Fleet
Small Deep Space Freighter
The small deep space freighter is not the best pic for anyone except for the Lizards with their 30x ground combat force. Likely candidate for colonization.
Cats Paw Destroyer
The Robot’s one torpedo ship. And for the Robots, it is quite sufficient for most situations. 300 cargo and 4x mine laying capacity supplies all the mine laying needs of the Robot fleet. In combat, the Cat’s Paw rarely is sufficient as a front ship for the Robot carriers.
Iron Slave Baseship
A good scout, anti-probe defense, money runner and best of all, low cost fighter factory. It has the advantage that it can fight battles and win where the Q Tanker, being a much better fuel mover and fighter production center gets captured. For overall effectiveness, the Robot is better served with Iron Slaves than with Q Tankers.
Medium Deep Space Freighter
If you are playing in a game where many of the planets you find will not be worthwhile, you may want to build an MDSF (Medium Deep Space Freighter) so that you can scout out the good planets. Once the MDSF’s job of scouting has been finished, it can be colonized or put to use in small cargo transport. If you plan to colonize it you may choose to build a Smallie (Small Deep Space Freighter) instead.
Q Tanker
A dual purpose ship for the Robots. It moves nice amounts of fuel and can build up to 12 fighters per turn. The drawback to this ship is that it has such a low crew count that it often gets captured and the single fighter bay often never launches fighters resulting in a combat ineffective ship.
Pawn Baseship
Has the best Bioscanner in the game. 100% guaranteed to detect “Something”. It actually can be used in a similar fashion as the Empire’s Dark Sense. The Bioscanner can detect if your neighbor is nearby with colonies that are just starting out. Also, knowing that 20+ defense posts causes the scanner to fail, the planet that you DON’T detect early can be an enemy homeworld!
Cybernaut Baseship
A one shot warship and it isn’t very good at that. Costing as much as the Instrumentality and only half as effective, the Robot is rarely in need of this ship.
Large Deep Space Freighter
The Medium and Small are too small, the Super Transport is too big, but the LDSF feels just right. This is actually the ship to build.
Instrumentality Baseship
Is the strongest tech 6 warship in the game. An early pair of Instrumentalities can often destroy an enemy homeworld before they can build the firepower to stop them. Later in the game, the Robot is better served by using the Automa and Golem.
Automa Baseship
This is an extremely nice ship for the Robots in situations where they cannot build the Golem. However, the well developed Robot will bypass the Automa in favor of the far more effective Golem.
Neutronic Refinery Ship
The neutronic refinery ship is a tech 9 ship with 10 engines and 1050 KT of cargo room. Fuel tank will hold 800 KT of fuel. The hull is very massive, 712 KT. The ship is armed with 6 beam weapons. This ship can produce up to 525 KT of fuel per turn.
Super Transport Freighter
To big for most purposes. With tech 10 engines and the cost involved it is much easier to build a few Large Deep Space Freighters. But I like to call it “Starbase in a Box”. You decide.
Golem Baseship
Surprisingly one of the most effective warships in the game. 6 less beams than a Gorbie is often balanced by the 50 extra cargo and 240 extra fuel. Added in, the free building of fighters allows this ship to go where the Gorbie cannot…extended invasions.
Merlin Class Alchemy Ship
The Merlin Class Alchemy Ship is a tech 10 ship with 10 engines and 2700 KT of cargo room. The fuel tank can hold 450 KT of fuel. The ship’s hull has a mass of 920 KT, which makes it one of the largest ships in any fleet. The ship is armed with 8 beam weapons and costs 840 megacredits to build. The ship can produce a maximum of 900 KT of minerals per turn ( 300 KT duranium, 300 KT tritanium and 300 KT molybdenum ).