quote:
I want to sort of differentiate between a cargo carrying ship and an assault ship.
For me, a Cargo ship is all engines & cargo bays.
An assault ship, on the other hand, is max engines, minimum cargo, and all the rest is Ablative armor/shields V.
The key here is that the assault ship just needs to survive the trip down to the surface, and then run away.
The Cargo ships, have to be cheap & efficient.
I had a great assault ship design, and when I sent it to go capture a planet once, I made the mistake of not doing any recon & failed to send a fighter escort. The strategic battle ended up with a loss for me, since the planet harbored a pile of missile platforms
.
But, the cargo ship was tough enough to drop the troops before being destroyed, and 3 months later, the planet was mine
Any normal cargo ship would have failed that mission.