Help needed building ships

from GalCiv2 Forums
Do, I need to create my own fighter ships in order to effectively win battles.

It seems very tedious; maybe someone here could give me some advise.

I can't seem to put much on my ships and attaching engines, weapons, pods and shields is very frustrating just trying to get these components to stick to the little red arrows, they don't seem to want to go there-which is why I hesitate making ships even when I have the weapons and engines researched. Any way to make it easier without have to dick around with the selected weapon and the little red arrows? Like trying to thread a needle. Takes me forever to get it where I want it, some times I settle for somewhere else on the ship where it looks stupid or ugly just because I lose patients trying to get it where it should go. And yes I know I can upgrade a ship design.

Another big problem is that the hull design is never large enough for more than one of my most powerful weapons and engines, jeez its like I can put only one harpoon III and one impulse drive III and a sheild on a big cargo hull after reseaching "medium scale building" and "advance hull" . Do I have to keep researching hull design and is that the only way to get a decent amount of weapons on these ships, along with miniaturization? I always use big cargo. Seems like large fleets made up of medium hit point ships are more effective and pack more punch than a high tech ship with big guns and defense shields.

Any tips or advise would be appreciated.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hey there. I'm not an amazing ship designer, which is a good thing, lol, but I can prolly give you some advice that might help you out.

- One problem is that when you (or I for that matter) place a component and it doesn't end up where you want is that several of the red arrows (Hard points) are too close together on your screen (in 2D), even though the actual hard point might be on the other side of the ship! One solution is to make ships more strung out (ie build a long or wide ship). Also when you place you mouse on the hardpoint, the part will "snap" to it so you kinda get a preview of where the ship part will end up.

-Also, Just because you can't see a hard point, does not mean that is is not there. If you use a larger part, it will cover up a bunch of hardpoints on your ship. Those hard points are still there and you can still attach things to them.

- In the options menu there is a little section for the ship designer that sets the incriment that you can rotate parts. If you can't get your parts to face the right way, try playing with this setting. I keep it on Freeform for my games.

-Don't try to build a super complex ship. My first ships were just teh hull with what I wanted haphardardly slapped on. This sounds cliche, but it really takes practice.

-Lastly, Zoom in. It helps a lot.

Also, in regards to your second paragraph. Miniturization helps a lot. DONT use Cargo ships for combat. Use the combat ships. Why? Here's why:

- The space taken up by Weapons, sheild, engines, etc actually changes with the hull used. A harpoon III take us more space in a cargo hull than in a small hull.
-Cargo ships only have one hit point. Even with good sheilds they'll get destroyed by small fighters.

I prefer to use Cargo hulls for support ships (non-combat). Colony ships, frieghters, troop transports, and scouts. When you research the Hull techs you're getting new hull designs (medium, Large, huge). Use them!

Hope that helps, dude. Good luck.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
the hull design is never large enough for more than one of my most powerful weapons and engines,

Did you actually choose the medium hull for building? From your words I'd say you're still using tiny hull.

Regarding ship design: there are actually only two feasible ways to build ships in DA: all-attack one and most-defenses one.

All-attack means only best weapons and engines (0-2) in biggest hull available. You'll be losing some of those ships, but by "in case of mutuall destruction the strongest ships survives" rule (and this design will probably be the strongest), not so many you'd expect.

Most-defense means your shingle ship has to have at least 75% of defenses as your opponent's fleet has attack (ofc. higher is better, and defenses have to match his weapons' type). If you can match that, your ships will take in combat only little damage, but will destroy lots of opponent's fleets. However timeframe of usefullnes for this design type is limited to early and mid game. With opponent's very high weapons and logistic tech your main fighter should be all-weapons design.

BR, Iztok
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Arcean first strike ability makes cargo hulled ships a viable option, but don't bother putting defences on them. Remember tho, cargo hulled ships are really too expensive for just 1 hitpoint, so try to avoid putting yourself in a position where you have to use them because small hulled ships carn't match AI ships anymore.