Favorite Ship Designs

[Todd248]

I've found the early/mid game to be completely boring. There is no challenge. Even on the highest difficulty level it is very easy to outrace the AI in research. I've played several games and they are usually over by turn 150. I'd much rather play a game with maxed tech and get a chance to use some of the cooler components. I've found the AI to be much harder to beat when they have max'd tech.

[dmm]

When starting with low tech, here's how to get a good early fleet:

1) Research armor to level III.
2) Make large numbers of escorts with nothing but required stuff, 6 engines, and armor.
3) In battle, use them as rammers.
4) A few ships with DUCs will act as lures for AI fire, causing unarmed rammers to be ignored.
5) If you don't have armor yet, use transports or even colony ships.

So far, this fleet is only good for defense. So,

6) Research frigate and repair, and make some repair ships to accompany your hordes of ramming escorts.
7) Start building ramming frigates with a weapon or two for attacking planets.

This early strategy should buy you time to research some good long-term stuff, like boarding parties, troops, special racial techs, proper weapons, etc.

[Sinapus]

Light cruiser, 2 Large-mount DU V cannons, 1 large-mount torpedo weapon. Two shields, six engines, Combat sensors, ecm and multiplex tracking. Armor sometimes, other times a supply storage unit. I group them together and mob the enemy.

Of course, since I use the EA bitmap set this ends up being my own little White Star Fleet.

I do build heavier ships, but I update these LCs as often as I can and use them to draw fire. The turbine formation is pretty good for them in tactical mode. Had twelve sitting on one of those double warp points that sometimes appear on cluster quadrants and found them neatly surrounding the enemy whenever they came through one of the warp points. Mayhem ensued as even ships with temporal weapons got nailed before they could use those darn shield/armor-skipping weapons. Muahaahhahahah.

[Resident Alien]

Here are some ship designs from a game I played recently. Followed by the research path I used to get the techs, starting MEDIUM tech.

Ship Types (at year 2404.9)
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Attack Light Cruiser

Bridge, Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, 1 x supply storage, 2 x shield III, Combat Sensor II, ECM II, Point Defense II, 3 x Large Mount Phased Polron V, Stealth Armour I

Attack Cruiser

Bridge, 2 x Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, 1 x supply storage, 3 x shield III, Combat Sensor II, ECM II, Point Defense II, 4 x Large Mount Phased Polron V, Stealth Armour I

Light Carrier (capacity 94 small fighters)

Bridge, Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, 1 x supply storage, shield II, combat sensor II, ecm II, point defense II, 2 x cargo II, 17 x fighter bays.

Fleet Support / Anti Missile Ship / LC

Bridge, Life support/Crew quaters, 6 x engines, 1 x stealth armour I, 2 x shields III, combat sensor II, ECM II, 7 x point defense II, 1 x phased poloron beam V

Fleet Support / Repair / LC

Bridge, Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, Repair I, 4 x supply storage, 4 x solar collector II

Fleet Support / Tanker / LC

Bridge, Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, 10 x supply storage, 5 x solar collector II

Deep Probe / Cruiser / Unlimited Exploration, to boldly go where nobody has gone before......

Bridge, 2 x Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, 10 x supply storage, 8 x solar collector II, stealth armour

Research Sequence in detail: MEDIUM start tech
----------------------------
From 2400.1 to 2403.5:

Ship size FG, Armour, Proj Wep 2, Shield, Point Defense, Proj Wep 3, Ship size DS, Stellar Harnessing, Proj Wep 4, Ship size LC, Proj Wep 5, Sensor, Combat Support, Shield, Armour 2, Stellar Harnessing, Applied Intel, Fighter, Propulsion, Repair, Physics 2, Religeous Study, Ship Size CR, Phased Poleron to 4, Religeous Tech.

From 2403.5 to 2404.9:

Shield, Sensor, Combat Support, Point Defense, Phased Poleron 5, Propulsion, to Armour 4 (for stealth), Ice Colony (in progress....)