I commented earlier about the value of small freighters and scouts and I
still maintain every empire needs a few.  But another tendency I observe
among fellow players is a disdain for small warships as well.  Early in
the game, when everyone is forced to build less than their best ships,
many players will reluctantly build a small warship but place trash
engines and weapons onboard.  There seems an almost universal
determination NOT to spend any money or minerals on small warships.

Personally, I want to come down against this policy.  I think it is a
BIG mistake.  Players forget that in the early days of the game, when
everyone is running around with small warships, these little guys rule!
They may be small, but they can be the meanest ship in the cluster
during the early stages of the game and certainly maintain a usefulness
throughout.  These little ships can actually become dangerous predators,
stalking the cluster during the first 20 plays of a game before the
heavy cruisers and battleships can assert their supremacy.

A couple of classic examples of what I'm talking about are the Cygnus
Destroyer and the Evil Empire's Super Frigate.  (4 beams and tubes for
the Cygnus and 5 beams and 3 tubes for the frigate)  When these little
guys are sporting heavy beam weapons and Mk 7 torpedo tubes, they are
not ships you want to run into on the dark side of a planet...not in the
early stages of the game with a weak ship!  Their opponets often come
equipped with Xrays and  Mk 4 tubes or less.  Such opponets usually die
a swift and terrible death.  And for that matter, a well equipped little
ship can be a real planet buster, destroying planets faster than you can
colonize them.

The facts are obvious.  Small ships don't live long in combat IF they
have to slug it out.  They must hit HARD and fast.  If they do, they can
win against a surprising variety of ships.  If you doubt this, just plug
the numbers into your combat simulator and try these little guys.  They
are NOT ships to be scorned and should NOT be equipped with inferior
weapons if you can possibly avoid it.  Doing so does little more than
donate some easy PBPs to your enemies, often at a time you can least
afford to lose a battle or stop a thrust.  Vootah