A couple of Component questions...

[Suicide Junkie]

Note: Warp weapons can be quite handy on a support ship.
Since they teleport the ship to a random location on the combat map, they are usually more effective than repulsor beams would be. Most of the time, the enemy will end up 3-4 turns away from combat, and you'll improve your odds locally.

If you manage to hit the fleet leader, or just provide a good volume of fire, you'll be able to massively disrupt the enemy formation. Fighting a handful of ships at a time is much better than fighting the whole fleet

There is always the risk that it will be moved behind your lines or beside your retreating support ships, so consider your fleet composition when deciding to use them.

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3) Don't look to the descriptions, they're more atmosphere than details.
Look at the stats listed on that page, particularily the abilities at the bottom.

Ship hulls also show their abilities in the small window below the hull selection box in the design screen, and you can click the abilities tab of any ships you've constructed to see a handy list.

[jfp3]

Ah....very nice tactic there with the Warp Weapon on Support Ship SJ....I wonder...on a related note, does that WWeap count as an actual weapon for purposes of "Capture Planet", in "Fleet Formation" and not having your DropShips running for the corners if they break formation with no weapon?

[Suicide Junkie]

Gravity weapons can't be installed on platforms in stock.

Although, for the purposes of comparing mass for tractor/repulsor beams, planets always win against ships.

[Ed Kolis]

Suicide Junkie said:
Note: Warp weapons can be quite handy on a support ship.
Since they teleport the ship to a random location on the combat map, they are usually more effective than repulsor beams would be. Most of the time, the enemy will end up 3-4 turns away from combat, and you'll improve your odds locally.

Funny, I thought wormhole beams placed the target X number of squares away in a random direction, where X was the damage of the weapon, so a regular WB would place you 5 squares away, a Large Mount 10 squares, a Heavy Mount 15 squares, and a Massive Mount 20 squares

One other thing to remember, too, is that wormhole beams work vs. ANY size ship - you can even beam starbases around with your escorts... or drones! (Hmm, that could be an interesting strategy in Devnull... )

[Suicide Junkie]

Oh, yeah. With starbases packing a lot of power, and all collected in a small section of the combat map, spreading them out to fight one at a time can have a huge effect.