Ship Buulding

[geoffrey arnold]

Are there any genral rules to ship bulding that a newbe sould now about. Ive been having probs with this aspect of the game.

[Stormhound]

1) If you're playing against the AI, then:
a) Drop the system speed on IF, Carriers and Transports to 1. This will open up room for more weapons.
b) Drop the number of shots per missile rack to 2, and add more launchers.

2) Make sure you have one of your longest-range weapons on board LR, SR, PD, and Recon ships, as this will extend your detection range of the enemy.

3) Use Light mounts instead of PD mounts. More bang for the same space, and better range.

4) Recon ships will overstock on sensors. Cut one or two (leave at least one, though there is considerable evidence that they don't work at all), and replace them with Light mount beam weapons...Recon ships tend to get toasted easily. Likewise, a little more armor won't hurt any either.

5) This is my preference, but for starship fleets I try to build the biggest ships I'm currently able to build. LR, SR, IF and CC use the biggest size, PD use the next biggest, and RC use the third biggest. Troop ships use bigger sizes when practical, though a battle cruiser (IIRC) is big enough to hold a full army. Once I have a strong enough economy, Colony ships are built on a battleship hull to allow for three colony pods (which means instant colony even on Red2 worlds).

Those ought to get you started...

[Proteus_MST]

Stormhounds Tactics aren´t exactly the Tactics I use:

1) a) I also make my Missilesboats and Cariers slower, but just by 10-20%. I´ve found it useful to maneuver and, as I always Position my Fleets prior to Attack to make fullest Use of Overlapping Fields of Fire for my PD-Weapons it would be very problematic if I had Fleets which just move with the Speed of a snail. Also sometimes enemy Fleets are able to break through and get to yur Missile-Ships; here it is usefuil to have some speed, to evade them.
IIt is also useful to have some Sped in your Missile-Flets, if they take Part in the Defense of a Planet.
Here I have often used the Tactics of evading the enemy with my Missile and Carierfleets, using my Speed, so I could see him, but he culdn´t see me (or at least couldn´t reach me with his weapons). Especialy useful with Carriers, as they Restock their Fighters every 2 Minutes.
The lowest Speed of all of my ships goes to my Troop Transports and Colonyships)
b) I prefer to have 4-5 Missiles in my Racks. Especialy with advanced Enemies often tactical Situations arise, where the really dangerous enemy Fleets (those with Fighters / Missiles) are sme way behind and in direct line between you and those fleets is a much less dangerous Fleet, which on the other Hand has strong PD (so your Missiles would be decimated enroute to the target). In this Case it could be useful, to have some more Shots on Hand which you can use, after you have outmaneuvered these PD-Fleets (oh, did I already mention, that you can only outmaneuvr it, if you have at last some Speed? )

2) Don´t know if this thing about increasing the Detection Range is rue. But it is also useful to have a LR-Weapon in all of your Ships (even in Missileboats or Carriers) just for Defense-purposes.

3) Yep I agree with this. I use a Mix of Light and PD-Mounts for Point Defense. Especially the increased Range of the Light Mounts is useful, as it allows you to attack Missiles/Fighters further away and allows you to make better use of ovrlapping Fields of Fire in the Defense against them.

4) Yep I agree, Replacing one or two Sensors in Recon Ships with Light or PD-Weapons is a good way to increase your Defense against Missiles/Fighters.
I also use 2 Types of Recon-Ships:
One traditional Recon Ship, which has Sensors/ECCM
and one ECM-Ship, which has ECM-Suites instead of the Sensors and ECCMs rto make your Flet harder to detect. I always try to have at least one ECM-Ship in each Fleet.

5) I use two different Sizes for all of my Ships.
One, which is the Biggest Size available and therefore has many Weapons, but on the other Hand takes a long time to build.
Second a much smaller Size (3-4 sizes smaller) wich has much less weapons but can be built fast and in large numbers even by your smaller Colonies.
The smaller Ships have proven to be very useful, especially if you mix them with larger Ships in the same Fleets (and in conrary to the larger ships you are always able to build large Numbers of them).
As for Troop Transports:
At one Point I build large versions of them, which have enough Space to hold an Army, but also have good Armor, Shields and Weapons (at least lots of light or PD-Mounts), to be no Sitting Ducks as I attack a world.

7) Try to include a Version-Number into the Shipname. With developing Tech at ceratin Points of the Game I redesign all of my Shipdesigns at once and rename them just by increasing the Version Numbr by One.
This way I know, that all of the Ships have the ame System Speed (aside from Cariers and Missleboats which are somewhat slower) and the same Tech-Level, regarding Weapons, Cloaking-Devices and the like. Upon creating a Fleet I always try to get Ships of the same Verson-Number together (especially important, if your current Version Number has Cloaking-Devices and the Ships with a lower Version-Number don´t have them.

7) For System Ships: Always use the same Speed for your Systemships, regardless of Type. All of your Systemships get pooled together in one large Fleet (which can exceed 18 Ships, if you have more than 18). And, as the Flet moves with the Sped of the slowest Ship, slower Ships decrease the Speed of your whole fleet. For this Reason it can also be advisable to scrap older Ships from time to time, as yourb ships get faster with increasing Engine Technology.

[geoffrey arnold]

Thanks guys god this game is complicated. has any one thought of starting up a traning accadmy. where a newbe can be teemed up with someone how knows what thier diong. so any newbes can learn of them. in each team could have one of each sounds good to this newbw