Why use Colony Ship?

[wickedsick]

If a Small Transport has the same size and cost and can also perform the colonization procedure, then what is the particular point of having a Colony Ship?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Because small transports are farther up the tech ladder, I think.

It is, however, 1:46 AM and I am both tired and afflicted with a headache - And I don't play much.

Greetings, and welcome to the community chat room. In here you will find mixed-up nuts, wacko's, mad scientists and people who want to conquer the galaxy. And then there's the weirdo's...

[wickedsick]

They're both available on turn 1.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Oh, yeah. It's for the AI, I think people concluded.

[Alneyan]

Can't you just make a design call for a Small Transport with a Colony module? I have been told one wily AI in TDM builds Light Cruisers with Colony modules and weapons, so it should be possible to do just that... then again, I know nothing about AIs (except how to cook 'em: they are quite tasty with a drop of red whine).

Colony Ships are sleek looking though (at least under the few shipsets I use), and it might be easier to find them when you have 758 planets and approximatively two thousand vessels. You should still give your Colony ships clear name though: mixing up those Rock, Ice and Gas colonisers is the perfect recipe for absolutely wonderful headaches.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

There was a story once of a Stars! game where one player named all his ships things like ...----___...

He was quickly eliminated by all the other players.

[Hunpecked]

Alneyan writes:

"I have been told one wily AI in TDM builds Light Cruisers with Colony modules and weapons..."

I've seen the TDM Pyrochette, Tessellate, and Aquilaeians build armed colony ships from warship hulls. The AI colony ships usually operate alone, so they're easy prey for a true warship of equal size/tech.

Against the AIs I build the cheapest possible unarmed colony ships; the additional cost of weapons and/or supplies can make what should be a one-turn ship into a two-turn build. Also, I don't like sending my expensive weapons on a one-way trip; I'd rather put them on a reusable escort for the colony ship.

[douglas]

A single large transport can hold almost as much population as a baseship colonizer, moves faster, and doesn't get used up after the first population drop. In one PBW game, I've got a ringworld barely half a dozen turns after colonization, colonized by a light cruiser, that's already over 10 billion population just from a single large transport repeatedly dropping population on it. Using a baseship colonizer would have required more construction time, more time to fill it up with population, and more time to actually get there and colonize, all just to save a single trip by the large transport. Baseship colonizers are in general counterproductive. Meanwhile, I love being able to emergency build monoliths in 1 turn with that +100% population bonus . Pretty soon I'll start shipping excess population OFF of that ringworld to the rest of my dozen or so ringworlds, including TWO triple mollies .

[Alneyan]

Welcome aboard, and mind the ceiling (silly greeting message number 15).

Colony Ships have one fundamental purpose: they allow your enemy to know for sure your vessel *is* a Colony Ship, and not a small gunboat in diguise as Colony Ships can only do that, unlike Small Transports. So, if you somehow feel the need of painting a big target on your Colony ships, you should use the Colony ship hull; otherwise, Small Transports are just the same, and allow *some* amount of secrecy (of course, Small Transports aren't exactly ships of the line, and their possibilities are limited, but they can do something else).

More interesting are the Destroyers and Light Cruisers for Colony Ships: their cost is pretty much the same, and they can get one more engine. Light Cruisers will also have some room to spare, allowing for a couple of weapons, supply storages... and the other players won't know right away that your "Guns to their front" Light Cruiser is actually an unarmed Colony Ship.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

[Space Pirate]
Hail, ye planet-lubber and welcome 'board me ship!
[/Space Pirate]

Now, where it really gets interesting, is when you're using baseships as colonizers. They're especially handy for Ring/Sphereworlds, as they can drop a whole load of pop on there right away if you stick 'em full of Cargo Bays. Also, while they're underway, the enemy isn't likely to attack you.

Also, if you're under threat from a powerful enemy (say, most of your systems have planets belonging to the other player in them), Baseships have an added bonus when used as colonizers - if you stick only 1 colony module on them and no cargo bays, you can arm it to the teeth. That way, if an unsuspecting group of three enemy LCs attacks what it thinks to be a harmless colony ship,..... imagine the look on their faces when the colony ship blasts the first LC with a single volley.....