Favourite "bonus" ship and why?

[Chimpster]

Been searching for a previous topic like this but with no avail, therefore I thought I'd take the chance to do one myself

Being quite new to the game, I'm still getting to grips with the strengths/weaknesses of each bonus craft (the one you get at your chosen starting position).  I've grown to love Raptors (esp at MK3) as they seem to pack a mean wallop, have great range, can cloak and go uber duber fast but with so many to choose from I thought I'd get other peoples opinions on what they generally grab and why.

Hope this isn't a topic that comes around every week and I'm just being blind and or stupid

[carlosjuero]

I kinda like Micro Fighters - swarm ship w/ cloaking and can detect other cloaked ships. They are a bit weak though and most of my combat losses (in the game I have them as my perk) were them (out of a 900 ship fleet 260 of my 300~ losses were Micro Fighters).

I also like the Parasites - much easier than spending the K on Leech Starships . Went into a system with 200 ships, came out with 220 because of them (that is with my ships being lost due to combat).

[vonduus]

These days I am experimenting with the parasites - they convert enemy units, so that you very often have more ships after a battle than before.

My main reason for using them is not so much their combat value as it is the fact that by using them I get hands-on experience with a great variety  of captured ships. Which otherwise I could not try out without starting a lot of new games, each with its own bonus ship.

[TheWordWillSetYouFree]

Teleport battle stations are great on the defensive, there is no way to loose basically 

Snipers are awesome if you have picked up shield boosters and when they are coupled with light starships.

[Chimpster]

I actually used parasites last game and had a lot of fun with them due to the fact that you get to play with a lot of different ships.

Because you can unlock leech starships though, I'm not sure if I always want to use them when I can access something simmilar off the bat if I so wished.

[x4000]

Teleport battle stations are great on the defensive, there is no way to loose basically 

Actually, the last game I lost was one in which one of my allies had teleport battle stations.  But, it is much harder to lose at least.

I'm partial to deflector drones, spiders, and zenith bombards because of their range and various abilities.

[carlosjuero]

I actually used parasites last game and had a lot of fun with them due to the fact that you get to play with a lot of different ships.

Because you can unlock leech starships though, I'm not sure if I always want to use them when I can access something simmilar off the bat if I so wished.

The benefit w/ Parasites is that you don't need to spend the 3k Knowledge on unlocking the Leech Starship though, so you can use that to unlock higher tiers of your basic ships (or for defenses).

[Chimpster]

The benefit w/ Parasites is that you don't need to spend the 3k Knowledge on unlocking the Leech Starship though, so you can use that to unlock higher tiers of your basic ships (or for defenses).

Aye, though I still like having access to something completely unique.  I could unlock the Leech Starship if I wanted and still have something else unique if that makes sense

I've just recently destroyed a zenith ship cache and had a little play with the zenith bombers and the bombards and they seem quite tasty (though the energy req for the bombers is a little high for my taste ).  
Could someone tell me how the Zenith Shredders play out?  I can see that they can replicate themselves but no details are given as to how many ships they need to destroy in order for that to occur.  can anyone give me an idea (because they sound like great fun .

Too many ships to try, too little time

(it's interesting to see how many different ships are being listed as well, good sign of a well balanced game )

[jakobrogert]

How to effectively use the teleport stations? While I mainly used them offensively last night, they kept getting obliterated and usually require some careful handling since they easily teleport away from their backup.

[x4000]

Could someone tell me how the Zenith Shredders play out?  I can see that they can replicate themselves but no details are given as to how many ships they need to destroy in order for that to occur.  can anyone give me an idea (because they sound like great fun .

Search for "von neumann" on the forums and you'll see some data about them.  Eraser has been quite happy with them, and managed to accumulate vast hordes of them.

(it's interesting to see how many different ships are being listed as well, good sign of a well balanced game )

We actually did have a thread about this a long while ago, perhaps as far back as August, and the list was even more varied than this.  Almost every ship was someone's favorite.  Just wait until more people chime in on this one, I suspect.

