Ok guys now this is definately a life time choice. Small ship builds. . . who's done it? how small did you stay? and how effective do you find yourself against both equal ranks and higher?

I stumbled across a sorty of a scout taking on a death star and it tickled my fancy. the thought of a small vessell with its prized singular gun and nimble prowess. As I am an agile person in reality relying on my speed rather then strength to get through life this build was perfect for me. It also provided a challenge. . . how effective can I get a small build?

The rumours are true about damage caps and after hearing this it supplimented my idea of a small vessel taking on the galaxy. unfortunately I was already into the game a bit and had moved on past the smallest limit of 50 decks. sadly I was no longer a scout. upon more research though I found the smaller your ship was the less protection you have against being hacked and have very limited option for offence and defence. Luckily the damage cap helps out in this area.

I finally decided on capping my decks at 149. keeping me in the Frigate class. Through trial and error I found that the damage cap for my vessel is 80 points. keeping mself at 149 decks has allowed me to play around with things and have space for a more diverse ship.

I am now level 72 and am still continuing with my ship design. As a small ship with the aid of damage cap I have been able to completely neglect the defensive chain of research. even if the attack is tousands above my defence I will only take a maximum of 80 damage. This allowed me to focus my research points in other fields. Mainly hull. I found shields were too much of a drain on my deck efficiency. They were big and bulky and I feel i could use that space for more ffective hull. While my hull may not regenerate it is true if someone was dedicated to taking me down if it took them 10 mins the shield regeneration compared to the hull bonus over space was not efficient. One could argue that three hours later had I not logged back on and repaired my vessel I would be easy pickings. but these are the decisions I have made and it works for me.

With my added deck space over the ellusive scout I was able to add more items to my arsenal then just deck and a simple weapon. With the aid of special items found either via missions or NPC fights I have a fairly well rounded vessel. At level 72 my attack is currently just over 350. i also am supporting a decent scan and cloak score for my level. with my build I have made the minimal attacks to kill me above the 4 hit minimum by at least double and it is always climbing.

I recently tested my build against higher level targets and I was happy to find that even though a persistant person could disable my ship I could also disable vessels 40 levels higher then I. And not just once but multiple targets and multiple times. At one point I could physically see the target changing their equipment. I was surprised at their lack of atentiveness when I disabled them while they were online :O. all in all I am very happy with my build and would like to hear of other ppl who have built ships this way.

I have actually built my ship as a deck-and-artifact-heavy slow-progress ship, and I have a Titan class at level 107. I can reliably take on players over 40 levels above unless they legion alert (however they always do. lol) And I once saw a light cruiser at level 132 on my battle tab, so I probed him and found that his combat ability was as small as his ship was (remember that probes also account for crew). I prefer the big-and-bad build instead of the small-and-scrappy build.

I personally do not understand the small build at all. I mean yeah, there is a damage cap, but anyone with a large ship can disable you at will. With 140 decks, anyone with twice that can hack at will and there is nothing a small ship can do to about it. Researching any tree to a high level is worthless because you could only equip 1 instead of 3 or 4. Energy research is right out, and in normal play (not PVP) 3 reactors with 400 energy would leave you naked with no hull, shields, weapons, or defense. Just don't see the benefits, with way too many tradeoffs.

ive kepted my ship at the heavy frigate so i can have some more room because i felt a frigate was too small, yea the damage cap is a little higher but i can hit 1k hull with a few good weapons im lvl 72 and i managed to bring down a 147 and i only had to repair once.

My ship is a heavy leviathan at level 482. People half my level have bigger ships than me. But, I can take out any ship in the game. I add decks to accommodate my need for modules.

yea i know a guy that is 18 lvls lower then me is two sizes up above me in ship size with powerfull weapons and we were almost equal but my hull won the day lol

Yeah I'm not entirely sold on the small ship build myself. Personally I think in the end the large ship build with heavy defense and armor still pulls ahead in that the damage, even if more, is still only slight if you build your ship right, but you have the added benefit of cloak and scan for hacking along with a lot more health, since eventually you add sheilds to the mix. The biggest mistake I see people making is they stack a bunch of hull, but little defense to make it last. Most people have more hull than I do, but when your hitting me for 50-80 damage and I'm hitting you for 200, I still come out ahead.

well yea i have stacked hull with a some defense but still my ship is small enough were they only hit like 90 and i hit in the 70s-80s or atleast thats what is was when i fought that 147.

mmmm i personally like. it its a differnt way to play outside the norm. and I am never hit for more then 80 damage due to the cap. I have a fairly balanced ship and at the end of the day when i get higher in levels i'll find out how effective it really is. right now though. my ship is doing exactly what i need it too and is matching up against higher levelled foe.

