Content Warning: Long Rambling Stream of Nonsense

So, having spent the past few days being baked alive and/or mixing concrete for dumb projects I wish I never started, I wanted to do something that would prevent my tired meat brain from being reduced to sludge.
And I have been meaning to do this for a while...

What I'm going to do is break down all the ships in SiS according to what mounts they have, assign each mount type an incredibly arbitrary value and total everything up.
It's not going to be 100% accurate, but it's going to be 'good enough' for our purposes.

The values I assigned to each mount type were:

• Small: 1
• Busbar: 1
• Missile: 2
• Medium: 3
• Torpedo: 4
• Fighter Bay: 4
• Large: 5
• Siege: 8
• System: 10
• Built-In (of any kind): 10

What I ended up with was a table full of nonsense that I arranged to come up with the following:
(Note - Both Teros and Haduir use identical ships, so they're considered a single entry for our purposes)

--

Average Ship Strength by Empire

1. Tinkers (58.1)
2. Orthin (53.3)
3. Gremak (50.1)
4. Human (47.8)
5. Yoral (45.2)
6. Ashdar (42.2)
7. Phidi (40.3)

Phidi being dead last is p. much expected since all thier ships are conversions of frieghters etc.
Yoral are low since they have a ton of extra ship types and they're all small.
Tinkers get a lot of value out of all thier ships having built-in equipment.

--

Dedicated Scouts

1. Tinker (53)
2. Yoral (43)
3. Phidi (43)
4. Human (41)

Most of a Scout's value comes from it's built-ins and system mounts.
The Tinker Scout effectively having an extra system slot gives it the top spot, otherwise it would be a 3-way tie for 1st.

--

Small Ships & Pickets

1. Orthin GS (44)
2. Orthin DD(36)
3. Tinker (36)
4. Yoral DDA (31)
5. Yoral DDH (31)
6. Yoral DD (29)
7. Ashdar (26)
8. Gremak (25)
9. Human (24)
10. Phidi (24)
11. Yoral FF (21.5)

Orthin & Tinker are functionally identical, but Orthin DD has more flexibility since none of it's system slots are locked.
Yoral DDs are all savage. All of them have cruiser scale gun mounting options.
Gunships just flatten everything though.

--

Light Cruisers

1. Yoral (47)
2. Gremak (44)
3. Tinker (41)
4. Human (40)
5. Ashdar (39)

Yoral CL is by far the best pure combat ship here, while the Gremak CL is best for flexibility as it has lots of options, and doesn't need research or infrastructure.
Ashdar CL is cheap and doesn't need research or infrastructure, but can't do multi-role at all.
Human & Tinker CLs are opposites - Humans need infra but no research, Tinkers vice-versa.

--

Missile Ships

1. Ashdar CM(60)
2. Tinker CM (59)
3. Human CM(58)
4. Yoral DDM (47)
5. Tinker DDM (44)
6. Phidi DDM (31)

Ashdar being top of this list was unexpected.
Humans get a unique prize here - the single largest torpedo mount of any ship in the game (so far): x3

--

Cruisers

1. Yoral (61)
2. Tinker (61)
3. Orthin (52)
4. Human (50)
5. Gremak (47)
6. Phidi (43)
7. Ashdar (43)

I expected Ashdar & Phidi CAs to be low since they're not great. And Yoral to be the top.
Was not expecting Tinkers to be tied with Yoral though.

--

Carriers

1. Tinker (71)
2. Phidi CVH (66)
3. Ashdar CVH (57)
4. Yoral (52)
5. Gremak (49)
6. Orthin (48)
7. Phidi CV (42)
8. Human (42)
9. Ashdar CVL (41)
10. Ashdar CVE (27)

Tinkers having the best carrier is unexpected, especially by such a huge margin.
Ashdar, being the fighter specialists, having such mediocre 'heavy' carriers was also unexpected.
Phidi do p. well though.

--

Military Transports / Boarding ships

1. Gremak (50)
2. Human (47)
3. Orthin (43)
4. Phidi (33)*
5. Ashdar (27)

Gremak being the top here was expected - their boarding ship is a fully decked out warship, while the others are varying shades of "Transport+".
Also, the Gremak LST has the highest crew value of all these ships, making it stand out even more.
The Phidi LST is kinda borked. It only has a single system mount, which I think is not intentional since it precludes using shields at all. Which is extremely ungood for a ship of this role, so I've counted this ship as having 2 system slots.

--

Escorts

1. Orthin (49)
2. Ashdar (42)
3. Gremak (39)
4. Yoral (29)

A land of contrasts here.
Orthin & Ashdar Escorts I like and use a lot.
Gremak & Yoral Escorts are completely underwhelming.
I expected the Gremak CLE to be low on this list, but I did not expect the Yoral version to be worse than it.

