never considered this?

Sounds logical.

So if you wan't to know what your up against, your just going to have to go and have a look with a ship!

In my games, i only do quick spot checks to monitor what weapons/defences the AI is using. One quick check of a defender in a planet is good since the AI likes keeping its defenders up to date.

Interesting responses. Both sound reasonable.

So what does the number before the hull size designation mean? It isn't on all of them, but it is on some of them.

I hate those and their armed troop transpot mates!

If you attack one with a fleet, you will probably loose a ship, you always have to stuff around and unfleet one of your ships to attack them. Then if they are fleeted (no warships) you will probably even loose your nice warship for one of their crappy cheap nothings. i hate em grrrr

Hi!

With earlier versions of GC2 and in late game I've sometimes built troop transports with a single cheap weapon on them. The reasons were quite simple: the trop transport was usually significantly faster than my warships, and it also had spare room, so it could double as an interceptor, destroying soft unarmed targets in space or in orbit. After losing some by accidently attacking still-defended planets, I stopped using them. For that purpose I now upgrade those few early survey ships, that are hanging around with all anomalies taken and all space explored: I add them some engines and one cheap weapon, and they're usefull again.

BR, Iztok

BTW, no one mentioned the Vengence raiders. An AI civ in a secondary position late in the game will send out dozens of these things. They appear to be a moderately advanced but relatively cheap, fast heavy fighter type, oriented on killing freighters and other soft targets. In the course of doing this, they can lead your defense patrols on merry goose chases.

They often replace Defenders later in the game as the standard "always have 1 or 2" orbital garrisons of planets, also.

drrider

Yes, an attack is an attack. You use these to raid during a war. They give up firepower and defenses for range, speed, and early warning.



Its a waste to use a medium hull for this. The whole point is to avoid shooters and kill valuable defenseless stuff. For that, you can cram more speed, range, and sensors...and one shooter item...into a cargo hull. Oh, and at high difficulty you can't always count on being the first with any particular Galactic Achievement - the AI knows their value also.
The Survey module is also a bit of a waste, unless you haven't been able to afford the time to go to SensIV, and there is too great a premium on space for an extra Sensor. By the time you are using these ships, the anomalies are generally all gone, and a Survey mod is very expensive.



But they usually aren't until late in the game. By then continuing miniaturization should allow you to protect your raider a bit while maintaining its range and speed. Actually the AI rarely arms constructors, miners, and influence SBs even late in the game. I've never seen weapons on a spore, but I happen to have encountered very few. They are escorted part of the time, though.

drrider