Heh...my FAS (Fast Attack Ships) don't even have shields. I DID go back and added one more shield generator to each design (except FAS) and removed all the extra solar sails I had stacked in there for movement (found out that they don't stack

). On the FAS I added more guns

. The FAS start out as destroyer class ships and are now Cruiser class.
I have two flotillas now, one fighting the blue guys and one fighting the yellow guys. Both flotillas have 100+ ships, although, I just fought a major battle with the yellow guys (the ones with the Organic Tech tree) and that Fleet is currently being reinforced...he had two fleets of 18 Battleship class ships, I won both engagements, but my Fleet was dropped to about 30, of which 15 were support ships

.
I have nothing smaller than cruiser class in any of my fleets. My missile ships & FAS are both Cruiser class. I am winning. I am stealing about 70000 of each resource each turn and my enemies are running out

I am pumping almost a million points into Intelligence.
This has been my most challenging game so far and I haven't installed the 1.30 upgrade yet (want to finish this game first). I don't think that either of my foes are the number one empire. The turn counter tells me that I have 20 foes out there (I killed two upstart races already). Foe #5 takes a very long time for his turn

I'm looking forward to meeting him.
By the way, part of the Arachnid traits is a -10% to ship attack & defense. I think this definitely contributed to my getting blown away in my first combat.
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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium