Fleet and Ship Desing
The Flagship
The Flagship is the most important ship of your fleet. Have it killed and the whole fleet is disbanded and lost. Having an Escape Pod on board helps but why run the unecessary risks? Design your Flagship to NOT attack but to flee and defend. Have it carry, for example:
- A good shield to sustain a few hits
- A normal drive for quick escape but not too fast so it gets into battle before the other ships!
- A Warp Drive to enable your fleet to travel through Stargates
- A Cargo Bay, Fighter Bay, Escape Pod, or any non-attacking gadjets
- Long-range Missiles would be the only attacking weapon on board
Putting specials and precious items onto your Flagship is a good idea since you wouldn't want to lose them. To illustrate this, imagine you lose only one ship in a battle help in a foreign sector (happens all the time :) and imagine that it was that ship that carried the Warp Drive required to travel through Stargates... Yup, with no Warp Drive, your fleet is stuck in that sector!
Speed Considerations
Your fleet will be as fast as the slowest of your ships. That makes sense, the faster ships need to wait for the slower ones, otherwise your fleet would spread itself! Just be careful, if you have a ship that is much slower than all others, get it a better drive or move it out of the fleet!
Fighters
Add "Fighter Bay" components onto the ships of your fleet. This way, the fighter ships will be able to dock there and won't count as a ship in your fleet! This allows you to make an extensive use of your fighters without the need of large fleet.