If you were a pilot for one of these ships, would you really fly a death-trap with massive firepower that has no protection? |
Yeah, who'd ever fly a craft like
that?*hums "Top Gun" themetune*
One good reason for the AI to design ships like that is if it's the only way it can pack enough weapons in to damage
your ships. Bear in mind also that even 5 points of defence significantly increases the probability of a 16hp ship surviving a hit.
As for there being a point to using defences, you're flat-out wrong. Defences are *crucial* to designing a good ship IMO; I usually work on about a 2:1 offence:defence ratio for my general purpose ships, and as a result I rarely lose ships. If you're good aligned and get all the bonus defence techs, you get an extra 15% defence bonus on top of the cheap, light special defences; I can usually manage a 3:2 ratio when playing good-alignment.
Side-note: does anyone know how often the AI gets to design ships with the CPU-intensive enabled? I think there is a case for allowing the AI a "free design" round on certain trigger events such as: declaring war, another player choosing an alignment opposed to the AI's, another player exceeding the AI's militay strength by 100%, or contacting a new player with a different alignment. Infrequent design updating is a BIG handicap IMO, and the AIs generally seem to have enough cash to pay for upgrades.
"And I just uninstalled this game. Going back to Rome Total War"
Wow, thanks for wasting everyone's time. I guess you didn't see the thread where someone posted a screenshot of a Korx Dreadnaught with over 200 defence...?