[Commander G]

With regard to missles, it seems they are useful to force your opponent to research and deploy Point Defenses. However, they will probably do so anyway to take out Fighters. Large Mount Weapons are overkill for Fighters and Missles ignore fighters. I recently ran a simulation with one carrier with something like 3 point defense destroyers and a three organic beam destroyers (cannot remember which beam they had). They went up against a fleet of 8 Missle Light Cruisers (a design that the AI seemed to like in that game). My fleet ate the Missleships up for lunch, destroying missles quickly. The beam destroyers killed one or two cruisers until the fighter swarms closed in and took out the rest. Only one of my ships sustained damage. Of course the AI fleet was total one sided, with only Missles for weapons. My ships also had a movement value of 7, which I think is four squares in tactical combat. I was letting the AI fight the battle for both sides in Tactical (keept hitting end turn). If the AI had built beam light cruisers with point defenses, I would have been annihalated. I think the key to fighting missle ships is to have beams that can fire more than 3 squares (and fighters) so that your point defense have enough time to react to the incoming missles. I tend to think that 8 beam ships is better than 4 beam and 4 missle ships, providing the defender has Point Defense capability. Missles also make sense for Satelites, forcing the enemy to come in with enough Point Defenses to attack a planet.

[This message has been edited by Commander G (edited 30 October 2000).]