I am currently in the end phase of a large battle, about 16hours(game time) and almost 50 ships both combat and noncombat. I have a fleet of 25 ships: 2colliers, 1 scout, 5DD, 5DE, 5CLE, 2CA, 3CG, and 3BB. In the opening phase as soon as the enemy appeared I started pulling away from him as he had a speed advantage 4100 vs. 3600 he slowly gained on me. This enabled me to shove missles down his throat while his didn't have the legs to get to me yet. The "wow" part that impressed me was the AI fleet spit into 2 parts each holding about 12 ships. TF A held on average smaller ships then TF B but both had the same speed. TF A came at me closing the distance while B held back and just kept pace with me. I couldn't figure out why he would do this but was happy in that it let me smash them in parts with missles from my CGs/BBs. As I started running low on missles I reversed course and figured I could use my laser armed CAs/BBs to kill the cripples and save the missles for the other TF B. As I came within range of the cripples I discovered they were armed with 20cm railguns(apparently they either didn't use them in antimissle mode or missed every missle I threw at them). It was at this point I was showered with a constant barrage of missle salvos. Turns out TF B was the missle armed component and now the roles were reversed, I couldnt hit him as he ran but he could me
. Luckly, and I mean really lots of luck, my escort designs actually worked the first time in combat and stopped every missle, about 50 salvos of 9 missles each. I am now finishing up the cripples and hoping that TF B doesn't speed up and out run me, so I can bring them under fire. If they do I will have to chase them through 2 systems to their home planet.
Just an note, I plan on posting my ship designs for critisism and comments, they worked but could always be improved.
Mark
A post script.
Finished the battle, during second half I turned on the SM and looked at the reports. The TF B had several ships that apparently had missle launcers for size 1 missles but no missles for them, so no anti-missile missle fire. Their point defense system was a single gauss cannon in a turret, usually several per ship, but were set for final defensive fire(self) so while effective were easily over whelmed.
Mark
