Miniturization enhancements make your hulls more spacious so you can put more on them; while this works great for some things, many components' sizes are partially based on the size of the hull you're putting them on. So in general terms, it just dulls your added edge a bit--the hull gets bigger, but many parts get bigger too (just not by as much as the hull does). Miniturization is still a great thing to have as much as you can get of.

It's not a bug, but an adjustment. A minaturization tech shouldn't give you the ability to create low-hp battlecruisers on tiny hulls. What happens is that the cargo space of the hull gets bigger, but to keep you from over-loading with low-tech, the slight increase in size helps you focus your attention elsewhere.

In short High-Minaturization + High-Weapons = kick-ass zip fighters

Unnescessary complication? I don't see what's so complicated. Research Miniaturization, fit more parts into ships. Miniaturization increases hull size by a percent, and part sizes are based in part on hull size, so increasing one will increase the other. Anything else would require a significant restructuring of the ship math.

While the options listed in the hull selection list only display the base value, if you select one you will see that the capacity bar displays the corret increased value (this discrepancy was reported in the beta but apparently got overlooked).

For example, if you start a new game as Yor and go to ship design, you will see a tiny hull lsited as 16 capacity in the list. However when you select it you will notice that it actually has 20 capacity due to Yor's inherent +25% miniturization.

BTW, Please leave politics off this forum. If you wish to discuss that topic, feel free to do so over at JoeUser.com. It can only lead to off-topic flame wars here, when our focus is GalCiv2.

That is pretty unintuitive. It would make a lot more sense if either 1) the part sizes were reduced but the hull sizes stayed the same, or 2) the hulls got "bigger" but the part sizes stayed the same (they're based on original hull size, not modified hull size).

1) the part sizes were reduced but the hull sizes stayed the same,

Well, it won't happen when integer as used as part size.

As a player researchers Miniaturization, the hull of a ship gets slightly larger, but the items contained within the ship also get larger.

Well, you didn't look the correct way It isn't the hull that get larger, it is SOME (not ALL) components that get smaller. But in order to make it more convenient and continue to use integer for part size, everything happens like if the hull is bigger. But the components that aren't subject to miniaturization need also to grow to keep a similar ratio against the hull capacity

Yes I've noticed that the hull gets slightly larger. What I also noticed is that the components within that slightly larger hull are also now slightly larger.

Note this from my earlier post:

"I'm still trying to figure out if the growth is completely linear...I don't think so, but it would take a huge amount of miniaturization to actually do something."

Yes the hull may grow at a faster rate than the components. The real question is "What is that rate?". If researching 4 levels of miniaturization tech (potentially hundreds of turns of research) only nets you a 15% increase in effective space. Then honestly, what is the point? A far more effective choice is to spend those research funds on improved weapons, shields and engines which will provide a more effective payout. Especially given that a player can research a few techs up the weapon tree and effectively halve the space required to deal an equivalent level of damge. (Moving from one damage weapons to weapons that deal two points of damage.

Edit: Check out the posters above. One notes that a 20% increase in miniaturization technology level only nets a 1.5% effective miniaturization of a size 9 component. Why move down the miniaturization tech tree gaining a 1.5% size advantedge when you can move up the weapons or defense tree and gain a much larger advantedge?

Needless to say, the system is also broken intuitively. I can understand miniaturization of components being manifested in game as 'effectively larger hulls'. What doesn't make any sense is why the components placed within those hulls are also growing larger.

Well, the OP just seemed to indicated some of the parts get bigger and others don't. Hence there should be more room.

As for the hull getting bigger, this makes it easier when making custum hulls and saving ship designs (though some parts changing in size would complicate this a bit). The game only has to look at the size hulls you can make and see if that is big enough to hold the size of all the components of the custom design (something that is close to a constant number). Hence your exact miniaturization ability, which can vary by race and buildings, doesn't need to be messed with. This of course would be even better if it allowed older grades of tech that worked the same to be considered as well (such as the various versions of impulse drivers or most different versions of the same weapon, all of which only vary in size). It helps make it so you don't need the exact same techs to produce the same ship you made in another game. Assuming they do something like this, but I believe they do.

Also, increasing the size of the hull is a nice way of avoiding problems such as dealing with fractional sizes. I thought it was a rather clever solution overall when I first noticed it.

I for one consider it a bug when I can construct a ship with some specific components but am unable to reconstruct the same ship after researching miniaturization because the the parts somehow don't fit anymore.. Research is supposed to improve things not degenerate them. For me it was a short range scout ship that was buggered after the researching of miniaturization. Before I researched that tech I could fit three engines and one sensor on it. Afterwards I didn't have room for the sensor...

I noticed that too. I think the problem is that the game uses small integers. Possibly multiplying all hull volumes and component sizes by 10 would make the system work correctly.

@Cainehill: Agreed. Engines, defenses, and life support should scale with hull size, but weapons that do a fixed amount of damage (and trade modules, troop modules, colony modules) certainly should not.

Miniaturization tech does let you fit more onto the ships. Not so hard. There's better things to complain about than the miniaturization mechanics.

Perhaps you could read the thread before posting?

As Narog said:

For me it was a short range scout ship that was buggered after the researching of miniaturization. Before I researched that tech I could fit three engines and one sensor on it. Afterwards I didn't have room for the sensor...

This happens sometimes.