At what point do upgrades to your corvettes, and then other ships types become available? I could have sworn I'd researched a couple of weapon based techs but still can't apply any upgrades to my pathetic fleet 
Not Ready for War!
- Thread starter PaulMClem
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
1) if it's vs AI - first thing: don't provoke it. (do not insult, do not rival, do not colonize near him) if you can't handle it.
2) building 25/18 is not a big deal. you can build more. even 60-70/17 is ok at the start of the game (but you'll need to get few energy stations on your planets to pay the upkeep)
3) lure them into a trap. build defensive station right near the spaceport. (though in a case of 25+port vs 60 you'd probably loose anyway)
my favorite design is:
4) delay him. let him attack 1 of your planets. build 6-10 defensive armies there and while he is trying to capture it...build your fleet. ( i once managed to survive attack from superior fleet (2k vs my 600), cuz he was busy attacking my planets...and i've managed to build a 4k corvette fleet on my homeworld)
unless you have neighbors with missiles i suggest you to skip destroyers. for a while (they'll be usefull later) and build corvetter only. until you'll get cruiser tech (it's spaceport lvl5)
most important techs for your corvettes are (imho) Shield(level 1 is enough), Thrusters(level 2), maybe combat computer. something like this:
Last edited:
Just discovered that nothing happens by default for fleet upgrades i.e. you either need to submit a new class design, or positively opt for auto-generated upgrades. I am therefore now able to make some minor upgrades to my single corvette class. The galaxy will soon be mine
Last edited:
You can also manually update ship classes. It's not a good idea to make new ship classes just for upgrades because you can't say that class A should turn into class B and class C into class D for example.
Interesting point. My understanding is Class A0 will upgrade into the latest Class A0 design. If however what you want is Class A0 to upgrade to Class A1 then Class A2 etc that won't work. Hmmm, something to ponder.
you're right.
that's why it's usually easier to turn auto-update off...and make your own designs. and when you unlock a new tech - just upgrade existing desighns as you like
Make sure to settle planets quickly, and get spaceports which let you build more ships.
The AI have a frustrating tendency to push their navy well beyond the maximum, mostly because they'll have the spare energy credits to do so. You have to focus on two things: getting battleships as soon as possible and establishing as many big spaceports as possible. Both cases will invariably lead to settling every planet under the sun.
o__O rushing battleships is usually not the best idea. cruisers will do fine too. and you need weapon techs more after that.
also unless you have more then 200+ minerals per month...it's usually hard to chain-build battleships.
Sorry, I meant to say cruisers. It's really when cruisers are unlocked that empires start getting steamrolled. I've lost many a game where the enemy gets those, but i've managed to come back from many lagging starts by getting to destroyers/cruisers first
Spaceports are super bulky in the early game, use them as defensive pivots. build small defense stations with warp snares next to your starport and also station your fleet there, when the enemy fleet warps in you can trap them under your own starport's firepower.
Kinetic space stations have a higher fleet strength than the other 2 types and this seems to be accurate.
I am curious what difficulty level the OP is playing on - on Hard, they get insane bonuses to their fleet caps, energy/mineral production etc which makes even otherwise smaller empires have enormous fleets.
never played on any difficulty other than normal, personally. And they still get fleets of 30-60
I believe even on normal, they got bonuses to production, just much less than on hard. It enables them to field rather stronger fleets than their size would suggest.
That campaign was normal AI aggressiveness. My current game I've dropped to low to allow me to get to grips with the basic game concepts without too much fear of invasion
What i found very annoying is that practically every single time i play the AI gets combat upgrades before i do. I mean several times i haven't even had any sort of a chance to choose combat technologies. That makes it really challenging to survive the early AI rush as AI charges towards you with upgraded corvettes or even destroyers while you are still plodding along with starting corvette tech. Bad luck? Perhaps, but it seems to be happening a bit too often for my taste.
That campaign was normal AI aggressiveness. My current game I've dropped to low to allow me to get to grips with the basic game concepts without too much fear of invasion
Console commands make a solid way to get out of trouble. Sometimes just 'yesman' and then asking for a white peace can let you keep your game on track.
You know, until you're experience enough to want to pull yourself out from under a crushing defeat.