Design & Strategy

im no good at swarmers or pships, i use Deathstars pships .
but im pretty good at mission ships.
first to give credit, Hellsword taught me how to design in my first round of game play a long time ago. since then FTP and Deathstar1337 have helped me to become better.

Upgrading : early in round i use a 33% increase upgrade system. its safe. i usually stick to it until i get 15% Unknown Alloy Armour and 5% Kamikaze Master, then i switch to 40% upgrade increase until 25% alloy and 15% kamakazi. once you get to 35% alloy and 25% kamakazi you can go to 50% increase. to explain better take cost of current ship and multiply by 1.x% where x is % of increase. so with 33% and a example ship of 1 bil creds its 1,000,000,000*1.33=1,330,000,000 cost for next ship. take cost and divide by 165 to get space for hull. so 1,330,000,000/165=8060606. is space for hull.
Command Point Spending :
first thing to build up is Shield Master. get 80% abs then worry about other things.
Target Tracker
Unknown Alloy Armour
Kamikaze Master
Marine Leader
Line Assemble
Special Board Fleets
Warp Alignment Sensibility
Genius Mind
Contraception Ban
these are the only ones i've found useful and usually this is the order i spend cp's on, but you have to figure out your own system for this as it depends on the need for the moment.

WARNING: My ships are 1:2 ratio attack to hitpoints, this design system is not for the weak who use higher hitpoint ratios.
There are two classes of mission ships in my opinion, less than 1 bil and more than 1 bill creds. less than 1 bil creds is not good for traveling galaxy and only good for low level mothership missions and low level encrypts.however, designing mission ships has only two stages less than 10 bil creds and more than 10 bil creds.
Formulas:
Powercore= weight *400-5279=energy out put, cost is 3 creds untill quad credit ships.
Weapon: take energy left after installing shields and computers and multiply by .3 . this is energy of weapon. take this number and divide by 2. put in attack field . use 55% acu. space is 1. view the weapon. take cost of weapon and divide by 10. take this number and subtract it from current number in attack field. add one to this number and it will be new attack. should cost 4 to 6 creds.
Special: energy-4667*.3 for hitpoints +1. meaning after subtracting and multiplying take last digit and raise it by 1. weight=8 cost 4 to 6 creds.
Computer Set Up less than 10 bil creds: 3 14% computers=3 x DR 14    weight=8    cost=1    energy=2738833
Shields less than 10 bil creds=
2 x 32%    8    1    34960366
   2 x DR 26%   8    1    553966
   3 x DR 28%    8    1    2192366
   DR 30%    8    1    8745966
Ship Design: less than 10 bil creds
Take weight and subtract 97 for space of systems, use new weight for powercore.
install shields and computers, follow weapon and special formulas. weapon first, remember weapon takes 1 weight.
Computers over 10 bil creds:
5 x DR 16% weight=8    1    energy=10930833
   DR 20%    weight=8    1    energy=174770833
   DR 17%    weight=8    2    energy=21853499
   DR 19%    weight=8    2    energy=87389499
Shields over 10 bil creds=
20 x DR 32    8    1    34960366
DR 31    8    2    17484099
   DR 36    8    1    559248366
Ship Design: over 10 bil creds.
take weight and subtract 249 for space of systems. only difference in less than and more than 10 bil creds is shield and computer set ups.

thats it, figure the rest out on your own. and if you dont like it shut the hell up.