Wow! Armed Mini-Frieghters... Since when?

from GalCiv2 Forums
When did this happen? This just happened, Gigantic Map, Maso (I think...), Metaverse, 1.31- I thought you couldn't arm Frieghters, and have the armed clone show up on Trade routes...

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At first I laughed when I saw the AI arming its Frieghters in patch 1.31- I thought- "What a waste of production time that could be put into engines", Then I saw that I thought, "Gee... That thing can't possible fire back". So I attacked it. And my ship got nailed for 3 points damage! I've read thru the change logs for 1.31, 1.30a, 1.30, all the Betas- couldn't find where this had been changed- I think I tried something similair back during 1.0, but I don't recall it working- Did I just miss the boat on this one?
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If that also works for the player, it could be a bit of nasty fun to have huge hulls for armed and armored U.S.S. Wal-Mart class combat freighters, and put them on Auto-Attack as they travel their trade route. heh.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
And to answer that question...

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Yep. As if you can send them on Auto-attack- Thats another story- So does anyone know if this is a bug that well be crushed, or if this is the way its to be from now on? (If it is, think I'll try a Large Hull with all that stuff and see if the HP carry...) Just made the route, which is why I think it says, Move: 0/29. When I reloaded it said 0/1, but the attack and defense stats are the same.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I hope that it stays this way.
I mean, they are incredible easy to kill anyway with their 1 hp.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yep. As if you can send them on Auto-attack- Thats another story- So does anyone know if this is a bug that well be crushed, or if this is the way its to be from now on? (If it is, think I'll try a Large Hull with all that stuff and see if the HP carry...) Just made the route, which is why I think it says, Move: 0/29. When I reloaded it said 0/1, but the attack and defense stats are the same.


the ships on a trade route always get that speed. engines only matter when you get them to the initial plaent. after that theys eem to take their sweet time. i asked this a few days back and apperently the engines only matter initially to set up the tradelane. so engines are not all that hot really.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Haven't tried making Q-ships, but the AI regularly pumped out armed trade routes for me in 1.2. I want to say only the first mini-freighter would be armed (wasn't paying attention... "ohh, freighter, send in the smalls" and then largely ignore it) but it was definately possible to tell at which point they had armed it. Pretty sure it only did this in games where I nil'd component scaling though, so it could be that in normal balancing the cargo module stayed large enough that they didn't have space for weapons (also didn't check).

Armed/armored huge hulls plodding along the trade lines... definately going to have to give that a go to see what happens.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1.2 you could upgrade the mini freighters as long as they were close enough to your planets/SB's for the upgrade to take 1 turn (but you had to select each one individually and not do a checkbox upgrade). So you could send out ships with massive engines then strip ALL the engines and pack them with weapons and armour when the returning mini-freighter reaches home.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hey thanks for the detailed answer Notreal- Looks like hitpoints carry as well- so it would be possible to upgrade all cargo to a Large Hull class... Not sure if the upkeep would be worth it- (Probably cost me more then I get from the route... lol) here is a pic of my experimital Frieghter- Med. Hull- I was just shocked it worked...

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So this has been possible since 1.2? Or before? I didn't see where this was in the change log, and the posts I've found on the subject imply this can't be done... Does anyone know when this changed?
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's been possible since at least 1.2. I remember one particularly vicious campaign where the AI fielded freighters with ~150 points of weaponry (albeit with several military resource bases, thank heavens).
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
WTF? I just caught this thread. Lemme get this straight. You can build trade freighters that are armed? Did I see that right? Wow. That would add something totally different to my strategies,,,!
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
TBH I thought you always could do it, I just never bothered.. But I may be thinking of some beta build.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I thought you always could do it, I just never bothered.. But I may be thinking of some beta build


When I played the game when it first came out (1.0) I could not, if I built a 20 attack, 20 defense, 30 hitpoint ship would show as a 0 attack, 0 defesnse, 1 hitpoint Mini Frieghter. So I never tried it again, also read in these posts where the question was asked, and the answer was "can't be done". (You can also upgrade your Frieghters now while they run there route - maybe you always could, but before I never had a need) So I decided to post.

Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As far as I can recall, even in the pre-release betas (I was a beta tester), you could arm frieghters. It didn't really make sense until you had Large Scale Building (large hulls) that could easily fit the trade module as well as some guns and stuff. Using the cargo hull with weapons isn't really much of a deterrent since you only have 1 hitpoint. Once you get far enough into the game to have large hulls you can't really expect your single freighters to stand up to an attack by a fleet of enemies.

Doesn't anyone actually arm their freighters when playing on the higher difficult levels?