Patriot Class Light Carrier

The Patriot is a very interesting ship. At first glance it appears to be useless, with few beams, almost no cargo space and no weight behind it. However a Patriots strengths come in how they are deployed. For the price a Patriot is very good. For the cost 8 of these little buggers you can build 1 Virgo, however properly utilized a Patriot can do more damage over w ider area than a single Virgo. These are fire and forget weapons. However, if teamed with a Cygnus they are also pretty fearsome ship busters and can destroy many of the lower tech ships in the game. Some strategies involve the use of patriots in swarms. And appropriately enough these are referred to as Patriot Swarms.

The Patriot is cheap and effective. With its six fighter bays, it can get its entire cargo of fighters out very quickly, and that makes it very deadly. A single Patriot can take out almost any other medium-sized ship (as well as planets that don't have starbases) with little trouble. However, beam-heavy battle cruisers such as the Emerald or Iron Lady will give a Patriot problems, and against battleships, a Patriot has no chance.

Tactical advantage, however, is what really makes the Patriot the vicious little bastard that it is. A large battleship or carrier is expensive; your opponent won't have many of them, and they can't be everywhere at once. Four battleships can only protect four planets. When twelve Patriots are on the attack, hitting twelve planets at once, they are very difficult to stop. This will be discussed in more detail later.