Revamping SEIV Ship Hull Sizes & Features

[Atrocities]

How do we make smaller ships more useful in the long run.

I have come to the firm conclusion that the only noticible differance between and Escort and a Baseship is the amount of supplies and weapons it can hold and how many engines it can carry. Oh ya the mounts too. The bigger they are the more powerful.

Am I wrong in believing that there should be more here? I have looked at a most of the mods before posting this in the slim hope that this may have already been addressed. But I have not found a mod that does address this.

What I want is a reason to keep building Escorts, Frates, Destroyers, and Light Cruisers later in the game. A purpose for having them. As we all know that once you get the Dreadnought design, the rest of your designs are almost worthless.

So I asked myself the simple question, why does the military still use Escorts, Cutters, Gunboats, Frigates, Destroyers, and Cruisers as opposed to Battleships and Dreadnoughts. The answers are obvious, cost and practicality. Why build a Dreadnought when it would cost so very much to use and maintain.

Well in a game such as SEIV, you NEED these larger ships therefore you build them. But what I want to do is make the smaller ships more valueale in the long term by giving them bonuses or special weapons that only work with a specific class of ship size.

As you gain the ability to build say Battle Cruisers, you gain an extra engine mount for Escort giving them two more engines. This will make them faster.

As you gain shipyard III or IV, depending upon what mod you play, you gain new mounts and weapons for your Frigate and Destoryer Class.

Things like this.

One thing that does seperate a Battleship and dreadnought apart from their smaller counterparts is the amount of armor they have. The amount of energy that is required to run them, the amount of supplies they consume, etc.

What I am thinking is that supplies are actually fule, and the Q-Reactor is actually a nuclear reacter. That the big guns such as the Wavemotion Gun are the 16" so to speak guns of the navy. That the PPB's are the current standard guns that are on most ships. PDF are of course the Vulcans and Phalnix (sp) systems that are on most vessles now too.

What I want to do is say make the Light Cruiser a Guided missle cruiser. That would mean that I would have to design new missels specifically for it, and or revamp current ones to be more effective than they currently are. Not all missels fired at a ship are shot down.

Using Drones as Cruise Missles is an obvious choice as they self guiding and can be launched a system or two away from the target. I love drones now.

I have been considering this subject for a while, and really want to make the Hull sizes of SEIV more involved and true to nature than they currently are. I realize that this will entail a lot of work, and I know that others have already made a few advancments in game play that might work well here. I was hoping that there are a few of you out there that will actually read this long post and agree. Ideas are very important here and I would seriously welcome any.

Ideas on how to make smaller ships more useful in the long run.