Yes, that's why my mod will have larger engines and smaller defense for the most part.

Actually, the problem stems from the fact that the AI never builds fast gigantic ships and currently does not handle starbases very well. Against a fleet of these ships, the best strategy would be to have a ship with enough defenses and HP to take all those hits, and have military bases support you, or strike first. But the AI isn't smart enough, or perhaps just doesn't have the time/tech to build such monstrosities. Fast ships and better starbase support is one of the improvements they are working on for the AI in 1.1, so take advantage of this while you can.

Now, if you were talking about balance, then the real problem is the cost of defenses (not size). While defenses are powerful in how they work, they cost 2-4 times the amount that a weapon would if you want to defend the same amount. This makes defensive ships extremely expensive, and sometimes just downright not useful. Add to the fact that you always want all 3 types of defense on a real defensive ship, and you got a walking fortune. Generally, I put 1 defense on all my ships larger than small, just so I can take advantage of a military starbase's defensive support. As such, I never research any defenses past Titanium III (nanorecorders are nice, but I only do that when I can get there in a couple of turns - endgame). Larger engines itself is a bad idea because it kills tiny ships completely. Instead, what I have done is to make the engine size smaller, but increased scaling so that tiny ships are fine, but larger ships use more space for each engine. I've also made engines more expensive... they were just way too cheap.


PS: The way to never lose a battle is to control where it happens (keep it within the range of your military base). One game, I have a kill lost ratio of 2874 kills to 2 lost. I makes me sad that I lost those few brave heavy fighter pilots before I research medium ships (damn it, almost perfect). This was back when I was playing on intelligent. Genious isn't that much harder, I just haven't found the patience to build that many military base since (too cheap, lol).

I used a similar tactic to defeat the dreadlords in the campaign mode; you don't always have to run, you can fight

fast ships to gaurantee first strikes with a focus on weapons, zero on defense. To this extent I actualy used cargo ship hulls for my early warships in campaign mode as the return fire from a dreadlord ship would usualy kill anything small or tiny so the extra space was welcome.

As to ways to correct this imbalance... i'd rather see a strengthening of defenses than a reduction in engines. Increasing the cost of engines is a reasonable option, but not the size; I think having high mobility is a tactical advantage that people should be able to exploit, i'd almost go as far as to say engines should be a little more compact across the scale to enhance the effect.... please don't take that away

The big advantage of attacking first turns out to be a big player advantage because the AI doesn't position its fleets to support each other very well. Low speeds make this worse. The attacker always fires first, regardless of how many engines are on each ship.

Normally, the only way you'd be able to get the first strike is if you are faster than the enemy, or if they do not attack you when you move into range. Moving forward to attack can put you in range of a counterattack, but the AI doesn't have ships that are fast enough to reliably do this. You can be the attacker almost every time and get away with a pure offensive build setup, where if the AI were better at counter attacking a purely offensive fleet would end up getting hosed by the first counterattack.

Or adding initiative rolls.

I've been playing so far without using starbases. I tried economy starbases once, found them less than desirable for my playstyle, and moved on. Last night I tried out military stabases for the first time at around turn 52...

Wow. Two well-positioned military starbases with modest upgrades wtfpwned the AI on Suicidal. I just stopped that game, because this requires a complete overhaul in my overall strategy, as I usually go for the "technologically superior, but vastly outnumbered" strategy for my ships. Screw that! Now -- logistics+starbases+tiny ships ftw. It's just too efficient to pass up.

I don't have a problem with how effective they are, but the AI does not use them to great advantage.

I don't notice this as much as you guys are, how late in the game are you seeing this?

Because in my last game I have fleets of 4x 4/0 small hulled ships which gives me a 16/0 fleet. Now that vs a 6/0 AI fighter fleet, I'll lose 1 ship guaranteed, maybe 2. IE I shoot first, do about 10 damage, kill one fighter then he does 5 damage then I do 10 again, etc, etc.

I noticve that HP makes a huge difference. My last game I had a slight hp disadvantage and man I was losing 0 defense ships fast. Once you get ships up to around 25 hp or so they start becoming invincible if you keep them upgraded. Defense should cost a bit less or take up a little less space but other than that I think it is fine, it's hp that is ruining games.

In my game the ai is usually pretty good at making fast ships. It depends who you face and what they have concentrated on. The drengin in my game have slow heavy ships, but with amazing armour ( i have projectiles) and wicked lazers. So even when i attack first im beaten. Also another race, i forget which has very fast ships, moving 7 or more.

I think it depends on the enemies. Also if you have a massive advantage in any tech you will win. If you had a massive advantage in shields you could beat down any lazer fitted enemies. But concentrating on one tech like this can lead to problems as the enemy adapts. They just sometimes dont adapt too fast.

Since i started playing on intell and better i think they have played VERY well against me, i have to keep changing weapons on my ships as they create fleets to counter!

It is a good tactic you use though, but i dont think its flawless.

I've played through four games and have yet to bother with any ship defenses. I'd rather race up the laser tree, build a good lead there. Last game I also researched a lot of starbase upgrades. Went into enemy territory with a big fleet of constructors with a similar fleet of transports a few turns behind it. Built and maxed out a military starbase in one turn while at peace. Then my fleet of 5 medium hull ships with beam weapon offense of 20 suddenly became killing machines and I decided that was a good time to break the treaty. The AI had "ok" ships, but had beam weapons, mass drivers, and some with defense. Without the starbase I'd have lost ships for sure, this way I never lost one.

An interesting thing happened at a different point in the game. My prime territory was protected by a built out military starbase. The Dregnin had been at war with the Torians for a while before I joined in the fun and had several respectable fleets chasing a fleet of mine. I ducked inside the starbase's field of influence and the Dregnin sat outside it for a few turns before continueing in after me. I might be giving the AI more credit than it deserves, but it seemed to not want to fight on my home turf given the huge advantage I'd have.

Hmm, I dont see this dominating effect using an offence only. I built ships last night with 6/0 laser and they can still roll 1's and 0's for dealing damage against un-shielded AI ships (Yor). Sometimes 3's sometimes 5's but mostly 0 - 2. I repeat, this is against unshielded AI ships.
Depending on logistics I can maybe get 4 or 5 of these ships together in a fleet and go against an AI fleet of 5 or 6ships. If I am lucky I can sometimes take 1 ship out in the initial volley. After that its a meat-grinder and maybe 2 ships come out alive.

In fact (on a side note) it looked broken in later battles; I later used 6/2 (laser/point) against Yor ships that had 6/0 (4missile & 2rail). The way I interpret that readout is the total damage is the same for both of us (i.e. 6) but I am the only one with def and it is for their missiles (strongest attack). So I see me as the clear cut winner, right?? Wrong! I got humped big-style. The readout during battle was consistant 5 or 6 dmg every volley for the AI and I rolled 1's and 0's (the odd 2). The complete opposite of what I expect!! My recon was good and there were no Mil Bases nearby. Only thing I can figure is they got mighty racial bonuses... (sorry, sidetracked a bit!)

Back to it, I see alot of complaints about the AI using 2 move fleets but I get the AI using fast ships, its frigates are at 4 move and their Troop Transports are at 6. That transport is nasty business and forced me to redesign my defences to compensate for it. Some systems were so close together that the AI could invade without ever having the transport in space a whole turn.

My experiences are at the level above Normal difficulty...

One point of defense is important if you plan on taking advantage of military starbases at all.