Ship classes

[GordonFreemason]

What classes of ships do people make?

Mine tend to fall on this line:
Scout/Surveyor

Fighter/Defender

Destroyer

Cruiser (basically about 3/4 the weapons/armour of a BB, and FAST)

Battleship

 

[Commodore]

I usually make one design to fit each of these classes:

Fighter
Corvette
Frigate
Battlecruiser
Capital Ship
Colony Ship
Freighter
Surveyor
Constructor

 

[Selous]

i tend not to build scouts, my first ships are some kind of light fighter ..... then just build the biggest baddest mofo warship i can ... and continue to do that while i teck up

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

My concepts are built around an amalgamation of the maximum of two purposes per ship type (at least with military vessels). The usual elements comprise firepower, defence, speed, range and sensors. What I still want to try is to build an armed freighter out of a Large or Huge military hull (this way it could travel safely and would usualy survive pirat, etc attacks ). So, in order of appearence:
------------------------------------

-1: Tiny Chassis
1a) Light Fighter (built for range & speed as space fighter)
1b) Medium Fighter (built for firepower & speed as system interceptor)
1c) Heavy Fighter (built for increased firepower as planetary defender)
1d) Scout (built for sensors and speed as basic scout)

-2: Small Chassis
2a) Corvette (built for improved firepower as patrol gunboat)
2b) Corvette (built for long range and speed and sensor as improved scout)

-3: Medium Chassis
3a) Frigate (built for long range, (average) firepower and sensors as the Fleet's main support vessel)
3b) Destroyer (built for firepower and defence balance as the fleet's backbone)*

-4: Large Chassis
4a) Light Cruiser (built for firepower and speed as fast attack cruiser)
4b) Heavy Cruiser (built for firepower and (only marginary) defence as gun cruiser)

-5: Huge Chassis
5a) Battlechruiser (built for firepower and speed as "cruiser killer"
5b) Battleship (built for firepower and defence balance as Vanguard Battleship)
------------------

-6: Cargo Chassis
6a) Cargo Freigther (built for speed)
6b) Constructor (built for speed)
6c) Colony Ship (built for speed)**
6d) Armed Troop Transport (built for speed; and for increased troop capacity- between 2000 and 5000 troops)
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* aiming at adding an extra hull size between "medium" and "large" for the destroyer size, to go with the intermediary technology between those two classes

** while I have designed one I have never actualy gotten to build one since 90% of all planets are usually taken in the first 50 turns

 

[Vizzini]

i tend not to build scouts, my first ships are some kind of light fighter ..... then just build the biggest baddest mofo warship i can ... and continue to do that while i teck up

This is a mistake. You do want to tech up but in combat, defensive tech trumps size every single time. I have had battles where single "tiny" and "small" planetary defenders have, by themselves, destroyed entire 10+ ship fleets of medium hull attackers, and the kicker is that you can pump out -scads- of these super-fighters in the time it takes to produce only one large or huge hull ship.

The key to kicking butt without breaking the bank: Military Starbases + Espionage.

With enough upgrades Military Starbases become immune to virtually anything less than a fleet of Huge hull dreadnaughts and with enough Ship Assist upgrades your tiny fighters become the match of anything up to and including Large hull ships (and whole fleets of Mediums which I will personally testify to)

Espionage lets you know what you need to build in the way of defenses - but there's an easier way than spending money. Free tip: If you're at war or about to be at war with someone, initiate a trade with them and look to see what military techs they have available. You can usually tell right away which tech branch they're going heavy in and you can build your defenses accordingly.