How do you design ships? What is the most effect designs you have used so far?



Is it better to have a ship with kinetic, lasers and missiles or specialize in one weapon area and have a few of each ship? Personally I am have trouble and seem to get rolled over :P

I personally build destroyers filled evenly with each weapon system, then spam till victory.

In related news, what is the right tradeoff between armor (HP), defense, and weapon?

Ever play Galatic Civlisations 2? exsactly like that.

Tuna_0516 wrote:
How do you design ships? What is the most effect designs you have used so far?



Is it better to have a ship with kinetic, lasers and missiles or specialize in one weapon area and have a few of each ship? Personally I am have trouble and seem to get rolled over :P

Well as to what to build your ships it largely depends on what tech options your enemy is using.



I personally don't even start producing combat fleets until "late game" because I spend all the previous time building up my economy and industry and only build combat squadrons to deal with pirates (except I turned them off in the alpha because I think it's a glitch as they were producing waaaaay to dang many fleets).



If you notice your enemy is using a lot of energy weapons build your ships with more absorbtion, deflection for kinetic and flak for if your enemy is using a lot of missiles. As to what weapon I usually focus on energy weapons and missiles because I want to destroy the enemy within long-medium range and don't want to get within melee range where kinetics excell.



So it also depends on your combat doctrine, if you want to destroy the enemy at range like me, or if you don't care as much then a mix of kinetics/energy is a good diea as you'll be hitting the enemy for both absorb and deflect.



As to what kind of ships I generally focus on the Dreadnought battlegroup concept I started using early on. 1 dreadnought with as much defense and energy weapon spam as possible, followed by 5 battleship with a mix of energy and missile weapons and a decent defense. Though last game I tried arming my BBs with only energy weapons and seemed to be doing a bit better off.



But anyway the type of ship you build also depends in no small part on your industrial capacity, normally by time I start producing DBGs I have at least 3 star systems capable of cranking out an entire DBG within 5 turns each and a few that can build them almost as fast. If you can't do that it might be better suited to produce a bunch of smaller DDs with missiles backed up by some BBs with energy weapon mounts.

Rabiddog wrote:
Well as to what to build your ships it largely depends on what tech options your enemy is using.



I personally don't even start producing combat fleets until "late game" because I spend all the previous time building up my economy and industry and only build combat squadrons to deal with pirates

Some great info thanks! but asking from what I quoted how do are you able to build combat fleets only in late game? every game I've played so far the enemy AI starts marching into my territory

Tuna_0516 wrote:
Some great info thanks! but asking from what I quoted how do are you able to build combat fleets only in late game? every game I've played so far the enemy AI starts marching into my territory

The trick is the AI tends to treat you politely if you expand slowly so I tend to sit tight and take only about a dozen or so star systems early on but I industrialize the crap out of them as well as teching up my military technology this tends to keep the AI at a Neutral or if you can make peace with them early on a "Friendly" attitude towards you. If you expand rapidly and control a LOT of star systems the AI tends to get suspicious.



I tend to make it so that by the time I start heavily colonizing the systems I control and expanding outwards I've got a good solid industrial, economic and tech base, by the time the AI starts gettign worried about my growth I've got a good dozen or so dreadnought battlegroups with high tech combat gear and defenses and the tech to rapidly start boosting my colonial power base. It's worked in the last three games I'vep layed before the damn Horatio score an economic victory.



Personally I don't like the eco victory condition primarily because of the fact you don't really NEED to spend a lot of dust in this game so the AI can just sit and stockpile it while I have fun developing my stuff so they always win. I prefer a slower play style where I can "turtle" and build up before heading against my enemies, it tends to ensure I have 1-to-1 superior ships at least early on enough for me to blitz my enemies and seize several systems thus increasing my power base

At the bottom of my known bugs thread, I have a bunch of pointers to articles on how to expand more quickly and avoid getting out-produced by the AI's. I have gotten a lot better in the last week; initially I was also getting beaten a lot but now I have gone up a difficulty level. It's very rewarding.

Lots of good info here. It's always my habit to just expand out as fast as my economy allows. I have been getting swarmed by zealous AIs though. I will try to reel it in a bit next game and see if I can get better infrastructure in place before I have to fight. Generally I build balanced builds, but I am starting to really look at my opponents ships and customize as needed.

Tuna_0516 wrote:
How do you design ships? What is the most effect designs you have used so far?



Is it better to have a ship with kinetic, lasers and missiles or specialize in one weapon area and have a few of each ship? Personally I am have trouble and seem to get rolled over :P

I have had great success with beating all levels of AI using fleets primarily built with all weapons and resists. Battleships are usually what I fly, with 6+ of each defensive module of the highest level and a mix of weapons depending on enemy resist types making sure to never completely leave a weapon type out.



I will use destroyer spam in specific situations as they are very cheap when countering dreadnaughts, especially missile fit ones. Build destroyers with all weapon types and watch the lack of omni-tanked AI ships blow up for little cost.

I usually counter what the AI are doing with and then add some extra flak (if they arn't using missiles as main) because those darn missiles can be just what was required to turn an even fight on it's head. Same with weapon systems, just swap the words flak and missiles around.

I use Dreadnoughts with lots of extra Hp and the repair modules maxed. Medium defenses and light weapons. Max out your command ability and get all ships sizes. Then go for Hp and repair. You can currently repair more efficiently than you can block enemy weapon types. Add in the repair card during each battle phase and you will be nigh unstoppable. Of course reach this goal requires several preliminary strategies, but this is the best endgame design. I am surprised no one else said it first.