Matrix Games Forums

I read through the Customization Guide (well, skimmed some) but didn't find an answer to my question. Is it possible to rename the ship TYPES, as opposed to the ship names? Since there's no difference in AI behavior between military ships apart from what's specified in the individual designs themselves, I'd like to rename the ship types according to their mission (ie: Assault, RapidResponse, Raider, etc). I suspect this isn't possible, but ask just in case I missed something.

As of right now it is not possible.

A suggestion is to use the classes as a sort of self restriction.

A escort should be fast with just armor and light weapons.

A frigate would have shields added, and maybe torpedos as well.

And so on,

Remember to stick within your size restrictions.

Escort 90-120
Frigate 120-200
Destroyer 200-350
Cruiser 350-700
Capital 700 and up

As your hull size increases from techs, you can increase the sizes to make your classes more effective. However a big slow escort is not a escort.

Using this tactic, I leave most of my escort and frigate and some destroyers on AI control. This allows the AI to react to small skirmishes like pirates, space creatures (armor is best against them), etc.

Then form your bigger ships into big fleets, and set the AI to suggest attacks. Leave all your fleets on manual, and assign them like so
1st Fleet = Ctrl+1
2nd Fleet = Ctrl+2
etc

The AI will suggest some nice targets for certain fleets, and you can accept or ignore, or go to the event and send whichever fleet you want.

ORIGINAL: lordxorn
The AI will suggest some nice targets for certain fleets, and you can accept or ignore, or go to the event and send whichever fleet you want.

Lol, I've actually dicovered this to be one of the best tactics. I tend to have the AI suggest everything, I generally click on ignore then choose my own course of action but its nice to be reminded of what I should be thinking about[:'(].

I hope it becomes possible in the future, I'd really like to remove escorts and just stick with Frigates and larger.

Kushan

ORIGINAL: Kushan

I hope it becomes possible in the future, I'd really like to remove escorts and just stick with Frigates and larger.

Kushan

I actually find the escorts helpful, because the ai will have them escorting different civilian ships. As your economy grows just make sure the size of your escorts grows as well.

Designing good escorts is basically like shooting yourself in the foot, because of the way the pirates will spawn with your new super-escorts, which means you just entirely defeated the point of escorting since your escorts are no longer better. Same thing happens to frigates, destroyers, and theoretically, cruisers, although I have never actually seen a natural pirate cruiser. Designing really BAD escorts, and then never building them, of course, is very funny.

I dont really find escorts that useful. I really don't feel that private ships need an escort. I do like how frigates work though. I've seen the frigate AI converge multiple frigates on a pirate raider, then return them to their original patrol duties after the raider was destroyed. Escorts just seem to protect the one ship or planet their assigned to.

Kushan