@vic.mar.bg
Most of the time I just ask the game to inform me and pick one.
Slavery or freedom? that's mostly based on who I am playing at the time.
Light or havy? That's mostly slow ships with a lot of armor or fast ships with little to no armor.
I have not gone into the other specializations due to loseing the game or reseting.
But most of the time you play how you like. ship wise I just let the game do it by checking the auto setting in the ship planner.

@the-A-man2: thanks for the advice, but I want to design my own ships. If you set it to auto, then where is the joy?? :)

One interesting point - is there anyone who uses designs with maximum armor? If you go this way, you should probably not use shields as basic ship component. Is it realy worth it? I've got some rare tech, that gives +50 armor on the shield slot... i'm still not sure if it is realy worh it.

Another question: what is the difference between beam and missile specializations? Do you get different wepons or different military components? Which one do you prefer and why?

It depends how I'm playing - I've done the all armour path, and with a cap at 90% armor it shrugs off many weapons. To fight against an all armour path, you need armour penetration weapons etc :)

So it's up to you - but armour is very powerful too.

Last game I tried big hulls + powerful thrusters + regeneration shields + exploration warp + beam.
I make try to compose my fleets like this: 1 ACr, 1 BSh, 2 HEs, 2 BCr, 2 Cr, 4 De, 8 PFr. Later I will take my patrol frigates in a separate fleet to comply with the 50 ships limit.

I am thinking about the following ship design in my next game: evasion hulls + evasion thrusters + bigger shields + combat warp + missiles. I am not sure however what fleet composition is suitable for this, as big ships have low evasion and patrol frigates are very fragile even with high evasion. Anyone has tried similar ship designs?

TLDR: Skip to tech recap at end


Whenever you start a game, click the top left button on screen. Check your empire modifiers.
You'll usually have a + and - to ships based on what race you picked, like +15% dmg -10% hull ect ect.

***Frigates and Destroyers***
Your tech choices are going to effect these smaller guys more then the big ships because they have less to work with. Evasion is life. Combat Engines will make you slower, but more evasive and even increase your dmg slightly. Light Hull Construction, no buts. Getting to the fight is important, but the small ships move pretty fast anyway. Light Hull construction gives you evasion. Remember, if we get hit it's gonna hurt no matter what. So we dont want to get hit.

Exploration Warp Cores are my go to. They give you the power small vessels need to equip certain torpedos and get you to the fight faster. Get shields ASAP, this can more then double your life expectancy early game. Covariant shields when you get the choice. Our shields will be too small to make regenerative matter.

Your frigates dont get any kind of "templates" so what you get is what you get. That's where your tech choices help them with the warp core/engine/hull construction.

Destroyers do get the variants/templates so we can get some wiggle room here. I would NOT get the combat variant. We dont have alot of dmg to increase. A science variant can give us ALOT (relative to large vessels) of shielding. Engineering can get us more evasion. I prefer not to "balance" things out. All in all the time.

A really big advantage to using these small ships is production time. You can replace/reinforce an entire fleet in a matter of minutes with your starbase's. Lots of rulers also have frigate based bonus's. Mobility IS your power with this. They warp faster, they move faster, they build faster.

Your big disadvantage is your going to lose ships no matter how high your evasion is. Your combat power will constantly drop in a fight, so your always replacing/reinforcing ships. It can be dis-heartening to see your combat power drop and the enemies not move. Until you destroy that BB and they lose 3,000 CP with one ship.

During a war leaving 3 (to deal with those 1-2 random ships that come to the planet) frigates on a planet to bombard a planet while your fleet moves away to continue a way is alot less expensive then leaving a cruiser or battleship.


***Everything Else***
Larger ships naturally get more to work with so they are much more variable. Large by my definition is anything bigger then a destroyer. If you plan to go this route, heavy hull should be your choice. Evasion will mean nothing past this point VS what you lose. Again looking at your empire ship modifiers should influence what you want here.

(just an example, not accurate just throwing this out here)
Romulan
+10% shields
-5% hull

Your best bet is to go with Regenerative shielding, fights last months to years. Choose the science variants to slam more shielding on there, or sacrifice hull for more shields. This depends on your tech choices. Exploration Warp

Breen
+10% dmg
-5% hull

Again regenerative shielding. Combat variants to get those damage modifiers. Which ones depend on your tech choices/play style. Shoot faster, hit harder, shoot from farther away. Shoot torpedo's farther away? It's really up to you. Exporation Warp

Cardassian
-5% dmg
+10% hull

Covariant shielding, you'll be pumping armor instead of shields so you wont regenerate much. Engineering variant to maximize that armor on the hull, we want space tanks. Exploration warp



I prefer using the larger ships, so I always go with regenerative shields, unless it's a +hull species. Always go heavy hull unless your going to use frigates/destroyers mid-end game. I always use Exploration Warp cores because getting to the fight is usually more crucial then the actual fight when it comes to the warp core, you also get more power to play with. The engines IMO should be afterburners. Exploration warp cores get us to the system, afterburners get us in the fight. Evasion is not a priority for our space tanks, getting to the fight is.

Usually my go to is cruisers with BB support and I have a love of BC's because they typically have better weapon variants So you can set them up as close/medium/long range support.

Now for the bad... Losing a ship is HUGE. These things are NOT cheap, they take forever to build and there slow as hell. These aren't modern tanks cruising down a highway. There WW1 trench busters going 5MPH with guns comming out of every hole. Retreating is a very real strategy here, even if your going to lose that planet or that starbase. Losing a colony is better then losing one of your precious battlehips that take a year to build.

Another thing to note: These guys are fleet cap hungry, and mean they are HAWNGRY. Pump out that last BB and go 40 points over cap hungry lol. Prepare to be outnumbered in every engagement.

There have been many instances where I've been forced to push out frigates to reinforce my fleet.

*special note*
The easiest race to set-up for space combat is the borg. You dont have much choice here. This is NOT an evasion race pure and simple lol. Armor and lots of it, regenerating armor at that.

**Special Tech Recap**
For your "special" techs that you only get once are important. If you plan on using SMALL ships for the entire game:

Exploration Warp Core - Gets you to the fight faster, and more power that small vessels lack
Combat Engines - Slower movement, but more evasion and a little dmg boost
Covariant Shielding - We want MORE shields, regen wont matter because there small ships.
LIGHT hull construction - This gives us evasion

Variants: This will only matter on your destroyer. Choosing this depends on what YOU want. Engineering for more armor slots. Combat for more dmg. Science for more shield. In general though, you want evasion evasion evasion at the cost of hull. Depending on your tech you can equip modules with straight +evasion or -hull +evasion. Whichever is more.


LARGE Ships mid-end game.

HEAVY hull construction - Evasion? Whatever. Get that extra armor and hull.
Exploration Warp Core - Gets you to the fight faster and LOTS of power.
Afterburner Engines - We dont need evasion, we need to get in the fight. We now move at the same speed a snail going downhill. (also turns frigates into rockets to tie down fleets if you so choose)
Regenerative Shielding (UNLESS your a +hull species) - Big ships have big shields, which mean we regenerate more shields. Were going to get hit, alot, this is fact.

Variants: Bigger ships, lots of variants! I usually go science for more shielding, unless (again) were a hull species. Then it's Engineering because we want that armor. The Battle Cruiser I usually go with Combat becuase.. It's our premier combat platform. We want to push out dmg from mid-long range and lots of it while our shield/armor behemoths are in the thick of it.