--

Battlecruisers

1. Orthin (73)
2. Gremak (67)
3. Ashdar (60)

Gremak BC has slightly more heavy mount space, and has fighter bay which can be used for boarding.
While the Orthin BC has more system slots, medium mount space and the busbar.

--

Battleships

1. Yoral (106)
2. Tinker (100)
3. Orthin (81)
4. Human (80)
5. Gremak (79.5)

Yoral BB has all it's weapon mounts as double-size, so it can pack in a ton of stuff.
Tinkers get several double weapon mounts, and also a triple - the largest medium mount in the game.
Gremak BB being last was unexpected. It's extra heavy mount space just gets edged out by the use of smaller weapons systems plus the Humans built-in missile rack.

--

And just for reference, the two "generic" super-ships are as follows:

• Super Dreadnought - DN (103)
• Dread Star - DS (240)

So yeah, the Yoral Battleship is technically stronger than the Super DN. "Technically"

(The forum does not allow attachments to be ods or xls, so just imagine I posted that, k?)

Serenitis wrote:The values I assigned to each mount type were:

• Small: 1
• Busbar: 1
• Missile: 2
• Medium: 3
• Torpedo: 4
• Fighter Bay: 4
• Large: 5
• Siege: 8
• System: 10
• Built-In (of any kind): 10

I'd have given more points to busbar since they basically free up a system slot. At least once you get zero-point energy it allows you to avoid needing a reactor on the ship unless you mount siege weapons.


Also another thing to watch out is the sneaky multipliers some ships get. Like usually a Medium is a Medium x2, so if you put a Missile on it, it'll be actually two missiles. (AFAIK the Tinkers are the only ones with a Medium x1 mount on a ship.) But sometimes it'll be a Medium x4! Like on the Ashdar scout/destroyer ship, which has a Medium x2 and a Medium x4 mount. I always swap the Ashdar scout design so that the scanner is on the x2 mount and I can put missiles on the x4 mount.

If medium is 3, large must be least 6, because a large mount can be used as two mediums. (In fact, this is often the optimal choice for ships that have no issues closing to range, and for particular techs - many twin medium mounts do more damage than a single large.)

Dragar wrote:If medium is 3, large must be least 6, because a large mount can be used as two mediums. (In fact, this is often the optimal choice for ships that have no issues closing to range, and for particular techs - many twin medium mounts do more damage than a single large.)

Indeed. I do hope there's an official rebalancing down the line so large weapons are worth it. Not only do 2x mediums usually do more damage, they also lack the "can't hit missiles" trait. [Which typing this made me desire a large system that is a mega point defense system...]

Nice summary

Ashdar Light Cruiser was my Nr1 as per specs for the small craft (and the model) - was also cheaper before but that was a bit OP

Gremak light cruiser foreva! (also aestetically)

emky wrote:

Dragar wrote:If medium is 3, large must be least 6, because a large mount can be used as two mediums. (In fact, this is often the optimal choice for ships that have no issues closing to range, and for particular techs - many twin medium mounts do more damage than a single large.)

Indeed. I do hope there's an official rebalancing down the line so large weapons are worth it. Not only do 2x mediums usually do more damage, they also lack the "can't hit missiles" trait. [Which typing this made me desire a large system that is a mega point defense system...]

In large battles, large weapons allow slower ships to join in the focus fire because of the extra range. And later on there are some very good large-only slots. But yes, the mid-game is not friendly to large weapon hardpoints.

Dragar wrote:

emky wrote:

Dragar wrote:If medium is 3, large must be least 6, because a large mount can be used as two mediums. (In fact, this is often the optimal choice for ships that have no issues closing to range, and for particular techs - many twin medium mounts do more damage than a single large.)

Indeed. I do hope there's an official rebalancing down the line so large weapons are worth it. Not only do 2x mediums usually do more damage, they also lack the "can't hit missiles" trait. [Which typing this made me desire a large system that is a mega point defense system...]

In large battles, large weapons allow slower ships to join in the focus fire because of the extra range. And later on there are some very good large-only slots. But yes, the mid-game is not friendly to large weapon hardpoints.

