When the battle commences, the four little ships take out one of the big ships fairly quickly (4 attack x 4 ships). 4 fighters with an attack value of 4 beam and 6 hit points are in a group against 2 medium sized ships with 6 beam attack and 20 hit points.
Because Gal Civ adds all of a given fleet's ship's attack values together, this can mean that a bunch of small ships can take down a slightly smaller fleet of large ships. Another advantage of smaller ships is that you can put more of them into any one fleet. However, the cost of producing these smaller ships can mean that a player can produce them much faster than a frigate. Smaller ships get fewer hit points, and can generally fit smaller numbers of weapons, armors and specialized modules. The differences depend on the strategy you most prefer. The second is to build fewer, larger ships. The first, is to go small, but build in high quantity. There are two schools of thought on shipbuilding. The quick and dirty answer is that it depends.
