Each ship design should be a bit different and tailored made to the players liking. Regardless, some guidelines should be followed when designing ships.
1. Damage Types (Mainly applies to ballistic/directional ships)
When you install weapon modules into your new ship design, with ballistic and directional there's basically two ways to go about it. You can stack one weapon say for example 10x Sumo III's and call it done. On the other hand, you can create a more versatile hitter and split the weapon modules into two different ones (That have different damage types.) For example: 4x Guided Laser Bomb (Magnetic damage), 6x Sumo III (Heat Damage). This will allow it to do more damage to different kinds of ships. Say a ship is strong against Magnetic damage, but weak against Heat. This means that if you had stacked 10x Guided Laser Bomb (Magnetic damage) it will do much lower damage than a mixed weapon type of 4x Guided Laser bomb, and 6x Sumo III. This doesn't normally apply with Missiles or Ship-based as they later will need to be layered anyway. Although its still possible to have a broad spectrum damage type hitter on SB or missile fleets.
2. Movement
Movement is very important, and theres a simple rule I personally always follow when designing ships.
Directionals -> 4-6 Movement
Ballistic -> 6-9 Movement
Missile -> 3-5 Movement
Ship-Based -> 3-6 Movement
Planetary -> 6-9 Movement
A thing to remember with movement and missile/shipbased weapons. You may think since having such long range on missile or ship-based ships, youd need less movement. But this typically isn't the case. You can usually get away with low movement this early on with sb/missile fleets, but later it will be extremely important that these ships have good movement. Why? Missile/ship-based have a huge blind spot. Ship based can only hit from range of 6-10, and missiles 5-8. This means if a ballistic fleet was right next to you, hitting your SB fleet, and that SB fleet only had say 2-3 movement. It would never be able to get in range to fire at that ballistic fleet. Same goes with Missile fleets.
3. Layering
Layering becomes pretty important later on, but its a good practice to start doing as soon as possible. Layering is a design technique with missile/ship-based weapons along with defensive systems such as missile interception and anti-aircraft cannons. Basically it works on the principle of GOII mechanics. When a fleet attacks another fleet, the stack will ONLY use enough weapon modules to kill that stack. (This only applies if there are SEPARATE weapon modules, not ones stacked onto each other) For Example:
Ship-Based Layering
1x Ladybug I
1x Ladybug II
1x Ladybug III
1x "Nomad" Streamliner I
1x "Nomad" Streamliner II
6x "Nomad" Streamliner III
So, if a stack of ships with this weapon layering encountered a weak enemy stack of say 50 Diaz's. Instead of unloading all the weapons at once, it will use only whats necessary to kill the stack, maybe 1 to 3 weapon modules. Which in this case would be the three ladybugs. This saves you on He3, and lets that stack go the next round with its available weapon modules that haven't fired yet. This layering technique can also be used with defensive systems, primarly anti-aircraft guns and missile interception. A stack will only use whats neccessary to completely negate an enemy stacks attack. So layering for this is much the same as with weapons. A note to remember with layering, it typically goes 1,1,1,1,1,6-10 or more. This is the most typical layering setup. With anti-aircraft and missile interception its much the same.
4. Hybrids
Hybrids are ships with lower damage, but increase defense. These typically have 2-4 damage negating shields of the type the ship is weak to, and at least 1 of each anti-aircraft cannon and missile interception. Hybrid's though don't really follow a rule when designing them, everyone has their own way of doing it, and theres no one Hybrid setup that is the best.
Glass ships (AKA Paper builds)
Glass ships or Paper builds, are ships with huge damage out put, and literally no defenses at all save a grav. maint facility. Thus they get their name glass, because they will die very easy and typically need to be put with tanks to help them survive. Glass builds usually use Frigate's, as they deal extra damage to battleships and granted a +1% critical damage, but really they can be made out of any ship. The design is very simple. Put the minimum movement required, 1x grav. maint facility. Then put as many weapon modules as you can. You can even not include the grav. maint facility if you do not want to.
