ship design tips or advice

[Saica-Fox]

Seems really complex but seems very useful. Any help with making ships?

[Bingeling]

The AI does a reasonable job at it, a human can do better. Some key things.

A military ship wants all the gadgets, apart from fleet stuff on smaller ships.

Energy balance is the key. Note the excess energy output (top right). This should cover the energy used by your weapons (number above lower table), and the energy used flying at cruise speed (showed high on the right). You ought to have a little (like 4-5) spare to recharge shields at the same time. If you lack energy the ship will not do everything at full capacity at once.

On the energy part top right, you see the energy collected. I would make sure energy colleced is enough to cover the static usage, if not the ship or base will burn fuel while sitting idle.

Even for the biggest, slowest ship, I would try to make the "impulse speed" at least 4. This way it ought to catch up to any moon when out of fuel.

[saliddry]

Allways give your explorers more fuel than the ai does..

ai is very sparse on fuel tanks

my scouts tend to have 770 fuel (once i have to first warp drive..440 before that...if ya start age of shadows as an empire)

with 770 and the seconds hyperdrive gerax it should be i think they can fully scout an 15X15 galaxy

its important that ya spot the specials first ..free ships ... free technology and so on

put more engines on cunstructors (again if ya start shadows)

there far to slow... without warp my constructors normaly move with 26-30 cruise speed the autodesigned 660 fuel is enough for them for inter system travel

go research the first contruction size upgrade as first tech even before energie collectors or shields as long as you cant research warpfield precursors

once ya got the ability to research the precursors put them on the first place you should have construction size by than

you scouts must have 770 fuel once you have precursors cause there very ineff.... they normaly need the 770 just to rech the next system and come back

so cunstruction size is very important

[saliddry]

Bingeling eredeti hozzászólása:

The AI does a reasonable job at it, a human can do better. Some key things.

A military ship wants all the gadgets, apart from fleet stuff on smaller ships.

Energy balance is the key. Note the excess energy output (top right). This should cover the energy used by your weapons (number above lower table), and the energy used flying at cruise speed (showed high on the right). You ought to have a little (like 4-5) spare to recharge shields at the same time. If you lack energy the ship will not do everything at full capacity at once.

you dont mean cruise speed you mean SPRINT cause military ships normaly go sprint speed for getting into range or hold the enemy at distance during combat but the rest is correct

[saliddry]

oh yeah another tip...

first weapon cuncusion missle just the next branch in missle weapons .. it gives you 560 range or so

load an escort with 2 of them and sprint speed of around 30

set them to STANDOFF

that way you have effective early game ships to get rid of space creatures

this KALTORS go 35 or even more but normaly the ships turn off at the right moment and kite this things .. before they reach them there normaly death

so this is for the early game to get cheap first patrol ships you dont need shields or armor for that ..shields doesnt help against space creatures and armor is another tech you have to research first

[ositodefelpa]

Also, look at some of the ship design guides in the "Guide to Guides" on the Matrix forum (this llink is also in the "Distant Worlds Guide to Guides" which is pinned in this forum):

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3497284

[icedude94]

Put more weapons, shields, and fighter bays on your mining stations. Throw on enough energy collectors to cover the energy needs.

Mining station maintenance cost will go way up, but it comes out of the private sector so they can usually afford it.

Pirates won't be able to hit your mining stations anymore and the AI empires will have to commit fleets to destroy them.

[Icemania]

The importance of early construction size research cannot be understated.

Focus on one key weapon in early research e.g. torpedoes.

I put a lot more fuel cells on my military ships as well, not just explorers, so they can spend more time on the offensive without fueling. When you can put military ships on another fuel (e.g. civilian ships on Hydrogen, military on Caslon) to help with potential fuel shortages. More docking bays and cargo space on gas mining stations is also a must.

Repairbots are very useful to help stay on the road as they repair damage.