Fleet Descriptions

I took some experience from a not-to-be-mentioned space stragety game and applied them to my own fleets, which is a core group of ship busters supported by smaller ships. Larger ships are built with a couple type of weapons and defences since they are expensive to build and upgrade. The smaller ships, usually fighters, will have one weapon type and some defences which will be upgraded with the latest weapon ASAP. On each ship, only one engine and no life support is good since more defences can be placed and military bases are built to increase their range. If everything goes well, the fleet gets experience, which makes the larger ships more dangerous as the war goes on, especially when you use them to cover rookie dreadnoughts.

Depending on my tech advantage, I buld my ships with less or better defences. I always try to mach my ships weapon configurations to the enemies weapons/ defences, that alone often gives me a 50% advantage.

I go to considerable effort to have as small a list of ship-types as possible. I usually have 1-2 types of constructor, a freighter class, and 1 each of small, medium and large military hulls which are as technologically advanced as possible. The "upgrade all ships of this type" option is my friend!

I build a single dreadnought per game, using two of whatever weapon is least defended against, one life support module, about 6 engines, and as much defense as I can fit on after that. Then I build a bunch of transports (one life support, one advanced module, fill with engines for 61 movement). Then I mass-produce all of them and group them into fleets of either 5 dreads or 8 transports.

And then there is destruction.

My rules of thumb r:-

Fleet ships of the same speed together only.

Only fleet warships together (never include a non-combat ship in a fleet). My non-combat ships r always faster then my combat ships, so just end in same square as my war fleets for protection.

Speed is the most important asset of ships.

Early on it will be my best engine, plus weapons/defenses. Never anything else such as sensors or support. I have specialist non-combat ships for those roles. Ltr I go to my 2 best engines plus weapons/defenses.

Typical ship classes r:-

Tiny warship:- Law Mk 1 upto Law Mk 10+ etc
Small :- Enforcer Mk 1+
Medium:- Justice Mk 1+
Large:- Lawgiver Mk 1+
Huge:- Judge Mk 1+

Survey/scout:- Seeker Mk 1+
Constuctor:- Artisan Mk 1+
Transport:- Liberator Mk 1+
Transport:- Ferry (does not invade worlds, transfers pop. around)
Freighter:- Merchant Mk 1+

Names vary, those r for the race I am playing at the mo, Altarians.

Ltr I go to my 2 best engines plus weapons/defenses.

Just two? I often put 5 or 6 engines on the huge hulls, as long as I can spare the offensive or defensive capability. Not that I think the extra speed is all that needed now first strike advantage has gone, but it makes for much less annoying micromanagement!

Just two? I often put 5 or 6 engines on the huge hulls, as long as I can spare the offensive or defensive capability

I like mine slow and mean (still spd 16+), let the other races shake with fear...

Sensors...eyes of the universe is your friend.

Before that, I use sensor boats - cargo hull with the sensor cap (15) and as many engines as I can fit. This should still be able to outrun anything with guns and so can travel along with your fleets, rather than *in* them.

Defences are expensive. I usually only fit them when I can manage *at least* 50% more than the opposition attack rating *and* still have room left over for reasonable weaponry and speed. They usually wait 'til I've reached large or huge hulls.

I'm ambivalent about upgrading. It's a pretty expensive business. If I have the time and military production capacity, I often prefer to build newer models and either decommission or change the duties of the older models.

Once I'm at the invasion stage of the game, my ship setups are like this:

Tanks - the objective of these is to roll through enemy territory destroying everything in their path but taking minimal losses. Focus on defence first, then weapons, then engines.

Blockaders - the objective of these is to follow along behind the tanks and beat down any new ships that are built. Since they'll only be fighting one at a time, they don't need to be that strong. Slight bias toward speed here so I can cover as many planets at once as possible.

Interceptors - very lightly armored and weaponed, max out the speed. These take down unescorted transports, constructors, unarmed or lightly armed starbases and other soft targets. Since the amount of experience you need for a ship to level up depends on its combined defence and weaponry, if I'm feeling cheesy, I'll often use outmoded weaponry, build lots of these interceptors and throw them at anything they can handle. Once they reach 150-200 hps, I upgrade to warships.

