Upgrades

The designs that automatically appear when you do research are just some basic ships, and it's really not advisable to depend on them. They are what they are, and won't change after tehy're unlcoked no matter how much extra research you do.

Your best bet is to design ships of your own, so that you can use exactly the latest and greatest technology you have.

True. As for bigger and better, you reserach "Advanced Hulls" first, which does nothing major. Then medium scale building, which has higher HP, more space, lets you build capital and frigate sized ships. But that branch of the tech tree takes ages to get further than that, so just go with better weaponary. Medium size+phasors V= pwnage

I never saw the point in making all of the stock ships unupgradeable. Why not just reset them all for any new games but allow them to be upgraded like any other ship once the game is under way? Otherwise what's the point in having them? The only stock ships I would ever even consider building are colony ships, constructors, and transports since they're essentially one use ships and never need to be upgraded. Even then, I still wind up designing my own versions as soon as I can slap enough engines on them to go faster than the default designs

I wish there was a switch that made stock ships not even be buildable. Whenever I reach a new tech level I have to go and obsolete all the stock ships.

-Dewar

Oh god, another newb quesiton: How do I design ships during the campaign?

Oh, and btw, congrats on all the success this game is having. I (red face) let a friend install the CD on his computer in hopes of interesting him, but he's picking up his own copy tonight at retail price (it was hard to find, it sells so well!).

NM, I figured it out. Thanks all.