General question on ship designs

[Chris21wen]

I notice that in the Empire Policy there are various research options for ship designs. In the game I'm playing the Humans have normal research, balance overall focus and Area of Focus, and Tech emphasis (1,2,3) for fighters, missiles, beams. Now if I understand this correctly research is, as it says normal, with each area getting 33% of the total research. Tech emphasis is the preference for weapons fitted to a ship design, in this case Fighters, Missiles and Beams in that order. No other weapons will be fitted to an AI design.

Now the real question. Why do the Humans have this set of preferences? Is it purely game designers whim or is because Humans get a combat or build bonus for using these three specific Techs or, do they get a bonus for researching balanced etc. I know some races have specific techs I'm not talking about those, that's clear cut.

[turtlefang]

I haven't played humans in a long time but I don't think they get any weapon bonuses. Nearly all the races get design preferences by the developers to prevent them from shotgunning the tech tree. And with the most recent expansion, all the races have "preferred ship weapon design" - Missile frigates, heavy on beams, mixed weapons, etc.. to add some character and differences.

If your playing humans, unless there is a stated technology, you should be able to use any weapon combination you want to use with no bonus or penalty. There will be some race specific technology that won't be open to you, but that is define for each race. And you might be able to steal it or trade for it at some point.

[Canute0]

You can use this empire policy for the race settings, but Research and Ship Design are 2 things i wouldn't let the AI handle.

It doesn't matter what kind of weapon you focus, unless you play a race with a special tech.
But you should concentrate at 1 kind of weapon (Laser, Torpedos, Rail, Fighter) to get an advance. Later when you got some friends you can trade your Advance weapon tech for some other usefule Weapons (Ion, Point defence, Graviton).
Don't underestimate the racial weapons, special at the beginning they are very strong compared to other weapons at this tech level.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Canute

You can use this empire policy for the race settings, but Research and Ship Design are 2 things i wouldn't let the AI handle.

It doesn't matter what kind of weapon you focus, unless you play a race with a special tech.
But you should concentrate at 1 kind of weapon (Laser, Torpedos, Rail, Fighter) to get an advance. Later when you got some friends you can trade your Advance weapon tech for some other usefule Weapons (Ion, Point defence, Graviton).
Don't underestimate the racial weapons, special at the beginning they are very strong compared to other weapons at this tech level.

I thought that was the case, game designers whim.

Don't know if this has been considered but could races be given a small advantage in research, build and/or use for the Tech emphasis, maybe something like 5% for each one. Same for research areas etc.

[Gorofin]

I think there is no bonus damage to special weapons use for a some races (a few are only researchable from special races)

The point is:
* It make not much sense to research all weapons, specializing is better.
* To give the races more flavor the preferred weapon tech research is different.
* You should use your the tech you are researching. So the "DistantWorld\designTemplates\" are using the preferred weapon tech.