People Carrier - massive fast ships I use to shuttle people around the empire. *Not* for invasion, since these beasts are expensive and you lose invasion ships.

Invaders - since you lose the ships after invading, I make these as cheap as possible without making them too frustratingly slow. Tiny hulls with 1 or 2 advanced troop mods and the rest engines. This allows you to invade with obscene numbers of troops (60B+ in a fleet), so that you'll definitely only lose one ship and can very quickly replace it, often with the military points built up in the planet you're invading.

I like mine slow and mean (still spd 16+), let the other races shake with fear...

Ah. I play very slow tech speed, so I'm not getting those sort of speeds with just 2 engines for a long while, if ever. That's the sort of speeds I like though.

I try to basicly model mine around the type of ship class.

Example:
Tiny: Fighters that are fast, with a good weapon no defenses.
Small: Corvettes or frigates, moderately armed and armored, decent speed.
Medium: Heavy frigates and light destroyers, heavly armed, moderately armored, good speed.
Large: Destroyers and cruisers, the mainstay of my fleet, armed to the teeth, with the armor to match, slow.
Huge: Heavy Cruisers and Battleships/Dreadnaughts, truly the behemoths of battle, loaded out with maximum firepower and armor, and forget speed. Also they are very exspensive,$10,000+

Upgrading: depends, If I got the money, the biggest ships are first, then I religate older or designs that arn't worth upgrading to patrol duty or outpost defense.

Transport:- Ferry (does not invade worlds, transfers pop. around)

People Carrier - massive fast ships I use to shuttle people around the empire. *Not* for invasion, since these beasts are expensive and you lose invasion ships.

Huh? Why are you building ships that ferry people to different planets? That's just adding to things to manage.  

Huh? Why are you building ships that ferry people to different planets? That's just adding to things to manage.

Planets will only naturally grow to a certain amount based on PQ, regardless of farms. So you can ferry people to low PQ planets to fill them up to capacity and get the most money out of them you can. Also, if you use the 'build cheap fast cargo hulls then upgrade them to colony ships when they get there' tactic, you'll need to ferry people to your colonies when you get the chance as they'll only be starting with 1m peope.

Huh? Why are you building ships that ferry people to different planets? That's just adding to things to manage.

It speeds up the invasion process. Even if you're losing no troops at all, you've still got to leave people behind on the planet. If you leave only a small population it puts a heavy strain on your economy.

Even if you're not invading, whenever you have some planets way below their population cap and others right at it, that's an inefficient economic situation.

Also, on the tougher levels I occasionally can't avoid being invaded. I want to be able to replace those losses from safer core worlds.

Yes, it's more to manage, but on the highest levels every edge is important.

So what exactly are you all saying with regards to ferrying people to planets? Is that not what a colony ship is for? I mean do you really just start making special designs just for ferrys? I could understand adding engines to increase speed but that's about it. Another stupid ? since I haven't really checked in game (just started actually making my own ships) can you increase colony/invasion transports to carry lots more people than the starting specs? i.e. can you add lots of modules to add to the carrying capacity? I know it is kind of stupid to ask but there is just so much to this game and oh so very little time to play! Besides, since I almost always have some sort of game crash, since this latest game has been running well, I am almost afraid to do much more than click the end turn button and hope that my game will continue!!!! Love this game but really hate all the faults. Isn't that what people pay for,,, tested and proven games?

since I haven't really checked in game (just started actually making my own ships) can you increase colony/invasion transports to carry lots more people than the starting specs? i.e. can you add lots of modules to add to the carrying capacity?

Yes. Which also answers the first part of your post. The advanced troop mod is better for ferrying people round than the colony module because it holds 1B people a time and takes up less space. Actually, I'm not even certain you can stack colony modules on a ship. Troop modules you can.

Love this game but really hate all the faults. Isn't that what people pay for,,, tested and proven games?

You've just been unlucky. There aren't any faults (in terms of games crashing) for the majority of people.