[Beck]

Firepower can work. I probably eliminated a couple of the items he considers in the necessities, but putting 14 Armor III's in place of the crystalline armor and his phased shields and firing 3 shield depleters {hvy) along with 9 APP's (hvy) I managed to win 20/20 battles in the simulator. In each I destroyed all the crystalline ships while losing between 13 ships (the best) and 56 ships (the worst, average losses were 20-23). This design makes the crystalline ships depleters worthless since this design has no shields and while the 14 Armor IIIs don't measure up to the 10 crystalline armors it does allow the ships to Last long enough for three times the firepower to make its mark after the depleters deplete the initial shield strength. Its here, having a 9-3 edge in APP's that made the difference. Of course YMMV.