I don't buy that generalization for one second.

It was an overgeneraliztion, I was sorry the second I posted it, and you replied before I could edit. But generally speaking, most experienced players dont bother with military or starbase defense tech research, when maxed out starbases (at the expense of many, many constructors) are so easily overcome by the killer fleets roaming around by mid game. Starbase military assists are useful in early game, but so are many other techs that are going to be useful throughout the entire game, so its hard to justify the research. Your best starbase defense is to not let anyone reach it, and thats only for econ and influence starbases which are useful.

But this is a seperate issue, there are any number of ongoing threads on the topic ( you actually replied in the latest one WWW Link ), and it is not my intention to threadjack it.

Let's separate the two: there are starbase defense modules, and there are ship assist modules. The SB defense modules are not useful except in early game. Definitely. However, it's a prerequisite for the Protection Fields and like 3 other assist modules. The assist modules get multiplied over every ship within the SB's influence. That means if you have 4-5 tinies, you're getting +4-5 fleet weapons/defense for every point of assist, instead of 1 you would get for 1 large ship (which costs about the same). The defense SB module is even more pronounced, because you're getting *THREE* points of defense on tiny ships, who only have room for one defense module. That's +12-15 pts. defense on a fleet of tinies, vs. just 3 for one large ship.

That is how you win wars on Suicidal vs. an overpowering Drengin army and you haven't even researched medium hulls yet. The AI just sends waves and waves through the same sector at you, and the SB's _assist_ modules rip through them.

The Bug Faces get first strike ablity??? In Gal Civ II I found them to be well like elves... annoying and hit hard but if you really land a blow on them they sorta fold.

John W

I found the Arceans an odd choice for the "super warrior" (first strike) ability as well. That seemed more fitting for the the Drengin. But again, I digress for being off-topic...

Back ON topic, it would be great to hear from someone who uses the Arcean first strike ability to attack larger hulled fleets succesfully with fleets of small ships with minimal losses. It would save me from having to play a game with the arceans now to find out

I can't say I ever used Tiny.

I don't defend colonies. I have paid for that mistake once or twice, but essentially I learned from it.

By the time you get into a full scale war where invasions are a posibility, you ought to have suffecient scan range and espionage to see the enemy (and his destination) well before they reach your system. A minor fleet of smalls or Mediums can cover several star systems and still take on enemy warships, where the token tiny cannot.

In my games starbases are incredably important and worth defending. However I have modified my game to include a massive Range penalty for all the races, including my self. Starbases are more like "outposts" and you need them to be able to reach the enemy, effectively making them choke points. Lose a starbase, you lost your offensive capability as your craft can't reach enemy territory.

I must admit, that I am totally in love with medium ships though. Usually don't research anything bigger. I've only tried a little bit with DA, and its interesting. Haven't had a chance to test out teh new battle system completely. Small fleet vs. Small fleet seems pretty much the same, lol. Could make Huge ships a big part of the end game though....

Try pumping out tiny hulls with a single mass driver and the cheap, bulky armour you get with starship defenses, and then put them in an area with 3 military starbases. They'll cost about 60 bc each, and the bonuses they get are absurd. Its the perfect way to boost your military power or defend a small empire, especially if you put a more conventional medium hull as a damage sponge in front of them... the big ship takes all the hits, but the vast majority of the damage is dealt by the tiny hulls.

Granted, thats about the ONLY use I've found for them.

Small ships are good at the start, but when you get going and are researching bigger and better hulls and ships you can't beat getting a huge hull and creating a Battlestar class starship! Black Hole gun and a about 5 disruptors plus zero point armour and invulnerable shields..........one ship capable of taking out ANYTHING else.

That's the point, as I see it. Large hulled ships work nicely when you're already winning, but you need small ships to pull out a win when you're not. It doesn't take much strategy to win a game you're already winning. You can't just research up to Huge hulls and build 1000bc ships when you're under attack...unless you're playing with some serious starting tech settings.

Actually, I've played a game where I rushed to large hulls and just sent these lone behemoths (with my low logistics) against massive fleets of the other race's ships. They did tons of damage but were few enough in number that I was on the losing end of the war (barely holding onto a stalemate) until I found a way to cripple my opponents economy. Once their ships started getting powerful and their logistics got higher and higher, I could barely stuff enough of these ships into a fleet to compete... if I hadn't found a way to cripple them without pounding through their militaries, I would have been worn down eventually.

Granted, that was in a dread lords game.

Heh, disagree. I dont even start building ships en masse till I get medium hulls. I build a few small ships in the beginning for a token military deterrent. They are almost entirely dispensable.

Seconded. I'm usually on my way to large ships when I'm starting up my first real run of warships. It's often half medium/half large. My first war sees me using them in singletons and pairs. The AI usually only has defenders around one in four or five planets at this stage and it doesn't take much to sweep him. The bigger challenge is getting enough transports up in the air.

I would think, m'self, that the smaller ships should get a defensive bonus. Sure, they've got this Uber-Dreadnaught planet pulverizer, but its mega-weaponry is primarily designed to face other Uber-Dreadnaughts - nailing that pesky fighter should be like trying to use a cannon to swat a fly.

I just like the underdogs, and would like to see the one-man fighters get a lil' perk

Up to now I found the combination of one or two big ships plus a few small ships to be rather effective. Usually the big ship takes the beating while the small ships deal the damage. My small ships thus have almost no defense in this configuration. This obviously only works as long as the big ship can take all damage the enemy can deal, otherwise the smalls go down like flies. Also the small ships need to be able to deal more damage than the enemy's defenses can absorb. Luck comes in handy here.

But I guess the main factor is that it looks cool. One behemoth in the middle of a swarm of nimble ships is just great to watch.

Vain

Though I have yet to really test this in combat, I generally build ships according to the production capability of a planet, and try to have balanced fleets. At my point of this last game. I have 1 large, 2 med, 2-3 small, and 2-3 tiny in a particular fleet, only time will tell if it works out.