What should I use a Tiny ship for?

Bumb for sensor range increase..

well el crusador as faery called you i saw haha, once i have some really high tech, i use them along with huge and large ships, as a mixture, and also to fill up space in a fleet that is left over, like when you have 30/34 a huge ship wont fit that so i fill it so there is more firepower/defense..... whether it does anything? i have no idea, i like to think it does

Though it seem that they are always first to die..

I usually use them late game, when I have almost all attack and defence tech... use them with 21 ship fleets... it looks cool during the battle stage, and they're cheap. They will also mow down almost anything in your path in a fleet.

as for your original question, stick a lot of attack on them, plus one defense module

30/34

I can fit a medium ship with more firepower and more hit points in this fleet..

Use them in conjunction with military starbases. A fleet with three Medium ships would get a total of +9 attack with the first level upgrades, while six Tiny ships would get +18. Throw a point of defense on there and they become a lot more survivable thanks to the defense bonus from your starbase. It's a very cost effective way of defending yourself if you can't afford an advance fleet to intercept the enemy on their own ground.

Good Point now if I can only find room for some engines.. aha Ultimate Minturization with that wonder that has the miniturization bonus for those of us who can seem to fit anything on these little pieces of .....

I've heard that they can be used for cheap fighters which can be mass produced (100 tiny hulled fighters with two subspace cannons on each one VS 10 huge battle cruisers with a few weapons on each one). also for a cheap sensor ship in a fleet so that you don't waste space on big warships with sensor pods, and for cheap scouts. although using the small hulls will give you a little more expensive scouts, but with more available space for engines to move fast.

smjjames I gave you a suggestion on your post read it..

yea I did, to use scouts to well, scout the planets and take a look at the ships in orbit.

I sometimes use just a bare tiny hull, which costs nothing in upkeep, as an invasion blocker. Put several of them in orbit around each planet which could be in danger near your borders then even if you're lax enough to let an invasion fleet get through, it's held up for a few turns whilst you get a strike force out there to deal with the threat.

Also, if you get the Eyes of the Universe wonder, they make handy sensor boats. Just fit them with as many engines as you like, and life support if you want them to really spread out. I recommend making them as fast as possible so that a) you don't have to wait ages to get them where you want and they can outrun anything that tries to attack them. If you leave the weapons and defences off, there's no maintenance again. You only need one for each sector and you'll have perfect coverage of the map. Of course, you could do all this without the eyes of the universe, but then you'll have much less space for engines and life support.

Now were thinking scouts huh I have over 100 of those and they have no weapon or anyhing to explore at all now what do I do with them disband them and retire ever build tiny hulls forever.

I'm not sure about this, but I think you can upgrade a tiny hull to a larger hull?

even if there is no more unexplored space, the scouts are still useful for pushing back the fog of war to expand what you can see, and you made a suggestion to me to use scouts as espionage craft to look at what enemy ships have on them.

although you could upgrade the scout hull to something more specialized that you need or because of tech advances, but I don't know the situation in the game where you have 100 scouts around. unless the 100 scouts thing is a hypothetical situation.

even if there is no more unexplored space, the scouts are still useful for pushing back the fog of war to expand what you can see, and you made a suggestion to me to use scouts as espionage craft to look at what enemy ships have on them.

Sorry I don't need to reveleve the fog because I have Sensors Mark IV and the Eyes of the universe I see everything...

[quoteI'm not sure about this, but I think you can upgrade a tiny hull to a larger hull?

Does not work that way like in hearts you must follow suit..

even if there is no more unexplored space, the scouts are still useful for pushing back the fog of war to expand what you can see, and you made a suggestion to me to use scouts as espionage craft to look at what enemy ships have on them. Sorry I don't need to reveleve the fog because I have Sensors Mark IV and the Eyes of the universe I see everything...

although you could upgrade the scout hull to something more specialized that you need or because of tech advances, but I don't know the situation in the game where you have 100 scouts around. unless the 100 scouts thing is a hypothetical situation.

oh. like I said I don't know the situation in the game, but sounds like its in mid or late game, so you could probably make a specialized tiny hull and upgrade. or you could make them into really weak and crappy fighters and sell them to your enemies, and then go to war with them while they are still burdened with the crappy ships

I've also had my own idea to use tiny hulls with shields to use in a fleet or in orbit and act as decoys so that the enemy will shoot at the wrong target while the real, weapon laden, ship fires on the enemy. don't know if it would work and I haven't had the chance to try it in the demo.

burdened with the crappy ships

aren't they always burdoned with crappy ships...

Two best uses I have found:
Early in the game, get Laser II and Impulse tech. This fits on a tiny hull without any Miniaturation tech! A cheap ship with 1 atk, 4 moves. This also helps bulk up military strength, because the computer just counts ships in version 1.1. This tiny ship counts the same as a large ship when the rating is calculated. This ships are still useful into the midgame to stop blind transport rushes or use as pickets or to round out fleets to use up logistic points.

