Weapons: Focus on offense or split offense & defense?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I'm just wondering, is it better to totally fit a ship with only offensive weapons, such as beam weapons, than having both offensive and defensive parts on a ship? By focusing, you can actually place more of a particular part then splitting the slots available on both offense and defense. In other case, should a ship have more offensive weapons, or defensive parts?

Any comments? Correct me if I'm wrong.
4,927 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Unless you're playing Araceans in Dark Avatar with Super Abilities turned on (which means you get first strike in combat), your opponent will always get at least one shot in every fight, even if the entire enemy fleet is destroyed in your first salvo. This means you can be attritted down even by ships that are no match for your fleet, a problem if you're operating far from a planet that is building replacements. By having some defense on the ship you can get through many fights unscathed and so improve the time your ships can stay in the field.

I always try to get weapons power close to matching my current victim race's best ships of that size, then pick up as much defense as I can cram in the ship for whatever weapon type they use. Once the initial large fleet battles are done and I'm sieging enemy planets, my ships usually GAIN health after a fight because of extra HP through experience.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I usually make fully offensive fighters and give defenses only to my capital ships.
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Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I find defences are effective in early stages of the game, and in later stages of the game once i am in a strong position.

During early/mid game, the AI will usually have superior ships, by then i will stop using defences altogether untill i can bump up the defence technology to maximum.