I need advice....

[Starhawk]

Hmmm I didn't know about the minefield thing thanks for telling me, that'll help me a great deal when I get the full Version of the game.

Now since i am asking questions of all you grizzled veterans I was wondering.

I have heard that escorts become useless the second you get destroyers and that frigates become useless when cruisers come about.

The question I have is, just how long is the usable lifespan of escorts frigates and destroyers. And for that matter will you even have light cruisers or cruisers in the end of the game or will they all be useless too?

And is that even true about escorts frigates and destroyers becoming useless that quickly?

Really thinking about it I thought frigates could at least be usefull as "missile boats" during the later stages of the game.

[ December 04, 2003, 02:10: Message edited by: Starhawk ]

[Fyron]

Take a look at weapon mounts. Light Cruisers have weapons that are 33% more powerful right off the bat (assuming you use the mount ). This is what allows them to so easily overpower anything smaller. Battleships have weapon mounts that make their weapons 50% more powerful than those of a Destroyer, or 28% more powerful than those of any Cruiser. This makes bigger ships much more powerful by default. That, and ships do not start getting slower in combat until Dreadnoughts, and just 1 speed slower on the game map with Battleships. Why ever use small ships when much more powerful ones are available?

Also, the Escort is a horrible hull for a warship. 60% of its space is used up just for C&C and engines! Add CS and ECM, that uses up 73% of the space! On a LC, those comps take up only 27.5% of the hull. Bigger ship hulls are in general much more efficient than small hulls (save Cruisers vs. Light Crusier, which is just slightly more efficient; and possibly the Baseship if speed is important, though that is not an issue of effeciency).

[Starhawk]

Well what I meant was the destroyer has that 20% harder to hit thing going for it, as well as it's far cheaper and easier to produce then a cruiser.

I figured in a massed fleet action a good squadron of destroyers could be usefull for torpedo runs while the big ships pour on the heavy guns.

[Wardad]

I do not build Escorts. A transport with weapons is more effective and can be usefull for a long time.

[Fyron]

In massed fleet combats, you are better off doing significantly more damage via mounts rather than having that small ECM bonus of the small ship hulls.

[Starhawk]

Well as to you Wardad I'd prefer an escort or just waiting the two months for frigates, then to arming a transport ship for combat. I prefer loading out my transport ships for maximum cargo storage because of the fact that eventually I'll get troops and want these ships to be able to deploy them.

Frigates don't take that long to research so I usually get them rather quickly but when I am trying to research something else I make due with escorts.

But I have managed to take out frigates with Escorts so it all depends on the way you arm them .

[ December 04, 2003, 05:52: Message edited by: Starhawk ]

[Nocturnal]

I use small ships only as PD interceptors - early in the game I make even my missile boats use larger hulls because of space efficiency (but of course I don't give them combat scanners or much other defenses.) Think about it, between an escort and a frigate you can get 50% more space for another pair of missiles pushed around by the same engines. The only thing to worry about is that if an enemy takes down one of your ships, you're out that much more firepower. But you still can field more firepower with the same resource investment if you play your cards right, so bigger is very often better. Late in the game I don't use missiles because large "tank-like" ships with huge guns and strong defenses can overpower anything using missiles (so can fighters if the enemy uses missiles with no point-defense cover.)

Many players specialize their ships, so you won't see a repair or supply ship with weapons very often, for example. Some will specialize their warships to work at a certain range for example. I prefer most of my warships to be effective at any range the enemy chooses to fight, so I tend to give them both long and short range weapons. Some will use troop transports with heavy defenses. With cargo III technology, devoting 80-100 kT on a large warship to cargo bays can allow you to carry ground troops into battle without worrying about defending transports. Better yet, I have an "armored dropship" design (large transport hull) that can survive running through most weapons platform defenses to unload its troops without damaging the planet. I also specialized a "meatshield" ship which is pretty much a giant floating gob of organic armor with engines to run ahead and absorb enemy fire. That was pretty much just for fun.

You should be aware that in strategic combat, PD ships will run away if they don't have at least one main gun (I'm pretty sure that's why it happens) and you need to play with their strategy a bit to make them hunt down the fighters and missiles before anything else and cover your other ships. This is a good example of specialization that will save you room on your larger ships for more guns.

[ December 04, 2003, 13:23: Message edited by: Nocturnal ]