GalCiv2 Forums
Is there any use for them once medium sized ships pop out? I find that they are too hard to keep alive, so I get a much better deal building few stronger ships that can stay alive. So does anyone have a military use for these smaller hulls as the game goes on?
Military? Not really. Each hull size tends to get replaced with the next bigger size when it becomes available.
Notable exceptions are building hordes of 1 attack 1 defense tiny hulls to park under a military starbase array and non-military use. A tiny hull freighter gives you just as much income as a cargo hull. Tiny hulls with nothing but a constructor module is the cheapest possible way to build anything, unless speed is a huge issue. Occasionally a bare tiny hull transport is the fastest, most cost-effective means to use one freshly-conquered planet to take another planet nearby.
Absent an unfortunate war declaration, I rarely have ANY armed ships other than array fodder and huge hulls - I can usually research up that far before anyone declares war. Oh, and the occasional pop-gun armed fast transport, for blasting enemy transports and other unarmed targets.
They can also be used for planetary defense.
All weapons, no defense or engines - 8-10 of them in orbit can use up an attacking fleet's movement points pretty quickly, and might even take out a couple ships.
If you have scads of credits, you can make the smaller ships useful by putting HP modules on. You'll obviously want to focus more on building larger ships, but there's no reason why you can't upgrade the smaller ships to get more use out of them.
Small and tiny ships are a good way to cheaply boost your military might and "protect" your planets. I put "protect" in quotes because they usually can't beat off an attack, but their mere presense in orbit dissuades troop transports from even moving toward your territory.
Any vessel in orbit can do this, of course, but I like to use fighters because it also adds to your military strength, which can help prevent the other races from trying to extort money from you.
And since all military ships have a maintenance fee, it's best to use the small or tiny class ships with minimal costs.
I often use small hulls to give my military rating a boost early on, trying to stay ahead of the AI. Then I'll often research some miniaturization techs and better weapons. If at that point I do have some spare bc's it happens that I upgrade these small hulls with better weapons as these upgrades happen immediately, as opposed to the slower process of building new medium hulls.
Especially if I'm rushing to have a spin control center, these upgraded small hulls come in handy 
Well, if you play the TA expansion, there are these special modules known as Atlas modules. These modules have a side effect of increasing the threat rating of any ship you install them on, so a larger hull can "escort" a bunch of smaller ships into battle. Their most well known effect is to increase the attack and/or defense of all ships in a fleet. There are variations of these modules, such as first strike atlas modules (if you start the fight, you get the bonus for the first round), and personal (only boosts the ship in question).
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