What do you guys think of this new DN design?

[Suicide Junkie]

Name: "Galaxy" class

Armament: 3 Heavy Polaron Beams
Defenses:
- Shields: 1200 points, complete regen in 3 combat turns.
- Armor: 75kT Ablative Armor I (600 hp)
- Hardened Bulkheads: 157 (4,700 internal hp)
- Other: ECM III, 3 PDC.
Control: Bridge, auxCon, single lifesupport and crew quarters. Two main battle computers plus an auxiliary backup.
Features: Talisman targeting, Machine shop (1 repair/turn), medical bay, emergency supply storage, Minesweeper, and storage space for 25 "Firefly" class Mechanized Troops (Ground Cannon III, 300 Hp, $4000 each)
Total cost: 100,000 kT minerals, plus some organics and radioactives.

Build time: 3.3 years at a planetary SY I, with homeworld population.

My little empire has 10 LCs and a few BCs, and is making +130,000 of every resource, so I'm ordering 5 of these to partol my borders

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 29 April 2001).]

[Resident Alien]

I prefer to use more specialist ships and would split a lot of those functions (like repair, medical, minesweep, troop ships) into separate fleet support ships.

Leaving the DN with lots of shields and enhanced mount weapons. Add in sensors, ECM and tracking and point defense to season.

I just love this part of the game and how we can all have our own styles of building ships and fleets.

It's the ship design more than anything else that keeps me playing this game while other games gather dust on the shelf. Just a few more moves, got to get that tech and start designing the next generation of ships.......

[Suicide Junkie]

These babies are designed for long-range exploration and unassisted kicking ***, just like the ones from StarTrek. (hence the triple computers)

The medical bay, too, is just for show. All it'll be used for is treating those nasty "exploding panel of doom"(TM) wounds.

Still, with six thousand internal hitpoints, and 1500 shield/ 500 regen per combat turn it's gonna be one sweet ship, eh?

[Marty Ward]

The only things I would change, when you have the tech available, is to add a supply regenerator, a sensor and some sort of cloaking item, armor or cloak device. As a lone gun it looks pretty good but it may have some trouble if it gets into a scrap and is seriously outnumbered by large, weapon heavy ships.

[Suicide Junkie]

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is to add a supply regenerator

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The emerg. supplies and the machine shop can produce 2000 supplies every turn, which will fill up almost the entire ship each time.

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a sensor and some sort of cloaking item, armor or cloak device

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I'm not gonna need the cloak device, but what would you suggest I replace to fit the sensors on?

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but it may have some trouble if it gets into a scrap and is seriously outnumbered by large, weapon heavy ships

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well, any fleet would be in trouble if they were outnumbered/outgunned/outclassed. (See "game stories")

With +20 defence, +20% starting fleet bonus and rising experience, only missiles ships will be a worrisome threat. Even then, the shields are back to full strength every time the missiles reload, so it'll take a lot to hurt this ship. Once the shields are down, the enemy still has to cut through 600 armor, and 80% of the internal damage will be asborbed by the bulkheads.

But, the best thing of all is that they only cost me 7000 minerals in maintenance! I could have ten of these in a stack for attack, while five more defend my empire! Bwa Ha ha!

(of course for the price of one galaxy, I could have ten "ubernaught" BCs, but where's the fun in that? )

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Hehehe. I just did a retro-series up to galaxy on the two Jreanar DNs I captured, and with 267 components left to repair, It'll take 2 years at my best shipyard (planetary + 3 orbital factories). At every other facility in my empire it'll take longer to do the retro series that to build the ship from the ground up!

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 29 April 2001).]

[Marty Ward]

I would take one of the computers off and, something else if you need more space, to fit the sensor. Not to good as a border patrol if someone can sneak by.
With you machine shop only repairing one item per turn if it gets into a fight and takes some damage you may lose the use of the emergengy supply, but it's not a necessity to replace.
One stealth armor would allow you to patrol the other side of a warp point without being seen by everyone but I think I read somewhere that mixing armor types isn't good so it might not help.
While you seem to have a lot of shields, it depends on who you are fighting. You know best who your most likely opponent is now but the armor is useless against the crystal and I have seen many AI's use the shield depleters later in the game. I have had 5 Shield V's go down in one combat round.
In my opinion the best defense is a good offense. If I were to make this DN my main combat ship I would definately consider making two models. The current one for the front line and one would have reduced defense and some long range direct fire weapons, after all with the talisman you never miss.