[Strategia_In_Ultima]

I agree with you, but I still think that it is handy to use resource freighters, if then only for enormous amounts of resources. This would make blockades (and blockade runner ships) much more useful and important. If you've got a massive fleet yard in a system with only one warp point, and the enemy blocks that warp point, you've got two options in SEIV:
-Open another warp point (but let's say you can't, you haven't got the tech or you've disabled it in the setup screen)
-Fight it out.

But your fleet yard is on the far side of the warp point, and the enemy fleet is very large.

I think it would be handy to be able to "run the blockade";

Build small, fast resource ships in fleets of about a hundred with a high speed and a small individual carrying capacity, load them up with resources and run the blockade. You might lose a few craft, but you're almost assured a lot of them (and with them a lot of resources) get to the other side. Then, use your fleet yard to build more blockade-runners, and go on like this until you've got enough materials in your fleet yard to construct an assault fleet big enough to destroy the blockade.

Also I'd like to see something like "hyperspeed" or "afterburners" during combat, i.e. sudden bursts of speed that might put you at an advantage; attack an enemy fleet head-on and hyperjump a few of your ships to the rear of the enemy fleet. They'd have to defend two sides. This would make the odds more favorable to you.

And, fighters must be able to jump. In SW, fighters have small hyperdrives of their own, and in ST, even small administrative shuttles have warp drive. So why can't you simply send your fighters through a warp point? Gravitational stress? Design a component that's fairly large but which provides "Gravitational Shields" so that the fighter can cross interstellar distances. The sheer shock/psycho-horrors/neural energy fields/etc. that will kill a pilot/drive him mad/etc.? Same as above.

You also need to be able to lay mines in combat (to protect your supply ships, for instance) or to determine the pattern of your mines. I.e. a hollow cone in front of a warp point might be more difficult to lay (less mines per turn) but might be harder to detect. A cube would be easy to lay but also easy to detect. A hollow-cylinder-sort of shape would be harder to lay but would increase explosive effectiveness (damage) of the mines.

You could also have something like a "control net" or "delay detonator" for mines to allow for greater effectiveness. If a mine explodes when the bow of a ship just peeks into the minefield, it would not inflict much damage, and the ship would turn back immediately (which it doesn't in SEIV) but if the explosion delay is larger, the ship might be well into the minefield before the mines go off, making sure it's severely damaged or destroyed.

Mines don't need to destroy ships outright. You could set them to disable enemy vessels so you can capture them and tow them to your territory for analysis. (did I spell this right?)

How come you know EVERYTHING about a ship as soon as you enter combat? You shouldn't be able to see everything, least of all the weapons, of an enemy when you start combat. Then, when you expect the enemy to fire an APB, you'd be very surprised if they fire a Graviton Hellbore, and vice versa. Just because a ship is brimming with ugly-looking bLaster turrets doesn't mean it even HAS bLasters.

You should also be able to modify the appearance of your ship as such. I.e. if you've got a freighter, put some nasty-looking things that look a lot like weapons batteries on it, so smaller enemy raiders might be deterred simply by its look. You could also design a warship without any external signs of weapons - retractable "lids" on the weapon muzzles that slide open when ready to fire, engine nacelles that provide nothing but topedo fire (or are torpedos in themselves) - to lure a smaller enemy ship into combat, making it believe it's attacking an unarmed ship, and then kick its ***. Conversely, you might design a battleship with all weapons clearly visible and use it as a freighter/convoy/colony ship/etc. escort to deter enemy attacks.

Two words: Boarding Shuttles.

Ship sizes that require certain types of weapons to be on the ship in sufficient amounts; for example, a Corvette (a real-life torpedo boat) might require to be half filled with torpedos/seekers, and so on. You could also do this with certain Design Types; i.e. (what does i.e. mean, actually?) Torpedo Corvettes might (see above), Graviton Dreadnoughts need things like graviton hellbores/tractor-/repulser beams/etc.

Design Types that can only be used with certain ship/vehicle types/sizes. A Meta-Colony-Ship can't be the size of an Escort (150 kT), but need to be larger than 800 kT. Population Evacuation Transports need to be 500 kT or larger, etc.