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Ship
designing is more difficult to discuss in Orion 1 than it is for Orion
2, because you are not creating individual ships, but rather classes of
ships. Still, you should remember these 4 guidelines:
1) Work as a unit. The ships in your fleet should compliment each other's abilities; use them as a team instead of building a couple huge powerful ones and sending them to be destroyed by a well-balanced enemy. This goes for Orion 2 as well. 2) Research all of the anti-missile base weapons whenever possible. Missile base shields will improve throughout the game, eventually reaching the point where the absorb 35 damage from every attack. Beams and torpedoes do 1/2 damage to planets. So install projectiles o more than one of your designs. 3) Scrap old worthless designs. Don't hang on to some ship that "crushed the Alkari 90 years ago" because it is not worth its maintenance cost now. You will want that space later for new cutting-edge designs. 4) Be quick with the mouse. If your ship has a range advantage of, say, 2 spaces to 1, and you have move points left, then move to firing range, click the target, and then immediately click the destination. Your ship will move after attacking. If you hadn't done this, in most situations your turn would have ended without your being able to move again. Use this to your advantage.
So then. Here are Ezixl's ship design types for Orion 1: Starship. Has 1 or 2 beams, maybe 1 bomb or missile. A balanced ship (primarily using beams for attack). Strike Cruiser. Same as above, but 2 missiles and 1 beam (maybe not a heavy mount) Battlecruiser. Torpedo ship, maybe with a cloak. Bomber. Give it a beam, lots of anti-planet weaponry and major armor. Planet Buster. High-Energy Focus and heavy-duty beam weaponry. Armor Killer. Only Stream Projectors and/or Pulsars. Colony Ship. Always include your best colony base and the ability to bomb an enemy planet and then colonize it. Starbase. A variation on the Planet Buster. Build these at your planets, and include double-hull armor and high-powered weaponry, but slow engines are ok, because this ship is just for defense of the planet.
Early in the game, Strike Cruisers are probably the best type of ship, usually in a large size. Medium and large Starships are good as well. If the enemy comes with swarms, build a starship with scatter packs or a planet buster with autofire and streaming beams. Otherwise, a couple Heavy Ion Cannons will go far, backed up by some bombs. By the mid game (post-Fusion Beam era), Consider a small ship with a missile or autofire beam, and some huge Planet Busters and Starbases are good. Large Starships are still the mainstay of the fleet, and Battlecruisers can begin to replace Strike Cruisers (but they don't have to). Try building a medium bomber, and including bombs on a larger hull size, to insure that one set of your ships survives the initial barrage of planetary missile fire. By the late game (Tri-focus Plasma and beyond), High Energy Focus and Oracle Interface will rule the game, so use Huge beam ships (but big swarms of small ones will work in some situations, so balance can still be a good thing). Just be sure to use plenty of Huge ships if you try a balanced approach. Also, if you research Plasma Torpedo, try to miniaturize it to the point where it fits on a medium-hulled Battlecruiser. This is fun to use. Armor Killers are also huge at this time, since everyone is using really strong armors and maybe Advanced Damage Control as well. |
