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Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » least useful hull (for science)
Re: least useful hull Thu, 24 April 2014 09:20 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Anonymous Coward
 If I were to name the single least useful hull in my book, it would be Small Freighter. I virtually never use them, relying on Medium Freighters or Privateers for short-range haulage.
The reasoning between it is simple:
Usually there are two types of races I play. Those with cheap Construction and those with expensive Construction (in some allied games where allies have it cheap, or some such).
If I have cheap Con, getting Con 4 and Privateers is a breeze - usually doable before HW crowding sets in.
If I have expensive Con, I usually check the "All +75% fields start @ 3" option. This gives me Con 3 (= Medium Freighters) from the drop of the flag.
Either way, why bother with Small Freighters?
In some games, I remember having used Small Freighters for techtrade by popdropping. Still, if I happen to have a MF or Priv on my design list, I don't bother wasting an extra design slot that might house, say, a battleship. The only situation where I'd go for Small Freighters would be when all my active transports are Large Freighters, I have an unused design slot, and there's a need to design a cheap throwaway ship just for popdrop trade. Then, Small Freigher might just be the cheapest option.

As for the other ship designs that showed up in this discussion, I use them more often, as their use is subject to situational suitability.

Galleons, while being rarely used, are nonetheless useful. It just so happens that many players don't quite have an idea on how to use them. They can act as transports, scanning ships, minelayers, invasion ships, light warships, overcloakers... you name it. Ever wondered why the SS players out there insist on using Rogues? The Galleon gives (almost) the same flexibility, albeit in a bigger, clumsier package that is more expensive. One thing that helps designing Galleon-based ships: think about the purpose. You'll be throwing out quite a lot of minerals and resources - make sure you'll get the bang you wanted for this buck. The best scenario is when you can combine two or more functions in just one package and cut on design slots this way. That's what Inquisitor80 alludes to in his OP - in the light of this, I'm doubly amazed that he doesn't find any serious use for Galleons Smile

As for the "dust-biters" (as I call the remote mining ships) - the idea is simple. Either you have OBRM and pretty much forget them, or you're ARM and you stick to the ARM-granted hulls and robots. That leaves the other "intermediate" hulls and robots largely ignored. Still, if you're neither ARM or OBRM, you can still benefit from RM - sometimes you end up with all green planets having poor concentrations of the most wanted mineral (usually Iron or Germ), and you have to make do with mining fleets. Even if you're OBRM, sometimes you may be forced to pay the hefty cost up front, just to get the minerals you so badly need. After all, are your 1320 mines@1,3kT/y capacity of any use on a planet with all mineral concentrations reduced to 1 by years of wanton excavation?
For me, the decision on using "dust-biters" is simple. If I need them (i.e. have good MCs on reds nearby, and poor MCs on my greens), I go for them, and then I use the best hull/robot combo available at the time. If not - I don't.

SFX is almost always used, unless you happen to have a dense network of space docks (or better) on your planets and can simply retreat your fleets there for repairs and refuelling. I can think of HE players and other hypergrowth races with wide habitats, who often have ISB as their LRT, not using SFX that much. For all others, SFX is probably one of the indispensable hulls. Given that repair after merge seems allowed in most games, it's one single reason that's good enough to have SFX on your list, whether you use if for R&R or not.

Lastly, expanding on iloverushandledzepp's comment on Colony Ships - you don't need more than one pod per fleet to colonize a planet. Also, if you give Colonize order to a fleet, all ships in that fleet get dismantled for colonization purposes.
For thi ...

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