Delete

Definitely.

I always research the first two levels of miniaturization fairly early, since they allow me to put Colony and Constructor modules on Tiny hulls, saving me 15 production per ship.

Later levels are important to give you enough space to put good engines on your warships. With enough speed, it takes very few ships to completely dominate the AI's airspace.

You also get Micro Repair Bots with the second one, which you can trade way for stuff. But after that, yeah, I question whether it's worth it. All it does is make your ships more expensive.

Most of your weapons and defence techs are defacto miniturization techs anyway, so you may as well research them first.

Edit:At least the actual miniturisation tech reduces all ship components in sieze in one go which makes it worth while but limited by it's expense to research compared to individual ship components cost to research.

So yes the higher level miniturization can be unworthy depending on where you are with component research. At some stage all miniturisation techs are worth it.

One level of miniaturization can give you one or two more weapons on a ship. And it's usually the same time to research as one level of weapon. So, I usually go up miniturization instead of weapons, so long as it's about the same time to research. When it's considerably more expensive, it's time to move up the weapons path for awhile. And if you're thinking of defense, then one level of mini can give 2-4 more defense modules. It's certainly worth it. Besides, the Hyperion Shrinker, which comes at expert (?) miniturization or thereabouts, is like getting a double-bonus. There's a good reason why the AI thinks so highly of mini techs, as it does of logistics techs. They're both invaluable.

Thanks for the better wording of what i said.... or what i tried to say! hehehe

The initial ones are cheap, so they really are no-brainer additions to your ships. However, as other people have stated, better weapon and defense techs can often give you much more mileage. I'd invest in it to a reasonable extent.

If you want engines on your ships, the benefit is incredible, though, since an engine takes half the hull on the lower miniturization levels.

I try not to stray too far away from the miniaturization tree until i have that Hyperion Shrinker. I find it's power to be invaluable. Once i have it though, yes, it makes more sense to be going up the weapon tree as it benefit's you in more ways. You save space with the smaller weapons and of course the more powerful weapons themselves.

I would say though, that miniaturization is needed more in DA than DL. Size 35 engines on a huge hull, imagine that without having any miniaturization at all!

Hi!

Please note miniaturization does NOT reduce the size of ship components, but increases amount of available space on ship hulls. Since the available space is bigger, components also became bigger because of the sizemod effect.

BR, Iztok

Huh? That sounds contrary to the dictionary definition of miniturization?? weird.

Untrue with newer versions. Size mod is now based on the ORIGINAL size of the hull pre-miniturisation, so the components never get any bigger.

I can't believe there is someone playing who actually ignores the miniaturization techs. I always make it a point to research miniaturization at some point, usually earlier than later.

Hi!

I stand corrected. Thanks for pointing that out!

BR, Iztok

The size of components increases with the size of your ship's hull which makes sense for engines and life support but not for weapons.
If miniaturization reduced the size of components, small reductions would be lost or magnified depending how it is rounding off. e.g., a component with size 4 and 10% miniaturization would be 3.6 which would round off to 3 or 4. Since ship capacities are larger values, miniaturization instead increases that capacity and the rounding off error is smaller.
Originally ship components increased in size relative to the ship hull's new size rather than the original capacity. So the two factors would work against each other and sometimes researching miniaturization would reduce the amount of components that would fit. This bug was fixed in DL 1.3 or 1.4.

O.K. Where can I upgrade my game. Everybody keeps buggin' me that I got the first version. So could somebody give me a LINK so I can get the latest version.  

Zman, download Stardock Central or install it from disk (if it comes with it -- I just downloaded the game). Stardock Central will let you update. It's pretty straightforward, so I don't think I need to give a full account of how it will work.

If you are just DL, there is a link to the 1.4 patch file on the galciv2.com homepage as well.

Where...I can't find it.

whenever i cannot find a download on a website - because the website is unclear about it (which happens ALLOT), it is much quicker and easier just to open CNET and find the download there.

Here it is.

Thank you so much! I'm gonna go home and try it out(I had to download it at "Work").  

The AI is severely upgraded from the first version

Why! Guess what happened. This is so pathetic. I just can't win. I burned 1.4 on a disk, took it home, and installed it. So after I installed 1.4 I tried to start galciv up. But it said I needed to activate it. All I had to do was type in my game's serial number and my E-mail. I didn't have the Internet or E-mail. So I skipped the E-mail thing. It came back and told me to do it. But I can't. Then I burned my computer and started crying. Well not really. I tried to delete 1.4 in "Add and Remove Programs" but the thing had took over my old galciv. So the only way to get rid of it is to delete galciv and reinstal it. But then I loose all my saved game files. Why does everything have to be so complicated. I'm ready to put my galciv CD in the microwave and blow it up! I hate my life.  

Hello? When somebody says that they want to blow up galciv, it usually means that they need help!

Ahem there should be a folder with your saves in it. You should be able to transfer them to another directory. You would be better off contacting the tech support people directly. They do have numbers emails. Much better then a forum or message board.