Capital Ship
Capital Ship
A ship with a power rating of greater than or equal to 2000.
Capital ships serve little practical purpose in a game short of providing higher score margin at late game. It can still be useful as game winning conditions since both the score and a set fixed amount of capital ships can be used as such when creating the game.
The one exception when a capital ship is very much desired is when designing capital missile ship since such missiles would then deal double damage to unshielded targets.
Contents
Score Calculation
From the Stars in game manual:A Capital ship has a power rating of greater than 1999. For each capital ship, you receive points calculated by the following formula:
8 x #_capital_ships * #_planets / #_capital_ships + #_planets
For example, if you have 20 capital ships and 30 planets, you receive (8 x 20 x 30) / (20 + 30) or 48 points for each ship.
Capital Ship Missiles
From the Stars! in game manual:Capital Ship Missiles
Damage: From 85 to 525 damage points
Range: From 5 to 6 squares
Initiative: From 0 to 3
Accuracy: 20% to 30%
These powerful torpedoes do more damage than normal torpedoes and have a longer range than any other weapon. Due to the poor accuracy and the fact that a single torpedo can take out at most one enemy ship, these missiles are best mounted on starbases and battleships with a lot of Battle Computers. Their ideal use is against large ships and starbases.
Capital ship missiles do twice the stated damage if the enemy ship has no remaining shields.
The in game manual can be confusing at times so here is the traduction: the stats from the first part simply describe the range of all missiles available in the game, would they be mounted on a capital ship or not. It then continue by stating that missiles are more powerful than normal torpedoes with the drawback of a lower accuracy. More importantly, the entry end by stating that missiles mounted on capital ships will deal out 100% more damage to enemy ships if those enemy ships happen to be shield less or have been deprived of their shields earlier in the battle.
Creation and uses of Capital Ships in battle
Capital Ship Design
The in game manual is pretty obscure on how power ratings are calculated. The easiest way to know about a ship power rating is simply to look at its entry on the ship creation menu which will be found to the lower right of the window once you add weapons to the design.
As a general guideline, capital ships are remotely seen before the age of batleships as the first available missile, the jihad missile available at weapons 12 and propulsion 6, require 16 units to exceed the 2000 power rating minimum for capital ship status. You can see an example of such a design to the right, sporting a total power rating of 2040.
Eventually, as better and more powerful missiles get available, smaller ships can in turn become capital ships for all uses and purpose with the only real practical limit being the low accuracy limitation requiring in turn available slots for computers. At your right is another example, this time of a late game cruiser with a total power rating of 2240.
Because of the advanced computers used in this design, the battle nexus, the cruiser in this comparison happen to have exactly the same base accuracy of 91% than its battleship counterpart. Since the battleship example use earlier technology, it is however important to note that a battleship of the same era would most probably use the same available technology and thus become far more powerful.
It is also important to note that those examples are not in any mean the best or most common designs available or seen on the course of a whole game. Designs and counter designs of a multitude of variations abound and their relative power are usually very situational. The only common ground rule for a capital missile ship, used by most players as a basic rule for any of their torpedo/missile ships, is the minimum of 1 1/4 battle speed which can be provided by many combination of different engine and thruster types. The 1 1/4 battle speed, used to make the missile ship to move two square on the first turn of a battle, allow it to close on an enemy starbase as fast as possible which is very useful for a early starbase kill. Preferably in a single volley, to avoid attrition both to the missile ships and the support or beam ships.
Capital missile ships do not need to exclusively mount missiles to their hull to grant the ship missiles double damage in battle. A design sporting beams and missiles would still be considered as a capital ship as long as the total power rating exceed 1999. In such a premise, it is interesting to note that capacitors do increase the power rating of the beam weapons on a ship while computers do not increase the power rating of torpedoes or missiles nor do the increase of battle speed, initiative or any other ship specs.
Capital Ships in Battle
Capital ships are used exactly in the same way or manner than a ship of the same type sporting similar weapons. The only exception to this rule come of course again of the small but theoretically battle turning rule stating that a capital missile ship will deal double damage with its missiles once the target has no remaining shields. In practice and all things being equal, a missile boat deal only a small amount of its total possible yield to a shielded target. Because human opponents are intelligent and adaptive, very few players will be happy to indulge you with unshielded targets and will on the contrary make a point to always shield important ships, even if it mean sacrificing a slot for a low shield component.
To make capital missile ships really efficient in battle, one need to find a way to drop the enemy ship shields in a timely manner so the capital missile ship will have time to deal enough damage to reduce the chance of loss or attrition on the field of battle. The most commonly used solution to this problem is the creation and joint use of a "sapper ship", a beam ship sporting high power shield sappers. This design more commonly use the cruiser hull and a high battle speed and high armor/shields are also considered a must.
Pro and Cons of Capital Ships
Capital Beam Ships
Capital beam ships have little to no advantage or disadvantage over non capital ships. The only real difference is in total pure destruction power mounted on a single hull. Many players prefer to build more of a weaker version of a beamer ship to spread out the damage done to the stack and to benefit from shield stacking.
