Two Ship Bonus Planet Questions

Sometimes a low-PQ planet ends up with a large Ship Bonus value, like 53%. If I build an expensive, large warship there, it might take too long a time to build to be practicable.

1) If I build a cheap one-gun, one defense ship in an otherwise empty hull at that bonus planet, then upgrade it, do I end up with the same numbers I would have had if I built the many-weapon, many-defense ship there entirely? (I'm confident I could build an zero engine version and upgrade that succesfully.) I could game check this, but figured this had been discussed before, though I could not find it.

2) If I build a normal warship at a bonus planet and later upgrade it with new weapons/defenses, does the ship end up with the same values as if it had been built that way at the bonus planet? Or, would it be as if it had been built at a non-bonus planet? Or, some other result?

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1) Yes, you end up with the same numbers.

2) The ship retains the bonus value percent and the bonus value percent is applied to the new weapons (starship quality bonus is attack only, not defense).

3) I actually had to test this.

4) It's still going to cost you a ridiculous sum of money, but you do save quite a bit by building or buying the bare or near bare hull and then doing the upgrade-on the order of 30-35% of the rush buy cost. But if time is such a large concern, than hopefully price is not.

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Thanx!

It's not just time, but ship count and location. That is, it might take 45 turns or more to build one, but just a few to build a stripped hull, then one or two more to upgrade. So, I could get many in the time it would take to build one. Rush buys are an alternative, with letting the builders work a few turns to reduce cost a little, maybe. However, using the stripped then upgrade method allows stockpiling of bare hulls to be upgraded on demand. For example, one can wait to upgrade until the desired weapon is researched. For another, one could have stripped hulls in orbit around many planets to avert troopship-only invasions, and then upgrade them if a warship or fleet or escorted transport approaches. This last one avoids the expense of expensive ships around worlds that never get threatened.

Of course, the answer to the second Q is great to know.

I know the bonus is supposed to apply only to attack, but I sure thought that I saw some increase in defense. I have a saved game somewhere and will build identical ships, one at a bonus planet and another at a non-bonus planet and try to confirm that I am mistaken.

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but I sure thought that I saw some increase in defense.

There's a hidden additive 1% bonus to both attack and defense that isn't displayed anywhere in the game, but is applied to ships regardless. That's probably what you're seeing.

We know it's additive because the 25% in-orbit-attack-boost becomes 26%.

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