Favorite Ship Designs

[Todd248]

I'd really like to see some ship designs that other people use.

I love the emergency propulsion mixed with a repair unit. 16 pods and 2 repair units creates a scout that can travel 90 squares a turn!

I use a modified scout design for my other stellar mod ships. Does everyone else out there put a repair module on all of their stellar mod ship designs? I'm not sure if the AI does that. It should.

Here is some of my favorite designs:

Large Sat-
Computer
Seeking parasite
Enveloping Acid Globule
PD5

I dump these on warp points and planets for defense. Some times the AI ships will completely destory them, others it will lose large fleets to them.

Scout - Batteship hull
1 master comp
5 engines
1 solar sail
1 quantum reactor
1 cloaking device
2 repair bays
16 emergency propulsion
1 satellite bay

I use this design to drop cloaked satellites in enemy territory.

Satellite/Mine laying Transport - Dreadnought
1 master comp
4 engines
1 solar sail
1 quantum reactor
20 Sat/Mine laying bays
10 cargo bays
5 emergency propulsion

I can lay 20 sats a turn with this design and carry 40 with highest techs. I think that this is how the layers where intended to be designed and used in the first place, not a layer that can drop 400 mines a turn with only 1 bay.

[Mako]

I have a design that works well for droping specially made spy satillites.

Ship
Medium Transport
No computers (costs more)
5 engines
1 quantum reactor
1 cloacking device
1 sat bay
1 Mine layer(I edited the files to launch more sats and mines)
Cargo bays
1 solar sail (if you have room)
1 self destruct device (So it won't be captured)

Spy Satillite
Large sat
computer
cloaking device
some kind of sensor (gravitic, phsycic,temporal)

The transport hull makes the ship cheaper. Since the sats apparently have unlimited supplys the cloak can always remain on, same with the ship and it's quantum reactor. I load 10 spy sats and as many mine as it will carry, then deploy the sats some where in an enemy system where enemy ships won't bump into them, like on the edge of the system. I then use the mines to block key enemy warp points too slow down the movements of their ships. These designs have worked so far.

And for a scout.

Escort hull
no computer (size and cost are problems)
6 engines
3 supply pods or 3 solar collecters or 1 quantum reactor (depends on your tech level)
If you have a quantum reactor, equip some weapons or a cloacking device.

[Seawolf]

Just an observation,

ALl these designs are created once you have very high tech levels. How about showing med tech designs to help others? It is easy to build great ships/Sats when you use highest tech. IMHO

------------------
Seawolf on the prowl

[Todd248]

I've found the early/mid game to be completely boring. There is no challenge. Even on the highest difficulty level it is very easy to outrace the AI in research. I've played several games and they are usually over by turn 150. I'd much rather play a game with maxed tech and get a chance to use some of the cooler components. I've found the AI to be much harder to beat when they have max'd tech.

[dmm]

When starting with low tech, here's how to get a good early fleet:

1) Research armor to level III.
2) Make large numbers of escorts with nothing but required stuff, 6 engines, and armor.
3) In battle, use them as rammers.
4) A few ships with DUCs will act as lures for AI fire, causing unarmed rammers to be ignored.
5) If you don't have armor yet, use transports or even colony ships.

So far, this fleet is only good for defense. So,

6) Research frigate and repair, and make some repair ships to accompany your hordes of ramming escorts.
7) Start building ramming frigates with a weapon or two for attacking planets.

This early strategy should buy you time to research some good long-term stuff, like boarding parties, troops, special racial techs, proper weapons, etc.

[Sinapus]

Light cruiser, 2 Large-mount DU V cannons, 1 large-mount torpedo weapon. Two shields, six engines, Combat sensors, ecm and multiplex tracking. Armor sometimes, other times a supply storage unit. I group them together and mob the enemy.

Of course, since I use the EA bitmap set this ends up being my own little White Star Fleet.

I do build heavier ships, but I update these LCs as often as I can and use them to draw fire. The turbine formation is pretty good for them in tactical mode. Had twelve sitting on one of those double warp points that sometimes appear on cluster quadrants and found them neatly surrounding the enemy whenever they came through one of the warp points. Mayhem ensued as even ships with temporal weapons got nailed before they could use those darn shield/armor-skipping weapons. Muahaahhahahah.

[Resident Alien]

Here are some ship designs from a game I played recently. Followed by the research path I used to get the techs, starting MEDIUM tech.

Ship Types (at year 2404.9)
----------
Attack Light Cruiser

Bridge, Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, 1 x supply storage, 2 x shield III, Combat Sensor II, ECM II, Point Defense II, 3 x Large Mount Phased Polron V, Stealth Armour I

Attack Cruiser

Bridge, 2 x Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, 1 x supply storage, 3 x shield III, Combat Sensor II, ECM II, Point Defense II, 4 x Large Mount Phased Polron V, Stealth Armour I

Light Carrier (capacity 94 small fighters)

Bridge, Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, 1 x supply storage, shield II, combat sensor II, ecm II, point defense II, 2 x cargo II, 17 x fighter bays.

Fleet Support / Anti Missile Ship / LC

Bridge, Life support/Crew quaters, 6 x engines, 1 x stealth armour I, 2 x shields III, combat sensor II, ECM II, 7 x point defense II, 1 x phased poloron beam V

Fleet Support / Repair / LC

Bridge, Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, Repair I, 4 x supply storage, 4 x solar collector II

Fleet Support / Tanker / LC

Bridge, Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, 10 x supply storage, 5 x solar collector II

Deep Probe / Cruiser / Unlimited Exploration, to boldly go where nobody has gone before......

Bridge, 2 x Life support/Crew quarters, 6 x engines, 10 x supply storage, 8 x solar collector II, stealth armour

Research Sequence in detail: MEDIUM start tech
----------------------------
From 2400.1 to 2403.5:

Ship size FG, Armour, Proj Wep 2, Shield, Point Defense, Proj Wep 3, Ship size DS, Stellar Harnessing, Proj Wep 4, Ship size LC, Proj Wep 5, Sensor, Combat Support, Shield, Armour 2, Stellar Harnessing, Applied Intel, Fighter, Propulsion, Repair, Physics 2, Religeous Study, Ship Size CR, Phased Poleron to 4, Religeous Tech.

From 2403.5 to 2404.9:

Shield, Sensor, Combat Support, Point Defense, Phased Poleron 5, Propulsion, to Armour 4 (for stealth), Ice Colony (in progress....)