| I used them in very early game as a mil stat boosters. 1 cheap weapon, nothing else. |
That's what I use them for in every game. As soon as I've researched Space Weapons, I either use the Star Fury or makye my own and have every planet start building one as soon as its starport comes online. Also a good first thing to build on a newly conquered planet, as they keep away those pesky unescorted transports, and sometimes you can build a really cheap ship in 0 turns immediately after conquest.
Later game uses: With high-level miniaturization, weapons, defenses, and engines, a tiny hull can be a powerful warship, and a low-production planet can crank them out at a decent rate. I use them like submarines: send them raiding deep into enemy territory to take out his undefended freighters, starbases, and transports, and opportunistically forming them into wolfpacks to take down bigger prey.
Also with high-level miniaturization and engines and the advanced troop module, the tiny hull makes a great assault transport. Extremely fast to build, and it only takes 1 bil out of a planet's population when it launches, which is important on lower pop worlds. Then, at the far end, it makes your invasion force much more flexible: you can determine exactly how many bil of troops you want to use each time AND, with smaller transports, you keep more of your ships after a successful invasion.
In fact, unless I'm forced into war early in the game, I never use giant cargo hull transports anymore. When I choose my battles, it's usually after I've researched most of the miniaturization and engine techs. I design two transport ships: the Assault 1000 (1 adv. troop mod) and Assault 2000 (2 adv. troop mods), based on the tiny and small hulls, respectively. A handful of these, along with fully-researched planetary invasion and defense techs (defense techs increase your soldiering), are all you need to grab all of the planets that you can hold.
