Specialized Ship Designs

[Elowan]

How many of you construct specialized ships? And what are they for?

For myself I set up a Specialized Ships tech tree and gave it a Racial Trait restriction and a low cost to research. Each level in the tree requires the corresponding tech level in Ship Construction and/or components/units - like fighters.

The first special design I made was:

Explorer
I gave it a size of 350 and an ability of 15% defense and a new bmp.
It has 6 engines; 2 supplies; 3 sat bays; 3 cargo; and whatever weapons I choose to fill the remaining space.

I set it so that it shows up as buildable along with Small Transport; Colony Ship; and Escort when the game starts.

The next ship design I use is what I call the:

Jeep Carrier

This is about half the size of a light carrier. I find it extremely valuable and I use it along with other vessels to form small squadrons which are used to patrol warp points, guard new colonies, etc.

Long Range Explorer

This is a reasonably large ship with 3 small fighter bays, missiles, PD's, 6 engines, auxiliary bridge with as many supply units as it will hold. Its mission is to range far and wide to find Ancient Worlds as well as contact other species. It has its own bmp and is at a sufficiently high level in the tree so as to take advantage of advanced tech. In fact - it can't be built unless you've researched Solar panels; it would be a natural with quantum reactor engines.

How about discussing your own designs (unless they're Top Secret - of course).