Custom ship designs

[elhran]

I don't own the game yet, but I am interested and have a question for those who do own the game. Can you really tell if changing various ship design configurations makes a difference in the combat performance or does it seem like designing is just a fun activity but with no real impact on combat? I ask because someone gave me the impression that it makes little difference or at least you can't tell or get any feedback if it does.

[corpowat]

colour of yr flag or tribe? that can determine them and the research tree?

[frdnwsm]

I speak mainly for the game using the 5X mod. I always design my own ships. Letting the AI design them for you is a sure way to end up with totally crappy ships. It has certain paradigms it has to follow, and it does so without regard to effectiveness.

So, you will see AI ships with all sorts of mixed armaments, and odd specials in the equipment slots. They are incapable of designing more specialized ships.

All my ships get augmented engines and ECM jammers, and battle pods, of course.
I never put more than 1 bomb on any size ship; conversely, I never build a ship that has no bombs at all. Pirates, don't you know.

What do I mean by "specialized" ships?

I like to build a cruiser or larger sized ship with an all torpedo armament. The torpedoes have to have semi-guided and overloaded perks. I don't build a lot of these guys; torps are not very accurate against smaller vessels. But they are good vs titan sized ships and immobile defense installations, which either dodge poorly or not at all. If I'm attacking an enemy system with battle station or fortress and heavy orbital defenses, I'll definitely want a couple of these puppies in the mix.

I use only auto firing guns; heavy mounts for long range ships, regular for close in brawlers.

I only equip MIRVed missiles. MIRVed merculites are better than un-MIRVed pulson, IMO.

Carriers: I don't bother building dedicated carriers until I get heavy fighter bays, so these are late game units. Battleship sized for light carriers, titans for heavy duty combats.

Now, if you start the game at post-warp tech, obviously you have to use what's available; you won't be able to MIRV any missiles, you will have nuclear drive, and will be stuck with crap beam weapons and pathetic gunnery computers. All the stuff I mentioned above will be later game construction.

Personally, I have played enough games starting at post-warp, that I have no patience with this any more. I always start with advanced tech; this gives me a small fleet of ships, with ion drive so I can at least move halfway fast. And the first thing I do is redesign all my ships away from the garbage that the AI gives me.

[vaaish]

@frd: you can actually do a considerable amount with making the AI build decent ships, it's just a very time consuming process to get right. For example, you can create blueprints with specific mods weapons and specials for certain roles for the AI to build and influence how many of them they build. You see a lot of mixed weapons on ships because it's hard to predict what order the AI researches things so having multiple types ensures that you don't get stuck with a ship a crappy ship because the AI never got past fusion beams or took tritanium armor instead of merculite missiles.

@op: TBH with the base game, your designs so out match the AI that it's not really that integral to the game. 5x does better but it's still likely you'll be designing much more efficient fleets.It's more of a threshold that once you hit the AI fleets melt.

[frdnwsm]

>>you can actually do a considerable amount with making the AI build decent ships, it's just a very time consuming process to get right. For example, you can create blueprints with specific mods weapons and specials for certain roles for the AI to build and influence how many of them they build. <<

Are you saying that I can get the AI to build better ships? How?? I sell ... or even give away ... tech to the AI races all the time without qualm, simply because I know they won't be able to make effective use of it. Getting them to build better ships would be an interesting handicap; as it is, increasing the difficulty level just gives them better production. Once I expand my industrial base enough to match theirs, they are toast. My games are usually pretty much decided by turn 250 or so. What's your secret?

[cwayne59]

yes it does. Base designs rarely use special devices. Those devices can make a huge difference in your ship's combat effectiveness. At least in the vanilla game which I have so far.

[vaaish]

My secret is building my own mod to try to fix tactical combat. 😀 It's up on the workshop if you want to try it.

You can't get them to build better ships from in the game. What they build is a function of what their blueprint gives them. Most of the time it's a general mix of weapons to make sure the Ai has an ok ship if doesn't bother researching a tech until late game.

Mostly the blueprints suffer from the same issue as the rest of the game. No real thought was put into them so they are pretty generic and basic.

5x definitely does better though. If you're interested in changing their blueprints it's not hard, but there are a ton to change. I put out a guide a few days ago explaining how to do it.

[frdnwsm]

Note that here are only a few special devices that I find worth using, but the ones I do use are quite helpful. High energy focus, for example, gives a nice damage boost. Structural analyzer can serve as a minor substitute until you research HEF. Dauntless can be useful if you are heavy into missiles. (I'm usually not, although that depends on how good my beam attack is).

Generally useful specials I always throw in are augmented engines, ecm jammer, and battle scanner for beam/cannon armed ships. Cruiser size and up get auto repair, unless I have that as a racial trait (Meklars, Custom designed race). Saves a lot of time hanging out at a base or outpost while ships get repaired.