Aren't Larger Ships Better than Lots of Small Ships?

it depends on the situation

huge ships take long to build + high maint and you don't wanna loose them too often. so vs weak enemies where they'll be upgraded constantly some can become overtly strong. if you play with alot of luck and tend to upgrade your ships defenses to match your opponents offensives than this is also more viable with huge ships.

speed is another factor although you may want to use your huge ships very offensively to clear out enemy systems so you can invade them. too much speed will also drain your attack power and the AI will usually not try to circumvent you^^

in the case of hunting down freighters, scouts, unarmed troop transports cargo hulls with one attack, lots of engines (+ sensors until you got Eyes of the Universe) will do fine, ober time they'll gain some HP and can serve as medium battlefighters

tiny/small ships I'd use more defensively, either in conjunction with military starbases, or as fodder in an initial attack (they're generally cheaper thus faster to produce)

sometimes it's also a good idea to leave at least a single defender on each of your planets, choose tiny/small ships for this so you won#t have much maint. the purpose is eg someone declares war on you while your main fleet is currently invading somewhere else, then you have at least some firepower at home. when planets are guarded the AI will send in attackers to clear them, then send troop transports, in that case if you can't get your mainfleet back in time rally all your defenders together to buy some time.

One other minor factor is on logistics.

For example, suppose your logistics value is 38.  If you have only huge hulls, then you would be limited to three 10-size ships.  If you have some 7-size ships, then you could have a 37-size fleet.

Having some 5-size and 7-size ships around in addition to your 10s lets you optimize fleet size.

I usually find that larger ships handle defenses better than smaller ships.

[Warning] Wall of text.

A thought experiment I did a while back was to have 2 opposing fleets have 100 attack, 100 defense, 100 hp, and infinite weapons (so they can kill as many ships as it had damage to go around). The difference was one fleet was composed of 1 large ship, while the other fleet had its stats split equally amoung 25 small ships (4 attack, 4 defense, 4 hp each).

Experiments:
1. Both fleets did average damage and average defense. In such a battle, the fleet of smaller ships did no damage to the larger ship. Why is that you ask? Well the smaller fleet attacked doing average damage, which was 2 per ship was not enough to over come the average defense of the huge ship. When the first small ship attacked, it did 2 damage vs. 50 defense (reducing the max defense by 2 to 98 defense), the next ship did 2 attack against 49 defense (the average of 98 defense0, third 2 attack vs 48 defense (do you see a pattern?). When the last ship attacked, it was 2 attack against 26 defense. When the larger ship returned fire, it did 50 attack, which is more than 2 defense and 4 hp. With these numbers, it could kill 8 opposing ships. Since the fleet of smaller ships couldn't damage the larger ship with full fleet, they smaller fleet had no chance.
2. Both fleets did maximum damage and maximum defense. In such a battle, the fleet of smaller ships still did no damage to the larger ship. Each ship did 4 attack, times 25 ships, is enough to bring the defenses of the larger ship to 0, but at that point they were out of attacks to make to do any damage. However, the larger ship did 100 damage against ships of 4 defense and 4 hp. It could destroy 12 ships per turn. Again, if the fleet of smaller ships couldn't damage the big one with a full fleet, then they have no hope with reduced numbers.
3. Average attack, no defense. In the first round, both sides deal 50 damage to the opposing side. Without defenses, all damage is applied. The fleet of smaller ships kill no one, but the fleet with the big ship kills 12.5 ships. Next round, the fleet of smaller ships (with their reduced numbers) deals 26 damage and the fleet with the big ships deals another 50 damage. The remaining small ships are destroyed, and the big ship wins, but has to leave for repairs since it has less than 1/4 of its health remaining.
4. Max damage, no defense. Both sides kill each other in the first round.
5. Fleet of smaller ships gets to split 200 attack (instead of 100). All get average damage, and average defense. The fleet of smaller ships deals 100 attack (which is average) and pounds down the defenses of the larger ship to 0, but then the larger ship gets to fire back killing enemy ships. The larger ship will win without a scratch.
6. Fleet of smaller ships gets to split 200 attack (instead of 100). All get maximum damage, and maximum defense. In the first round, the fleet of smaller ships deals 200 attack. That is enough to deal 100 damage to defenses to bring it to 0, and the remaining 100 is enough to kill the larger ship. The larger ship gets to retaliate, dealing enough damage to kill 12 enemy ships (12 out of 25). The fleet of smaller ships manages to win with some loses.
7. Fleet of smaller ships gets to split 400 attack (instead of 100). All get average damage, and average defense. The results will the be same as in experiment 6. The average damage of 400 attack is the same as the maximum of 200 attack.

