I don't like using small ships at all

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So then you feel that spending a ton of credits on a large hulled vessel just to park it in orbit and defend your planets is cheaper than a small fighter or two? Hmmm... your game, your choices but those maintenance costs can start to bog an economy and furthermore, why pay more money than you really need to?

"So then you feel that spending a ton of credits on a large hulled vessel just to park it in orbit and defend your planets is cheaper than a small fighter or two?"

Did I say that? Seems to me that a few large hulled vessels do much better tearing him a new one rather than being parked in a planet's orbit. And a few medium hulls with lots of speed to protect the frontier.

And to Axhed....Is that from "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly?"

bc for bc I'll take mediums any day.

Efficiency wins games.

I've played on a lot "tough+" AI games, yet I lose maybe one to two ships for every 20 they lose. Why? Logistics/using larger ships with more shields&speed.

The computer doesn't realize that quality of fleets&ships wins games. They're superior in technology to me b/c they have more planets, yet they crank out craptastic small ships that can be annihilated with 1-2 larger ships. I repair my larger ships, and they kill another of their small ship. etc etc. 1:20 ratio wins games no matter how good the AI is.

The end.

I like to keep new variants of ships coming out, I usually dont do that with the tiny ships cause they are just too small, but small and medium ships for sure.

I dump all stock ships, then I create the fastest colony ship from the get go and same with constructor. I abbreviate them, CLY-A, CSTR-A then the next time a new engine shows up, I'll go with CLY-B, so I can still have the older version available if there are some still enroute to planets. I'll declare them obsolete BUT when asked if I want to scrap them, I'll just choose no, the design no longer is available to be built however the ones I already have don't get scrapped.

For small ships, I like to build variants and different kinds, with different weapons, I'll stick to one weapon type and just mix the fleets for a good balance. Small ships are not large enough to be equipped with defenses at the expense of speed or firepower. Medium ships, if I get to them should have some defense if only to reduce the damage a bit, and only after the expansion phase and before the late-middle of the game. As for quality, for each battle small ships survive, they improve somewhat, in HP's and skill or what not. These increased Hp's make these ships as survivable as mediums for less price. You can group them with your premium medium or large ships as well to stand in battle.

I like being able to carry a surplus of capital in the bank and spot upgrading them in the field as well, that way you take a significant chunk of cost, the labor cost of manufacturing them new, at a world.

I dont like adding defenses on large ships because I like to keep them purely offensive.

Those advantages are what work for me. I like medium best, and large as much as small only thing is they take too much time to build and cost a lot to research, especially when you can accomplish a lot of the same military tasks with smaller ships grouped together.

Did I say that? Seems to me that a few large hulled vessels do much better tearing him a new one rather than being parked in a planet's orbit. And a few medium hulls with lots of speed to protect the frontier.

I wasn't saying that you did or didn't say that. It is just a fact that during the later turns of the game, if your empire is pretty much dominant in the galaxy, you don't need to have uber dreadnoughts defending your closer to home planets. A few inexpensive tiny hulls at least keeps an invading force from just walking in and doesn't cost a fortune in maintenance. It's obvious that you still need to have a good warship or two within striking distance.

I think it's wrong to say any particular type or style of ship is better than another. It depends on too many variables.

Actually, I've never gotten anything useful out of a tiny hull, but small hulls can be very effective. The one thing about small hulls is that you really need to make sure you increase your logistics. Also increasing your miniaturization helps make small hull ships *much* more effective.

The only real rule is to design ships that are effective against whatever you're opponents are using.

The kind of situation I find works best for small hull ships is if your opponents technology is superior to yours. In this case making swarms of cheap (i.e. easily replacable) ships can wear down an enemy whose larger ships would simply wipe out your large ships. In this situation you want a logistic of like 60 so you can get 20 small hulls in a single fleet. I'll take a fleet of 20 small hulls with a semi-decent weapon against a fleet of 6 huge hull dreadnoughts any day. It can be a pain to keep on producing so many of these, but sometimes it's all you can do.

However, with that said, if my technology is equal or superior to my opponents, I prefer using large or huge hulls.

BTW Caeili, if you select a block of text from a post and hit the "Quote" button you get the following.

"So then you feel that spending a ton of credits on a large hulled vessel just to park it in orbit and defend your planets is cheaper than a small fighter or two?"

Actually, I don't use ships in orbit to defend any planets, but that's a different discussion.

For me tiny hulls are thowaways.

Small ships are my bread and butter through to mid-game. After a few rounds of combat my veteran small ships have the hit points of a new medium or more. With weapons upgrades and operating in a pack they pretty easily take down smaller fleets of larger ships.

I also use small ships as my planet defenders to put up a feasible defense against attack, as a reserve fighting force, and as an invasion preventer.

Once mid-game hits, I focus more on the medium ships that have both weapons power and speed, but still keep building some smalls for defending newly conquered planets. Large and larger are my behemoths that can take punishment and keep on ticking.

So I do like and use them all, except for those (for me anyway) useless tiny guys.

