Good early fleet composition?

How early are you talking? 100 supply? 100 supply I would go with one Capital 10 LRMs 2 scouts 1 Colony.

Past that probably 20 LRMs or 10 LRM 10 Flak, and 2 Capital ships.

If you're playing Single Player?

LRM Frigates and Cobalt Light Frigates will be all you need. You can just use your capital ships to destroy the worlds. That is why the Marza Dreadnought is one of my favorite TEC ships. Not only is it awesome in ship vs ship, but it's super-powerful in ship vs planet.

If you're playing Multi-Player, there is no perfect mix.

In the very early stages (100 supply) I usually go Kol, 6 Cobalts and then fill out with LRMs as fast as I can research them. I'll get a colony ship too but only one scout. This line up changes after the first fleet upgrades but it's fine for killing off early neutrals. The capital ship with colonizing ability (forget the name at the moment) is also viable early game.

I've been having some interesting results going pure capital ships early game.

By this I mean 0 other ships..no scouts or colony ships. Your first 100 fleet = 50x2 cap ships.

Utility:
Now colony ships are no big deal, just get a colonizing cap ship (it seems plenty of players prefer that anyway), but the lack of scout ships is kind of a pain. If I don't really know a map, I will make 2 scouts to explore the surrounding planets, and just scuttle them when I'm ready to bring out the 2nd cap. Of course, you need scout ships mid to late game to keep track of your opponent's progress, just whip them back out after your first logistics upgrade.

Battles:
Another downside is you don't seem to have quite the kill rate you would with a fleet, but surprisingly enough...I seem to win every fight against the AI fleet with this. My 2 caps will almost always beat a cap+frigates. It's just that caps are so tough that my 2 ships are blasting away while most of their fleet is already gone.

Economy:
getting that 2nd cap out early enough to be useful (1 cap can handle an asteroid, but you need 2 for most planets) can set you back a bit..you have to make it a priority, so your early economy might suffer a bit. HOWEVER, as I said above, it's RARE to loose a ship. I'm literally going entire games (against AI mind you) without loosing a single ship (when a cap gets low, I just retreat it to the nearest repair bay). Think of all the money you are saving not constantly rebuilding your frigate and cruiser cannon fodder.

Furthermore, by focusing only on caps early game, you are free to focus your research on economy stuff (since you don't need to research the various frigate/cruiser types)

Has anybody else tried this? What are your thoughts on it?

i went cap heavy, but not full cap vs ai. i love the TEC colony cap, the ion bolt is awesome for stunning enemy capitals as they try to run away. Since the AI is huge on retreating, picking off their capitals as they run away is alot easier than trying to take out frigates/cruisers.

i have my first lan game coming up in a bit, itd be great to know if anybody has had success with an all-cap fleet in mp games?

Thanks for the input all! (and to answer Astax and Dairuka, yes for the first 100 and a lil beyond that, and yes, single player only for now). I've toyed around a little more, and LRM frigates massed make for some mighty fine fire support (though if the contrails were further highlighted, you'd suspect the LRM skippers graduated from the UN Spacy Academy of Marksmanship >_>).

While I can't for the life of me remember the name of the colonizing cap ship, I'm really loving its targeting uplink and the bonuses it gives to its fleet. Ion shot is nice too. And I'll have to try the capship only run (though I suspect I'll drive myself into the ground attempting it).

Yeah, I stumbled on 2xcap using all 100 supply early on VS the AI. I don't think it's useful in an FFA game with fixed teams or untrustworthy people - if you had another ally (preferably 2 or more) next to you - you could make it work. The big thing is that it leaves you with no fleet points for scouts, which are so, so critical in multiplayer. Someone else needs to do that for you, or your first cap might end up jumping to a very heavy militia terran planet and be unable to take it, then you waste time and antimatter and shield turning around and heading elsewhere. It cripples you for intelligence and hurts your expansion - that money and crystal you spent on the command point has been spent on mineral extraction, trade, planet upgrades, etc, by everyone else.

I am pretty sure it would be useful to use to 'punk' someone early on, though - a battleship (or worse, marza for tec) and coloniser cap would be quite brutal to deal with in the first few minutes while someone is still building up and has their fleet out of their homeworld. But again - you would really need someone else to mind the store while you were occupied doing that, because you wouldn't be able to do much else.

I just use a swarm of cobalts and an Alkan (Colony cap ship). If I'm in a 4p ffa, I like to build the dreadnaught next and use it to bomb the weak opponent's home planet.