Do I have to create me own ships to win...?

No, you dont have to design ships. I typically use the NON-combat ships that are default (constructor,colony,miner).

But warships/transports I would recommend designing your own when you get better weapons and defense. The default ships dont always have corresponding armor to what the AI's weapons are. Same for defense. Or engines...

I hate the customizing also, so if you dont care what the ship looks like I simply click a hull, then double click whatever engine/weapon/armor/modules I want, and the computer sorta haphazardly places them on the hull. I never place "extras", it just annoys me. Sometimes it makes a pretty humorous ship, most times its pretty ugly, then I name it something simple, like "Warship 1", or "Korx Attacker"

That being said, I'm sure you can win with the default ships, in fact it might be fun to actually try to do that on purpose, I've never try myself.

Yes, you need to design your own ships. The default ships are pretty much useless.

If you don't care about how your ships look like, just double-click the components you want, they'll then be placed automatically, although at totally weird placed. Does not affect functionality though.

It boggles my mind that anyone would hate designing the ships. I mean, I can't be the only one who played with Lego growing up. For me, it's practically the best part of the game!

Yeah, for the most part, you need to specify the loadouts on your warships. The default ones almost NEVER take full advantage of the weapons, hulls, defenses, and miniturization you researched. If you're using Dark Avatar, there are already pre-made templates you can use and just slap weapons and stuff onto. In Twilight of the Arnor, they just added auto-designed ships to the latest beta, so that's also an option.

You're not alone. I played with lego myself.

Every so often, I get the energy to design a new ship for the game, sometimes building a new one to fill a specific role. My brother has commented in the past that I build good looking ships. Maybe I should post some images some time.

You don't need to design hulls or add jewelry to win the game, but the worthwhile add-ons such as weapons (and more weapons) need to be placed by yourself, either at random (double-click on the object you want to add) or deliberately.

Dark Avatar comes with a wide array of pre-designed ships which you can find in the shipyard under the tab 'Templates'.

I've played with lego too but to me, the ship design option is a gimmick. A very nice one, granted, but not a vital aspect of this kind of game in my opinion.

In Twilight of the Arnor, there's now an option for the AI to design ships for you, so if you have Twilight you may want to check that out and see how it works for you.

 

Thanks, all - really appreciated - what a nice bunch of guys play the game and surf the forum!

Yes, I played with lego! (...even before my therapist recomended it - kidding!)
No, I don't want to play with it anymore!
Yes, I'll bespoke a Defender for the weapons, etc - thanks for the advice
No - no jewwellery, or extras, or what ever - I'm in it for the strategy....!
Yes, looks like I'm going to have to buy Twighlight- - with this new AUTO function - sounds like it was designed with me in mind...!

Many thanks,

P

I liked the ship design in Orion 2, but not in GC2, because it's extremly clumsy implemented in GC2.
In Orion 2 the ship design had some common sense because the ship designer always took the most modern computer systems and armour and I only had to care about the important parts and select additional armour, weapons and special systems from a list.
In GC2 I have to place internal computer systems and hull armour types on certain positions on the hull which is total nonesense.
It would be much better to select internal systems and armour types from a list and define several weapon and engine slots for a certain ship hull and select the weapon and engine types then with a list, too. I don't need the option to design a million ultra ugly looking ships. Just give me the 10 good looking variants, that's all I need.

And in Lego the whole target is to design an object, but in GC2 the target is to administrate an empire, start war campaigns, etc. Ship design is only candy, and it's not funny to start a 20 min ship building project every time I've researched a new technology. I also hate the fact that I constantly have to turn, zoom and move a ship to reach a certain building slot.

There are a few ways to win without designing your own ships.

Tech win, Diplomacy, and Influence are all possible victories.

If you're hoping for a military victory, you could head directly for Spore Ships and hope to take out your neighbor's planets before they develop a military of their own.

You could also play a really low difficulty level, so that the AI's lack of intelligence and money can be overcome with the default ships.

But the default ships are pretty much a no-go for a standard military win with any intelligence above "average."

PS, check out TA - they just released an option for the computer to develop new ships based on your latest technology. It's the best of both worlds, intelligent ships without the work.

Madmen, all of you. If I couldn't make cool looking ships, I would have played the game as much as I did!

(And, to avoid the obvious "...because you were wasting that time building ships" response, I don't consider time spent in the editor as game time)

Well one of the selling points of the game for me was I DID get to design my own ships.....

It was on the box and ... well i bought it...

i LOVE designing my ships...

And yes, unless you memorize or figure out what you have to reasearch to gain access to predesigned ships, designing your own is the only way to go.

I know it can be intimidating at first but it really is necessary to use the best current combination of weapons, defense and miniaturization tech that you have. Also it may be necessary to optimize your weapons choice and/or defense choice to effectively counter an opponents ships.

With that said once you get used to it designing ships can be fun. I don't mess with jewelry or struts and supports or such but I do like my ships to be symmetrical and to have the basics like engines in the rear facing backwards and weapons in the front facing forwards. Call me crazy but that's just the way I like it.

Yes in DL and DA you can just double click on the part and it will be automatically placed but all your ships end up looking like left handed lobsters. Not that there's anything wrong with that, actually there's a lot of comic relief seeing ships like that scoot all over the galaxy at a close zoom level.

Also as Cari mentions TA will design the ships for you which I assume will probably use the symmetry criteria and engines in the rear weapons in the front, defenses top and bottom. But that's just a guess on my part.

One thing I can say is even going with TA certainly use this feature, but at some point if you're bored take a moment to design your own ship. It's not hard, it doesn't take long and it can actually be fun.

You definitely need to customise ships (in terms of adding weapons, sensors etc.). However, you can just use the included "templates" rather than designing the whole thing from the basic hulls.

You can just upgrade existing models (if they are available to you) or use the "template" tab when you build a new ship.

The template tab will give you access to all of the pre-designed hulls (i.e. defender, battle axe, destroyer etc.) and you can simply choose what components to add.

You could add the components randomly, double-click'tastic! However I find placing them on the shells very quick and easy, and more satisfying.

You don't need to take every ship you use from a "hull" and upwards.

Franbo