I am reposting this due to our newly revamped web board, and I hope to add a little more in this.
My new additions to the Ares universe will be Interceptors, Defenders, Frigates, and Corvettes. Heres the definitions of these ships:

Interceptor- The smallest ship in the fleet with a hyperdrive. A bridge between a fighter and a cruiser. Usually contains a beam weapon (with a few exceptions) which is improved over the fighter beam weapon. It also boasts improved shields, which still aren't more than a cruiser. Quite dangerous in large squadrons. Have a cost of 3.

Defender- A defense drone with beefed up weapons and shields. Also contains a hyperdrive, but since its top speed is amazingly slow so its role is limited to defending stationary objects. Like its defense drone counterpart, squadrons do best against this ship. Does best when defending Bunker Stations and/or Flak Drones. Have a cost of 15.

Frigate- A small, manueverable ship with decent weaponry. Designed to bridge the gap between the Cruiser class and Gunship class. Typically designed to clear out groups of small ships. Capable of dealing fair damage to capitol ships, yet not able to engage a larger ship in direct combat. Have a cost of 9.

Corvette- A medium sized capitol ship with decent speed and manuevering. Its armor allows one-on-one confrontations with Carriers and its handling prevents it from being overly succeptable to Gunships. Carries a complement of 4 Interceptors. Lack of either strong turreted weaponry or rapid-firing weapons could make it succeptable to much smaller, faster ships, such as Interceptors and Cruisers. Yet, it still has a considerable amount of shielding. Have a cost of 16.

I also plan to reduce the cost of Fighters to 1, which I find much more sensible.

I will discuss individual species' ships in a future post.

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-Vegeta <axis.n3.net>

Vegeta - try to work on one ship at a time, working them into the strategy. It's fairly easy to adjust a single ship-type to your plan for the way new tactics will work, but if you stick in lots of ship types at once, you'll end up screwed simply because you're juggling too many balance-problem axes at once. Other than that, looks very interesting.

Also, why not add a completely new category rather than just bridges between two ship types? For example, a cloaking carrier-type ship that had little weaponry but gave other hyperspace-capable ships the cloaking advantage. Or a mine-type ship that is meant to be deployed and can't be retrieved - great for 'spiking' planets. (Yes, I'm stuck on ships that can be deployed like fighters.) Just try mixing up abilities. ex. a fighter is a ship that is easily destroyed and isn't mobile, but is speedy and cheap. A carrier is a ship that is not easily destroyed and is mobile, but is slow and expensive. A cruiser is a ship that is no easily destroyed (try chasing down one of the @##@s when they're as fast as you are), is mobile and cheap, but has little destructive capability. Etc.

I appreciate the suggestion Rep. I am merely setting a few "shells" down, and I may not to carry out with these plans. I think that I will concentrate on defining and refining a ship class one species at a time and each class one at a time. I think I am going to stay with the Interceptor, Frigate, and perhaps Defender. The Corvette wasn't very well laid out. Actually according to the statistics I've been working on a bridge between a Gunship and a Carrier is almost impossible. In fact, after a few minutes, the Gunship outperforms the Carrier.
But, as I said, I think I will define the Interceptor class in-depth. The interceptor's main role is to be the cheapest ship with a hyperdrive (i.e. fastest, cheapest reinforcements). The role is more to introduce a directly-built fighter class. Of course, I will use my plans for the Ishiman Interceptor as an example. I plan it to have 500 shields, and a Rapid-fire PKB cannon. The speed and manueverability will be slightly less than a fighter. However, this will help create tactics of using squadrons of small ships to do one's bidding. 4 Interceptors could easily swarm and defeat a gunship, yet having the same cost of the Gunship. Of course, this might rise to be a problem as you actually have an effective ship class for only 3 credits a pop. I believe that justifies a Frigate class (which I will get into much later). The Interceptor, in turn, is more of a "Heavy Fighter" but the additional shielding and improved weaponry will make the Interceptor class significant unlike its fighter counterparts. To sum up my goal: the Interceptor won't be a waste of money.
Of course the hardest, yet quite entertaining part is predicting what this ship will do in combat. Considering the sizeable shields and tremendous handling, the Interceptor won't be an easy ship to counter. Just for a brief moment let me explain the roles of each ship class. Ships such as fighters, cruisers, act more as squadron vessels, while Gunships and HVDs act more as power vessels. The Carrier acts more as an anti-small ship vessel, with its turreted weaponry. Think of this more as a game of rock-paper-scissors. Squadron vessels are strong against assassination vessels, power vessels strong against carriers, carriers strong against squadrons. However, as I see it, the squadron vessels often can't stand up against the power vessels. Therefore, I think I will go with the plan on the Interceptor in plans of creating stronger Squadron tactics in my multiplayer plugin.
Keeping on the Squadron tactics, I believe that I will replace the cruiser class in multi with the Heavy Cruiser. Of course, I will have to make the appropriate Heavy Cruisers for all species except Ish and Can. This should, as I stated above, make squadron tactics a valid strategy.
Thats all for now, I will continue with more later.

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-Vegeta <axis.n3.net>

Strange. I came up with almost the exact same idea for the Interceptor on my own-Right down to the cost of 3. I had a couple other ideas. One idea that I'll be willing to divulge is that of the astrominer. It's a pointless ship currently, but what if collecting those small portions of asteroids could give a resource bonus. It's an interesting way to increase your resource quantity, but it is less reliable and less unlimited than a power plant or a bunker.

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No, I'm not that cruel. I don't use the flamethrower on my
enemies. I save that for my
allies.
-caalaklael, the trigger
happy obiard