Battleships vs. frigates

I usually go with battleships strictly because the frigate costs more to maintain. I found that the more you pay for any ship to maintain it later in the game will cost you. I was playing one game that it came down to me and one other, but I was in debt because of my various fleets. Needless to say I sold or disbanded most of my ships. I have to tell you I love the USS Hero survey ship because it can get to awesome levels. I had one the other day that had 179 hitpoints, 51 attack, and 79 defense.

I got a litte of track but I would say go with the battleship.

-Dark

#1 frigate costs 10 to maintain, and bship 12...

Personally I used to stick with frigates, and will only build B-ships if I think its necessary. But I almost always rush for Battleship Technology solely to get the Almighty Combat Transport.
Now in the latest beta, I stick with Death Knights, just because that little extra bit of offensive capabilities really helps out on the forefront.
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I just use the Battleship tech to sell for unfair amounts to the other races. Cap ships don't start to become worthwhile until you hit the Dreadnought stage.

I've only played a few small games and haven't really won any yet (although my current game is looking promising!) but already it seems like there are only a few ships worth producing: Corvette and Frigate being the best of the early/middle tech models. Is there an underlying design philosophy for the ships in this game that I am not seeing?

I tend to produce a lot of frigates, so I tend to skip battleships and wait for Dreadnaughts.

The only time I buy battleships is if I haven't suppressed the only civs with my frigates and I need to keep up... but even if they produce a few battleships before I get dreadnaughts I can swarm them with frigates and then reduce my maintenance...

-Cypher

I never built a corvette ever. Battleships arebetter than frigates in my experience, but not worth building because dreadnoughts are so much better.

Excalibers are even better still

Yeah but by the time you get those, you're either very close to crushing the other civs around you, or you're very close to a tech win because if I remember correctly, you don't get those until after you've researched Near Omniscience.

Based on what you guys are saying then, the ships aren't that balanced. You race to the "best-bang-for-the-buck" model and use it exclusively until the next "best-ship" is available, true? (This btw is how I feel the ships play out...) Which brings me to my point: Maybe the ships need to be tweeked a bit so each ship is useful relative to its position in the tech tree?
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It may seem like some ships are useless, and in some situations they certainly are. But we must remember that all ship types are not practical to build on all map sizes. For example, corvettes are kind of a pointless technology on large maps where you are racing to dreadnaughts and beyond. But on a small map they can be the deciding factor and ultilmately win the game. The range and speed of ships is also a factor when viewed against various galaxy sizes.

Yeah that's true, defenders are good for doing just that early in the game until you get battleaxes and battlehammers. The basic survey ship is good for surveying stuff until you get the Rangers, but I think the Starhawks are somewhat useless as my starting survey ship usually has better stats than the Starhawk by the time I get the tech for it.

As long as the brave crew of the U.S.S Hero doesn't get blown away before then.

Fair enough. I suspected that the map size would affect which ships you would settle on. I just get the feeling that since we know that a better ship is down the line, we race for that and ignore what is available right now, which runs counter to how things are done in the "real world" where you have to make do with what you can build now, and not put off your activities until you get "the cool ship" that does everything you want. Thanks for all the input!

If you go on heavy offense, frigates can do just fine vs. battleships. Think like a fighter pilot. Attack, attack, attack. Defense is only for getting into a better position to kill your opponents. In a race of closely matched ships in the mid-game, he who fires first wins more often. Just don't needlessly sacrifice ships by overextending them. Hit and run. Fall back if you need to. Only transports need to be truly destroyed. Of course, Grav Accels and Eyes of the Universe greatly simplify this task.

The Corvette rules! It's the cheapest way to build up the illusion of a high military rating, which is a valuable diplomatic tool the sooner you get it.

Generally, though, the ship with the highest ATT seems to rule. I haven't seen anything one what ATT and DEF do, however.

I think the antimatter missile is my fave I like selling a pack to someone who just had his fleet fried, and watching the other guys military rating go poof!

Battle Hammers Anyone? Costly (yes) Sluggish (most definately) . . . but they look great! Also Millitary transports seem to attract would be conquestidors like fly paper! If the Council votes 20 offence for these as policy I build a few load up 1 million troops and just fly them around adhoc . . . a desperate tactic I guess.

I tend to build Avatars when they come up and let my economy stave off attackers, works most the time up to crippling. No hope though on Maso :notsure:

Wow, my ship strategy is totally different. I just build what I believe is convenient.

For example, if a corvette takes more than 6 turns to build at a planet i'll just let it build corvettes. If it takes less than 6 turns to build one than i'll have it build a battlecruiser and so on and so on.

I'll also not race through to get better ships. I'm usually the second or third race to get to the next ship tech becuase I hate the wait (especially long on gigantic maps, about all I play) while i'm researching techs.

Frigates are my favourite ships. Fast, excellent range and strong. They are the workhorse of my fleet.

Nowadays with the beta, I build a small number of Death Knights as well for special heavy duty missions.

That looks like what the ai does, anyway. And the new ship techs provide such a boost over the previous tech that on harder levels, you can't fight effectively against an ai that has a better tech than you, unless you use speed and target their planets and transports.
I never use corvettes because it is a dead end tech and I don't have bc's to spare on dead end techs. Starfighters are also cheap ATT rating boosters, and you can probably build more than what corvettes would give you for the cost of Photons tech.

I agree with Rabid Rob, Corvettes do rule. I have won a couple of games by building massive corvette fleets. The Dregin do not bully you when they see the massive (albiet weak) fleet. It buys you time to develope.

This may be a question for another thread, but:
How do you get Frigates with 69 hps, Att 8, Def 7 (or some equally annoying numbers)? Do exp levels improve your ships that much? Or does the computer have certain Tech improvements?

They build things like Shipyards and Quality Control in their planets, and they may have techs and anomalies that improve their ships.

I've found that experience levels can really add a pretty nice bonus for ship stats. Well worth the effort of fostering a few ships through a nice little career.

Another nice thing about planetary upgrades like the shipyards and quality control facilities: when you build them they boost the stats of all ships built on that planet -- even the ones that were built prior to the planetary upgrade!


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what is a "death knight"?