I will put more info later.
1. Damage Types (Mainly applies to ballistic/directional ships)
When you install weapon modules into your new ship design, with ballistic and directional there's basically two ways to go about it. You can stack one weapon say for example 10x Sumo III's and call it done. On the other hand, you can create a more versatile hitter and split the weapon modules into two different ones (That have different damage types.) For example: 4x Guided Laser Bomb (Magnetic damage), 6x Sumo III (Heat Damage). This will allow it to do more damage to different kinds of ships. Say a ship is strong against Magnetic damage, but weak against Heat. This means that if you had stacked 10x Guided Laser Bomb (Magnetic damage) it will do much lower damage than a mixed weapon type of 4x Guided Laser bomb, and 6x Sumo III. This doesn't normally apply with Missiles or Ship-based as they later will need to be layered anyway. Although its still possible to have a broad spectrum damage type hitter on SB or missile fleets.
2. Movement
Movement is very important, and theres a simple rule I personally always follow when designing ships.
Directionals -> 4-6 Movement
Ballistic -> 6-9 Movement
Missile -> 3-5 Movement
Ship-Based -> 3-6 Movement
Planetary -> 6-9 Movement
A thing to remember with movement and missile/shipbased weapons. You may think since having such long range on missile or ship-based ships, youd need less movement. But this typically isn't the case. You can usually get away with low movement this early on with sb/missile fleets, but later it will be extremely important that these ships have good movement. Why? Missile/ship-based have a huge blind spot. Ship based can only hit from range of 6-10, and missiles 5-8. This means if a ballistic fleet was right next to you, hitting your SB fleet, and that SB fleet only had say 2-3 movement. It would never be able to get in range to fire at that ballistic fleet. Same goes with Missile fleets.
3. Layering
Layering becomes pretty important later on, but its a good practice to start doing as soon as possible. Layering is a design technique with missile/ship-based weapons along with defensive systems such as missile interception and anti-aircraft cannons. Basically it works on the principle of GOII mechanics. When a fleet attacks another fleet, the stack will ONLY use enough weapon modules to kill that stack. (This only applies if there are SEPARATE weapon modules, not ones stacked onto each other) For Example:
Ship-Based Layering
1x Ladybug I
1x Ladybug II
1x Ladybug III
1x "Nomad" Streamliner I
1x "Nomad" Streamliner II
6x "Nomad" Streamliner III
So, if a stack of ships with this weapon layering encountered a weak enemy stack of say 50 Diaz's. Instead of unloading all the weapons at once, it will use only whats necessary to kill the stack, maybe 1 to 3 weapon modules. Which in this case would be the three ladybugs. This saves you on He3, and lets that stack go the next round with its available weapon modules that haven't fired yet. This layering technique can also be used with defensive systems, primarly anti-aircraft guns and missile interception. A stack will only use whats neccessary to completely negate an enemy stacks attack. So layering for this is much the same as with weapons. A note to remember with layering, it typically goes 1,1,1,1,1,6-10 or more. This is the most typical layering setup. With anti-aircraft and missile interception its much the same.
4. Hybrids
Hybrids are ships with lower damage, but increase defense. These typically have 2-4 damage negating shields of the type the ship is weak to, and at least 1 of each anti-aircraft cannon and missile interception. Hybrid's though don't really follow a rule when designing them, everyone has their own way of doing it, and theres no one Hybrid setup that is the best.
Glass ships (AKA Paper builds)
Glass ships or Paper builds, are ships with huge damage out put, and literally no defenses at all save a grav. maint facility. Thus they get their name glass, because they will die very easy and typically need to be put with tanks to help them survive. Glass builds usually use Frigate's, as they deal extra damage to battleships and granted a +1% critical damage, but really they can be made out of any ship. The design is very simple. Put the minimum movement required, 1x grav. maint facility. Then put as many weapon modules as you can. You can even not include the grav. maint facility if you do not want to.
I will put more info later.
