use Dreadnaughts over Baseships because of that tohit factor and because of speed limitations. Battleships are also faster than Dreadnaughts. A baseship is a nice hull to use against Talisman ships since they will hit you automatically anyway.

However, Cruisers, Battle Cruisers, Battleships, and Dreadnaughts all have the same tohit modifers, so among that set, bigger is better, unless speed is more important than tohit modifers.

Bigger ships also take more crew and life support to build, but usually the extra component is nothing compared to building more smaller ships which means you have to build more of those and more engines anyway.

Beware of ship size with different mods though. Some mod authors differentiate to hit modifers among all size upgrades, so there are more trade offs to consider in increasing size. If a mod is using the alternate engine/movement model, than with the hull size, they may include how many engines it takes to get one movement point. In this situations, the engines for larger ships will be proportionally higher than smaller ships, whereas in the base game, you spend less on baseship engines per kiloton.

[JLS]

Originally posted by trooper:
AIC ?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">JLS? The guy who helped a little with your AI and started the speech file for your Pirates http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Originally posted by oleg:
AI Compain mod by JLS. It uses a sizeable chunk of Proportions goodies<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">PvKs design of Proportions MOD, is the best Mod by the Numbers; as such, perhaps the most realistic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

A great deal of AI Campaigns success is owed to PvKs tutorage during my involvement with Proportions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

LGM, your Post, is excellent and right on the mark http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ June 16, 2003, 18:33: Message edited by: JLS ]

[trooper]

1) Warships : When you discover a new ship size, do you systematically make your smaller hulls designs obsolete ? Is there a reason to make bigger ships escorted by small ones (except for fun ?).
The maintenance/fire power balance is better with big ships, isn't it.

2) Non-warship hulls : Are they really usefull ? a battlecruiser sized ship can make a good, large and fast transport or colony ship, or an efficient carrier or mine layer, without the limitations (speed, cargos, weapons) of specialized hulls...

[minipol]

1) I keep small ships for other tasks than battle: minelaying, minesweeping, reconnaissance, satlaying, resupply (early on), repair and so on.

2) For specialised tasks i use the non-nonwarship
hulls. Maybe i shouldn't. I don't know.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

the specialized are cheaper and faster for their size.

[oleg]

In stock SE, yes, bigger is better.
IN Proportions/AIC, I sometimes build destroyers even when i have Battleships tech.

[trooper]

AIC ?

[oleg]

Originally posted by trooper:
AIC ?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">AI Compain mod by JLS. It uses a sizeable chunk of Proportions goodies.