Ship Design
 

Hey guys what are your favorite designs for minelayers? Late in the game it seems that you have to use the dreadnought as that cargo for transports stops you from filling it up with minelayers. Can you change the carrier to be a minelayer? Also those of us who mostly read and learn from alot of what I call pro strategy players would really get a boost out of a thread of good ship design

Re: Ship Design
 

To be honest with you, I only use minelayers early in the game up to about TURN 50 or so. After that, I don't need them as I can often beat the crap out of any AI that comes through a warp point.

In my Last game, I used mines for only about 25 turns before switching to satalites. Then after about the 150th turn, I scrapped the sats, and started shutting down WP's.

My designes are simple, the basics, plus a ton of Minelayer or sat components. I lay them in mass with 5 ships at one time. I also lay them remotely so they will add them to any exisiting mines or sats already at the target area.

The bigger the ship, the more it can carry. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

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"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Patric Stewart as Captain Picard
UCP/TCO Ship Yards
http://www.angelfire.com/zine/cnchome/SE4/domBC_min.jpg

Re: Ship Design
 

I haven't had any problems filling a transport hull with minelayers. The minelaying components have a certain cargo storage capacity, and therefore count towards the "50% spaces filled with cargo components". In fact, I have a large (!) transport hull with nothing but a master computer, engines, and mine layers. (Yeah, the master computer is more expensive, but at level 3 it only needs 20kt of space, which saves a LOT of room on the large ships...)

Re: Ship Design
 

I use to build one minelayercomponent on each of my transports. That way they can lay any amount of mines except for in combat. But who needs mines in combat anyway?

You can load more mines too, if you use more cargo comps and less layers.

Re: Ship Design
 

I usually use a destroyer or a light cruiser. Then I designate a planet as the mine producer and use the repeat orders to send the minelayer to launch mines and load mines and produce mines as needed from that planet.

I think I will try to keep my minefields below 200 to give the computer -some- chance of getting through.

Re: Ship Design
 

Eisenhans: Don't forget that MM "fixed" that in 1.19; now you can only lay one mine per turn per mine laying component (unless you re-modify the component file). And laying mines during combat isn't terribly useful since any unexploded mines are re-loaded onto your ship at the end of combat.