The Ship Class You Use Most

[UmberGryphon]

My early colonizers are colony ship hulls, and my late colonizers are light cruisers (with solar sails, either supply storage/solar panel or a quantum reactor, and the rest being cargo storage).

My warships are almost all dreadnoughts. I try to play purely defensively until I have dreadnoughts and combat sensor 3s (it's amazing how often I can get away with this, and I don't even use mines). I'd use baseships if it weren't for the fact that they are allowed 2 fewer engines (which costs them a point of movement in tactical combat).

Lately, my troop transports have been BASESHIPS. Let me explain. I decided I wanted my troop transports to be able to handle lots and lots of planets by themselves, at least the ones that didn't have warships in orbit. So I wanted my troop transports to have: the usual stuff (bridge, crew quarters, life support, engines, solar sail, supply storage/solar panel or quantum reactor), tons of point-defense cannons (to deal with satellites and fighters), tons of shielding (to take fire from weapons platforms on the way in), a repair bay and at least eight emergency propulsion 5s (to take as many planets as possible in a turn), and enough cargo storage to hold enough troops to take out the militias created by several billion people. Baseships are the only thing that can hold all that, but it works like a charm--taking every planet and moon of an entire system in 1 turn is not unheard of.