So when you look at different ship hulls like destroyer or cruiser, the have different tonnage bonuses for different modules.



So does this mean it is most effective to have fleet with mixed hull designs so as to maximum efficiency.



Like since weapons are lighter when installed on a destroyer class - would it be good to have a destroyer class ship loaded with weapons, mixed into some cruisers.



I know on paper it seems to make sense, but what I am really asking is, does it really give a benefit to implement this in practice.....in your experience.



Secondly.....are there are good in depth ship construction tutorials?

It only makes sense to use the ships for whatever they are intended to be.

Corvettes are best suited as scouts and later as support ships carrying engines to move the fleet faster and repair mods. Mix those into your fleets if you need to move them around fast, i.e. rescue systems or provide reinforcement.

I wouldn't bother to give a Destroyer much defense as they are going to get destroyed (ha!) anyway. They can be built rather fast, so that's not much of a problem. With a decent enough industry you can spam 2-3 of those babies in one turn.

Cruisers are support ships and invaders rather than fighters. They are better in a fleet with other ships, packed with mods that affect the entire fleet. But in end game wars they seemed rather fragile to me so they are better off crammed with invasion mods.

Battleships packed with defense mods are the likeliest to survive a battle. Throw in a repair mod to really annoy the enemy. On their own they are useless without any weapons, though.

Dreadnoughts... are BIIIIG Battleships. Don't bother putting more than one of those into your fleet. Build them to last cause those big boys are expensive.



So, yeah, to kick some ass I found fleets made of Destroyers and Battleships to be the most efficient combination of firepower, viability and "spamability".

Dreadnoughts are for long periods of war, when you need some permanent fleets on the frontline. A Hero fleet with a well-defended Dreadnought can last forever.

Send in the Cruisers once the coast is clear to conquer systems quickly. Mix in a few Battleships if you think the invasion fleet needs a better defense.

Honestly I find myself leaning more and more towards defence, at the expense of everything else.



Combat balance just seems a little off and a single well built defensive fleet can take out the entire enemy armada of a similar MP per fleet. Just because per phase you take minimal to no damage, heal up and as long as the opponent doesn't counter you, you can often drop an engineering card to repair, assuming it was a close enough battle to bother going manual (or you just needed to spam repair cards). This is ofc with a defensive hero to support a defensive fleet.



Fleet composition can vary though and it does depend on your command points available. Always best to be full so go with what works, lower command point vessels are more vulnerable so I generally find I have to go even more defensive, often using the 1cp support hull with no weapons, all defence and a few support options (amoeba makes this very cheap due to racial trait).



So in practice I rarely use the weapon hull, maybe as an emergency ship, carefully considering production costs that I can get out quickly to support other fleets. Obviously this may be different for others that invest heavily in military research early on, I generally push expansion. Even the last game I played when I was Hissho and at war with one AI or another from about 10 rounds into the game, I still didn't find it offered a significant edge as I was being invaded from two sides, one using kinetic, one using missiles and kinetic. I'd much rather that early 1cp hull was 20% off defence, not weapons.

Xanoth wrote:
Honestly I find myself leaning more and more towards defence, at the expense of everything else.



Combat balance just seems a little off and a single well built defensive fleet can take out the entire enemy armada of a similar MP per fleet. Just because per phase you take minimal to no damage, heal up and as long as the opponent doesn't counter you, you can often drop an engineering card to repair, assuming it was a close enough battle to bother going manual (or you just needed to spam repair cards). This is ofc with a defensive hero to support a defensive fleet.



Fleet composition can vary though and it does depend on your command points available. Always best to be full so go with what works, lower command point vessels are more vulnerable so I generally find I have to go even more defensive, often using the 1cp support hull with no weapons, all defence and a few support options (amoeba makes this very cheap due to racial trait).



So in practice I rarely use the weapon hull, maybe as an emergency ship, carefully considering production costs that I can get out quickly to support other fleets. Obviously this may be different for others that invest heavily in military research early on, I generally push expansion. Even the last game I played when I was Hissho and at war with one AI or another from about 10 rounds into the game, I still didn't find it offered a significant edge as I was being invaded from two sides, one using kinetic, one using missiles and kinetic. I'd much rather that early 1cp hull was 20% off defence, not weapons.

I agree, you often need 1 or 2 full CP staks per teatre, and that is enought.



The amount of industry that you save by not letting you ships die is huge, and as ships level up in exp, their advantage grows, unlike glass cannons.



Although, i prefer the 2 CP ships to be ~40-50% weapons, especially battleships, which i tend to omni-protect, with very few kinetic protection, powerfull flack and middle class shields.

They still do not die, but tend to kill pretty fast, even despite the automations add on doubled the ship HP.



and armoured cruisers with no defences other than armour to tank damage, since armour works against all defences.

Neowitch wrote:


Cruisers are support ships and invaders rather than fighters.

Cruisers are very potent fighters if you use their strengt, which is discount on armour modules.



Cruisers with ~20-30% of tonnage in beams,+engine+repair module and the rest is armour have ridiculous survivalbility.

1alexey wrote:
Cruisers are very potent fighters if you use their strengt, which is discount on armour modules.



Cruisers with ~20-30% of tonnage in beams,+engine+repair module and the rest is armour have ridiculous survivalbility.

I see what you meant in the other thread now. I've done this before with cruisers. Ignored defence modules and simply gone for 30% armour, 30% weapons, power module to boost weapons (hp loss more than made up for by the armour) and then repair module and hopefully and engine if space.