[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by Nocturnal:
Some will use troop transports with heavy defenses. With cargo III technology, devoting 80-100 kT on a large warship to cargo bays can allow you to carry ground troops into battle without worrying about defending transports.

Ooh, clever... I'll have to try that!

Better yet, I have an "armored dropship" design (large transport hull) that can survive running through most weapons platform defenses to unload its troops without damaging the planet.

Will that work in strategic combat? I thought transports always waited until the weapon platforms were dead...

You should be aware that in strategic combat, PD ships will run away if they don't have at least one main gun (I'm pretty sure that's why it happens) and you need to play with their strategy a bit to make them hunt down the fighters and missiles before anything else and cover your other ships. This is a good example of specialization that will save you room on your larger ships for more guns.

Especially in Proportions... your big ships carry the heavy guns to do lots of damage, and the smaller ships, with their built-in offense bonuses, mop up the pesky fighters and missiles with their pesky defense bonuses!