As you can see, the larger ship really out performs the smaller ships because it can concentrate all the firepower behind a strong defense and plenty of hit points. The fleet of smaller ships fails quickly when they lose ships and in turn lose firepower (because those guns were mounted on the ships that got destroyed).

You might be asking why I used averages. The reason is that it becomes more pronounced when you are using a lot of ships as opposed to a few ships. The impact of a high roll of 4 on the smaller ship is insignificant to large ship roll of 19. Low and high rolls might as well not happen in these experiments.

Oh hell, lets do it anyways:
8. Fleet of smaller ships rolls maximum, fleet of big ship rolls 25%. Only the last 3 smaller ships deal any damage to the larger ship. The 4th last deals 4 damage against a defense of 4 (25% of 16) which is 0 damage inflicted. The 3rd last deals 4 damage against a defense of 3, 2nd last is 4 vs 2, and last is 4 vs 1. The total damage done is 6. The larger ship gets to retaliate with 25 damage (25% of 100). It is enough to kill 3 ships. Those last 3 ships that were able to deal damage are now destroyed. The fleet of smaller ships have lost.
9. Fleet of smaller ships rolls maximum, fleet of big ship rolls 10%. Once the defenses of the larger ship is reduced to less than 40 do the smaller ships get to do damage. That means the last 9 ships get to do damage. In total, they deal 22 damage (2 deal 1 damage, 3 deal 2 damage, 2 deal 3 damage, and 2 deal 4 damage). With 10% firepower, the big ship gets to kill 1 ship per turn. The next round is 4 less damage toward the big ship (which is 18 damage), the next is 4 less, and the next is 3 less, etc. By round 10, the large ship has taken 86 damage and is no longer at risk of suffering any more damage.

So as you can see, the large ship can survive improbable odds. In the last experiment, we assumed that the larger ship rolled an attack of 10% of maximum for 10 turns (which is rare). It also rolled 10% of its defense 25 times for the first turn and a little less each turn. The enemy ships got to roll maximum damage 25 times for the first round and a little less each turn. They also got to roll maximum defense twice each turn. It takes extraordinary odds for those odds to happen, and yet the larger ship still won. It practically had both its arms tied behind its back and blind folded, yet it still won.

Mind you this was an extreme test, You won't find situations where 25 small ships are collectively equal to 1 large ship. Technically, 5 tiny hulls are relatively equal to a Huge hull (not quite, but you get the point), but the outcomes shouldn't be to much different. If all things are equal except the size and quantity of ships, you should bet your money on the bigger ship... unless the fleet of smaller ships have a combined firepower greater than twice the defense of the larger ship. At that point, the smaller fleet can actually do some damage to the larger ship.

The moral of the story is: If up against larger ships, favor guns. If up against smaller ships, favor defenses.

I did not read all of your "wall" but I think military starbases maxed out with support modules change the math to favor small ship fleets.

Military starbases do help, but its hard to move them into enemy territory (read you have to build new ones). I do intend to practice using them in the near future though.

To make a summery of my wall of text:

The factors of attack, defense, and hp are all much easier to measure than odds and luck. When you "distribute" those factors over many ships, not only are they weaker individually, but they are also weaker as a group. The odds of a weak attack rating of 4 dealing damage to defense rating of 100 is incredibly slim. Its still slim even if you have 25 ships with an attack rating of 4 each (100 total) attacking a concentrated defense rating of 100. A low roll from the "concentrated" defense is very likely going to be higher than any roll the weak attacks can do. At best, the concentrated defense rolls 0 against every distributed attack, while the distributed attack rolls maximum damage (incredibly incredibly unlikely to happen). Then of course the concentrated attack can easily destroy many ships with distributed defenses a turn. The lost ships had attack ratings, so those are lost next turn, so the odds now favor the bigger ship even more.

