What's the best class of ship that you've found this works best with? I'd like to create a line of ships that have different weapons and defenses based upon who they're fighting.

Igncom1 wrote:
Right now i find it easy just to fill up destroyers with even amounts of all thre weapon types, and then spam them till victory.

If you spend your research points on getting all three weapon types to current levels. But I really like speed improvement techs.

Right now i find it easy just to fill up destroyers with even amounts of all thre weapon types, and then spam them till victory.



Hard to beat a craver zerg rush.

AngleWyrm wrote:
I can have multiple classes in play using a single schematic.



Example:

I started a game where the first Craver ships I met were Missile/Shield ships. So I countered by designing a Missile/Flak cruiser, called Warrior. Shortly thereafter, on the other side of my territory, one of my Warriors meets Horatio, who has also gone Missile/Flak.



I need to redesign to attack Horatio, because the missiles won't do. Since I've already researched a bit up the Flak-Gun research tree, I decide to go with a Gun/Flak cruiser for Horatio. So I change the schematic, and refit my Warrior to a Warrior 2. This would be fine for both fronts, but the old ships are working just fine against the Cravers.



Then the Cravers change their game plan. Their next model is armed with Beams/Armor. That couldn't have been my doing, so perhaps he's in a war with someone else. My Gun/Flak ships are still working vs Horatio, but my old Warrior 1's fielded against the Cravers will need a refit.

So... why don't you just create different versions of Warrior?



E.g. I currently have my a battleship called Stormfront off taking the last of the Horatio systems while fighting off their feeble attempts to retake it and the Cravers advancements. Both of these use beams and shields with a sprinkling of missiles, so I've got my Stormfronts loaded with shields, flak and missiles.



But, back home I have a battleship type called Motherhen that holds off the surprisingly frequent Pirate incursions who use solely kinetics and armor, so Motherhen has beams and armor.



I have about eight different 'types' of ship design for various uses.





As for designing the 'perfect' ship - I don't see the problem with adapting schematics to what you need at the time. That's war - that's an arms race. Where would be the fun in being able to design an unstoppable ship? I get a kick out of coming across a new problem (right now I've seen hints of the United Empire who have a totally different loadout than my current enemies) and tinkering with a design to beat it.

Radon wrote:
Do you mean one class of ship? If so, you might be mistaken. Some bigger ships offer the insane firepower. But alot of the time, you're not purely going for Missile or beams w/ shields or deflect. Sometimes you'll want your bigger ships to carry the torps, the cruisers or w/e to carry the beams, and the small fast ships to carry kinetics. Fleet diversity is the key to victory.

No... rofl.. I've destroyed enemy AI in long games on high difficulties with 1 ship type for hours. Eventually you will create the perfect ship that can do it all and after about 4-6 hours into any game you should have this ship if you rush tech. Its really easy to do and I actually avoid upgrading my ships now because it destroyed any challenge.

wokelly wrote:
I am still confused about combat and ship design. Do all ships in the fleet need to have flak defense say to defend against missiles, or can I pack one ship full of flak which will protect all the other ships (assuming I pack it full with enough flak)?

That's an interesting question. At the end of every battle, there is a summary screen which lists the efficiency of your defensive equipment as well as hits given and recieved. The lab-O-doom awaits the mad scientist. Rats to be poked and prodded, you know.

I am still confused about combat and ship design. Do all ships in the fleet need to have flak defense say to defend against missiles, or can I pack one ship full of flak which will protect all the other ships (assuming I pack it full with enough flak)?

AngleWyrm wrote:
Currently there's no value in creating the perfect ship design, there is only what you need right now.

that's a good thing - players test their mettle one against the other - the winner being most able to make decisions not memorise an attribute table and implement min/maxing bullshittery

AngleWyrm wrote:
Just modify the schematic every single time you want to change a ship to another kind.

as long as the hull suits that use



again, good game design is good - the hull is built, all that your dust is buying is a new loadout - retrofitting units to new situations is key to military success irl

ObsidianSquid wrote:
What's the best class of ship that you've found this works best with? I'd like to create a line of ships that have different weapons and defenses based upon who they're fighting.

Cruisers (200 tons), Battleships (200 tons) and Dreadnaughts (400 tons) have the space to support good defenses.



Corvettes (100 tons) are good for scouts and fleet support. Put an engine in them that gives pluses to fleet speed, and the repair kit that gives fleet repair bonus, and of course long range scanners. All that stuff is 25% smaller in a Corvette hull.



Destroyers (100 tons) are a good early ship, especially with their 20% bonus for weapons, but they are too small to provide adequate weapon AND defense. I just load them up with weapons, and get a couple extra with that bonus. They also produce quickly at small planets, and since they are size-1 they can round out your fleet to max size.



Cruisers don't get a weapon or defense bonus, but they do get bonus for ground assault weapons, so they are the marine transport/planetary assault craft.



Battleships (200 tons) get a bonus 20% for defenses, which makes them a bit better than Cruisers for combat ships. It comes to a couple extra defenses in the same size hull.



Dreadnaughts (400 tons) are fun because you can put ridiculously large amounts of weapons and defensive systems on them and still have room for extras.