Mechanically I think large weapons are absolutely worth the price of research and construction but only 1 per fleet as they can snipe almost any planetary defense and starbase (except if the PD has siege cannons itself)

They are not worth it in mid game in combat scenarios except in rare circumstances where the player has tech advantage over the opponent but then most any choice is a good choice of course

A re-balance would be most welcome for starbases and PD which would make heavy weapons almost completely useless though so it would need to pair with a re-balance in combat as well yes.
They should not be able to hit smaller vessels from long range to make those ships viable in a combat scenario at least in the early phase of the battle but they might need an increase in damage output for when they do hit
In case of Heavy Ion there is also the issue of cost efficiency compared to Heavy Laser so that one needs the mod mentioned already by the DEVs

I disagree with the underlying assumptions here because you aren't taking into account build costs and effectiveness at capture. I would say that the various races ships are, in order of combat ability:

1- Yoral: The torpedo destroyer with its absurd 14 missile capacity built in extra magazine for low cost and high mobility is pound for pound, best ship in game if you factor in cost per unit and science needed to achieve dominance. With only antimatter warheads tech you have a ship that will beat anything, assuming you build enough of them to match the build cost of higher end ships. There really isn't a good reason to build anything else as a Yoral player.

2- Gremark: The light cruiser is the best starting ship in game. No one can build anything half as strong until they've spent some research points. The Battlecruiser is my favorite ship in the game, 2nd only to the Yoral torpedo Destroyer. Honorable mention should be given to the Gremark destroyer which is by far best PD specialized ship in game. You might be able to win (using same build costs) against a swarm of yoral torpedo boats if you build a bunch of destroyers and a few Gremark Battlecruisers, then move in and start capturing. THe Battlecruiser's strength is best brought out with Pulson Launchers, but even a bare bones version can turn the tide with it's strong crew capture capablity.

2- Orthin: Tied with the Gremark, Orthin have 3 ships I would rate as excellent. The gunship, with its siege mount, is in some situations, very powerful, especially in large numbers. The escourt cruiser which combines 12 medium weapons with busbar and reasonably sturdiness, is unstoppable with force lance tech, it is my 3rd favorite ship. As the Orthin, you need not build anything else but escort cruisers to win the game, especially if you find a planets that gives you railgun-forcelance and/or shields data allowing you to rush to force lance relatively early. And the Dreadnaught, with its siege slot and busbar, is actually a cost-effective version of a Super Dreadnaught, and is generally a better value.

4 - Tinker: You would think that with unlimited ammo, Tinker ships would rank higher. They don't because they are both expensive and have few weapon slots. The carrier armed with vindicator missles in it's hanger slots is the strongest thing a Tinker can field, and it's just not as strong as the other options in the top 3 slots, though it is large enough for the 10% per turn self-repair to start making some difference. A fleet of vindicator armed antimatter warhead tech tinker carriers is a devastating force, but would fair poorly against an equivalent cost worth of yoral missle destroyers, and are vulnerable to point defence heavy fleets, as the vindicators can be shot down before they split open...

4 - Human: About as good as Tinker ships, they are what I consider the most average ships in game. The Assult cruiser's lack of armament make it a poor substitute for the Gremark Battlecruiser or even the Gremark Command ship, but equipped with marines it almost makes up for the fact that it's base crew capacity is actually a bit low. Given how the crew combat works, a ship with 2x crew is far stronger at capturing ships than 2x ships, which is why the Gremark Battlecruiser is so effective. The Heavy Cruiser's armament is actually not bad for it's class, making it one of the better cruisers in-game, but it is not as good as Orthin Escort Cruiser. The missle cruiser is similarly outclassed by the Yoral torpedo destroyer.

5 - Ashdar: Their ships are bad, lacking in armament slots. The problem is that carriers with actual fighters aren't very strong, for many reasons, but primarily because PD counters them hard. You need at least primary beams, or antimatter warheads. Although, if you get to force beams, Ashdar carriers can be hilariously strong, they are still not as good per unit cost as a group of Orthin escourt cruisers with same tech. Antimatter warhead bombers might be effective, but again, even Tinker carriers are stronger if they are using antimater vindicators, and forget about winning against a yoral torpedo missle swarm of same build cost. Best matchup is probably Gremark or humans, as the high crew capacity make capturing fleet carriers a pain.

6 - Phidi: By design, Phidi ships are the worst in the game. You are meant to rely on mercenary ships. That being said, you can probably spam ridiculous number of phidi torpedo destroyers pretty cheaply, which, while not as good as yoral torpedo destroyers, might be a better bet than paying out enormous sums of cash for a full mercenary navy. Alternatively, carriers with 2 tank batallions can be pretty strong en mass.

Also as a side note, Large weapons slots aren't bad starting with Plasma Cannons. Hellbore and Pulson Luanchers (which fix 2x into large slots) are very powerful. Yes 2x force lances is probably still strongest thing you can fit into a heavy slot, but force lances are broken in terms of game balance, which is why force lance escort cruisers are so powerful.