Learning the Rhythm

[Resident Alien]

When playing against computer I classify ships using Iain M Banks' Culture ship types. GCU = General Contact Unit [ES and FG scouts], ROU = Rapid Offensive Unit [FG, DS, LC , CR warships], GSV = General Systems Vehicle [BC and above ships]. I usually add a number for size/function and letter for tech level i.e. all C's would have a similar set of techs.

01 would be FG, 10 would be DS, 20 would be LC etc. 10 would be a standard config, 11, 12, 13 etc woud be varient types.

Eg. GCU-01-A, ROU-10-A, ROU-10-B, ROU-11-B.

Fleet support ships like tankers (TANK-01-A), anti missile (ABM-10-A) and SYS (SYS-01-B) ships.

When playing PBEM I use random names. There should be no link between function and name when playing humans accept when trying to mislead.

Each fleet contains at least one of each type of support ship: Tankers, point defense, repair/SYS, mine sweeper, plus a variety of warships. In high tech games add warp open and warp close ships for max mobility.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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One of the best additions to a fleet is a shipyard ship. If you keep one of these in each fleet you can retrofit your fleet while moving.

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against humans, you could also make arbirtary class-name changes to your vehicles while moving, just to throw them off the trail.

After every battle where the enemy learns your designs, change the names on every vehicle so they can't look up what you have!

You don't even have to spend any time repairing. Just retro to an identical design, but with a different name, and obsolete the old one

For anybody who has problems retro-ing to an identical design, add one component, then remove it.