Ship design Tips

The the further down the weapon (or armor or engine) track you are, the smaller it will be. In addition, miniaturization helps a lot. Modules scale up just a bit in mass to match the hull size.

My first game with medium ships, I did the exact same thing. I put in a mix of weapons and armor types, but was able to because of the advanced nature of my weapons and the amount of research I had done in miniaturization.

There are a lot of trade offs you have to make as you are creating ships. You can't really create the *one magic bullet* type ship until you get past the Large hull size. My tip to you is build ships that counter whatever your current enemy is building. If they've got shields there isn't much point in putting a bunch of beam weapons on a ship. Same goes for your defense. If they are all using missiles then build ships with point defense only. A ship designed to counter a specific build will win the battle almost all the time. Also there isn't anything wrong with having varied weapons loadouts on the same hull configuration. I've taken to designing a cool ship and then just placing the weapons and defenses that are prudent at the time. If the AI shifts what it's building then I just take the ship I've got, remove the weapons, and place whatever counters the new AI ships. Of course I rename those ships rather then overwrite the old design but that's up to you I guess.

I tend to build whatever for whatever my immediate needs are. If I find I can't reach the enemy worlds I increase my range. If I find the AI has countered my current weapons then I build a different set. I always try to trade for weapons that I'm not actively researching though I usually get at least the first series in each category just for this reason. Also I try to build at least one version of my ships that are rated as *fast*. Obviously trading off some fire power but it is nice to be able to outrun anything the AI builds.

Components do get smaller as you go up the tree however don't waste your time trying to upgrade with every new advance. For the most part the size savings don't really start to add up unless you go from say Laser 1 to Laser 5. Keep in mind that when you get a new type of weapon say Plasma instead of Laser in the beam weapons the size jumps up again.

Yeah I agree with that last post. I know people are saying Oooh Laser 3 fear me now! or come on couldn't stardock do something better with their time? or this tech tree is so lame. No I am not referring to the OP but I saw this rant on another forums where they weren't as nice.

The STRATEGY here is that each iteration means you can have more absorbtion for defence or damage for offense per units of space. When you get your first weapons. EWW they are so large and you can only carry one! By the time you get laser 2 you can put in a couple. Major cool.
Defenses are same. I think people (or kids) want instant results. I'm happy each time I get a new weapons tech, means I can pack more in or a newer component is available.

I usually pick 2 types of weapons to research, and either buy or 'steal' the third. Defenses, I pick 2 based on what people are researching also. I also think about my first target and what they are focusing on. If they have missile defense I hit them with lasers and mass drivers. If they're using lasers I develop shields, etc. etc. I try to get into a pattern where it seems like every other tech is a weapons. I not only like being #1 in research but #1 in military power.

One more thing. Starbases are icing on the cake. Military ones can give your ships bonus attack and defences.
I plan ahead somewhat and put in a few to defend my territory. Having a definite advantage is nice. Really nice.
Means your fleets can survive sometimes and the enemy lost an entire one. I start a 'militarized zone' on enemy borders (when at war ) with a small fraction of my manufacturing worlds to get that advantage and keep it. It won't take you long before your fleets overrun enemy space and your transports are landing..

Some other things to try. Races that have a miniturization bonus. Yor 25%, Thalan 15%. Assigning points to Weapons or Defences or HP (or All 3) .

I usually emphasize speed in my ship designs, I don't think I've seriously used any warship that didn't have at least one engine module. I might even mount two engine modules on a mainline combat ship. If your ships can reach the combat zone first, then your empire will have a greater representation in the war than their production capacity and standing army would otherwise reflect.

Yes they can be outarmed and outdefended by enemy ships, but they choose their battles. Weakly fortified starbases, transports, freighters, and small fleets of enemy ships fall quickly with no losses taken. Now and again a slow and full enemy fleet (focused purely on attack/offense) may just be too much to take on, but you can bide your time and stay out of attack range. Transport fleets are still vulnerable to weak-but-quick fleets so your planets can be kept safe. It isn't important to destroy the enemy ships, what's important is to get the objectives from the war that you want without taking unacceptable losses.

Another thing I always do, I wait before choosing what weapon and defensive technologies I will focus research on. It's pretty typical that all the alien empires will share tech massively whether or not you do, therefore if you see everybody and their kid brother's got Lasers III and Smart Chaff, then it's a good idea to research Shields and a bad idea to research Missiles.

I have to agree. That is the one thing I dont like about this game. For most of the game its like you are designing fighter craft. One engine, check. One laser cannon, check. One shield, check. Thats it, no more room. I know about miniaturization, but even with "medium" hull sizes its a struggle to go beyone one engine, 2 guns and a defense of some sort.

Concerning fighters, if you have a lot of guns, you don't need defense esp if you plan to make a fleet of fighters.

