A few things:
Originally posted by Davour
Ship Design - the 411
b) Escort - this is where your medium guns sit, they protect your big guns with either short range fire or point defence fire, you will find anything from a corvette to a frigate in here.. don't overload this ring with Fantastic ships, they will only get hit first, stick those in the core. Don't overload with nancy-poo ships either because once these go down your big guns are next!!
I've actually been using BBs (battleships) as point ships in my current game since I started building Dreadnoughts--still use BB hulls to guard my behemoths too. You can never get enough point defense, and with BBs on point all it takes is three or four to soak up all the fighters and missiles that will come after your armada taskforce. I generally suffer minimal losses (actually, either one of two things happens--the whole TF, including all point ships, survives whatever fighters or missiles the AI throws at it (most common), or the whole TF is overcome and gets destroyed--I rarely find that the point ships are the only ones in the TF that go down. But those point defenses (lightning field generators, tachyon beams, or PD-chassis missiles (which function as "anti-missiles")) will save your hide, so it's best to make them as robust as you can, although beyond BB size is probably overboard (although I have an SD "multipoint" that uses a "layered" system of many beams of different ranges, that works like a charm--starts shooting down missiles at long range, then continues shooting as the remainder close--usually making the whole volley disappear before any can impact). Another ship that I put in the core of every major task force, is a carrier filled with interceptors (rather than "space control" chasses)--these interceptors quickly kill incoming fighter groups, removing that threat rather effectively. Each major task force, regardless of mission, gets one. I also have a "Hetz" ship (a BB) filled with those PD "anti-missiles" (X-Ray warheads, which are relatively compact, PD chassis). Actually, I've been experimenting a lot with Point Defense designs, and probably have more PD designs than I do designs of any other mission type. But minimizing loss is VERY helpful to the military budget, as you can imagine!
Oh, and another thing--for beam weapons on point, DON'T use the PD mount--light mounts take up the same space and are more effective, particularly against larger targets (like plasma fighters and such) (and yes, they WILL target incoming missiles and fighters just as a PD mount will)! Might be more expensive though, haven't really checked, but in my current game my economy is very strong and I spare no expense when it comes to making a quality, durable fleet.
c) Picket - this is where you stick your recon ships, the game requires that big fleets have at least 2 of these sitting here and the ONLY ships that qualify as picket ships are those with a RECON mission - you change CHEAT THIS by designing your ship (PD or SR or even LR.. though I wouldn't advise a picket long range) and then at the last minute changing the mission (DONT' CLICK AUTO BUILD) and then confirming the design. - Use this to stick one of your Escort type ships in the picket ring, they will still auto scan for other ships with whatever sensors she stick on them but can also fire if you want them to!
I've seen it posted on the MOO3 forum (their website, similar to this one actually) that ECMs and ECCMs will "cancel out" each other when put on the same ship, or in the same TF actually. An ECM is designed to keep your ships hidden (the enemy must move closer before they see you); while an ECCM is designed to spot enemy ships sooner (by countering their ECMs)--but in the process, the ECCM also makes the TF carrying it visible sooner to the enemy! So put recon ships with ECCMs in your short-range "cannon fodder" TFs, as these will forge ahead looking for the enemy, and will put them in the sights of your longer-ranged TFs; and put a different design of recon ship, with your latest ECM, in TFs that you want to keep hidden (such as Indirect Fire, Long, or Carrier TFs)--do NOT put both kinds in the same TF, or else their net effect will be zero, if I understand the advice I saw on the forum correctly.
We have 7 main missions
Outpost
Colony
Recon
Long/Range Atk
Short/Range Atk
Point Defense
Troop Transport
You're forgetting the most important one (IMHO, anyway), Indirect Fire (missiles)!
Actually, missile ships become more key as enemy shield tech improves--since shields will absorb more and more beam impact with each upgrade, while missiles ignore shields entirely (although they are stoppable with good PD, something the AI doesn't do as well as I do though). Not saying there isn't a place for beam weapons, nor should you rely solely on missiles (although for every long-range TF in a battle group, I'll have at least two IF TFs of equal or greater numbers). I actually have a few "decoy missile ships" loaded with cheap nukes among my EP and Omega boats, to overwhelm AI point defense (they can't tell which is which, and try to shoot at all of them).
Fighters from carriers are also a good way to overwhelm point defenses, especially small and cheap Phaser or Ion-pulse fighters--against heavy shields, they don't do much damage, but the "swarm effect" they create distracts point defenses enough to ensure that more than a few of those deadly Omega warheads get through. Given that loophole that "refills" your carriers with fighters in each new battle (despite what was shot down in a previous battle)(I guess you can imagine that replacement fighters are built and fitted on these ships in the "galactic cycle" between turns), you'll always get the "swarm" even though these smaller fighers take less to shoot down individually.
Basically, my MAIN offensive weapon is the latest design of missile at my disposal, all other types are support in one way or other that allows them to get through, and assures that the missile boats keep on firing until empty, or until the enemy is gone (I generally use the "default" size five rack, i.e. five volleys, although I have "two shot" classes (rack size 2) which shoot two large volleys, then retreat--I put these in a separate TF). (Note: due to a bug in the game, if you put missile boats with two or more different rack sizes in the same TF, once the ones with smaller racks run out of missiles, the ones with larger racks will stop firing as well--so make sure all rack sizes are the same within the same task force, or you'll be cursing!) (Note to clarify: rack size=number of volleys, number of racks=missiles per volley--this latter number CAN vary within a TF.)
