What Are Your Fleet Designs?

[NPC]

My apologies ahead of time if I missed this in the FAQ and strategy guides.

I was wondering . . . what are some good fleet designs?

I'm noticing that one of my (many) weaknesses in SEIV is that I don't make effective use of fleets, particularly in the middle-game.

For example, maybe I'll have a fleet of four or five ships and not have enough supply ships. Or maybe I won't have at least one ship with a medical bay in it.

Should I create single purpose ships and fleet them together? Or should ships have a more balanced design?

Do you create single purpose fleets and then have them work together with other single purpose fleets?

So share your coolest, most effective fleet designs!

[Hotfoot]

I tend to make the following classes of ships:

Attack Ships
Carriers
Fleet Tenders

Attack Ships are my front-line combat ships. They take damage and deal it out. There are invariably subdivisions, usually between direct fire and missile ships, as well as any variations designed to defeat a specific tactic (more shields/armor vs. direct fire, more PDCs vs. missile ships/fighters)

Carriers tend be to dedicated later on, but early on they act as my heavy hitters, as well as fighter-deployers. This also covers any other carriers, be they satellites, drones, mines, or troops.

Fleet Tenders repair and resupply the rest of the fleet. They also tend to include the eyes and ears for the fleets (you only need a few sensors to see, after all), as well as any other miscellaneous jobs the fleet might have to do, including medical detail. The basic design is simple: a repair bay + as many solar collectors as you can manage.

The way to win wars is through combined arms. Specialize your ships and put them in fleets with ships that complement their strengths. The surest way to lose a war is to make ships that are jacks of all trades and masters of none.

[ May 08, 2003, 00:58: Message edited by: Hotfoot ]

[tesco samoa]

mine sweepers ( carriers with fighters and sweepers if they can sweep 36 mines then 5 of them ) with fighters that move the same speed as the ships

5 space yard ships which also have scanners on them and solar collectors and cargo

5 Repair ships with cargo and solar collectors

85 direct fire ships

All the same size and speed.

Variation would be the 5 space yards replaced with troop transports... Yep you guessed it Carriers with cargo....

[ May 08, 2003, 00:58: Message edited by: tesco samoa ]

[TerranC]

Early Game:

As many as attack ships you can find
3 Ships filled with supply bays/Solar Panels

Mid-Game:

5 Minesweepers
10-15 Attack Ships
1 Light Carrier with Guns
2 Supply/Repair ships

Late Game:

3 Minesweepers
10-12 Attack Ships
1 Light Carrier fully devoted to Fighters
1 Repair Ship
3 Specialty Ships *Ship Capture to Sensors*

Edit: May I remind you that you should have at least 30 of these Groups if you wish to make a viable late game navy

[ May 08, 2003, 03:01: Message edited by: TerranC ]

[tesco samoa]

as you can see my fleets like to meet up with terran c's fleets...

[Slynky]

Whatever I can sling together, usually .

[Baron Grazic]

My Fleet strategy is usuallty set to either 'Break Formation', 'Capture Ship' or 'Capture Planet' depending on what task they are performing.

The ships usually consist of 50% Direct fire ships, 25% Missile Ships, 10% Point-Defense ships and the Last 15% support ships, including Sweepers, SY/Repair Ships, Transports, Boarders & Carriers.

[Chauron]

lol What Slynky said

Usually when I make a fleet its because I'm in trouble and need to defend a warp point or something... so I pull whatever ships I have nearby and make a fleet lol

One thing I do is have a DN set up as either Heavy combat or Missle Boat and then put a spaceyard on it. Solves the problem of having repair ships in your fleet....

[Gwaihir]

Er, a space yard is a tad costly and large if you only use the repair capability . . . mightn't you want to use repair bays? (Which are stackable, too)

[Baron Grazic]

I'd back a Dreadnaught that uses the extra 400 tonnes for weapons over your DN with a SY.
I perfer a single ship with both a SY & multiple Repairs bays.