I think it's wrong to say any particular type or style of ship is better than another.

No! You're wrong to say that! (just kidding, slow day today) )

I use the tiny hulls to give myself a quick military rating boost at the end of the colony phase. I research to laser V if I can, then build one tiny 5-6 attack, no-engine patrol boat on each planet before I start building a few constructors and freighters. Doing this with just a few planets gives me a big military boost at a time when the AI factions are (mostly) just starting to put together their first warships.

Once I get to the point where I can cram two weapons, two defenses, and an engine into a small hull, I start cranking out a few interceptors. Sometimes I sacrifice the armor for another weapon. These give me another military rating boost (I usually fall behind again after a while), as well as a few cheap ships to use as pickets and to chase down freighters and unescorted spore ships/transports once the action starts.

I find that the little guys have their limited uses. For real, war-winning starships, though, I always look to the medium+ hulls.

I don't build any ships until I absolutely have to, and at that point I almost alwasy build the biggest hulls I can, and I tech to these bigger hulls as soon as possible.

I also upgrade my ships, and use a lot of defense.

The problem with small ships is that they don't build up experience, and defence is largly pointless on them.

I play on Suicidal with Gigantic galaxies and I probably don't lose more than 20 ships total in each game.

I think map size is really the main key here.

On a small map large fleets of small/tiny ships might be very useful, on larger maps you can't get your replacement ships built and transported in time to maintain your fleet size and power.

Massive fleets of small ships can work, but only if the travel time from the starport to the battle area is very, very small.

I have played a few games where the first war ships I built were Huge.

However, with that said if I haven't been able to trade/research the logistics tech then Huge or Massive ships can be a problem because I can't create fleets of any real size. In that case it can be better to go with Large hulls, but very rarely would I build small or tiny hulls.

- Livonya

PS: Personally, I don't defend my planets. I don't build anything that helps with planitary defence. I also don't build any military starbases or put any defence or weapons on my starbases. Instead I use fleets of moving ships to defend my planets and starbases. I really see no point in defending my planets. Military starbases are really only useful on smaller maps.

I've found a use for the tiny hulls. Stick a large fleet of them by a souped up military starbase, preferably with some defenses on each ship (like the cheap but bulky armour that starship defenses gives you). Such ships gets a considerable defense and attack boost EACH, and since you can put a lot of them into a fleet, a military starbase will make a fleet of small ships much more effectives than the same starbase will make a fleet of dreadnoughts.

...I can see some potential in them for being useful to races in DA with first strike, though, especially if the weaponry on them is cheap (ie, mass drivers). You could raise huge fleets of ships very quickly and not worry about defenses, so long as you consistently make the first strike with them.

If larger ships attack, though, DA's new combat system will mean that multiple fighters will be offed in one turn... they really need some kind of boost, be it even more tweaks to logistics or merely increasing the capacity of tiny hulls.

A defensive, military starbase strategy seems to be the place where tiny hulls are actually useful, and that kind of strategy precludes aggressive expansion and isn't very feasible for large empires.

For a long while, I was hung up on maxing my hull size ASAP. Recently, I've begun to see value at different times in putting my BC into mostly small fleets with a few medium hulls.

I confess the forums didn't help me change my head here. I started thinking about emphasizing small hulls when I noticed a stretch in one game where the AIs were leaving my larger hulls alone in favor of killing ships that I'd accidentally built to have more firepower than their bloated elders.

I'm sure Mumble's right about the variables thing, but I have an inkling that FC might be right about the middle road being "the best" more often than not. I also have a question for FC: do you think the level of tech superiority is a leader among the "too many variables" Mumble notes, and if so, why (how)?

PS: Personally, I don't defend my planets. I don't build anything that helps with planitary defence. I also don't build any military starbases or put any defence or weapons on my starbases. Instead I use fleets of moving ships to defend my planets and starbases. I really see no point in defending my planets. Military starbases are really only useful on smaller maps.

Amen.

I also have a question for FC: do you think the level of tech superiority is a leader among the "too many variables" Mumble notes, and if so, why (how)?

I think it's wrong to say any particular type or style of ship is better than another. It depends on too many variables.

Not sure if I understand the question but here goes.

Depends on the player and their particular style. If we all compared ships and the way we set the up will vary greatly. Being the tech leader, having the best atk and def is not required to win the game. It does help though.

I am on my 40th game and I have found what works for me. In the short game I build a Tiny hull with the best weapon I have and then rally them to an area that will be close to the planet I put my spin control center and a series of military SB. Once I Tech out I upgrade them to have 0/50/0 atk and 0/10/10 def. I never fight with them.

Mid Game I am all about Mediums. I have 7 classes of Missle atk and 7 classes of Mass atk. The higher end ones are based on having more than one hyp shrinker. These carry me through the first series of wars where I have to fight and can't cherry pick off other's wars.

End game when the economy is booming I am buying Huge hulls to fleet with my mediums. Once that happens it is only a matter of time before the AI falls.

Thats how I have done it so far. If I did not answer your question try dumbing it down a bit to match my high school education

Edit: For the record the only planets I have with ships in orbit are the ones that have a SCC on them.