Late in the game, after about 4 levels of minaturization, an advanced troop module fits on a tiny hull. These make the cheapest troop transports and are ideal for tiny planets that have one factory. With hyperwarp, they can move 13, fast enough for most purposes, though pale in comparison to the 25 to 40 move cargo transport hulls available late game. The fast transports cost double or trip the production though.

burdened with the crappy ships aren't they always burdoned with crappy ships...

hehe, yea, but they'd be burdened with even more crappy ships its just something funny I thought that you could try.

Hi!

What should I use a Tiny ship for?

I used them in very early game as a mil stat boosters. 1 cheap weapon, nothing else. They stayed in orbit all the time for weapon boost (attack 2 instead 1). But recently I switched to cargo hull with 3 cheap and different type weapons. Saves cost for one hull.

Late game those tinies moved out for sensor range increase.
BR, Iztok

Calculate the following ratios for tiny,small,medium.large, huge hull sizes

1) Hull space/ Cost - Useful for cost efficency
2) Hull space/ logistics - Useful for fleet efficiency - The maximum firepower I can squeeze into a fleet given X logistics
3) Hit point/Cost
4) Hit point/Logistics.

1) Space/cost ratios from tiny to huge are 0.46,0.47,0.48,0.50,0.50.

You get slightly more bang for buck when using bigger hulls. However, given that component size varies with hull size, this isn't quite a win for the bigger hulss.

3) Hitpoint/cost ratios from tiny to huge are 0.17,0.18,0.20,0.27,0.31

For the same cost, you get slightly more Hitpoint by building larger hulls.

2) Space/logistics ratios from tiny to huge are 8.00,8.67,9.50, 9.17 ,10.00

A strange dip at the large hull... Seems to imply that a fleet of medium ships might be better than large ones..

Generally speaking though except when comparing medium to large,fleets made up of bigger hulls, have higher total space. However, the comment about larger component size is still relevant. Another gain a fleet of fewer but bigger ships has over a fleet of numerous but smaller ships is that the former requires less raw engines.

Of course, typically your logistics ability isn't some multiple of the hull size, so at times, smaller hulls might be better if you want to use up every logsitics ability. E.g If you have a logistics ability of 12, you can have a fleet of 3 medium but only 1 large. This will give you more total space, and almost equal total hit points if you opt for the former.

Also fleets made up of smaller but more numerous ships can divide their forces....

4) Hitpoint /logistics ratios from tiny to huge are 3.00,3.33,4.00,5.00,6.25

So again, assuming maximising of logistics ability, a fleet made of larger hulls will have more hit point then one made of smaller hulls using the same logistics.

Other considerations :

One difference of course is that a fleet of small but numerous fleets even given the same total hitpoints, suffers attriction more quickly, and loses a porportion of its firepower faster.

On the other hand, the less numerous ships destory enemy ships at a slower rate. E.g A fleet made of one Huge ship with attack 200 can at best destory one ship per turn, while a fleet of 5 smaller ships that have 40 attack each, can in theory take down 4 ships per turn.

Another advantage is that a fleet of smaller ships can split up.

This can be significant, if you attack AI planets protected by a ton of ships indidivually (no orbital defender or whatever that allows ships to band), and you have one huge ship with low speed. In the worse case scenario (unlikely though), a huge ship with 1 speed, can kill only one defender each turn, while the same fleet made up of say 2 medium, can split up from the fleet, and each makes a seperate attack destroying two.

Once the tech tree is completed, my tiny hulls get 1-2 excellent weapons and 1-2 drives, depending on the miniaturization available to me. A swarm of these (can you say 20-25 ships?) wins most battles, and when some of them are lost - well, they're easy to replace.

I agree. with 2 hyperwarp 3s and eyes of the universe you always get first strike and therefore never lose ships. My high level tiny hulls often end up with more hp than standard huge hulls after cleaning up half a huge galaxy.

Mid-game in my last effort, I used tiny hulls in fleets with 1 Large hulled ship per fleet. So there may be 12 tiny ships and one large. More, obviously, with logistics.

The reason for this? Well, hmm, it looks fantastic in the battle viewer! It just "looks" like a Carrier ship and launched fighters when the battle starts. I could do this with small hulls too and get better stats but its not quite the same visual effect. I also name all the large ships since there is only like 6 of them, something I dont normally do in the game.

The tiny hulls are mostly weapons and later also Def if tech allows. Primarily damage. The Large hull packs more punch with at least 2 weapon types (for those awkward moments), a mid to high Def value and then some sensors.

But I dont always do this! I could also build only the large and medium hulls and pack full on weapons and engines etc but I dont play that way. Next game I might. I usually do something completely different each time.

They can be usefull..

Actually, I mostly use smaller ships.

I make strike forces of heavy fighters (nano rippers and disruptors with those 6 points shields) that simply tear the enemy to shreads