Frigates,cruisers and destroyers: Are they usefull?

[vmxa1]

You may have titan tech, but non creatives won't. Even if I have titan, I have no reason to build them.

Phasors are only 2000RP and Gauss is 2750. I pretty much never use Gauss, since phasors are fine, until disrupters.

[Old n Slow]

My primary purpose in achieving Gause is the miniturization of mass drivers; level III shields come free when the MD's get auto fire.

A couple of FF techs & the Hvy Auto Fire MD's drop from 20 space (the major constraint) each down to 8 -- allowing a lot more firepower. So I just continue "investing" in this line.

When I get to Hvy Auto Fire Gauss -- it really is time ask for lights out -- three of my boats will take out a row of the ai ships coming to visit.

I think that a similar story exists for the physics line, but with the creative side benes, one gets guns AND shields vs guns (and comm?).

[stinkoman]

Well, after about a week i went back and tried the impossible game from a save and won. I made the mistake of attacking smaller races while letting the elerians grow unchecked over a third of the galaxy. This time i launched a surprise attack against their sod and won with only 2 losses. After that, i was able to crush the rest of the galaxy and win my first impossible with vanilla humans.

As for smaller ships, my next three games i used a creative research race and lost. I kept trying to race up the tree to get robo miners and pollution processors, yet by the time i finally got them so i could build battleships, the sakras or silicoids would come destroy me with 4 battleships while i had only minimal beam weapons and no battleships. Seems like the lower cost of smaller ships combined with better technology is the better way to go then to try to compete with the builder races early on by racing for a battleship.

I tested the gauss cannon path on an average game last night and was surprised at how effective they were. Usually i just went the plasma cannon path like everyone else, but the extra shields and ground troop/spy bonuses one gets with shields for creative races definetly makes it a powerfull approach.

A bit off topic, how good are the beam weapons on the physics tree? I read on the forum that lasers/fusions make good early beam weapons and of course plasmas are popular, but what about the neutrons and gravitons? are they worth using or should they just be skipped? And vxma, why dont you usually build titans? Are they just too expensive or do you find battleships to be effective enough to win most impossible games? Just want to know your opinions on why.

Thanks for the responses all.

[vmxa1]

Battleships are plenty. Are you losing ships in combat? Probably not, so why spend more time building larger ones?

Even if you lost a ship from time to time, they are easy to replace.

BTW I don't use plasma cannons either. The very early beams, could be anything, depends on the game, from laser to fusion to mass drivers. After that I use only phasors and then disrupters.

Not because one is better than another (I think they are), but I can find no reason to do otherwise. Not to mention after I get disrupters, I will soon want to race for Star gates. So convient that disrupters are on that path.

Creative races are known to need some time to get enough tech to take care of themself. If they are next to some of the bad boys, it can get hairy.

You should have gotten missile bases up and fighter garrisons and that should hold off 4 BB's early in the game.