How do YOU design your ships?

What weapons and defenses I put on my ships depends entirely upon what weapons and defenses are being used by whomever I plan to blow up. The ship's intended role is also important...

When I design "orbital defense stations" for guarding my planets, I'll completely leave out any engines, sensors, and life support, and pile on tons of the appropriate defense, along with a less ample supply of appropriate weaponry. Using medium hulls, the resulting designs are not cheap; however, I only need one in order to keep a planet safe from practically anything, and for a good while, and I don't need an Orbital Fleet Manager for one ship.

Attack vessels are speedy, with two of my best engines, and typically have at least two of the best appropriate weapon. I also put some healthy defenses (once again, of the appropriate type), and they let my ships last me a good while. I'll throw on some decent life support for where I'm sending them (not much is really that necessary, unless you've got big empty expanses to cross), and I make the Eyes of the Universe a high-priority build, so I'll usually just slap a single sensor on there for good measure.

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!

I tend to agree you generally only need a few designs. Usually I start with mediums, and then to go on full offense I build larges. I don't see any reason to go bigger. Latter in the game I upgrade my mediums if they need to fight, but generally their on starbase duty or just positioned to watch the front lines.

I tend to think this is the reason I find the game getting boring. You end up designing the same basic ships over and over. I remember how much fun it was one game where I made 5 "ninja" ships that had to cross a gigantic universe and take out 3-4 enemy starbases. That was fun...They were lightly armed, uber fast, and needed lots of life support.

But sadly, generally the game doesn't throw many different situations at you that require new designs.

I'd really like to see more controls on the galaxy set-up, so that range would be more of an issue, and you'd overall have more "space".

Also think eyes of the Universe hurts the game, as it makes sensors completely un-needed. It should just improve them.

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.

In my last game, I played the Yor, bent on galactic conquest. I had a starport on every planet, and ended up with a wide range of industrial capacity.

I would keep a modern warship design in each hull size I had available. They each had had 2 of my best engines and a 2:1 ratio of attack to defense, with types chosen based on my current target.

When I was at war, I would tune my economy so that my highest production planets could produce my largest ships in 5 weeks or less. Planets with lesser production would produce the largest ship they could with the same 5 week period. Any planet that couldn't build my tiny warships in the 5 week window and that had a population of 5 billion or more would work on building troop transports. I found I could build overwhelming fleets in short order.

I also had a few utility designs: A tiny hull loaded only with weapons for orbital defense, a tiny hull loaded only with sensors for guarding my borders, and a tiny hull with a small, cheap, weak weapon and as many engines as it could hold that I used for hunting down "soft" targets (constructors, freighters, transports, and undefended starbases).

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 usually start with the engine and life support, and add the weapons the defenses last. The wepaons and defenses are usually based on a) what is the most highly researched in my menu, and what the enemy has to offer. All things being equal, I will pursue missiles first, but often diplomatic channels will allow me to attain higher level weapons in other categories. I still retain a nostalgic fondess for the nano-ripper and the cheesiness it used to represent.

As for aesthestics, I try to make my ships as ugly as possible yet still retain a balance of masses. It's actually quite a challenge. Imagine putting a B-Wing into an Imperial Garbage Masher, and you get the idea.

One thing I have learned is to never ever arm a troop transport! If you aren't careful, you might engage planetary defenses with one of those and lose all of your troops. You can't attack ships with an unarmed vessel.

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.

Don't mix different weapon types on the same ship! It is far less effective against defenses. If you want to be prepared for all kinds of enemy defenses, then have seperate ships with the different weapons. Also, missiles are not more powerful than the other weapons, because you can fit twice as many beams/mass drivers in the same space.

I generally go for whatever the AI isn't using. There's usually one tree that nobody else goes down. If I have a choice, the Nano ripper is still worth going for, though it isn't quite as overpowering as before. Missiles are last choice, as it's harder to optimise the number you can get on your ship since they're so big.

For tiny/small I tend to ignore defenses entirely. I fit one or maybe two engines if it's a bigger galaxy. Medium and up obviously fit the opposite to your main opponents weapon in defense and then lots of guns. I generally ignore sensors and rush for Eyes of the Universe. Range is pretty pointless in my opinion, as you rarely need it- just take your opponents planets to get further into their territory.

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

In 1.11 it is largely about speed. Transports, Constructors are easy. Whatever they need in terms of modules then all the engines you can fit. Use Eyes and avoid sensors on ships. If someone else getrs there first build cargo holds with all the sensors you can fit.

If I'm on the attack it is usually mediums with 3 or maybe 4 engines and the rest guns on whatever branch I'm most advanced with. If I'm on the defence (which I always try to avoid given the 1st strike advantage as it is now) I tend to put more defence on to slow the loss of ships. I've even been know to occassionally have a higher def than attack on some ships (which is a sign I need to try to catch up on offence research).

I will create large and huge designs if I've managed to get military production very high (I try to get designs that will build in 6 or so turns at the most) on some planets.

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.

well, in the demo, I try to get to ion drive at least so that I can build faster versions of the colonizers which are a cargo hull with one colony module (500 mil colonists work just as well as 1 billion colonists) and at least two ion engines and a general or basic suppourt module, so within a few turns, I'm cranking out the fast colonizers rather than the core colonizer that you start with. and I've developed my colony rush method pretty well, making sure not to expand too fast and too many planets.

I also try to build faster versions of the frieghters and constructors.

as for the other types, I don't have any strategy really because I'm just building basic fighters.

and I still don't know what I'm doing right or wrong as far as economy as its limited time anyway.

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!

I gamble early on. Yep, most people would say that's not sane, that playing the scratch-n-sniff lotto is a sure loss, and I'm just throwing my money away. But here's how I do it anyway:

Somewhere around turn 15, the negative income is gonna hit bottom, so I'll have to find alternatives by then, or the game is screwed. Can't just shut down production so early in the game, because that will guarantee losing the race.

The alternatives I've found are to meet alien races and sell technology for cash, and to send out the scavengers to 'recycle' value from found derelicts. Both solutions require speed and luck. So I start a custom race with Ion Drives as a race tech, and work on getting Sensors and Impulse Drive next.

First two ships out the hanger bay doors are fast cargo hull recon units, which will be upgraded to survey vessels as soon as Sensors come online.