Corvettes and Raiders are the logical purveyors of fleet recon, but that does not mean that the FedCom has the mentality to build a ship for that task. The FedCom tends to go catch-all in warship design which precludes specialists. They also tend to give their ships extremely low cargo stores for their masses (You can parasite your way through some of that).
I think that is more an artifact of the construction rules and the structure on the boardgame-aka during the time when they were minmaxing the Feddies for actual gameplay.
My point is, your recon vessel doesn't even have to be a proper
warship. using a Merchant class or Scout can do the job (with modifications). Likewise for moving messages-stick-and-ball ships are just fine for that-in quantity.
The problem focus, is that everyone is focusing on the final moment without looking at what it takes to
actually get there. By the time the maps are on the table and the miniatures are laid out, all the strategic factors have (or should have) been worked out. those strategic factors
are the 99% of your actual naval power.
I think the best way to explain this, is when you see a Klanner Kustom on the boards with X times Y number of AC/20s, and one ton of ammo to feed them.
It's minmaxed for a small map duel. Same thing with a lot of the designs you're critiquing, and same for a lot of the complaints about how "oversize" the cargo fraction was on the 2750 ships.
It's not oversize, if you're looking at them from a
strategy level, it's only overrsize when your entire horizon is 10 to 20 turns on two mapsheets.
strategically your navy (whatever you use) needs to be able to handle duration deployment, This is as true if you're using Jumpship/dropship combos, as it is if you're intent on building an effective
warship branch. shallow cargo bays and short fuel tanks lets your dropships maybe sprint for a short time, but that's going to screw them if you need them to do more than sprint from surface to orbit and back.
even if they're carved from a block of armor plate and have a vast array of firepower.
The less inherent cargo or fuel you're carrying, the more reliant you're going to be on underway replenishment by logistics vessels, and the shorter your axis of motion is going to end up being. (also the narrower your functional envelope of performance).
This makes the job of getting past your pickets
so much easier for your opponents-your deployment distance and duration are narrower, shorter, your need for resupply is higher, your costs are too.
your navy spends more time, as a result, in dock, and less time developing skills and knowledge to be more effective.
Range and duratoin give you something that raw armor and firepower don't-they give you the strategic, and often, tactical initiative. You pick when the fight occurs, and where, while a navy with short legs has to rely on their opponents to
choose to attack them where they are strongest.
Smart strategists don't do that if they have another option. The 'decisive' battle is decisive because you've hit the enemy where his vulnerability and weakness combine, not where they are both absent.
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