I don't defend my planets.

I don't know if you're playing the DA beta at all, but if you are, watch out for the Korath.

In my current Altarian Refuge game, I ended up with nine planets after the colony rush was over. I built my cheap little fighter on each planet for the early military rating. Before I was able to bring medium hulls online, the Korath declared war, tying up my few small-hulled interceptors in one corner of my territory.

A few turns later, three of their nasty spore ships appeared out of the FOW at the other end of Altarian space (they're cargo ships, 1 hp and no weapons). If I hadn't had those little frakkers in place, I don't know if I would have survived.

I never put more than one ship in orbit and I usually never need them... but sometimes they come in handy. Other than that I agree with most of the above. I can't remember the last time I built a military starbase or put defenses on any of the other types. The only real defense in this game is a good offense.

The only real defense in this game is a good offense.

Amen.

I don't use small ships very often. I have a few defenders here and there and if my scientist discover and precurser Corvettes i'll use them. But my fleets are all medium or larger(throwing in a capital ship with a few medium frigites really screws them over). As for the money, I build up a massive economy before hand with trade routes and resource starbases. Only time I ever run low on money due to ships is if i'm in a very large scale war and require more ships. Otherwise two or three fleets normally win me wars.

-Spencer

I take the "bait and switch" approach. I research the first beam tech and throw one on a small hull. Then I build a couple per world on ones with starports. These are just a front and very rarely see battle. If I can pump the military rating enough early on, I can get the AI to go for beam defense. Then when the mediums come online with either mass drivers or missiles they're screwed. Most of my actual fighting is with mediums, but late game I like to pump out a few large or huges for the hell of it. By this time usually the game is decided.

the level of tech superiority is a leader among the "too many variables"

What I meant by this is that with tech superiority you have a lot more options in what you can do. In particular you can afford to be a little more "wasteful" in how you build your ships particularly if being wasteful in some way is less of a micro management chore.

We've had a number of these conversations in the past, a couple started by ShuShu (wonder where he is anyway) that have been very interesting. I would say that if anything has been learned, it's never say never. But given that, I still think the most efficient way to deal with a technologically superior opponent is with the swarm. If you're inferior it's harder to match your opponent with the same sized ships and the same sized fleets. It can be done with weapons for which he has no defense and defense for his weapons, it's just much harder.

But Marshall brings up a big point and that is that DA changes a lot of things. First off, the fact that each individual weapon can fire at a different ship is a major difference. Previously the small ship advantage was that each round a battleship could only take out a single ship and effectively the BB's power was overkill. In DA each battery can take out a ship and a BB can take out many small ships in a single turn. How this works out remains to be seen. Marshall's other point about defense is another one that remains to be seen.

The higher end ones are based on having more than one hyp shrinker.

We need an emoticon that clearly shows drool. I've deliberately worked to take worlds with tech/man/econ capitals, but I hadn't thought about having two Shrinkers...this would surely make small ships very worthwhile.

If I did not answer your question try dumbing it down a bit to match my high school education

When you have a question like this, I've been a dumb writer. I'm s'posed ta be a perfeshunal an' all

Plus, when you add this forum thing into the mix, I end up thinking entirely different things about "my questions" (OP or not) after folks add some replies. What you said about the swarm-of-tinys and upgrading in the late game is velly eenteresting.

Yor miniaturization racial ability + max miniaturization tech + 2 or 3 Hyperion shrinkers = one hell of a tiny hull.

Add a couple of military resources and a few levels to the tiny hulls and it really compounds this issue.

This is why I like the Yor, and that is really all I have to say about the subject.

I'm s'posed ta be a perfeshunal an' all

This works for me. Southron is my native tounge.

max miniaturization tech + 2 or 3 Hyperion shrinkers = one hell of a tiny hull.

I think there is a cap on max miniaturization just don't know the level (if there isn't there should be). I have 175% currently. This includes 4 or 5 hyp shrinkers that the majors got built prior to there destruction and all +min tech. No inherant or added abilities.

This gives my Tiny hull size a 44. Samll has 71. Med has 104. Large/Cargo has 151. Huge has 220.

But since we are talking about Tinies...

What you said about the swarm-of-tinys and upgrading in the late game is velly eenteresting.

To take advantage of mining military resources and maximize effectiveness of military starbases you need at least 1 atk and 1 def of any catagory. The most bang for the buck in tinies I see is 1 ZPA and 6 BHGs. This gives 0/0/96 and 0/0/10. You even still have room for a Hyper Warp III if you need to move them any distance. Cost off the shelf from Galactic Manufacturing Corp. is 9042 bc w/out engine. maintenance cost is 23 bc/week.

With the appropriate number of military resources and military starbases this little beauty end up with values of 432/408/780 and 72/72/108.

Of course application is very limited but this is just another example of what you can do with a bit of imagination.

4 or 5 hyp shrinkers

   Most I ever got was 1 extra Hyperion Shrinker. Did you give the tech away early to get them to build these for you?