Ship Design Advice for Crystal

[Enigma]

Ok I am in an advanced game and most tech has been discoverd. What is the optimal balance of Defense and Offense for a Dreadnaught for a Crystal Race? I find that I have placed 10 or 11 Armor (8 or 9 Crystal plus scattering and stealth) on my ships with 3 or 4 shields. But that leaves little room for weapons. On a 1 to 1 fight my ships win easily. But in fleet actions they have not done that well.

I have one design mounting 5 Heavy Anti-Proton Beam and a Energy Dampener III.

I have another design with an Energy Dampener III, 2 Heavy Shield Depleters V, and 5 Heavy Shard Cannon X

Both designs seem to do worse in fleet actions. I think it is because the weight of their firepower is light.

Any ideas?

[Frederick_d_Ohlmann]

Enough Crystal armor for 150 (10 I think), 1 or 2 shield (since you have LOT of armor), and Anti-proton beam and 1 energy dampener. The Shard cannon is useful only against other crystallines, and Energy Dampener may be useful if ennemy have only a few big ship (like Baseship), or in WP defence. If you play in stratégic only, the dampeneur is far less useful 'cause your ship still shoot at the dampened even if it is harmless.

[Enigma]

Well one of my enemies uses Organic Armor exclusively (darn Religious Organic) and the Shard Cannon I thought would be pretty effective tearing up his ships because he does not use that many shields and would bypass his armor.

[douglas]

Here's what I do, and it works pretty well in my experience:

No master computer
Max quantum engines
Solar sail
quantum reactor
multiplex tracking
combat sensors
ECM
scattering armor
stealth armor
crystalline armor x10
emmissive armor x3
phased shield generator
heavy mount shield depleter
heavy mount APB x4
PDC x3

If you're willing to pay the cost for a master computer, you can add another shield depleter or take off a PDC or multiplex tracking and add another APB. I include three emmissive armors because the emmissive ability greatly increases the durability of this design, but the emmissive armor is much easier to destroy than the rest. The 10 crystalline armors are not something you can compromise on - you need all 10 to get maximum benefit from the shields from damage ability, and if I had space for them I'd add spares. For this reason, baseships might actually not be a bad idea, despite their 40% defense penalty.

Edit: If your primary opponent is using lots of organic armor instead of shields, the shard cannon might be a good choice as main armament. Make two designs, one with standard weapons and one with shard cannons and try them both out in the simulator.

Edit2: Your opponent is religious? In that case, you may want to strip out the stealth and scattering armors, and maybe the ECM as well, and replace them with a spare crystalline armor and another big gun. Just be careful to use such a design only against your religious enemies unless you don't have a choice.

Edit3: Oh yeah, if you can tolerate their slower speed, baseships are definitely the way to go against religious enemies, as their 40% defense penalty will have absolutely no effect, plus you'll get 500 kt more space and the massive mount, and the space-saving master computer no longer costs more than the alternative.

[Enigma]

Thanks that is good advice. We are in a truly epic war in this game. The top three players against everyone else. In the past 5 turns the main battlefleets of each player has been destroyed in combat in a series of battles.

I have been using a mix of Shard Cannon and APB XII. The APB ships are piplelined from base yards and my Shard Cannon from planet yards. I test your design and see how it works.

[douglas]

My advice if you go with baseships: switch to a master computer instead of bridge/CQ/LS, add another 5-6 crystalline armors, add another backup emissive armor or two, switch all your weapons to massive mount, and fill up the rest of the space with more massive mount weapons.

[Enigma]

Speed is somewhat important. My race is a propulsion expert so I can get 9. But 10 is what we need. I have some Baseships which I am retrofitting this turn. They are the survivors of the last big battle. I have new DNs with your design going into production. The simulator showed better performance than what I was using. Thanks for the help and long live the Grand Alliance.

[Frederick_d_Ohlmann]

9 and 10 are the same for me : speed of 5 in battle

[Enigma]

In battle speed is not as important as strategic speed. I have to maneuver with other races and the speed difference could have half our fleet arriving the day after the battle:-)

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

If the battle is won by your ally's fleets, it would be only beneficial to you; because then you'd have a full combat-ready fleet ready to take on enemies.

Lessen your use of Crystalline armor slightly (speaking about the number in first post) and increase the amount of top-lev Phased Shields. What you could also do; create some (small) fast support ships with as much movement as possible, light armor and 1-2 Phased gens max. Then put (possibly mounted) Ripper Beams on them and use them to close with you enemy and cause considerable damage AND draw away enemy fire for long enough to allow your large warships to close in for the kill.

I'm speaking about stock here, or are you using a mod.....?