Capital Missile Ships
Pro #1: Win Button
Capital missile ships, on the other hand, benefit greatly from the double missile damage once all the conditions are right as it basically double their destructive power. In theory, as long as the enemy ships have no shields or no remaining shields, one would require half as many ships to wield the same destructive power and thus do the same work than otherwise. Practice disagree to an extent but cannot disprove this theory: you simply need a little more than half the required number to warrant for the time the enemy is still shielded; the more the better. The real advantages of the application of this situation are two fold: cost of construction of missile boats are astronomical in term of ironium needed to build so many missile components. By building bigger ships which cost more in term of resource but are more powerful on the field of battle, your outperform your opponent normal missile boats which result in a saving on your side versus the enemy side. At the same time, saving on attrition mean less ships you need to rebuild and more ships available for you on the battlefield, getting a net advantage both economically and tactically on your opponent(s).
Pro #2: Less Micro Management
A very small advantage of having less, more powerful ships is that you do not need to manage them as closely as if you would have a huge amount of ships scattered all around your empire. This advantage can easily be nullified by other disadvantages (see Con #1 and Con #4)... However, considering the hate that some players have toward MM, this point cannot be neglected.
Con #1: Weight and Mobility
A big drawback of capital missile ships is the huge weight of all those heavy weapons added to a single hull. The capital battleship above sport a weight of 877kt... And there is still space for 4 more jihad missiles. Capital missile ships are very difficult to gate efficiently and the huge amount of ironium used in their construction hardly make them expendable. Such ships are thus reliant on their mobility to truly be effective and are rarely the "fer the lance" of a defensive fleet. This in turn of course mean that a player mainly using this kind of ship would also need to consider a more practical fleet for defense of their own worlds. One should also consider carefully the mobility factor when deciding which engine to mount on a capital missile ship, especially considering the amount of engines required for bigger hulls which can greatly add to the cost of such ships.
Con #2: Cost
Another big drawback of capital missile ships is the huge cost in ironium and resources related to the construction of a fleet of such monster ships. Because mineral concentrations are not limitless and that a fixed maximum amount of ironium will be available to you, one need to consider carefully the extent of which his fleet will sport capital missile ships. Shortage of ironium in the late stage of the game, if the game is to be played for that long, could potentially mean defeat versus another player who managed to save up enough to out build you. This in turn bring other problems, such as defense of said ships if your fleet consist of other types of missile boats (shields stacking, attractiveness of more powerful ships) and the spreading of said ships in several fleet or over your whole territory (mainly because of the gate restriction mentioned above but also because of mobility restrictions). On the other hand, a capital ship cost so many resources to build that a player might not even afford the time required to build a fleet which could potentially be already outdated by the time of its construction and deployment.
Con #3: You need to actually HIT!
Missiles differ from torpedoes on one major point: torpedoes have very high accuracy and low power while missiles have very low accuracy but high power. This mean that you need to mount as many computers as possible (or efficient) to a capital missile hull for your missiles to actually hit reliably. It is for this elegant reason that jammers exist and you should expect your opponents to reap the benefits of such defense for a counter design. The only redeeming point is that jammers are never available at the same technological level than computers do... However, having your missile boats accuracy reduced to 50% or less could ruin your field day on the long run.
Con #4: Cannot Split
A lesser drawback of capital missile ships, common to most upgraded hulls of the same type but especially on bomber hulls, come from the fact that the gathering of many weapons on the same hull versus the spreading of many weapons on many different hulls also mean that it become increasingly difficult to efficiently split the power of a fleet to be able to intercept numerous fleets of different power. While this con is very situational, it could become a huge problem in certain specific situations.
How to defend against Capital Ships
As mentioned in the previous segment, capital beam ships hardly pose a higher threat than non capital beam ships with the exception that those ships will wield more raw power on a single hull. While beam deflectors can be a of a big help here, the most effective strategy against such ships would either to face a superior number of highly shielded ships which would win over the capital ships with little or no losses or destroy them before they manage to do too much damage, usually using torpedo or missile ships from a distance.
Capital missile ships, however, are a whole different matter. The first and foremost way to defend against such ships would obviously be to keep every single ship in your fleet shielded. Even the lowest mole-skin shield is enough to grant a ship the shielded status, albeit not for a long time depending of the enemy weapon power.
Other, less obvious ways to counter capital missile ships would be to fully play on the disadvantages listed in the Pros and Cons section of this article.
For example, Con #1 play on weight restriction and mobility: use smaller but gatable ships and try to flank the enemy territory so they cannot move their capital ships efficiently to be able to defend all attack points.
Con #2: this strategy work well only if you out perform your opponents. If you manage to destroy a significant portion of the enemy capital ships, would it be in one swift battle or over numerous localized battles, you will be nullifying the main redeeming advantage of the whole strategy. Try to catch the enemy capital ships of guard in single stacks with a bigger fleet to destroy them separately.
Con #3: the base accuracy of missiles is appalling. The use of many jammers on your designs could greatly reduce the efficiency of enemy capital missile ships, giving enough time for your own ships to destroy them. All this for a reduced cost.
And finally, the bane of any torpedo or missile ships which can easily turn the tide of a battle: the use of chaff. Because of the one hit one kill limitation of torpedoes and missiles, an armada of smaller ships actually face better odds against capital missile ships than bigger, less numerous warships. It is almost always greatly indicated to use chaff liberally to defend against any kind of a high amount of missile attack.