We could classify by chasis type but it is easier to clasify by DAMAGE amount since any combat craft is really important only in how much dmg it can do!
So to name i'll use an example -
Ship is LONG RANGE ATTACK - (L)
Ship can also do 352 points of damage (add up all the damage points each weapon group has) - 352
Its called L352
ok... so its named but NOW how do you know what tech it has on it?? how do you know when to upgrade??
The only way you can record anything in the game is through ship or fleet names..
If we imagine that every important part of the ship has a tech level (fusion is discovered on Levle 6 Energy Tech lets say but Neutron Bomb is Level 18 Social Sciences Tech)
All we do then is discover every important part of the ship, what tech level it is found at (you can get a spreadsheet from the offical m003 forums that lists tech tree levels and discoveries) and then we name a ship after it
So our ship is called L352
It has a Tech Level 4 Engine
It has a Tech Level 5 Weapon
It has a Tech Level 4 Weapon
It has a Tech Level 8 Armor
It has a Tech Level 12 Sensor
So we simply design any ship (doesnt matter what type), name it L352
Now see if you can fit one ship name with all the specs
L352-E4-W5-W4-A8-S12 (Keep the "-" in or out, however you read it best)
If it doesnt fit on one ship name split it between 2 designs
L352-E4-W5-W4
L352-A8-S12
etc, until you have all the info on the ship designs
Now make all the designs you have obsolete
Do this for each ship type you make, it can get hectic and if you prefer try writing it on a pad or some paper - it is neater, whatever works
Now every time you get an increase in tech level, check your ships
If you have a new engine design (from Tech Level 4 to Tech Level 6) then have a look through your list and see any designs that have E5 or lower on - build a new one and follow the notes as above
This is QUITE complicated but hope it helps some people - any questions, drop a reply
Aye aye aye... that nomenclature would confuse me--but whatever works for you, I guess. I dislike the limited field we get for design name, but I've managed to work with it. Starship names start with the hull class (from 'F' for frigate--I don't build anything smaller--through DD, LC, C, BC, BB, DB, SD, T, Bh, and the not-yet-achieved Lv that WILL be available soon to me), then the mission (L, S, M (indirect fire), CV, Pt, for the different combat missions, transports and colony ships don't use this nomenclature system), then the primary weapon (e.g. 'ph' for 'phaser' or 'db' for 'disintegration beam' in the long range series, 'pl' or 'mbc' for plasma or megabolt cannon in short-range, etc.). For missile ships, I use an abbreviation for the warhead type (such as 'sp', 'xl', 'ip', 'ep', 'om') followed by rack size, hyphen, rack number--such as 'BhMom5-9' for my latest Omega behemoth (I guess I could nickname it "Big Mom"
). For carriers, I use an abbreviation for the type of fighters following the 'CV' ('ph', 'pl', 'dsr'), and if it is a "defensive" CV filled with only interceptors, I follow the abbreviation with a hyphen and then 'i'. I don't put the number of fighters in the name--hull size pretty much gives me an idea of how many (bearing in mind that far fewer fighter-disruptors will fit in the same hull as fighter-phasers, of course).
Recon ships bear either 'TFspot' or 'TFcloak' in their name, depending on if they have the ECCM or ECM in them, respectively; followed by the number of the grade of ECCM or ECM: e.g. BCTFcloak5 is my latest taskforce-hider ship, while BCTFspot5 goes in the forward TFs to help me find the enemy.
"Special" ships will just have the hull size and name of the special design: for example, my "hetz" (all-PD-missile) ships are BBhetz(hc) for the old hercular hetz, and BBhetz(xl) for the xray laser ones. My "multipoint" superdreadnought is called the SDmulti-pt. My layered lightning-field-generator shortrange ship is the SDthor. My decoy missile junkthrower is called a BBdecoy. And so on.
Aside from that, I'll append any significant variation between two designs with some shorthand or other--for example, I just got the "Ghost Device" technology, and wanted to install it on every major current design--so "Big Mom" with the ghost device is called BhMom5-9? -- '?' being my shorthand for ghost device (pretty easily spottable in the ship list, so that I can easily make sure a TF has all ghost device ships if I need to). When I get Warp X engines (they're coming), I'll probably append an 'X' after existing designs with the improvement installed. Can't wait for damper fields (visible on my tech matrix), either!
Anyway, at a glance, I can see what's "under the hood" on each ship, and can get a good concept of its role within the task force, and within the "battle group" of task forces as a whole. Works well for me....
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Anyway, just some remarks, to add to what you posted which itself was quite informative. I LOVE this game, and I'm only on my second game (where I've gotten a lot further than my first). Civ2, for the first time in awhile, is gathering dust on my shelf. MOO3 just has far more depth to it (and I LOVE designing and innovating ships), and although it's still buggy in its original form (there is a patch out now, but I have to finish my current game first), it is quite satisfying to me nonetheless.
