Starship weapons setup

Early in the game, using the cargo hull, pack lots of defence onto it to make it invunerable to an enemy. Even though it has only one HP, with high enough defence it should be effective right?

Defense is a random roll of zero to your rated defense value, so unfortunately all it would take is one bad roll on your part and a Torian pea-shooter built of sticks and bubblegum could send it to the scrapyard with a single blow.

Would the HP of the cargo hull increase with experience like other ships?

AFAIK cargo hulls are permanently pegged at 1 HP regardless of level.

No, it won't work.

No matter how much defense you put on, you can still roll a low defense in battle.

I make some pretty hefty ships. Sometimes 3-4 times as much defense as my opponents offensive rating for that particular weapons type. And even with that they can still get through the defense, making me rely more on the hit point rating of the ship.

With a single hit point the ship only needs one bad roll to be destroyed.

A ship with no defense but uber hit points would fair better. With that setup, you just watch as the hit points are used, then move the ship out of harms way until it repairs itself. Then move it back in with increased hitpoints due to experience.

Hmmm thanks for the info. Seems like i would have to be pretty desperate to use a cargo hull then. Am i feeling lucky punk? well am i? noooooo

AFAIK cargo hulls are permanently pegged at 1 HP regardless of level.

regardless of level? not sure. regardless of HP bonus? last time i checked, no. cargo hulls can gain an extra HP or two if you have a high enough HP bonus.

one use for cargo hulls i found was essentially as oversized missiles. i loaded them with some engines and lots of weapons (none of the ultimate weapons tho, the idea was to make a cheap disposable offense; ultimate weapons aren't cheap). i used KHSM to make them look like missiles, even. i found they were less useful than i'd hoped, as they usually could only take out fighter escorts.

one use for cargo hulls i found was essentially as oversized missiles. i loaded them with some engines and lots of weapons (none of the ultimate weapons tho, the idea was to make a cheap disposable offense; ultimate weapons aren't cheap). i used KHSM to make them look like missiles, even. i found they were less useful than i'd hoped, as they usually could only take out fighter escorts.

The tactic your thinking of is already used by the Arcaen empire in a way. They arm their freighters with such high powered weapons that i will always loose one dreadnaught if i attack one with a fleet. Later i descovered the trick is to attack them without a fleet to avoid this problem.

Yes there is definately somthing wrong with the game if NOT having a fleet is an advantage!

i loaded them with some engines and lots of weapons (none of the ultimate weapons tho, the idea was to make a cheap disposable offense; ultimate weapons aren't cheap).

Doomray has a damage of 22 with a cost of 150.

Laser4 has a damage of 1 with a cost of 25.

How is it cheaper to put 22 Laser4's than a singe Doomray?

Ultimate weapons are very cheap, compared to the damage they do.