How to effectively use the teleport stations? While I mainly used them offensively last night, they kept getting obliterated and usually require some careful handling since they easily teleport away from their backup.

On offense, they are a real challenge to use, and I don't recommend it unless you are really careful with it.  Their minor electric shots are pretty useless against most enemy fixed-position stuff, too, so they are not good for raiding on their own (by design).  But put them on FRD on your own planets, and watch out -- enemy ships going up in puffs all over the place.  The other nice thing is that they can immediately respond to threat on any of your planets if you decide you need to move them around, so you can keep them clumped up more.

[Minty]

Me, I absolutely adore Zenith Beam Frigates. A full stack of even mkIs will quickly down just about any incoming swarm, and are especially tasty against turrets and SF Guard Posts. I'm not sure how they rate vs capships though, as I've only attacked them with mixed stacks, and they're truly abysmal versus Force Fields. I've also found they're one of the few shiptypes that consistently kills Acid Sprayers in a reasonable timeframe.

I used to be in love with Sentinel Frigates, but now they're not really my thing. Very much a defensive unit now, with it's damage nerf and low cap per planet due to swarm divisor. That being said, they're an easy way to save yourself the K you'd spend on Warp Sensors, but they're fairly hefty on the old energy-expenditure.

[Velox]

     I loved the sentinel frigates more than anything in their original incarnation - they were a unique alternative to the mobile-ship planet-neutering mechanic, and felt like a really valuable asset for key defensive points.  The onboard warp sensor was icing.  Unfortunately, between the fact that they were so heavily nerfed and still are blocked by counter-snipers, they're not really worth using anymore.  Still, I enjoyed them enough for that time that I'd still have to say they're my favorite.

     (ref: http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,3259.15.html)

     Otherwise, I'm actually rather partial to raptors, although I haven't gotten to use them in a bit.  I do a lot of careful neutering and prefer to rely on my defenses for taking planets (hit the command station and then use my meticulously-constructed killing fields to take care of the resulting swarm.)  Raptors' very high speed, long range, and cloaks makes for great surgical strikes, although it's still a bloody pain to get cloaking ships to alpha strike anything out of low-power/cloak-preserve mode.

[I-KP]

Munitions Boosters used to be my favourite; little packages of joy that were sure to increase the violence in anyone's day.  They fell out of favour with me when the Fleet Starship line got its attack boost (over) buff which significantly devalued their worth (to the point of being almost pointless now).

If I want to win quickly then the Spaceplanes see an enormous amount of use; however, I often don't want to win easily -- I like a stand-up fight from top to bottom -- so I suppose this means that Spaceplanes aren't actually a bona fide favourite.  Hrm.

I really want to like the Space Tanks, I love the idea of a relentless drift of metal baring down on the enemy, but the trouble is they're rather, well, meh.

Currently I would have to say that Electric Shuttles are among my favourites; they've remained fairly dependable throughout.

A fairly stochastic set of faves there such is the nature of the changing face of AI War.   

[Lancefighter]

I'm usually torn between space planes and teleport battle stations, although I have done some raider starts..

Raiders arent particularly effective early game due to their costs, so it works out better when you get them from an ARS later in the game

Space planes are excellent on offense, if you can use them carefully...

Teleport battle stations have limited pure offensive capabilities, but micromanagement is key here; I mostly use them as a quick response force. nothing like 100 ships magically appearing exactly where you need them, exactly WHEN you need them.

Useful on the offensive if you use them right - If you nuke the commend station, you can teleport them around to take out certain key ships where you need to... they certainly arent great when macromanaged (frd mode fails due to electric shuttles >.> ) but if you micro them well enough, you can usually do fairly well.
Fairly easy to replace too. And doesnt do too badly vs forcefields when 5x attack boosted...

[Buttons840]

I just start with whatever random ship I get. 

Parasites are a cool idea.  The Zenith Shredders I've never seen in action, but the idea is even more awesome than Parasites.

I've doing quite well with the mobile force field ships, whatever they're named.