In the beginning, I didn't like the fact that I needed to create my own ship designs. i wanted the game to just give me appropriate ship designs for my tech level. Obviously that didn't happen, until ToA.
Now I am so used to building my own ships, I just do it myself. And I can usually pick out a shell that fits my mood. There are ships similar to Star Trek (including Enterprise and Defiant), and there are ships similar to Babylon 5 (including some nasty ones owned by the dreadlords), and I have even created Star Wars "like" models, all using the default icons in game. But there are mods that some folks have put out as well. Now all I need is something that looks vaguely BSG like. Any thoughts?
As for ship building (tech) itself, here is what I do. Take the advise for what it is worth, and those more experienced than I, please feel free to chime in on better options/ideas.
Engines. I basically only use additional engines on ships I plan on going plundering with. If I am building a ship for defense only (or in the early game), I skip the engines entirely. The default engines are plenty good enough for planetary defense or to cover a small empire. And early game, engines will take up a lot of much needed space in the ship design. Once you get into the mid techs, it is (IMHO) worth it to create faster ships. So more advanced tactics, such as first strike may be useful. It is also important to note that, with the inclusion of “Neutral Ground” engines become much more important. If your fleet suddenly gets moved away from your target planet, this gives your opponent the chance to organize a defense. So a fast ship (say one that can run the kessel run in less than 12 parsecs) becomes important in the later game.
Weapons and Defenses. Be aware that each weapon type is defended against by a specific defense. Beam weapons (lasers) are defended against with shields. Guns (mass drivers) are defended against by armor. Missiles are defended against by ECM/Point Defense. All the Point defense in the world will not stop Laser one.
Weapons. In the early game, I like to focus on one weapon type. As far as what weapons to use, find out what defenses your closest neighbors have and pick a different weapon to load up on your ships. In the later game, you may have to broaden your tech research in case your opponents have started developing a defense against your weapons, or you end up fighting a race that has gone a different route. Also, keep in mind that each iteration of a weapon is smaller than the last, so the further you go on a tech tree, the smaller the weapon footprint on your design and the more spiky things you can put on your flying death machines.
Defenses. This is a lower priority (for me) than weapons in the early game. When the average weapon does 1 point, and everyone is using small ships, defenses generally don’t mean that much (IMHO). I don’t even start defense research until I have level two or three weapons. Also, as with weapons, pay attention to what weapons your closest neighbors (or whomever you are going to be fighting) are using. In the early game, a basic deflector will go a LONG way to keeping your ships alive vs the opponents if they are only using Lasers. Pick the defense category that best protects against the weapon of choice of your enemy. Also, ship size and additional modules such as hardened defenses will increase the survivability of your ships, so defenses, at least in the early game, are a very low priority to me.
Other modules.
Sensors are nice for survey vessels and finding where others are on the map. I generally don’t invest a lot of research in this category until later in the game.
Researching Life support will extend the range of your ships without even adding to the actual ship design. Adding life support modules (to anything other than colony ships or scouts) is pretty useless if you are playing small or even medium universes. If you are playing large or greater universes this technology becomes useful, but keep in mind that star bases also increase the range of your ships.
Trade/colony/troop modules are great items to enhance your default freighters and colony ships. Generally, the colony modules only move 250 (ToA) colonists, so multiple modules help out a lot. And once you get troop transporters, you can add more colonists. Generally, once I get the troop mods, I forego the colony modules unless I stumble upon an un-claimed planet (rarely if ever). You should only ever need one trade module per vessel (and I am not sure but that you can only ever ADD one module). A tip I learned the hard way was, don’t ever put troop/colony/constructor mods on ships that you want to last. Once they deploy these mods, the ship gets destroyed.
I find that you can’t discuss ship building without considering miniaturization. These tech researches are very useful (IMHO), although not as useful as weapons. I am not sure what others think, but generally I will research one miniaturization level for each major level of weapon (going from stingers to harpoons etc… I will research basic miniaturization), thus allowing for inclusion of defenses and other ship implements in addition to the existing scheme. Also, this pacing keeps research down this line to a small enough investment so as to not impact the arms race. I also generally don’t go much beyond Expert miniaturization unless the game goes really long, or I am fighting opponents who are really pushing the limits of my weapons technology.
Size matters. Yes, you heard it here (first?). Size does matter. If I can be throwing medium size ships against an opponent who is still playing around with small ships, I can usually take out 4/5 of their ships to my one, even if they have better weapons tech. And this means that my larger ships will survive multiple battles, thus extending that ratio. The extra hit points and the increased space generally makes this tech line usually very useful, even more so than advanced defenses in the early game. It also allows for flexibility. As example, if I have a low production planet, I might have it making small ships, but supplement them with larger ships from other, higher production planets. Also, a larger ship may allow for multiple types of weapon or defense, should that be necessary. Keep in mind that weapons scale by ship size so don’t expect that a medium ship will be able to hold 10 times as many lasers as a small ship, but it might hold lasers and shields where the small ship only has lasers.
Anyway, I am sure that others will chime in with other better suggestions, but this should give some tips.