The morale of the story is small ships < than 1 big ship. You need firepower on those smaller ships in the ranges from "lots more" to "overkill" to have good odds of winning, and that is taking into account that many smaller ships will be lost in the fight.

Ah, I did not properly explain the military starbase offense strategy.

Bring a fleet of constructors along with the cheap tiny ship fleet.  When a big enemy fleet approaches and battle is inevitable, build the military starbases right there and then.  Alternatively, head for a juicy enemy planet cluster (the homeworld is one choice) and build the bases right as you begin battle.

This is good data but most of it does only show that "on paper" or "in theory" huge hulls are better. All these different hulls as well as going defense or offense do have some ups and downs and it's up to the player to investigate his current situation, and built accordingly.

You also only want to choose what is absolutely best for your current situation, and in the case of small/tiny ships, you don't want to go the defensive way. You also don't want to have only " a tiny bit" of attack because if you look at the ratio of hitpoints vs attack, bigger ships will last longer.

Now hitpoints are static, they are very strong in the beginning of the game and become increasingly weak once weapons become more and more strong. In such a scenario tiny ships will be dragged away inflating their firepower while bigger ships can sustain it longer giving them an edge. Once weapons become strong it won't really matter since every ship that got hit will be blown apart anyway.

Next thing to realize is that why would you even have your weapons going versus the enemy's defenses at all? Simply change them... the AI will never upgrade their ships... so the only possible realistic situation where this is happening is when he has all 3 types of defenses which will *seriously* inflate his attack! (besides cutting his defense in a third because optimally you will always max out a single type of attack which the defenses will not be able to absorb completely, and this is exactly why attack is better than defenses in a nutshell, which hold even more true in the case of tiny fighters, except some rare exceptions where you want to cash in on starbase defense assist)

Is it even possible that both fleets are mutually destroyed?

Besides, what you really should look at is the loss of MP in an optimal scenario. If you are not completely dominating the map then you always will loose ships and the question is, which route to go to get the most bang for the buck, or in other words, how fast your constant loss can be replaced... and: if that MP loss is greater smaller than the constant loss of your opponent (at this point you can see that spacefight is, in essence, a war of military production vs military production

I would say to only field what you can afford that is better than the enemy's ships.

otherwise its either a waste or you are playing like I do.

For quick fun. (Cheat mods)

Wow going back the original question which is better small or large ships thats the issue why cant U assist the larger ships with military starbases ttheo lets not forget about general Montgomery and the Field marshall Rummel the desert fox. The reason why Montgomery won most of his battles is not tactics but logisstics or the reason the union beat the confederacy is because of production not better soldiers or the reason why the United states of america won world war 2 is industrializaUtion this is more inportant in the game than the ships themselves is can U field and build them if U lost your fleet U may not be able to sustaun or replace your fleet without the industrialization If U have the Yor U need a lot less defense tactics if your ships r fast now putting that aside a cripled huge hull ship is likely to make it home and heal even amter bushed the whole way while a snall ship wont survive this scenario the computer will attack this way U may even consider not fleeting up huge hulls now we also have another kind of ships its the Millenium Falcom I mean its a cargo ship with hull upgrades this works well against small ships again more important hows your industrialization or can U rush buy these ships if its good  then big ships r the way to go

You can but it's pretty useless because the net effect of MS assist per fleet will diminish because Tiny Fighter take only 2 logistical points besides these Fighters are more easily replaced. Lets say you have traded for the very best early weapon from Yor/Iconian Scatter Gun Mark II (or play them yourself and take Scatter Gun Mark III then) you can pump out these Tiny Fighters at cost of ~~35MP minimum (25MP hull + 10mp for 1 gun) or maybe 45mp for 2 Att or even something like 1Att 1Def if you may like then even in an all-lab strategy every planet will build a single Fighter per turn (this is utmost important) which will subsequently turn into a +10Att or +20 or +30 Fighter and fleeted together become a major force.

Let's compare that with another infamous early weapon which is the Laser branch, 2 Laser on a Fighter will cost is 125MP for production - for a normal planet this is pretty hard to reach. Now Lasers are very small and Laser IV or V you can mostly take 4 or 5 on a Tiny Hull then this ship will cost ~250MP just for 2 attack more which is completely irrelevant if you keep in mind the +10 +20 or +30 support attack from your Starbases.