GalCiv has always been a game where the larger capital ships didn't show up until much later in the game. So, if you're playing a medium galaxy or smaller, you probably won't get much higher than medium hulls.

However, there is an option to start with all of the techs if that would fill your desire for mayhem.

Normally my ships will ignore defence until I start seeing attack values of more than 4 or 5, because it's at that stage absorbing some of the damage seems more important to me!

Seriosuly though, most of the time I'm only using small hulls, mabye mediums if I'm lucky, so putting on a defence that could otherwise be a weapon doesn't really appeal. If you reach large hulls it's ice to give some defence, plus it just cools cooler . I think my fighter pilots must hate me, everyone else gets defences!

As someones already said having a speed boost on the ships is always good, and given the choice between 3ps a week and 2 points of missle defence, I'd take the speed everytime, having 1ps a week is just really really annoying, people can fly round my fleets!

Each component has two factors in it's size. A fixed size, and a percentage of the total hull space. As you get into higher tech weapons and defenses, the fixed portion becomes more significant than the the percentage, but early on, the percentage is at least as significant, especially on larger hulls.

Also, splitting your defenses between different types is debatable (I do it often but not always), but splitting your weapons between two or three of the categories is never a good idea. If you search the forums, you'll find a mathematical analysis I did somewhere that demonstrated that splitting weapons will at best match the performance of a single weapon type, and will be much worse if the other ship has any defenses at all. I like mixing weapon types within a fleet, but not on a single ship.

You should only have one type of weapon category per ship, and if you notice, all of the computers ships will follow this format. Based on the calculations for defense, having at least a 1 in every defensive category would definately be a good idea, although I often go for defense in only one category since I load up on guns.

The problem here is, in terms of the OP, that in MOO/2 all weapon damage was equal. This isn't the case with GC2 because there are 3 types of weapon damage and 3 types of defense - 1 for each type. It's not very reasonable to expect to outfit one ship with significant amounts of all 3 weapons types, as that'd be unbalanced, even if it feels right or would be more visually/design pleasing.

At the far ends of the tech tree you might be more able to create a ship with decent amounts of all 3 weapon types, but at that time you could instead create a ridiculously powerful single weapon type ship - so you'd kinda be creating a weaker ship to go with all 3 types.

If you're building defensive fleets, I would build them with at least one point in every type of attack and defence. Why you ask? Well, I have lots of combat starbases around my worlds. They give bonuses only if the ship's rating in that area is above zero. In other words...

I could build a ship with 6/0/0 offence and no defence or...
a ship with 1/1/1 offence and 1/1/1 defence for about the same price and size.
In mid space, the 6/0/0 would be quite superior, but near a starbase that gives a +2 boost to all offences and defences you'd have...

8/0/0 and no defence vs 3/3/3 offence and 3/3/3 defence.
3's all the way across is a tough nut to crack, especially for the price.

-Dewar

Yeah in the early game its tough to build anything cool. But to be fair if your going to be comparing a Hyperion Cruiser from B5 to anything in this game then it would have to be Large hulls, or maybe even Huge.

The way they have it is.
Tiny = light fighter
Small= Heavy Fighter
Medium = Corvett
Large = Cruiser or battle cruiser
Huge= Battleship

Um, last I checked starbases gave boosts if you have one point in any category OF a set -- 1 attack or 1 defense gives full attack or full defense bonuses, in all three categories.

If you're building defensive fleets, I would build them with at least one point in every type of attack and defence. Why you ask? Well, I have lots of combat starbases around my worlds. They give bonuses only if the ship's rating in that area is above zero. In other words... I could build a ship with 6/0/0 offence and no defence or... a ship with 1/1/1 offence and 1/1/1 defence for about the same price and size. In mid space, the 6/0/0 would be quite superior, but near a starbase that gives a +2 boost to all offences and defences you'd have... 8/0/0 and no defence vs 3/3/3 offence and 3/3/3 defence. 3's all the way across is a tough nut to crack, especially for the price. -Dewar

Surely thats 8,0,0 and 2,2,2 not 0,0,0 I know it doesn't start off with any def but the SB should give it some. I tend to focus on speed and weapons and trying to get an alpha strike with each attack. It works for me on Tough Achielles' Heel at the moment. Been holding my own for about 1.5 years against superior numbers and technology and power. I must be doing something right. Especially since last turn I took down 4 DL escorts/fighters with 2 ships fighting individually.

J

Starbases give bonuses even in weapon categories the ship isn't equipped with, so your 8-0-0 would in reality be a 8-2-2 ship, which sounds much better.

Given the way defenses work (defenses that don't match the attacking weapon type are only effective as the square root) I think spreading out offensive capability among defensive ships makes perfect sense. And since defensive ships don't need any extra propulsion, there's certainly room for more weapons.