I try to pile on the appropriate defense for my enemies' weapons onto every design I create. I fit as much shielding/armor/ECM as I can and still allow for decent armament, one superior engine, one sensor, and one life support (all my finest.) That way the likelihood of them surviving and gaining experience is much greater. In my last game, my five Nautilus-class beam frigates (medium) had 40 HP apiece (more than a large hull!)

Other than that, I try to make my designs look like what I name them. My last Iconian game saw tentacled ships that resembled squid and octopi!

My first military ships are orbital spheres with no engines 2/0 laser attack. This, as the name implies, is a (neat looking to me anyway) spherical ship I designed with 2 laser cannons at max size. It looks totally like a space station and nothing at all like a ship. Too bad the AI has no emotions, I am sure they would be terrified of those big metal balls with the gigantic cannons mounted on the hull. I have some saved orbital sphere designs with more fire power and defense but I usually never get around to building them. By mid-game I am protecting my planets with faster off world fleets.

I never design anything from scratch when I am playing. I nearly always use beam weapons so I normally have a predesigned model coming on line with every two or three weapons tech advances. I wait to see what the AI is using before I go up the defense tree beyond simple armor. If I need something special during the game I will slap weapons and defense on one of the many predesigned empty hulls I have saved.

As for weapons, nothing has convinced me that any one type is better than the other. In the beta releases, mass drivers had an early 2 powered gun and I aways went down the rail gun tree but since they nerfed the rail guns, lasers seem as good as anything else and of course the doom ray is great.

For actual warships:

By space, for just about any hull: 2/5ths engines. 2/5ths weapons. 1/5 defenses.

If there is a specific need for range (rarely, but it happens), then I'll drop something for that.

I build an early game ship called "Faux", which is a small hull with one Particle Beam on it to fool the AI into thinking I have a real military.

For early-game troop transports:

1000-1500 troops, and all engines (possible 1 range).

Otherwise troops:
4000 (4x advanced) and all engines.

I go for the strong mix of craft. The larger it's hull, the more emphasis on it's defenses. While this means they don't have as much destructive potential as they might, tough defensive large ships, mixed with smaller, expendable, destructive ships is a good combination.

Though I place more emphasis on the appearance, naming and description then the fighting capability. I always try to have ships look appropriate next to one another in a fleet. Then they have to have an appropriate naming system (I try to keep a theme running through them, such as Norse gods. In which case the Large hulled destroyers will be "Thor MK #", the huge heavy cruisers will be "Odin MK #", with the fighters being "Mjolnir MK #".

Though I always have one oddity. Usually my fleets have one good engine, one good life support, and the rest however. Except for the Guardian. It's named appropriately for the theme (such as Gargoyle, or Heimdall), and made with no engines or life support. It's armed with massive amounts of defenses, and a decent amount of weapony. EVERY SINGLE planet in my empire is given a guardian, with important ones given two, maybe three. They're expensive, but it means that there's no opportunity for an invasion except for a serious fleet attack.

A true-and-blue strategy for designing ships isn't my particular forte, but there are a few rules of thumb that I try to live up to. It depends on what's available to me, which in turn depends on what I felt like researching at that time.

I'm a fervent user of smaller hulls: tiny, small, medium. Large and huge are the true behemoths compared to the rest of my fleet. Tinies make up the largest part of my fleet, usually followed by mediums as anvils. Smalls don't really see that much use.

As for loadout, that depends on my alignment and the phase of the game. As a good guy, and pretty early in the game, I try to deck out each ship with at least one unique defense. With the tinies, this isn't always a terribly bright idea (as it usually allows for only one decent weapon to fit next to it), so they are the first to make the shift to faster + nastier.

As a neutral or evil, tinies are more like gunships. Defenses are too large to be efficient on tinies, so I fit on two or maybe three decent guns, some engines and let them rip. Their visual design is usually pretty simple and practical to show mass production.

Medium vessels are a different story. They are the capital ships of my fleet. They also define the speed, so I usually slap on one good or two lesser engines. When it comes to loadout, I check where it will serve its frontline duties. Mediums are big enough to carry more than one type of defense, especially if you're good-aligned, so I try to put on two different types that look useful.

Weaponry? As much as I can fit into the nut. If I find myself thinking “this is overkill”, I trade a few weapons for a different kind. Mostly, I'm heavy on beams (because they don't slither over the field like a green blob), but I can squeeze in a few mass drivers, just for a laugh. It's a pretty rude surprise, and most races consider it at least marginally unpleasant.

As for looks, I try to match the ship with the defenses. If it has shields but no armour, I make it look very fragile; if there is armour, I slap on a few extra layers of tough-looking stuff, and some “headgear” for the cockpit; point defense is more difficult, since I have to make it look agile (usually by rounding the design more, with respect to angular velocity).

Oh, and I usually add a ghetto-blaster system (cleverly disguised as a missile launcher so no-one takes offense) to laugh enemy escorts into oblivion. It's a style thing.

Hope it's a bit clear,
Tarbo

Some peopels ideas of having "stabase ships" is something that I should use. I like that idea and never really felt like doing it.

Though one thing, i always use my older designs as small as medium, usually only though if they were ranked up from use. I find ranked up ships of even small sizes to be useful. I usually do not put on much, if any at all, of defences as it seems the AI ALWAYS attacks the larger ships first. Usually my medium ships will have the same amount of attack as my large or even my huge on occasion.

I tend to think this is the reason I find the game getting boring.

Yes, the fact that you end up designing the same ships over and over seems to make it boring to me as well. I used to like how their were all kinds of "utility" componeants in Master of Orion to make it more interesting.

Thank god the other aspects of it keep it interesting. I think ship design needs a major improvement. Sure jewelry makes it fun, but they have no function so it only is fun for so long.



For my transports and special ships I always put 2 engines on them. On transports I use up the rest of the space for componeants. Usually when i get advanced troop transport technology i end up putting around 5000 - 6000 troop capacity. I ALWAYS put them with my other ships so having the extra speed of maybe 3 or 4 engines doesn't work out for me.

I give all of my ships names like Alpha, Omicron, Beta etc.

Than I make one with only guns, one with only defence, and one with an equal helping of both, and make a fleet!