Hey folks,



not exactly a newbie here but it seems I could know a lot more then I actually do hehe. Theres this thing about AI designed ships I dont get. So far my understanding of different AI levels is he gets more bonuses to all sort of stuff but in the end he cannot do anything you can, its not like he gets any "special" techs or anything.



I m playing a large galaxy with a custom faction - 1 enemy serious difficulty and I got the Sophons.



We were both peacefully expanding and at turn 173 he declared war on me, I thought I was reasonably prepared and have a few intercept fleets with my latest techs sitting on bottlenecks. First few waves were not a problem as his most outdated ships reached me first but now at turn 176 I m getting my ass handed to me. Hes turning up with these dreadnaught ships which are absolutly BRUTAL no other term for it.



The stats:



Beam 5200

All defenses 1050

6400+ health



Now those are stats I cannot counter...I cannot reproduce em even, I have access to the best weapon techs and all the hull enhancement I could get, my faction is even running with +30% hull so basically my designes "should be" more powerfull due to more moduls I can stack. The BEST I can do tho is



Weapon 5200

All defenses 1000

Health 3000



and thats it.....completely at a loss....I d love to be able to check onto AI ship designs but right now I dont know how he builds those ships to end up with such stats. I mean I m on par with defense and offense but he still adds 5 or 6 modules of health on that and he doesnt have the +30% hull trait I do.



Defensive and Offensive modules are the best of their kind, I usually put in "Accelerated Kinetics" or "Neutrino Capture" as I m more of a defensive guy and use as many Hull enhancements as I can. Straight down 1 on 1 he destroys me.





Do I make any basic mistakes in designing my ships? I usually dont have any problems at all but whenever me and my enemy both have access to the same tech he usually blows me out of the water due to superior ship designs.





edit: editing the enemy stats, the first ones were under hero conditions

Have you researched the full tech tree? Because:



1) You can further increase tonnage on ships. Even if you have researched the upper branch for the latest weapon technologies, you have several technologies on the right branch that increase the tonnage of your ships, allowing to stack more offense/defense/HP modules

2) Have you built all military buildings? Several of them increase ship hit points



Apart from that, have you taken experience into account? When a ship is granted an experience level, it increases all of the main stats (offence, defence and HP). Maybe all their ships have higher experience levels than yours?

Xuancarman wrote:
Have you researched the full tech tree? Because:



1) You can further increase tonnage on ships. Even if you have researched the upper branch for the latest weapon technologies, you have several technologies on the right branch that increase the tonnage of your ships, allowing to stack more offense/defense/HP modules

2) Have you built all military buildings? Several of them increase ship hit points



Apart from that, have you taken experience into account? When a ship is granted an experience level, it increases all of the main stats (offence, defence and HP). Maybe all their ships have higher experience levels than yours?

Yes, I made sure to research everything that affects ships and ship performance in any way (aka 100% of tech tree). Levels werent too much apart but that buildings affecting ships might be the problems culprist, thank you for that idea, I can already feel my rage sinking

Often, if you can't go toe-to-toe with big dreadnoughts, your best bet is to build cheap, high-damage ships that are expendable but will hurt him. Over time, you can whittle down his big, expensive dreadnoughts. Have you tried destroyers crammed full of high-tech missiles with the increased damage support module? These are usually quite cheap to build and a fleet of 15 or so will take out at least one of his dreadnoughts, probably more.



The other thing to try is ditching your defenses completely and going all-out for armour. You should be able to stack the percentage increase armour/health buffs (like defensive lensing) to get dreadnoughts with upward of 30k HP. Add in the 10% heal per round and you shouldn't have too many issues.