And that's a problem. For the small ship build to work you realy have to be hitting them for more than they hit you. You definately want enough decks for all your energy and hull mods. Sheilds probably are too big for the health they give and scan and cloak are out the window. Whether or not to bother having hull for wepons is another story. Probably not. More than likely it's probably better to just get tacs and skip the extra damage you take from the extra hull

Take out any ship in the game... I have a real hard time buying that. I'd love to see a fight between you and someone like Mojo from the Dysonians (within 10 ranks of you).. just cannot see you holding against a Massive Star Destroyer. Sorry.

One thing to remember guys is it's all relative. Yes, many people can take ships 20-30 ranks above if they are setup and geared to PVP and the other is not. I personally have little problem with this because I stupidly waited to rank up and researched and researched.. making myself very strong for my rank, but against a higher rank I don't have the decks they do and suffer for it. What is the real benefit to a small ship? I hear people saying they have taken ships higher rank, but what is the benefit.. I mean the bottom line is yeah you took them.. but with a bigger ship you would have taken them quicker, had more energy to do more with, and had the deck space to allow hacking them too.

I would love to have a goodwill battle with a small ship of my rank, just to see. All small enemies that have tried have failed.. usually running out of energy halfway through my hull, and then are destroyed at will, and usually more than once, and repeatedly hacked. Just can't see a rank 88 small ship taking out my 88 hvy battleship with over 1000 atk, 555 defense (which for a small ship battle I'd swap to 500 atk, and 850+ defense)... 2500+ hull, and 488 shield.

Actually I've already taken down Mojo. I've also taken down Nocifer, who has a tougher ship. And it was pretty easy.

Don't get me wrong. It's a lot easier for them to disable me than for me to disable them. But when I can add 30% to my attack and 20% to my defense. And then lower their att and def by 10%, it's not to difficult for me to disable any ship.

i have a pretty small ship and ive crammed modules into sensors and jammers, so far i havent been found in a month by ANYONE anywhere close to my rank, i think the last time i was actually attacked was a few months ago and it wasby a guy 30 lvls above me, that being said, i dont know if i can be seen by other people and they are just too afraid to attack me because they cant see what i have or they just cant see me.

I have a small ship build, and I slowly built up, I have an Insane Rep, an excellent hull, over 2k of attack without modules, and, except for 2 of my 17 disables, I have only been disabled by people 6 times my rank, personally, the SSB is wonderful, and no one really fights me, even when people do, they give up, its worth being a SSB, especially if you are willing to put time into it (I am at rank 84, not bad huh?)

at rank 84 people typically dont have alot of energy, so its not that ssb is especially effective at that level, you just take more energy than they have.

also talking about ssb at higher ranks, you'll enjoy not getting disabled as much because people can realize that they will get 3 - 4 red badges in the time and resources that it would take to get the 1 from you, again not stating your ship is extremely effective, just thats how the game mechanics work

and beyond that at the actual high ranks - top end of the game - when everyone has 200k+ hull, you just - for the most part - become another name on the battle tab, unless you have superior artifact income.

sorry to burst any bubbles.

also this

my energy isn't bad at all, actually, I have nearly the recommended energy for a ship, (rank x 10 = your energy) it took me time, but I got their with a mixture of slow build and a helpful legion, kind of like a lot of SSB's I have met , and to be perfectly honest, most ships at my level are either SSB or Laughable, so that also may burst a bubble about how its just a lack of energy, or that their are easier targets, truthfully, most are like mine






(just not as good as mine though , may we all stand with the night mother in the afterlife)

in a totally obvious statement, um, yeah...virtually all new (within last year+) are almost ALL like you. Wheeeee!!!!!! some may do better with scans and invades, but it all ssb....the ones that dont prolly are daily food as oft as they repair for the host of hungry lowbie ssb's.