[Puke]

this is all in the newbie FAQ, which is probalby why no one actually spelled it out yet, but we really ARE helpfull, even if we sometimes pretend not to be. especially me, i pretend not to be alot. which is why you should moderate me with as few stars as possible. anyway:

yes, in the stock game larger ships can have larger mounts, and there is no reason not to use them. really, there's none. even if you cant fit a larger weapon in your remaining space, you can probably rearange your hull so that the space isnt wasted on smaller weapons. You will find the MOUNT button in the top right of the ship design screen. its easy to miss if you're not looking for it, most people miss it.

You can have one combat sensor and one ECM. you should invest in them on all ships, unless religious tech is involved. You can also gain ECM benefits from once piece each of stealth and scattering armor. you should take advantage of this. if you want multiple pieces of those armor for redundancy, thats fine - but i usually only take one of each.

It is also invalueable (unless religion is involved) to take bonuses to attack and defense in your race creation, and to take advantage of both ship and fleet training (which stack).

Regarding organic technology, you will find alot of arguements about it. I tend to favor the stuff, but here is the breakdown: they can build ships faster because they devide costs between minerals and organics. because of this, they build nearly twice as fast. Ships using high level shield technology can have more hitpoints than organic armor, and ships using high level weapons can do more damage than organic weapons - but depending on how you play, the balance is never totally guaranteed.

IF the org player is using organic armor instead of shield, crystaline weapons will eat their lunch. This is really the only time crystaline shines, otherwise it basically sucks. hate to break it to you. Temporal shield skippers blow compared to Null-Space, their advantage is being cheaper to research and thus available sooner.

Organic seekers are the best seekers in the game, and can be overwhelming. A few dedicated PD only ships, along with PD on your mainline warships, should be enough to counter this. Seekers should never win a game, unless they catch the enemy unprepared (i.e. without point defense)

In a defensive scenario, the temporal events predector is one of the most deadly things around. Also, the crystal shield magnifier works wonders on stacks of fighters. When defending, you get to move and shoot first. thus, it is wise to defend your side of a wormhole and wait for the enemy to come through. odds are, you can kill them or cripple them before they can fire.

Good hunting.