Ship Strategies

Whilst there might be some overlap, destroyers are generally bigger than frigates, so it looks a bit odd to see destroyers on a tiny hull.

I usually think corvette/frigate/destroyer/cruiser/battleship.

Mine is more like

Dreadnaught = Huge

Battleship = Large

Frigate/destroyers = medium

Corvettes = small

Fighters = tiny

then colony, miners, traders, probes, etc = cargo

I like to create a fast cargo hulled ship with good life support and (if I don't have Eyes of the Universe) sensors.  I also add one laser or such for commerce raiding (killing freighters, asteroid mines, etc).

What i typically do in my games, is built a group of military starbases at the intersection of 4 sectors some distance away from my colony at a place that is most likely to attract and get hit by enemy fleets. I can fit a maximum of 15 military starbases there, and 1 influence starbase (which is essential to keep my ships within my own boarders because of whinging aliens).

Right from the start ASAP i will be building lots of 'fighter drones' or tiny hulled ships with just 1 space cannon and 1 defence (as soon as it can fit). I build these guys in all my less productive planets right through the entire game! With military starbases backing these guys up, they really kick ass for what they are. They are the backbone of my defensive capabilities, so cheap, yet can hold the enemy at bay. They will stop anything the enemy can throw at you, so long as your starbases are numerous and well upgraded.

As for my offensive fleets, well they are different in every game, reworked based on the varying circumstances of which techs become available first and what the alien races are using. It would be a very rare circumstance indeed that i would ever find a previous design from a previous game to be the most useful possible design in a later game!

Edit: one thing i forgot to mention with the fighter drones... it is ideal to stay up do date with logistics!!

Special roll ships

Sensor Ghost

Cheep ship, lots of sensors, enough speed to reach well into enemy territory before getting killed.  The name describes the tactic and the effect in the game.

Interceptor

Medeum to huge hull, lots of engines, 1 or 2 weapons.  Primary target is enemy troop ships.  All other non-coms and scouting are secondary role.

Pre-emption

Very fast armed troopship.  Built to take Dreadlord planet on the other side of a gigantic map when a more powerful enemy occupied that 1/3rd of the map.

Planet defense fighter

tiny hull, no engine

My 'special role' ships are almost identical to rawghi's- Explorer drones, Sentinel drones and Orbital platforms: The last range from tiny (satelite) to huge (Space Fortress). I also used to have a "kamikaze drone", a cargo-hull engine platform with moderate firepower (relatively cheap), designed to destroy a Dread Lord scout with one strike in older games (dying in the process). Now I use it occasionally to intercept and pick out unprotected transports.

Also I sometimes use the 'militia' class: A tiny hull with a single space cannon, the cheapest defender possible. Usually I build one when I fail to notice a transport approaching an unprotected planet until it's almost there, and I want to get a ship in orbit in a single turn (or rush-buy it without spending much). I can upgrade it to my defense satelite class (tiny hull orbital platform) later, if I choose to keep it.

Oh of course, I also use all fleet-wide bonus equipment on a single unarmed ship, with good defenses- Support Escort (small) or Command Cruiser (medium). I don't use bigger hulls for that purpose, unless it's for my Flagship, when I use one (Huge hull, all bonus equipment, heavy defenses and diverse firepower).

Unarmed ships are the last to be targeted, so defenses aren't very useful.  The two ideal methods here are to slap one weapon on it and fill it full of defenses, or leave it weaponless and defenseless and put it on a tiny hull.

Each and every last ships i bother to design (Strangely DA has some pretty reasonable stuff already made as CoreShips - but, that's no longer a possibilty with TA unless coders figure how to fix or enhance the current auto-build feature to make it worth using consistantly) are always for a purpose and soon discarded when that's done, rarely do i get to stack up too much of a single "type" unless during near-end-game last conflicts and IF any has gained enough combat experience to outweigh whatever new techs would make a new one more efficient for, again, another direct purpose.

I'm mostly satisfied with fastest_as_possible Scouting/Colonizing/Starbasing followed up by competent strike forces not far behind & balanced def/att wise according to the close-matched targets for any particular situations.

Every game is different, thus why there's not really a specific quantity or quality of components in all my ships. I prefer instinctive reaction to coherent but still generalistic approach often; i certainly keep a few 'successful' designs handy at times between games but imagine the amount of different ships that would be needed to keep track of all probabilities. I micromanage enough already with planets development & diplomacy while war production is a "reflex".