Spaceship design in Encounter One is pretty much left up to each player. There are three examples a the back of the rules. One ship each for Empire, Federation and Novans.
Once you have chosen a race or faction it's up to you how you build your ships. Once you start playing, your designs will evolve as a result of encountering opposing designs.
I have tended to favour the Empire and Novans in my fleets. The enemy was usually Federation, which meant my ship designs had to counter the Fed's Kennedy Field. My usual counter to Kennedy Fields is massive concentration of beam strength to try and overload them. To be fair, massive beam strength is an effective response to most opposition. Peace Through Superior Fire Power!
The Empire has an advantage here in that they can build bigger ships than most of the other factions. As Beam strength is limited by the ships mass, bigger ships means bigger Beams and Beamz meanz Death!
If you find your enemy has increased their Shield layers to counter your Beam Arrays, then the Empire has another advantage here. Empire St 5 Beam, Arrow Launchers and Bolt Launchers all cost seven points each. This means it is very easy to swap weapons without having to recalculate your fleet. A spread of missiles can really upset an enemy that relies on shield strength. Even the Novans with their Clever Metal are not invulnerable to Missiles.
My usual approach is to arrange my Beam weapons in batteries or arrays of up to the mass of the ship or 30 as the Fire Table stops at 30. Generally the Primary Array is in the forward arc, supported by secondary turret arrays. Keep the enemy at the pointy end.
A special favourite in my Empire fleet are my Broadhead class strike Cruisers. Broadhead because the models look like arrowheads and my version of the Empire harks back to the Elizabethans and Empress Gloriana.
Most of my Empire spaceships came from the old QT Models range and the Games Workshop reissues. These miniatures were first produced by QT Models as NSF4 Paris Class Cruiser in their Star Force 3000 range. They were later reissued by Games Workshop and added to their Space Fleet and Battle Fleet Gothic games as Thunderbolt Cruisers.
The Broadheads are Mass 36 maximised with three St5 Main Drive and two Manoeuvre drives to help them keep the pointy end towards the enemy. They have Inertialess Drive, but I still have not really got the hang of how best to use that. It's a bit too 'Quantum' for most Imperial officers.
A Primary Array of six ST5 Beam in the forward Arc is supported by six all round turrets. In the base version of the Broadhead the turrets all carry St5 Beam for two arrays of St30.
There is a relatively heavy defensive set up with four St4 and two St3 Shields for all round coverage and layering plus four point defence. Two 'Bowchaser' Dart Launchers add a long range strike in line with Imperial Doctrine that assumes they will always be doing the chasing. A Fighter wing gives a separate strike and reconnaissance element. A forward Tractor intended mainly for targeting rounds it off neatly to 250 points.
If I were to add anything it might be a Marines complement. If only they wouldn't drink the Reactor water...
Broadhead-A
Broadhead-B