Just modify the schematic every single time you want to change a ship to another kind.



Currently there's no value in creating the perfect ship design, there is only what you need right now.



So just edit, upgrade some ships, and edit again. Every time.

AngleWyrm wrote:
I can have multiple classes in play using a single schematic.



Example:

I started a game where the first Craver ships I met were Missile/Shield ships. So I countered by designing a Missile/Flak cruiser, called Warrior. Shortly thereafter, on the other side of my territory, one of my Warriors meets Horatio, who has also gone Missile/Flak.



I need to redesign to attack Horatio, because the missiles won't do. Since I've already researched a bit up the Flak-Gun research tree, I decide to go with a Gun/Flak cruiser for Horatio. So I change the schematic, and refit my Warrior to a Warrior 2. This would be fine for both fronts, but the old ships are working just fine against the Cravers.



Then the Cravers change their game plan. Their next model is armed with Beams/Armor. That couldn't have been my doing, so perhaps he's in a war with someone else. My Gun/Flak ships are still working vs Horatio, but my old Warrior 1's fielded against the Cravers will need a refit.



So update the Warrior schematic again. Since I've already done some missile research, I go with Missile/Shields, creating Warrior 3, and refit the Warrior 1's to 3's on that front.



And so on.







I like to have some size-1 ships in the fleet so that I can max out the fleet sizes. Also, for smaller planets of maybe 100 construction points, the small ships can still be built in 2-4 turns.

This sounds like my SOP. It is a bit rewarding to know variable strategy implementations are possible.

I can have multiple classes in play using a single schematic.



Example:

I started a game where the first Craver ships I met were Missile/Shield ships. So I countered by designing a Missile/Flak cruiser, called Warrior. Shortly thereafter, on the other side of my territory, one of my Warriors meets Horatio, who has also gone Missile/Flak.



I need to redesign to attack Horatio, because the missiles won't do. Since I've already researched a bit up the Flak-Gun research tree, I decide to go with a Gun/Flak cruiser for Horatio. So I change the schematic, and refit my Warrior to a Warrior 2. This would be fine for both fronts, but the old ships are working just fine against the Cravers.



Then the Cravers change their game plan. Their next model is armed with Beams/Armor. That couldn't have been my doing, so perhaps he's in a war with someone else. My Gun/Flak ships are still working vs Horatio, but my old Warrior 1's fielded against the Cravers will need a refit.



So update the Warrior schematic again. Since I've already done some missile research, I go with Missile/Shields, creating Warrior 3, and refit the Warrior 1's to 3's on that front.



And so on.

Oleyo wrote:
Isn't it true that you cant modify the hull type using this method? I agree that you never really need more than one ship model per hull type, but I think the weight bonus reward makes it worthwhile to have multiple classes in play at a time.

I like to have some size-1 ships in the fleet so that I can max out the fleet sizes. Also, for smaller planets of maybe 100 construction points, the small ships can still be built in 2-3 turns.



But speaking of maxxing out fleet size, I recently ran into a situation where it wasn't the best idea to do so. The enemy had a stack of half a dozen very small fleets. Each of your fleets only gets one attack per turn. I discovered that I was swatting a fly with a sledge hammer, and there were a bunch of flies left over.



Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any way to get intel on the stack of fleets at a location.

Isn't it true that you cant modify the hull type using this method? I agree that you never really need more than one ship model per hull type, but I think the weight bonus reward makes it worthwhile to have multiple classes in play at a time.



For example, currently I made and use:



Enforcer: A Cruiser hull with lots of armor and support (ground attack and power) with loads of kinetic and beam weps.

Hornet: A Destroyer hull with as many missiles as I can pack in with limited armor

Wasp: A Corvette hull with the fleet-enhance engines, sensors, repair mod, and maybe a beam wep, just so it isn't totally defenseless.



I think its really clever how the hulls have the weight bonuses, makes it worthwhile to mix it up. Taken as a whole, your fleet can pack more gear if you specialize than if you packed it all in one hull.



Usually I only ever lose a "Hornet", but they are much cheaper than my biggies, and they pack a huge punch before they go down. The Wasp never gets touched...the AI must not consider it a threat...fine by me



PS: I haven't made anything beyond the Cruiser yet...I didn't see any weight bonuses in some of them...are they just bigger and with more HP? It would stink if a Hull didn't have the weight bonuses I think.

My fleet is generally 2 capitals one maxes out torps the other maxes lasers then i have 5 battleships with tank and tons of flack. I haven't lost a fight yet with this setup

Igncom1 wrote:
You can use a single line of ships to do every job.

Do you mean one class of ship? If so, you might be mistaken. Some bigger ships offer the insane firepower. But alot of the time, you're not purely going for Missile or beams w/ shields or deflect. Sometimes you'll want your bigger ships to carry the torps, the cruisers or w/e to carry the beams, and the small fast ships to carry kinetics. Fleet diversity is the key to victory.

You can use a single line of ships to do every job.

Maybe I'm just not that quick, but I do not catch the drift of your complaint. Can you please elaborate?

I agree, it does seem to easy to create a single design for your entire fleet.