The best weapons for a close combat ship?

[tesco samoa]

Formations I like to use (from the default formations )

are for the combined assalt fleet Butterfly or bull.

For Planet assalt fleets I like to use the Dome formation.

less than 10 ships then arrow.

Escorting damaged ships or fleets on escort duty ( say around a planet killer, warp creator etc... ) Diamond.

The order of the ships in the fleet is very very important. Just like the weapons placement. ( I could be wrong on that but ) I am assuming that from the formations text file.

I have also created a few other formations for my combined fleets which I will be keeping to my self since the pbem players read these forums as well.