[Taqwus]

Here's an odd bit -- in my most recent game (finished Last night when the Praetorians collapsed -- they couldn't handle 10 CIs a turn combined with numerous raiders...) -- my first few recon/warships were DNs, but the latter warships were BBs.

DNs -- because they were recon (full sensor/scanner) package, with boarding stuff (in case somebody filled a tech hole -- I'd been going mostly-infrastructure research-wise), repair component and so forth. Normal weaponry was minimal.

Later warships were BBs for the extra engine -- for shipyards (just one design, capable of coming along reasonably safely during an invasion), bombers (a few wandering around, doing lots of damage), and the main anti-ship ships.

The BC hull was used purely for Aegis ships (never used), and biowarfare ships (used early on before the first few bombers were constructed).

LTs were used for a few cloaked minelayers (few; actually, very very few mines built, fewer deployed, and none actually detonated), population transport (including a medical bay once that was researched), and troop transports (but the Troop minister appears to be largely idle; it doesn't do squat, say, to put down riots. Incidentally, filling a planet's 400kt cargo space with heavily-armed Large Troops -- manual control of TT -- with 5 DNs in orbit, did nothing about a riot. Bizarre).

I never did build any non-CS colonizers, 'tho; just two main variations of each (cargo versus solar power, the latter completely replacing the former).

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night