Depending on my tech advantage, I buld my ships with less or better defences. I always try to mach my ships weapon configurations to the enemies weapons/ defences, that alone often gives me a 50% advantage.

I build a single dreadnought per game, using two of whatever weapon is least defended against, one life support module, about 6 engines, and as much defense as I can fit on after that. Then I build a bunch of transports (one life support, one advanced module, fill with engines for 61 movement). Then I mass-produce all of them and group them into fleets of either 5 dreads or 8 transports.

And then there is destruction.

Ltr I go to my 2 best engines plus weapons/defenses.

Just two? I often put 5 or 6 engines on the huge hulls, as long as I can spare the offensive or defensive capability. Not that I think the extra speed is all that needed now first strike advantage has gone, but it makes for much less annoying micromanagement!

Sensors...eyes of the universe is your friend.

Before that, I use sensor boats - cargo hull with the sensor cap (15) and as many engines as I can fit. This should still be able to outrun anything with guns and so can travel along with your fleets, rather than *in* them.

Defences are expensive. I usually only fit them when I can manage *at least* 50% more than the opposition attack rating *and* still have room left over for reasonable weaponry and speed. They usually wait 'til I've reached large or huge hulls.

I'm ambivalent about upgrading. It's a pretty expensive business. If I have the time and military production capacity, I often prefer to build newer models and either decommission or change the duties of the older models.

Once I'm at the invasion stage of the game, my ship setups are like this:

Tanks - the objective of these is to roll through enemy territory destroying everything in their path but taking minimal losses. Focus on defence first, then weapons, then engines.

Blockaders - the objective of these is to follow along behind the tanks and beat down any new ships that are built. Since they'll only be fighting one at a time, they don't need to be that strong. Slight bias toward speed here so I can cover as many planets at once as possible.

Interceptors - very lightly armored and weaponed, max out the speed. These take down unescorted transports, constructors, unarmed or lightly armed starbases and other soft targets. Since the amount of experience you need for a ship to level up depends on its combined defence and weaponry, if I'm feeling cheesy, I'll often use outmoded weaponry, build lots of these interceptors and throw them at anything they can handle. Once they reach 150-200 hps, I upgrade to warships.

People Carrier - massive fast ships I use to shuttle people around the empire. *Not* for invasion, since these beasts are expensive and you lose invasion ships.

Invaders - since you lose the ships after invading, I make these as cheap as possible without making them too frustratingly slow. Tiny hulls with 1 or 2 advanced troop mods and the rest engines. This allows you to invade with obscene numbers of troops (60B+ in a fleet), so that you'll definitely only lose one ship and can very quickly replace it, often with the military points built up in the planet you're invading.

I try to basicly model mine around the type of ship class.

Example:
Tiny: Fighters that are fast, with a good weapon no defenses.
Small: Corvettes or frigates, moderately armed and armored, decent speed.
Medium: Heavy frigates and light destroyers, heavly armed, moderately armored, good speed.
Large: Destroyers and cruisers, the mainstay of my fleet, armed to the teeth, with the armor to match, slow.
Huge: Heavy Cruisers and Battleships/Dreadnaughts, truly the behemoths of battle, loaded out with maximum firepower and armor, and forget speed. Also they are very exspensive,$10,000+

Upgrading: depends, If I got the money, the biggest ships are first, then I religate older or designs that arn't worth upgrading to patrol duty or outpost defense.

Huh? Why are you building ships that ferry people to different planets? That's just adding to things to manage.

Planets will only naturally grow to a certain amount based on PQ, regardless of farms. So you can ferry people to low PQ planets to fill them up to capacity and get the most money out of them you can. Also, if you use the 'build cheap fast cargo hulls then upgrade them to colony ships when they get there' tactic, you'll need to ferry people to your colonies when you get the chance as they'll only be starting with 1m peope.

So what exactly are you all saying with regards to ferrying people to planets? Is that not what a colony ship is for? I mean do you really just start making special designs just for ferrys? I could understand adding engines to increase speed but that's about it. Another stupid ? since I haven't really checked in game (just started actually making my own ships) can you increase colony/invasion transports to carry lots more people than the starting specs? i.e. can you add lots of modules to add to the carrying capacity? I know it is kind of stupid to ask but there is just so much to this game and oh so very little time to play! Besides, since I almost always have some sort of game crash, since this latest game has been running well, I am almost afraid to do much more than click the end turn button and hope that my game will continue!!!! Love this game but really hate all the faults. Isn't that what people pay for,,, tested and proven games?