I have two types of freighters.

1. Unarmed, for planets close to my home planet.

2. Armed with missiles, for planets a long ways away. Also, as many sensors as possible.

The hp stays the same but at least if I see an attack coming, I can attack them and possibly destroy them.

Yup, totally undefendable and unfleetable.

I have one kind of freighter, too (actually a large hull). I find them very useful. I go to the shipyard and put as many engines on a large hull (1 HP) that I can, with just enough room for a weapon. I call it my Fast Troop Interceptor. That way I can fly half way across the galaxy (exaggerating a bit, lol) to intercept an unarmed troop transport that is getting ready to invade one of my planets.

Cheers,

Helo

Thank you Helo! You saved one of my planets! I used your idea(yours and yours only idea, I won't take responsibility for it). Now I don't have to worry about Invasions from the Drath anymore. The Iconians always have fighters occumpaning their troop transports.

I'm still partial to large hulled battle ships. One of my creations can destroy an entire fleet of fighters or defenders.
But they're slow. With fast freighters, you could go anywhere almost instantly. With a fleet of fast freighters, you could go on long range destruction campaigns and be back by dinner time. You would have to be like a boomerang though, attack, return home, attack, return home. That way no one could destroy them.

I'm still partial to large hulled battle ships. One of my creations can destroy an entire fleet of fighters or defenders. But they're slow. With fast freighters, you could go anywhere almost instantly. With a fleet of fast freighters, you could go on long range destruction campaigns and be back by dinner time. You would have to be like a boomerang though, attack, return home, attack, return home. That way no one could destroy them.

Not going to work when update to 1.2 is done.

I only use high-speed cargo hulls as scouts, survey ships, and the like before I get Eyes of the Galaxy. After that, I just pump out the assault ships and transports. Of course, that doesn't really answer the original poster's question.

I used the Q-ship concept to great effect a few times. Most of the time they aren't worth the cost to put defenses on compared to the total trade revenue they bring. The cost of an armed and armored freighter is far higher than a soft one, and you still get one hit point. I only use them on games where I am bringing in a lot of trade revenue and the AI managed to build a Galactic Privateer first. Oddly enough, I've had freight attacked even when I did have the Galactic Privateer. Where the armed freighters came in handy was attriting the attacker's merchant raiders who went behind the lines to attack in my rear areas. One Q-ship wouldn't outright kill most ships, but it usually does a nice bit of damage before its defenses fail and it loses the one hitpoint. I try to make the Q-ship much cheaper and quicker to build than any comparable warship.

The whole purpose is to avoid having to either build more warships to deal with the intruder(s) or have to redirect a frontline unit or picket. Yard capacity has afair bit to do with it as well. In the games where I did use Q-ships, they were often built or quick bought at non-military shipyards, i.e. those that cannot produce a warship in reasonable time. Mostly due to the fact that during those times, my military yard capacity was maxed out with current projects.

What I'd like to see in the future are convoys. Convoys are a well established method of protecting the merchants. In gameplay terms, I'd like to be able to fleet up some freighters, assign a few tin cans (DD's) to escort them, and send them on their way to establish a new trade route(s).