What do I need to make bigger capital ships?

[HsojVvad]

Well the Pirates are starting to attack me. Well I am trying to make a large force to take out a base. Well I have abou 10 destroyers, so I wanted something bigger. I was surprised to see I can't build anything bigger than a destroyer. I see in my design screen I have capital ships and cruisers but I can't build them.

So what am I missing? What do I need to build larger ships?

[Erik Rutins]

You need to research larger shipyards to build larger ships.

[Barthheart]

You need a tech advance that gives you the ability to build larger ships.

EDIT: DOH! Eric's got faster fingers than I do![:'(]

[HsojVvad]

Thanks guys. So how would I prioritize and what am I looking for? What should I boost up the research by hitting the lightning bolt?

[Webbco]

Yeah, click lightening bolt on Shipyards (little yellow crane). That increases maximum ship and base sizes when you design them. Once it's done the next research component in the area of shipyards, research will continue as normal (no more crash research).

[sbach2o]

Construction, IIRC (Edit: Webbco probably has it right: there should be a distinct tech area called 'shipyards'). It should be easily discernible. Unless there are more techs mixed into the technology area, and I was just lucky in my one game to have the next two bigger yards directly available.

Without having played multiple games yet, I have the feeling that thr order in which tech advances are presented is somewhat random? True?

Besides: In my game I didn't need bigger ships to combat the pirates. An early destroyer should one on one be a match to any pirate ship for a while. I did create fleets of two ot three frigates/destroyers, though. These can pull through most surprises like two or three pirate ships appearing at a time.

It is fiddly to handle the fleets, but usually worth it.

[Jim D Burns]

In my current game I found a site that gave me cruiser and capital ship blueprints. This particular find is probably a bit over-powering as I found them relatively early in the game. It would be nice if uber finds like this couldn’t spawn until after a specific date or something.

Of course the first thing I did was max out spies and put them all on counter intelligence missions.

Jim

[HsojVvad]

Very good idea about the spies. i wouldn't have thought of that. Or if you don't want the game over powering, sell the blue prints and make money to the other races.

[Duckfang]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

In my current game I found a site that gave me cruiser and capital ship blueprints. This particular find is probably a bit over-powering as I found them relatively early in the game. It would be nice if uber finds like this couldn’t spawn until after a specific date or something.

Having the technology to build them and being able to do it effectively without crushing your economy are two very different things. You need a fairly strong economy to support a capital ship of any real size; mine have maintenance costs of around 14,000 each (size 850).

Plus, they'll consume a lot of resources to build them in the first place. It'll probably give you a bit of an edge (your ships will be a bit bigger than the other races), but I wouldn't really say it'll overpower you or anything.

[Jim D Burns]

OK I take back the over-powered remark. I had been so far ahead of all the races I had found so far in my game that I assumed the game was going to be a total blowout, and I was contemplating restarting after the recent blueprint find.

Well I just went in and started tinkering with things to re-acquaint myself with everything I was doing before the last save, and when I checked the diplomacy screen, I was shocked to see the power bar for the Dhayut about 20% larger than mine.

As you can see from my screenshot, I have 74 colonies in 38 different systems, and several of my worlds are very high income (top part sorted by planet value), yet the bugs are more powerful than I am. LOL this doesn’t bode well.

The AI queued up about 30 or so capital ships for me when I found the blueprints, so perhaps they aren’t counted yet for power calculations (though they are listed in my ships list so I’m not sure), if not maybe the bugs aren’t as far ahead as the screenshot implies they are.

The game just got a lot more interesting. I’ve yet to locate them, but my guess is they probably own half of the unexplored area of the map or something.

I have no idea how I got such a bad rep, must be from invading a few neutral planets that were unlikely to be colonized. I’ll have to watch for that in future games, it basically means I’ll have no friends in this game.

Jim

[Duckfang]

Oh dear!

Sounds like we need an AAR of that game. [:D]

Good luck!

[Flaviusx]

Invading neutrals will drop your rep. Still worth doing, imo.
 
You need to repair your relations with, well, everybody. And fast. You're setting yourself up for a gangbang here. Dump tech on them for low prices (or free.) Maybe take out some pirate bases, too.
 
Nice economy, you've got some real cash cows pumping out money there.

[Wade1000]

Any empire that invades and conquers all tiny and weak neighbors it encounters will and should be considerd bad/evil. Maybe leaving the neutrals alone or trading with them might be an interesting alternative. I wonder what positives that would yield other than helping one's reputation.

[ASHBERY76]

I think claiming neutrals that like you should not effect reputation but invading neutrals with troops should.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Davor

Well the Pirates are starting to attack me. Well I am trying to make a large force to take out a base. Well I have abou 10 destroyers, so I wanted something bigger. I was surprised to see I can't build anything bigger than a destroyer. I see in my design screen I have capital ships and cruisers but I can't build them.

So what am I missing? What do I need to build larger ships?

Actually I found out in my game is that you can build them as long as you lower the size to 200. After I reduced the size I could build as many capital ships as I wanted...

So Im assuming you can build all classes at start but you research bigger sizes 200, 300, 600 etc...

[Webbco]

You have 74 colonies and the dhayut have 24, yet they are more powerful than you? Wow.

[Duckfang]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

Actually I found out in my game is that you can build them as long as you lower the size to 200. After I reduced the size I could build as many capital ships as I wanted...

So Im assuming you can build all classes at start but you research bigger sizes 200, 300, 600 etc...

The name is just that; a name. It helps you organize your ships better in a list.

Just because you call it a capital ship doesn't really mean anything, though. Especially not at size 200. [:)]