Posted by: Yonder
« on: October 18, 2011, 04:23:33 PM »My general strategy is to make a bunch of ships that are faster than their opponents and have longer range, meaning that they generally don't get hit. As you can tell I don't invade hostile territory until I have researched and built ships specifically to fight them, it's a very methodical progression.
My combat ships usually have 4 levels of armor, in the early game that is pretty heavy, but I am less likely to have a speed advantage so investing more in armor is still necessary. As the game progresses it becomes less and less likely that I'll ever get hit, but having a few layers of armor isn't very expensive because the ships are bigger (less surface area compared to volume) and the armor is lighter.
The only reason to have armor at this point is nebulaes (if you have any), and to be prepared if a combat group runs into a new race that is faster than you have prepared for. That generally doesn't happen though. Usually it's the grav survey ships that die terrible terrible deaths, and it's a year and a half later before my next class of warships enters the system.
Of course in this next game I'm playing I've decided that (following a devastating WW3) developing missile technology is illegal/politically untenable. A navy of beam armed warships is going to need A LOT of armor.
My combat ships usually have 4 levels of armor, in the early game that is pretty heavy, but I am less likely to have a speed advantage so investing more in armor is still necessary. As the game progresses it becomes less and less likely that I'll ever get hit, but having a few layers of armor isn't very expensive because the ships are bigger (less surface area compared to volume) and the armor is lighter.
The only reason to have armor at this point is nebulaes (if you have any), and to be prepared if a combat group runs into a new race that is faster than you have prepared for. That generally doesn't happen though. Usually it's the grav survey ships that die terrible terrible deaths, and it's a year and a half later before my next class of warships enters the system.
Of course in this next game I'm playing I've decided that (following a devastating WW3) developing missile technology is illegal/politically untenable. A navy of beam armed warships is going to need A LOT of armor.