My thoughts on ship sizes.

[Q]

The main advantage of the smaller ships like escorts and frigates are IMO their defense bonus and low cost. Therefore they can be valuable against psychic races with allegiance subverters or ships with huge weapons that have a high reload time. But of course their offensive capability is minimal against larger ships with a lot of shields and/or armor.
Besides that I use them as recon ships and medical support ships.

[oleg]

True, in unmodded SE IV the bigger is usually better. But try Proportions mod for example and you will acknowledge the finer points of smaller ships.

[Gryphin]

Rational for Weapon Mounts on Sats but not Ships?:
Practical reason: Game Ballence
Hypothectical Reason: Sats are Staionary? Ships Move?
Works for me, but mostly I don't go for "Realty" reasons.

[jimbob]

By about the midpoint of the game I'm using the smaller ships mainly in special roles. Mine sweeper, sneaky mine layer, scout, PD ships occasionally (especially if they're older ships from the beginning of the game and have a lot of experience... keep em), rapid-deployment repair & supply ships, etc.

The medium sized ships are still useful in 'encounter' fleets. In Quasi Newtonian games the faster larger ships are just soooo expensive. So a relatively inexpensive fleet of very fast Cruisers and even Light Cruisers can be used to move to trouble spots quickly and tie up an opponent. This buys my big/slow ships some time to go and plug up points of entry/weak spots. My general philosophy is that you can get by with half as many ships (tonnage actually), if the ships are capable of getting to any location in your realm in 3 turns or less.

I'd imagine that with human players, a quick response force is often enough to convince them that you're just not a soft target, and should be left alone (the AI is simply not smart enough to read such warning signs).

[ August 09, 2002, 23:14: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[Elowan]

Originally posted by Gryphin:
Rational for Weapon Mounts on Sats but not Ships?:
Practical reason: Game Ballence
Hypothectical Reason: Sats are Staionary? Ships Move?
Works for me, but mostly I don't go for "Realty" reasons.

Actually I do go for 'Realty' - the more planets the better!

[Elowan]

Originally posted by jimbob:
By about the midpoint of the game I'm using the smaller ships mainly in special roles. Mine sweeper, sneaky mine layer, scout, PD ships occasionally (especially if they're older ships from the beginning of the game and have a lot of experience... keep em), rapid-deployment repair & supply ships, etc.

Which then begs the question - are these original designs or refits into that new role? And a follow-up: does a ship lose experience on a refit?

BTW - I've heard of guys using so-called 'training ships' to train up the crew. I don't see anywhere wherein one can transfer a crew. It seems the concept would only work if you had a neural net installed in each ship - impractical for the smaller hulls. Either that - or these are basic hulls fitted with just enough stuff to exceed 50% and then get retro-fitted. Hence the second part of the question above. Is that a practical idea?

[ August 10, 2002, 16:54: Message edited by: Elowan ]

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Elowan:

BTW - I've heard of guys using so-called 'training ships' to train up the crew. I don't see anywhere wherein one can transfer a crew. It seems the concept would only work if you had a neural net installed in each ship - impractical for the smaller hulls.

Yeah that appears to be the plan. But when the opponent gets dreadnought hulls, frigates and destroyers are doomed. One direct hit from a Heavy weapon will instantly destroy an armored, shielded, ECM III frigate. I think 2 or 3 CSM V will also instantly destroy a frigate. That's kinda funny when it happens -- to the other guy at least. Whoosh --- Boom no mini explosions, no limping away on one engine, just gone.

'Course, the ship has just wasted some of it's big guns on a little cannon fodder ship, now it's your turn. Heh

[ August 10, 2002, 17:06: Message edited by: Arkcon ]