I'm researching Phased Shields as fast as I can, which aint all that fast any longer. I tried using Fighters. I had a mixed fleet of about one hundred ships that broke down something like this:
Carriers 20
Light Cruisers 17
Dreadnoughts 42
Battleships 4
Battle Cruisers 11
Non-armed 20 (sweepers, repair and transports)
The Carriers had about 1000 medium and large fighters on board armed with small electric discharge III split about even between medium and large.
That fleet they went up against was an enemy fleet of about 70 ships broken down like this:
Battlecruisers 31
Battleships 21
Boarding Ships 15 (DD's and LC's)
Carriers 3
Noncombatants 5
My entire fleet was destroyed for the following enemy losses:
LC 4
BC 10
BB 5
LX 3
Losing close to 100 ships and destroying less than 25 in return is not a favourable rate of exchange. Unfortunatley that's about the best I've been able to do most of the time. I took down a fleet of his with 30 ships in it with a fleet of mine with 50 but lost close to 30 doing it. Many of his remaining ships from this latest battle are heavily damaged but I don't know how damaged or what is damaged on them because of the very poor after action reports you get from Strategic Combat.
I think I should mention that we are about equal in technology when it comes to weapons and protection except for shields. He has Phased shields and I do not. Not the best of them yet, but he's getting there.
With the result of my latest battle above I'm kind of wondering what the point of fighters are. One would think that 1000 fighters should be able to cause some serious damage but as you can see they did not. That probably has something to do with the AI's piss poor handling of them in strategic since I suspect it doesn't hoard them and fling them all the enemy in a big wave but launch and fly at once so they come in staggered and gets eaten alive. But still, they should be able to do something!!!
And I will not surrender! Never! I always try to play my games to the bitter end. I often keep playing even after it's clearly pointless to continue and all that is left for my opponent to do is mopping the remains. As long as I can build ships I will do so and throw them defiantly into the face of my enemy! No retreat no surrender!
It's late and I'm tired. Good night.