I have a few thoughts about this topic, so I'll start with how I design ships. I do usually like building larger hulled ships, but I've found that small/tiny ships can be very useful in a 'supported defense' setup. If you intend for your fighters to just operate in the vicinity of your military bases, you can pass on giving them any kind of sensors, support mods, and possibly any engines, as they will always be within the 'shadow' of your military base. Here, each ship gets the bonuses your base provides, and with a potential for +16 to each attack type per ship, the more hulls you can manage, the better. Add in the benefit of having a subspace wake/inverse tractor beam, and you really don't need weapons on these short range fighters, letting you pack in a lot of weapons/armor on your 'fighters'. Then, just combine them into the largest fleets your logistics will allow and have fun. (Mind you, I haven't fully tested this, but it seems quite feasible.) Obviously, in areas where I don't intend to have the support of large, well-equipped military starbases, I will tend towards larger hulls, which are more robust when operating independently.

Secondly, I've been thinking about this for some time now, and I think that one major reason we don't see more variety in people's selection of hull sizes is that there is no consideration of accuracy in combat. The attack and defense rolls work the same regardless of whether the target ship is tiny or huge. Obviously, introducing an entirely new variable into combat is not really desirable at this point, but there is a way to simulate this factor in combat. By applying a defense modifier based on hull type, you could simulate the fact that smaller ships are harder to hit and less likely to take large damage, and at the same time simulate that larger ships need more defensive components to protect their larger bulk.

Implementing such a modifier might be a good idea for a minor mod, but I really lack the programming ability to make this happen. Maybe it already has and I'm just not aware of this, or maybe the programming doesn't support such an option of adding a modifier based on hull size. Still, if anyone's interested in the idea, I'd be glad to post my thoughts on such a thing.

Playing dreadlords mostly on gigantic galaxy and though AI
In the early days: mixed research of bonus techs (+X social production,...) and speed techs (surely ion and normally impulse). During that period the speediest cargohulled ships have my preference (colony,scout,constructor) and a cartonboard type of ship (cargohulled, tons of weaponry but no engines) as it has just to be a mean sitting duck.

Early fighters: medium sized with 2-3 engines, armed to the teeth with spare defence.
(speed 8-15)
When huge hulled come available, that size comes my favorite for the planets that are able to build it in a reasonable time. Mostly 20-30 parsecs speed, wellarmed.
Early on I skip on defence since it also increases maintenance. Later optional.
Mid-late game: low production/new planets: medium fighter, transports, constructors
(up to 49 parsecs, 2 billion troops/transport), lurkers (cargohulled, 1 damage weapon, extremely speedy)
High production planets: transports, huge ships.
The medums can pack quite a punch when fleeted, the huge can kill of all starbases relatively unharmed behind the enemy lines.
In a sparse world there are also military starbases to extend the range.

No speed= no initiative= extremely boring play in gigantic

edit: access denied

Fleets are mixed on speed, usually hullsize since the larger hulls tend to have some more engines in place.

There are a lot of factors for ships. This is really an interesting read.

I generally play on smaller maps, so things like lifesupport don't matter. In my current game, I took out the Krynn using tiny hulls. It really just depends on what you are facing at the time and what your abilities are.

In my example, I could produce tiny hulls faster with the same damage potential as the Krynn's small hulls, giving me an edge.

Now I'm at war with the Altarians, who are throwing around medium hulls, so I'm going to have to adopt a new ship line to deal with them.

ps, For some reason, this thread Totally reminded me of the shipbuilding in MOO2, anyone remember the invincible ship?

Man, the tie rules sucks. Way too ripe for exploitation.

Different ship designs for different purposes.

I never build Huge ships except to dominate ship to ship combat. If your purpose is to destroy enemy fleets, you want a big nasty ship with plenty of the correct defense type, or else only weapons and engines. For this purpose, you build as large as your tech will allow. You want lots of engines on this one - it helps it to destroy as many fleets as possible.


For garrison duty, I build only Small and Tiny ships. Sometimes, you can get away with using a Cargo Hull with weapons as garrison, but some AIs will build Transport Ships with weapons, too, so it pays to have a decent garrison Fighter. The purpose of a Garrison Fighter is simply to preempt any Transport from invading without a fight. You want one early, but two or three later on to fight off potentially large numbers of armed Transports. You want Small and Tiny Hulls so that garrisoning your entire empire won't break the bank. It's nice to have a hammer of a Starship to go around taking names, even 20 of them, but you can't always afford that.

These Fighters also serve alternative functions. Banded together (as when you're facing an unstoppable invading fleet and have to evac Fighters) and placed in the vicinity of a defensive Military Starbase, they can offer a stiff enough resistance to slow or even stop invasion. Use one defense module and one engine of your best kind and get weapons for the rest.

Medium Hulls are the workhorse of the fleets (for my games anyway). They arrive early and serve as capital ships early on. Once larger ships arrive, they serve to stiffen Garrison forces on a system-wide basis. Whereas you garrison Fighter one or two to a planet, systems with 3 or 4 valuable planets, or in strategic locations can be worth a fleet of Mediums. Frigate-purpose Mediums later in the game serve one purpose: raiding. Their purpose is to take out undefended Starbases and Resources as well as clear the way for invading Transports. There's no point tying up your Dreadnaught for a chore lesser ships can handle. If the Planet or System doesn't house a significant enemy fleet, your Frigates should be able to handle the job. Together with Fighters, Frigates can lay waste rapidly to enemy trade routes and undefended asteroids, resources, and starbases.

Garrison Mediums take a variety of formats depending on the game state, but Frigate-class Mediums generally use two of your best Engines, and a defense-based ship design. The point here is that if one of these ships can't take out a Starbase, then a fleet of attack-based designs would be too expensive for the purpose anyhow. Send your Dreadnaughts for those targets.

Finally, the purpose of Large Ships is to serve as capitals until Huges come along, and then thereafter they serve as the bulk of your standing fleets. Having a bunch of Huges is great, but having a sizable number of Larges is easier to maintain, cheaper to upgrade, and you can customize your firepower spread better. Fleets of ultra-fast Larges can be retrofitted in a jiffy to serve as Heavy Frigates in case your Mediums aren't cutting it.